Chateau d'Or, Norah, and Kitty Craig

Monsieur Brunell had received a telegram saying that M. Haverleigh would visit the chateau the following day, and both Anna and Madame Verwest had received letters apprising them of his home-coming, and bidding the one see that a grand dinner was in readiness for him, and the other to array herself in her most becoming attire, as befitted a wife about to receive her husband after a separation of many months. To Anna this visit seemed more awful than anything she had yet experienced at the chateau, for as a whole her life there had not been without its pleasures. Acting upon Madame Verwest’s advice, she had tried to make the best of her position, and in acquiring the language and a knowledge of music, she had found a solace for many a weary hour which otherwise would have hung heavily upon her hands. She was fond of French and music, and had developed a remarkable talent for them both, while in the well-selected library she had found a delight she had never thought she could find in books. Madame Verwest was herself a good scholar and a clear reasoner and thinker, and in her constant companionship Anna was rapidly developing into a self-reliant woman, capable of thinking and acting for herself. She had long since given up all hope of hearing from home, unless she could find some other method of communication than through the medium of Monsieur Brunell, who took charge of every letter from the chateau, and who, when questioned upon the subject as to why no answer ever came to her, always replied that he did not know, unless her letters were lost on the voyage. He always deposited them in the post, and more than that he could not do. It was in vain that Anna had tried other methods of getting her letters to the post. It could not be done, even through Madame Verwest, who said always, ‘I would so gladly, but I dare not.’

“And so, though letter after letter had been written home, there had come to her no reply, and she guessed pretty accurately that her letters were sent directly to her husband, who, of course, destroyed them. A prisoner for life she began to fear she was, and sometimes beat her wings cruelly against her gilded cage. Haverleigh had kept his word, and every luxury in the way of service, elegant dress, and furniture was hers. All the servants were respectful and attentive, while Celine was her devoted slave. Anna could talk with her now tolerably well, and the first use she made of her knowledge was an effort to convince her maid of her sanity, and that she was kept a prisoner there to suit the whim of her husband, whom she represented as a dreadful man. But to this Celine gave no credence, though she at first smilingly assented to her young mistress’ assertion, as if it were a part of her business to humor every fancy of the poor lunatic. Once Anna was more earnest than usual, and begged her maid to say if she believed her crazy.

“‘Oui, oui,’ Celine answered, vehemently, ‘I must think it, else why are you here, shut up from the world and Paris, and monsieur is far too kind, too fond to imprison madame for naught, and yet——’

“Here Celine paused a moment, as if a new idea had just occurred to her, and then she continued:

“‘And yet it is a little strange that mademoiselle Agatha should be crazy, too, like you, and like you shut up here.’

“‘Who was Agatha?’ Anna asked; and then, little by little, she heard the story of the poor young girl from Normandy, who had died in what Celine called the ‘Ghost Room,’ with the words ‘Je vais revoir ma Normandie’ on her lips.

“‘She haunts the room still,’ Celine said; ‘and often on stormy nights, when the wind howls round the old chateau, we hear her voice singing of Normandy. You see, that was her home, and she thought she was going back to see it again. Oh, but she was pretty, much like madame; only she was mademoiselle—no wedding ring, for true—no priest—and she was not lady, like you Americaine. She was people—very people.’

“This was Celine’s version of the story, and that night Anna heard from Madame Verwest more of poor Agatha, who believed herself a wife, and who went really mad when she found that she was not. If anything had been wanting to complete Anna’s loathing and horror of her husband, this story would have accomplished it. That he was a demon in human form, as well as a madman, she had no doubt, and there gradually crept into her heart a fear lest she, too, like Agatha of Normandy, would die in that dreary house. Still youth is hopeful, and Anna was young and cheered by the courage of Madame Verwest, who was to her more like a mother than a servant, she found herself constantly forming plans for escape from the chateau. When she received her husband’s letter, telling her he was coming, her first and predominant feeling was one of horror and dread; but anon there arose in her mind a hope that he might be coming to release her, or at least to take her with him to Paris, and once there she would fall in with Americans or English, and through them obtain her freedom.

