POPULAR NOVELS
BY
MRS. MARY J. HOLMES.
TEMPEST AND SUNSHINE.
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MRS. HALLAM’S COMPANION PAUL RALSTON.
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HUGH WORTHINGTON.
CAMERON PRIDE.
ROSE MATHER.
ETHELYN’S MISTAKE.
MILBANK.
EDNA BROWNING.
WEST LAWN.
MILDRED.
FORREST HOUSE.
MADELINE.
CHRISTMAS STORIES.
GRETCHEN.
DR. HATHERN’S DAUGHTERS.
“Mrs. Holmes is a peculiarly pleasant and fascinating writer. Her books
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Handsomely bound in cloth. Price, $1.00 each, and sent _free_ by mail on
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[Illustration: HAVERLEIGH SAT WITH HIS FACE BURIED IN HIS
HANDS.—_Chateau d’Or, Page 185._]
CHATEAU D’OR
Norah and Kitty Craig
BY
MARY J. HOLMES
[Illustration]
G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT, 1880,
BY
DANIEL HOLMES.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Annie Strong 11
II. Chateau d’Or 27
III. Madame Verwest and Anna 56
IV. The News which Came to Millfield 67
V. The News which Came to Chateau d’Or 75
VI. In the Autumn 97
VII. Eugenie and Anna 112
VIII. More News which Came to Millfield 131
IX. Eugenie’s Waiting-Maid 137
X. Eugenie Goes Again to Chateau d’Or 153
XI. The Escape 166
XII. The Denouement 172
XIII. In America 188
NORAH 223
KITTY CRAIG 329
CHATEAU D’OR.
We had left Paris behind us, and were going down to the southern part of
France, as far as Marseilles and Nice. All day Hal and I had had the
compartment to ourselves, and had talked, and smoked, and read, and
looked out upon the country through which we were passing so rapidly.
But this had become rather monotonous, and I was beginning to tire of
the gray rocks, and bleak mountain sides, and gnarled olive trees, when
suddenly, as we turned a curve and came out into a more open and fertile
tract, Hal seized my arm, and pointing to the left of us, said:
“Quick, quick! Do you see that old chateau in the distance?”
Following the direction of his hand, I saw what at first seemed to be a
mass of dark stone walls, turrets, towers, and balconies, tumbled
promiscuously together, and forming an immense pile of ruins. A closer
and nearer inspection, however, showed me a huge stone building, which
must have been very old, judging from its style of architecture, and the
thickness of its walls, and the gray moss, which had crept up to the
very eaves, and found there before it the ivy, which grows so rankly and
luxuriously in many parts of France.
“Yes, I see it,” I said. “What of it, and what place is it?”
“That,” said Hal, “is CHATEAU D’OR, which, translated into plain English
for a stupid like you, means ‘Chateau of gold,’ though why that somber,
dreary old pile should have that name is more than I can tell, unless it
is that it cost so much to build it. It is nearly two hundred years old.
Its first owner ruined himself on it, I believe, and it has passed
through many hands since. You see that stream of water yonder, almost a
river? Well, that passes entirely round the chateau, which really stands
on an island, and is only accessible from one point, and that an iron
bridge. That old building has been the scene of the strangest story you
ever heard—almost a tragedy, in fact, and the heroine was an American
woman, and native of my own town. I’ll tell you about it to-night, after
we have had our dinner.”
I was interested now, and leaned far out of the window to look at the
chateau, which seemed gloomy and dreary enough to warrant the wildest
story one could tell of it. And that night I heard the story which I now
write down, using sometimes Hal Morton’s words, and sometimes my own.
THE STORY.
CHAPTER I.
ANNIE STRONG.
“Millfield,” said Hal, “is one of those little New England towns which
seem to have been finished up years and years ago, and gone quietly to
sleep without a suspicion that anything more could be expected of it. It
stands on a spur of the mountains which lie between Pittsfield and
Albany, and can be distinctly seen from the car windows, with its
spotless houses of white, with fresh green blinds, and the inevitable
lilac bushes and sweet syringas in front. I was born there, and when I
wish to rest and get away from the noise and turmoil of New York, I go
there and grow a younger and a better man amid the Sunday stillness
which reigns perpetually in its streets. And yet you would be surprised
to find how much intelligence and genuine aristocracy that little
village has. There are the Crosbys, who claim relationship with the
Adamses, and a real scion of the Washingtons, and a lineal descendant of
Lord Cornwallis, and Miss Talleyrand, who prides herself upon having, in
her veins, the best blood in New England, though good old Deacon
Larkin’s wife once shocked her horribly by saying ‘she didn’t see, for
her part, why Polly Talleyrand need to brag so about good blood, when
she was as full of erysipelas as she could hold.’”
