MRS. BRAYFORD'S BELIEF.
The deceitful improvement in the state of Adeline de Castella still
continued. Herself alone (and perhaps the medical faculty) saw it for
what it was--a temporary flickering up of the life-flame before going
out. Now and then she would drop a word which betrayed her own
convictions, and they did not like to hear it.
Rose had put on her mourning, as slight as was consistent with any
sort of decency; but she heard few particulars of the last days of the
little heir, except that he died at Ypres, and was buried there.
"Ypres! of all the places in the world!" ejaculated Rose, in
astonishment. Mrs. St. John had gone to England, but not to Alnwick.
Alnwick had passed into the hands of the other branch--the St. Johns
of Castle Wafer.
"What a miserable succession of misfortunes!" mused Rose, one day,
upon reading a letter from her mother. "All Charlotte's grandeur gone
from her! First her husband, then the little stepson, next her own
boy, and now Alnwick."
"Has she nothing left?" asked Adeline. "No fortune?"
"Just a pittance, I suppose," rejoined Rose. "About as adequate a sum
to keep up the state suited to the widow of George St. John of
Alnwick, as five pounds a year would be to find me in bonnets. There
was something said about George St. John's not being able to make a
settlement at the time of the marriage. Most of his money had come to
him through his first wife, and his large fortune in prospective has
not yet fallen in."
"Will it fall to your sister?"
"Not now. It passes on to Isaac St. John. How rich he'll be, that
man!"
Adeline was looking so well. She sat at the table, writing a note to
one of the girls at Madame de Nino's. Her dress was of purple silk;
its open lace cuffs, of delicate texture, shading her wrists; its
white collar, of the same, falling back from her ivory throat. And the
face was so lovely still! with its delicate bloom, and its rich dark
eyes. Madame de Castella came in.
"Adeline, that English nurse is downstairs--the one who nursed you in
the spring," she said. "Would you like to see her?"
"What, Nurse Brayford!" exclaimed Rose, starting up. "_I_ should like
to see her. I shall hear about little Georgy St. John."
"Stay a minute, Rose," said Madame de Castella, laying her hand upon
the impulsive girl. "Adeline, this person is very skilful; her
judicious treatment did you a great deal of good in the spring. I feel
inclined to ask her to come here now for a week."
Adeline looked up from her writing, the faint colour in her cheeks
becoming a shade brighter.
"Surely, mamma, you do not think I require two nurses! It has seemed
to me of late that the one already here is superfluous."
"My dear child! don't suppose I wish her to come here as a nurse. Only
for a few days, my child! it would be the greatest satisfaction to me.
I'll say a word of explanation to the _garde_," added Madame, "or we
shall make her jealous. These nurses can be very disagreeable in a
house, if put out."
She rang the bell as she spoke, and Rose made her escape, finding Mrs.
Brayford in one of the downstairs rooms. Rose, a very Eve of
curiosity, liking to know every one's business, whether it concerned
her or not, as her mother did before her, poured out question upon
question. Mrs. Brayford, not having the slightest objection to answer,
told all she knew. Rose was rather indignant upon one point: why had
they left the poor little fellow at Ypres? Why was he not taken to
Alnwick? The nurse could not tell: Prance had been surprised too. She
supposed Mrs. St. John was too much absorbed by grief to think of it.
"Does Charlotte--does Mrs. St. John feel it _very_ much?" asked Rose.
"Oh, miss! my firm belief is, that"--the woman stopped, glanced over
her shoulder to see that they were alone, and lowered her voice to a
whisper--"the sorrow has turned her brain."
"Nonsense!" uttered Rose, after a pause. "You don't mean it!"
"It's the truth, Miss Darling, I'm afraid. She was always having
visions of--did you know, miss, that the eldest little boy died
through an accident, a paper church taking fire that his nursemaid had
left him alone with?"
"Of course I know it," replied Rose. "That nursemaid ought to have
been transported for life!"
"Well, miss, poor Mrs. St. John used to fancy that she saw the boy
with his lighted church. I heard of this first from little George; but
after his death she was worse, and I witnessed one of these attacks
myself. She seemed to have an awful dread of the vision. If her
brain's not affected, my name's not Nancy Brayford."
"I never heard of such a thing," cried Rose. "Fancies she
sees---- Oh, it can't be."
