JEALOUSY.
The grey walls of the Château de Beaufoy basked idly in the evening
sun. In the western drawing-room, M. and Madame de Castella, the old
lady, and Agnes de Beaufoy were playing whist. Its large window was
thrown open to the terrace or colonnade, where had gathered the
younger members of the party, the green-striped awning being let down
between some of the outer pillars. Mary Carr and Adeline were seated,
unravelling a heap of silks, which had got into a mess in the ivory
work-basket; Rose Darling flitted about amongst the exotics, her fine
hair shining like threads of gold when, ever and anon, it came in
contact with the sunlight, as she flirted--it was very like it--with
Mr. St. John. But Rose began to turn cross, for he teased her.
"Did you write to England for the song today?" she asked. "Ah, don't
answer: I see you forgot it. Most of the writing you are guilty of
goes to one person, I expect. No wonder you forget other matters."
"Indeed! To whom?"
"I won't betray you now," glancing at Adeline. "I will be
compassionate."
"Pray don't trouble yourself about compassion for me, ma belle,"
returned Mr. St. John, in a provokingly slighting manner. "It will be
thrown away."
"Compassion for _you_, Mr. St. John! Don't flatter yourself. I was
thinking of another."
Adeline looked up: a sharp, perplexed glance.
"You are mysterious, Rose," said he, laughing.
"Yes. But I could speak out if I would"
"I dare you," answered Mr. St. John. "Speak away."
"You know there is one in England, who monopolizes all your
letters--not to speak of your dreams."
"Rose!" exclaimed Mary Carr, a dim shadow of Rose's meaning darting
uneasily across her. "How can you talk this nonsense to Mr. St. John?"
"He asked for it. But he knows it is true. Look at his conscious face
now!" she saucily continued.
"The only lady in England honoured with my correspondence," said he,
in a more serious tone than he had hitherto spoken, "is Mrs. St.
John."
"That's almost true," cried the provoking girl--"almost. She is not
Mrs. St. John yet, only _to be_."
A strange wild spasm caught Adeline de Castella's heart. Would Rose
have continued, had she known it? Did St. John suspect it?
"I spoke of my mother, Rose," he said. "She is the only lady who
claims, or receives, letters from me."
"Honour bright?" asked Rose.
"Honour bright," repeated Mr. St. John: "the honour of her only son."
"Oh, faithless that you are then!" burst forth Rose. "Will you deny
that there is one in England to whom your letters are due, if not
sent; one whose shadow you were for many, many months--if not
years--one, beautiful as a painters dream?"
"Bah, Rose!" he said, his lips curling with a proud, defiant smile,
"you are lapsing into ecstasies."
"Shall I tell her name--the name of his own true lady-love?" asked
Rose, turning round, a world of triumph on her bright, laughing brow.
"Mary Carr knows it already."
"You are out of your senses!" exclaimed Mary Carr, all too eagerly.
"Don't impose your fabulous tales on us."
"Shall I tell it?" repeated Rose, maintaining her ground and her
equanimity.
"Tell it," said Mr. St. John, carelessly. Did he think she knew so
much!
"Tell it," repeated Adeline, but it was the motion of the syllables,
rather than the words, that came from between her white and parted
lips.
"Sarah Beauclerc."
A transient surprise crossed Mr. St. John's countenance, and was gone
again. _Adeline saw it_: and from that wild, bitter moment, a pang of
anguish took root within her, which was never to be erased during
life.
"You are under a slight misapprehension, Rose," said Mr. St. John,
with indifference.
"Am I? The world was under another, perhaps, when it asserted that the
honour of Mr. St. John's hand would fall to Sarah Beauclerc."
"That it certainly was--if it ever did assert it. And I might believe
it possible, were the world peopled with Rose Darlings."
"Look here," exclaimed Rose, snatching his pocket-handkerchief from a
gilt cage, where he had thrown it to protect the beautiful bird from
the rays of the setting sun. "Look at this, 'Frederick St. John,'
worked in hair!"
It happened to be the handkerchief they had picked up that first
morning in the painting-room. Rose talked on, in the recklessness of
her spirits; and Adeline sat, drinking-in her words.
"_She_ did this for him, I have not the least doubt. Look how
elaborately it is worked, even to the finishings of the crest. It is
her hair, Sarah Beauclerc's."
