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HOW THEY LOVED HIM.
_A NOVEL_.
BY
FLORENCE MARRYAT
(MRS FRANCIS LEAN).
_IN THREE VOLUMES_.
VOL. I.
LONDON: F. V. WHITE & CO.,
31 SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND, W.C.
1882.
THE POPULAR NEW NOVELS AT ALL LIBRARIES.
THREE FAIR DAUGHTERS. By LAURENCE BROOKE, Author of ‘The Queen of Two
Worlds,’ etc. 3 vols.
SWEETHEART AND WIFE. By LADY CONSTANCE HOWARD. 3 vols.
MY LADY CLARE. By Mrs EILOART, Author of ‘How He Won Her,’ etc. 3
vols.
‘“My Lady Clare” is a pleasant, readable novel.’--_John Bull_.
‘The interest is maintained with undeniable force and skill.’
--_Daily Telegraph_.
A LOVELESS SACRIFICE. By INA L. CASSILIS, Author of ‘Guilty without
Crime,’ &c. 3 vols.
_John Bull_ says:--‘The story is a pleasant one--healthy in tone,
lofty in teaching, and very sympathetic in manner and style.’
COLSTON AND SON, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
Dedicated,
WITH THE WARMEST OF GOOD WISHES,
TO
MR AND MRS MICHAEL GUNN,
IN ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF
MANY ACTS OF KINDNESS SHOWN TO MY CHILDREN
AND MYSELF.
‘Oh! human Heart, which thus art strong,
To love, to dare, to suffer wrong,
I will not doubt thee, though I see
Thy wickedness continually:
Nor fail to trust thy holier part,
Darkened and fallen as thou art;
But by thy faith--thy love--thy light,
Thy secret longings infinite,
Still trust in God that thou shalt win
Forgiveness for thy host of sin.’
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_CONTENTS_.
CHAPTER I. PAGE
ASLEEP, 1
CHAPTER II.
‘THE SACRED AMULET,’ 26
CHAPTER III.
A MOTHER’S WELCOME, 58
CHAPTER IV.
‘FOR SELF ALONE,’ 86
CHAPTER V.
RELUCTANT FEET, 105
CHAPTER VI.
BANISHED, 135
CHAPTER VII.
IN A NEW WORLD, 169
CHAPTER VIII.
A VOICE IN THE NIGHT, 197
CHAPTER IX.
IN WONDER-LAND! 222
CHAPTER X.
THE DAWN BREAKS, 249
CHAPTER XI.
AWAKENED, 290
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[Illustration: Decorative]
HOW THEY LOVED HIM.
CHAPTER I.
ASLEEP.
‘Her form was fresher than the morning rose
When the dew wets its leaves,--unstain’d and pure
As is the lily, or the mountain snow.’--_Thomson_.
Spring was over all the land, and the April sunshine was beaming mildly
on the tender green leaves and half-blown flowers in the convent garden
of Ansprach. On the broad open terrace, strewn with the golden petals
of the fragile and short-lived laburnum, and scented with the delicate
fragrance of lilac and apple-blossom, a pair of anxious, feathered
parents were vainly endeavouring, by means of continuous twittering,
to induce an awkward fledgling to return to the nest from which he had
prematurely fallen; whilst up and down between the borders of primroses
and polyanthuses, three or four old nuns, too feeble for work, toddled
and sunned themselves, and talked together in quavering voices--Heaven
alone knows of what--perhaps of the days when they were young and
comely, and thought lovers and husbands were natural institutions
and free gifts from God to Woman. From the pasture-lands around the
convent, the lambs were calling to their mother ewes; in the farmyard
the poultry softly chattered to each other as they picked up the
scattered grain; from the playground was wafted a buzz of happy voices.
There were no sounds to be heard, nor sights to be seen on any side,
but such as breathed of purity, and contentment, and peace.
Suddenly, at the farther end of the terrace, appeared a group of
children, galloping and stamping as they played at horses, and the
venerable sisters stood on one side, smiling, to let them pass. A
tall graceful girl led the van, but she was evidently joining in the
sport only for the benefit of the little ones, who had encircled her
with half-a-dozen skipping ropes, and were driving her vigorously from
behind. ‘_Allons--courage--plus vite!_’ they shouted every time their
charger showed the least symptom of declining speed. But as the tall
girl reached the side of the sisters, she came to a full stop. It
was not only to say ‘_Bon jour, mes sœurs_,’ with a deep reverence,
that she did so; she had caught sight of the little fledgling on the
pathway, and her heart was full in a moment. She called to the children
to be careful, and knelt down on the terrace to examine the fallen
bird, much to the consternation of its anxious parents.
