THE LOST ONE.
And where all this time was Alison Cheyne, after whom--as the chief
of our _dramatis personæ_--we must needs look now?
When consciousness returned to her, after wildly grasping the bell in
the porte-cochère of a large house on that night of snow and terror,
and when, fluttering, her white eyelids unclosed, after what seemed a
long sleep, she looked round her like a little scared bird, in utter
bewilderment, and, believing that she was dreaming, closed them again.
A bell ringing at a distance roused her, and she looked again, and
became convinced that what she looked on was no dream, and her eyes
wandered about with a dazed expression.
She was in a little room, with whitewashed walls, and a floor of
plain polished wood, on which lay a tiny patch of faded carpet. The
sunbeams were creeping through the closed blinds, and a fire burned
cheerfully in a little black iron stove. She lay in a pretty bed,
with the softest of pillows and sheets; it was of plain iron, and
without curtains.
Above the mantelpiece, in a simple frame, hung an engraving from
Rubens' picture of 'St. Theresa interceding for the Souls in
Purgatory,' the three principal souls being--in a spirit of
waggery--faithful portraits of the artist's three wives. On one side
of this was a little Madonna on a bracket, with a red crystal lamp
hung before it; on the other a crucifix, below which was a tiny font
of Antwerp china.
Other ornaments--save a few flowers in a vase--the apartment had
none, and its furniture--two cane-seated chairs and a deal table--was
of the simplest kind.
In one of the chairs sat a young woman dressed like a nun, with a
black robe and white hood, a large bronze crucifix and wooden beads
at her cord girdle; her down-cast face had a sweet, placid, and even
beautiful expression, and she was sedulously working, with the
whitest of hands, at a large piece of gold embroidery on cloth of
silver--a portion of a priest's vestments apparently, while glancing
attentively from time to time down on her patient or up at two pretty
little love-birds in a brass cage.
Alison took in all these details at one rapid glance, and great
terror seized her that something strange had befallen her, that she
was in the care of a nursing sister.
'Where am I?' she said, faintly.
'Thank heaven, you speak, and rationally at last,' said her
attendant, casting aside her embroidery and coming softly to her
side, laid her cool hand gently on Alison's forehead. 'Pauvre
enfant! pauvre enfant!' she repeated, caressingly.
'But _where_ am I, and _who_ are you?' asked Alison, in a weak but
impatient manner.
'I am Sister Lisette, and you are safe, safe with friends, and ere
long your own people will soon be here to inquire for you.'
'My friends,' she murmured, with a puzzled expression, as her
thoughts now went back to her father's sick-room in the Hôtel St.
Antoine; to Cadbury, at the thought of which she shivered; to the Bal
Masqué at the theatre; the Café au Progrès, and the insolence of
'Captain Smith;' her flight through the snowy streets; her fall at
the door of a house, the nature of which she knew not; all these
things floated dimly and dreamily before her now, though they seemed
to have happened but a few hours ago.
'How fortunate that you had the power to ring our bell before you
fainted, child,' said the nun, caressing her and kissing her cheek.
'You might have died in the snow otherwise.'
'Last night?'
'No--child--it was several nights ago.'
'Several?'
'Yes.'
'Oh, papa, papa! has he been here?' cried Alison, feebly, in great
anguish of mind, yet unable from weakness to raise her head from the
pillow.
'No, for doubtless he knew not where you were.'
'Oh, he will be dead--dead with terror!' wailed Alison. 'Am I in a
hospital?'
'No, child, in my house,' said the nun, sweetly.
'Your house?' queried Alison, with very open eyes.
'In the Beguinage, in the Rue Rouge.'
Thus it was that both Sir Ranald and Lord Cadbury had utterly failed
to trace her, and fortunate it was indeed for Alison that she had
fallen into such good hands as those of the Beguines, who are a
religious order, altogether peculiar to Belgium, each nun having a
private residence of her own within the general enclosure.