“With this end in view she determined to make herself as attractive and agreeable as possible to the man she detested, and on the day when he was expected she suffered Celine to dress her in one of the many Paris gowns which she had never worn, for it had hitherto seemed worse than folly to array herself in laces, and silks, and jewels for her solitary meals. But to-day there was a reason for dressing, and she bade Celine do her best, and when that best was done and she saw herself in the glass, a picture of rare loveliness in blue satin and lace, with pearls on her neck and arms, something of her old vanity awoke within her, and she found herself again wishing that her friends at home could see her.

“In the kitchen below all was bustle and expectation, for whatever Ernest Haverleigh might be to others, he was exceedingly popular with his servants, and not a man or woman of them but would have walked through fire and water to serve him. In the dining salon the table was set for dinner as it never had been laid since the first night of Anna’s arrival at Chateau d’Or, more than five months ago. And Anna glanced in there once as she was passing the door, and felt herself grow sick and faint as she saw the costly array, and remembered what it was for.

“At half-past five the train was due, and just as the little silver clock chimed the half hour, the whistle was heard, and from the window where she had so often watched the sun setting she saw the long train moving off toward Marseilles, and a few moments after the sound of carriage wheels in the court below told her that her husband had come. She did not go to meet him, but with clasped hands and rapidly beating heart stood waiting for him just where he left her months before, terrified, bewildered, crouching upon the couch, with her face hidden in her hands. Now she stood erect, with an unnatural brightness in her blue eyes, and a flush on her cheeks, which deepened to scarlet as her ear caught the sound of heavy footsteps, and she knew he was coming.

“The next moment he opened the door, and started involuntarily, as if he had not been prepared to see her thus. He had not expected to find her so beautiful and so matured. He had left her a timid, shrinking girl; he found her a woman, with that expression upon her face which only experience or suffering brings. His role had been all marked out and arranged. He should find her tearful, reproachful, desperate possibly, and that would suit him well, and make her insanity more probable to his servants, while he would be the patient, enduring, martyr-husband, humoring her like a child, and petting her as he would pet a kitten which scratched and spit at his caresses. How then was he disappointed, when, with a steady step, she crossed the room to meet him, and offered her hand as quietly and self-possessed, to all appearance, as if he had been a stranger seeking audience of her.

“‘Ma precieuse, ma belle reine, how charming I find you, and how delighted I am to see you looking so well,’ he exclaimed, as he encircled her in his arms as lovingly as if she had been the bride of yesterday.

“Oh, how she loathed his caresses, and felt her blood curdling in her veins as he pressed kiss after kiss upon her cheek and lips, and called her his darling and pet, and asked if she were glad to see him again. She could not tell a lie, and she dared not tell the truth, but her eyes told it for her, and he saw it at once, and said in a deprecating tone:

“‘What! not glad to see me when I have lived in the anticipation of this meeting ever since I parted with you last autumn. Why then didn’t I come before? you may ask. Business before pleasure, you know, and then I hoped that perfect quiet in this lovely retreat would go far toward restoring you. Eh, ma petite. How is it, are you any better here?’ And he touched his forehead significantly.

“That exasperated Anna, who, for a moment, lost her self-control, and releasing herself from him, stepped backward, and with a proud gesture of her head, exclaimed:

“‘Have done with that. You know I’m not crazy, and you shall not stay in my presence if you insult me thus!’

“She was very beautiful then, and for a moment Haverleigh felt a wave of his old love or passion sweeping over him as he stood looking at her; then the demon within whispered of that day in New York, and the words he had overheard, and he was himself again, her jailer and master rather than her lover and husband.

“‘Ha, my pretty pet,’ said he, ‘and so you are mistress here, and can refuse or permit my presence as you please! So be it then, and if it suits you better to be sane, why sane you are to me at least. But, Mrs. Haverleigh, joking aside, I am glad to see you, and I think you greatly improved, and I come in peace and not in war, and if you incline to the latter I would advise a change in your programme. Upon my soul, you are charming.’

