Not a word was spoken by either mother or daughter as they entered their home. The little French clock in the drawing-room pointed to eleven--for the festivities at the Hall had been prolonged into evening--and Charlotte, perhaps afraid of further contention, said good night, and went up at once to her chamber. Mrs. Darling threw off her cloak and bonnet and began to pace the room. It was rather a habit of hers when disturbed or vexed.
Never had she been so disturbed as now. Her ordinary crosses had been but light ones, which she scolded or talked away;thisseemed to be too deep, too real, for any talking.
It might be unreasonable; every one who knew of it said it was so; but Mrs. Darling had lived in the ardent hope that her eldest daughter--more fondly cherished by her than all the rest--would never leave her, never marry. She had planned and schemed against it. Some two or three years ago, a suspicion arose in her mind that Charlotte was falling in love with George St. John, and she checked it by carrying off Charlotte, and keeping her away until the danger was over. He had married Caroline Carleton before they came back again. No one living had suspected this manoeuvre on the mother's part, or that Charlotte had been in danger of loving the master of Alnwick--if she had not loved him--except Margaret Darling. Surely it must have been unreasonable. Mr. St. John was a free man then in every sense of the word, and Charlotte's son, had she married him and borne one, would have been the heir!
That Mrs. Darling's love for Charlotte had always been inordinate, those about them knew. But, as a woman of the world, she might have foreseen how utterly powerless would be a mother's love to keep her daughter always by her side. Charlotte once said to her in a joking way, that she had better put her into a convent, and make a nun of her: and indeed that would have been about the only way of preventing it. And now, in spite of her precaution, Charlotte was about to marry; to be a second wife. That fact alone brought some gall to Mrs. Darling.
She had deemed Charlotte so secure. She had never dreamt of the treason that was afloat. Their visit to her old mother in Berkshire had been prolonged until June, and all that time Charlotte had been safe under her own eye. In June, old Mrs. Darling (it was the same name, for Mrs. Darling's second husband had been a distant cousin) grew so convalescent that they had no scruple in quitting her; and Mrs. Darling had despatched Charlotte to Alnwick under convoy of Mary Anne, who was so much older than her years, and might be thoroughly trusted. Margaret remained behind with her grandmother, and Mrs. Darling went to France to see her youngest daughter Rose, who was at school there. She only intended to be absent a fortnight; by the end of that time she meant to be at Alnwick; but ere it was concluded, she was summoned back in haste to her old mother, who had had a relapse. So that it was September before Mrs. Darling really returned to Alnwick. She arrived just in time to attend the fête at Mr. St. John's, and she went to it without any more prevision of what was to happen than a child unborn.
It was the first time that Charlotte had been away from her, and she was blaming herself bitterly. Perhaps self-reproach was never sharper than Mrs. Darling's as she paced the drawing-room this night. It seemed to her, now, that she might have foreseen something of the sort; that she should have kept her attractive daughter under her own eye. But she thought she had taken every precaution. She had charged Mary Anne not to admit gentlemen as visitors during her absence--unless, she had added, they were of a certain standing as to age, and married. Some few she had especially interdicted by name. Above all others would she have interdicted Mr. St. John of Alnwick, had she supposed that this would be the result; and she mentally heaped the most bitter reproaches on Mary Anne, and felt that she should like to shake her.
She turned to the bell with a sudden impulse, and rang it; indeed, Mrs. Darling was always an impulsive woman. All the servants had gone upstairs on Mrs. Darling's entrance, except the lady's-maid; hours were early in the quiet household. Mary Prance came in: a slender woman of five-and-thirty, with dark eyes and brown marks on her thin face; she wore a neat grey alpaca gown and small white linen wristbands and collar. A woman devoted to her mistress's interests, but disliked by the servants, who went so far as to call her a "deceitful cat." But Mary Prance was a clever woman, and not deceitful on the whole. She gratefully liked Mrs. Darling, who was always kind to her, and she loved the eldest daughter; but she cared for no one else in the wide world. She had entered the service as housemaid, a young girl, but her mistress had called her "Prance" from the first. Mrs. Darling--you remember the hint I gave you--could not call her servants by their simple Christian names. She turned sharply as the door opened.
"Where's Miss Darling?"
"Miss Darling has been in bed some time, ma'am. She went at eight o'clock. Her sore-throat was painful, though a trifle easier."
"Prance, who has visited here during my absence?" interrupted Mrs. Darling, impatiently drowning the words. "What gentlemen?"
The lady's-maid considered for a moment, recalling the visitors. "Dr. Graves, ma'am; he has come the oftenest, I think. And Mr. Pym, and old Sir William----"
"Not those old people, Prance; I don't care to hear about them," said Mrs. Darling, peevishly. "I mean young men---single men."
"Not any, I think," answered Prance, after a pause. "Miss Darling was denied to them."
"Mr. St. John of Alnwick has come?"
"Oh yes, Mr. St. John has come. He has come often."
With the answer, Mrs. Darling quitted the room for the chamber of her unconsciously offending daughter. The poor girl woke up, hot and startled at the unexpected entrance; at the sharp questions that so rudely assailed her ear. Not for some few moments did she understand sufficiently to answer.
Mr. Carleton St. John? Yes, he had been there rather frequently in the past few weeks. Had Charlotte had opportunities of seeing him alone? Yes, very likely she had; it might be so.
"Did you know," resumed Mrs. Darling, suppressing the storm of reproaches so ready to break from her lips, "that any attachment was arising between her and Mr. St. John?"
"No, mamma, I never knew it," replied Mary Anne, fully awake now. "I did not think of such a thing.Hasit arisen?"
"Yes, it has arisen, you unhappy, careless creature, and I fear that she's going to marry him," retorted Mrs. Darling. "You are a hundred years older than Charlotte in staid experience. I entrusted her to your charge here as I might a younger sister, and you have suffered her to meet George St. John, and this is the result! I shall never forgive you, Mary Anne. Did I not warn you that I would have no single men calling here during my absence?"
"But--but--Mr. St. John is not a single man," returned the unfortunate Mary Anne, too bewildered to collect her senses. "I'm sure I did not think of him as anything but a widower steeped in grief. It seems only the other day that his wife died. I did not think of him at all as a marrying man."
Neither, in point of fact, had Mrs. Darling, or she might have expressly interdicted his visits by name, as she had those of others.