A random assertion. Rose neither knew nor cared whether she was right.
In her present humour she would have stood to anything. It is
possible: not likely, but barely possible: that she had stumbled on a
bit of fact. Mr. St. John remained supremely indifferent, denying
nothing. She talked on in her access of gaiety.
"This is his favourite handkerchief: I have noticed that. The others
are marked with ink. I dare say she _gave_ the handkerchief, as well
as marked it. Let it alone, Mr. St. John: I shall show it round, if I
like. A rather significant present from so lovely a girl! But it's
known she was _folle_ after him. He reciprocated the compliment then:
he was always at the dean's. I don't know how it may be now," she
added, after a pause, and there was a significant meaning in her tone
as she looked to Adeline. Then, with a saucy glance at Mr. St. John,
she sang out, in her clear, rich voice, to a tune of her own,
"It is well to be off with the old love,
Before you are on with the new."
Adeline rose, and passed quietly into the drawing-room, her step
self-possessed, her bearing calm: the still exterior covers the
deepest suffering. But Mr. St. John suspected nothing.
"Rose," he said, quoting a French axiom, "vous aimez bien à rire, mais
rien n'est beau que le vrai."
"Ah," she answered, with another, "ce n'est pas être bien aise que de
rire." Perhaps the deepest truth she had uttered that evening.
With outward calmness _there_, but oh! the whirlwind of despairing
agony which shook Adeline's frame as she sank down by the bedside in
her own chamber! That in one short minute, desolation so complete
should have swept over her heart, and she be able to endure it and
live! I tell you no false story: I am writing of one of those
sensitive hearts which must thus suffer and be shaken. To have given
up her whole love to one, in a passion little short of idolatry; to
have forgotten early ties and kindred in the spell of this strong
devotion--and now to be told there was _another_ to claim his vows,
another to whom they had first been offered!
The dream in which she had been living for months was over--or, at
least, it had been robbed of its golden colouring. The serpent DOUBT
had found its entrance into her heart: the fiend JEALOUSY had taken
possession of it, never to be wholly eradicated.
Frederick St. John was certainly one of earth's favoured people, with
his manly beauty and his master intellect. It seemed to her that the
world might worship him without a blush. He had made her life the
Elysium that poets tell of; and now she found that he loved, or had
loved, another. Like an avalanche falling down the Alps and crushing
the hapless traveller, so had these tidings fallen upon her heart, and
_shattered_ it.
Adeline de Castella smoothed her brow at last, and returned
downstairs. She had taken no account of the time; but, by the advanced
twilight, it would seem she had been away an hour, and Rose inquired
whether she had been buried.
Following Adeline on to the colonnade, where the whole party were now
seated, came the old Spanish servant, Silva, bearing a letter for Mr.
St. John. The ominous words, "très pressée," written on it, had caused
Madame Baret to despatch it with haste to the château.
"Does any one wait?" he inquired.
"Si, Señor."
"It is well," he said, and retreated inside the room.
"You have received bad news!" exclaimed Madame de Castella, when he
reappeared.
"I have," he said, with controlled emotion. "I must depart instantly
for England." And it was well the shades of evening were gathering, or
they would inevitably have seen the death-like pallor on Adeline's
stricken face.
Mr. St. John handed them the letter to read. A dangerous accident had
happened to his mother. The horses of her carriage took fright, and
she opened the door and jumped out. The physicians feared concussion
of the brain.
"Are you going?" exclaimed M. de Castella, as St. John held out his
hand.
"Yes. I feel every moment wasted that does not speed me on my
journey."
And in another instant he was gone. Without a word more of adieu to
Adeline than he gave to the rest. There was no opportunity for it.
"I don't know that I would have angered him, had I foreseen this,"
cried Rose, candidly, as she lingered on the terrace with Adeline.
"_Did_ you anger him?"
"I think I did. A little bit. He should not have dared me to it."
Adeline looked over the balustrades as she listened, seeing nothing. A
painful question was upon her lips; but her poor sensitive heart--how
unfit it was for the wear and tear of life!--beat so violently that
she had to wait before she put it.
"What you said was not _true_, Rose?"
"What did I say?" rejoined Rose, whose thoughts had veered to fifty
other things in her light carelessness.
"That he loved--what was the name?--Sarah Beauclerc."
