The news was not long in reaching England. When Lady Vaughan read it she
knew it was Clare's death-warrant. They tried to break it to her very
gently, but her keen, quick perception soon told her what was wrong.
"He is dead," she said; "I knew that I should never see him again."
Clare Vaughan's heart was broken; she hardly spoke after she heard the
fatal words; she was very quiet, very patient, but the light on her face
was not of this world. She lay one day with little Hyacinth in her arms,
and Lady Vaughan, going into her room, said,
"You look better to-day, Clare."
"I have been dreaming of Randall," she said smiling; "I shall soon see
him again."
An hour afterward they went to take the little one from her--the tender
arms had relaxed their hold, and she lay dead, with a smile on her face.
They buried her in Ashton churchyard. People called her illness by all
kinds of different names, but Lady Vaughan knew she had died of a broken
heart. The care of little Hyacinth devolved upon her grandmother. It was
a dreary home for a child: the rooms were always shaded by trees, and
the sombre carvings, the satyr heads, the laughing fauns, all in stone,
frightened her. She never saw any young persons; Sir Arthur's servants
were all old--they had entered the service in their youth, and remained
in it ever since.
Sir Arthur and Lady Vaughan felt their son's death very keenly; all
their hopes died with him; all their interest in life was gone. They
became more dull, more formal, more cold every day. They loved the
child, yet the sight of her was always painful to them, reminding them
so forcibly of what they had lost. They reared her in the same precise,
formal manner in which their only son had been reared. She rose at a
stated time; she retired at a certain hour, never varying by one minute;
she studied, she read, she practiced her music--all by rule.
The neighborhood round Queen's Chase was not a very populous one. Among
the friends whom the Vaughans visited, and who visited them in return,
there was not one young person, not one child. It never seemed to enter
their minds that Hyacinth, being a child, longed for the society of
children. At certain times she was gravely told to play. She had a doll
and a Noah's ark; and with these she amused herself alone for long
hours. As for the graces, the fancies, the wants, the requirements of
childhood, its thousand wordless dreams and wordless wants, no one
seemed to understand them at all. They treated the child as if she were
a little old woman, crushing back with remorseless hand all the quick
fancies and bright dreams natural to youth.
Some children would have grown up wicked, hardened, unlovely and
unloving under such tuition; but Hyacinth Vaughan was saved from this by
her peculiar disposition. The child was all poetry. Lady Vaughan never
wearied of trying to correct her. She carefully pruned, as she imagined,
all the excess of imagination and romance. She might as well have tried
to prevent the roses from blooming, the dew from falling, or the leaves
from springing. All that she succeeded in was in making the child keep
her thoughts and fancies to herself. She talked to the trees as though
they were grave, living friends, full of wise counsel; she talked to the
flowers as though they were familiar and dear playfellows. The
imagination so sternly repressed ran riot in a hundred different ways.
It was most unfortunate for the child. If she had been as other
children--if her imagination, instead of being cruelly repressed, had
been trained and put to some useful purpose--if her love of romance had
been wisely guarded--if her great love of poetry and beauty, her great
love of ideality, had been watched and allowed for--the one great error
that darkened her life would never have been committed. But none of this
was done. She was literally afraid to speak of that which filled her
thoughts and was really part of her life. If she asked any uncommon
question Lady Vaughan scolded her, and Sir Arthur, his hands shaking
nervously, would say, "The child is going wrong--going wrong."
It was without exception the dullest and saddest life any child could
lead. At thirteen there came two breaks in the monotony--she had a
music-master come from Oakton, and she found a key that fitted the
library door. How often had she stood against the library windows,
looking through them, and longing to open one of those precious volumes;
but when she asked Sir Arthur for a book, he told her she could not
understand them--she must be content to play with her doll.
There were hundreds of suitable books that might have been provided for
the child; she was refused any--consequently she read whatever came in
her way. She found this key that fitted the library door, and used it.
She would quietly unlock it, and take one of the books nearest to her
without fear of its being missed, for Sir Arthur seldom entered the
room. In this fashion she read many books that were valuable,
instructive, and amusing. She also read many that would have been much
better left alone. Her innocence, however, saved her from harm. She knew
so little of life that what would have perhaps injured another was not
even noticed by her.
In this manner she educated herself, and the result was exactly what was
to be expected. She had in her mind the most curious collection of
poetry and romance, the most curious notions of right and wrong, the
most unreal ideas it was possible to imagine. Then, as she grew older,
life began to unroll itself before her eyes.
