Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.
[Illustration: He felt that he must make his presence known. (Chapter
XV.)
_Adrienne]_ _[Frontispiece]_
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
——————————————————
MY HEART'S IN THE HIGHLANDS
"The vividly human and moving story of Rowena and her wonderful power
of influence in the lives of others will do every one good to read.
Charmingly told in Amy Le Feuvre's best manner."—_Northants Evening
Telegraph._
"A romance of a most pleasant and captivating character."—_Ladies'
Field._
A GIRL AND HER WAYS
"Miss Le Feuvre writes with much charm and insight of the escapades of
a modern girl who is fortunately possessed of the right spirit that
enables her to overcome her difficulties."—_The Record._
"Likely to become a popular book."—_Methodist Recorder._
JOCK'S INHERITANCE
"Miss Le Feuvre has never written anything more beautiful or more
amusing. The tone is as usual, excellent, and the story cannot fail to
interest one and all."—_Church of England Newspaper._
NOEL'S CHRISTMAS TREE
"Miss Le Feuvre has a classic style, and seems to be able to pierce
straight into the heart of human beings. It is a humane book, written
by a brilliant novelist."—_Cornish Echo._
ADRIENNE
BY
AMY LE FEUVRE
WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED
LONDON AND MELBOURNE
1928
Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner Ltd., Frome and London
CONTENTS
CHAP.
I. A LETTER
II. AN ACCIDENT
III. GODFREY SPEAKS
IV. THE COUNT'S ARRIVAL
V. AT THE CHÂTEAU
VI. HER AUNT'S CONFIDENCES
VII. THE LOSS OF AN HEIRLOOM
VIII. LITTLE AGATHA
IX. A CONTEST OF WILLS
X. A MORNING RIDE
XI. A SUMMONS
XII. AT HOME AGAIN
XIII. WHY THE COUNT WENT AWAY
XIV. THE NOTARY'S DEFEAT
XV. ILLNESS AT THE CHÂTEAU
XVI. LOVERS
XVII. WED
XVIII. HUSBAND AND WIFE
XIX. ALAIN'S TUTOR
XX. AGATHA'S WARNING
ADRIENNE
CHAPTER I
A LETTER
SHE stood at the dining-room window looking out upon a snowy world.
The cypresses and firs at the end of the lawn were bowed down with
their weight of purity. There was great light, great stillness in the
atmosphere. And there was majestic grandeur in the groups of snow-laden
trees, and in the white hills that held tiny villages in their folds.
The girl's eyes were dreamy, and a trifle wistful. Her dark curly hair
was unfashionably twisted up into a thick knot at the back of her
small, well-shaped head. She had straight determined features, and a
slim dainty figure. Her dark wine-coloured jumper and skirt suited her.
As she stood there, one hand tightly clenched a letter; and no one
who saw her still attitude could have imagined what a tumult was
sweeping over her soul. Behind her was the breakfast table. The silver
tea-kettle was boiling on its stand. A packet of letters lay on the
corner of the table. There was a fragrant scent of bacon and kidneys
from a chafing dish. A bright-eyed Cairn terrier stood near the blazing
fire, occasionally giving quick glances at his mistress, but rejoicing
too much in the warmth and comfort of his position to join her at the
window.
And then the door suddenly burst open and in came a short square
elderly man, with a slight grey moustache and a tanned weather-beaten
face. He looked the essence of fussy energy, and of health.
He snapped his fingers at the terrier, and spoke to the girl:
"What ho, Adrienne! How's yourself? No hunting for me! If I weren't
such a busy man, I should be hipped by such an outlook. Drake has been
telling me the stable pipes have burst. I must go and have a look at
them after breakfast. Now where on earth did I put that new-fangled
stuff for mending pipes, and grates, and holes of every description?
Didn't I give it to you to keep safely in your store cupboard?"
Adrienne slipped her letter in her pocket, and turned a smiling face
towards her uncle, General Chesterton.
"Now, Uncle Tom, you know very well you did not. Your patent foods and
plasters and patchers-up are always in the gun-room. Since I kept your
sticking-plaster in my store-room, and you turned my whole cupboard
topsy-turvy one day when I was out, I have refused to keep anything
more. Come and have breakfast, and don't touch your fat packet of
letters till we have had some food."