"It _is_, miss. I've not time to tell you now, excepting just the
heads, but we had such a curious thing happen. At the last place we
stopped at, where Mrs. St. John went to take the steamer direct for
London, there was a street show at night, consisting of these very
churches and lanterns, all lighted up and carried about on poles. It's
their way of keeping St. Martin's Eve; and I don't say it wasn't
pretty enough, but of all the noises ever heard, which was caused by
about a thousand horns, all being blowed together, that was the worst.
We found Mrs. St. John on the floor in her room in a sort of fit; and
when she came to, she said the wildest things--about having, or not
having, we couldn't make it out, set fire herself to the child. She
was as mad that night, Miss Darling, as anybody ever was. The sight of
the lighted things had put the finishing touch to her brain."
Rose hardly knew whether to recoil in fear, or to laugh in derision.
The tale sounded very strange to her ear.
"Prance was frightened, for once," went on the woman, "and it's not a
little that can frighten _her_--as perhaps you know, miss. She
telegraphed to Mrs. Darling, and we got Mrs. St. John on board the
London boat--which was starting at three in the morning. She was calm
then, from exhaustion, and seemingly sensible. Prance brought her up
one or two of the lanterns and a horn to show her that they were real
things and quite harmless."
"She is very well, now," said Rose. "I had a letter from mamma this
morning; and she says how glad she is that Charlotte is recovering her
spirits."
"Ah, well, miss, I'm rejoiced to hear it," was the answer, its tone
one of unmistakable disbelief. "I hope she'll keep so. But that she
was mad in the brain then, I could take my affidavit upon. Bless you,
miss, I've seen a great deal of it: the notions that some sick people
take up passes belief. I've known 'em fancy themselves murderers and
many other things that's bad,--delicate ladies, too, who had never
done a wrong thing in their lives."
"My sister was always so very calm."
"And so she was throughout, except at odd moments; quite unnaturally
calm. She--but I'll tell you more about it another opportunity, Miss
Darling," broke off the woman, as Madame de Castella entered the room.
"It's no disparagement to the poor young lady--and she is young: sick
folks are not accountable for the freaks their minds take."
Rose returned a slighting answer, as if the words had made little
impression on her. But as the hours went on, she somehow could not get
rid of their remembrance; they seemed to grow deeper and deeper. What
a horrible thing if the woman were right! if the grief and trouble
should have turned Charlotte's brain!
Extract From Miss Carr's Diary.
Dec. 10_th_.--Oh this deceitful disease! all the dreadful weakness has
returned. Adeline cannot go downstairs now. She just comes from her
chamber into the front room, and lies on the sofa the best part of the
day. Madame de Castella, who fully believed in the amendment, giving
way more than any one of us to the false hopes it excited, is nearly
beside herself with grief and despair. She is perpetually reproaching
herself for allowing Nurse Brayford to leave. The woman stayed here
for a few days, but Adeline was so well it seemed a farce to keep her,
and now she has taken another place and cannot return. I am glad she's
gone, for my part. She could not do Adeline the slightest good, and
she and the _garde_ kept up an incessant chatter in strange French.
Brayford's French was something curious to listen to: 'Le feu est
sorti,' she said one day, and sent Rose into a screaming fit. Signor
de Castella we rarely see, except at dinner; now and then at the
second déjeûner; but he is mostly shut up in his cabinet. Is it that
the sight of his fading child is more than he can bear? Cold and
reserved as he has always been, there's no doubt that he loves Adeline
with the deepest love.
15_th_.--Five days, and Adeline not out of her bedroom! The cough has
come back again, and the doctors say she must have taken cold. I don't
see how she could; but Dr. Dorré's as cross as can be over it.
A fancy has taken her these last few days to hear Rose sing English
songs. On the first evening, Rose was in the front room, the
intervening door being open, singing in a sweet, low voice to amuse
herself; but Adeline listened and asked for more. More songs, only
they must be English.
"I think I have come to the end of my stock," answered Rose; "that is,
all I can remember. Stay!--what was that long song so much in request
this year at school? Do you remember the words, Mary Carr?"
"How am I to know what song you mean?" I asked.
