THE NEWS WHICH CAME TO CHATEAU D’OR.
Monsieur Brunell had received a telegram saying that M. Haverleigh would
visit the chateau the following day, and both Anna and Madame Verwest
had received letters apprising them of his home-coming, and bidding the
one see that a grand dinner was in readiness for him, and the other to
array herself in her most becoming attire, as befitted a wife about to
receive her husband after a separation of many months. To Anna this
visit seemed more awful than anything she had yet experienced at the
chateau, for as a whole her life there had not been without its
pleasures. Acting upon Madame Verwest’s advice, she had tried to make
the best of her position, and in acquiring the language and a knowledge
of music, she had found a solace for many a weary hour which otherwise
would have hung heavily upon her hands. She was fond of French and
music, and had developed a remarkable talent for them both, while in the
well-selected library she had found a delight she had never thought she
could find in books. Madame Verwest was herself a good scholar and a
clear reasoner and thinker, and in her constant companionship Anna was
rapidly developing into a self-reliant woman, capable of thinking and
acting for herself. She had long since given up all hope of hearing from
home, unless she could find some other method of communication than
through the medium of Monsieur Brunell, who took charge of every letter
from the chateau, and who, when questioned upon the subject as to why no
answer ever came to her, always replied that he did not know, unless her
letters were lost on the voyage. He always deposited them in the post,
and more than that he could not do. It was in vain that Anna had tried
other methods of getting her letters to the post. It could not be done,
even through Madame Verwest, who said always, ‘I would so gladly, but I
dare not.’
“And so, though letter after letter had been written home, there had
come to her no reply, and she guessed pretty accurately that her letters
were sent directly to her husband, who, of course, destroyed them. A
prisoner for life she began to fear she was, and sometimes beat her
wings cruelly against her gilded cage. Haverleigh had kept his word, and
every luxury in the way of service, elegant dress, and furniture was
hers. All the servants were respectful and attentive, while Celine was
her devoted slave. Anna could talk with her now tolerably well, and the
first use she made of her knowledge was an effort to convince her maid
of her sanity, and that she was kept a prisoner there to suit the whim
of her husband, whom she represented as a dreadful man. But to this
Celine gave no credence, though she at first smilingly assented to her
young mistress’ assertion, as if it were a part of her business to humor
every fancy of the poor lunatic. Once Anna was more earnest than usual,
and begged her maid to say if she believed her crazy.
“‘_Oui, oui_,’ Celine answered, vehemently, ‘I must think it, else why
are you here, shut up from the world and Paris, and monsieur is far too
kind, too fond to imprison madame for naught, and yet——’
“Here Celine paused a moment, as if a new idea had just occurred to her,
and then she continued:
“‘And yet it is a little strange that mademoiselle Agatha should be
crazy, too, like you, and like you shut up here.’
“‘Who was Agatha?’ Anna asked; and then, little by little, she heard the
story of the poor young girl from Normandy, who had died in what Celine
called the ‘Ghost Room,’ with the words ‘_Je vais revoir ma Normandie_’
on her lips.
“‘She haunts the room still,’ Celine said; ‘and often on stormy nights,
when the wind howls round the old chateau, we hear her voice singing of
Normandy. You see, that was her home, and she thought she was going back
to see it again. Oh, but she was pretty, much like madame; only she was
mademoiselle—no wedding ring, for true—no priest—and she was not lady,
like you Americaine. She was people—very people.’
“This was Celine’s version of the story, and that night Anna heard from
Madame Verwest more of poor Agatha, who believed herself a wife, and who
went really mad when she found that she was not. If anything had been
wanting to complete Anna’s loathing and horror of her husband, this
story would have accomplished it. That he was a demon in human form, as
well as a madman, she had no doubt, and there gradually crept into her
heart a fear lest she, too, like Agatha of Normandy, would die in that
dreary house. Still youth is hopeful, and Anna was young and cheered by
the courage of Madame Verwest, who was to her more like a mother than a
servant, she found herself constantly forming plans for escape from the
chateau. When she received her husband’s letter, telling her he was
coming, her first and predominant feeling was one of horror and dread;
but anon there arose in her mind a hope that he might be coming to
release her, or at least to take her with him to Paris, and once there
she would fall in with Americans or English, and through them obtain her
freedom.