‘He drew her to him again, and she suffered his kisses in silence, and did not even shrink from him when in the presence of Celine he drew her down upon his knee, and called her his angel and dove. But the color had all faded from her cheeks, and left her very pale, while her hands shook so that she could scarcely manage her soup, when at last dinner was announced, and he led her to the dining salon. He was all attention to her, and a stranger watching him would have thought him the most devoted of husbands, but to Anna there was something disgusting and terrible in his manner which she knew was assumed as a means of deceiving the servants, who pitied their master for being so unfortunately married.

“When dinner was over, and they had returned to the salon, Anna could restrain herself no longer, but going up to her husband startled him with the question:

“‘There is something I must ask you, and for the love of heaven answer me truthfully. I have written home seven times since you left me here last October, but have never received a word in reply. Tell me, do you think my letters ever crossed the sea? Did mother ever get them?’

“For an instant the hot blood flamed up in Mr. Haverleigh’s face, and his eyes fell beneath the steady gaze fixed so searchingly upon him. Anna knew that her suspicions were correct, and that her letters had never gone to America, and the lie he told her did not in the least shake her belief.

“‘Do I think your mother ever got them?’ He repeated, at last. ‘She must have gotten some of them, and some may have been lost. You gave them to Brunel?’

“Yes, always to Brunel. No one else would touch them, and I was never allowed to post one myself. Why not? Why am I treated so like a prisoner? Why do you keep me here? Surely I have been sufficiently punished for the foolish words you overheard. Forgive me for them. Try me again. Let me go with you to Paris, when you return. I shall die here or go mad. Don’t drive me to that. Oh, let me go away somewhere. Let me go home—back to mother.”

“She was kneeling now at his feet, and he was looking down upon her with a strange glitter in his eye. Then the look softened, and there was unutterable tenderness in the tone of his voice as he stooped to raise her, and leading her to the couch, said to her pityingly:

“‘Poor child, you don’t know what you ask. You have no home to go to. Your mother is dead—died suddenly—and in kindness to you I have withheld your sister’s letter, wishing to spare you pain, but I have it with me. Can you read it now?’

“He held a worn-looking envelope toward her but for a moment she did not see it. The blow had fallen so suddenly, and was so terrible in its magnitude, that for a brief space both sight and sense failed her, and she sat staring blankly into his face as if she neither saw nor heard. After a moment, however, her eyes relaxed from their stony expression; there was a quivering of the lips, a rapid heaving of the chest, and then in a voice her husband would never have recognized as hers, she said:

“‘Give me the letter, please. I can read it now.’

“He gave it to her, and holding it mechanically in her hand she studied the address, in her sister’s handwriting: ‘Ernest Haverleigh, Esq., Paris, France. Care of Munroe & Co.’ The date upon the back was Dec. 8th, and there was the dear old Millfield post-mark seeming to bring her so near her home, and making her heart throb wildly in her throat, where was a strange sense of suffocation. At last, when every part of the soiled envelope had been studied, she slowly opened it and drew forth the sheet folded inside. Then the look of anguish on her face gave way to one of perplexity, as she said:

“‘Look, this is not Mary’s letter. It is from your agent in Scotland.’

‘My agent in Scotland! Not Mary’s letter! What do you mean?’ Mr. Haverleigh asked, and taking the paper from her he saw that she was right, and that he held a communication from his Scottish steward regarding his estate in the Highlands. ‘What can this mean? I don’t understand,’ he said, and seemed to be intently thinking; then suddenly he added: ‘Oh, I believe I know how the mistake occurred. This from McKenzie I received the same day with the one from your sister, and instead of putting the latter in this envelope, as I meant to do, I tore it up, as I do all my letters of no importance, and put this in its place. I am sorry, but I can give you the particulars. Can you bear it now? There, lay your head against my arm, you look so white and strange.’