"Some of us set it to music,--a low, soft chant. Last spring it was,
after Adeline had left. You must remember it. It was strummed over for
everlasting weeks by the whole set of us. It begins thus," added Rose,
striking a few chords.
I recollected then. They were lines we saw in a book belonging to that
Emma Mowbray, an old, torn magazine, which had neither covers nor
title-page. Some of the girls took a violent fancy to them, and
somebody--Janet Duff, was it?--set them to music.
"I have it," cried Rose, striking boldly into the song. Nearly with
the first words Adeline rose into a sitting posture, her eyes strained
in the direction of Rose though she could not see her, and eagerly
listening.
"When woman's eye grows dim,
And her cheek paleth;
When fades the beautiful,
Then man's love faileth.
He sits not beside her chair,
Clasps not her fingers,
Entwines not the damp hair
That o'er her brow lingers.
"He comes but a moment in,
Though her eye lightens,
Though the hectic flush
Feverishly heightens.
He stays but a moment near,
While that flush fadeth;
Though disappointment's tear
Her dim eye shadeth.
"He goes from her chamber, straight
Into life's jostle:
He meets, at the very gate,
Business and bustle.
He thinks not of her, within,
Silently sighing;
He forgets, in that noisy din,
That she is dying."
"There is another verse," I called out, for Rose had ceased.
"I know, there is," she said, "but I cannot recollect it. Only its
purport!"
"Try, try," exclaimed Adeline; "sing it all."
Rose looked round, astonished at the anxious tone, as was I. What was
the matter with her?--she who never took interest in anything.
"Mary Carr," said Rose, "do you recollect the last verse?"
"Not a word of it."
Rose struck the notes of the chant upon the piano, murmuring some
words to herself, and stopping now and then. Presently she burst out,
something after the manner of an improvisatrice--
"And when the last scene's o'er,
And cold, cold her cheek,
His mind's then all despair,
And his heart like to break.
But, a few months on,--
His constancy to prove--
He forgets her who is gone,
And seeks another love."
"They are not exactly the original words," said Rose, "but they will
do."
"They will do, they will do," murmured Adeline, falling back on the
sofa. "Sing it all again, Rose."
And every evening since has this song been sung two or three times to
please her. What is it she sees in it?
23_rd_.--I fear the day of life is about to close for Adeline. All the
ominous symptoms of the disease have returned: pain oppresses her
continually, and now she experiences a difficulty in breathing. Ah,
Mr. St. John, if you were to come now and comfort her with all your
love, as of yore, you could not restore her to health, or prolong her
life by one single day. How strange it is we never hear of him! Is he
in London?--is he at Castle Wafer?--is he abroad?--where is he?
26_th_.--It is astonishing that Madame de Castella continues to cheat
herself as to Adeline's state--or, rather, _make believe_ to cheat
herself, as the children do at their play. She was determined there
should be only one dinner-table yesterday, Christmas Day; so it was
laid in the drawing-room, and Adeline went in, the nurse and Louise
making a show of dressing her up for it. But all the dress, and the
dinner, and the ceremony, could not conceal the truth--that she was
dying. Madame de Castella was in most wretched spirits; her silent
tears fell, in spite of her efforts, with every morsel she put into
her mouth. The Signor was gloomy and reserved; latterly he had never
been otherwise. Had it not been for Rose, there would have been no
attempt at conversation; but Rose, with all her faults, is a downright
treasure in a house, always gay and cheerful. We gathered round the
fire after dinner, Rose cracking filberts for us all.
"Do you remember our Christmas dinner last year?" she said to Adeline.
"At Madame de Nino's? Quite well."
"And our sly draw at night at Janet Duff's cards, and the French
marigold falling, as usual, to you?"
Adeline answered by a faint gesture, it may have been of assent, it
may have been of denial, and Rose bit her repentant tongue. She had
spoken without reflection: does she ever speak with it?
29_th_.--A dark, murky day has this been, but one of event for
Adeline. The lights were brought in early in the afternoon, for Rose
was reading to her, and it grew too dusk to see. It was the second
volume of a new English novel, and Rose was so deeply interested in
it, that when Susanne came in with a letter for her, she told her to
"put it down anywhere," and read on.
"Not so," said Adeline, looking eagerly up; "open your letter first.
Who is it from?"