She saw that outside this dull world of Oakton there was another world
so fair and bright that it dazzled her. There was a world full of music
and song, where people danced and made merry, where they rode and drove
and enjoyed themselves, where there was no dulness and no gloom--a world
of which the very thought was so beautiful, so bewildering, that her
pulse thrilled and her heart beat as she dreamed of it. Would she ever
find her way into that dazzling world, or would she be obliged to live
here always, shut up with these old, formal people, amid the quaint
carvings and giant trees? And then when she was seventeen, she began to
dream of the other world women find so fair--the fairyland of hope and
love. Her ideas of love were nearly all taken from poetry: it was
something very magnificent, very beautiful, taking one quite out of
commonplace affairs. Would it ever come to her?
She thought life had begun and ended too, for her, when one day Lady
Vaughan told her to come into her room--she wished to talk to her. The
girl followed her with a weary, hopeless expression on her face. "I am
going to have a lecture," she thought; "I have said a word too little or
a word too much."
But, wonderful to say, Lady Vaughan was not prepared with a lecture. She
sat down in her great easy-chair and pointed to a footstool. Hyacinth
took it, wondering very much what was coming.
"My dear Hyacinth," she began; "you are growing up now; you will be
quite a woman soon; and it is time you knew what Sir Arthur and I have
planned for you."
She did not feel much interest in learning what it was--something
intolerably dull it was sure to be.
"You know," continued Lady Vaughan, "there has never been the least
deception used toward you. You are the only child of our only son; but
it has never been understood that you were to be heiress of the Chase."
"I should not like to have the Chase," said Hyacinth timidly. "I should
not know what to do with it."
Lady Vaughan waved her hand in very significant fashion.
"That is not the question. We have not brought you up as our heiress
because both Sir Arthur and I think that the head of our house must be a
gentleman. Of course you will have a dowry. I have money of my own,
which I intend to leave you. Mr. Adrian Darcy, of whom you have heard me
speak, will succeed to Queen's Chase--that is, if no other arrangement
takes him from us; should he have other views in life, the property will
perhaps be left differently. I cannot say. Sir Arthur and I wish very
much that you should marry Mr. Darcy."
The girl looked up at the cold, formal face, with wonder in her own. Was
this to be her romance? Was this to be the end of all her dreams?
Instead of passing into a fairer, brighter world, was she to live always
in this?
"How can I marry him?" she asked quickly. "I have never seen him."
"Do not be so impetuous, Hyacinth. You should always repress all
exhibition of feeling. I know that you have never seen him. Mr. Darcy is
travelling now upon the Continent, and Sir Arthur thinks a short
residence abroad would be very pleasant for us. Adrian Darcy always
shows us the greatest respect. You will be sure to like him--he is so
like us; we are to meet him at Bergheim, and spend a month together, and
then we shall see if he likes you."
"Does he know what you intend?" she asked half shyly.
"Not yet. Of course, in families like our own, marriages are not
conducted as with the plebeian classes; with us they are affairs of
state, and require no little diplomacy and tact."
"Was my father's a diplomatic marriage?" she asked.
"No," replied Lady Vaughan, "your father pleased himself; but then,
remember, he was in a position to do so. He was an only son, and heir of
Queen's Chase."
"And am I to be taken to this gentleman; if he likes me he is to marry
me; if not, what then?"
The scornful sarcasm of her voice was quite lost on Lady Vaughan.
"There is no need for impatience. Even then some other plan will suggest
itself to us. But I think there is no fear of failure--Mr. Darcy will be
sure to like you. You are very good-looking, you have the true Vaughan
face, and, thanks to the care with which you have been educated, your
mind is not full of nonsense, as is the case with some girls. I thought
it better to tell you of this arrangement, so that you may accustom your
mind to the thought of it. Everything being favorable, we shall start
for Bergheim in the middle of August, and then I shall hope to see
matters brought to a sensible conclusion."
"It will not be of any consequence whether I like this Mr. Darcy or
not--will it, Lady Vaughan?"
"You must try to cultivate a kindly liking for him, my dear. All the
nonsense of love and romance may be dispensed with. Well brought up as
you have been, you will find no difficulty in carrying out our wishes.
Now, draw that blind a little closer, my love, and leave me--I am
sleepy. Do not waste your time--go at once to the piano."