The pretty assumption of forgetfulness! "What was the name?" As if the
name, every distinct letter of it, had not engraved itself on her
brain in letters of fire, when it was first spoken! Rose answered
impulsively.
"It was quite true, Adeline. He knows that it is true. I as certainly
believed that he loved her, as that we are standing here. People say
she would have been his wife before this, but for the dispute, or
estrangement, or whatever it is, between him and his brother. He can't
marry until his debts are cleared: and he is living quietly to clear
them. You should hear what Margaret says about it; she told me a great
deal the very day before I came here."
Her crushed heart fluttered against her side. "She is nice-looking,
you say?"
"Nice-looking! she's beautiful! One of the loveliest girls in society.
A fair, proud face, just as proud as his own. Georgina Beauclerc is
very pretty; but she's nothing beside her."
She could have cried aloud in her anguish as she listened to these
praises of her rival: and how she schooled her voice to maintain its
calm indifference, she knew not.
"Who is Georgina Beauclerc?"
"Her cousin. She's the daughter of the Dean of Westerbury: Fred St.
John's native place, you know. Sarah is the daughter of the dean's
brother, General Beauclerc. Her mother's dead, the Lady Sarah; and
since then she has lived with the dean. In point of family it would be
a suitable match; and I dare say in point of fortune."
"And in point of love?"
There was a peculiar sound in the hesitation, a tremor which struck on
Rose's ear. She turned her face full on Adeline's.
"I believe with all my heart, from what I've heard, that there _was_
love between them," answered Rose. "Perhaps _is_. Adeline, I don't say
this in ill-nature, but because it may be good for you to know it. I
am careless and random in general, but I _can_ be serious; and I am
speaking seriously now. He is a gay-mannered man, you know, a general
admirer; those attractive men usually are so; but I have little doubt
that his love was given to Sarah Beauclerc."
Rose went into the room with the last sentence. She had really spoken
from a good motive. Believing that Adeline was getting to like
Frederick St. John more than was good for her, consistently with her
engagement to the French baron, a word in season might act as a
warning. Little did Rose suspect how far things had gone between them.
An hour passed. All save Adeline were gathered in the lighted room.
Some were playing chess, some écarté, some were telling Father Marc,
who had dropped in, of the young Englishman's sudden departure for
England and its cause. Rose was at the piano, singing English songs in
a subdued voice. Never was there a sweeter voice than hers: and old
Madame de Beaufoy could have listened always to the bygone songs of
her native land.
Adeline had not stirred from the terrace; she was leaning still on its
balustrades, gazing forth apparently into the night. But that Madame
de Castella did not observe her absence, she had been called in long
ago, out of the night air.
"Oh, beware, my lord, of jealousy!
It is a green-eyed monster, which doth make
The food it feeds on."
That reader of the human heart never put forth a greater truth, a more
needed warning. How vainly! We can smile now, we can wonder at the
"trifles" that once mocked us; but we did not smile at the time. It is
asserted that where there is love, impassioned love, there must be
jealousy; and who shall venture to dispute it? Love is most exacting.
Its idol must not listen to a tender word, or bestow a look of
admiration on another. The faintest shadow of a suspicion will invoke
the presence of jealousy; what then when facts and details are put
forth, as they had been by Rose? It had aroused the most refined
torments of the distressing passion; and let none doubt that they were
playing their part cruelly on Adeline's heart. Not that she believed
quite all: the hint that he might be intending to marry Sarah
Beauclerc but touched her ear and fell away again. She knew enough of
his honourable nature to be certain that he would never have spoken of
marriage to herself, had he been under the slightest obligation of it
to another. But that he loved the girl with deep intensity, or had
loved her, Adeline never doubted. And so she stood on: bitterly giving
way to this strange anguish which had fallen on her; wondering how
long he would stay in England, and how often during his stay there he
would see her beautiful rival. The very fact of his having gone
without a loving word of adieu seemed a knell of unlucky omen.
But what is that movement which her eye has caught at a distance? Who
or what is it, advancing with a hasty step from the dark trees? Ah!
the wild rising of her pulse has told her, before the outlines of his
form become distinct, as he emerges into that plot of pale light! It
was _he_--he whom she thought to have looked upon at present for the
last time; and the ecstatic feeling which rushed over her spirit was
such as almost momentarily to obliterate the cruel doubts that
oppressed her. He had changed his dress, and was habited in travelling
costume. His tread over the lawn was noiseless, and little less so as
he ran up the steps to the colonnade.
