Honour Tritton's ravings, the effect of a diseased brain, ceased with her recovery; and there remained with her no recollection whatever of having uttered them, for Mr. Pym tested her on the point. With her restoration to reason, Mrs. Darling was less confined, and she divided her time between the Hall and the Cottage, but did not yet finally quit the former. Mrs. Darling resolved to speak to her, and the opportunity came. One evening when she was alone in the drawing-room, Honour knocked at the door and came in. The girl looked the wreck of her former self; thin, pale, shadowy, her black gown seemed much too large for her, and the dark circles under her eyes were excessively conspicuous on her naturally light skin.
"Could I speak to you for a few minutes, ma'am?" she asked.
"Yes," said Mrs. Darling, a feeling of nervousness arising within her at the request. "You had better sit down, Honour; you are weak still."
Honour obeyed. She had come to speak of her own departure; to thank Mrs. Darling for her care of her, and to say that the sooner she was away now, the better. She thought of going on the following day, or the day after, if Mrs. Darling would allow it.
Mrs. Darling heaved a sigh of relief, perhaps she could hardly tell why or wherefore. "I did not think you were strong enough to go anywhere yet. But as you please. Are you aware, Honour, what cruel things you said of your mistress?" she resumed, in low tones.
Honour looked up in genuine surprise. "Isaid cruel things, ma'am! What did I say?"
"I hardly like to tell you what you said," replied Mrs. Darling. "You accused her over and over again of having set fire to the child and left him to burn to death. Were you to say such words in your right senses, you might be in danger of transportation for speaking them."
Honour burst into tears. She had no recollection whatever of her fault, and humbly begged pardon for it.
"Of course we do not look upon you as responsible for what you said," continued Mrs. Darling; "the ravings of a diseased mind go for nothing. But they are not the less unpleasant to hear, and your mistress feels enough grief from this matter without its being unnecessarily added to. You, of all persons, should be careful not to add to her sorrow. It was only this very day, when we were speaking of Benja, that she fervently exclaimed, if her whole fortune could bring him back to life, it should be given. There are moments"--Mrs. Darling dropped her voice as though she were speaking to herself, rather than to Honour--"when I have fancied she would sacrifice even George's life, could that bring his brother back again. Believe me, she regrets him as much as you can do."
Subdued, weak, humble, Honour could only give vent to excuses and penitent tears. She had never really suspected her mistress, she said, and, indeed, she had never suspected any one of her own good will; it was her wicked thoughts that would rise up in spite of her. Not her mistress, however; if she had indulged these thoughts, it was of Prance. It was desperately wicked, she knew, but the boy's death seemed to take her reason from her. She hoped Prance would not come to hear of it; and for herself, she would never, never harbour such fancies again.
So Honour left Alnwick Hall. She had to go first of all to Castle Wafer, Mr. St. John having sent for her. The fact was, the occurrence had made a most startling and unhappy impression on the master of Castle Wafer. The account he had received of it was a very partial one, and he naturally wished for correct details. When the summons came, Honour had flung up her hands in a sort of terror. How should she dare to meet Mr. Isaac St. John, and proclaim to him personally her wicked carelessness? Mrs. Darling also had seemed much put out: but there was no help for it, and she cautioned Honour.
"Take care," she gravely said, "that not a hint of those wicked and foolish suspicions is dropped to Mr. St. John."
In anything but an enviable frame of mind, did Honour enter on the interview with Mr. St. John at Castle Wafer. He sat on the sofa in his own sitting-room, his back propped up with soft pillows, and Honour, whom he invited to a seat, sat in her new mourning, and wept before him. The first timidity over, she confessed the whole; made, as it were, a clean breast of it, and told how her own thoughtlessness, in leaving the child alone with the lighted toy, had been the cause of the calamity. Mr. St. John was painfully interested in the little coincidence she mentioned--that the first idea of the toy, the lighted church, had been gathered at the fair that was being held the very day he came to Alnwick. It was at this point that Honour burst into tears, which she was quite unable to control.
However Mr. St. John might have been disposed to condemn the carelessness, he could only feel compassion for the sufferer. She should never know another truly happy moment, she sobbed, should never cease to reproach herself as long as life should last. She gave herself the whole blame; she said not a word of the old doubts; and when Mr. St. John questioned her as to the fastening of the doors, she declared that she could not tell herself how they had become fastened, but mentioned the conclusion come to by the household and the coroner.Theydecided that the little boy had himself fastened the one; and for the other, some thought it had never been fastened at all; only she, Honour, had fancied it in her flurry; others thought it must have bolted itself when the little boy shut it, and she could only suppose that it did so bolt. She spoke of the great sorrow of her mistress, as testified to by Mrs. Darling, and told how she had left the Hall because she could not yet bear the sight of it: and not a whisper did she breathe of the unseemly scene which had occurred on that memorable afternoon. In short, it seemed that Honour was striving to make amends for the harsh and unjustifiable words she had used of her mistress in her delirium.