The clatter of the ponderous bell, as the pull left her hand, had
soon brought aid to her. She was denuded of her wet and sodden
attire, put to bed in the little mansion occupied by Sister Lisette,
and, before the angelus bell rang in the chapel next forenoon, she
was in a highly feverish state, and in a delirium which lasted
several nights and days, with intermissions of fretful sleep, during
all of which time nothing coherent could be gleaned from her as to
her name, or where she resided, whence she came, and how it was that
she was abroad in the streets alone and in such a night.
Her little ravings led them to know that she was English; her
costume, and the delicacy and beauty of her person, that she was
undoubtedly a lady; but, save a ring or two, she had no purse,
card-case, or aught to indicate who she was; but the name of 'Alison'
worked upon some of her clothing at once interested deeply Sister
Lisette, who was also an Alison, but adopted the French diminutive of
it.
The poor Beguines were quite uncertain what else they could do with
her, but keep her till she grew well enough to be questioned; so she
remained there in her little iron bed, tended by Lisette, unconscious
and fever-stricken, while the lengthening days passed slowly over her
aching head.
Nearly a fortnight passed before she began mentally to drift back to
consciousness, so terribly had all she had undergone of late--the
collision at sea with the _Black Hound_ of Ostend, the nursing of her
querulous father, her separation from Bevil Goring, and the worry
incident to Cadbury's wooing, culminating in that night of terror in
the streets--told upon her sensitive nature and delicate frame.
A sweet picture she made, in her little white bed in the plain bare
room of the kind Beguine, who never left her even for prayers, but
said them by her side on her knees when the angelus or elevation
bells rang. Among the huge, soft pillows the slight figure of Alison
was half buried, yet the soft tints of her face and hair came out in
a species of relief from them; the former was pale--very pale--and
there were dark circles under the eyes; and the gentle young Beguine
who watched her thought she had never looked on anyone so lovely, and
often sat on a tabourette at the side of the couch, keeping her hand
caressingly within her own, and counting the jewels in her rings one
by one as a child might have done.
'She has a gentle expression in her eyes, such as I have often seen
in those of a _Sœur de Charité_, and other nursing sisters,' was
the dictum of the reverend mother of the establishment, who came from
time to time to visit the fair waif who had been so suddenly cast
upon their tenderness; and, truth to tell, there was a great touch of
melancholy about the eyes and features of Alison Cheyne now, though
certainly melancholy was by no means one of her characteristics
naturally.
The Beguines, we have said, are a religious order peculiar to
Belgium, and totally unlike any other in so far that they are bound
by no vows; they may return to the world whenever they please; but it
is their boast that no sister has ever been known to quit the order
after having once entered it. They attend to the sick in the
Beguinage, and frequently go out as nurses in the hospitals.
They were among the few religious communities not suppressed by
Joseph II. or swept away by the furious torrent of the French
Revolution. Each Beguinage--more especially in Ghent, where the
sisterhood averages six hundred in number--is a species of little
town by itself, with streets and squares, having gates, and sometimes
surrounded by a moat as well as a wall, especially at Bruges.
The sisters live generally in separate houses, on the doors of which
are inscribed, not the name of the occupant, but of some saint
adopted as her patron or protectress; and many of them are persons of
rank and wealth; hence it was in the private house of Sister Lisette
that Alison found herself now.
Many writers ascribe the institution of the Beguines to St. Begga,
widow and abbess, daughter of Pepin of Landen, whose husband, mayor
of the palace, was killed while hunting, after which she dedicated
herself to a penetential state of retirement, and built seven chapels
on the Meuse, in imitation of the seven great churches of Rome; and,
according to the martyrology, she died so long ago as 698. Others
assert that the Beguines were founded by Lambert de Begue or Balbus,
a pious priest, of Liege, in 1170, and derive their name from him;
but all this lies apart from our story. Suffice it that, fortunately
for herself, it was in the spacious Beguinage of Antwerp that Alison
found succour, shelter, and protection.