‘What can I do for it?’ she demanded of the old nuns who watched her
proceedings.
‘Do nothing, my child,’ they answered, ‘but lay it inside the flower
border. It will be safe there; and the mother bird is close at hand.
She will provide for it better than you can.’
‘Yes,’ shouted one of the little ones; ‘see, there they are,
Fenella--both the papa and the mamma. How dreadfully afraid they are
lest we should hurt their child! And now it has hopped up to them--just
as I shall hop up to my darling mamma when the midsummer holidays
arrive. Oh, Fenella, don’t you wish that they had come?’
Fenella did not answer; she was watching the twittering fuss that the
old birds were making over their fledgling, and perhaps she did not
hear what the child said. But as she rose and twisted the ropes about
her arms again, and set off at a gallop down the terrace, with the
little ones tearing after her, something very like a tear fell from her
grey eyes upon the bosom of her convent dress.
‘Is she an orphan?’ asked one of the nuns, as the girl passed out of
hearing.
‘I don’t know, but I think she must be; she has not left Ansprach for
five years. She is, at any rate, very friendless.’
‘Poor little soul! Perhaps they destine her to remain here for ever,’
was the reply; and then the old women were silent for awhile, as though
the idea had conjured up some tender memory. It must be sad to arrive
at the close of one’s life, and feel that very soon it will be ended,
and leave not a sign behind it that it has ever been. But they soon
shook off the feeling, for the Convent of Saint Barbara was like a
busy hive of bees upon that April morning, and it was difficult to
realise that it could ever be less so. Inside the solemn grey building
dozens of hands were employed in cooking and washing and ironing, for
the sisters allowed no one to assist them in their household labour,
and brought up the children under their charge to be as helpful as
themselves. In the class-rooms a score of teachers were engaged in
the education of the pupils; the hospital had no lack of tender
nurses, nor the chapel of reverent worshippers; whilst, as though in
strong contrast to the latter employment, the mother of the English
pupils--or, as she was generally called, Mère Josephine--was seated in
one of the convent parlours, talking on the most mundane of matters
with a visitor who had arrived in Ansprach but an hour ago.
To look at Mère Josephine alone, was almost to be persuaded that a
conventual life must be the happiest life in the world. For she was
not so young as to be unaware of the weight of the duties she had
undertaken, nor was she so old as to have lost interest in what might
befall her in the future. And yet, though her lot was irrevocably
fixed beyond the power of alteration, she not only looked happy, but
was so. She was a healthy, intelligent woman, of from five-and-thirty
to forty years of age, who was English on the mother’s side, and spoke
that language as well as she did her native German. She had blue eyes
that twinkled with humour, firm rosy cheeks, an elastic step that
would have befitted twenty, and a comfortably rounded form that seemed
the very embodiment of maternity, though no one would have laughed
more than Mère Josephine had you told her so. She was a thoroughly
practical person into the bargain, with a keen appreciation of motives
and character, and she jingled the huge bunch of keys that hung at her
girdle with an air that said she would not be trifled with. In fact,
you would have had to get up early to take in Mère Josephine.
The person with whom she was engaged in conversation was not a bad
specimen of her class either, but it was a lower class. She had a mild
face, which would, under any circumstances, have denoted rather a weak
and easily led disposition, and it had had no opportunities of learning
to attest itself--for she was a servant. Her name was Eliza Bennett,
and she was the housekeeper and lady’s-maid and confidential agent of
Mrs Barrington, of South Audley Street, London.
Mrs Bennett was sitting on the edge of her rush-bottomed chair, looking
very ill at ease. She was tired and hungry and cold--for though the
April sunshine was on the convent garden, it did not penetrate the
thick walls sufficiently to give a look of warmth to the polished oak
floor and the uncurtained casements of the parlour. Added to which, Mrs
Bennett had failed in her mission, and already anticipated with dread
the welcome that should await her return to England. Mère Josephine,
in her serge dress and woollen petticoats and thick shoes, looking as
if she did not know what it was to feel cold, was seated beside her,
scrutinising her face keenly as she replied to her remarks, and forcing
Eliza Bennett, even against her will, to speak the truth.