“He sat down beside her, and drawing her to him made her lean against him while he told her how her mother, after an unusually hard day’s work, had sickened suddenly and died within three days peacefully, happily, with a message of love on her lips for her absent daughter. After the funeral was over, yielding to the earnest solicitations of a lady who was visiting in Millfield, Mary had decided to rent the house and go West with the woman as governess for her children. Fred, too, had accompanied them, as there was in the place a good school, where he could finish his preparation for college. The name of the lady Mr. Haverleigh could not recollect, except that it was something like Creydock or Heydock, while the town he had quite forgotten, and could by no means recall. It was very unfortunate, that mistake about the letters, and he was so sorry, he kept reiterating; but Anna did not seem to hear, or if she did, she did not care. She only was conscious of the fact that her mother was dead, her home broken up, and all hope of help from that quarter cut off. The effect was terrible, and even her husband was alarmed when he saw how white and motionless she sat, with her hands dropped helplessly at her side. Bad as he was, he did not wish her to die then and there, and he tried to move her from her state of apathy; but she only answered, ‘Please go away. I want to be alone.’

“He made her lie down on the couch, and to this she did not object, but, like a tired child, laid her head among the soft silken cushions, and with a long, low gasping sob, closed her eyes wearily, as if to shut out all sight of everything. Madame Verwest and Celine were sent to her, and were told of the sad news which had so affected her, and one believed it, and the other did not; but both were unremitting in their attentions to the poor heartbroken girl, who gave no sign that she knew what they were doing or saying to her, except to moan, occasionally: ‘Oh, my mother is dead! my mother is dead.’

“Mr. Haverleigh, too, was exceedingly kind, and very lavish with his caresses, which Anna permitted in a dumb, passionless kind of way, like one who could not help herself. Once, when he stroked her long, bright hair, she lifted her mournful eyes to him, and asked: ‘Won’t you take me from here? Won’t you let me go back to where you found me? I can take care of myself; I can work in the shop again, and after awhile you will be free from me. Will you let me go?’

“Free from her! Did he wish to be that? For a moment, when he remembered the glittering black eyes, the only eyes in the world which had power to make him quail, he half believed he did. On his return to Paris he had met the woman with the glittering eyes, which seemed to read his very soul, and ferret out his inmost thoughts. There had been a stormy scene, for Eugenie Arschinard was not one to brook a rival. She had compassed the ruin of poor Agatha of Normandy, whom, but for her, Haverleigh might have dealt fairly with, and made the marriage tie more than a mere farce, a horrid mockery. From his town-house in London, Eugenie had seen the young, fair-haired girl driving by and looking so eagerly at the place, and with her thorough knowledge of the world, she knew her to be an American, and guessed her to be some new flame whom he had lured from home, as the plaything of an hour. She never for a moment believed him married; he was not a marrying man; he dared not marry, bound as he was to her by the tie of honor, which, in her infidel heart, she held above the marriage vow. So when she met him in Paris by appointment, she charged him with his new fancy, demanding who and where she was, and he was a very coward in her presence, and dared not tell her the truth of that simple wedding among the New England hills, but suffered her to believe that Anna, like Agatha, was only his dupe, whom he could cast off at pleasure. Eugenie had no wish, at present, to be bound herself. She was true to Haverleigh, and she enjoyed to the full the luxuries with which he surrounded her, and in Paris, where such connections were common, she had her circle of friends, and reigned among them a queen because of Haverleigh’s name and the style in which she lived. By and by, when she was older, and ceased to attract admiration, she meant to marry him and so pass into a respectable old age, but just now her freedom suited her best, and she gave no sign of her real intentions for the future. But Haverleigh knew well that to confess he had a wife was to raise a storm he had not courage to meet, and so he told her the girl she had seen was a little wild rose from America, whom he had lifted from poverty and taken to Chateau d’Or.