Mary Anne Darling was collecting her wits. She sat up in bed, thinking possibly that might help her. "Mamma, youcannotreally expect to keep Charlotte unmarried! Remember her beauty. If it were me or Margaret, you might----"
"You or Margaret!" screamed Mrs. Darling, excessively incensed at something or other in the words. "I wish you were both going to be married tomorrow! or tonight, for the matter of that."
"I was going to ask you, mamma," pursued Mary Anne, meek still in spite of the covert sneer, "what objection you can possibly have to her marrying Mr. St. John?"
"That's my business and not yours," said Mrs. Darling, tartly.
Mary Anne had never heard her mother altogether so cross, never seen her so vexed, and the girl wondered excessively. Hitherto, she had supposed the objection which existed to Charlotte's marrying, and which she had not failed to detect, arose from an exalted idea on her mother's part that no one likely to present himself was worthy of Miss Norris in a worldly point of view. But surely this could not apply to Mr. St. John of Alnwick! She spoke again, pursuing her train of thought.
"He will be Sir George St. John sometime, mamma; he will be more wealthy than he is now. It is really a better match than even Charlotte could have hoped for."
"I would give every shilling I possess in the world, rather than Charlotte should marry him!" spoke Mrs. Darling, in low, determined tones. "I would sacrifice half the years I have yet to live to keep her with me always! I shall never forgive you, Mary Anne. When you found that George St. John was taking to come here, you ought to have sent me word."
"Mamma, listen. I have told you that I never thought of such a thing as that Mr. Carleton St. John came, or could come, with any such idea; he, who has only just lost his wife. But if I had thought of it, if I had known it, what would have been my will against Charlotte's? It might have pleased her that he should be admitted; and you know you have taught us to give way to her in all things."
"Then you might have written to me. I repeat to you, Mary Anne, that I shall never forgive you."
"It must be, that he was previously married--that Charlotte's children will not inherit," cried Mary Anne, speaking aloud in her wonder, as she strove to find reasonable grounds for the objection to Mr. St. John. "But----"
"Hold your tongue," interrupted Mrs. Darling. "You have done mischief enough, without seeking for reasons that may not be disclosed."
More and more surprised grew Mary Anne. The last words were not spoken in reproach or anger, but in a tone of deep, bitter pain. They bore a sound of wailing, of lamentation; and she could only stare after her mother in silence, as Mrs. Darling quitted the room not less abruptly than she had entered it.
Mary Anne Darling lay down again, and curled the clothes round her with a pettish movement, feeling excessively aggrieved. But that was nothing new. She and Margaret had suffered all their lives through Charlotte, and had never rebelled. Miss Norris had been first and foremost; had received all the love, all the consideration, all the care; the house had only seemed to go on in reference to the well-being and convenience of its eldest daughter.
Brought up to this from their earliest years, Mary Anne and Margaret Darling had accepted it as one of life's obligations. But the young lady was feeling now that she was being unjustly censured. If there did exist any objection to Mr. Carleton St. John, Charlotte should be blamed for falling in love with him, or else be made to relinquish him. But Miss Darling did not believe in any objection: she thought her mother only wished to keep Charlotte to herself in her jealous affection--that she could not bear to part with her.
"I never knew anything so unreasonable," grumbled the young lady, giving the pillow a fierce poke upwards. "Charlotte was sure to marry sometime, and but for her mother's great watchfulness, she'd have been married before this. Icannotunderstand mamma. What though Charlotteisthe apple of her eye, ought she to wish to prevent her fulfilling woman's proper destiny? The love of most mothers causes them to wish their daughters to marry; some to go the length of scheming for it: in this case it is schemed against. It is very selfish, very inconsistent; and yet mamma is not a selfish woman! I can't understand her."
Mrs. Darling's opposition was not yet over. She sat the next day in her own room, thinking what an ill-used woman she was, calling up every little remembered cross of her past life; as many of us are prone to do in moments of annoyance, when things wear a gloomy aspect. She had married--a girl not out of her teens--Mr. Norris, of Norris Court, a gentleman whose standing in the county was almost as good as that of the St. Johns of Alnwick. But ere she had well realized her position as the wife of a wealthy man, the mistress of a place so charming as Norris Court; almost ere her baby was born, Mr. Norris died, and the whole thing seemed to pass from her as a dream. Had the child proved a boy she had been well off, and Norris Court still been hers as a residence; proving a girl, it lapsed from her to the next male heir in the entail. She turned out of it with her baby, the little Charlotte, and a small income of a few hundreds a year. These hundreds, at her own death, would be Charlotte's. The pretty house she had since called her home was in point of fact Charlotte's, not hers. It had come to Charlotte on her father's death, but she had it to reside in for her life. Norris Court was two miles distant from Alnwick; and Mrs. Norris in her young widowhood had quarrelled with its new possessors. The breach had never been healed, so that Charlotte was a stranger to her forefathers' home. Except for this cottage and the few hundreds a year, all in expectation, Charlotte Norris had nothing. How Mrs. Norris had bewailed these past untoward circumstances, her own heart alone knew.
Her own subsequent marriage with Colonel Darling had not greatly improved her circumstances in the long-run. At the Colonel's death, the chief portion of what he had passed to their son. A little was settled on the daughters, and Mrs. Darling had a certain benefit for life. But altogether her income was not a large one, especially considering her many wants, and that she was not one who could make a sovereign go as far as most people; and Mrs. Darling was in the habit of thinking that fate might have been kinder to her. In the lost glories of Norris Court, present benefits, real though they were, were overlooked. But for these comparisons, bred of discontent, some of us would get on better in the world than we do.
She sat in her own room, glancing back at these past grievances, dwelling on others that were more recent. It was the day following the fête. The interview with Mr. Carleton St. John was over, and Charlotte was his promised wife. Mrs. Darling had done what she could to oppose it--to the secret surprise of Mr. St. John; but her opposition was untenable, and had broken down. "If you have any tangible objection to me, name it, and let me combat it as I best may," said Mr. St. John. But apparently Mrs. Darling could bring forward none, save the foolishly fond one that she could not part with Charlotte; and the engagement took place. As Mrs. Darling sat now, alone, her mind was still busy with a hundred wild schemes for its frustration.
But she saw clearly that they would all be worse than useless; that unless there was some special interposition of Providence, Charlotte would go to Alnwick. What was the secret of her opposition? Ah, my reader, you must turn over many pages ere you arrive at that. She had one very great and good reason for dreading the marriage of her daughter with George St. John of Alnwick.
