ADELINE DE CASTELLA.
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."
"_You_ can 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---to _you!_ 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. _You_ have 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 of _him_," 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."
"_I_ know 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 I _don't_ understand 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; I _would 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 it _is!_"
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, _convince_ her,
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 let _me_ run 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!
Adeline de Castella grew gradually better; apparently quite well. But
the cold winds and frosts of winter continued that year very late,
even to the end of April, and for all that period she was kept a close
prisoner to the house. The medical men recommended that she should
spend the following winter in a warmer climate. It was therefore
decided that the summer should be passed at the Château de Beaufoy, as
had been previously agreed upon, and, with the autumn, they would go
south.
A new rumour reached the schoolgirls--that Adeline was about to be
married. It was brought to them by Madéleine de Gassicourt, and her
friends were intimate with the Castellas.
That was a singular year, so far as weather went. Frost and snow,
drizzling rain, bleak and biting winds, alternated with each other to
the beginning of May: there had been no spring; but, with that month,
May, there came in summer. It was hotter than it often is in July. And
this hot weather lasted for several months.
It was the second day of this premature summer, and the usual Thursday
holiday at Madame de Nino's. The girls were in the inner court,
Rose in a furious state of indignation, and ready to quarrel with
every one, because she had not been fetched out, when the roll of
carriage-wheels was heard, and they peeped through a slit in the great
wooden door so as to get a glimpse of the gate of the outer courtyard.
Springing down the steps of the carriage, came Adeline de Castella,
followed by her mother. A shout of delight arose, excited fingers
pushed back the great lock, and a group burst into the outer
courtyard. Adeline ran towards them, as delighted as they were. Madame
de Castella, with an amused laugh and a pleasant word, passed on to
the apartments of Madame de Nino, and Mademoiselle Henriette ordered
forth Julie, and had the door double-locked.
Adeline looked infinitely beautiful: for though the face had little
more colour in it than there is in Parian marble, the features
retained all their exquisite contour, the flowing hair its silky
waves, the dark-brown, lustrous eyes their sweet and sad expression.
In the midst of Adeline de Castella's brilliant loveliness, there was,
and always had been, a peculiar expression of sadness pervading her
countenance. It never failed to strike on the notice of the beholder,
investing such a face as hers with a singular interest, but it was
more than usually observable since her illness. Was it that the
unearthly part of her, the spirit, conscious of and mourning for what
was in store for her, cast its shadow upon her features? The girls
crowded round silently to look at Adeline's teeth, for one day, during
the time she lay ill, Charlotte Singleton had said that the
transparent teeth of Adeline de Castella were an indication of a
consumptive tendency, and the girls could not agree amongst themselves
whether they were so very transparent.
"So I have come to see you at last," began Adeline, as she sat down
with her two friends, Rose and Mary, on the bench outside the
schoolroom windows. "What hot weather has come in all at once!"
"Adeline, how long your illness has been! We heard you were going to
Nice."
"Not until autumn. And I don't know whether it will be Nice."
"There's Julie!" cried Rose, springing up. "Julie, who's fetched?"
"Pas vous, mademoiselle," answered the servant, laughing at Rose's
anxiety.
"Ah bah! Adeline, we have heard something else. Ah! you know what I
mean. Is it true?"
"I believe it is," she answered, a faint blush upon her face, and a
careless smile.
"Is he handsome?" continued Rose. Of course the first thought that
would arise to _her_.
"I have never seen him."
"Oh, Adeline!" uttered Mary Carr, involuntarily, whilst Rose stared
with unqualified amazement.
"Not yet. He comes from Paris this week to pay us a visit."
"Who is he?"
"The Baron de la Chasse. Do you recollect seeing, on my ball night, an
old gentleman who remained most of the evening by the side of papa?"
"Yes. Well?" answered Rose, impatiently.
"It seems he made overtures then to papa for my hand, though I did not
know it, and----"
"It is a sin, an unholy thing, to sacrifice you to an old man!"
interrupted Mary Carr, starting up in her sharp disappointment. "Why,
his sands of life must be well-nigh run out!"
"A moment, Mary," rejoined Adeline, calmly laying her hand upon Miss
Carr's arm: "who is hasty now? That old man's sands are run out. He
died soon after he had played his part in that festal night, which he
had come down from Paris purposely to join in. He and papa were old
and very dear friends; closer friends it would not be possible to
conceive, though there was a difference of twenty years in their ages.
His nephew inherits his fortune and title, and it is for him they
destine me."
"How old is he?" inquired Rose.
"I have not asked," said Adeline. "Mamma says he is good-looking. It
appears that this scheme of uniting the families has been a project of
years, though they never told me. Had my sister lived, the honour was
to have fallen to her."
"I hope you will be happy," observed Miss Carr.
"Thank you, Mary. But you speak with hesitation."
