A BROKEN BLOSSOM.
=A Novel.=
BY
FLORENCE MARRYAT,
AUTHOR OF “LOVE’S CONFLICT,” ETC., ETC., ETC.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
[Illustration: MIND IS STRONGER THAN MATTER]
=London:=
SAMUEL TINSLEY & CO.,
10, SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND.
1879.
[_All Rights Reserved._]
=Dedicated to=
MY DEAREST CHILDREN AND MOST FAITHFUL FRIENDS,
EVA FLORENCE
AND
FRANCIS FREDERICK MARRYAT
WITH THEIR MOTHER’S PROUD AND GRATEFUL LOVE.
LONDON,
_April, 1879_.
[Illustration]
CONTENTS OF VOL. I.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. ALONE 1
II. REFUSED 24
III. LAUNCHED 47
IV. ST. PUCELLE 69
V. ANGE 92
VI. TURKEY AND TRUFFLES 111
VII. THE FAIR SOPHIA 137
VIII. MADAME FROMARD 155
IX. SUNDAY 187
X. CHATEAU DES ROSES 213
[Illustration]
A BROKEN BLOSSOM.
CHAPTER I.
ALONE.
I was alone—I felt it for the first time in my life—horribly and
fearfully _alone_. Everything around me was unchanged, and yet nothing
looked the same. The August sun streamed in mercilessly through the
white window blind, lighting up every nook and corner of the
commonly-furnished room. I had known those ornaments upon the
chimney-piece for years past—that Parian figure of Innocence, pretending
to be modest behind a rag of drapery about the size of a housemaid’s
duster—and that fine Court gentleman in imitation Dresden, who never
left off beckoning to the lady who stood opposite to him, hiding her
face coquettishly behind a fan. I had heard the tick of the carriage
clock, which was one of the very few remnants left of our former luxury,
ever since I could remember anything, without having noticed that it was
particularly loud; and I had trodden and retrodden the green and red
Brussels carpet beneath my feet without having observed that it was
woven in the colours of a macaw. But now, as I sat in the armchair, with
my hands folded listlessly upon my lap and my blistered eyes staring
vacuously at all around me, the rag with which Innocence defended her
modesty appeared so ludicrously small, and the smirk of the lady and
gentleman courtiers such a veritable leer, that I burst into a nervous
hysterical giggle as I caught sight of them. The tick of the clock upon
the mantelpiece, too, seemed to strike like a hammer on my empty,
bewildered brain; and I perceived, to my horror, that a blue and yellow
worsted, that made me shudder each time I looked at it, was twisted
amongst the red and green pattern of the carpet. It appeared strange to
me that I should never have observed that glaring blue and yellow line
before, when it seemed to stand out now from the rest of the design as
if the carpet were all yellow and blue, and nothing else. What a fool I
must have been all these years to imagine it was red and green! The idea
of my folly was so ludicrous that I began to giggle again, and ended in
a burst of tears that left me no better than before. I had shed so many
tears during the last week, they seemed to have lost their effect upon
me. They only inflamed my eyes anew, and caused their lids to smart
more. I felt cold, too, although the day was unusually warm, and my head
was like a ball of fire. After a while I rose, and, leaning my elbows on
the mantelpiece, stared at myself in the glass. People had called me
pretty sometimes, and I believed that they spoke the truth, but few
would have said so now.
My eyes were dull and fishy; my complexion sodden; my hair rough and in
disorder. I looked to myself like an old woman; older than _she_ had
done when I had seen her last with her own living face upon her.
It was a week now since she had left me—eight whole days; and I was
still alive. It seemed marvellous to me!
I was not a young girl—I had completed my twenty-fourth year; and I
knew, of course, that the majority of daughters were called upon to see
their mothers leave this world before them. But then my mother had not
been like other women’s mothers. She was my friend and companion—my
second self—the only confidante I had ever made. We had almost grown up
together, for there were but eighteen years between us, and I felt
utterly stunned and lost to think that she could go and leave me behind
her—_alone_. How often we had talked together of leaving the rooms we
had occupied so long at Norwood, and travelling, in the modest style our
limited means would admit of, through Switzerland and Germany and
France! Unless I married, meanwhile, she said with a smile (knowing well
there was not a man on earth who had the power to separate me from her),
we really must think of breaking up our English establishment this
autumn, and making a move southward—that is, if Mr. Lovett approved of
the plan.