Charlotte happened to come into the room as she sat there. Mrs. Darling held out her hand; and Charlotte--who might have looked radiant with happiness but that she and her countenance were of an undemonstrative nature in general--came and sat on a stool at her feet, her dress, bright mauve muslin, floating around, her delicate hands raised from their open lace sleeves to her mother's knee.
"I must say a few words to you, Charlotte. Promise to hear me patiently and calmly."
"Of course I will, mamma."
"There's no of course in the matter, I fear. Times have been, Charlotte, when----"
"Oh mamma, never mind all that. I'm going to be good. Tell me what it is."
"Do you remember, some three years ago--yes, it must be quite three years now, for we did not leave London that year until August--that we saw a good deal of George St. John? We had met him in London that season; we met him on our return here; and he fell into the habit of calling on us often."
"I remember," replied Charlotte.
"The beginning of October we left home for Paris; a sudden resolution on my part, you girls thought; which was true. Charlotte, I must tell you now why I went. I was taking you from danger; I was carrying you away from George St. John."
A momentary glance upwards of Charlotte's eyes. Did Mrs. Darling read anger in them? That something made her quail, there was no doubt, and she laid firm hold of both those slender wrists resting on her knee.
"For your sake, Charlotte; it was for your sake. I feared you were growing to love him."
"And if I were?" retorted Charlotte.
There was a long pause. Mrs. Darling appeared to be weighing some question with herself: she looked anxious, troubled, undecided: but she still held the hands with a firm grasp.
"Charlotte, I want you to trust me. There is a reason, why you should not become the wife of Mr. Carleton of Alnwick; but I cannot tell you what it is. I cannot so much as hint at its nature. I want you to trust me that this cause does exist; and to act upon it."
"To act upon it?"
"By declining to become Mrs. Carleton St. John."
"No," said Charlotte, very quietly. "What is the cause?"
"My darling, I have said that I cannot tell you: and that is why I ask you to trust me as confidently as you did when a little child. The thought came over me just now, while Mr. Carleton was here, to speak openly to him. The next moment I felt faint and sick with dread at the bare thought. I may not tell Mr. Carleton; I will not tell you----"
"I do wish you wouldn't call him by that name!" Charlotte interrupted.
"My dear, it is that I have fallen into the habit of it," murmured Mrs. Darling.
"It's like a scene in a play," exclaimed Charlotte. "I may not marry George St. John for some reason, and I may not know what the reason is! He is not going to turn out my brother, or cousin, I suppose? Rather romantic, that, for these matter-of-fact days!"
"Oh, Charlotte, be serious! Do not indulge in nonsense now. You know that you are Charlotte Norris, and that he is George St. John; and that you never were related yet. It is not that: I wish it were nothing else."
"What is it?"
"I cannot tell you, Charlotte. I cannot; I cannot."
"Have you heard anything against him, that you are concealing?"
Mrs. Darling lifted her hand to her face, partially hiding it. She did not answer the question.
"Charlotte, you know how I love you. Well, I would almost rather see you die, than married to George St. John. No mother ever schemed to get her daughter a husband, as I schemed three years ago to keep you from one, when my suspicions were aroused that you were in danger of loving George St. John."
"The danger had ripened," said Charlotte, in low tones. "I did love him."
"My poor girl! Andhislove, though I did not know it then, was given to Caroline Carleton----"
"Don't say it!" interrupted Charlotte: and for the second time during their interview Mrs. Darling quailed, the tone was so wild, so full of pain. "I do not wish to be spoken to of his first wife," she added calmly, after a pause.
"You will not, surely, be his second, Charlotte! Charlotte, my Charlotte! You will not break my heart!"
"You will break mine, if you forbid me to marry Mr. St. John," was the whispered answer. "But indeed, mamma, I think we are talking nonsense," broke off Charlotte. "I am no longer a child. I am nearly nine-and-twenty; and that's rather too old to be told I may not marry, when there's no real cause why I should not do so."
"No real cause! What have I been saying, Charlotte?"
"I think there is none. I think what you are saying must be a chimera."
Mrs. Darling let fall the hands she held; she had only hoped against hope. Charlotte rose and bent over her mother to kiss her, whispering a few decisive words. Cruel words to her mother's heart.
"It is of no use trying to separate us, mamma. You did enough mischief in separating us before--but until this hour, I knew not that you acted intentionally. But for that, I might have been his first wife, chosen before all."
Charlotte Norris was wrong, so far: Mr. St. John's love had never before been given to her: it never would be given to her as it had been to Caroline Carleton. The first fresh green of the heart's spring had had its day, and was gone for ever.
A few more days; another attempt or two, futile as this one; a short, sharp battle with her secret wishes, and Mrs. Darling gave up opposition, and grew apparently reconciled to what she could not prevent. And in midwinter, just after the new year came in, the newspapers had another piece of news to relate, concerning Mr. St. John.
"On the 2nd of January, at the church of St. Mary, Alnwick, by the Reverend Dr. Graves, George Carleton St. John, Esquire, of Alnwick Hall, to Charlotte Augusta, only child of the late Herbert Norris, Esquire, of Norris Court."
The mourning habiliments hitherto prevailing at Alnwick Hall were put aside during the wedding-tour of its master, and the servants appeared in gayer colours. Master Benja's grey merino frock was exchanged for a scarlet, and the black sash and sleeve-knots were replaced by white ones. Benja was a sturdy little fellow of fourteen months now, sufficiently forward in walking to get about the room and bring himself into all manner of mischief.
A second marriage, a new mistress suddenly brought to an established home, rarely gives pleasure to its inmates. This applies in an especial degree to its women-servants. Whatever the cause may be, or whence the feeling in the jealous human heart takes its rise, it is an indisputable fact, that the second marriage of a master is rarely liked, and the new bride is regarded with anything but love. The case was such at the Hall. Tritton, the housekeeper, had lived in the family of Miss Carleton before she was Mrs. St. John; had come with her to the Hall when she married; and it was only natural, perhaps that she should look upon her successor somewhat in the light of a usurper. Honour shared the feeling. Ardently attached to her young charge, having beentrustedwith him, possessing almost full control over him, the prospect of a new mother for the boy and a mistress for herself could not be palatable. But both Tritton and Honour were conscientious, good women; and there is no doubt this feeling would have soon worn itself out, but for circumstances that occurred to increase it.
