No one who had seen the Marchesa, as she sat in her drawing-room,
awaiting the arrival of the Countess of Loreley, would have recognised
her as the maid-of-all-work, Hannah Stubbs, who had married Signor
Ricardo, from Mrs. Battleby’s lodging-house, less than three years
before. She wore a robe fashioned by a dressmaker, chosen for her by
the Baron; her abundant hair had been arranged by her lady’s maid in
the height of the prevailing style; she displayed one or two articles
of costly jewelry; she was neither under, nor overdressed.
Her personal appearance, also, was wonderfully improved, Hannah was
not yet twenty-one, but she looked thirty. Her figure was still
unshapely and abundantly covered with flesh, but her skin was
smoother, and her complexion and hands properly attended to.
She was still a coarse specimen of her sex--there have been such
anomalies in this world as coarse and vulgar duchesses, and when bred
to the position into the bargain--and she would never be really
handsome, but there was a bonhomie in her expression, and a frank
good-humour in her smile, which was, perhaps, all that remained of
Hannah Stubbs in her composition.
Lady Loreley, who had been led by Miss Selwyn, to expect something
altogether out of the common in the Marchesa di Sorrento, (--“Awfully
good-natured, dear Lady Loreley, you know, but O! such a moving mass
of flesh--like a female elephant--and says such queer things at times,
but she thinks she can help you and so,” etc, etc,--) was quite taken
by surprise, when Hannah, perfectly at her ease, but with
unquestionable welcome beaming from her eyes, rose from the sofa to
say how pleased she was to make her acquaintance.
The two women sat down to afternoon tea together, and were soon on
friendly terms. Naturally, the topic which engrossed Lady Loreley’s
thoughts was not long in coming to the front.
“Miss Selwyn delivered your most kind message to me, Marchesa,”
commenced the bereaved mother, “and you must not be surprised at my
availing myself of your kindness at so early a period. My dear child
was my idol, the youngest of my large family, and I lost her in so
cruelly sudden a manner. Only four days ill of scarlet fever, and she
had gone from us. She could not stand up against it! She was always
delicate, my poor little Rose! And is it possible that you can help me
to see her? O! Marchesa!” cried the Countess, seizing her hands, “if
you can, I shall be your debtor to the last day of my life. Only one
glimpse, that is all I ask, one glimpse to assure me that she lives
and that I shall meet her again, and I shall die content!”
The Marchesa did not release the Countess’s hands--on the contrary,
she retained and pressed them firmly.
“Is your Ladyship aware of the method pursued in such cases? Do you
know that the services of a materialising medium are necessary, and
that often even they are not successful?”
“Yes! yes! but I should not mind how often I had to sit, if I only
succeed at last! And expense is no object whatever! I have tried all
sorts of mediums, dear Marchesa, but have never heard a word, nor seen
a sign of her! O! it has been heart-rending--discouraging--but I shall
never cease trying till I succeed!”
“I think I know a way by which you can see her!” replied Hannah, whose
eyes had been dreamily fixed upon space for the last minute.
“Pray, pray, tell it to me!” exclaimed the Countess, with agitation.
“One moment! I must ask you first to bind yourself to the strictest
secrecy! My husband, the Baron, is like many in the present day, most
averse to my mixing myself up in Spiritualism with any but himself,
and if he heard that you and I had been sitting together, he would
certainly forbid me to help you any more!”
“I will be secret as the grave!” said Lady Loreley, fervently; “no one
shall ever hear a word of it from me!”
“Not even the Earl, or Miss Selwyn?” asked Hannah.
“No one! Not even my nearest and dearest, unless you give me leave!”
was the reply.
“Then you must come with me to my private boudoir,” said the Marchesa.
“What! is the medium there?”
“Yes! she will be there!” replied Hannah, as she rang the bell and
desired the servant to deny her to any other callers.
Then, she led the way up to her little boudoir, round which the
Countess looked curiously.
“You have successfully concealed your medium, dear Marchesa!” she
said.
“No! Lady Loreley, she is in full view! _I_ am the medium!”
Her visitor started with surprise.
“_You!_ Are you jesting with me, Marchesa? Is it possible that you can
call back the spirits of the Dead?”
“Just as possible as anybody else! No one can _call_ them back, Lady
Loreley! But they come all the same, when they get the opportunity!
Are you nervous? Shall you be afraid to sit in the dark with me?”
“O! no! I don’t think so,” replied the Countess, who was already
shivering with fright.
Hannah lowered the blinds, closed the dark red silk curtains, locked
the door and taking a seat on the sofa, invited Lady Loreley to sit
beside her and hold her hand.
“But don’t you require a table?” inquired the Countess.