“With this end in view she determined to make herself as attractive and
agreeable as possible to the man she detested, and on the day when he
was expected she suffered Celine to dress her in one of the many Paris
gowns which she had never worn, for it had hitherto seemed worse than
folly to array herself in laces, and silks, and jewels for her solitary
meals. But to-day there was a reason for dressing, and she bade Celine
do her best, and when that best was done and she saw herself in the
glass, a picture of rare loveliness in blue satin and lace, with pearls
on her neck and arms, something of her old vanity awoke within her, and
she found herself again wishing that her friends at home could see her.
“In the kitchen below all was bustle and expectation, for whatever
Ernest Haverleigh might be to others, he was exceedingly popular with
his servants, and not a man or woman of them but would have walked
through fire and water to serve him. In the dining salon the table was
set for dinner as it never had been laid since the first night of Anna’s
arrival at Chateau d’Or, more than five months ago. And Anna glanced in
there once as she was passing the door, and felt herself grow sick and
faint as she saw the costly array, and remembered what it was for.
“At half-past five the train was due, and just as the little silver
clock chimed the half hour, the whistle was heard, and from the window
where she had so often watched the sun setting she saw the long train
moving off toward Marseilles, and a few moments after the sound of
carriage wheels in the court below told her that her husband had come.
She did not go to meet him, but with clasped hands and rapidly beating
heart stood waiting for him just where he left her months before,
terrified, bewildered, crouching upon the couch, with her face hidden in
her hands. Now she stood erect, with an unnatural brightness in her blue
eyes, and a flush on her cheeks, which deepened to scarlet as her ear
caught the sound of heavy footsteps, and she knew he was coming.
“The next moment he opened the door, and started involuntarily, as if he
had not been prepared to see her thus. He had not expected to find her
so beautiful and so matured. He had left her a timid, shrinking girl; he
found her a woman, with that expression upon her face which only
experience or suffering brings. His _role_ had been all marked out and
arranged. He should find her tearful, reproachful, desperate possibly,
and that would suit him well, and make her insanity more probable to his
servants, while he would be the patient, enduring, martyr-husband,
humoring her like a child, and petting her as he would pet a kitten
which scratched and spit at his caresses. How then was he disappointed,
when, with a steady step, she crossed the room to meet him, and offered
her hand as quietly and self-possessed, to all appearance, as if he had
been a stranger seeking audience of her.
“‘_Ma precieuse, ma belle reine_, how charming I find you, and how
delighted I am to see you looking so well,’ he exclaimed, as he
encircled her in his arms as lovingly as if she had been the bride of
yesterday.
“Oh, how she loathed his caresses, and felt her blood curdling in her
veins as he pressed kiss after kiss upon her cheek and lips, and called
her his darling and pet, and asked if she were glad to see him again.
She could not tell a lie, and she dared not tell the truth, but her eyes
told it for her, and he saw it at once, and said in a deprecating tone:
“‘What! not glad to see me when I have lived in the anticipation of this
meeting ever since I parted with you last autumn. Why then didn’t I come
before? you may ask. Business before pleasure, you know, and then I
hoped that perfect quiet in this lovely retreat would go far toward
restoring you. _Eh, ma petite._ How is it, are you any better here?’ And
he touched his forehead significantly.
“That exasperated Anna, who, for a moment, lost her self-control, and
releasing herself from him, stepped backward, and with a proud gesture
of her head, exclaimed:
“‘Have done with that. You know I’m not crazy, and you shall not stay in
my presence if you insult me thus!’
“She was very beautiful then, and for a moment Haverleigh felt a wave of
his old love or passion sweeping over him as he stood looking at her;
then the demon within whispered of that day in New York, and the words
he had overheard, and he was himself again, her jailer and master rather
than her lover and husband.
“‘Ha, my pretty pet,’ said he, ‘and so you are mistress here, and can
refuse or permit my presence as you please! So be it then, and if it
suits you better to be sane, why sane you are to me at least. But, Mrs.