Mr. St. John inquired whether she was going back to the Hall. "Never, never!" she answered; she should take service as far away from it as possible, where folks would not point at her as having caused the death of an innocent child. Not as a nurse--who would be likely to trust her in that capacity now?--but as a house or laundry maid. A moment's deliberation with himself, and then Mr. St. John offered her a service in his own household. One of the housemaids was about to leave to be married; if Honour would like the situation the housekeeper should engage her.
Again burst forth the tears. Not suppressed sobs this time, but soft tears of gratitude. For there was a tone of compassion in Mr. St. John's voice that found its way to the heart of the unhappy woman;nonehad addressed such to her since that miserable day, the Eve of St. Martin; and she could have been his slave in all reverence for life. Thankfully did she accept the offered situation; and it was decided with the housekeeper afterwards that she should enter upon it in a month's time, when both health and spirits might be somewhat renewed.
Before the first week of that month had elapsed, Mr. St. John made an effort, and went over to Alnwick. In his courteous sympathy he deemed that a visit was due to Mrs. Carleton St. John; the more especially that he had not been able to make it at the time, or to attend the funeral. There were also certain little matters of business to be mentioned to her, now that George was the heir, to whom he was also guardian; but without any of the additional power vested in him, as it had been in regard to Benja.
He went this time by rail. Brumm said so much of the additional length of the journey by road in his master's present weak state, that Mr. St. John yielded for once, and a compartment was engaged, where he would be alone, with Brumm to attend upon him. On arriving at Alnwick, they found Mrs. Carleton St. John was still at her mother's cottage; and to the cottage Isaac went.
Had he arrived only a day later, he would not have seen her whom he came to see. Mrs. Carleton St. John was on the wing. She was starting for Scarborough that very evening, as Mrs. Darling sharply expressed it, as if the travelling by night did not meet her approbation; but she had allowed Charlotte to have her own way as a child, she whispered to Mr. St. John, and Charlotte chose to have it still.
What struck Mr. St. John more than anything else in this visit, was the exceedingstillnessthat seemed to pervade Mrs. Carleton St. John. She sat in utter quietness, her hands clasped on her knee, her black dress falling around her slender form in soft folds, the white crape lappets of her cap thrown behind. The expression of her bent face was still, almost to apathy; her manner and voice were subdued. So young and pretty did she look in her grief, that Mr. St. John's heart went out to her in compassion. He saw a slight shiver pass through her frame when she first spoke of Benja: shegrievedfor him, she murmured; and she told the tale of how she had struck him that fatal afternoon--oh, if she could only recall that! it weighed so heavily upon her. Oh, if she could--if she could--and Mr. St. John saw the fervour with which the wish was aspirated, the drawn lines about the pretty but haggard mouth, the hands lifted for once and clasped to pain--if she could only recall him back to life!
She wanted change, she said; she was going to Scarborough. George did not seem to grow strong again, and she thought it might do him good; he was fractious and ailing, and perpetually crying for Benja. Mamma was angry at her travelling by night, but no one but herself knew how long and tedious her nights were; she seemed to be always seeing Benja. When she went to sleep she dreamt he was alive again, and to awake up from that to the reality was more cruel than all.
Isaac St. John, as he sat and listened to the plaintive voice, pitied her beyond everything. There had not been wanting people, even within his small sphere of daily life, to comment on the gratification it must be to Mrs. Carleton St. John (apart from the loss of the child and its peculiar horror) to see her own son the inheritor. Isaac St. John resentfully wished they could see her and hear her now. He acquiesced in the expediency of change, both for herself and the child, and warmly urged her to exchange Scarborough for Castle Wafer. His stepmother, Mrs. St. John, was there, and they would make her so much more comfortable than she could be at any watering-place. But he urged in vain. She thanked him for his kindness, saying she would prefer to go to Scarborough now, but would keep his invitation for a future opportunity.
To the business matters she declined to listen. If it was at all necessary that he should discuss them, let it be with her mamma; or perhaps with Mr. Drake the lawyer. Mr. Drake knew all about everything, she supposed; and he would attend on Mr. St. John if requested.
So, after a two hours' sojourn at the cottage, Isaac St. John quitted it, and the following day he returned to Castle Wafer. He had not mentioned that Honour was about to enter on service at Castle Wafer. Upon Honour's name occurring in conversation in connection with the accident on St. Martin's Eve, Mrs. Carleton St. John had shown symptoms of excitement: she wished Honour had died, she said, before she had wrought such ill: and Isaac, perhaps feeling rather ashamed to confess that his household was going to shelter her, let the subject drop.