Alison had often seen nuns, but never spoken to or been intimate with
one before, and, as all she knew of such recluses was derived through
the medium of novels and romances, when strength returned to her she
began to invest Sister Lisette with the halo of fiction, and to
suppose that she must have some story--that a lost lover or a broken
heart accounted for her sweet sadness of face and her present
vocation; and she was nearer the truth in her guess than she
imagined, for Sister Lisette had once been--for a brief time--a happy
wife, of which more anon; and when Alison grew stronger, and was
taken as far as the chapel, she was greatly impressed by all she saw
and heard there at vesper time, though the chanting of female voices
only--some of them from age far from melodious--was pleasing, and the
sight of such a large assemblage of recluses in black robes with
white veils--the ancient Flemish _faille_, which they yet
retain--dimly illuminated by a few votive lamps, had a strange,
weird, and, to her eyes, mysterious effect.
The novices are distinguished by a different costume, and those who
have just taken the veil wear a chaplet round their heads.
But in all this we are anticipating, for at present Alison was weak
as a child, and prostrate with the effect of the short, sharp fever
that had left her, though it was apparent to those who watched her
that the lines of her face were fine, and they could see that, when
well and happy, she must look very beautiful.
In Sister Lisette Alison found an able nurse, for she had served as
one in the German war under the Red Cross; her soft, white hand had
dressed many a ghastly wound and closed many a glazing eye, and often
amid the horrors of Sedan and elsewhere the heads of the dying had
rested on her bosom, and with low, loving words she had soothed their
moments of death and agony--words that were sometimes taken for those
of mother, or wife, or some young love that was far, far away.
Sister Lisette seemed about five-and-twenty years of age; her face
was delicately fair, but the rich tint of her lips and the peach-like
bloom of her cheeks relieved it of all paleness. Her features were
small and regular, but very soft in their lines, and, at times, a
singular sadness stole over them.
Her eyes were of the clearest and darkest hazel, and full of 'soul's
light,' imparted to her face a world of expression; but what the
colour of her hair (or what remained of it) was, it would be
impossible to say, as every vestige of it was closely hidden by her
tightly-fitting white wimple.
'And I have been here for days and nights ill,' said Alison, faintly,
as consciousness came fully back to her, and Lisette, while propping
her pretty head upon her own breast, gave her soothing drink. 'Oh,
what a trouble I must have been to you!'
'No trouble at all, ma sœur,' replied the other, letting her head
tenderly down on the pillow, and smoothing out the latter.
'So long, so long, and without papa being informed,' exclaimed
Alison, as tears of dismay started to her eyes.
'Child, we know not his name--his address--even of his existence.'
Alison sighed deeply. She was too prostrate in body and even mind to
regard anything as very extraordinary, even her unusual surroundings
in the convent; yet she longed for her father to come to her, or to
have tidings of him; of aught else she said nothing.
'Oh, if I should die without seeing papa again!' said she, wringing
her hands.
'One can die but once,' said Sister Lisette, placidly. 'You are too
strong and too young to die, though those who die are sometimes
better off than those who are left in the world. You, at least, have
all your life to look forward to.'
'And you?'
'Mine is ended.'
'Ended!'
'In the world at least, as I shall go back to it no more.'
Seeing that Alison was in a fever of impatience to hear tidings of
her father, Sister Lisette, on obtaining his name and address at the
Hôtel St. Antoine, at once sent a messenger with that letter which,
as we have described, so greatly startled and agitated the old man;
and Alison remained in a fever of impatience, awaiting the return of
that messenger who might perhaps bring her very crushing tidings.
'Dearest papa will not lose a moment in coming to me,' she murmured,
partly to her nurse and partly to herself; but how, if he were too
weak to come or in despair at her loss had left Antwerp, or
perhaps--oh Heavens!--have sunk under it, and--died! And to see him
again would be, of course, to see that odious Lord Cadbury; and so
she tormented herself till the messenger returned with tidings that
her father was well and had been out and about for days, despairingly
searching for her, and would be with her very soon.
'Oh, thank God for that!' said Alison, and a hot shower of joyful
tears relieved her; and now she started up at every sound, and
inquired again and again the exact distance between the Beguinage and
the Marche aux Souliers.