Haverleigh, joking aside, I am glad to see you, and I think you greatly
improved, and I come in peace and not in war, and if you incline to the
latter I would advise a change in your programme. Upon my soul, you
_are_ charming.’
‘He drew her to him again, and she suffered his kisses in silence, and
did not even shrink from him when in the presence of Celine he drew her
down upon his knee, and called her his angel and dove. But the color had
all faded from her cheeks, and left her very pale, while her hands shook
so that she could scarcely manage her soup, when at last dinner was
announced, and he led her to the dining salon. He was all attention to
her, and a stranger watching him would have thought him the most devoted
of husbands, but to Anna there was something disgusting and terrible in
his manner which she knew was assumed as a means of deceiving the
servants, who pitied their master for being so unfortunately married.
“When dinner was over, and they had returned to the salon, Anna could
restrain herself no longer, but going up to her husband startled him
with the question:
“‘There is something I must ask you, and for the love of heaven answer
me truthfully. I have written home seven times since you left me here
last October, but have never received a word in reply. Tell me, do you
think my letters ever crossed the sea? Did mother ever get them?’
“For an instant the hot blood flamed up in Mr. Haverleigh’s face, and
his eyes fell beneath the steady gaze fixed so searchingly upon him.
Anna knew that her suspicions were correct, and that her letters had
never gone to America, and the lie he told her did not in the least
shake her belief.
“‘Do I think your mother ever got them?’ He repeated, at last. ‘She must
have gotten some of them, and some may have been lost. You gave them to
Brunel?’
“Yes, always to Brunel. No one else would touch them, and I was never
allowed to post one myself. Why not? Why am I treated so like a
prisoner? Why do you keep me here? Surely I have been sufficiently
punished for the foolish words you overheard. Forgive me for them. Try
me again. Let me go with you to Paris, when you return. I shall die here
or go mad. Don’t drive me to that. Oh, let me go away somewhere. Let me
go home—back to mother.”
“She was kneeling now at his feet, and he was looking down upon her with
a strange glitter in his eye. Then the look softened, and there was
unutterable tenderness in the tone of his voice as he stooped to raise
her, and leading her to the couch, said to her pityingly:
“‘Poor child, you don’t know what you ask. You have no home to go to.
Your mother is dead—died suddenly—and in kindness to you I have withheld
your sister’s letter, wishing to spare you pain, but I have it with me.
Can you read it now?’
“He held a worn-looking envelope toward her but for a moment she did not
see it. The blow had fallen so suddenly, and was so terrible in its
magnitude, that for a brief space both sight and sense failed her, and
she sat staring blankly into his face as if she neither saw nor heard.
After a moment, however, her eyes relaxed from their stony expression;
there was a quivering of the lips, a rapid heaving of the chest, and
then in a voice her husband would never have recognized as hers, she
said:
“‘Give me the letter, please. I can read it now.’
“He gave it to her, and holding it mechanically in her hand she studied
the address, in her sister’s handwriting: ‘ERNEST HAVERLEIGH, ESQ.,
PARIS, FRANCE. _Care of Munroe & Co._’ The date upon the back was Dec.
8th, and there was the dear old Millfield post-mark seeming to bring her
so near her home, and making her heart throb wildly in her throat, where
was a strange sense of suffocation. At last, when every part of the
soiled envelope had been studied, she slowly opened it and drew forth
the sheet folded inside. Then the look of anguish on her face gave way
to one of perplexity, as she said:
“‘Look, this is not Mary’s letter. It is from your agent in Scotland.’
‘My agent in Scotland! Not Mary’s letter! What do you mean?’ Mr.
Haverleigh asked, and taking the paper from her he saw that she was
right, and that he held a communication from his Scottish steward
regarding his estate in the Highlands. ‘What can this mean? I don’t
understand,’ he said, and seemed to be intently thinking; then suddenly
he added: ‘Oh, I believe I know how the mistake occurred. This from
McKenzie I received the same day with the one from your sister, and
instead of putting the latter in this envelope, as I meant to do, I tore
it up, as I do all my letters of no importance, and put this in its
place. I am sorry, but I can give you the particulars. Can you bear it
now? There, lay your head against my arm, you look so white and
strange.’