"How fortunate that you are here, Adeline!" he whispered. "I could not
go without endeavouring to obtain a word with you, though I doubted
being able to accomplish it."
Adeline, painfully agitated, trembling to excess, both in her heart
and frame, murmured some confused words about the time he was losing.
"I am not losing one precious moment," he explained. "My own
preparations were soon made: not to those necessary to convey me to
Odesque. As it always happens in these emergencies, the spring
chaise--and there's nothing else to take me--had been lent out to
Farmer Pichon. Baret is gone for it, and will come on with it here,
which is all in the way. We shall catch the first train. Why do you
tremble so, my love?" he added, as the fit of ague, which seemed to
possess her, shook even his arm. "Are you cold?"
Cold! But most men would have had but the same idea.
"Now, Adeline, for one moment's grave consultation. Shall I write, and
lay my proposals before M. de Castella, or shall they wait until I
return?"
"Oh, wait to do so!" she implored. "In mercy, wait!"
"I would prefer it myself," said Mr. St. John, "for I feel I ought to
be present to support you through all that may then occur. But,
Adeline, should I be detained long, there will be no alternative: the
preparations for your wedding will soon be actively begun, and render
my speaking an act of imperative necessity."
She laid her head upon his arm, moaning.
"Cheer up," he whispered: "I am only putting the worst view of the
case. I trust that a few days may bring me back to you. Write to me
daily, Adeline: everything that occurs: I shall then be able to judge
how long I may be absent with safety. I was thinking, Adeline, as I
came along, that it might be better if my letters to you are sent
under cover to Rose or Mary. You are aware that I do not mention this
for myself--I should be proud to address you without disguise--but
for your own peace. Were I to write openly, it might force
explanations on you before my return."
Ever anxious for her! Her heart bounded with gratitude. "Under cover
to Mary Carr," she said.
"We must part now," he whispered, as a faint rumbling broke upon their
ears from the distance, "you hear my signal. It is fast approaching."
"You will come back as soon as you are at liberty?" she sighed.
"Ay, the very instant. Need you question it, Adeline?"
He strained her to his heart, and the painful tears coursed down her
cheeks. "God bless you, and take care of you, and keep you in peace
until I return; my dear, my dear, my only love!" And when he had
passed away, Adeline asked herself if that last lingering farewell
kiss, which he had pressed upon her lips--she asked herself, with
burning blushes, if she were sure it had not been returned.
And during the brief moments of this sudden interview, she had lost
sight of the torment about Sarah Beauclerc.
The second evening after Mr. St. John's departure, before they had
risen from the dinner-table, Silva brought in the letters. Two from
England amongst them, bearing on their seals, as Rose Darling
expressed it, the arms and quarterings of all the St. Johns. The one
was addressed to Madame de Castella; the other was handed to Miss
Carr.
Mary looked at it with unqualified surprise. The fact was, Adeline,
not expecting they could hear from Mr. St. John till the following
day, had put off the few words of explanation she meant to speak,
feeling shy at the task.
"Why should Mr. St. John write to me?" exclaimed Mary Carr. But
Adeline, who was sitting next her, pressed her hand convulsively,
under cover of the tablecloth, to prevent her opening it. Miss Carr
began dimly to understand, and laid the letter down by the side of her
dessert-plate.
"Why don't you open it, Mary?" repeated Rose, impatiently.
"No," said Miss Carr, in a half-joking manner, "there may be secrets
in it that I don't care to read before people." And Rose, whose
curiosity was excited, could have boxed her ears.
"Mr. St. John writes that his mother is better," said Madame de
Castella; "the injuries prove less serious than they were at first
supposed. By the next post, he hopes to send us word that she is out
of danger."
"This letter, Adeline," exclaimed Mary Carr, when they were alone--"I
fancy it may not be meant for me."
"You can open it," replied Adeline, timidly. "Perhaps--I think--there
may be one for me inside it."
Mary Carr opened the letter. It contained a few polite words from Mr.
St. John, requesting her to convey the enclosed one to Adeline at a
convenient opportunity.
"You see how it is?" faltered Adeline to her.
"I have seen it long, Adeline."