Mrs. St. John and the child started for Scarborough, Prance and three or four other servants in attendance upon her. Not Mrs. Darling. The younger lady had civilly but firmly declined her mother's companionship. She would rather be alone, she said, and Mrs. Darling yielded--as she had done all through Charlotte's life.
But it appeared that Scarborough did not please her. She had been in it little more than a week, when Mrs. Darling heard that she had gone to some place in Westmoreland. From thence, after another short sojourn, she made her way to Dover. It was getting close to Christmas then, and Mrs. Darling, feeling an uneasiness she could not well define, hastened to her, under the pretext of accompanying her home. She found Charlotte anything but benefited by her travellings, if looks might be trusted, for she was more thin, more wan, more haggard than before; and George was ill still.
Whether George St. John had eaten too much at that memorable birthday dinner, or whether the shock and horror of seeing Benja, as he had seen him, was telling upon his system, certain it was the child had declined from that night. Mr. Pym had treated him for indigestion, and he seemed a little better for a few days, but the improvement did not continue. Never again was he the merry boy he had been: fractious, irritable, and mourning incessantly for Benja; his spirits failed, his appetite would not return.Hehad not derived benefit from the change of scene any more than his mother, and that, Mrs. Darling on her arrival saw.
"What can be the matter with him?" was the first question Mrs. St. John addressed to her mother, and the anxiety visible in the wild eyes alarmed Mrs. Darling.
"Charlotte, calm yourself, my dear; indeed there is no cause for uneasiness. I think you have moved him about too much; children want repose at times as well as we do. The quiet of the Hall and Mr. Pym's care will soon bring him round. We will go back at once."
"I am not going back to the Hall," said Charlotte.
"Not going back!" repeated Mrs. Darling.
"Not at present."
"My dear Charlotte, you must go back. How is the Hall to get on at Christmas without you?"
"Must?" significantly returned Charlotte. "I am my own mistress; accountable to none."
"Of course, my love; of course. But, Charlotte"--and Mrs. Darling seemed unduly anxious--"it is right that you should spend Christmas there. Georgy is the heir now."
"He is the possessor," said Charlotte, calmly. "He is the possessor of Alnwick, he will be the inheritor of more; he will be Sir George Carleton St. John--as his father would have been had he but lived."
"Yes," said Mrs. Darling, stealing a side glance at her daughter, who was resting her cheek upon her slender fingers, her gaze fixed upwards.
"But, mamma, I wish now it were Benja; I wish Georgy was as he used to be. I think a complete change of scene may do him good," she added after a pause, "and I shall take him abroad: immediately: for perhaps a year."
Mrs. Darling stood aghast. "But, what's to become of the Hall? what's to be done with it?"
"Anything," was the indifferent reply. "It is mine to do what I choose with--that is, it's Georgy's--and who is to question me? Live in it yourself, if you like; let it; leave servants in it; I don't care. Georgy is my only care now, mamma, and I shall take him abroad to get him strong."
Yes, Alnwick Hall and its broad acres were George's now, but they did not seem to have brought pleasure in their train. Was it that the almost invariable law of nature was obtaining in this case, and the apples,coveted, proved bitter ashes in possession? Charlotte St. John looked back to the days and nights of warfare with existing things, to the rebellion of her own spirit at her child's secondary position, to the vain, ardent longing that he should be the heir and supplant Benja. Well, she had her wish. But where was the pleasure she had looked forward to as in a vision, where the triumph? It had not come; it seemed to have vanished utterly and outwardly, even as had poor Benja. What was, what could be, the cause for this?
She crossed over at once to the Continent, hoping there to find relief for the new ailments of Georgy as for her own worn spirits; and Mrs. Darling went back to her cottage in dudgeon, and then took wing to her mother's to spend Christmas. And servants alone reigned at Alnwick Hall.
Christmas came for other lands, just as surely as it did for England; and the young ladies of Madame de Nino's finishing establishment at Belport were gathered round the schoolroom stove on that festal morning. Rose Darling taking the best place as usual; and also, as usual, swaying all minds to her own imperious will. Rose was in a vile humour; believing herself to be the worst-used mortal in the world. She had fully reckoned on going home for Christmas--or at least into Berkshire; and Mrs. Darling's excuses about the uncertainty of her own movements only angered her the more.
"Don't bother here about your privileges and advantages!" she wrathfully exclaimed, elbowing the girls away from her, and tossing back her shower of golden curls. "What do the French know about keeping Christmas? France is a hundred years behind England in civilization, just as the French girls are behind us."
"Well done, Rose!" cried Adeline de Castella.