Mr. Lovett was a personage of whom I had often heard, but never seen. He
was a clergyman, and had been an intimate friend and schoolfellow of my
late father, and my mother held his name in infinite respect. He was the
trustee also, of our small capital, and the quarterly interest of it
always came to us through his hands. He lived abroad, which was the
reason I had never met him, but his name was as familiar to me as a
household word. If Mr. Lovett approved, then, my dear mother had said,
we should travel together that autumn, and I had been looking forward to
the novel pleasure with unmixed delight. And now, the autumn had not yet
come, and she was—_where?_ As these thoughts recurred to me, I pressed
both my hands to my head to prevent my screaming aloud. It was too
horrible—too dreadful—I could not realise it!
She had been so well, and we had been so happy, until two short weeks
before. She was only forty-two years of age, and very youthful-looking;
our friends had often said, in jest, that I was the older and the graver
of the two. She was a tall woman, with an unusually fine figure, and a
bright speaking face that would have looked young to the last; a soft,
fair complexion, sunny blue eyes, and a mouth that was always ready for
a kiss. She had a happy temperament, too, that ever looked on the
brighter side, and was capable of taking the keenest enjoyment and
interest in everything that was beautiful in Art or Nature.
If I had ever thought of death coming between us two, it was of dying
myself, with my head on that dear bosom, and those kind eyes fixed on me
to the last. But if _she_ would have suffered in that instance as _I_
had suffered during the past fortnight, I thanked God for singling me
out as His victim.
At that phase of my existence I felt there was nothing else to thank Him
for.
Eight days before, she had been with me, struggling, it is true, in the
last throes of the fearful malady that separated us, but still there,
with her dear blue eyes, grown meek with suffering, turned lovingly to
me, and her hot, fevered hand able to acknowledge the clasp of mine. And
then arrived that awful moment when the light faded and the grasp
relaxed, and they half pulled, half pushed me out of the room; and
something seemed to burst in my head, and make a thousand wheels, like
the burring of machinery, go round and round in my brain, until they
expended themselves like fireworks, and went out one after another, and
my spirit escaped somewhere into a land of darkness and forgetfulness.
As soon as I came to myself again, and they would let me leave my room,
I rushed to _her_.
I could not believe but that she was still living: that she yet could
open her eyes and look at me, or clasp my hand. I rushed into the room
and ran straight up to the bed; but I had been absent for an hour, and
the officious attendants had already what they termed ‘laid her out.’ I
pulled off the sheet impetuously, intending to cast myself upon her
breast, but drew back in horror.
That straightened flattened figure, like a bad model made in discoloured
wax—those dark, closed, sunken eyes—that pinched and drawn-down
nose—those livid, half-parted lips—they never belonged to the mother who
bore me. As well assure me that the house I see fallen to decay, with
clouded panes and shuttered windows and stained walls, is the same that
I have passed when the sunlight played on every square of glass, and
dainty lace curtains shaded, and many-coloured blossoms ornamented every
sill. It was the casket that had once enshrined her soul, I knew; but
that it was my mother, I never realised. It was my first view of the
common change—so common and yet always so strangely new—and it was my
first and last view of the shape that had held what was so dear to me. I
clasped both my hands before my eyes, and fled from it in loathing. They
called me unnatural and hard, and begged of me to look at it again; but
no persuasions could induce me to re-enter the chamber. On the contrary,
I sat in my own room, trying hard to forget I had ever seen it. I wanted
to remember my mother at her best and brightest. I wanted to think of
her as she had appeared to me as a little child—when I had thought her
the cleverest and most beautiful and most wonderful of created
beings—who knew everything and could do everything, and read my mind
before I had expressed it. And I wanted to think of her as she had been
to the last—my friend and companion, who sympathised in all my troubles
and took pleasure in all my joy. And I felt as if the happier
remembrance could never come back to me while _that_ remained in the
room that had been hers, lying stark and stiff upon the bed, or cased
within its narrow coffin, with a sheet drawn over it to keep off the
flies, and a few July roses lying prone upon its sunken surface. Ah! how
I suffered during those days of waiting, heaven and my own heart only
knew. I longed for two things only: that the dreaded funeral might be
over and done with, and I might be able to go away somewhere—no matter
where, so long as the place was very distant from that in which I had
been so miserable—and that I might never see any of the things again by
which I was then surrounded.