"Where's Derrick? What a little martinet you try to be! But that packet
is mostly bills, I bet! Here's the lazybones! What do you think of our
white world? I told you snow was in the air last night."
The new-comer had made his entry very quietly, and took his seat at the
table without a word.
His appearance was hardly that of a naval man, though he was an
Admiral with a good many medals. He was a tall, handsome man, with an
intellectual brow, clean-shaven face and dreamy eyes like his niece's.
The brothers were devoted to each other and had lived together since
their retirement, in their old home, a small manor-house in Devon.
Adrienne had come to them three years ago, fresh from her boarding
school at Folkestone.
She bullied them, she coaxed them, and she mothered them by turns.
All three were on the happiest possible terms. General Chesterton's
chief hobby was horses and hunting; but he was only able to afford to
keep one hunter, and depended very often on mounts from his nearest
neighbour, Sir Godfrey Sutherland.
Admiral Chesterton was a keen fisherman and a great reader. He was
gentle, neat, and very particular about conventions and propriety. He
had a small room of his own which he called his study, and when he
was not reading or manufacturing flies, he was compiling the family
pedigree. He was as tidy as the tidiest spinster, a marked contrast to
his brother the General, who never put a thing in its place, and was
perpetually mislaying and losing what he wanted, in a hurry.
The General was a great talker and very impulsive. If the Admiral was
a gentle southerly breeze throughout the house, the General was a
blustering noisy sou'wester. Nobody was in doubt as to whether he was
in or out. He rarely sat down before dinnertime.
But in the evening the two brothers played chess together. Neither of
them cared for cards, and if laughed at by their friends for such an
old-fashioned taste, would reply:
"We have always played chess, and always will." And it was the only
time that General Chesterton was comparatively quiet.
Adrienne sat behind her tea and coffee, and poured out for her uncles.
"I'm rather glad of a day indoors," observed the Admiral, as he stirred
his coffee in a leisurely way; "our box from Mudie's arrived last
night, did it not, Adrienne?"
"Yes. I hadn't time to open it. Drake will take it to your study. I
will tell him. I'm not going to have a day in the house, oh dear no!"
"Where are you off to?" questioned the General. "If you go to the
village, get me a pound of French nails, will you? That trellis kept me
awake last night, tapping like a ghost against my window-ledge. There's
always something annoying me at night. Two nights ago it was the donkey
braying. And I can't do without my sleep. Extraordinary difficult thing
to make yourself sleepy. I pounded my pillow, and turned it a dozen
times, and then I rattled off all the limericks I could remember, and
by that time I felt electricity all through me—my hair positively
bristled. I struck a light and smoked two cigarettes, and I tried right
side, left side and back in rotation one after each other. Still I
couldn't droop an eyelid!"
"I should think not," said Adrienne, with a merry laugh; "don't you
know that you shouldn't be strenuous in bed?"
"But was I? I was doing all in my power to put myself to sleep. Working
at it till I got in a perfect fever of heat!"
The Admiral was looking through the letters, and sorting out his from
amongst them.
"An invitation to dine at the Hall next Thursday."
"I'm bothered if I'll go," said the General hastily; "for I'm hunting
that day, and won't turn out again at night—not if I know it!"
"But if this frost goes on, you won't be hunting," said Adrienne.
She quitted the room, leaving her uncles discussing the weather
prospects, and made her way to the kitchen. Her housekeeping duties
were not very heavy, for Mrs. Page, the old cook-housekeeper, had been
nearly twenty years in the family; but Adrienne as a matter of form
discussed the meals with her every day, and she took charge of the
store-room, and supplied all necessary stores when needed.
Half an hour later she stood in the hall, clad in her long fur coat.
A soft grey felt hat was crammed down on her curly head, and she had
strong brogue shoes and cloth gaiters on her feet.
"Now I'm off," she sang out, as she passed the smoking-room door; "and
I'm going through the village, so I'll get your nails, Uncle Tom."
The General came out, pipe in mouth, and accompanied her to the hall
door; Bruce, the Cairn terrier, was at her heels.
"Ugh!" he shuddered as he looked out at the soft snow which the
gardener was sweeping away from the drive as fast as he could. "My old
bones don't like snow. We oughtn't to have it down here in the west."