"Adeline excepted, of course," went on Rose, addressing no one in particular. "Why, the French don't know as much as the use of the mistletoe!--and our friends send us here to be trained and educated! No Christmas! no holidays--except a month in autumn, which you are not expected to take! It is a pernicious country; an unnatural state of things; and the British government ought to interfere and forbid the schools to receive English girls."
"But don't the French keep Christmas?" asked a new girl, and a very stupid one, Grace Lucas.
"Bah!" ejaculated Rose. "As if they kept anything except the Jour de l'An!"
"The what?" timidly asked Grace Lucas.
"Qu'elle est bête!" cried Rose in her careless manner.
"Have some consideration, Rose," spoke Adeline in French.
"Why, she has heard it fifty times!" retorted Rose in English.
"Every one is not so apt as you."
"Apt at what?" asked Rose fiercely, a glowing colour rising to her face. Since the episode connected with Mr. Marlborough, Rose's conscience was prone to conjure up hidden sarcasm in every sentence addressed to her.
"I meant at picking up French," laughed Adeline. "What else should I mean?"
"Oh, thank you," chafed Rose. "I understand."
"Don't be cross, Rose. Have I not elected to spend my Christmas here, with you all? You show me no gratitude."
"Youcan afford to laugh--and to make a merit of stopping here," retorted Rose. "When in seven days from this you leave for good!"
"If Rose could only change places with you!" interrupted Mary Carr.
"Speak for yourself, if you please, Mary Carr," was Rose's fiery answer: "who wants to change places with her? But, Adeline, I do envy you the balls and gaiety between now and Carême."
The Castella family must not be classed with the ordinary run of people frequenting Belport. Monsieur de Castella--in his own family chiefly called Signor de Castella--was descended from a noble Spanish family on the paternal side; his mother had been a proud and well-born Italian. His usual place of residence was Paris. But some years previous to this present time, symptoms of delicacy became apparent in Adeline; the medical men strongly recommended the seaside, and she was brought to Belport. It appeared to agree with her so well, so establish her health and strength, that Monsieur de Castella took on lease one of the handsomest and largest houses in the town. Sometimes he had to make long absences in Paris, in Spain, and in Italy; Madame de Castella always accompanied him, and Adeline would then be left at Madame de Nino's. This winter would probably be their last in Belport; the summer was to be spent at the French château of Madame de Castella's mother, an English lady by birth; and after that they intended to resume their residence in Paris. They were very wealthy, highly connected and considered, and Adeline was their only child. There had been an elder girl, Maria, but she died: and this made Adeline all the more precious to them. As you read on, you will know her better--and love her.
She was now about to be introduced to the world. New Year's Day was her birthday, when she would be eighteen; and I dare say you are aware that it is about the greatest fête the French keep, always excepting All Saints' Day. Madame de Castella had issued cards for an assembly in the evening, and Adeline was to be introduced. The schoolgirls called it Adeline's inauguration ball.
Amidst other hidden secrets, sedulously guarded from the teachers, Madame de Nino's pupils were in possession of a pack of what they called fortune-telling cards. They were not playing cards, but thin, small, transparent squares, made from the leaf of the sensitive-plant. On each square was a carefully painted flower, purporting to be an emblem. Rose, happy love; cross-of-Jerusalem, sorrow; snowdrop, purity; bachelor's-button, vanity; hyacinth, death; and so on. Three or four of these squares were placed on the palm of the hand, the flowers downwards, so that one square could not be distinguished from another. They would in most cases curl slightly and leap from the hand; but should any one adhere to it, it was deemed a proof of affinity with the owner, a foreshadowing of her fate to come. For instance: if it were the cross-of-Jerusalem that remained, the holder was pronounced to be destined to sorrow; if the bachelor's-button, the girl's life was to be passed in vanity. It was at the best but a silly pastime, meet only for those silly girls; but there are of those schoolgirls who, to this hour, would confess to a superstitious belief in them, unexplainable alike to themselves and to any known law of reason. Else why, they would ask, should one particular leaf have clung always to Adeline de Castella, and been so singularly exemplified in her destiny? That it did cling to her is a fact: otherwise, I should never have thought of noticing any pastime so puerile.
The first time these cards were tried, the girls were in their room, supposed to be in bed. Mam'selle Fifine had gone down with the light, and Rose had lighted one of her large wax tapers, which she kept locked up from prying eyes. Adeline had both her hands stretched out, three squares on each. Five of the squares rolled off quickly, more quickly than usual; the sixth slightly fluttered, and then settled down, quiet and passive on her palm. Janet Duff took it up at length, but dropped it again as one startled.
"Oh! it is bad!" she said, in a whisper.
Mary Carr turned the square. It was a French marigold.
"'French marigold: unhappy love; its end possible death,'" read Janet Duff from the explanations. "It is about the worst in the pack."
