ACCEPTED.
‘Why do you go up to the convent every morning, dear? It is far too long
a walk for you.’
I was standing in the little _salle_, holding Ange’s hot hand in my own.
Six days had elapsed since Master Fred Stephenson had appeared and so
mysteriously disappeared from amongst us, and on each one of them Ange
had toiled up to the Convent des Petites Sœurs, which was situated on
the brow of a hill, two miles on the road to Artois, and not come back
again until it was time for dinner.
I believed that in her feverish and unsettled state of mind, and with
her loose notions of theology, she was doing some sort of penance to
satisfy her self-accusing conscience, and I so much wished that the dear
child would open her mind to Tessie and me instead, and let us give her
all the sisterly counsel in our power. But each day she seemed to shrink
more and more from us, as well she might, whilst that man was persuading
her to stain her fair soul with the blot of deceit.
But there were other reasons for my trying to dissuade Ange from going
to the convent. She was very far from well, or fit for the exertion.
Whether it proceeded from mind or body, I could not tell, but since the
day she had overheard Madame Marmoret’s speech to her father, in the
courtyard, she had been quite unlike her former joyous, light-hearted
self. Her cheeks were always either unnaturally flushed or unnaturally
pale, she complained of a dull headache, and all the bounding elasticity
I had so much admired seemed to have deserted her limbs. She was very
particular about her religious services at this time, poor dear little
Ange, spending an hour almost every evening in the church of St. Marie,
and poring over her Bible long after Tessie and I had gone to rest.
Still, neither religion nor exercise and fresh air made any palpable
difference in the appearance of the little maid, and I felt sure that
something was very wrong. My expostulations on the subject with Tessie
only brought to light another instance of Mr. Lovett’s selfishness. She
looked very grave over the details of her sister’s symptoms, but was
afraid to mention them to her father, because it would seem as though
Ange required a doctor, and there was none nearer than Rille.
He visited St. Pucelle once a week, and when he next came she would ask
him to prescribe for Ange; but to send for him especially to visit her
was to entail an expense which she was sure ‘dear papa’ could not
afford. The time was past for disguising my sentiments in Tessie’s
presence, and I told her plainly what I thought on this occasion.
Yet she was too timid to move in the matter. ‘Dear papa’ had evidently
inspired her with so much wholesome dread of provoking his annoyance,
that she preferred to shut her eyes to the fact of there being any
danger in delay. But all this time I am standing in the inner _salle_
with that little hot feverish hand in mine.
‘Why must you go to the convent, Ange?’
‘There is no particular necessity, Hilda,’ she answered, yet she would
not meet my eyes as she did so, ‘but it is a pleasure to me, and I feel
as if I could not breathe in the house this weather. I know all the
sisters well, and their parlours are so cool and pleasant. I feel like
another creature inside the convent walls.’
‘I hope you are not thinking of joining their community, Ange?’
‘Oh no—oh no!’—with a vivid blush; ‘I am not good enough.’
‘I don’t know about that, but we certainly can’t afford to lose you!
However, if you are bent upon going this morning, may I go with you?’
A startled look came into her eyes.
‘Into the convent, do you mean?’
‘No! not so far as that! Only to walk to the gates with you.’
‘Oh! do, Hilda! I shall be very glad of your company. It is a lonely
path over the hill.’
So I was mistaken, after all, and had wronged the little maid in
thinking that Mr. Charteris must be her cavalier on these occasions.
We walked together through the blazing light over the fern covered hill,
and conversed pleasantly on all the topics that interest young women
most. Once I tried to sound her on the subject of Charteris, but she
shrunk from it so visibly that I had not the heart to try again. It was
as if I had plunged a surgeon’s probe into a bleeding wound.
When I had kissed her pretty face for the last time, and left her behind
the great iron grille of the convent, I could not help believing that my
former supposition was correct, and Ange was brooding over the prospect
of shutting herself up for ever within its walls. This idea worried me
sadly. It would be like a living death for her!
