THE UNEXPLAINED REASON.
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; _this_ seemed 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. _Has_ it 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, you _cannot_ really 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. I _cannot_ understand mamma. What though
Charlotte _is_ the 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! And _his_ love, 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."