"Oh, I love it!" cried Adrienne, starting out gaily with bright eyes
and a flush on her cheeks.
But when she was out of sight of the house, she pulled a letter out of
her pocket, and began to read it over for the second time.
The contents brought a grave look upon her face.
And then, with a little sigh, she folded it up, and put it back into
her pocket.
The snow was crisp under her feet. As she walked along the road
bordered with fir woods on either side, it was a fairy-like scene. From
every branch the snow drooped in icicles which were sparkling in the
sun. Along a snowy glade under the pines she saw a rabbit scuttling.
Bruce scampered after it, and she had to wait till he rejoined her.
Then, suddenly, round a corner appeared a young man, accompanied by a
huge Alsatian wolf-hound.
"Hullo, Adrienne!"
"Hullo, Godfrey! You're the very person I want."
The young fellow looked pleased. "I'm on my way to Strake's Farm. But
it will wait."
"Walk to the village with me. Have you company on Thursday?"
"Only the Rector and wife, besides Colonel and Mrs. Blake, who are
staying with us. I hope you're coming. These small dinner parties are
deadly, but you know my mother loves them."
"Oh, yes, we are coming; but if there's a thaw, don't expect Uncle Tom."
"He'll be hunting, I suppose."
They were walking on together, Bruce making overtures to the big dog,
who viewed him indifferently. Young Sir Godfrey Sutherland, the Squire
of Compton Down village, was a big, broad-shouldered man, with a frank
smiling face and genial manners. He limped slightly as he walked, the
effect of a wounded leg in the War. He and Adrienne had been good
comrades and chums from the time when she first came to live with
her uncles. As a schoolgirl and boy, they had spent their holidays
together. Fishing, riding, and rabbiting in the woods; taking long
walks with the dogs; but never unless they could help it, keeping
indoors for long. Adrienne had no brothers or sisters, and had turned
to Godfrey for advice, comfort, and sympathy whenever the occasion
required it.
He did not hurry her now; he knew by her face that something was wrong.
And very soon she commenced:
"Godfrey, I've had a letter this morning from my aunt in France."
"I know. The Comtesse de Beaudessert, isn't she? She's not descending
upon you again, is she?"
"Oh, no. I'll let you read her letter. She's in bad health, she says.
I haven't said a word to the uncles. They get so fussed and worried at
the very sound of her name. But it's the same old story: only much more
difficult to combat now."
"She wants you to go to her?"
"Read what she says."
The letter was handed to him. It was as follows:
"MY DEAR ADRIENNE,—
"I write to you distracted and désolée. As you know your Cousin
Mathilde left me, and has gone over to America with her bridegroom. I
have struggled on in weak health and shattered nerves. My doctor says
it is imperative that I should have young cheerful society; somebody to
take some of the burden of housekeeping off my frail shoulders. With my
diminished income, I cannot keep the retainers who used to make life
easy to me. It is one long battle with old Fanchette and Pierre. They
are nearly past work, but very obstinate, and very inefficient. The
under servants come and go, they will not conform to their rules. I am
rapidly losing weight, and losing sleep.
"When last I was over, I told both Tom and Derrick that your father
would wish you to spend as much time with me as with them. Your
education is finished. It will improve you in every way to come to me.
Your French accent is horrible. Your manners are blunt, not finished or
refined. And I have my town flat in Orleans, and there is good society
there. And finally you are my niece, and I need you. Your uncles have
each other, and have not a Château to keep up minus retainers and
means. It was a mistake your settling down with them. You ought as I
have repeatedly told you, to have come straight to me when you left
school. I was content to let them have you as long as you were a school
girl. Their monotonous country life was good for a child. But an idle
girl with nothing to occupy her hands or thoughts, needs a woman's
guidance and supervision.
"My head is aching so much, I must lay down my pen. But now to be
practical. A very great friend of mine, Madame de Nicholas, is leaving
London on the fifteenth of this month. That will be three days after
you receive this letter. Lose no time but wire at once to her at the
Hotel Grosvenor, and tell her you will meet her at Victoria Station and
travel here with her.
"And will you bring me from the Army and Navy Stores some of this
printed note-paper and envelopes to match. I always get mine there.
"Tell your uncles it is imperative that I have a niece with me in my
present delicate health. I cannot be left alone any longer.