Here I laughed heartily over Miss Talleyrand’s good blood, while Hal
lighted a fresh cigar, and continued:
“Next to these aristocrats—upper crust, as the deacon’s wife called
them—comes the well-to-do class, tradespeople and mechanics, the people
whose sons and daughters work in the shoe-shops, for you know the shoe
business is nowhere carried on so extensively as in New England, and it
gives employment to many girls as well as boys, the former stitching the
uppers, as they are called, and the latter putting on the soles. There
is a very large shop in Millfield, which employs at least fifty girls,
and at the time I am telling you about, there was not in the whole
fifty—no, nor in the entire town—so pretty a girl as Annie Strong, the
heroine of my story. She was not very intellectual, it is true, or very
fond of books, but she was beautiful to look at, with a lithe, graceful
figure, and winsome ways, while her voice was sweet and clear as a
robin’s. Birdie Strong, we called her, on account of her voice, and when
she sang in the gallery of the old brick church, I used to shut my eyes,
and fancy I was in Heaven, listening to the music of the sweetest singer
there.
“Bob I may as well be frank with you. I was in love with Annie Strong,
and I am certain she liked _me_ a little, though she never encouraged me
in the least. She was not a bit of a coquette, and made no secret of the
fact that _money_, and nothing else, would have any influence with her.
Annie was ambitious, and when, from her shoe-bench in the hot work-room,
she saw Judge Crosby’s daughter go by in her dainty white dress and sash
of blue, she thought hard, bitter things of the humble life she led, and
vowed to accept the first man who could give her silks, and lace, and
diamonds, and a place in society.
“At last the man came—a brusque, haughty Englishman, with a slight limp
in his left ankle, and a cold, hard expression in his steel-gray eyes,
but tolerably good-looking, with a certain assurance and style, and
lavish generosity, which won upon the people, and made him quite a lion.
Eva Crosby invited him to tea; Miss Talleyrand’s niece drove with him
once or twice; and so he became the fashion. He was not young—was
thirty-five at least, and looked older. He was of Scottish descent, he
said, though English born, and he owned an estate in the north of
Scotland, a large chateau in the south of France, and a city house in
London, and he called himself Ernest Walsingham Haverleigh. If he chose
he could be very gracious and agreeable, though his manner was always
haughty in the extreme, and had in it an undisguised contempt for
everything American.
“I disliked him from the first, and hated him after the day of Miss
Crosby’s lawn party, to which Annie Strong was invited, and where she
shone the belle of the fête, notwithstanding that her dress was a simple
blue muslin, and the ruffle round her throat imitation lace. I learned
that fact from hearing Miss Talleyrand’s niece, from Springfield, say to
Eva Crosby, in speaking of Anna, ‘She _is_ rather pretty, but decidedly
_flashy_. Her love of finery leads her to wear imitation lace. If
there’s any one thing I detest, it is that. It always stamps a person.’
“And so Anna was stamped, but did not seem to mind it at all. How
plainly I can see her now as she came through the gate with her hat in
her hand, and her beautiful hair falling in curls about her neck and
shoulders.
“Up to that moment Haverleigh had maintained an indolent, bored
attitude, with a look of supreme indifference on his face, but when Anna
joined us, his manner changed at once, and he devoted himself to her
with a persistency which brought upon her the jealous rancor of every
lady present. But Anna did not seem to know it, and received the
Englishman’s attentions with an air of sweet unconsciousness, which only
deepened his ardor, and made him perfectly oblivious to every one around
him. The next day he made some inquiries with regard to Anna’s family,
and before night had learned all there was to know of them, both good
and bad. They were poor, but perfectly respectable people, and no taint
had ever rested upon the name of Strong. Years and years before,
Grandfather Strong had married a second wife, with a daughter about the
age of his own son, afterwards Anna’s father, and this daughter, Milly
Gardner, who was in no way connected with the Strongs, had run away with
a Boston man, who promised her marriage and then deserted her. A few
years later news was received in Millfield of her death, and so the
scandal died and was buried in poor Milly’s grave, and the family seldom
spoke her name. Indeed, Anna’s mother, who was many years younger than
her husband, had never known Milly, while Mr. Strong himself, who had
loved her as a dear sister, never blamed her. She was more sinned
against than sinning, and so he let her rest in peace, and his children
only knew of her as Aunt Milly, who was very pretty, and who was dead.
