LADY ADELA.
Winter had come, and passed; and spring flowers and sunshine gladdened
the land.
In my Lady Acorn's dressing-room at Chenevix House stood my lady
herself, her head and hands betraying temper, her tart tongue in loud
assertion. Opposite to her, the same blonde, suave dame she had ever
been, waited Madame Damereau. Madame was not tart or rude; she could
not be that; but nevertheless she maintained her own cause, and gave
my lady answer for answer.
Every available place in the room was covered with a robe, bonnet,
mantle, or other choice article essential to a lady's attire: on the
sofa lay a costly bridal dress. You might have fancied it the
show-room itself of Madame Damereau. Lady Frances Chenevix was to be
married on the morrow to Gerard Hope. The colonel had been telling
them both ever since Christmas that he thought they ought to fix the
day if they meant to marry at all, and so arrangements were made, and
they named one early in April.
The articles lying about formed part of the trousseau of Lady Frances;
the grievance distracting Lady Acorn was connected with them; for she
saw great many more spread out than she had ordered, and was giving
way to wrath. Madame Damereau, condescending to appear at Chenevix
House this afternoon, to superintend, herself, the trying-on of the
bridal robe, had arrived just in time for the storm.
"Was anything so unreasonable, was anything so extravagant ever seen
before in this world?" demanded Lady Acorn, spreading out her arms to
right and left. "I tell you there are fifty things here that I
never ordered; that I never should order, unless I lost my senses.
Look at that costly silk costume--that shaded grey--why, you'd charge
five-and-twenty guineas for that, if you charged a farthing. Don't
tell me, madame."
"Plutôt thirty guineas, I believe," equably answered madame. "It is of
the richest, that silk. Miladi Frances intends it for her robe de
voyage tomorrow."
"She may intend to go voyaging about in gold, but be no nearer doing
it," retorted the countess. "I never ordered that dress, and I won't
take it."
"Is anything the matter?" interrupted a joyous voice at this juncture,
and Frances ran into the room with her bonnet on. "I am sorry to have
kept you waiting, madame, but I could not help it. Is my lady mother
scolding at my extravagance?"
"Extravagance is not the name for it," retorted the countess. "How
dare you do these wild things, Frances? Do you suppose I should accept
all these things, or pay for them?"
"No, mamma, I knew you would not," laughed Frances, "I shall pay for
them myself."
"Oh, indeed! Where will the money come from?"
"Colonel Hope gave it me," said the happy girl, executing a pirouette.
"A few days ago he put three bank-notes of one hundred pounds each
into my hands, saying he supposed I could spend it; and I went to
madame's at once. What a love of a costume!" cried Frances, turning to
the grey silk which had so excited her mother's ire. "I am going away
in that."
But the great event of this afternoon, that of trying-on the bridal
dress, must be proceeded with, for Madame Damereau's time was more
precious than that of ordinary mortals. The bride-elect was arrayed in
it, and was pacing about in her splendour, peeping into all the
mirrors, when a message was brought to Lady Acorn that Mr. Cleveland
was below. He had come up from Netherleigh to perform the marriage
ceremony, and was to be the guest for a day or two of Lord and Lady
Acorn.
She went down at once, leaving Frances and Madame Damereau. There were
many odds and ends of Netherleigh gossip she wished to hear from the
Rector. He was bending over the drawing-room fire.
"Are you cold?" inquired Lady Acorn.
"Rather. As we grow older, we feel the cold and fatigue of a journey
more keenly," he added, smiling. "It is a regular April day: warm in
the sun, very cold in the wind and shade."
"He is getting older," thought Lady Acorn, as she looked at his face,
chilled and grey, and his whitening hair; though, for a wonder, she
did not tell him so. They had not met for some months. He had paid no
visit to London since the previous November, and then his errand had
been the same as now--to celebrate a marriage.
And, of the events of the past autumn and winter months there is not
much to relate. Oscar Dalrymple was in his own place now, Knutford,
Selina with a handsome income settled on her; and Robert and his wife
lived at Moat Grange. They had been married from Grosvenor Square in
November, Mr. Cleveland, as again now, coming up for it. Lady Adela
was still at Netherleigh Rectory. And, perhaps it was of her that the
countess wanted chiefly to question the Rector. She did not, however,
do that all at once.
"All quite well at home?" she asked.
"Tolerably so, thank you," he replied. "Mary, as you know, is ailing:
and will be for some little time to come."
"Dear me, yes," came the quick, irritable assent. "This baby will make
the third. I can't think what you want with so many."
The Rector laughed. "Mary sent her love to you; and especially to
Frances: and I was to be sure to say to Frances how sorry she was not
to be able to be at her wedding. Adela also sent her love."
"Ah! And how is _she?_"
"She----" Mr. Cleveland hesitated. "She is much the same. Tolerably
well in health, I think."