"From Mary Anne, of course: Margaret never writes to me, and mamma but
seldom," replied Rose, breaking the seal. And, not to lose time, she
read it out at once. Mrs. Darling and her family are spending
Christmas with old Mrs. Darling, in Berkshire.
"My Dear Rose,
"We arrived here on Christmas Eve, but I have found no time to write
to you until now. Grandmamma is breaking fast; it is apparent to us
all: she has aged much in the past twelve months. She was disappointed
you did not make one of us, and particularly hopes you have grown
steady, and are endeavouring to acquire the reserve of manner
essential to a gentlewoman." ("Or an old maid," ejaculated Rose, in a
parenthesis.) "Charlotte is here: she has recovered her spirits
wonderfully, and is as handsome as ever. Frank joined us on
Christmas morning: he has only got leave for a fortnight. He reports
Ireland--the part he is now quartered in--as being in a shocking
state. For my part, I never listen to anything he may have to say
about such a set of savages. Frank lays down the law beautifully--says
he only wishes they would make him Viceroy for a spell: he'd do this,
and he'd do that. I don't doubt he does wish it.
"In your last letter you ask about Frederick St. John----" Rose looked
off, and hesitated; but Adeline's flushed, eager gaze, the parted
lips, the breathless interest, told her there was nothing for it but
to continue. "We met him lately at one of the Dowager Revel's
assemblies--very crowded it was, considering the season. It was
whispered last year that he was ruined, obliged to leave the country,
and I don't know what. People ought to be punished for inventing such
falsehoods. Instead of being ruined, he enjoys a splendid income, and
has not a single debt in the world. It is reported that his brother
has made over to him Castle Wafer, which I should think to be only a
report: it may be true, though, now he has come into Alnwick. He is
again the shadow of Sarah Beauclerc; at least he was her shadow this
evening at Lady Revel's, and I should think it will inevitably be a
match. I wish we knew him; but did not dare ask for an introduction,
he looks so haughty, and mamma was not there. Grandmamma sends her
love, and----"
I went forward and raised Adeline on her pillows. The emotion that she
would have concealed was struggling with her will for mastery. Once
more the burning red spot we thought gone for ever shone on her hollow
cheeks, and her hands were fighting with the air, and the breath had
stopped.
"Oh, Adeline!" cried Rose, pushing me aside without ceremony,
"forgive, forgive me! Indeed I did not know what there was in the
letter until I had entered upon the words: I did not know his name was
mentioned. What is to be done, Mary? this excitement is enough to kill
her. La garde, la garde!" called out Rose in terror; "que faut-il
faire. Mademoiselle se trouve malade!"
The nurse, who was in the next room, glided up with a rapid step; but,
in regaining her breath, Adeline's self-possession returned to her.
"It is nothing," she panted; "only a spasm." And down she sank on her
pillow, whispering for them to remove the lights.
"Into the next room--for a little while--they hurt my eyes."
The nurse went out with the tapers, one in each hand, and I knelt down
by the sofa.
"What of your deductions now, Mary?" she whispered, after a while,
referring to a former conversation. "He is with his early love, and I
am here, dying."
"Adeline," I said, "have you no wish to see him again? Did I do wrong
in asking it?"
She turned her face to the wall and did not answer.
"I know that you parted in anger, but it all seems to me a great
mystery. Whatever cause he may have had for estranging himself, I did
not think Mr. St. John was one to forsake you in this heartless way,
with the grave so near."
"He forsook me in health," she said, and her voice now had assumed
that hollow tone it would never lose in this world; "you might admit
there was an excuse for him if you knew all. But--all this time--never
to make inquiry after me--never to seek to know if I am dead, or
living, or married to another! Whilst to hear of him, to see him, I
would forfeit what life is left to me."
_New Year's Day_.--And a fearful commotion the house has been in, by
way of welcome. This morning Adeline was taken alarmingly worse; we
thought she was dying, and doctors, priests, friends and servants,
jostled each other in the sick chamber. The doctors gained possession,
expelled us all in a body, and enforced quiet. She will not die yet,
they say, if she is allowed tranquillity--not for some days, perhaps
weeks, but will rally again. I think they are right, for she is much
better this evening. Adeline is nineteen today. This time last year!
this time last year! it was the scene and hour of her brilliant
ball-night. How things have changed since then!