Mr. Strong was dead now himself, and his widow lived in a little red
house on the common, with her three children—Mary, who made dresses in
the winter, and taught school in the summer; Anna, who worked in the
shoe-shop; and Fred, the youngest and pet of the family, who was
destined for college, and for whom the mother and sisters hoarded their
small earnings and denied themselves everything.
“This is the history of the Strongs up to the time when Haverleigh came
to Millfield and made up his mind to marry Anna, with the decided
understanding, however, that in taking her he was not taking her family.
And Anna listened to him, and throwing aside her love, and pride, and
womanhood, cast into one scale her humble home, with its poverty and
privations, her scanty dress, her hateful life of toil in the dingy
shop, stitching shoes for the negroes to wear; while into the other she
put a life of ease and luxury, the country seat in Scotland, the chateau
in Southern France, the city house in London, with the gay seasons
there, and what weighed more with her—the satins, and laces, and
diamonds which, as Mrs. Haverleigh, she was sure to wear. Of course, the
latter scale overbalanced the former, and without a particle of love,
but rather with a feeling of dread and fear for the cold Englishman,
Anna promised to be his wife, on one condition. Fred was to go to
college, the mortgage of five hundred dollars on the red house was to be
paid, her mother was to have a dress of handsome black silk, and Mary
one of dark blue. This request she made timidly, not daring to look at
the man who, with a sneer on his face, answered, laughingly:
“‘Oh, that is a mere trifle. Fred shall go to college, the mortgage
shall be paid, the silk gowns shall be forthcoming, and here is the
wherewithal.’
“It was a check for five thousand dollars which he gave her, and his
unlooked-for generosity went far toward reconciling Mrs. Strong and Mary
to the match. And so it was a settled thing, and Anna stitched her last
shoe in the dingy shop; went down the staircase for the last time, sang
her last song in church, and was married quietly at home one lovely
morning in July, when Millfield was looking its best from the effects of
a recent rain. There were drops of crystal on the freshly cut grass, and
the air was sweet with the perfume of roses and pinks, and heliotrope,
while the sky overhead was blue and clear as the eyes of the young
bride, who, if she felt any regret for the home she was leaving, did not
show it in the least. Perhaps she was thinking of the costly diamond on
her finger, and the silken robe she wore, or possibly of the grandeur
which awaited her over the sea. Poor Anna—she was very young—only
eighteen—and to change at once from a poor girl, who was every morning
awakened by the shoe-shop whistle, to a life she hated, to step into
wealth and elegance must have benumbed and bewildered her so that she
did not realize what she was doing, when at last she said good-by to the
home of her childhood, and went away alone with a man she had scarcely
known two months—a man whom she did not love, and who, even while
caressing her, made her feel the immense condescension it had been on
his part to make her his wife.
“Their destination was New York, where Anna had never been, and where
they were to spend a week or two before sailing for Europe. At the hotel
where they stopped, Anna met with an old school friend, who, like
herself, was a bride taking her wedding trip. As was natural, the two
young girls talked together freely of their future prospects and the
husbands they had chosen, and Anna could not help showing her elation at
being the wife of a man like Mr. Haverleigh.
“‘But tell me honestly, do you love him?’ Mrs. Fleming, said to her one
day. ‘He is not at all the person I should have selected for you. Why,
do you know I feel a kind of terror stealing over me every time he
speaks to me, there is such a hard ring in his voice, and it seems to me
a cruel look in his eyes. Then I always thought you would eventually
marry Hal Morton.’
“This was a great deal to say to a bride concerning her husband, but
Lucy Fleming was just the one to take liberties, and Anna did not resent
it in the least, but answered laughingly: ‘Oh, _Hal_ is quite _too_
poor. He took it hard, and looked like a goosey at the wedding. I fancy
he did not like Mr. Haverleigh, and I see you think him a kind of Blue
Beard, too, and so I confess do I, but then I never intend to _peek_,
and lose my life as did his silly wives. Honestly, though, Lucy, I do
not love him, and I experience that same fear of him which you describe,
and actually shrink from him when he kisses me; but he is very kind to
me, and I believe loves me truly, and I shall make him think that I love
him. I married him for money, for fine dresses, and jewelry, and
handsome furniture, and servants, and horses and carriages, and that
Chateau d’Or, which did more toward influencing me than anything else.
Only think of living in a house almost as large as a castle, with a
French maid, and troops of servants, and a housekeeper to take every
care from me; one could endure almost any man for the sake of all that.’