"Not as to the _wish_. The hope might be more assured if you already
knew, and loved, him who is to be your husband. It is a great hazard
to promise to marry one whom we have never seen."
"It is the way these things are managed in France," said Adeline.
"And the cause that such doubtful felicity condescends to alight on a
French _mènage_," broke forth Rose, who had been temporarily silent.
"The wives make it out in their intrigues, though. It is a dangerous
game, Adeline. Take care."
"I hope you do not consider it necessary to warn _me_ against such
danger," exclaimed Adeline, the crimson flying to her cheeks.
"No; for you have not a particle of the French nature about you,"
fearlessly returned Rose. "To you, strong in right principle, in
refinement of feeling, it can bring only suffering--a yearning after
what must never be."
"Englishwomen do not always marry where they love," mused Adeline.
"Seldom or never," answered Rose. "With them the passion is generally
over. They go more into society, have opportunities of mixing freely,
as girls, with the other sex, which you have not, and so the years
pass, and by the time their marriage comes, the heart is at rest; its
life has left it."
"Then their marriage, even by your own showing, seems to be much on a
par with what mine will be."
"Their marriage is, Adeline, but their love is over, _yours has to
come_. There lies the difficulty: and the danger."
"Where did you get all these wise ideas from?" inquired Adeline, much
amused.
"I'm not an idiot," was Rose's answer. "And I am apt to speak freely
when I feel disappointed. I thought you would be sure to marry an
Englishman. You have often said so, and you admire the English so much
more than you do the French. You remember that handsome Englishman, of
French-marigold memory? I set it down in my mind that your destiny and
his were to be linked together."
"You have set many things down in your mind, Rose, that never had
place out of it," retorted Adeline, with a merry laugh. "I have not
seen him since that night, and probably never shall see him again."
"Mademoiselle Rose Darling," exclaimed Clotilde, putting her head out
at the schoolroom window.
"Oh the joy!" cried Rose, as she flew away. "I know it's the
Singletons."
The Baron de la Chasse arrived from Paris, and was betrothed to
Adeline de Castella. A small circle of friends were invited to meet
him on the evening of the betrothment, and Adeline did not forget a
promise she had made to invite Rose and Mary Carr.
A man of thirty years, of middle height, and compact, well-made
figure; pleasing features, regular in their contour; auburn hair,
curly and luxuriant by nature, but sheared off to bristles; yellow
whiskers, likewise sheared, and a great fierce yellow moustache with
curled corners. Somehow Rose, when Adeline said he was good-looking,
had pictured to herself a tall, handsome man: she caught sight of the
cropped hair and the moustache, and went through the introduction with
her handkerchief to her mouth, splitting with laughter. Yet there was
no mistaking the baron for anything but a gentleman and a high-bred
man.
"Mary!" whispered Rose, when she found the opportunity, "what a
sacrifice for Adeline!"
"How do you mean? Domestic happiness does not lie in looks. And if it
did, the baron's are not so bad."
"But look at his sheared hair, and those frightful moustaches! Why
does he not cut the ends off, and dye them brown?"
"Perhaps he is afraid of their turning green--if he has read 'Ten
Thousand a Year.'"
"Oh, Adeline! Adeline! I wonder if she is really betrothed to him?"
"That's a superfluous wonder of yours, Rose," said Mary Carr. "The
white wreath is on her head, and the betrothal ring on her finger."
"If a shaven goat--and that's what _he_ is--put the ring upon mine, I
should look out for some one else to take it off again," retorted
Rose. "Dear Adeline!" she continued, as the latter advanced, "let me
see your ring."
Adeline drew off her glove and her ring together.
"You should not have taken it from your finger," remarked Mary Carr.
"We hold a superstition in Holland--some do--that a betrothal ring,
once removed from the finger, will never be exchanged for a nuptial
one."
"Sheer nonsense, like most other superstitions," said Adeline; and her
perfect indifference of manner proved that no love had entered into
_her_ betrothal--as, indeed, how should it?
"What had you both to do?"
"Only sign some writings, and then he placed the ring on my finger.
Nothing more."
"Except a sealing kiss," said Rose, saucily.
The colour stole over Adeline's face. Even her fair open brow, as it
met the chaplet of white roses, became flushed.
"Who but you, Rose, would dream of these vulgar familiarities?" she
remonstrated. "Amongst the French, they would be looked upon as the
very essence of bad taste."
"_Taste!_" ejaculated Rose, contemptuously. "If you loved, you would
know better. Wait until you do, Adeline, and then remember my
words--and yours. It does not require much time for love to grow, if
it will grow at all," she continued, in that half-abstracted manner
which was now frequent with her--as if she were communing with
herself, rather than talking to another.
"Probably not," remarked Adeline, with indifference. "But even you,
Rose, susceptible as you are known to be, will scarcely admit that a
few hours are sufficient to call it forth."