And what else but the burden of a committed wrong could have made Ange’s
thoughts turn that way? Could she have discovered more of her father’s
pecuniary affairs than Tessie and I knew of? and did the knowledge of
disgrace and debt weigh her mind down to that extent that she longed to
bury herself from the sight of the world? Or did the poor child imagine
that the burthen of one less to keep and provide for would be of any
substantial benefit to the family purse?
These questions occupied my mind for half the way back again—until I
came, indeed, upon a figure in a velveteen shooting-suit, stretched out
at full length upon the thyme-scented grass, and lazily inhaling the
light breeze that was wafted across the stream in the valley, and just
lifted occasionally a curl of dark hair from his brow.
It was that of my French master, Armand, Baron de Nesselrode.
I feel I have reached a point when I must make a confession—namely, that
since the memorable day upon which I was frightened by the dog-wolf on
the Piron road, I had received more than one French lesson from the
gentleman in question. I had never made a single appointment with him
for the purpose; but he seemed to be ubiquitous, and to pop up wherever
I went, so that although the verbs I mastered with him were
_accidentals_, I had acquired quite a remarkable fluency in
conversation, and never felt at a loss to express what I meant.
He said I learned quicker than anybody he had known before; but I
suppose, if ‘practice makes perfect,’ there was not so much credit due
to me as he would have made me believe. Once I remember I stopped to ask
myself if I were studying the French language so diligently _for
Tessie’s sake_, and I was fain to answer ‘No.’
Indeed, I am afraid that by this time Tessie’s interests had been
withdrawn from the firm altogether. She was very stupid so I inwardly
decided; she would not come forward and make the best of herself in the
Baron’s presence, and in consequence it was impossible he could discover
what a good wife he would gain in her, and so I had given them both up
as a bad job.
If people _wouldn’t_ find out what was best for themselves, it was
useless wasting my time upon them. So Tessie’s merits had ceased to be
dragged in by the head and shoulders, as a topic of conversation between
Armand and me, and we only talked of such things as were most agreeable
to ourselves.
‘Well, monsieur,’ I exclaimed, as I came up with him, ‘and what may you
be doing here?’
‘I followed you, mademoiselle.’
‘That is a pretty confession! How could you tell I had come this way?’
‘I saw Mademoiselle Ange and you leave the curé’s house together.’
‘And so you have been dogging our footsteps,’ I said, as I threw myself
down on the grass he had just quitted.
The Baron accepted my action as an invitation to resume his seat.
‘It is about time you accounted for yourself,’ I continued jestingly. ‘I
don’t think we have seen you for two whole days.’
‘Is it only two days?’ he said, in a melancholy voice. ‘It seems like
two weeks to me.’
‘Why, monsieur, what is the matter with you? Not moping again, I hope! I
thought you promised me to be brave and keep your heart up, in hope of
better times.’
He sighed deeply.
‘That was a week ago,’ he answered.
‘And what of that? You are talking mysteries to me.’
‘Mademoiselle,’ said the Baron, suddenly changing the topic, ‘do you
remember telling me the day we talked together on the road to Piron,
that there is no “stooping” in honest labour?’
‘I do.’
‘I have thought much and earnestly of your words since then. I look back
on the years that have passed since my great misfortune, and I see they
have all been spent in idleness and waste of mind and body! I cannot
recall them: they are gone and done for: they must be left to give their
own account hereafter. But for the few that remain before I hope to take
my station in society again I am determined, if possible, not to blush.
I have made up my mind, mademoiselle. I am going to work.’
‘I am sincerely glad to hear you say so!’ I exclaimed.
‘If you are glad, it is all I ask. I will try to be glad also.’
‘But what are you going to do?’
‘I wrote to a friend at Court some weeks ago, telling him all, and
asking his assistance to procure me fit employment until I should hold
my own again. His answer arrived three days back. In it he offers me the
post of _Ministre d’affaires_ in—in—Algiers.’
