Oh! the bliss of those early days! The strange sweetness of their new
companionship! The weather, too, was propitious--balmy and mild, though
spring was yet young, with unutterable freshness and hope in its breath
and coloring. The delicious sense of safety from all intruders; the
delight of being at home with Ella; of winning her complete confidence.
Never before had Wilton tasted the joy of associating with a woman who
was neither a toy nor a torment, but a true, though softer, comrade,
whose every movement and attitude charmed and satisfied his taste, and
whose quick sense of beauty, of character, and of the droll sides of
things, gave endless variety to their every-day intercourse.
Theirs was no mere fool's paradise of love and kisses. Sketching and
fishing, the days flew by. Wilton had decided that the little inn at
Vigères was too noisy and uncomfortable to be endured, and Ella had
found lodgings in the house of a small proprietor, who sometimes
accommodated lovers of the gentle craft, and, moreover, found favor in
the eyes of the landlord and his bright-eyed, high-capped Norman cook
and house-keeper, her fluent French and knowledge of foreign housewifery
exciting admiration and respect. It was a straggling, gray-stone
edifice, just outside the village, with a very untidy yard behind, and a
less untidy garden in front, where a sun-dial, all mossed and
lichen-covered, was half buried in great, tangled bushes of roses and
fuchsias; on this a large, scantily-furnished _salon_ looked out, and
beyond the garden on an undulating plain, with the sea and Mont St.
Michel in the blue distance, with a dark mass of forest on the uplands
to the south--a wide stretch of country, ever changing its aspect, as
the broad shadows of the slow or quick-sailing clouds swept over it, or
the level rays of the gradually lengthening sunset bathed it with the
peculiar yellow, golden spring light, so different from the rich red
tinge of autumn. Winding round the base of the abrupt hill on which
Vigères, like so many Norman villages, was perched, was a tolerably
large stream, renowned in the neighborhood, and, though left to take
care of itself, still affording fair sport. It led away through a
melancholy wood and some wide, unfenced pasturage, to the neglected
grounds of a chateau, with the intendant of which, Wilton, aided by
Ella, held many a long talk on farming, politics, and every subject
under the sun.
These rambles had an inexpressible charm--a mingled sense of freedom
and occupation. Then the repose of evening, as night closed in; the
amusement of watching Ella at her work or drawing; to lead her on to
unconsciously picturesque reminiscences; to compare their utterly
different impressions and ideas--for Ella was not self-opinionated;
though frank and individual, she was aware her convictions were but the
echo of those she had heard all her life, and she listened with the
deepest interest to her husband's, even while she did not agree. These
pleasant communings were so new to Wilton, so different from all his
former experience, that perhaps time has seldom sped on so lightly
during a honeymoon. Ella was utterly unconventional, and yet a
gentlewoman to the core, transparently candid, and, if such a term can
be permitted, gifted with a noble homeliness that made affectation, or
assumption, or unreality of any kind, impossible to her. Whether she
made a vivid, free translation from some favorite Italian poet at
Wilton's request, or took a lesson from him in tying flies, or gave him
one in drawing, or dusted their sitting-room, or (as Wilton more than
once found her) did some bit of special cooking in the big, brown
kitchen, while Manon looked on, with her hands in her apron-pockets,
talking volubly, she was always the same--quiet, earnest, doing her very
best, with the inexpressible tranquillity of a single purpose. Then the
shy tenderness and grace of her rare caresses--the delicate reserve that
had always something yet to give, and which not even the terrible ordeal
of wedded intimacy could scorch up--these were elements of an
inexhaustible charm--at least to a man of Wilton's calibre.
It was evening--the evening of a very bright, clear day. Wilton had
started early on a distant expedition, with a son of their host for a
guide, and had returned to a late dinner. It had been too long a walk
for Ella to undertake, and now she sat beside her husband under the
window of their _salon_, in the violet-scented air of an April night, as
it grew softly dusk. Wilton was enjoying pleasant rest, after just
enough fatigue to make it welcome, and watching, with a lazy, luxurious
sense of satisfaction, the movements of Ella's little deft fingers, as
she twisted some red ribbon into an effective bow, and pinned it upon an
edifice of lace, which Wilton could not quite make out.
"What can that thing be for, Ella? You are not going to wear it?" he
asked, at last.
"Wear it? Oh, no! It is for Manon; she begged me to make her a Parisian
cap. I advised her to keep to her charming Norman head-dress; but no!
Monsieur le Curé's house-keeper has a cap from Paris, and Manon is not
to be outdone; so she gave me the lace, and I contributed the ribbon.
Do you know, this lace is very lovely? Look at it."
"I suppose it is; but I am glad to find you admire lace; I was afraid
you were above dress."
"Indeed I am not; but I always liked--I had almost said loved--lace. I
would prefer lace to jewels, if the choice were offered me. And then a
hat or a bonnet is a source of joy, if they suit me."
"And we have been here nearly a month--"
"A month yesterday," observed Ella, softly, with a happy smile.