"Your affectionate Aunt,
"CECILY."
Godfrey read this letter through in silence, and gave a low whistle as
he handed it back to her.
"Well," said Adrienne, looking at him with anxious eyes, "don't you
think it is a shame of her to write to me like that?"
"I suppose you know her better than I do. I only saw her once when she
came to stay with you two years ago, and brought her rather pretty
daughter with her."
"Yes, that was when Mathilde told me she would marry anyone—a
hunchback, or a dwarf, or a man who broke stones in the road—to get
away from home. She told me her mother really wanted a white slave to
live with her. So, you see, Godfrey, I know what would be in store for
me if I went."
"It's a letter of an unhappy woman," said Godfrey, looking at her with
his clear blue eyes; "and she seems to want you badly."
"Now don't tell me I ought to go. My duty is to remain in that state of
life in which God has called me. That is in the catechism of my youth.
I am happy where I am. Why should I deliberately choose to leave my
present life for one in which I know I should be miserable?"
"Is our own happiness the chief aim in our lives?" said the young man
slowly. "And do we really know what makes our happiness? I rather doubt
it. I thought at one time when I gave up going into the Church that I
was giving up my happiness, but I found I was not."
Adrienne looked at him thoughtfully. She knew that from his boyhood
Godfrey's whole aim had been to take Holy Orders. He was at Oxford
when his eldest brother had died. Things were not going smoothly at
home. His father had died when his sons were quite children. His mother
knew nothing of business and had been for many years in the hands of
a dishonest agent; the estate was in a very bad way when the eldest
boy Ernest came into his property. He manfully put his shoulder to the
wheel, dismissed the agent and worked the estate himself, but just at
a critical stage, he was struck down by pneumonia and died after a few
days' illness. Lady Sutherland summoned Godfrey home, and told him it
was his duty to come back and take his brother's place.
And after a terrible conflict in his own mind, Godfrey gave up his own
will and heart's desire, and came home to be the comfort and joy of his
mother's life. His frank sunny nature did not alter; and though many
of his college friends blamed him for having, as they said, "put his
hand to the plough and looked back," Godfrey went on his way serenely,
perhaps influencing more people by his personality as a landed
proprietor than as a parson, for he had something in his heart and soul
worth passing on, and was not ashamed to do it.
But a few of his friends—and Adrienne was one of them—knew that the
sacrifice of his soul's desire had been a heavy one. She had always
admired his serenity and cheerfulness, as he had carried out the wishes
and whims of a rather capricious mother. And now, as she met his gaze,
the colour mounted into her cheeks.
"You think me a selfish pig to talk or think about my own happiness.
But I can't help it. I hate being unhappy. When I was a little girl I
always did, and I remember saying to a governess who punished me for
some impertinent remark to her:
"'If I was wrong to speak rudely to you, you're much more wrong to make
me miserable!'
"Besides, I know your creed—it is that in making others happy, our
own happiness comes. And that's what I'm doing. I know I make my
uncles happy by living with them. We're all as jolly as we can be
together. And they want me. They've always told me so. They paid for my
schooling; my aunt never did. She was always a spoiled selfish wayward
girl. Uncle Derrick told me so."
Adrienne spoke eagerly, but there was a pleading tone in her voice. She
added:
"Oh, do tell me it wouldn't be right to leave the uncles!"
Godfrey laughed.
"I am not your Father Confessor. I wish I could advise you one way or
the other, but it wouldn't be wise. You are old enough to judge for
yourself. We must come to cross-ways in our journey when we have to
decide which path is to be ours."
"I hate cross-ways!" exclaimed Adrienne vehemently and childishly.
"You have been in the sunshine so long, and you have so much of it in
your heart," said Godfrey slowly, "that it does not follow you will
lose it by going into the shade for a time. Isn't it possible that you
could make the dark corner sunny?"
"Now I know that you are on Aunt Cecily's side," said Adrienne; and
tears were not far from her eyes as she spoke.
They were now approaching the village, which lay covered in snow, and
looked silent and deserted. As they came up to the little general shop
next the post office, a girl came out of it. She was rather taller than
Adrienne and had a fair freckled face, and reddish golden hair which
was bobbed in the modern fashion. She was clad in a rough frieze coat
and Russian boots reaching to her knees. A close green felt hat covered
her head and ears.