‘_Algiers!_’
As I repeated the word after him, all the broad smiling landscape of
hill and dale and stream which lay spread out before me seemed to be
enveloped in a black mist that hid it from my view. A hoarse sound like
the rushing of water was in my ears, and a horrid ‘whirring’ like wheels
in my brain; then it all cleared off again. The sun broke out over the
valley, my senses had returned; but I thought that the earth would never
look the same to me again.
‘Do you not congratulate me?’ inquired Monsieur de Nesselrode, quietly.
‘It is a charming climate, I understand, and the place is peopled with
French. The salary is almost nominal, so are the duties; but the
position is one that I can accept without blushing, and I shall, at all
events, have an arena for work amongst my countrymen, small as it may
be.’
‘Yes.’
‘Does not the appointment meet your views for me? Will it not be better
than dragging out four more years of idleness and false shame at the
Château des Roses?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘I am not capable of much at present, you know, whatever I may be
hereafter. You—in the goodness of your heart and friendship—may think me
fit for a higher post, but I feel I am not. I have crippled my powers by
nonusage: I must crawl now before I can fly. Perhaps, after a year or
two, I may be fit for something better than the ministration of affairs
in such a place as Algiers.’
‘I am sure you will.’
I was so angry with myself for not being able to say something better to
him than this. I saw he wanted encouragement to take up this paltry
appointment in a strange country. He had applied for it solely on my
recommendation, and now that it had come, I had no words in which to
praise and thank him for the compliment he had paid to my advice.
But Algiers—a place so far removed from all his friends, and replete, as
I ignorantly imagined, with dangers from climate and people—I did not
expect that my counsel would have taken so unwelcome a form.
‘You do not congratulate me, mademoiselle,’ he repeated presently. ‘Do
you not consider the prospect a good one?’
‘Oh yes,’ I answered nervously; ‘very good indeed—that is, it is rather
far from here, is it not, monsieur?’
‘It is very far,’ he said gravely. ‘I do not suppose, when I have once
left it, that I shall ever see St. Pucelle again; for the remembrances
of the old château have no charm for me. A few weeks back, I would have
declared myself ready to bear anything sooner than go to Algiers; but
things that have come to my knowledge lately have made me think that the
greater distance I put between myself and this place the better.’
‘Have you any fresh trouble?’ I inquired anxiously, for he was my best
friend in St. Pucelle, and I had come to be interested in all that
befell him.
‘Yes, a very deep trouble!’
‘What is it, monsieur? Will you not tell me?’
He turned round upon his side, so that his face could look directly into
mine.
‘If I tell you, will you promise not to be angry with me, nor to feel
less my friend than you do now?’
‘I promise!’
But there was an expression in his eyes that made me drop my own, I
could not look at him.
‘Remember, before I speak, how much I wish you well. Hilde!’ (he had
never called me by that name before), ‘if I could give you happiness by
cutting off my right arm, I would do it at this moment. So that I am
really and honestly glad to know that you are glad. The pain only is
mine, _amie chérie_; and I can bear that bravely, so long as all is well
with you.’
‘Monsieur, I do not understand what you mean!’
‘When this appointment was first offered me, I thought I could not take
it. I thought it would be impossible to leave St. Pucelle and you. But
only a few hours afterwards I met Mademoiselle Markham, and she told me
all about your _affaire de cœur_, and I was happy it should be so; only
I felt I could not stay and see it.’
‘What did she tell you?’ I asked quickly.
‘That you are _fiancée_ to Monsieur Sandilands. Ah, you need not blush,
Hilde! It is all right if you wish it so. But for me it is better I
should go to Algiers, and forget the pleasant times that we have spent
together.’
‘Armand!’ I said vehemently, ‘it is a lie! I am not _fiancée_ to Mr.
Sandilands, nor to anybody.’
How his face changed from quiet melancholy to radiant hope. The dullest
eye might have interpreted that look.
‘What!’ he exclaimed. ‘You are free!’
‘I _am_ free.’
‘And you are sorry I am going to Algiers?’
‘I _am_ sorry!’