"I suppose Robert Dalrymple and his wife are coming up today?"
"They came with me. Francis Netherleigh's carriage was waiting for
them at the terminus. It brought me on also."
"And that poor girl Alice, is she any stronger?"
"She will never be stronger in this world," said the Rector, shaking
his head. "But she is pretty well--for her. I think her life may be
prolonged some few years yet."
"She and Gerard Hope had a love affair once; I am pretty sure of it.
He liked her better than he liked Frances."
"Well, she could never have married. One so sickly as Alice ought not
to become a wife; and she had, I expect, the good sense to see that.
I know she is pleased at his marriage with Frances. She is most
unselfish; truly good; there are not many like Alice Dalrymple. Her
mother is surprisingly well," he went on, after a pause; "seems to
have gone from an old woman into a young one. Robert's coming back did
that for her."
"And now--what about Adela's behaviour? how is she going on?" snapped
Lady Acorn, as if the very subject soured her.
"I wanted to speak to you about Adela," said Mr. Cleveland. "In one
sense of the word, she is not going on satisfactorily. Though her
health is pretty good, I believe, her mind is anything but healthy.
Mary and I often talk of it in private, and she said I had better
speak to you."
"Why, it is just the case of the MacIvors over again!" interrupted
Lady Acorn. "Harriet sent Sandy to talk to me about it, just in this
way, last summer."
"Yes, there has not been much change since then, I fancy. I confess
that I am very sorry for Adela."
"Is she still like a shadow?"
"Like little else. The fever of the mind is consuming the body. I look
upon it as the most hopeless case I have ever known. Adela does the
same, though from a different point of view. She is dying for her
husband's forgiveness. She would like to live in his memory as one not
abjectly despicable, and she knows she must and does so live in it.
She pictures his contempt for her, his condemnation of the way she
acted in the past; and her humiliation, coupled with remorse, has
grown into a disease. Yes, it is a miserable case. They are as
entirely and hopelessly separated as they could be by death."
"Ah, Cleveland! You are here, then?"
The interruption came from the earl. He stepped forward to shake
hands, and drew a chair beside the Rector.
"We were talking of Adela," said the countess, when the few words of
greeting were over. "She has not come to her senses yet."
"I was saying that her case is certainly one of the most hopeless ever
known," observed Mr. Cleveland. "She is as utterly separated from her
husband as she could be by death, whilst both are yet living, and have
probably a long life before them."
Lord Acorn sighed. "One can't help being sorry for Adela, wrong and
mistaken though she was."
Mr. Cleveland glanced at the earl. "I am glad you came in," he said.
"I wanted to speak to you as well as to Lady Acorn. Adela talks of
going into a Sisterhood."
"Into a _what?_" cried her ladyship; her tone one of unbounded
surprise.
"She has had the idea in her mind for some time, I fancy," continued
the Rector. "I heard of it first last autumn, when she startled me one
day by suddenly expressing a wish that she was a Roman Catholic. I
found that the wish did not proceed from any desire to change her
creed, but simply because the Roman Catholics possess places of refuge
in the shape of convents, into which a poor creature, as Adela
expressed it, tired of having no longer a place in the world, might
enter, and find peace."
"She'd soon wish herself out again!" cried Lady Acorn: while the
earl's generally impassive face wore a look of disturbance.
"I heard no more of this for some time," resumed Mr. Cleveland, "and
dismissed it from my memory, believing it to have been only a hasty
expression arising from some moment's vexation. But a week or two ago
Mary discovered that Adela was really and truly thinking of retiring
into some place of refuge or other."
"Into a convent?" cried Lady Acorn.
"No. And not into any institution of the Roman Catholics. It seems she
has been corresponding lately with some of her former acquaintances,
who might, as she thought, help her, and making inquiries of them. I
noticed that letters came for her rather frequently, and I hoped she
was beginning to take a little more interest in life. However, through
some person or other, she has heard of an institution that she feels
inclined to try. I think----"
"What is this institution?" imperatively demanded the countess. "If
it's not a convent, what is it?"
"Well, it is not, as I gather, a religious institution at all, in the
sense of setting itself up for religion especially, or professing any
one particular creed over other creeds," replied Mr. Cleveland. "It
is, in point of fact, a nursing institution. And Adela, if she enters
it, will have to attend to the sick, night or day."
"Heaven help her for a simpleton!" ejaculated her ladyship. "Why, you
might take every occupation known to this world, and not find one to
which she is less suited. Adela could not nurse the sick, however good
her will night be. She has no vocation for it."
"Just what my wife says. Some people are, so to say, born nurses,
while others, and Adela is one of them, could never fit themselves for
it. Mary told her so only yesterday. To this, and to other
remonstrance, Adela has only one answer--that the probationary
training she will have to undergo will remedy her defects and
inexperience," replied the Rector.