She waved her hand cheerily as Godfrey and Adrienne approached her.
"A jolly morning, eh? I'm not going to market to-day. Am trying to
dispose of three dozen eggs in the village. We never expected this
weather, and the drifts are four feet deep they say on the Newton Road."
"Are you going home, Phemie? Wait for me," pleaded Adrienne. Then she
turned to Godfrey, who was about to leave her.
"I came out on purpose to hunt you up, and see what you would say.
You've done me good, though you may not think it. Good-bye."
"If this frost holds, we'll have skating on the ponds," he said.
"Anyhow, I'll see you again before you settle anything. Good-bye to you
both. How's Dick, Miss Moray?"
"First-rate," the girl replied; "but very cross at the snow stopping
his ploughing to-day."
The young squire with his big dog went his way.
Adrienne went into the shop, and got her pound of nails and a few other
trifles as well.
Then she linked her arm into that of Phemie Moray's, and the two
girls began to chat together in a light-hearted fashion. Adrienne was
her sunny self again, she cast off all thoughts of the letter in her
pocket, and listened to Phemie's humorous account of her struggles
with two belligerent cows that morning, and the arrival of a calf the
evening before.
"I believe you are getting to love your farm life," said Adrienne
presently.
But Phemie shook her head.
"It is too absorbing; and you know how strenuous and strong and dogged
Mother is? Of course I know she is splendid; she is determined that
Dick shall make his farm pay, but she works us both like carthorses.
And often I ask myself, is it worth it? I've never time to read a book,
hardly a minute to mend and keep myself tidy. If it isn't the poultry
or the pigs or the cows, it is the meals and the house. Oh, how I hate
the mud that makes such work round a farm!
"But I don't mean to grumble. And when I think of Mother and me stuck
away in dingy lodgings in a Bayswater road, and Dick, poor Dick
tramping round with his discharge papers and medals in search of work,
and coming home in the evening to eat margarine and a bit of cold
mutton, and to tell Mother once again of his non-success, I can thank
God for where he has placed us now. Mother and Dick are always blessing
Sir Godfrey for his remembrance and interest in his old war chums. And
I think that is what makes Mother so eager over it. She's so grateful
for the farm, that she wants to show Sir Godfrey he won't be the loser
by his generosity. And if pertinacity and continuous hard grinding work
will do it, we ought to make the farm a success."
"I'm sure you will," said Adrienne cheerfully. "Everyone is saying that
your brother might be a born farmer from the way he works."
"They don't know how much he owes to Mother. She is behind him. What
he doesn't know, she gets out of practical farm books, or out of talks
with the farmers round. She never forgets what she reads or hears. I
wish I were more like her."
"Do you never wish yourself back in London again?"
"Oh, often. I dream of a big legacy coming to us. And of my going back
there and taking up my life in a Kensington studio and studying art.
You don't know what cravings come over me to handle pencil and paints
again. Mother never had any sympathy with artists. She used to tell me
that they were an improvident immoral set, and she will never believe
that I could have earned my living by art. She said only one in a
hundred made their fortunes by painting, and that I would certainly
not be that one. Doesn't it seem hard that here, where I see the
wonderful sunsets over the hills, and the beautiful nooks in woods and
valleys which are crying out to be painted, I have not the leisure to
reproduce them for the benefit of others? I always say that artists are
benefactors. It is not a selfish profession. Nothing that you produce
is."
"And now you're producing milk and butter and corn and all the
necessities of life for others by your labour," said Adrienne. "What an
idle drone I am beside you!"
Phemie laughed merrily, then she pointed down over some fields to a
valley in the distance, lined on one side by a fringe of snow-clad
pines:
"Isn't that a picture?" she exclaimed. "There is one thing—if I am not
allowed to make a poor attempt at reproduction, I get pictures for my
own delight and pleasure, and pictures fresh from the Hands of God."
She soon parted with Adrienne, who went on her way thoughtfully
pondering over two round pegs in square holes—Godfrey, who had been
turned from a parson into a squire, and Phemie, who had been turned
from an artist into a farmer.
"And they are both contented and happy," she said. "I wonder if
everyone in this world is baulked of their own desires, and I wonder,
how I wonder, whether I ought to go to Aunt Cecily or not."