"Time passes quickly in paradise," said Wilton, leaning caressingly
toward his companion.--"But, I was going to say, we have been here a
month, and you have never had a chance of shopping. It is a dear delight
to shop, is it not?"
"I do not know," replied Ella, laughing, and turning her work to view it
on all sides. "I never had any money to spend in shops."
"I should like to see you under fire--I mean in temptation. Suppose we
go over to A---- for a day or two: that is the nearest approach to a
dazzling scene we can manage?"
"As you like; but, dear Ralph"--looking wistfully out over the
garden--"I love this place, and am loath to take even a day from the few
that remain to us here. I suppose we must soon leave for London?"
"You would like to stay here always?"
"No," returned Ella, "certainly not; stagnation would not suit either of
us, though I deeply enjoy this sweet resting-place. It will soon be time
to move on."
"We have a fortnight still before us, so we will run over to A----
to-morrow. Our host can lend us his _shandradan_, with that monstrous
gray mare, to drive over there. I know you expressed a great wish to
sketch some of those picturesque old towers as we came through, and you
shall buy some lace if you like. I have had so much fishing that I shall
come back with renewed zest after a short break."
"Yes; I should greatly like to take some sketches in A----; but, as to
buying lace, do you know we spend a quantity of money here--I am
astonished and shocked to think how much?"
"Then I am afraid I have been a very extravagant fellow, for I do not
think I ever spent so little in the same space of time before. But,
talking of money reminds me I must write to Lord St. George. I have
forgotten all about him--all about every one except you, you little
demure sorceress!"
"Do not forget him, if he is old and a relation."
"Well, I will write to him to-morrow. It is not much matter; he will
never see my face again."
"Because you married me?"
"This is really a very picturesque place," said Ella as they strolled
through the principal street of A----, and ascended the plateau, once
adorned by a cathedral, "but, after all, there is more cheerfulness in
English scenery. I miss the gentlemen's seats, the look of occupation,
the sense of life that springs from individual freedom. Tyranny and want
of cultivation--these are the real 'phantoms of fright.'"
"Yes; we have never mistaken license for liberty in England," returned
Wilton, with genuine John-Bullism.
"Thanks to your early training," said Ella, smiling; "but if for
centuries you had never been allowed to stand or walk without
leading-strings, supports, restraints on the right hand and on the left,
and had then been suddenly set free, with all accustomed stays wrenched
from you, do you think you would not have stumbled and fallen like your
neighbors?"
"True, O queen! but why did not our neighbors begin to train themselves
in time? They are of different stuff; there lies the key to the puzzle."
"And in the might of circumstance," put in Ella. "You can never thank
Heaven enough for your insular position; but there _is_ something in
race."
"No doubt of it. Look at this man coming toward us; you could never
mistake him for anything but a Briton."
"No, indeed!" exclaimed Ella; "and"--drawing a little near to him--"is
it not your cousin, St. George Wilton?"
"By Jove! you are right, Ella. What can bring him here?"
The object of their remark was facing them as the colonel ceased to
speak.
"Ralph Wilton--Miss--" St. George stopped himself in his exclamation,
and then continued, raising his hat with a soft but meaning smile, "I
little thought I should encounter you in this remote region!"
"Nor I you," returned Wilton, bluntly. "Mrs. Wilton and I have been
staying near this, at a place called Vigères, where there is very
tolerable fishing, and drove over this morning to look at this old town.
What brings you so far from the haunts of men?"
"The vagaries of an old woman, if it be not too irreverend to say so,"
replied St. George, raising his hat again with profound respect as his
cousin pronounced the words "Mrs. Wilton." "I have an aged aunt who, for
some inscrutable reason, chooses to mortify her flesh and spare her
pocket by residing here. I never dreamed I should meet with such a
vision of happiness as--Mrs. Wilton and yourself in this fossilized
place."
There was just a slight, significant pause before the name "Mrs.
Wilton," which caught her husband's ear, and it sounded to him like a
veiled suspicion.
"Where are you staying?" he asked.
"Oh, at the Hôtel du Nord. My aunt wishes the pleasure of a visit from
me, but declines to put me up."
"We are just going to dine at your hotel," said Colonel Wilton, "and
will be very happy if you will join us."
St. George accepted his cousin's invitation with his best air of frank
cordiality. It was a very pleasant dinner; nothing could be more
agreeable than the accomplished _attaché_. His tone of cousinly courtesy
to Ella was perfect; his air of well-regulated enjoyment positively
exhilarating. Wilton never thought he should like his kinsman's society
so much. Even Ella warmed to him comparatively, and, though more
disposed to listen than to talk, contributed no small share to the
brightness of the conversation.
At last it was time to undertake the homeward drive to Vigères, some
four or five miles up and down hill. While waiting for the
remarkable-looking vehicle in which the journey was to be performed, St.
George Wilton found a moment to speak with his cousin alone.
"And it is a real _bona fide_ marriage, Ralph?"
"Real as if the Archbishop of Canterbury had performed it, with a
couple of junior officers to help him."