“Here the conversation ceased, and a moment after Mr. Haverleigh himself
entered the room. To an ordinary observer there was nothing in his
manner to indicate that he had overheard a word, but there was a kind of
ferocious look in his eyes, and his lips were shut more tightly together
than usual as he bowed to Mrs. Fleming, and then, crossing to his wife,
bent over her affectionately, and kissed her forehead as he asked if she
would take a drive. It was a lovely afternoon. The Park was full of
people, and Anna’s fresh young face attracted a great deal of notice, as
did the haughty looking man at her side, who had never been as
lover-like in his attentions as he was from that day on until the ocean
was crossed, and they were at the Grosvenor House in London. His own
house was closed, he said, when Anna asked why they did not go there,
but he drove her past it, and she was sure she saw a lady’s face looking
at them from one of the upper windows. Haverleigh must have seen it,
too, for he muttered something which sounded like an execration under
his breath, and drove on faster than before.
“‘Does any one live in your house? I thought I saw a lady at the
window,’ Anna said, timidly, for she was beginning to understand his
moods, as he called his frequent fits of abstraction, and knew he was in
one now.
“There was nobody occupying his house, and she had not seen any one at
the window, he answered rather curtly; but Anna knew she had, and
dreamed that night of the large black eyes which had peered at her so
curiously from the house on Belgrave Square. She could not be ignorant
of the fact, either, that her husband, while paying her marked
attention, especially in the parks and at table, was restless, and
nervous, and very anxious to hurry away from London, and very impatient
on account of the slight illness which kept them there a week longer
than he wished to stay.
“Once, just before their marriage, he had asked her whether she would
rather go to Scotland first or France, and she had answered Scotland,
preferring Southern France later in the autumn, when she hoped to see
Nice and Mentone, before settling down for the winter at Chateau d’Or.
‘Then to Scotland we will go,’ he had replied, and she had greatly
anticipated her visit to Scotland, and her trip through the Trosachs,
and across the beautiful Lakes Lomond and Katrine, but all this was to
be given up; her master had changed his mind, and without a word of
explanation told her they were going at once to Paris.
“‘You can attend to your dressmaking better there than elsewhere, and
you know you are fond of satins, and laces, and jewelry,’ he said, and
there was a gleam in his eye from which Anna would have shrunk had she
noticed it; but she did not. She was thinking of Paris and its gayeties,
and she packed her trunks without a word of dissent, and was soon
established in a handsome suite of rooms, at the Grand Hotel, with
permission to buy whatever she wanted, irrespective of expense.
“‘I’d like you to have morning dresses, and dinner dresses, and evening
dresses, and riding dresses, and walking dresses, and everything
necessary to a lady’s wardrobe,’ he said; and poor unsuspecting Anna
thought, ‘How much society he must expect me to see, and how glad I
shall be of it!’”
Anna was beginning to feel a good deal bored with no company but that of
her husband, for though he sometimes bowed to ladies on the Boulevards,
no one came to see her, and as their meals were served in their parlor,
she had but little chance to cultivate the acquaintance of the people
staying at the hotel, so that, with the exception of her milliner and
dressmaker, both of whom spoke English, and a few clerks at the
different stores, she could talk with no one in all the great, gay city,
and there gradually settled down upon her a feeling of loneliness and
homesickness, for which all her costly dresses and jewelry could not
make amends. But this would be changed when they were at Nice or
Mentone, or even at the chateau, which her husband told her was
frequently full of guests during the autumn months. Oh, how many
pictures she drew of that chateau, with its turrets and towers
overlooking the surrounding country, its beautiful grounds, its
elegantly furnished rooms, its troops of servants, and herself mistress
of it all, with a new dress for every day in the month if she liked, for
it almost amounted to that before her shopping was done, and when at
last they left Paris, the porters counted fourteen trunks which they had
brought down from No. —, all the property of the pretty little lady,
whose traveling-dress of gray silk was a marvel of puffs, and ruffles,
and plaitings, and sashes, as she took her seat in the carriage, and was
driven away through the streets of Paris to the Lyons Station.
“They were going to the chateau first, her husband told her, adding that
he hoped the arrangement suited her.
“‘Oh, certainly,’ she replied. ‘I shall be so glad to see one of my new
homes. I know I shall like it and perhaps be so happy there that I shall
not care to leave it for a long time. I am getting a little tired.’
“They were alone in the railway carriage, and as Anna said this she
leaned her head against his arm as if she were really tired and wanted
rest. It was the first voluntary demonstration of the kind she had ever
made toward him, and there came a sudden flush into his face and a light
into his eyes, but he did not pass his arm around the drooping little
figure—he merely suffered the bright head to rest upon his shoulder,
while he gazed gloomily out upon the country they were passing, not
thinking of the dreary landscape, the barren hills, and gray mountain
tops, but rather of the diabolical purpose from which he had never
swerved an hour since the moment it was formed.