"But the life of a sick-nurse is so exhausting, so wearying to the
frame and spirit!" cried Lord Acorn, who had listened in dismay.
"Where is this place?"
"It is in Yorkshire. Three or four ladies, sisters, middle-aged,
educated women of fortune, set up the scheme. Wishing, it is said, to
satisfy their consciences by doing some useful work in the world, they
pitched upon nursing, and began by going out of their home, first one
and then another, whenever any poor peasant turned sick. They were, no
doubt, good Christian women, sacrificing their own ease, comfort, and
income for the benefit of others. From that arose the Institution, as
it is called now; other ladies joined it, and it is known far and
wide. I have not one word to say against it: rather would I speak in
its praise; but it will not do for Adela. Perhaps you can remonstrate
with her. It is not settled, I believe," added Mr. Cleveland. "Adela
has not finally made up her mind to go; though Mary fears she will do
so at once."
"Let her," cried the countess, in her vexation. "Let my young lady
give the place a trial! She will soon come out of it again."
In truth, poor Adela was at a loss what to do with her blighted
life--how to get through the weary days that had no pleasure in them.
Netherleigh Rectory had brought to her no more rest than Sir Sandy's
Scottish stronghold had brought, or the bleak old château in
Switzerland. She wanted peace, and she found it not.
Some excitement crept into the daily monotony of her life whenever Sir
Francis was staying at Court Netherleigh. It was not often. She could
not bear to see him, for it brought back to her all the cruel pain of
having lost him; and yet, when she knew he was at Netherleigh, she was
unable to rest indoors, but must go out in the hope that she should
meet him at some safe distance; for she never ventured within view. It
was as a fever. And perhaps this very fact--that she could not, when
he was breathing the same atmosphere, rest without striving to see
him, combined with the consciousness that she ought not to do
so--rendered her more anxious to get away from Netherleigh and be
employed, mentally and bodily, at some wholesome daily work. Anyway,
what Mr. Cleveland stated was quite true: Lady Adela was corresponding
with this nursing institution in Yorkshire, with the view of entering
it.
One phase of torment, which has not been mentioned, was growing to lie
so heavily upon her mind as to be almost insupportable. It was the
thought of the income allowed her by her husband. That she, who had
blighted his life, should be living upon his bounty, indebted to him
for every luxury that remained to her, was in truth hard to bear. If
she could only get a living for herself, though ever so poor a one,
how thankful she should be, she often told herself. And, perhaps this
trouble turned the scale, or speedily would turn it, in regard to
embracing this life of usefulness: for there would no longer be any
necessity for the allowance from Sir Francis.
The wedding-day, Thursday, rose bright and glorious; just the day that
should shine on all happy bridals. Frances was given away by her
father, and Gerard was attended by a former fellow-clerk in the Red
Tape Office. Colonel Hope had settled an income upon his nephew; but
Gerard was still in the house in Leadenhall Street, and was likely to
remain there: for the colonel disapproved of idle young men. Gerard
had taken a small and pretty house at Richmond, and would travel to
the City of a morning.
At the wedding breakfast-table at Lord Acorn's, Grace and Sir Francis
Netherleigh sat side by side. Towards its close, Grace took the
opportunity of saying something to him in a whisper.
"We have been so confidential on many points for years, you and I,
unhappily have had to be so," she began, "that I think I scarcely need
make an apology, or ask your forgiveness, for a few words I wish to
say to you now."
"Say on, Grace," was the cordial answer.
"It is about Adela." And then she briefly touched upon what her father
and mother had heard from Mr. Cleveland the day before: of Adela's
unhappy frame of mind, and her idea of entering a nursing institution,
to become one of its sisterhood.
Sir Francis heard her to the end in silence. But he heard her
apparently without interest: and somehow Grace's anxious spirit felt
thrown back upon itself.
"It has troubled us all to hear this, my father especially," she said.
"It would be so laborious a life, so very unsuited to one delicate as
Adela."
"I can readily understand that you would not altogether like it," he
replied, at length. "If money could be of any use----"
"Oh no, no," interrupted Grace, flushing painfully. "The allowance you
have made from the first has been so wonderfully liberal. I don't know
why I mentioned the subject to you--except that we think it is
altogether undesirable for Adela."
"Lord and Lady Acorn must be the best judges of that," was the very
indifferent answer.
"Her mind is in the most unhappy state conceivable; as it has been all
along. For one thing," added Grace, her voice sinking to a yet lower
key, "I think she is pining for your forgiveness."
"That is not at all likely, I fancy," coldly returned Sir Francis. And
as he evinced no inclination to continue the subject, but rather the
contrary, Grace said no more.
She could not have told herself why she introduced it. Had it been
with any hope, consciously, or unconsciously, of being of service to
Adela, it had signally failed. Evidently his wife and her concerns
were topics that bore no longer any interest for Francis Netherleigh.