‘And so Mrs Barrington does not want to have her daughter home for the
present, and she has sent you over here to say so,’ said the reverend
mother briskly, as she rattled her keys--a habit of hers when she was
annoyed by anything.
‘Well, ma’am, it would be more convenient for my mistress, certainly,
ma’am,’ stammered the servant; ‘for, you see, Mrs Barrington has just
let her house for the season and is going abroad, and she says if Miss
Fenella could remain at Ansprach till the Christmas vacation--’
‘But she cannot,’ interrupted Mère Josephine, ‘and I have already
written Mrs Barrington the reason. The doctor has decided that an
immediate change is absolutely necessary for the child. She has grown
unusually fast during the last twelve months, and though our Ansprach
is healthy enough on the whole, it is not a bracing place, and all
young people require change of air at times.’
‘Oh, surely--yes, ma’am. I wouldn’t think of contradicting you; only it
disarranges my mistress’s plans terribly,’ murmured the housekeeper.
‘Mrs Bennett,’ continued Mère Josephine, sternly, ‘Miss Barrington has
been at Ansprach for five years without once going home. She was only
eleven when you brought her to me, and she is now sixteen. It is a most
unusual thing, and with an only child too. I should have thought her
mamma would have been all anxiety to see her again.’
‘Oh! yes, ma’am! And, of course, my mistress is very anxious--very
anxious indeed--to see Miss Fenella; only the rooms being let, and my
mistress going abroad, and having no one with whom to leave the young
lady, it makes it awkward, you see--’
‘And why cannot Mrs Barrington take her daughter abroad with her, Mrs
Bennett?’
‘Well, I don’t know, ma’am; I couldn’t answer for my mistress, of
course; but I know she’s going with a party, and her orders to me were,
whatever I did, to persuade you to be so good as to keep Miss Fenella
over the midsummer vacation.’
‘I am sorry to refuse your request, Mrs Bennett, for Fenella’s sake;
but she is out of health, and it is my duty to send her away. I really
believe she is happy here--as happy as she can be, shut out from home;
but Mrs Barrington has displayed such a culpable want of interest in
her daughter, that she positively knows nothing about her. Fenella is
a very clever girl--far too advanced and deep-thinking for her years;
and, at the same time, she possesses a very affectionate and sensitive
nature. I have, on several occasions, pointed out to Mrs Barrington the
drawbacks she encountered in receiving her education at Ansprach. As
she is not of the same faith as ourselves, we have been restricted from
giving her any religious instruction. For five years, therefore, she
has been left entirely to herself in such matters, and I doubt if she
thinks on the subject at all. She will require very careful watching,
Mrs Bennett, if she is to steer through the world with safety. You seem
a sensible woman. Do you think her mother is likely to prove such a
friend as she will require?’
At this appeal Eliza Bennett produced a pocket handkerchief, and
commenced to sniffle furtively.
‘Ah! I know all the family well, ma’am, and it’s not for me to speak
against them. I lived with them before Miss Fenella was born, and was
with her poor papa when he died. Such a fine gentleman--six foot two,
and in the Royal Navy--and worshipped the very ground she trod on. If
he had lived--but there! what’s the use of talking--but if the dear
child ever wants a friend, and I can serve her, the Lord knows I will.’
‘It strikes me she will live to want one, Mrs Bennett; for she
possesses the most dangerous attributes with which a young girl can
encounter the world,--a heart so large and warm and generous that where
it loves it cannot see a fault, and a strong resolute nature that will
act upon its own impulses against all conventionality or advice. But I
forget how long it is since you have seen her. I will send for her at
once.’
The reverend mother rang the bell, whilst Eliza Bennett wiped her eyes
and said,--
‘Ah! she was always a bright one and a loving one was Miss Fenella! Her
poor papa used often to say that her heart would lead her into more
scrapes than her head would ever help her out of.’
‘I am afraid he was not far wrong, Mrs Bennett; but, at the same
time, you must remember it will depend entirely on what treatment she
gets now whether Fenella will turn out a good woman or a bad one. At
present she is as innocent as a girl of her age could possibly be--too
innocent, perhaps. When I think of her entering the world without a
guide, I could almost wish she were less so.’
‘Let’s hope she’ll get a good husband, ma’am, to keep her out of all
danger,’ remarked the servant.