Mrs. Darling was not wise. Her intentions no doubt were good, but her judgment was not so. From the day following that of the ceremony, when Mr. and Mrs. St. John were fairly away, Mrs. Darling haunted the Hall. Anxious for the comfort of Charlotte as she had never been for anything in her life, she fell into the mistake of interfering with Charlotte's future home before she entered upon it. She went about the house, peering here, peeping there; she had changes wrought in the rooms, in the furniture; she found fault with the arrangements made by the servants, who had done their best, and superseded them at will. She changed the position of beds, she examined linen, she turned Benja and Honour from their day-nursery into another; she ordered this to be done, she countermanded that. This might have been tolerated in Mrs. Darling; indeed it must have been; but what the servants could not and would not tolerate, was a second edition of it in Prance. Prance generally accompanied her mistress to the Hall; one or two nights was left to sleep there; Mrs. Darling's worrying orders were often transmitted through Prance; and Prance, as unwise as her mistress, assumed a supercilious superiority (which indeed was partly her natural manner) excessively distasteful to Mr. St. John's rather indulged but most respectable household.
It was a sad mistake. It was perhaps the first link in a heavy chain, whose fetters would have to be worn for ever. Mrs. Darling ought to have waited until her daughter came home, she could then have suggested these alterations privately to her if she deemed them so essential, and suffered Charlotte's own authority to carry them out. How Mrs. Darling, a shrewd, sensible, easy woman in general, fell into the error, must remain a marvel. It caused the servants to look upon her as a meddling, underbred woman, who was interfering most unjustifiably in what did not concern her. She was really nothing of the sort; it all arose from her surpassing anxiety for Charlotte's comfort.
This, I say, must have been borne from Mrs. Darling; but when that unfortunate Prance came in, all the resentment was turned upon her. Prance ordered after her mistress. Worse still, she did not order as from her mistress, but as from herself; and her cold, you-must-obey-me tones, exasperated, the maids at the Hall almost to rebellion. Putting present ill-feeling apart, the result was unfortunate: for it created a prejudice against their new mistress, which Mrs. St. John would have to live down. Altogether, what with the advent of the new wife, the perpetual visitation of Mrs. Darling, and the hatred to Prance, Alnwick Hall was kept in a state of internal commotion.
In the midst of this, the day came round for the return of Mr. St. John and his bride. In the afternoon, Master Benja, in apple-pie order, the short scarlet frock and the white ribbons--for they were expected to arrive every hour--was toddling about the nursery, drawing a horse. Honour, in a new cap with white satin trimming, sat watching him, and talking to one of the housemaids, Edy, who had looked in for a gossip.
It may be as well that you should notice how these nurseries were situated. They were at thesideof the house facing the east. Mr. St. John's bedroom was at the end, looking on to the park, and forming as it were an angle on that side the house. You saw the room once; some one was dying in it. His room opened to two others, one on either side of it. The one looking to the front was his own dressing-room; the other looking to the side, had been called the dressing-room of the late Mrs. St. John; and all three rooms opened to the gallery. It was this last room that had been Benja's nursery, and out of which Mrs. Darling had turned him. The next room to this, which opened to no other room, was the new day-nursery. Honour and Benja are in it now. And beyond it, the last room on this side the house, was the one in which Honour and Benja slept. The next to this, the first one looking to the north at the back of the house, was Mrs. Tritton's--but it is unnecessary to mention that. The passage in which the doors of these nurseries were situated was narrow, not like the wide front corridor or gallery. Immediately opposite the door of Benja's bed-chamber was the back staircase used by the servants. Honour, with her charge, was the only one who assumed the privilege of passing up and down the front stairs. It was as well to mention this: you will see why, later. Honour bitterly resented being turned from the nursery. It was unreasonable that she should do so (though perhaps not unnatural), as the room would be required for the new Mrs. St. John.
She was gossiping with the housemaid in the manner that servants like to gossip, when a voice in the next room startled them both. It was the voice of Prance; and the servants had not known she was in the house.
"There's that woman here again!" exclaimed Edy, in a whisper.
Honour had her finger to her lip in an attitude of listening. She wondered to whom Prance was talking. Tones that could not be mistaken for any but Mrs. Darling's, answered her. In point of fact, Mrs. Darling had come over to receive her daughter, bringing Prance to carry a few last trifling belongings of Charlotte's.
"Of course!" ejaculated Honour. "I knewthey'dbe here."
Honour was good in the main; sincere, thoroughly trustworthy; but she was not exempt from the prejudice to which her class is especially prone. You cannot help these things. It was her custom, whenever she found Mrs. Darling and her maid appeared upstairs, to catch up Benja and dart down to the housekeeper's room, with a vague feeling, arising from resentment, of carrying Benja out of their reach. She took him up now, horse and all, and was making her way to the backstairs when Mrs. Darling suddenly looked out of a chamber and called to her.
There could be no pretending not to hear. She had been seen, and therefore was obliged to arrest her steps. It had not come to open rebellion against Mrs. Darling.
"I want you, Honour. Step here a minute."
"Carry the baby down, Edy," whispered Honour, giving her the child. "Tell Mrs. Tritton that they are up here, if she does not know it," she added, as a parting fling.
When Edy reached the housekeeper's room, she found it empty, except for the presence of a woman in black, who sat there with her things on, and who laid siege to the baby as if she had a right to him. It was the nurse, Mrs. Dade, who came occasionally to see the child, as she had opportunity. Edy, only a few months in the service, did not recognize her. Edy willingly resigned the charge, and made her way to the hall as fast as her feet could carry her: for a bustle in it warned her that their new mistress had arrived, and all her woman's curiosity was aroused.
She was crossing the hall on Mr. St. John's arm, a smile of greeting on her pale face as she glanced to the right and left. Mr. St. John laughed and talked, and mentioned two or three of the principal servants by name to his wife. Edy stood in a nook behind the rest, and peeped out; and just then Mrs. Darling, having become aware of the arrival, came down the stairs with loud words of welcome.
The bustle over, Mrs. Tritton went back to her own room, shutting the door upon Edy. Nurse Dade had the boy on her knee, talking to him; and Honour, a privileged visitor, came in. Honour's tongue could be rather a sharp one on occasion; but the unexpected sight of the nurse arrested it for the moment.
"I should not have come up today, had I known," Nurse Dade was saying to the housekeeper. "It must be a busy day with you."
"Middling for that: not very. You heard of the marriage, I suppose?"