And now one of my wishes had been realised, and I had followed the dark
coffin to Norwood Cemetery, and seen it lowered into a grave dug in the
grass. And I had come back to the house again, to find it still more
empty than before.
That was yesterday. The people of the house had drawn up the blinds
again, and the chamber in which she had died was having ‘a regular turn
out.’ I could hear the maidservants from where I sat, throwing the
casements wide, and laughing with one another as they shook the bed and
pillows, and smartly swept the carpet which had been innocent of broom
so long. I heard them rattling the glass and china, and moving the
furniture about the room, and my heart sickened afresh at the unusual
sound of bustle. Pshaw! what did it matter, after all? They could not
disturb her, lying six feet under ground in Norwood Cemetery; and as for
me, I must get used to such things. Yet, for all that, my lip was
quivering terribly as a knock at the door caused me to turn from the
looking-glass to confront my landlady, Mrs. Medlicott.
‘Mr. Warrington wishes to speak to you, if you please, miss.’
Mrs. Medlicott’s voice was unusually low and subdued. You would have
thought, to hear her, that butter would not melt in her mouth; and to
me, who knew how spiteful and shrill her tones could be on occasions,
the change was irritating. What had happened to me more than to others,
that a common lodging-house keeper should presume to show me compassion!
‘Show him in,’ I answered, almost sharply.
Mr. Warrington was my mother’s solicitor. I had seen him at the funeral
yesterday, as I had seen the rest of the mourners, through a sort of
misty haze, but we had not spoken to each other. I knew he came to talk
to me now about money, and my future mode of living, and my soul
sickened at the mere idea; but nothing could make me worse than I was,
so I said: ‘Show him in.’
Mr. Warrington was not at all like the conventional family lawyer. He
was a fashionable man in appearance, not more than forty, and always
looked distinguished, in well-cut clothes, trimly-arranged hair, and a
fresh bouquet in his button-hole. To-day it was composed of lilies of
the valley and gardenias; and the faint smell of the latter blossom
recalled to my mind, I could not tell why, the painful scene of
yesterday, with so much acuteness, that I felt as though I must tear it
from his breast and trample it under foot. But I schooled myself to
raise my heavy eyes in his direction, and greet him with composure. Then
we shook hands in complete silence.
‘I trust I have not called upon you too early, Miss Marsh,’ commenced
Mr. Warrington; ‘but I was anxious to see if I could be of any use, and
also to have a little conversation with you about your money-matters.’
‘Yes?’ I said, interrogatively.
‘I received a letter this morning, also, from your trustee, Mr. Lovett,
the contents of which he is desirous I should communicate to you. You
have no personal knowledge of Mr. Lovett, I believe, Miss Marsh?’
‘None whatever!’
‘But you are aware, I suppose, that your—your late mother’s income was
derivable from a pension granted her on your father’s death, in
recognition of his scientific discoveries, and a sum of money vested in
East India property which realised about one hundred and fifty pounds a
year?’
‘Yes; I have heard so.’
‘The Rev. Horace Lovett, who was your father’s most intimate friend, was
left trustee for this small property during your mother’s lifetime. At
her death it was to revert, unconditionally, to you; but Mr. Lovett is
still willing to continue his trust, if you wish it, and will re-appoint
him to the charge.’
‘I have no choice in the matter. You had better arrange it all, Mr.
Warrington.’
‘But shall I seem impertinent if I ask you what you intend to do?’
‘I have no intentions of any sort.’
‘You will not continue to live here?’
‘Oh no! I suppose things will settle themselves in due time, and I shall
drift on somewhere. It will be all “drifting” henceforward. I cannot
look forward to “living” again.’
‘No, no; of course not—not for the present; no one could expect it,’
replied Mr. Warrington, soothingly. ‘But you are too young to live
alone, Miss Hilda.’
‘Am I? Numbers live alone who are as young as I am. And I see no
alternative.’
‘There are several! Young ladies situated as you are, generally try to
board with some pleasant family; or they have an older lady to live with
them, and chaperon them into the world.’
‘I shall want no chaperonage,’ I said sadly, recalling the arm on which
I had leant for so many years; ‘neither shall I go out into the world. I
am only sure of one thing, that I must leave this place; but whether to
go into a convent or on the stage is perfectly indifferent to me. I have
no present, Mr. Warrington, and no future! All I desire to do is to
forget.’