‘We will, although I do not think the mere fact of having a husband is
always a specific against danger,’ replied Mère Josephine, when she
had dismissed a sister in search of her pupil. ‘And what orders did
Mrs Barrington give you in case of my refusing to keep Miss Fenella at
Ansprach?’
‘Well, my mistress did say, ma’am, in case of its being _quite_
impossible, that there would be nothing else to do, of course, but for
me to take the young lady back with me. But I’m sure she’ll be very
angry if I do.’
‘I am sorry for that, but I cannot help it. If you had refused to take
her back, I should have sent her over in charge of a sister. I will
write to Mrs Barrington to tell her as much, and Fenella will be ready
to start with you this evening.’
‘Oh, dear! oh, dear! what will the mistress say when she sees us!’
wailed Mrs Bennett. But at this moment a tap on the door of the
convent parlour was followed by the entrance of a tall slight girl in
black--the same girl who had been playing horses with the little ones
in the garden--who, advancing quickly, fell on one knee, kissed the
hand of the reverend mother, and then stood upright before her, waiting
her orders.
‘Don’t you know who this is, Fenella?’ said Mère Josephine, as she
laid her hand kindly on the girl’s shoulder.
Fenella looked round at Eliza Bennett, and even the servant was
struck with her appearance. She was like a fair straight lily, fresh
gathered from the garden bed; she might have stood as a model for the
patroness of the convent, the virgin saint Barbara, whose heathen
father butchered her at seventeen for adhering to the Christian faith.
She was slender as a willow, but with a form that gave promise of
unusual excellence in the years to come; her skin was like a snowdrift;
her grey blue eyes looked out of an oval face set in a framework of
sunny brown hair; and from that sensitive mouth, with its tremulous,
half-opened lips that betokened a life of pain in this rough world,
gleamed firm white teeth that spoke for the perfect purity of her
constitution. She was not handsome at this period, perhaps, in the
usual acceptation of the word; there was nothing flashing nor brilliant
about her; she was nothing but a tall white lily, half blown, with no
consciousness that life was anything but one long summer’s day. But
it was a face that, once seen, was not easily forgotten; a dangerous
face, that changed its expression twenty times in an hour--that could
look sad or gay, or anxious, or shy, or arch, just as the humour caught
it, and showed every feeling on the surface without knowing that it
did so. In after years Fenella Barrington was much more dangerous to
herself and others than any merely handsome woman could have been.
She became fascinating! She developed that fatal power to attract and
win and hold, which breaks more hearts and ruins more lives than any
other power has the capacity to do. But she knew nothing of all this as
she stood in the convent parlour; it had not even stirred within her.
She was asleep--a white innocent lily with folded leaves, wrapt in a
peaceful dreamless sleep, that made her think that to live meant to be
happy. How well it would have been for her if she had never waked!
‘Oh dear! she’s the very moral of her poor papa,’ cried Mrs Bennett.
At the sound of her voice, Fenella recognised her.
‘Why, nurse, is that you?’ she said as she crossed the room rapidly to
the old servant’s side. ‘Why have you come here?’ Then a sudden fear
flooded her pale cheek with crimson. ‘Mamma is not ill, is she? There
is nothing the matter with mamma?’ she repeated in an anxious voice.
‘No, no! Miss Fenella, your mamma is well enough; it’s you as we’ve
heard is not well, my dear, and indeed you don’t look over strong. And
are you glad to see me, miss?’
‘Very, very glad, nurse! You remind me of my dear father, and of the
days when he lay ill in England. Oh, nurse! why don’t I go home to see
mamma? It is five years since I came to Ansprach. Am I to pass the
summer at school again?’
Eliza Bennett glanced at the reverend mother, who answered promptly for
her.
‘No, Fenella; you will go to England with Mrs Bennett to-night. Your
mamma knows you require change, and she has sent for you. If all goes
well, you will be at home by this time to-morrow!’
Fenella stood upright again, her face glowing with that fatal
excitement which as yet she had felt so seldom, but which was part of
her nature, and she would learn to recognise but too soon.
‘Going home!’ she said, when she could articulate. ‘Home to mamma!--to
see mamma again!--and to-night? Oh! _chère mère_, it is too delightful,
I hardly know how I shall bear it. Don’t think me ungrateful for
all your kindness,’ she continued, with a rapid change of feeling;
‘indeed--indeed, I shall never forget all I owe to you; but to be going
home to my own mother--to see her to-morrow--in a few hours--it seems
as if it could not be true.’