"I saw it in the newspapers. I had not heard of it till then. I have been away for six months, you see, and news came to me slowly. How well this little fellow gets on, Honour! You have done your part by him, that's certain."
Honour gave a sort of ungracious assent to the remark.
"What do you think she wanted with me?" asked she, turning to the housekeeper, alluding to Mrs. Darling. "You know that pretty sketch that master drew of Benja in the straw hat, one day in the garden, and hung it up in his bedroom? Well, she called me in to say she thought it had better be taken down and put elsewhere. I told her I must decline to meddle with my master's things, and especially with that, though it was done only on the leaf of a copy-book; and I wouldn't touch it. She first looked at me and then at the sketch; but just then there was a bustle in the hall; she ran down and I came away."
"And it's left hanging?"
"It's left hanging. Ah!"--and Honour drew a long breath--"Nurse Dade, we have changes here."
"There's changes everywhere, I think," responded the nurse. "But I must say I was surprised when I read it in the papers. So soon! and to recollect what his grief wasthen!But law! it's the way of the world."
Honour took Benja, carried him to the far end of the room, and began amusing him with his horse. They made a considerable amount of noise, almost drowning the voices of the two women by the fire.
"Do you happen to know her?" the housekeeper had asked, and the nurse knew by intuition that she spoke of the bride.
"I've known her ever since she was a baby. My mother was nursing at Norris Court, and I went there for a day and a night, and they let me hold the baby on my lap, to say I had had it. I was quite a young woman then; a growing girl, as one may say."
"I don't know anything of her, hardly," said the housekeeper. "I've not chosen to ask questions of the servants, and I and Honour, as you are aware, are strangers in the neighbourhood. Her father was a colonel, was he not?"
"A colonel! No; it was Mrs. Norris's second husband that was a colonel--Colonel Darling. Miss Norris's father was Mr. Norris of Norris Court. Very grand, rich people they were: but as there was no boy, it nearly all went from the widow when Mr. Norris died. She married Colonel Darling when the first year was out."
"She must have been very young," remarked the housekeeper. "She does not look old now."
"Very young. I remember the first time I saw her in her widow's cap. I began wondering howIshould look in a widow's cap, for she did not look much older than I was. She was very pretty. People said what a pity it was Mr. Norris should have died so soon and left her."
"What did Mr. Norris die of?"
"I can't tell you. I have never known. There was some mystery about it. My mother always said she did not know: and I don't think she did, she was so curious over it. He was ill about a week or ten days, but nobody was let go near him, except Mr. Pym and the valet, and a man-nurse they had. Some of the servants thought it was some infectious disorder: but nobody knew."
"And he died?"
"He died. The little baby, Miss Charlotte, as she was named afterwards, was born whilst he lay ill. My mother said Mr. Pym took her in to show her to her father; which was very wrong if it was fever; and when Mr. Pym came out his face was white, as if he had gone through some painful scene."
The housekeeper, who was by no means one to deal in mysteries, stared at the nurse. She had hushed her voice to that tone we are apt to use when speaking of things that must not be openly discussed. She sat gazing at the fire, as if recalling the past, the black strings of her bonnet hanging down.
"How do you mean, Mrs. Dade?"
"Mean?"
"You speak as if you were scared."
"Do I? I suppose I caught the tone from mother: she used to speak so when she talked of it. It was her way, when there was any sort of mystery in her places. Whether she came to the bottom of it herself, or whether she didn't, she always used a tone in speaking of it that partly scared you and partly sent you rampant to know more."
"But what mystery could there be in regard to Mr. Norris?"
"That's just what I am unable to tell you. Therewasa mystery: everybody knew that; but I don't believe anybody fathomed it. Whether it lay in his illness, or in his death, or in neither, mother never knew. Sometimes she thought it was connected with his wife. They had been a loving couple until one night, when some dispute occurred between them, and there ensued an awful quarrel: one of those dreadful disturbances that terrify a household. Mrs. Norris, a gentle, loving, merry young girl, as she had seemed until then, dashed her hand through a cheval glass in her passion, and cut it terribly. It all took place in their own room. Mr. Pym was fetched; and altogether there was a fine hullabaloo."
"Were you there?"
"I was not there; nor mother either. It was not for some days afterwards that she was sent for to Mrs. Norris: but the servants told her of it. Mr. Norris had been ill ever since; and three days later he was dead. The butler said--and he no doubt had it from the valet, for they were great friends--that it was that night's quarrel that killed his master."
"How could the quarrel kill him?" cried the wondering housekeeper.
Nurse Dade shook her head. "I don't know. All sorts of things were said--as things in such cases often are, and perhaps not a word of truth in any of 'em. At any rate, Mr. Norris died, and nobody knew for certain how he died or what was the matter with him, or what could have given rise to the dreadful quarrel that led to it. There were but two persons who could have told the truth--Mrs. Norris and Mr. Pym."
"Mr. Pym must have been a young man then," observed the housekeeper, after a pause.
"About thirty, I suppose. He must be sixty now."
"Mr. Pym's not sixty!"
"He is hard upon it. Nobody would take him for it, though, he is so active. Mrs. Norris had to leave the Court when she got well, for the new people to come to it; she went straight to the house she's in now, which of right belongs to Miss Charlotte--I should say Mrs. St. John."
"I hope she's amiable?" observed the housekeeper.
"She is when she likes, I believe. I don't know much of her myself. She has a temper, they say--but then she has been so much indulged."
"She is very handsome. But she's not in the least like Mrs. Darling."
"She is very much like her father. Mrs. Darling's fair, Mr. Norris was----"
A clear, sonorous voice, calling "Benja," interrupted the words. Honour heard it, for it penetrated even above the shouts of the boy and the creaking of the steed. It was a call she was accustomed to. Often and often, in passing through the hall, going out or coming in, had Mr. St. John thus summoned his child.
"Not the horse," said Honour to the boy, as she picked him up. "Papa's calling. Benja shall come back to the horse by-and-by."
Mr. St. John was in the hall, waiting. He took the child from Honour, kissed him lovingly many times, and then carried him into the drawing-room. Honour followed. She had not been told to go down, and there was an irrepressible curiosity in her mind to see Mrs. St. John.
She was seated alone, near the window, with a work-box before her and some embroidery in her hand, looking as much at home as though she had always lived there. Her raven hair was partially turned from her forehead, showing off the finely-cut but very thin features. Turning her head quickly at the opening of the door, she saw her husband enter.
"I have brought you Benja, Charlotte. He must make acquaintance with his mamma."