"Nor a twelvemonth either, situated as you and he are," replied Rose,
vehemently. "The very fact of being expected and required to love in
any given quarter, must act as a sure preventive."
M. de la Chasse drew up, and entered into conversation with them. He
appeared a sensible, agreeable man, at home in all the polite and
literary topics of the day. In his manner towards Adeline, though
never losing the ceremonious politeness of a Frenchman, there was a
degree of gallantry (I don't know any better word: the French would
say _empressement_) not unpleasing to witness, and, Rose thought, he
had a large share of vanity. But where you would see one of his nation
superior to him, you might see ninety-nine inferior.
"It may be a happy marriage after all, Rose," observed Miss Carr, when
they were once more alone.
"Possibly. If she can only induce him to let his hair grow, and to
part with those yellow tails."
"Be serious if you can," reproved Mary Carr. "He seems to be in a fair
way to love Adeline."
"He admires Adeline," dissented Rose; "is proud of her, and no doubt
excessively gratified that so charming a girl should fall to his lot
without any trouble on his part. But if you come to speak of love, it
sets one wondering how much of _that_ enters into the composition of a
French husband."
No shadow, or doubt of the future, appeared that night to sit upon the
spirit of Adeline de Castella. There was a radiant look in her
countenance, rarely seen; hiding, for the moment, that touching
expression of sorrow and sadness, so natural to it. As the betrothed
of a few hours, in a few months to be a wife, she was the worshipped
idol of those around her, and this called forth what latent vanity
there was in her heart, and she was happy. She could only think it a
great thing to be an engaged girl. All do. Why should Adeline de
Castella be an exception?
How little did she know, or think, or suspect, the true nature of the
contract she had that day made in her blindness!--what it involved,
what it was to bring forth for her!
The Château de Beaufoy, formerly belonging to the Chevalier de
Beaufoy, was now the property and residence of his widow. She was of
English birth, as you have heard. Of her two children, the younger was
the wife of Signor de Castella; the other, Agnes de Beaufoy, a maiden
lady, had never left her. The property was situated near to Odesque, a
small town some leagues from Belport on the Paris line of railroad.
The Castellas departed for the château on their promised summer's
visit. Mary Carr accompanied them at the pressing invitation of
Adeline. But Madame de Nino would only grant her leave for a week.
Adeline de Castella had represented the château in glowing colours;
which caused Mary Carr to be surprised, not to say disappointed, when
she saw it. A long, straight, staring, whitish-grey building, all
windows and chimneys, with a primly-laid-out garden stretched before
it, flat and formal. Precise flower-beds, square, oval, round; round,
square, oval; and long paths, straight and narrow; just as it is the
pride of French château-gardens to be. The principal entrance to the
house was gained by a high, broad flight of steps, on either side of
which was a gigantic lion, grinning its fierce teeth at all visitors.
And these lions, which were not alive, but carved out of stone, and
the steps, were the only relief given to the bare, naked aspect of the
edifice. Before the house were two fountains, the carriage approach
running between them. Each was surrounded by eight smaller lions, with
another giant of the same species spouting up water from its mouth.
Very ugly and devoid of taste it all looked to Mary Carr. But on the
western side of the château improvements were visible. A stone
terrace, or colonnade, wide, and supported by pillars, with a flight
of steps at each end and in the middle, rose before its windows, and
lovely pleasure-grounds extended out to the far distance. A verdant,
undulating lawn; fragrant shrubs; retired walks, where the trees met
overhead; sheltered banks, grateful to recline upon in the noonday
sun; a winding shrubbery; a transparent lake: all of their kind
charming. For all this, Beaufoy was indebted to the taste of its
English mistress.
In the neighbourhood, within easy drives, were located other châteaux,
forming a pleasant little society. The nearest house was only
half-a-mile distant, and the reader is requested to take especial
notice of it, since he will sometimes go there. It was not a château,
not half large enough for one, and Beaufoy, with its English ideas,
had christened it "The Lodge."
It was a compact little abode, belonging to the Count d'Estival, an
intimate friend of the Beaufoy family. This M. d'Estival was gifted by
nature with an extraordinary love for painting and the fine arts. He
had built a room to the lodge expressly for the reception of pictures,
had travelled much, and was continually adding to his collection.
Whilst other people spent their money in society and display, he spent
his (and he had plenty of it) in paintings. Mary Carr was a connection
of his: her eldest brother, an English clergyman, now dead, had
married his niece, Emma d'Estival. You have heard of these Carrs
before, in a previous work: of their birth and residence in Holland;
of the singular romance attending the early history of their father
and mother; of the remarkable action at law in Westerbury, by which
their rights were established. You will not hear more of them in this
history, for I don't suppose you like _réchauffés_ more than I do.