Mère Josephine smiled at the girl’s enthusiasm, kindly but sadly.
She felt intuitively the disappointment that awaited her warm loving
nature--the disappointment that all true generous hearts experience
when they first come in contact with the selfish world.
‘I do not grudge you your happiness, dear child,’ she answered, ‘for I
am sure you will not forget Ansprach, nor the lessons you have learned
here.’
‘Forget Ansprach!’ echoed Fenella; ‘but how will that be possible? I
shall return to you after the vacation, _chère mère!_’
‘I do not know what your mamma’s plans may be, Fenella. You are no
longer a child, remember. You are almost a woman.’
The girl laughed in a light incredulous way.
‘_Me_ a woman! Ah! _chère mère_, you are laughing at me because you
know I am such a hoyden, and love to be in the gymnasium better than
anywhere else. _A woman!_ why, it seems only the other day that you
began to teach me French and German.’
‘You have learned a great deal since then, my child. Your education
may almost be said to be finished, and I wish, now that you are
going to leave us so suddenly for the great world, that I had
taught you a little more of its ways and temptations. But you must
let your own sense of right be your guide. Should I never see you
again, Fenella’--at these words the girl’s features began to work
nervously--‘should it be Heaven’s will that this parting is the last--’
But the good mother was not allowed to finish her injunction. Fenella’s
feelings could not bear the strain. Remembrance overpowered her, and
she burst into tears.
‘What! never to see you nor the dear sisters again,’ she cried; ‘never
to help you plant seeds in the garden, nor gather flowers for the
altar; never to go in the Ansprach woods on _fête_ days, nor to join
in the processions with my schoolfellows? Oh! _chère mère_, I cannot,
_cannot_ bear it. Don’t send me away! Let me come back again; I have
loved you all so dearly.’
She flung herself on her knees as she spoke, and buried her face in
the folds of the reverend mother’s dress, and her fair hair fell about
her shoulders in beautiful confusion. Why did something in the girl’s
attitude of abandonment, or the falling of her abundant hair, strike
the good nun with a resemblance to the prostrate Magdalen, pictured
on some of the convent walls. The thought chilled her, and she raised
Fenella hastily.
‘Come, my child,’ she said tenderly, ‘you must not give way like this.
Surely you forget that you are going home to see your mamma; and after
so long an absence. What would she think if she saw these tears? And
here is poor Mrs Bennett, who has had nothing to eat since arriving at
Ansprach this morning! Go to Sister Ursula and tell her to come to me
at once. And then arrange your hair tidily, and wait for Mrs Bennett in
No. 16. She will join you there in a few minutes.’
Fenella kissed the reverend mother’s hand, and curtseying left the
room; but her face had lost the look of joyful anticipation that had
irradiated it but a minute before.
‘You see what she is,’ remarked Mère Josephine, as the door closed
behind her, ‘warm-hearted, impulsive, and excitable! These qualities
have been kept down with us. We know their danger, and check them as
much as possible, but in the world they will have full play, and if
Fenella does not find a good friend in her mother to guide them aright,
I fear they will cause her much unhappiness. She will expect too much
from the world, Mrs Bennett. She will think every one she meets is as
generous and frank as herself, and she will be terribly deceived.’
‘Ah! if her poor papa had only lived,’ sighed Mrs Bennett, with an
emphatic shake of the head.
‘Mrs Barrington sees, I suppose, a great deal of society.’
‘Well, it is not for me to talk of my mistress’s doings, ma’am; but she
just lives in it and nothing else.’
Mère Josephine looked grave.
‘That will not be good for so young a girl as Fenella,’ she said.
‘No, ma’am; and I don’t think my mistress would wish her to mix in it,
neither. You see Mrs Barrington is very young-looking for her age, and
very much admired, and Miss Fenella here is so tall and so much of a
woman that--’
‘That her mother will be ashamed to own her! I understand,’ rejoined
Mère Josephine promptly--so promptly as to make Eliza Bennett fear she
had said too much.
‘Well, if it were not that her health requires change, I should say
Fenella would be better here. However, I am sure you must require some
refreshment, Mrs Bennett, so if you will follow Sister Ursula, she will
show you where you can get it.’
Sister Ursula, who had been waiting, smiling at the door for some
minutes, now indicated that she was ready to play pilot, and Eliza
Bennett, who was but too pleased to escape further questioning from the
reverend mother, followed her to No. 16.
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[Illustration: Decorative]