She rose with a smile, her dark-blue silk dress gleaming brightly from its ample folds, met them midway in the room, and took Benja. The boy, rather astonished perhaps at the summary proceeding, stared at her from his wide-open great grey eyes.
"You will love mamma, Benja?" she said, kissing him tenderly; and she placed him on her knee and held up to him her shining gold chain, as she had done some two or three months before. "Mamma means to love Benja."
But Benja was impervious to bribes today, and would have nothing to say to the gold chain. Suddenly, in the midst of his prolonged stare, he burst into tears, with a great deal of unnecessary noise.
"I am strange to him," said Mrs. St. John. "He will know me better in a day or two. See! what have I here for Benja!"
She took up a sweet biscuit from a plate that happened to be on the table. What with the biscuit, and her persuasive words, her kisses, Benja suffered himself to be coaxed, hushed his sobs, and kissed his new mamma.
"Friends from this minute," she said triumphantly, glancing up at her husband, who had stood by, smiling. "I will try and be a good mother to him, George."
"I shall like her better than I thought," decided Honour from the door, who could find no fault, even in her prejudice, with her new mistress. "I shall like her much if she will only love the child."
And thus the future lady of Alnwick had entered on her home.
"At Alnwick Hall, on St. Martin's Eve, the wife of George Carleton St. John, Esquire, of a son."
This was the next announcement in the local papers; some ten months, or a trifle more, having elapsed since the last one. And I hope you will have patience with these notices, and not find fault with their frequency: they are not yet over.
"On St. Martin's Eve!" Was Mr. Carleton St. John a Roman Catholic, that he should chronicle the birth of his children by the saints' days? No. And it was not by Mr. St. John's wish that it had been so worded, but by Mrs. Darling's.
It was no doubt a somewhat singular coincidence that this second child should have been born on the same day as Benja, the 10th of November. Mrs. Darling, who was temporarily sojourning at Alnwick Hall, and was naturally a little inclined to be superstitious, regarded it as a most ominous event. What, she thought, if the advent of this child should be succeeded by the dreadful tragedy that had so fatally characterized the last? And it would perhaps hardly be believed, but that some of you may have had opportunities of witnessing these foolish fancies, that she dreaded the announcement being made in the newspapers in the same words as the last.
"I cannot bear it," she said to Mr. St. John, "I could not look at it without a shudder. Put anything else you like, but don't put 'On the 10th of November!'"
Mr. St. John laughed outright; he could not help it. "Charlotte is as well as she can be," he rejoined.
"I know; but a change might take place at any moment. Pray do not laugh at me, Mr. St. John. Call it folly; superstition; what you will; only don't word this announcement as you worded the last."
"But how am I to word it?" he asked. "If the child was born on the tenth, I can't put it the ninth or the eleventh. I won't send any notice at all, if you like; I don't care about it."
"Not send any notice of Charlotte's child!" she echoed in displeasure. "That would be a slight indeed."
"As you please. But you see the little fellow has chosen to come on the tenth, and we can't send him back again to await a more convenient day."
"Put 'On St. Martin's Eve,'" said Mrs. Darling, after a pause of somewhat blank consideration.
"St. Martin's Eve!"
"Yes; why not? ItisSt. Martin's Eve, you know."
"Indeed I don't know," returned Mr. St. John, very much amused. "I'm not sure that I knew we had a St. Martin at all in the calendar."
"That comes of your having lived so little out of England. The English pay no attention to the saints' days. I have been abroad a good deal with my children, and know them all. St. Martin's is a great day in some parts of France. Please let it be so worded, Mr. St. John."
He took a pen and wrote it as she desired, laughing much. "I should like to see Dr. Graves's eyes when he reads this," quoth he, as he put it into the envelope.
"A rubbishing old Low Churchman!" slightingly spoke Mrs. Darling. "He's nobody."
So the notice was sent off; and in due time returned to the house in the newspapers. Mrs. Darling carried one upstairs proudly to her daughter. "See, Charlotte! How well it looks!"
Mrs. St. John took the paper in her delicate hand and read it in silence; read it twice. "How came George to put it in like that--'St. Martin's Eve?'"
"Because I requested it. You are quite well now, darling, as may be said: but I would not have the announcement made to the world in the same words as the last."
"It never could have been so made, mamma."
"Yes it could. Were not the two children born on the same day of the year?"
"Oh, that," coldly returned Mrs. St. John, as if the fact were not worth a thought. "The other had an addition which this must lack. It ran in this way: 'the wife of George Carleton St. John, of a sonand heir.'"
Mrs. Darling made no rejoinder. But she cast a keen, stealthy glance at Charlotte from time to time, as she busied herself with some trifle at a distance.
Things had gone on very smoothly at the Hall during the past few months. Mrs. St. John had been at least kind to Benja, sufficiently loving in manner; and Honour liked her new mistress tolerably well. The girl's feeling towards her may best be described as a negative one; neither like nor dislike. She did not dislike her as she had formerly believed she should do; and she did not very much like her.
Perhaps if there had been a characteristic more prominent than another in the disposition of Charlotte Morris, it was jealousy. Mrs. Darling had been obliged to see this--and to see it exercised, too--during the course of her daughter's past life; and one of her objections to the master of Alnwick Hall, as a husband for Charlotte, was the fact that he had been once married and his heir was already born. That Charlotte would be desperately jealous of the little Benja, should she bear a son of her own, jealous perhaps to hatred, Mrs. Darling felt sure of: she devoutly hoped there would be no children; and an uncomfortable feeling had been upon her from the hour she learnt of the anticipated arrival. So long as Charlotte was without a son, there could be no very formidable jealousy of Benja. But there might be afterwards.
Certainly, there existed a wide difference between the future of the two-year-old boy, sturdily stamping about the gravel-path underneath, the great St. Bernard's dog, "Brave," harnessed with tape before him; and that of the young infant lying in the cradle by the fireside. Many a mother, far more gentle and self-forgetting than was Charlotte St. John, might have felt a pang in contemplating the contrast. Benja had a title in prospective; he would be rich amidst the rich. George (by that name the infant was already registered) might count his future income by a few hundreds. The greater portion of the Alnwick estate (not a very large one) was strictly entailed; and the large fortune brought to Mr. St. John by his first wife, was now Benja's. Mr. St. John would probably have wished to do as well by one child as by the other, but he could not help himself; he could not alter the existing state of things. The settlement he had been enabled to make on Miss Norris was very, very small; but he intended to redeem this by putting by yearly some of his large income for her and her children. Still the contrast was great, and Mrs. Darling knew that Charlotte was dwelling upon it with bitterness, when she laid that emphasis just now on the "sonand heir."