Some of the girls shivered--that dortoir was always cold. Adeline laughed merrily. "It is only nonsense," she said: and she spoke as she thought.
And the singular part was, that Adeline de Castella had tried those cards since, a dozen times at least; and this ill-omened French marigold had always clung to her whenever it was of those placed on her hand. The hyacinth had been dreaded so much from the first, that Janet Duff took it out of the pack. And the French marigold, so far as was seen, never rested on any other hand than Adeline de Castella's.
"It is certainly singular," mused Adeline, when she tried her fate at the cards for the last time before leaving school, and the French marigold clung to her as usual.
New Year's Day came in: and with its evening a clash of many carriages, impatient horses, and quarrelsome coachmen filled the streets, for the gay world of Belport was flocking to the house of Signor de Castella.
It was a brilliant scene, those reception-rooms, brilliant with their blaze of light and their exotics. Adeline de Castella stood by her mother. The guests had known and thought of her but as a plainly attired, simple schoolgirl, and were not prepared to recognize her as she stood before them in her costly attire and wondrous beauty. Her robes of white lace, flowing and elegant, sparkled with emeralds; single chains of emeralds encircled her neck, her arms, and confined in their place the waves of her silken hair; lustrous emeralds, heirlooms of the ancient family of de Castella. Her features, pure and regular as if chiselled from marble, were glowing with the crimson flush of excitement, rendering more conspicuous her excessive loveliness.
"Oh, Adeline," whispered Mary Carr, when she could steal a few words with her, "how beautiful you are!"
"What! have you turned flatterer too!"
"Flattery---toyou!How mistaken they were tonight, when they supposed Rose would outshine all! If they could only see you now!"
Miss Carr brought her words and her breath to a standstill, for, coming in at the door were Mr. and Mrs. Marlborough.
"Yes," said Adeline, answering her exclamation of astonishment; "mamma met them today, just as they arrived from Paris, and made them promise to look in tonight. They are on their road to England. Lord John Seymour is with them."
"What will Rose say?" ejaculated Mary Carr.
Mr. and Mrs. Marlborough, Adeline, and others were standing together when Rose came up. Rose was not aware in whose presence she was, till she stood face to face with George Marlborough. A random remark she had been about to make to Adeline died upon her lips, and her face turned white. Eleanor was crimson; and there might have been an awkward pause, but for the readiness of Mr. Marlborough.
"How do you do, Miss Darling?" he said, with a pleasant smile. "Nearly frozen up with this winter cold? It has been very severe in Paris."
Rose recalled her scattered senses, and began to talk with him at random: but she barely exchanged courtesies with Eleanor.
"Ellen," whispered Mr. Marlborough to his wife, later in the evening, "may I dance a quadrille with her?"
"How silly!--to ask me that! I think it is the best thing you can do." But there was a shy, conscious blush on Mrs. Marlborough's cheek, as she answered. Her husband saw it, and went off laughing, and the next minute Rose was dancing with him.
"Which of my presents do you admire most?" asked Adeline of Mary Carr, directing her attention to an extensive display of articles ranged together in the card-room: all offerings to her that day from friends and relatives, according to French custom on New Year's Day.
"What a lovely little clock in miniature!" exclaimed Rose looking over Mary's shoulder.
"It is a real clock," said Adeline, "it plays the chimes at the hours, and those are real diamonds. My grandmamma always said she should give me something worth keeping on my eighteenth birthday, and she sent me this. I am so sorry she was not well enough to come to us for tonight! Stay, I will touch the spring."
As Adeline raised her right hand hastily, anxious that Rose and Mary Carr should hear the melodious chimes of this ingenious ornament, the chains of her emerald bracelet caught in the button of a gentleman's coat, who made one of the group pressing round her. With a slight jerk she disentangled the chain, but it brought away with it a flower he had held in his hand.It was a French marigold!
The brilliant hue deepened upon Adeline's cheek as she looked at the flower. She turned and held it out to the owner.
He was a stranger, a young and most distinguished-looking man, possessing in no common degree that air of true nobility which can neither be concealed nor assumed. His countenance was one of rare beauty, and his eyes were bent with a pleasant earnest expression of admiration upon Adeline.Youhave met him before, reader, but Adeline had not.
She addressed an apology to him, as she restored the flower, speaking intuitively in English: it required not an introduction to know that that tall, high-bred man was no Frenchman. He was answering a few words of gallantry, as he received it--that the fair hand it had been in invested the flower with an extrinsic interest--when M. de Castella came into the circle, an aged man by his side.
"Adeline," he said to his daughter, "have you forgotten your old friend, the Baron de la Chasse?"