I do not know if there ever lived any women in this world (such as some
novelists depict for us) who could cast away the whole of their lives’
happiness for want of a single word to clear up a misunderstanding—but
if so, I am not one of them. Armand de Nesselrode looked me full in the
face as he put that question, and I should have been ashamed of myself,
if I had not answered him truthfully.
‘Hilde!’ he said passionately, ‘will you go with me?’
Then I felt that my woman’s victory was won, and I could afford to be
silent and let silence speak for me.
‘I should not have dared to ask for this,’ he went on rapidly, ‘had it
not been for the sweet encouragement your words have given me. You have
told me that you despise wealth in comparison with love; that you rank a
true heart and a strong arm above any earthly advantage, and that you
think my honour still unstained. Will you take me, then, beloved Hilde,
a poor man, disgraced in the eyes of the world, and with nothing to
offer the woman he would make his wife, except a true affection and an
earnest desire to prove himself worthy of hers? Oh, Hilde! do not keep
me in suspense. I have loved you ever since the day you prayed for me in
St. Marie?’
I raised my eyes and looked at the dear face lifted so pleadingly to my
own, and felt that nothing on this earth could repay me for the loss I
should sustain in losing him.
‘Armand,’ I said tremblingly, ‘I must go with you to Algiers—because I
don’t pronounce French half as well yet as you would wish to hear me do
it, you know!’
And then I put my head down in my hands and burst into tears, from sheer
excess of happiness.
I shall not write down here how he soothed me. Were I not my own
biographer I might be able to tell it, but from the moment Armand said
he loved me, our affection has been too sacred a thing for me to make
public. In half an hour we were still sitting on that grass, chatting
away as if we had been engaged for years, and making all sorts of plans
for the future.
I confided to him my money matters and Mr. Lovett’s strange dealings
with me regarding them, and he told me how much his card transactions
with the reverend gentleman had got him into debt, and how he proposed
to liquidate it so that we might start free when we were married.
And we mutually agreed not to say a word of what had passed between us
that morning, until after Mr. Warrington’s visit had been paid to St.
Pucelle, and my affairs with my guardian set straight again.
‘Oh, how charming it was sitting in that lovely sunlight, and talking of
the happy days to come! Algiers no longer seemed a horrid desert,
situated a thousand leagues away from St. Pucelle. Our love had drawn it
closer, and peopled it with pleasant forms and faces, until it looked
like fairyland! I had but one regret amidst my pleasure: that my dear
mother had not lived to see it! Bear witness for me, best beloved of
parents, that you were not forgotten in your lonely grave in Norwood at
that most ecstatic moment of my existence, for the tears ran down my
cheeks as I recalled your love for me, and I told Armand what he had
lost in never knowing it.’
‘I will be thy mother and thy father and thy everything to thee,
_chérie_,’ he answered, with the sweet _tu-toy_ that sounded like music
in my ears; ‘only let me wipe away those tears, and see my Baronne smile
again!’
It was difficult to remain subject to any melancholy long, whilst under
the influence of Armand’s new-born happiness. His face positively beamed
with joy. I had never caught even a glimpse of such an expression on his
countenance before.
‘I let thee go, my Hilde!’ he said, when I had persuaded him that after
four hours’ absence from the house I ran the risk of being questioned as
to how I had spent my time, ‘but I shall count the moments till we meet
again.’
‘But thou wilt never feel lonely now, Armand,’ I replied. ‘Thou wilt
look forward to the future we shall spend hand-in-hand.’
‘I shall look forward to the time, my friend, when the angel who watches
over me shall fold her wings upon my heart,’ he answered.
It is very nice to be called an angel! I almost believed I was one by
the time we got back to the house. But we had to walk with the utmost
propriety through the town—at least three feet apart—and to bow to each
other most politely as we parted at the door.
‘Art thou sure thou art not _fiancée_ to Monsieur Sandilands?’ whispered
Armand, as he doffed his hat to me, and the look of perfect happiness
upon his face as he said so, gave me the strangest joy my life had ever
known.
[Illustration: [Fleuron]]