Adeline carried the letter to her chamber to read, bolting the door
that she might be free from interruption. It was a long letter,
written far more sensibly than are love-epistles in general, for it
was impossible to Mr. St. John to write otherwise; but there was a
vein of impassioned tenderness running through it, implied rather than
expressed, which surely ought to have satisfied even Adeline. But the
bitter doubts imparted by Rose that fatal night cast their shadow over
all. Not a moment of peace or happiness had she known since. Her
visions by day, her dreams by night, were crowded by images of
Frederick St. John, faithless to her, happy with another. Nor did
Sarah Beauclerc want a "shape to the mind." The day after St. John's
departure, they were looking over the last year's "Book of Beauty,"
when Rose suddenly exclaimed, as she came to one, "This is very like
Sarah Beauclerc!"
"It was great nonsense, Rose, that tale you were telling us!" cried
Adeline, with a desperate struggle to speak calmly.
"It was sober sense, and sober truth," retorted Rose.
"Not it," said Mary Carr. "It was but a flirtation, Rose."
"Very likely," assented Rose, volatile as usual. "Being an attractive
man, Mr. Frederick St. John no doubt goes in for the game, roaming
from flower to flower, a very butterfly, kissing all, and settling
upon none." And she brought her careless speech to a conclusion with
the first lines of an old song, once in great vogue at Madame de
Nino's:--
"The butterfly was a gentleman
Of no very good repute;
And he roved in the sunshine all day long,
In his scarlet and purple suit.
And he left his lady wife at home
In her own secluded bower,
Whilst he, like a bachelor, flirted about,
With a kiss for every flower.".
Adeline gazed at the portrait. It was that of a fair girlish face,
wearing a peculiarly sweet look of youth and innocence, blended with
pride. No impartial observer could have pronounced it so lovely as her
own, but the jealous film just now before her eyes caused her to take
an exaggerated view of its charms, and to see in it something more
than loveliness. It may have been little, if at all, like the young
lady to whom Rose compared it; but no matter: to Adeline it was Sarah
Beauclerc and no other, and from that moment the image fixed itself
indelibly in her mind as that of her envied rival. And yet she
believed in Mr. St. John; she knew he was seeking to win _herself_ for
his wife! Truly they are unfathomable, the ways and fears of jealousy.
At length, in her intolerable misery and suspense, she took courage,
in one of her letters to him, to hint at his former intimacy with
Sarah Beauclerc. What he answered was never disclosed by Adeline; but
that it must have been satisfactory, dispelling even _her_ strong
jealousy, may be judged from the significant fact that her face grew
radiant again.
Meanwhile Mr. St. John lingered at his mother's bedside in London. All
danger was over; and in point of fact the accident had not been so
severe as was at first feared. Lady Anne Saville was with her. Isaac
St. John was ill at Castle Wafer. It was Frederick's intention to pay
his brother a visit ere he returned to France, and get his sanction to
the proposals he intended to carry back to M. de. Castella. But this
visit was frustrated.
One afternoon the inmates of Beaufoy were startled by the unexpected
arrival of the Baron de la Chasse. Wishing to consult M. de Castella
on a little matter of business, he explained, he had done himself the
honour and pleasure to come personally, instead of writing. All
expressed themselves delighted to see him, except one; and _she_ was
nearly beside herself with consternation. Terrified and dismayed
Adeline indeed was; and she wrote to Mr. St. John before she slept.
An evening or two later, the whole party were assembled in the
billiard-room; soon about to separate for the night. A night of
intense heat, but there was a strong breeze, and it blew in through
the open windows, fluttering the lights and causing the wax to drop.
It was nearly eleven o'clock: the last game was being finished--but
the Baron was a remarkably slow, deliberate player--when, without the
slightest preparation, the door opened, and Mr. St. John walked in.
Adeline started from her seat, scarcely suppressing an involuntary
cry; she had not thought he would be back so soon. It seemed that her
letter had surprised him in the act of setting out for Castle Wafer.
He turned his steps to the Continent instead.
He looked very well; very handsome. It seemed to strike them all,
after this short absence, though he had no advantages from dress,
being in his travelling attire. How could Adeline be blamed for loving
him? A hundred inquiries were made after Mrs. St. John. She was quite
out of danger, he answered, and progressing towards recovery.