With an exclamation of pleasure, Adeline held out her hand. She had been so much with the English, that she had fully acquired their habit of hand-shaking. The old baron did not seem to understand her, but he took her hand and placed it within his arm. They moved away, and there was a general breaking up of the group.
"Lottie Singleton," began Rose, "do you know who that handsome man is?"
"Handsome!" returned Miss Singleton. "Everybody's handsome with you. I call him old and ugly."
"I don't mean the French baron. That distinguished-looking Englishman with the marigold."
"He! I know nothing of him. He came in with the Maxwells. I saw Sir Sandy introduce him to Madame de Castella."
"Where could he have found that French marigold at this season of the year?" wondered Rose.
"Oh, Miss Maxwell has all sorts of odd flowers in that box of hers, four feet square, which she calls her conservatory," returned the archdeacon's daughter. "He must have found it there."
"Lord John," cried Rose, summarily arresting Lord John Seymour, who was passing, and whom she had never seen but once in her life, and that months before, "who is that handsome man I saw you talking with just now?"
"It is my cousin's husband, Miss Darling," lisped Lord John, who had an impediment in his speech. "Young Marlborough."
"I don't speak ofhim," cried Rose, impatiently, an association dyeing her cheeks. "A tall, pale man, features very refined."
"You must mean St. John."
"Who?" repeated Rose.
"Frederick St. John. Brother to St. John of Castle Wafer."
Rose Darling drew a deep breath in her utter astonishment. "And so that's Frederick St. John! I have heard of him and his beauty."
"He is handsome," assented Lord John, "and he's more pleasing than handsome. Fred St. John's one of the best fellows going. We were together at Christchurch."
"Is he staying at Belport?"
"Only passing through, he tells me. He has been dining at the Maxwells' and they brought him here this evening."
"I wish you'd introduce him to me."
("Well done, Rose," thought Mary Carr, who was near.)
"With pleasure," replied Lord John: and he offered his arm to Rose.
"No," said Rose, in her changeable, capricious, but most attractive manner, withdrawing her own as soon as she had taken it, "I think I'll go up to him myself. We are relatives, you know."
"Indeed!" said Lord John.
"Connections, at any rate," concluded Rose.
She chose a moment when Mr. St. John was alone, and approached him. Beginning the self-introduction by holding out her hand. Mr. St. John looked surprised.
"You don't know me," said Rose. "Lord John Seymour offered to introduce you to me, but I said it was not needed between relatives. I have heard a great deal of Frederick St. John: we are cousins in a degree, you know. I am Rose Darling."
The name did not recall any association to Mr. St. John. He stood smiling on the bright girl before him, with her sunny blue eyes and her mass of golden hair.
"You forget, I see, and I must be more explanatory. My half-sister, Charlotte Norris, married Mr. Carleton St. John. Mamma saw you recently at Alnwick Hall. My brother Frank was there."
His answer was to take both Rose's hands into his, as an apology for his stupidity, and assure her that he was proud and pleased to find such a cousin. Rose remained talking to him.
"What a dreadful thing it was, that little boy's death!" she exclaimed. "I had heard of him often; little Benja St. John! And to be burnt to death!--oh, it was terrible! Who was in fault?"
"The nurse. She left him alone with a paper toy that had a lighted candle within it, and by some means he set himself on fire. It was at his funeral that I met Captain Darling."
"So much about the accident, mamma has told me in her letters; but particulars she has given none," said Rose. "It is too shocking a thing to write about, she says. Poor little fellow! I wish he had been saved. What do you think of Charlotte?"
"Of Mrs. Carleton St. John? I never saw her. She did not appear the day of the funeral. The child's sad death has had a great effect upon her, I hear; both on her health and spirits. She has left the Hall for a time, and is travelling."
"Iknow that," returned Rose with emphasis, in which there was a world of resentment. "Charlotte has been whirling about from place to place like a troubled spirit. It has kept mamma in a most unsettled state, and prevented her having me over for Christmas. I was so mad when I found I was not to go home! Such a shame, you know, keeping me at school! I shall be nineteen next birthday. We have had to give way to Charlotte all our lives."
Mr. St. John smiled on the pretty, pouting, rebellious face. "I fear your sister has been grievously shocked by the death," he said. "Change of scene may be absolutely requisite for her."
"Well then, all I can say is, that it is most unusual, for it is not in Charlotte's nature to be much affected by any earthly thing. She is apathetic to a degree. Of course, she could not help being shocked and grieved at the death; but Idon'tunderstand its making this lasting impression on her and affecting her health, as mamma says it does. And now that her son is the heir--you are thinking me hard and cruel to say such things, Mr. St. John," broke off Rose, "but you don't know Charlotte as I do. I am certain that the succession of her own child, George, has been to her a long day-dream, not the less cherished from its apparent impossibility."