“‘You know I must have something to amuse me when I am at that dreary place, and Anna does as well as any one. A little washed-out, spiritless body of whom you need not be jealous.’

“This he had said to Eugenie, and then had bought her the diamond set at Tiffany’s which she admired so much, had driven with her in the Bois de Boulogne, and afterward dined with her in the little fairy palace just off the Champs d’Elysees, her home, of which she had the title-deed in her possession. And yet, in his heart, Ernest Haverleigh respected Anna far more than he did this woman, who so fascinated and enthralled him, for though Anna had come to him with a lie on her lips, and a lie in her heart, and had wounded his self-love cruelly, she was pure and womanly, while Eugenie was steeped to the dregs in sin and in intrigue.

“But she ruled him completely, and if he had desired he did not dare take Anna back with him to Paris and present her as his wife, and he was not bad enough to cast upon her publicly the odium of being his mistress. Neither would he send her back to America, for there was no pretext whatever by which he could be free from the bond which held him her husband. She had plenty of pretexts, he had none. He could not let her go, and besides, he was conscious of a real interest in her, a something which fascinated him, and made him wish to keep her at Chateau d’Or, where he, and he alone, could see her at his will. Some time, perhaps, when Eugenie was less troublesome, he might take her away, but not now, and when she said to him so pleadingly, ‘Will you let me go, home?’ he answered her very gently, ‘Poor child, you have no home to go to in America. Your home is here, with me. Not always Chateau d’Or, for some time I mean to take you with me. I cannot do so now for certain reasons, but by and by—so be patient, and wait for the happiness in store.’

“A shudder was Anna’s only answer, as she turned her face away from him and wished that she might die. For five weeks Mr. Haverleigh remained at the chateau, devoting himself entirely to Anna, who, while shrinking with intense disgust from his caresses, permitted them because she must. To Madame Verwest he was very distant and cold, treating her civilly, it is true, but always in a manner which showed how wide was the distance between them. He was master, she was servant, and he made her feel it keenly. Once, however, when she came suddenly upon him as he sat alone in his room, she laid her hand on his arm, and asked:

“‘How long is this to go on?’

“‘What to go on?’ he replied, savagely, and she continued:

“‘This horrid life of sin and deception. You know the girl’s mother is not dead.’

“‘It’s a lie!’ he cried, springing to his feet. ‘A lie—I swear it to you! And you shall not interfere, or if you do, by——’

“There was a frightful oath as he threatened the trembling woman, who did not speak again while he went on:

“‘I am beginning to love her once more; to feel a real interest in her. I find her greatly improved, thanks to you, I suppose. A few months more of seclusion, and I shall introduce her to the world; but I will not have her family hanging on me—a set of low Yankees, working in shoe-shops, teaching school, and making dresses for the rabble.

“‘Is not her family a good one, then?’ Madame Verwest asked, and he replied:

“‘Good enough for its kind, for aught I know. No stain, unless it be the half-sister or something of the father, who went to the bad they say—ran off with a Boston man, who never meant to marry her, and the natural consequence, of course.’

“‘Where is this woman?’ madame asked, and he replied:

“‘Dead, I believe, or ought to be. Why should such women live?’

“‘Yes, oh, why?’ was answered sadly in madame’s heart; but she made no response, and when her tyrant of a master motioned her to the door in token that the interview was ended, she went out without a word.

“Three days later he left the chateau, saying he should come again in September or October, and possibly bring people with him. Madame Arschinard, a lady of high position and great wealth, had long wished to visit Southern France, and he might perhaps invite her down with other friends, and fill the chateau.

“‘And you, my little white rose,’ he said to Anna, ‘I want you to get your color back, and be like your old self, for I shall wish my wife not to be behind any Parisian beauties. I shall send you the very latest styles. Worth has your number, I believe. And now good-by, my pet. Take care of yourself, and if——’

“He bent down to her, and whispered something in her ear which turned her face to scarlet, and made her involuntarily exclaim:

“‘Oh, anything but that—anything but that!’