Yesterday Adeline showed her hands to young Docteur H----. It has
struck her as being very singular that their nails should have turned
white. It strikes me so too. He seemed to intimate that it was a very
uncommon occurrence, but said he had seen it happen from intense
anxiety of mind. "Which," he added, "cannot be your case, my dear
Mademoiselle de Castella." Adeline hastily drew her hands under the
blue silk sofa cover, and spoke of something else.
_Jan_. 5_th_.--"Could you not wheel the chair into the other room--to
the window?" Adeline asked suddenly today. "I should like to look out
on the world once more."
Louise glanced round at me, and I at the nurse, not knowing what to
do. But the nurse made no objection, and she and Louise wheeled the
large chair, with as little motion as possible, to one of the
drawing-room windows, and then raised her up, and supported her while
she stood.
It was no cheering prospect that she gazed upon. A slow, small rain
was falling; the snow, fast melting on the housetops, was running down
in streams of water, and patches of snow lay in the streets, but they
were fast turning into mud and slop. Through an open space a glimpse
of the distant country was obtained, and there the snow lay bleak,
white, and dreary. What few people were passing in the street hurried
along under large cotton umbrellas, some as red and round as Louise's,
the women with their heads tied up in blue and yellow kerchiefs.
"Dreary, dreary!" she murmured as she gazed; "dreary and void of hope,
as my later life has been!"
Old Madame G----'s cook came out of their house with an earthen pan,
and placed it underneath the spout to catch the water.
"Is that Madame G---- herself?" cried Adeline, watching the movement.
"Where can her two servants be?"
"It's nobody but old Nannette, with white bows in her cap," said
Louise, laughing. "Mademoiselle's eyes are deceiving her."
"Is not that M. de Fraconville?" resumed Adeline, pointing to a
gentleman who had just come in view, round the opposite corner.
"Something must have taken your eyesight today, Adeline," exclaimed
Rose, who was at the other window; "it's a head and half too tall for
M. de Fraconville."
"You say right," meekly sighed Adeline; "my sight is dim, and looking
on the white snow has rendered it more so. Take me back again."
It will be her last look at outdoor life.
They wheeled her into the other room, and settled her comfortably on
her chair, near the fire, her head on the pillows and her feet on a
footstool. Rose followed, and took up a light work to read to her.
"Not that," said Adeline, motioning away the volume in Rose's hands;
"it is time I had done with such. There is ANOTHER Book there, Rose."
In coming in from church last Sunday, I laid my Bible and Prayer-book
down in Adeline's room, and forgot them. It was towards these she
pointed. Rose took up the Bible.
"Where shall I read?" she asked, sitting down. Adeline could not tell
her. The one was almost as ignorant as the other. The Bible, to
Adeline, has been a sealed book, and Rose never opens it but as a
matter of form. Rose turned over its leaves in indecision. "So many
chapters!" she whispered to me, pleadingly, "Tell me which to fix
upon."
"Take the Prayer-book," interrupted Adeline, "and read me your Service
for the Burial of the Dead."
Rose found the place at once, for she knew it was close to the
Marriage Service, and began:
"'I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that
believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever
liveth and believeth in me shall never die.'"
There she stopped, for the tears were falling, and she could not see
the page; and, just then, Miss de Beaufoy came into the room, and saw
what Rose was reading. For the first time, in our hearing, she
interfered, beseeching Adeline to remember she was a Roman Catholic,
and recommending that a priest should be sent for.
"Dear Aunt Agnes," exclaimed Adeline, impressively, "when you shall be
as near to death as I am, you will see the fallacy of these earthly
differences,--how worse than useless they must appear in the sight of
our universal Father, of our loving Saviour. There is but one heaven,
and I believe it is of little moment which form of worship we pursue,
so that we pray and strive earnestly in it to arrive there. I shall be
none the worse for listening to the prayers from this English book:
they are all truth and beauty, and they soothe me. The priests will
come later."
A bold avowal for a Roman Catholic, and Agnes de Beaufoy crossed
herself as she left the room. Rose read the Burial Service to the end.
And so, existence hanging as it were upon a thread, the days still
struggle on.
There will be no more extracts from this young lady's diary. And
indeed but little more of anything; this portion of the history, like
Adeline's life, draws near its close.