"I think you don't regard your sister with any great degree of affection, Miss Darling," Mr. St. John ventured to say, smiling on her still.
"I don't, and that's the truth," candidly avowed Rose. "If you only knew how mamma has made us bend to Charlotte and her imperious will all our lives, you wouldn't wonder at me. I was the only one who rebelled; Iwould not; and to tell you a secret, I believe that's why mamma sent me to school."
The strains of music warned Mr. St. John that he must listen to no more; and, as Rose was herself led away, she saw him dancing with Adeline. He was with her a great deal during the rest of the evening.
"The play has begun, Adeline," whispered Rose when she and Mary Carr were leaving.
"What play?"
"You are already taken with this new stranger: I can see it in your countenance: and he with you. What think you of the episode of the French marigold? Rely upon it, that man, Frederick St. John, will exercise some powerful influence over your future life."
"Oh Rose, Rose!" remonstrated Adeline, her lips parting with merriment, "we are not all so susceptible to 'influence' as you."
"We must all fall under it once in our lives," rejoined Rose, unheeding the reproof. "Don't forget my counsel to you here after, Adeline. Beware of this stranger: the French marigold is an emblem of unhappy love."
Adeline de Castella laughed: a slighting, careless, triumphant laugh of disbelief: laughed aloud in her pride and power, as she quitted Rose Darling's side, on her way to play her brilliant part in the crowd around her. It was spring-time with her then.
There was a singular fascination attaching to her, this child of many lands. It is no fable to call her such. England, France, Spain, Italy; it was singular that she should be, through her grandparents, a descendant of all. But her nature was essentially English. Her rare beauty of form and feature is seldom found united with brilliancy of complexion, as it was in her, save in the patrician daughters of our own land: and the retiring, modest sweetness of her manners, their graceful self-possession, were English to the core. A stranger could have taken her to belong to no other country, and her perfect knowledge of the language, the absence of all foreign accent, would contribute to the delusion. She had been familiar with it from her infancy: Madame de Castella, speaking it herself as a native, took care of that. She had placed English nurses about her children; and subsequently an English governess, a lady of good birth and breeding but fallen fortunes, had taken charge of them until Maria de Castella's death. It was from this lady that Adeline especially learnt to appreciate and love the English character; insensibly to herself, her own was formed after the model. In short, Adeline de Castella, in spite of her name and her mixed birth, was an English girl.
A month or two rolled away. Adeline de Castella paid an occasional visit to her old schoolfellows at Madame de Nino's; but her time was taken up with a continuous scene of gaiety and visiting. Balls, theatres,soirées--never was she in bed before two or three o'clock in the morning, and sometimes it was later than that. Madame de Castella, still a young woman in every sense of the word, lived but for the world. The schoolgirls noticed that Adeline wore a pale, wearied look, and one afternoon that she came in, she coughed frightfully.
"That's like a consumptive cough!" exclaimed Rose, with her usual want of consideration.
"I have coughed a great deal lately," observed Adeline; "and coming in from the cold air to the atmosphere of your stifling stove, has brought it on now."
No one, however, thought anything serious of the cough, or the weariness. But that time was to come.
It was Ash-Wednesday: and Mary Carr was invited to spend the day at Signor de Castella's. Madame de Castella had given a fancy-dress ball the previous Monday night,Lundi gras. Rose and Mary had been invited to it, but Madame de Nino refused the invitation for them, point-blank, which nearly drove Rose wild with exasperation. After church, one of the servants attended Miss Carr to Madame de Castella's--for I suppose you know that in France a young unmarried lady never goes out alone.
The house seemed to be in some extraordinary commotion. Servants ran hither and thither with a look of consternation on their faces, and Madame de Castella, when Mary reached her presence, was walking about in her dressing-gown, sobbing hysterically, her breakfast cold and untouched at her side, and her maid, Susanne, standing by her.
"What is the matter?" cried Mary, in terror.
"Oh, it is dreadful!" ejaculated Susanne, by way of answer. "Unhappy Mademoiselle Adeline!"
"She is dying!" sobbed Madame de Castella. "My darling child! my only child! She is dying, and I am the cause. Heaven forgive me!"
"Oh, Susanne!" exclaimed Miss Carr, turning to the maid, "what is it all?"
Susanne and Madame explained between them, both weeping, the latter violently.
They were engaged, on the previous night,Mardi gras, to "assist" at the crowning ball of the Carnival; but when it became time to dress, Adeline felt so ill and weary that she gave up the task in despair. Madame de Castella urged her to exert herself and shake the illness off, but the Signor interfered, and said Adeline had better go to bed. And to bed she went, at nine o'clock. Madame departed at ten for the ball, but came home before twelve, anxious about Adeline. She went into the latter's bedroom, and found her coughing violently, with every appearance of serious illness upon her. Adeline could say nothing, except that she had coughed like that for many nights. Terror-stricken, the unhappy lady alarmed the household, and the medical attendant was sent for. He came at once, aroused out of his slumbers.