“Not that I know of,” replied Hannah. “No spirit that has ever come to
me, has made any request of the sort! I don’t even know if they use
tables over there. Don’t you see a bluish mist rising, close by the
window curtains? Don’t be frightened if I go to sleep. I generally do,
but you will be quite safe. Nothing can hurt you.”
And as she was in the midst of talking thus, the Marchesa went under
control and knew nothing more. When she awoke, she found the Countess
of Loreley on her knees before her, sobbing as if her heart would
break.
“O! you dear Angel!” she cried, “I can never, _never_ thank you
enough, for what you have done for me to-day. You are a wonder! a
miracle! You must have been sent on earth by God, expressly to give
comfort to broken-hearted mothers like myself!”
“Why! have you seen anything?” demanded Hannah, rousing herself from
her benumbing trance.
“Seen anything!” echoed Lady Loreley, “I have seen that which has
transformed me from a despairing woman to a happy one! I have seen my
little Rose! You said you saw a bluish mist near the window. She
walked straight out of that mist, and smiled at me! I spoke to her,
and I thought her lips moved, but I could not hear any words, but she
smiled at me--she stood there in her little white nightdress and bare
feet, just as she was, dear darling! when I laid her in her
coffin--and I know she lives, and I am happy once more--and O! dear
Marchesa, what can I ever do to show my gratitude to you?”
“Only be quiet,” said Hannah, holding up her hand, “and say nothing to
anybody. Come and see me sometimes, Lady Loreley, and the more
intimate you become with me, the more clearly you will see your little
Rose, and the more confidently will she come back to you! Did no one
else appear?”
“No one whom I recognised! An old man’s face seemed hovering over your
head, but it frightened me rather, and I did not look.”
At those words “an old man’s face”, the Marchesa seemed to shiver
slightly, and her next injunction was delivered rather hurriedly,
“Now, mind, Countess, you must not breathe a word of what has occurred
this afternoon to any one, or it will never happen again. The Baron
would be so angry he would forbid my sitting with you at all! You can
see that I say this for _your_ sake, more than for my own.”
“O! yes, indeed,” said Lady Loreley, “but, Marchesa--I was going to
ask you such a great favour! My eldest daughter, the Duchess of
Penywern, lost her baby last year--such a splendid boy, heir, of
course, to the title and estates, and she would give her life, I
verily believe, to see him again.
“And my aunt, Lady John Valerian, who is most interested in
Spiritualism, would consider it such an inestimable favour, if you
would let her accompany me, next time I have the pleasure of visiting
you! They would be as silent as myself concerning our visits here, I
can assure you, and I am certain you would like them both--my daughter
especially, who is a most amiable young woman.”
Hannah considered for a moment what she should reply. Here was the
very thing which she had longed and striven for, dropping like a ripe
plum into her mouth. A Countess--a Duchess--and the wife of a Lord!
She must secure the lot, but not for séances in her private room--for
exhibition at her public parties!
“You are asking a great deal, Lady Loreley,” she replied, with a
pursed-up mouth, as though she were considering the possibility of
granting her request. “If it depended on myself, I should only be too
pleased to accede to your wishes, but, as I have already told you, my
husband would not approve of my sitting with ladies of whom I know, as
yet, so little.”
“O! but you must know more of us, dear Marchesa,” cried Lady Loreley.
“You must come to my house and let me introduce you to my daughter and
my aunt! What day are you at liberty to dine with us? Would next
Thursday suit you? I have no engagement for that day! Then if you and
the Baron will give us the pleasure of your company at dinner, I will
have the Duchess and Lady John to meet you!”
“I believe we are at liberty for Thursday,” replied Hannah, with her
air of _grande dame_, “but remember! Lady Loreley, the motive of your
visit must be kept a dead secret, if you ever wish to see it renewed.”
“You may depend on my discretion, Marchesa!” replied the Countess, as
she grasped her hand; “I can never, never thank you sufficiently for
what you have done for me to-day, and I hope we shall be the most
excellent friends in the future!”
So Lady Loreley took her leave, and that was the beginning of the
Marchesa di Sorrento counting dukes and duchesses amongst her visiting
acquaintances.
Secretly, but surely, the news flew amongst the aristocratic crowd,
that this mysterious Marchesa, the nationality of whom no one could
determine, was the most wonderful woman on the face of the earth, and
many were the little private séances held by her in her boudoir,
unknown to all but the favoured few, whom she admitted there.
As time went on and one lady asked to be allowed to bring her brother,
and another entreated that her husband might be initiated into the
occult mysteries of the Marchesa’s boudoir, gentlemen began to mingle
with the lady sitters, and the séances became more general and more
renowned.