“He sat down beside her, and drawing her to him made her lean against
him while he told her how her mother, after an unusually hard day’s
work, had sickened suddenly and died within three days peacefully,
happily, with a message of love on her lips for her absent daughter.
After the funeral was over, yielding to the earnest solicitations of a
lady who was visiting in Millfield, Mary had decided to rent the house
and go West with the woman as governess for her children. Fred, too, had
accompanied them, as there was in the place a good school, where he
could finish his preparation for college. The name of the lady Mr.
Haverleigh could not recollect, except that it was something like
Creydock or Heydock, while the town he had quite forgotten, and could by
no means recall. It was very unfortunate, that mistake about the
letters, and he was so sorry, he kept reiterating; but Anna did not seem
to hear, or if she did, she did not care. She only was conscious of the
fact that her mother was dead, her home broken up, and all hope of help
from that quarter cut off. The effect was terrible, and even her husband
was alarmed when he saw how white and motionless she sat, with her hands
dropped helplessly at her side. Bad as he was, he did not wish her to
die then and there, and he tried to move her from her state of apathy;
but she only answered, ‘Please go away. I want to be alone.’
“He made her lie down on the couch, and to this she did not object, but,
like a tired child, laid her head among the soft silken cushions, and
with a long, low gasping sob, closed her eyes wearily, as if to shut out
all sight of everything. Madame Verwest and Celine were sent to her, and
were told of the sad news which had so affected her, and one believed
it, and the other did not; but both were unremitting in their attentions
to the poor heartbroken girl, who gave no sign that she knew what they
were doing or saying to her, except to moan, occasionally: ‘Oh, my
mother is dead! my mother is dead.’
“Mr. Haverleigh, too, was exceedingly kind, and very lavish with his
caresses, which Anna permitted in a dumb, passionless kind of way, like
one who could not help herself. Once, when he stroked her long, bright
hair, she lifted her mournful eyes to him, and asked: ‘Won’t you take me
from here? Won’t you let me go back to where you found me? I can take
care of myself; I can work in the shop again, and after awhile you will
be free from me. Will you let me go?’
“_Free from her!_ Did he wish to be that? For a moment, when he
remembered the glittering black eyes, the only eyes in the world which
had power to make him quail, he half believed he did. On his return to
Paris he had met the woman with the glittering eyes, which seemed to
read his very soul, and ferret out his inmost thoughts. There had been a
stormy scene, for Eugenie Arschinard was not one to brook a rival. She
had compassed the ruin of poor Agatha of Normandy, whom, but for her,
Haverleigh might have dealt fairly with, and made the marriage tie more
than a mere farce, a horrid mockery. From his town-house in London,
Eugenie had seen the young, fair-haired girl driving by and looking so
eagerly at the place, and with her thorough knowledge of the world, she
knew her to be an American, and guessed her to be some new flame whom he
had lured from home, as the plaything of an hour. She never for a moment
believed him married; he was not a marrying man; he dared not marry,
bound as he was to her by the tie of honor, which, in her infidel heart,
she held above the marriage vow. So when she met him in Paris by
appointment, she charged him with his new fancy, demanding who and where
she was, and he was a very coward in her presence, and dared not tell
her the truth of that simple wedding among the New England hills, but
suffered her to believe that Anna, like Agatha, was only his dupe, whom
he could cast off at pleasure. Eugenie had no wish, at present, to be
bound herself. She was true to Haverleigh, and she enjoyed to the full
the luxuries with which he surrounded her, and in Paris, where such
connections were common, she had her circle of friends, and reigned
among them a queen because of Haverleigh’s name and the style in which
she lived. By and by, when she was older, and ceased to attract
admiration, she meant to marry him and so pass into a respectable old
age, but just now her freedom suited her best, and she gave no sign of
her real intentions for the future. But Haverleigh knew well that to
confess he had a wife was to raise a storm he had not courage to meet,
and so he told her the girl she had seen was a little wild rose from
America, whom he had lifted from poverty and taken to Chateau d’Or.