He thought consumption had set its seal upon Adeline. The seeds of it were, no doubt, inherent in her constitution, though hitherto unsuspected, and the gay scenes she had indulged in, that winter, had brought them forth: the exposures to the night air, to heat and cold, the thin dresses, the fatigue, and the broken rest. He did not say she would not be restored to health; but he wished for a consultation.
So, when the early hours gave place to day, the faculty were called together, both French and English. They said just what the family doctor had said, and no more.
"I suppose I may not ask to see Adeline," said Mary Carr, when she had learnt these particulars.
"Not for the world," interposed the lady's-maid. "Perfect quiet is ordered. Mademoiselle has now a blister on her chest, and a sick-nurse is with her."
But, just then, Louise, Adeline's maid, came into the room, with her young lady's love to Miss Carr, and an inquiry why she was so long going up to see her.
"There!" sobbed Madame de Castella, "they have told her you are here. Just go to her for five minutes. I rely upon you not to stay longer."
Mary Carr followed Louise into Adeline's room, and went on tiptoe to her bedside. The tears came into her eyes when she saw her lying there, so pale and wan.
"So their fears have infected you, Mary!" was her salutation, as she looked up from the pillow, and smiled. "Is it not a ridiculous piece of business altogether? As if no one ever had a cough before! Do you know we had half-a-dozen doctors here today?"
"Susanne said there had been a consultation."
"Yes, I could scarcely help laughing. I told them all it was very ridiculous: that beyond the cough, which is nothing, and a little fatigue from the pain in my side, I was no more ill than they were. Dr. Dorré said it was his opinion also, and that I should outlive them all yet."
"I hope and trust you will, Adeline! Is that the nurse?"
"A sick-nurse they have sent in. She is English, and accustomed to the disease. Her name's Brayford. You know consumption is common enough in your island."
Mary Carr thought then--thinks still--that it was a grievous error, their suffering Adeline to know the nature of the disease they dreaded. It was Madame de Castella who betrayed it, in her grief and excitement.
"There is so much more fuss being made than is necessary," resumed Adeline. "They have put a blister on my chest, and I am to lie in bed, and live upon slops. I dislike slops."
"Is your appetite good?" asked Mary.
"I have not any appetite," was Adeline's reply. "But in illness we fancy many things, and Louise would have brought me up anything I asked for. There's no chance of it, with this nurse here. She seems tiresomely particular, and determined to obey orders to the letter. I asked her, just before you came in, for some wine-and-water, I almost payed for it, I was so painfully thirsty. I could have coveted that three-sous beer some of the English girls at school are so fond of."
"Did she let you have it?"
"No. She told me she would not give me a drop of wine if I paid her for it in gold. I cried about it, I was so disappointed and thirsty. What with the flurry and excitement there has been all the morning, and,--papa and mamma's anxiety, my spirits were low, and I actually cried. But she would not give it me. She brought me some toast-and-water, and said she was going to make me something nice, better than wine. There she is, coddling at it over the fire--very nice I dare say itis!"
Mrs. Brayford came forward, and whispered Miss Carr to take her leave. Talking was bad for Mademoiselle de Castella.
"Farewell, dearest Adeline! I shall soon come to see you again. I know I shall find you better."
She was halfway across the room when Adeline called to her. The nurse, who was again leaning over her saucepan, looked up, a remonstrance in her eye if not on her tongue, but Miss Carr returned.
"Mary," she whispered, "go in to mamma, assure her,convinceher, that I am not so ill as she fears: that it is her love for me which has magnified the danger."
"Oh, it's nothing," cried Rose Darling, slightingly, when Miss Carr carried the tale of Adeline's illness back to school. "She will soon be well."
"Or die," said Mary Carr.
"Die! You are as absurd as the French doctors, Mary. As if people died of a little night visiting! I wish they would letmerun the risk!"
"If you had seen the house today, and Madame de Castella----"
"I am glad I did not," interrupted Rose; "such scenes are not to my taste. And nothing at all to judge by. The French are always in extremes--ecstasies or despair. So much the better for them. They feel the less."
"That is a harsh remark, if intended to apply to Madame de Castella," observed Miss Carr. "More intense grief I never care to witness."
"No doubt. As intense as it is in her nature to feel; and shown as the French always do show it, in ravings and hysterics. But I can tell you one thing, Mary Carr, that the only grief to be feared, that which eats into the heart, and tells upon it, is borne in silence!"
What a remark from Rose Darling!