That Mrs. St. John would inordinately love this child of hers, there was no doubt about--far more so than might be well for herself or for him. Mrs. Darling saw it as she lay there--lay looking with eager, watchful eyes at the little face in the cradle; and Mrs. Darling decided within herself--it may have been from experience--that such love does not bring peace in its wake. "I wish it had been a girl!" thought Mrs. Darling.
Charlotte Norris had all her life been subject to taking likes and dislikes--occasionally violent ones; and she took a strong dislike to the nurse that was now in attendance upon her, barely suffering her in the room, and insisting on Prance's seeing to the baby instead, for Prance was at the Hall with her mistress. The result was, that when, at the end of a fortnight, Mrs. Darling quitted the Hall, Prance was transferred to Mrs. St. John's service, and remained as nurse to the infant.
Some months went on, and spring came round. Mr. Carleton St. John, who was in parliament, had to be in London; but his wife remained at Alnwick with her baby, who seemed delicate. Not to have brought to herself all the good in the world, would she have stirred without him. The frail little infant of a few days had become to her the greatest treasure earth ever gave; her love for him was of that wild, impassioned, all-absorbing nature, known, it is hoped, but to few, for it never visits a well-regulated heart.
And in proportion to her love for her own child, grew her jealousy of Benja--nay, not jealousy only, but dislike. Mrs. Darling had foreseen correctly: the jealousy and the dislike had come--the hatred would only too surely follow. Charlotte strove against this feeling. She knew how wrong it was, how disloyal to her husband, how cruel to Benja; and she fought against it well. She would take Benja on her knee and fondle him; and the child grew to love her, to run into her at all moments when he could triumphantly escape from Honour, and she would take him and pretend to hide him, and tell Honour to go into the woods and see if the little wild boy had flown thither. It is true that once or twice, upon some very slight provocation, she had fallen into a storm of passion that literally rendered Honour motionless with alarm, seizing the child somewhat after the manner of a tiger, and beating him furiously. Honour and Benja were alike frightened; even Prance looked on aghast.
Matters were not improved by the conduct of the two nurses. If dislike and dissatisfaction had reigned between them when Prance was only an occasional visitor at the house, how much more did it reign now! They did not break frequently into a quarrel, but a perpetual system of what the other servants called "nagging" was kept up between them. Fierce and fiery was the disposition with which each regarded the other; a war of resentment, of antipathy--call it what you will--smouldering ever in their hearts.
It did not want fuel. Honour naturally wished Benja to be regarded as first and foremost in right of his seniority and position as the heir. Prance held up the infant as the chief; and it need not be said that she was tacitly, if not openly, supported by Mrs. St. John. It was doubly unfortunate. The squabbles of the nurses need not have done harm, but their rivalry in regard to the children enhanced the feeling in their mistress. To do Mrs. Darling justice, she absolutely discouraged any difference being made, even in thought, between the children, if such came under her notice in her temporary visits at the Hall; and once, when she heard a sneer given by Prance to Honour and Benja, she had called the woman to her privately, and taken her sharply to task.
Well, the time went on to Easter. On the Thursday in Passion-week Mr. St. John was expected home; and his wife, who loved him much, anticipated his return in a sort of impassioned eagerness, not the less strong because it was controlled under her usual cold and calm demeanour. The pony-carriage went to the station in the afternoon to meet the train; and Alnwick's mistress took her place at an open window that overlooked the approach, long and long before the carriage could return.
It was a warm, brilliant day; one of those lovely days that sometimes come in spring, presenting so great a contrast with the past winter, and raising many a heart to Heaven. As she sat there, Benja darted in. The door was not firmly closed, and the child pushed it open triumphantly and flew to Mrs. St. John, black as any little tinker: hands, face, dress, a sight to be seen. She wore a charming gown of apple-green figured silk, and a coquettish little lace head-dress, fastened with large gold pins.
"Benja, what have you been doing to yourself?"
Benja laid his little black hands on her gown, and told her a tale not very easy to be understood--his grey eyes laughing, his pretty teeth glistening. Brave had run somewhere, and Benja had run after him, and the two--or perhaps only Benja--had fallen down by the cocks and hens, where it was dirty. And they hadstayeddown apparently, and rolled about together.
"Then Benja's a naughty boy to get himself into such a state," she cried, having quickly interposed her handkerchief between the silk and the dirty hands. "Where's Honour?"
Benja broke into a merry laugh. He had contrived to double upon Honour and evade her, while she was looking for him.
The child kept his place at her knee, and chattered on in his imperfect language. Mrs. St. John did not give herself further trouble to understand it; she fell into a reverie, her fingers unconsciously rambling amidst the child's fair curls.
"Oh! so you are here, sir!" exclaimed Honour, looking in. "My goodness! I've been all over the house after you."
"Me wid mamma," chattered Benja.
"And a fine pickle you are in, to be with your mamma, naughty child!"
"You should not let him get into this state, Honour."
"It's not my fault, ma'am; he ran away from me after the dog."
"Take him into the nursery," concluded Mrs. St. John, turning her eyes again to the window and the winding road.
Honour carried him away, talking lovingly to him--that he was a sad little boy to make himself so dirty, and dirty little boys never went to heaven, unless they got clean again. And Mrs. Carleton St. John sat on, dreamily watching.
The first thing that aroused her from it was the sound of voices outside. She looked out and saw Honour and Benja. Master Benja was now dressed in a handsome green velvet tunic, and looked as if he had just come out of a bandbox. Honour had her things on for walking.
"Where are you going?" inquired Mrs. St. John.
"Me going to see papa," responded Benja, before Honour could speak, his eyes bright, and his cheeks glowing.
"I am taking him to meet the carriage, ma'am."
"But----" Mrs. St. John was beginning, and then suddenly stopped; and Honour was half scared at the blank look and the momentary flash of anger that succeeded each other on her face. "Why should you take him there?" she resumed. "He will see his papa soon enough at home."
"Why should I not take him, ma'am?" rejoined Honour, quite respectfully, but in a bold spirit.
And Mrs. Carleton St. John could not say why; she had no plea for refusal at hand. Honour waited a minute, but no words came.