Meanwhile Karl von Steinberg knew nothing of what went on during his
absences from home, or that his wife ever sat for the amusement of the
grandees who commenced to throng her receptions. He often wondered
_where_ she had picked them up, or how contrived to induce them to
visit her, but he knew she was very clever, and admired her all the
more for each fresh proof she gave him of it. He was not blind,
however, to the kudos, which accrued to both of them, from the
presence of the nobility in his wife’s drawing-rooms, and he evinced
it by the frequency with which he showed himself there. He constantly
found the Marchesa the centre of an adoring group of ladies, and an
admiring crowd of men, and the fact bound him closer to her. We always
like others to approve of what we like ourselves--so long as they do
not go too far!
There was one man, however--an Italian of the name of Gueglielmo, whom
Karl von Steinberg began to view with aversion. He used to take his
stand behind the Marchesa’s sofa, and remain there the entire evening,
whispering in her ear, or gazing at her face and figure. Once, Von
Steinberg spoke to his wife about the too evident admiration of Signor
Gueglielmo, and expressed his wish that she should discourage him a
little, by directing her attention to the other gentlemen of the
party.
“Discourage Gueglielmo!” she exclaimed tartly, “and why? Because he is
the only one of my countrymen present! I shall do no such thing!”
Von Steinberg regarded her with surprise! She was beginning to use the
same tone with him, that she had with his friend Ricardo.
“Your countryman!” he repeated; “what absurdity are you thinking of?
Your being styled ‘Marchesa’ does not constitute you an Italian! He is
neither your countryman nor mine, and I will not have him so much
about the house. If you do not give him a hint on the subject, I
shall!”
“Then you may do your dirty work yourself,” retorted Hannah. “I like
him and I shall not tell him otherwise. He is Italian! He soothes me!”
“You will have to obey me all the same,” said the Baron, angrily. “If
ever I catch him leaning over your sofa again in the open fashion he
did last night, I’ll----”
“Run me through with a dagger, I suppose!” interposed Hannah, with the
sudden, cunning, evil look in her eyes, which he could never
understand.
“What made you say that?” he asked, quickly.
She shrugged her shoulders, and commenced to whistle a popular air.
Von Steinberg left the room in a rage. There were times--many
times--when he almost hated his wife! She had never shown any
disposition for flirting--it was not her proclivity--she was too heavy
and indolent and inert to take the trouble to lay herself out to
fascinate any man. He could not suspect her of it. And yet, had she
been the most desperate coquette in the world, she could not have been
more determined to have her own way about this man Gueglielmo. And the
look in her eyes, when she suggested he might stab her! whence did it
come? The idea perplexed him! Sometimes he wondered if Hannah were
always herself, or if evil spirits took possession of her and
controlled her expression and her words.
When he met her next, at dinner, all trace of the unpleasant interview
they had held together, had passed away. Hannah was Hannah once
more--placid and obtuse as a well-fed cow grazing in a meadow, and
without a care or an ambition in the world.
Before their meal was concluded, the footman brought a somewhat soiled
envelope to the Marchesa, on a silver tray.
She took it up and looking at the address carelessly, inquired: “Who
brought this?”
“A young man, my lady!--looks as if he came from the country,” was the
reply.
Hannah opened the letter and read it, then said in a loud voice,
“Tell this man I will not see him! I don’t know who he is! Send him
away.”
“What is it, Hannah?” demanded Von Steinberg. She threw the envelope
across the table to him.
“Only a begging petition! I receive them every day. It is no use
answering these sort of people!”
The Baron glanced at the epistle, and frowned as he did so.
“My dear, you cannot have read this,” he said, in a lowered voice, “it
is from Joseph Brushwood! He has bad news for you.”
“And who is Joseph Brushwood?” she asked; “I never heard the name
before.”
Von Steinberg ordered the servants in attendance to quit the room,
until he rang for them, and to detain the messenger downstairs.
“Or stay!” he corrected himself, “put him in the library, and say I
will be with him presently!”
“So the petition is for yourself, after all!” remarked his wife, as
they found themselves alone.
“My dear Hannah! what are you talking about?” said the Baron. “You
_cannot_ have read this letter. It is signed Joseph Brushwood, and is
to say that he has some bad news about your mother, and wants to speak
to you by yourself!”
“And I repeat, who _is_ Joseph Brushwood?” demanded Hannah, with
genuinely astonished eyes.
“Why! surely you cannot have forgotten Joe Brushwood coming up to town
with your mother, when we were at Mrs. Battleby’s. Joe Brushwood, the
young man to whom you were engaged, before you married dear old
Ricardo! It is impossible that you can forget!”
“And he wishes to see me privately?” continued the Marchesa, with
perfect calmness.
“Yes! I am afraid you must be prepared for a shock, Hannah, for he
says he has come to town expressly to see you! Shall I accompany you?”
“No! I prefer to see him by myself!” replied Hannah, as she rose
majestically from the table and proceeded to the library.