"Will you allow me the honour of half-an-hour's interview with you
tomorrow morning, sir?" he said, addressing M. de Castella, in a tone
which the whole room might hear.
"Certainly," returned M. de Castella. But he looked up, as if
surprised. "Name your hour."
"Ten o'clock," concluded Mr. St. John. And he took his leave.
The interview the following morning in Signor de Castella's cabinet
lasted an hour. An hour!--and Adeline in suspense all that time. She
could not remain for an instant in one place--now upstairs, now down.
She was crossing the hall, for about the hundredth time, when the
cabinet door opened, and Mr. St. John came out. He seized her hand and
took her into the yellow drawing-room. She trembled violently from
head to foot, just as she had trembled the night of his departure for
England. It was the first moment of their being alone together, and he
embraced her tenderly, and held her to his heart.
"You have bad news for me!" she said, at length. "We are to be
separated!"
"We will not be separated, Adeline. Strange! strange!" he continued,
as he paced the room, "that people can be so infatuated as to fancy an
engagement of form must necessarily imply an engagement of hearts! M.
de Castella does not understand--he cannot understand that your
happiness is at stake. In short, he laughed at that."
"Is he very angry?"
"No; but vexed. I have not time now to relate to you all that passed,
liable as we are to interruption. I told him that the passion which
had arisen between us was not of will--that I had not purposely placed
myself in your path to gain your love--that we had been thrown
together by circumstances, and thus it had arisen. I pointed out that
no blame could by any possibility attach to you, though it might be
due to me; for I did not deny that when I saw an attachment was
growing up between us, I might have flown before it was irrevocably
planted, and did not."
"Did you part in anger?" she asked.
"On the contrary. M. de Castella is anxious to treat the affair as a
jest, and hinted that it might be dropped as such. I do believe he
considers it one, for he asked me to dinner."
"Frederick! You will surely come?"
"I shall come, Adeline, for your sake."
"Oh!" she exclaimed, with a shiver, "how will it end?"
"My dearest," he said earnestly, "you must be calm. Fear nothing, now
I am by you. Rely upon it, you shall be my wife."
"Mr. St. John," cried Rose, as they went into the west drawing-room,
"you have brought some music for me, a writing-case for Mary Carr, but
what have you brought for Adeline?"
"Myself," he quietly answered.
"There's many a true word spoken in jest," said Rose, with a laugh.
"You don't think you have been taking _me_ in all this time, Mr. St.
John, with your letters to Mary Carr, and her envelopes back again?
Bah! pas si bête."
She went, waltzing, on to the colonnade.
Mr. St. John turned to Miss Carr, and thanked her for the very thing
Rose had named. "I presume you know," he said, "that our
correspondence was perfectly justified, though I did not wish it
declared until my return--that we are affianced to each other?"
"I have feared it some time, Mr. St. John."
"_Feared it?_"
"Yes. Adeline is promised to another: and the French look upon such
engagements as sacred."
"In a general way. But there are cases of exception. We have your good
wishes, I hope?"
"Indeed you have. For I fear it may be a matter of life or death to
Adeline--according as it may be decided. She is a sensitive plant."
"And shall be cherished as one."
It was a most uncomfortable dinner that day. Mr. St. John was present,
looking quiet and resolute; de la Chasse furious. During the afternoon
some inkling of the pretensions of Mr. St. John had oozed out, and de
la Chasse aspersed him in his absence before them all. After dinner,
Signor de Castella led the way to the billiard-room, hoping, probably,
that the knocking about of balls might dissipate the constraint. But
it came to an open rupture. Some difference of opinion arose about the
game. St. John was haughty and unbending: de la Chasse gave way to his
anger, and so far forgot himself as personally to attack, by words,
Mr. St. John. "A spendthrift, who had run through his own fortune, to
come hunting after Adeline's----"
"Vous êtes menteur!" shouted Mr. St. John, forgetting his manners, and
turning short upon the Baron. But what further he might have said was
stopped by Adeline, who, terrified out of self-control, darted across
the room, and, touching St. John's arm, whispered him to be calm for
her sake. De la Chasse advanced and offered his hand to remove
Adeline, but St. John held her by him in haughty defiance.
"Mademoiselle, you are degrading yourself!" said M. de la Chasse.
"Come from his side."