‘Come, come! you mustn’t talk to me in that strain,’ he answered. ‘I
know it is quite natural, but it is not like the sensible, philosophical
reasoning I have heard you exercise on the behalf of others. You have
doubtless experienced a very heavy loss——’
‘Mr. Warrington, will you be good enough not to speak to me about it?
You may say what you like about myself, but nothing, please, that refers
to the past.’
I dreaded breaking down before this hard, cynical man of the world, who
looked upon death as the end of all things, and had frequently
challenged me to prove to him, by even the feeblest argument, that the
soul lived again after it had quitted the body.
‘Very well, Miss Hilda,’ he replied, nonchalantly; ‘your wishes shall be
respected in all things. But since you have formed no plans for
yourself, may I be permitted to suggest one for you? Mr. Lovett writes
me most feelingly on the subject this morning, and proposes that you
should go, as soon as ever you please, to St. Pucelle, and form one of
his family circle, as long as it suits your convenience to do so.’
‘I go to St. Pucelle!’ I exclaimed.
‘Why not? It is a charming old-fashioned town, on the very frontiers of
the Belgian territory, and Mr. Lovett’s family consists of two
motherless daughters, who would form pleasant companions for you. Mr.
Lovett is not rich, as you may suppose. The salary of a Protestant
clergyman abroad is barely sufficient to enable him to live in decent
gentility; but he offers, should you go there, to hand you over fifty
pounds annually for your own expenses, and I do not think that you will
easily find a pleasanter or cheaper home in which to establish yourself.
And so eminently respectable, too; living in a clergyman’s family, and
under the guardianship of your trustee. I hope you will think of the
proposal favourably.’
‘To go to St. Pucelle!’ I repeated vaguely. Thoughts of the foreign trip
that _we_ had planned together rushed rebelliously into my mind, and for
a few minutes I could not trust myself to speak. But as the mental mist
cleared off, I found the plan that Mr. Warrington had proposed a very
feasible one.
‘You _cannot_ live alone,’ continued the solicitor, earnestly. ‘It is of
no use discussing the question. You are too young, and, if you will
forgive me for saying so, Miss Hilda, you are much too handsome, to set
up housekeeping on your own account. You have your name, and the name of
those who are gone, to consider, and I am sure you will never dream of
doing anything that would have displeased them.’
‘No, no,’ I answered, hastily; ‘but I must have time to think about it.’
I had no friends to consult upon the subject. I suppose there never was
a girl who found herself more completely thrown upon the world than I
did. My father had been an only child, and my mother had come from
Australia. Brothers and sisters, uncles, aunts, and cousins, were names
unknown to me, except as they related to other people. I was literally
my own mistress, and I felt terribly alone in remembering it—I, who had
never felt alone in my life before. For the last few years I had
believed myself to be so much of a woman, for my experience in some
things had been greater than that of other girls, and _she_ had made me
her intimate companion, and unfolded all her mind to me as I had done
mine to her. Now I felt like a little child that wanted advice and
guidance, and had no one to depend on but herself. But Mr. Lovett’s
offer had opened new ideas to me, and I felt it was not to be rejected
hastily.
‘I suppose, if I go to St. Pucelle,’ I continued, after a pause, ‘that
my stay there will be perfectly optional, and I shall be able to leave
it whenever I choose?’
‘Certainly. I can have no idea that Mr. Lovett wishes to keep you a
prisoner there. The proposal is evidently made only with a view to your
benefit, and I will make it a proviso in my answer that your actions are
to be perfectly uncontrolled. But, at the same time, let me ask what you
could possibly do, at your age, in the world by yourself?’
‘Oh, don’t worry me!’ I said, impatiently; ‘there are a thousand things
I could do if I chose, and I will never stay in any family whose habits
are uncongenial to me. I have been used to have my own way too much for
that!’
Mr. Warrington rose, and commenced smoothing down the nap of his hat,
which the crape band of yesterday still encircled.
‘Very good, Miss Marsh! Then I will leave you to consider the matter at
your leisure, and I hope you will give me the first intimation of your
decision. I presume you have sufficient money in hand for current
expenses?’
‘Yes, yes; I have everything I want,’ I answered. I was longing for him
to be gone, and leave me to myself. Every moment he stayed recalled the
past so vividly to me. After a few more words of courtesy, he bowed
himself deferentially out of the room, and I was once more alone.
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