There she encountered Joe Brushwood, who had cast her off in the days
gone-by, standing by the window and looking very sheepish. He was not
altered in the least--a trifle stouter, perhaps, and a trifle coarser,
but attired in his best velveteen coat and corduroy breeches, with a
gaily flowered waistcoat. He started violently as he caught sight of
Hannah.
He had heard that she had married a rich gentleman, but he had had no
idea of encountering such magnificence as this. The Marchesa was
arrayed in her ordinary dinner-dress, but it looked like a robe of
state in the unsophisticated eyes of her former admirer.
“And what is it that you may want of me?” she demanded, with her
grandest air, as she advanced upon the astonished Brushwood.
“Lor! Hannah!” he exclaimed--but she quickly brought her foot down
upon such insolent familiarity.
“Who are you? How _dare_ you address me in such terms? I am the
Marchesa di Sorrento! You will have the goodness to call me ‘my Lady’,
if you speak to me at all.”
“O! yes! certainly. I’m sure I begs your pardon,” replied Joe, as he
nervously twisted his bowler hat round in his hands, “but I came up
from Settlefield a purpuss this mornin’, and I’ve been walking round
Lunnon for hours, trying to find out where you lived--”
“And what has all this to do with me?” demanded Hannah.
“O! I ain’t done yet!” continued the young man. “Your pore mother,
she’s werry bad indeed, and she wants to see you terrible! I don’t
know what’s the matter with her, but she’s going fast, the Doctor
says, and times ’ave been werry bad this season, and your father says
’e don’t know ’ow ’e’ll bury ’er, without some ’elp. And so--as we
’eard as you was married to a rich gentleman, we made so bold as to
come up--leastways _I_ did--to arsk if you could spare ’em a trifle,
and go down and see your pore mother afore she dies!”
Hannah let the whole of this long-winded speech come to a finish,
before she collected her forces and answered it.
“You have made a mistake, young man,” she said at last, “I know
nothing of Settlefield, or the people you are begging for. I am the
Marchesa di Sorrento! Some one must have put you on the wrong scent
for a joke! If your friends are in such want, you had better apply to
their parish for relief! I have my own poor people to look after, and
cannot afford to provide for strangers.”
Joe Brushwood scratched his head, and opened his eyes wide.
“But you was Hannah Stubbs--sure-_ly_!” he ejaculated, “as lived at
Settlefield and was my young woman! Everyone knows you down there, as
well as the village pump! And sure-ly, you won’t turn on your own
mother now she’s sick and dying and in want! A fiver would set ’em
right, but the times ’as been ’ard, and they’ve several mouths to
feed, and if you _are_ a Mar-cheesa you might ’ave ’uman feelings!”
“You are an insolent impostor!” cried Hannah, indignantly. “How dare
you speak to me in that way? Your young woman, indeed! I should like
the Baron to hear you! I don’t believe one word of your trumped-up
story. I have no mother, nor father, and I never set eyes on you in my
life before! If you presume to worry me again I shall give you into
charge of the police.”
“And you denies of them?” replied the young man, reproachfully. “I’m
not so surprised at your saying as you don’t know _me_, for I give you
a nasty slap in the face larst time we met--but to deny the mother as
bore you and she a’dying--and with hardly a rag to ’er back, or food
to eat--well! I wouldn’t ’ave your ’eart, for ever so! that I
wouldn’t!”
The Marchesa only replied by ringing the bell and summoning her
footman.
“Show this man out,” she said, “and take care that he is never
admitted again. He is an impostor, and he has insulted me.”
“Come! along with you!” cried the servant, as he hustled Joe from the
room. “I’ll take good care you never shows your nose inside of our
’ouse again!”
And so Joe Brushwood found himself upon the doorstep in shorter time
than it takes to write the words.
The Marchesa joined her husband in the drawing-room, triumphant.
“Well! what had he to say to you?” demanded the Baron, as she entered.
“Nothing! It was all a hoax! No more Joseph Brushwood--whoever he may
be--than you are! A fellow with a begging letter, and who became so
insolent when I refused to give him money, that I was obliged to ring
for Watson to show him the door!”
“You were quite right to refuse,” said the Baron, “I hate these
begging letter writers. But how could he have got hold of the name of
Joseph Brushwood?”
“Invented it, most likely!” replied Hannah, as she commenced to read
the evening papers.
“But, my dear, that was the name of the young man you were engaged
to,” began Karl von Steinberg. “Surely, you must remember!”
“No! I don’t, and I don’t want to,” persisted his wife, “I never think
of that horrible time! It is past now! I wish nothing better than to
blot out the memory that it ever existed.”
She returned to the perusal of her paper, and her husband, after
regarding her for a few moments as if she were some extraordinary
animal whom he could not possibly understand--left the room quietly,
and went to his club.