There was no answer from St. John, save a quiet smile of power, and
his retaining hold of Adeline. The Baron looked at M. de Castella, but
the scene had really passed so quickly that the latter had found no
breath to interfere. "Is it fit that my promised wife should thus be
subjected to insult in my presence, sir?" he asked.
"Adeline," interposed M. de Castella, sternly, "return to your
mother."
"She is _my_ promised wife," said Mr. St. John to the Baron, "and I
have a right to retain her here--the right of affection. A right that
_you_ will never have."
De la Chasse was foaming--presenting a very contrast to the cool
equanimity of Mr. St. John. "I will not bandy words with him: I will
not. Signor de Castella, when your salon shall be freed from that man,
I will re-enter it."
Wheeling round upon his heel, he went out, banging the door after him.
For a moment there was silence: St. John, his hold still on Adeline,
remained at the far end of the room; Signor de Castella, half
paralyzed with the scandal, was near the billiard-table; the rest were
in a group by the crimson ottoman, Agnes de Beaufoy crossing herself
perpetually, Madame de Castella the very image of dismay.
"Mademoiselle," spoke the Signor to his daughter, who was sobbing
aloud in her terror and agitation, "do you dare to disobey me? I told
you to go to your mother."
"_She_ does not disobey you, sir, and never would do so willingly,"
returned Mr. St. John. "The fault was mine."
He released his hold on Adeline as he spoke, took her hand with almost
ceremonious politeness, and conducted her across the room to the side
of her mother.
"These scenes must be put a stop to, Mr. St. John," cried the Signor.
"You received my answer this morning on the subject."
"Only to re-enter upon it, sir. The particulars which I spared then, I
will relate now."
"I do not wish to hear them," said Signor de Castella, speaking
irritably.
"Sir," calmly interposed Mr. St. John, "I demand it as a right. The
Baron has been freely remarking upon me and my conduct today, I
understand, in the hearing of all now present, and I must be permitted
to justify myself."
"You must allow for the feeling of irritation on the Baron's part. You
are neither devoid of cool judgment nor sound sense, Mr. St. John."
"That is just what I have allowed for," replied Mr. St. John, frankly.
"He feels, no doubt, that he is an injured man; and so I have been
willing to show him consideration. Any other man, speaking of me as de
la Chasse has done, would have--have--been treated differently."
"Let this unpleasant matter be dropped, Mr. St. John," was the
resolute answer.
"Sir, I beg you to listen to my explanation; I ask it you in courtesy:
it shall be given without disguise. When I came of age, I obtained
possession of a handsome fortune. It is all dissipated. I was not free
from the faults of youth, common to my inexperience and rank, and I
was as extravagant as my worst enemy could wish. But I solemnly assert
that I never have been guilty of a bad thought, of a dishonourable
action. There is not a man or woman living, who can bring a word of
reproach against me, save that of excessive imprudence in regard to my
money--and a good part of that went to help those who wanted it worse
than I do. Well, about a twelvemonth ago, I was cleared out, and had
liabilities to the amount of a few thousands besides----"
"Pray do not enter upon these details, Mr. St. John," interrupted
Signor de Castella.
"Sir, I must go on--with your permission. My brother, Mr. Isaac St.
John, sent for me to Castle Wafer. He pointed out to me the errors of
my career: bade me reflect upon the heedless course I was pursuing. I
_had_ been reflecting on it, had become quite as awake to its ills as
he could be, and I had firmly resolved that it should end: but to a
man deep in debt, good resolutions are sometimes difficult to carry
out. My brother offered to set me free; making it a condition that I
should marry. He proposed in that case to give up to me Castle
Wafer--it has always been his intention to do so when I married--and a
very liberal settlement he offered to make on my wife, whom they had
already fixed upon----"
"Was it Sarah Beauclerc?" interrupted Rose, who never lost her
equanimity in her life.
"It was my cousin Anne," resumed Mr. St. John, with scarcely a glance
at Rose. "But the marriage suited neither her nor me, She was engaged,
unknown to her friends, to Captain Saville, and I was keeping her
secret. I took upon myself all the brunt of the refusal--for Captain
Saville's position, at that period, did not justify his aspiring
openly to Lady Anne St. John--and informed my brother I could not
marry Anne. High words rose between us; we parted in anger, and I
returned to London. Just then my mother's sister died, leaving me some
money. It was not very much; but it was sufficient to pay my debts,
and to this purpose it is being applied, as it is realized. By next
November every shilling I owe will be discharged. I should have
preferred not appearing again before my brother until I was a free
man, but circumstances have ordered it otherwise. I was about setting
out for Castle Wafer the day information reached me that de la Chasse
had again made his appearance here, and I came off at once, without
the credentials I should otherwise have brought with me. But you
cannot doubt me, M. de Castella?"