'Ma sœur Alison, you must not speak so much and be so impatient,'
said the Beguine, holding up a finger.
'What--you know my name?'
'Yes, it is mine also.'
'But how?'
Then the Beguine told her how she had become aware of it; and that
she too was an Alison, Lison or Lisette--it was all one--and as she
spoke her hearer's memory went back to that day with the buckhounds
on which our story opens, when Bevil Goring expressed some surprise
at her name, and she had explained that it was an old Scoto-French
one, and common to the Cheynes of Essilmont; and as she thought of
him she pressed his ring to her lips, as if it had been some sacred
relique.
'How well you speak English,' said Alison.
'Because I was educated in the English convent at Bruges,' replied
the sister; 'but hark, there is a voiture at the gate--monsieur has
come!'
'Papa,' murmured Alison, in a choking voice, as she felt herself
become a very child again, and another minute saw his arms around
her, and her face upon his breast, while she indulged in a passionate
fit of weeping, and he with difficulty restrained his tears.
Alison then, after a little time, looked earnestly in his face, and
was shocked to see how wan, and thin, and pinched it had become; for
indeed, during the mystery that enveloped her disappearance, he had
undergone terrible mental agony and much bodily fatigue, for with all
his selfishness he loved Alison as the only link that bound him to
earth.
Her narrative of how she missed Lord Cadbury in that crowded place,
the Théâtre des Variétés, to which she should never have gone,
tallied completely with that of the former; but it was not until next
day that she detailed fully the manner in which she had been lured by
'Captain Smith' to the Café au Progrès, and the terror with which she
had fled from that place into the snowy street.
'Captain Smith!' exclaimed Sir Ranald through his set teeth, while
his eyes sparkled with rage. 'Could I but meet that person, old as I
am, I would give him cause long to remember the weight of my cane,
the scoundrel. I must write to Cadbury on the subject and inquire.'
'Write!--is Lord Cadbury gone?' asked Alison, timidly and hopefully.
'Yes, back to London; he was telegraphed for.'
Alison gave a sigh of relief.
'Shall we go home now, papa--I mean when I am well enough to be
about?'
Sir Ranald paused before replying. Had she relented towards Cadbury
with a desire to see him, or was it a longing to be near 'that fellow
Goring' which prompted the question? One fact seemed pretty evident,
that she and the latter knew nothing of each other's movements, and
that she was utterly oblivious of his being or having been in Antwerp.
'Home--to where?' he asked.
'Chilcote, papa.'
Her reply was perfectly straightforward, though it again suggested
ideas of Bevil Goring, but Sir Ranald deemed that he must have
'effectually crushed that fellow's presumption by the rough tenor of
their last meeting.'
'Chilcote it shall be then, perhaps,' said he.
'Oh, yes, papa; it is so quiet there, even amid our little troubles,'
said she, as he left her, when the Beguinage gates were closed for
the evening; 'and all I want is peace and rest--peace and rest.'
'Shall you ever get them in this world?' asked Sister Lisette.
Alison regarded her wistfully, and said,
'Why not? Can you have led a stormy life?'
'Far from it. My life in the world was a happy one till one dire
calamity fell upon me, and drove me to find peace for ever here; but
how true it is "that it is vain to try to knit up the present with
the past; each part of our lives has its own pleasures and hopes."
But now my pleasure is to do good--my only hope to die soon and well.'
'And the calamity to which you refer?' asked Alison, softly, while
greatly interested by the singularly sweet and subdued manner of the
young Beguine.
'Was the death of my dear, dear husband,' replied the sister; and so,
while she sat stitching away at the shining garment, resplendent with
gold--a priest's vestment--for old Père Leopold of the Church of St.
André, she told Alison some of her experiences in life, and amid
them, curious to relate, there occurred repeatedly a name with which
the reader is already familiar.
Alison had a sweetly sympathetic way with her, and her namesake was
seized by one of the unaccountable fits of confidence that, come to
most of us at times to speak about herself, and tell the story of her
own sorrows.