"It's as well to walk that way as any other, ma'am," she said, taking Benja's hand. "His papa might be disappointed, else. When he used to return home last year, and did not meet Master Benja in the avenue, he'd cry out for him before he got well inside the doors."
"Oh, very well," said Mrs. St. John. "Keep in this upper part, within view."
They turned away slowly, Honour secretly rebelling at the mandate; and the mistress of Alnwick looked after them. She had been lost in a reverie, anticipating the moment of her husband's entrance, when, after her first welcome to him was over, she should summon her child and place it lovingly in his arms. It seemed that another child was to be first in those arms; and she had not bargained for it. One wild, unhealthy longing was ever haunting, half-unconsciously, the mind of Mrs. St. John--that her husband should loveherchild better than that other one.
She ran upstairs to Prance. She bade Prance hasten to attire the baby, and take him out to meet his papa. The child was asleep. Prance glanced at it as if she would have said so; but her mistress's tone was imperative, evidently admitting neither contradiction nor delay.
"Oh, soyou'vecome!" was Honour's salutation, not very graciously expressed, when she found herself joined by Prance. "What's the matter with him?"
The question applied to the crying baby, fractious at being awakened out of its sleep. Prance, who rarely condescended to quarrel in words, went on with her quiet step and supercilious manner, her head in the air.
"I've as much right here as you," she said: "and Master George as the other. Mind your own business, and don't talk to me."
Presently the carriage came in view, Mr. St. John driving. He pulled up when he found himself near the children, gave the reins to the groom, and leapt out. Little Benja danced about his papa in an ecstasy of joy, and Mr. St. John clasped him in his arms.
Two minutes at the least elapsed before he remembered Prance, who had stood perfectly still, she and her charge. He turned to the baby to caress it, but his voice and face were strange, and of course it set up a loud cry, the more loud that it had not recovered its temper. Mr. St. John left it and walked across the grass with Benja, his whole attention absorbed by his first-born. The boy was sometimes caught up in his arms for a fresh embrace, sometimes flitting along by his side on the grass, hand in hand, the steel buttons on the child's green velvet tunic flashing in the sun. He had taken off his cap, throwing it to Honour, and his pretty curls blew away from his brow with every movement, displaying that winning expression of feeling and intelligence of which his features had given promise in his infancy.
Mr. St. John waved his hat to his wife at the open window. She had seen it all; the loving meeting with the one child, the neglect of the other. Passion, anger, jealousy, waged war within her. She could no more have controlled them than she could control the wind that was making free with her husband's hair. All she saw, all she felt, was that he had betrayed his ardent love for Benja, his indifference toherchild. In that one moment she was as a mad woman.
What exactly occurred upon his entrance, George St. John could not afterwards remember; he was too much scared, too terrified, it may be said, to receive or retain any correct impression. A strange, wild look on his wife's face, telling, as it seemed to him, of madness; a wail of reproaches, such as had never been addressed to him from woman's lips; Benja struck to the ground with a violent blow, and his cheek bleeding from it, passed before his eyes as in a troubled vision. It appeared to last but a moment; but a moment: the next, she had sunk on a sofa; pale, trembling, hysterical.
George St. John collected his scattered senses, and picked up the child. He wiped his poor little outraged face with a handkerchief, laid it on his bosom for an instant to soothe him to composure, and carried him into the hall to Honour. The girl cried out when she saw the cheek, and looked up at her master with inquiring eyes. But his were averted.
"An accident," he quietly said. "Wash it with a little warm water."
He returned to the room, closing the door on himself and his wife. He did not reproach her by so much as a word: he did not speak to her: he went to the window and stood there in silence, looking out, his back turned to her, and his forehead pressed against one of the panes.
She began to utter reproaches now, sobbing violently; fond reproaches, that all his affection was lavished upon Benja, leaving none for her child. He replied coldly, without turning round, that his affection was as lively for one child as for the other; he was not conscious of any difference, and hoped he never should be: but an infant of five months old who cried at his approach, could not yet be made the companion to him that Benja was.
"Oh, George, forgive me!" she sobbed, coming close to him, and laying her hand on him caressingly. "I love--I love you; and I could not bear it. Heisour child, you know; yours and mine; and it seemed as if he was nothing to you beside Benja. Won't you forgive me?"
He could not resist the pleading words; he could not throw back the soft hand that was stealing itself into his. "I forgive it; if you think forgiveness lies with me, Charlotte," he answered, turning round at last, but speaking sadly and quietly.
"You have not kissed me," she whispered, the tears chasing each other down her cheeks.
He bent to kiss her at once: just in the same cold, quiet manner in which he had spoken; as if his mind were withdrawn from the present. She felt it bitterly; she blamed her "quick feelings" aloud; and when her tears were dried, she ran up to the nursery in a sudden impulse, seized Benja, and sat down with him upon Honour's rocking-chair.
There she fondled him to her; she pushed his hair from his brow; she laid his hot cheek, clear again under the influence of the warm water, against her own.
"Benja love mamma still?" she murmured softly in his ear. "Mamma did not mean to hurt him."
And the noble little fellow broke into a loving smile in her face, by way of answer, and kissed her many times with his rosy lips.
"Be very gentle with his poor cheek, Honour," she said, as she put him down and left the room. "It is only a little bruised, I see."
"Then itwasan accident, as master said," decided the wondering Honour. "I declare if I did not think at the time she had done it herself!"
Mr. Carleton St. John had not stirred from his place at the window. He stood there still, looking out, but seeing nothing. The entrance of his wife into the room did not arouse him.
"I have been to make my peace with him, George," she said, almost as inaudibly as she had spoken above. "Dear little Benja!--We are better friends than ever, and he has been giving me a hundred kisses of forgiveness. Oh, George, my husband, I am so sorry! Indeed, indeed, I will strive to subdue my fits of passion. I will not strike him again."
But George Carleton St. John stood as one who understands not. He did not hear: his thoughts were in the past. The injunction--nay, the prayer--of his dying wife was present to him; the very look on her sweet face as she spoke it; the faint tones of her loving voice, soon to be silent for ever.
"When the months and the years go by, and you think of another wife, oh, choose one that will be amotherto my child. Be not allured by beauty, be not tempted by wealth, be not ensnared by specious deceit; but take one who will be to him the loving mother that I would have been."
Bitterly, bitterly, the prayer came back to him. How had he fulfilled it? He glanced round at the wife he had chosen, and could have groaned aloud in the anguish of his remorseful heart.