"Doubt what?"
"My ability--my power--to offer a suitable position to your daughter."
"Sir, the question cannot arise. Though I should very much doubt it.
My daughter is not Lady Anne St. John."
"I should have added that Lady Anne is married; a change having
occurred in Captain Saville's prospects; and she has cleared up the
past to Isaac. My brother is most anxious to be reconciled to me. And
I can take upon myself to say that all the favourable projects and
settlements he proposed for Lady Anne, will be renewed for Adeline."
"Then you would take upon yourself to say too much, Mr. St. John: you
cannot answer for another. But to what end pursue this unprofitable
conversation? My daughter is promised to the Baron de la Chasse, and
no other man will she marry."
"Sir," cried Mr. St. John, speaking with agitation, "will you answer
me one question? If I were in a position to offer Adeline ample
settlements; to take her to Castle Wafer as her present home--and you
know it must eventually descend to me--would you consider me a
suitable _parti_ for her?"
"It is a question that never can arise."
"I pray you answer it me--in courtesy," pleaded Mr. St. John. "Would
you deem me eligible in a worldly point of view?"
"Certainly. It is an alliance that a higher family than mine might
aspire to."
"Then, sir, I return this night to England. And will not again
present myself to you, until I come armed with these credentials."
"Absurd! absurd!" ejaculated Signor de Castella, whilst Adeline
uttered a smothered cry of fear. "I have allowed this conversation to
go on, out of respect to you, Mr. St. John, but I beg to tell you,
once for all, that Adeline never can be yours."
"I will not urge the subject further at present," said Mr. St. John,
as he held out his hand to bid adieu to Madame de Castella. "We will
resume it on my return from England."
"You surely do not mean to persist in this insane journey?" abruptly
spoke M. de Castella.
"Signor de Castella," said Mr. St. John, his pale face and his
deliberate manner alike expressive of resolute firmness, "I will not
resign your daughter. If I could forget my own feelings, I must
remember hers. To marry her to de la Chasse would be to abandon her to
the grave. She is not strong; you know it; not fitted to battle with
misery. Adeline," he added, turning to her, for she was sobbing
hysterically, "why this distress? I have repeatedly assured you, when
your fears of these explanations were great, that I would never resign
you to de la Chasse, or to any other. Hear me repeat that assertion in
the presence of your parents--by the help of Heaven, my love, you
shall be my wife."
"Meanwhile," said M. de Castella, sarcastically, "as you are yet, at
least, under my authority, Adeline, permit me to suggest that you
retire from this room."
She rose obediently, and went towards the door, sobbing.
"A moment," cried Mr. St. John, deprecatingly, "if it is from my
presence you would send her. I am going myself. Adieu to all."
He opened the door, and stood with it in his hand, glancing
hesitatingly at Adeline. Her feelings were wrought to a high pitch of
excitement, control forsook her, and darting forward she clung to the
arm of Mr. St. John, sobbing out hysterically.
"You will return--you will not desert me--you will not leave me to
_him?_"
He laid his hand tenderly on her shoulder, just as though they had
been alone. "It is only compulsion that takes me from you, Adeline,"
he answered. "Be assured I will not let the grass grow under my feet.
When three days shall have passed, look every minute for my return:
and then, my darling, we shall part no more."
Lower yet he bent his head, and kissed her fervently. Then resigned
her, turned, and was gone. He was a bold man.
Adeline flung her hands over her crimsoned face. To describe the
astonished consternation of the spectators, would be a difficult task:
a kiss upon a young lady's lips in France is worse than the seven
cardinal sins. Madame de Castella escorted Adeline at once to her
chamber, and Miss de Beaufoy's grey hair stood on end.
"Bah!" said the dear old lady. "He is a good and honourable man,
Ferdinand," turning to her son-in-law--"and he means no harm. It is
nothing, in English manners. I've had a kiss myself in my young days,
and was none the worse for it."