St. George was silent, and affected to busy himself in preparing a
cigar. Not even his trained self-control could enable him to command his
voice sufficiently to hide the enormous contempt that such a piece of
frantic insanity inspired.
"So very charming a person as Mrs. Wilton," said he at last, blandly,
"may well excuse the imprudence of a love-match; but let me ask, merely
that I may know how to act, is it an open as well as a _bona fide_
marriage? I mean, do you wish it concealed from our friend Lord St.
George, because--"
"Certainly not," interrupted Colonel Wilton. "I have not written to
inform him of it, for he has left my last letter some months unanswered,
and I did not think he cared to hear from me; but, as it is possible he
may fancy I intended to make a secret of my marriage, I will write to
him to-morrow."
"It is not of much importance," said St. George, checking the dawning of
a contemptuous smile. "Whatever view he takes of the subject will be
inimical to your interests. Suppose I were to call upon him and explain
matters? I start for London to-morrow morning."
"I will not trouble you," said Wilton a little stiffly; and Ella,
appearing at that moment in the door-way, the conversation took a
different turn.
"Draw your cloak closer, Ella," said her husband, as they proceeded
homeward under the soft silver of a young May moon at the sober pace
which was their steed's fastest; "there is a tinge of east in the wind.
I began our acquaintance by wrapping you up, and I see I shall always be
obliged to make you take care of yourself."
"I take care of myself _now_," she replied, nestling nearer to him. "I
did not think your cousin could be so agreeable," she continued.
"Nor I," said Wilton, shortly.
"Yet," resumed Ella, "I can never banish my first impression of him."
"What was it?"
"That he could always keep faith in the letter and break it in the
spirit; that he could betray in the most polished manner possible,
without ever committing any vulgar error that law or society could
fasten upon."
"Upon my soul, you have made a very nice estimate of the only member of
your new family with whom you have come in contact. And where, pray,
have you found such well-defined ideas of treachery? I did not think
there was so much of this world's lore in that pretty little head. How
did you learn it?"
"Ah, treachery is a thing I have often known! The wonder is, as my
father used to say, that, where so many powerful temptations surrounded
us, poor political outcasts, so few proved false."
"Yet you have not learned to be suspicious, Ella?"
"Heaven forbid! No one who is _really_ true at heart ever _really_
learns to be suspicious."
Wilton fulfilled his intention the following day, and wrote a short,
simple account of his marriage to Lord St. George, regretting that he
should be a source of disappointment to him, and stating that he, of
course, held him quite exonerated from any promise, implied or not,
respecting his property.
It was _quite_ a relief to him having accomplished this. He had now cut
himself adrift from all chances of social preëminence; it remained to
work up in his profession, and his thoughts naturally turned to India.
Great changes, civil and military, were pending there; his own services
had been recognized by men high in office; already the breath of the
outer world had somewhat withered the loveliness of his Arcadia--it was
time for him to be up and doing.
"Ella! come here, darling. I am afraid we must go back to London and
common life next week; so let us make an expedition to Mont St. Michel
to-morrow. How does the tide serve?"
Three or four happy days were spent in visiting the strange
fortress-prison and Old-World picturesque little town of Granville; in
delicious rambles and abundant sketching. Ella was absolutely excited by
the wealth of subjects, all of a new character to her, which offered
themselves for her pencil. But Wilton had exhausted his slender capacity
for repose, and, having thoroughly enjoyed himself, was once more
longing for active life.
The day but one after their return from this brief expedition, a letter
reached Wilton from the family solicitor. He had been out smoking, and
talking of farming with the landlord; and Ella remarked, as he took the
letter, that he exclaimed, as if to himself, "From old Kenrick! what can
he want?" His countenance changed as he read: and then, throwing down
the letter, he cried, "I wish to Heaven I had written to him before! He
has passed away, doubting me!"
"Who?" asked Ella, trembling with a sudden apprehension of evil.
"Poor old St. George!--the old man of whom I have spoken to you."
"Your marriage has not broken his heart, I trust?"
"No; I am not sure he had a heart to break. But, Ella, you have turned
pale, my own darling! Do not torment yourself; the living or dying of
every one belonging to me can never affect my happiness with you; you
are worth them all to me. But this letter--here, read it." And, passing
one arm round her, Wilton held out the letter for her to peruse. "You
see," he continued, "Kenrick (he is Lord St. George's solicitor and the
Wiltons' solicitor generally) says he has died suddenly without a will.
I am his heir-presumptive and nearest of kin--the only person entitled
to act or to give directions. We must, therefore, start for London
to-morrow. I will see Monsieur le Propriétaire, and settle with him at
once."
Ella sighed, and cast one long look out into the garden, where the bees
were humming and the first roses blooming, and away over the variegated,
map-like country beyond, with its distant, dim blue line of sea--a
farewell look at the scene where she had tasted for the first time in a
somewhat sad existence, the divine cup of full, fresh delight; then,
holding her cheek to her husband's kiss, gently disengaged herself and
went away to prepare for turning over a new leaf in the book of life.