“‘You know I must have something to amuse me when I am at that dreary
place, and Anna does as well as any one. A little washed-out, spiritless
body of whom you need not be jealous.’
“This he had said to Eugenie, and then had bought her the diamond set at
Tiffany’s which she admired so much, had driven with her in the Bois de
Boulogne, and afterward dined with her in the little fairy palace just
off the Champs d’Elysees, her home, of which she had the title-deed in
her possession. And yet, in his heart, Ernest Haverleigh respected Anna
far more than he did this woman, who so fascinated and enthralled him,
for though Anna had come to him with a lie on her lips, and a lie in her
heart, and had wounded his self-love cruelly, she was pure and womanly,
while Eugenie was steeped to the dregs in sin and in intrigue.
“But she ruled him completely, and if he had desired he did not dare
take Anna back with him to Paris and present her as his wife, and he was
not bad enough to cast upon her publicly the odium of being his
mistress. Neither would he send her back to America, for there was no
pretext whatever by which he could be free from the bond which held him
her husband. She had plenty of pretexts, he had none. He could not let
her go, and besides, he was conscious of a real interest in her, a
something which fascinated him, and made him wish to keep her at Chateau
d’Or, where he, and he alone, could see her at his will. Some time,
perhaps, when Eugenie was less troublesome, he might take her away, but
not now, and when she said to him so pleadingly, ‘Will you let me go,
home?’ he answered her very gently, ‘Poor child, you have no home to go
to in America. Your home is here, with me. Not always Chateau d’Or, for
some time I mean to take you with me. I cannot do so now for certain
reasons, but by and by—so be patient, and wait for the happiness in
store.’
“A shudder was Anna’s only answer, as she turned her face away from him
and wished that she might die. For five weeks Mr. Haverleigh remained at
the chateau, devoting himself entirely to Anna, who, while shrinking
with intense disgust from his caresses, permitted them because she must.
To Madame Verwest he was very distant and cold, treating her civilly, it
is true, but always in a manner which showed how wide was the distance
between them. He was master, she was servant, and he made her feel it
keenly. Once, however, when she came suddenly upon him as he sat alone
in his room, she laid her hand on his arm, and asked:
“‘How long is this to go on?’
“‘What to go on?’ he replied, savagely, and she continued:
“‘This horrid life of sin and deception. You know the girl’s mother is
not dead.’
“‘It’s a lie!’ he cried, springing to his feet. ‘A lie—I swear it to
you! And you shall not interfere, or if you do, by——’
“There was a frightful oath as he threatened the trembling woman, who
did not speak again while he went on:
“‘I am beginning to love her once more; to feel a real interest in her.
I find her greatly improved, thanks to you, I suppose. A few months more
of seclusion, and I shall introduce her to the world; but I will not
have her family hanging on me—a set of low Yankees, working in
shoe-shops, teaching school, and making dresses for the rabble.
“‘Is not her family a good one, then?’ Madame Verwest asked, and he
replied:
“‘Good enough for its kind, for aught I know. No stain, unless it be the
half-sister or something of the father, who went to the bad they say—ran
off with a Boston man, who never meant to marry her, and the natural
consequence, of course.’
“‘Where is this woman?’ madame asked, and he replied:
“‘Dead, I believe, or ought to be. Why should such women live?’
“‘Yes, oh, why?’ was answered sadly in madame’s heart; but she made no
response, and when her tyrant of a master motioned her to the door in
token that the interview was ended, she went out without a word.
“Three days later he left the chateau, saying he should come again in
September or October, and possibly bring people with him. Madame
Arschinard, a lady of high position and great wealth, had long wished to
visit Southern France, and he might perhaps invite her down with other
friends, and fill the chateau.
“‘And you, my little white rose,’ he said to Anna, ‘I want you to get
your color back, and be like your old self, for I shall wish my wife not
to be behind any Parisian beauties. I shall send you the very latest
styles. Worth has your number, I believe. And now good-by, my pet. Take
care of yourself, and if——’
“He bent down to her, and whispered something in her ear which turned
her face to scarlet, and made her involuntarily exclaim:
“‘Oh, anything but that—anything but that!’