How they loved him, Vol. 1 (of 3)

Here she found Fenella awaiting her, standing composed and thoughtful by the open casement, and looking more like a straight white lily than ever, with her hair brushed smoothly behind her ears, and her long eyelashes lying on her fair pale cheeks. The table was spread with a substantial meal of coffee and rolls and cold meat, and the sister, having seen that nothing more was required, withdrew, and kept the servant and her young mistress together.

‘Miss Fenella,’ said Eliza Bennett, as she sat down to table, ‘aren’t you going to take some breakfast?’

Fenella opened her grey eyes.

‘Me, nurse! Oh dear, no! I had my breakfast at six o’clock this morning, and my dinner at twelve. What do you think of that?’

‘I never heard of such hours for gentlefolks, miss. They wouldn’t suit London ladies at all.’

‘And at what time shall I have my meals in London, nurse?’

‘Your mamma mostly has her breakfast about this time, and her dinner at eight in the evening. But I don’t suppose you’ll go out to parties as much as she does, miss.’

‘Oh, no! I shouldn’t wish to do so. What should I do at parties, nurse? I have never been to one in my life! I don’t even know what they do there; but it will be so sweet to creep out of my bed again when mamma comes home—(I shall always lie awake till I hear her step)—and come downstairs to help to undress her and make her comfortable for the night. My own dear mamma! I have never forgotten her face, Bennett, nor her beautiful dark hair.’

Bennett, who knew all about the ‘beautiful dark hair,’ which had mysteriously changed by this time to golden, and had experienced the sweetness of creeping out of her bed to attend to Mrs Barrington’s requirements at two o’clock in the morning, did not appear to join in her daughter’s enthusiasm on the subject, and only remarked that it would not be good for Miss Fenella, not being strong, to have her rest disturbed after that fashion, and she didn’t think her mamma would allow it.

The girl looked disappointed.

‘I shall soon grow strong in England,’ she said, ‘and I should love to wait upon mamma.’

‘You will soon find other things to think of, miss,’ replied Bennett, with a view to consolation. ‘Your mamma has me to wait upon her, and don’t need to trouble any one else. And you’ll be getting lovers before long, and making them wait upon you.’

‘Lovers!’ echoed Fenella; ‘do you mean men to marry me? Oh no! I sha’n’t. I shall never be married. I don’t wish to. I shouldn’t like it.’

Had she been less of a child and more of a woman she would have blushed or laughed a little at the idea, for it does not take much to call up blushes in a young girl’s cheek at the mention of marriage, even from one of her own sex; but Fenella did neither. She only looked at the servant, straight out of her frank grey eyes, as a child of four years old might have done, and shook her head and repeated emphatically, ‘I know all about marrying, nurse, and I’m sure I shouldn’t like it.’

Eliza Bennett, in her quiet way, was infinitely amused.

‘Why, who could have told you all about it, Miss Fenella?’

‘Oh, lots of people! I have a great friend here—Honorée St Just. Ah! how sorry I shall be to part with her. And her sister Cécile is married to a man, and Honorée says it is horrid. They quarrel dreadfully, and Cécile hates him, and one day he boxed her ears. No man should do that to me; and if I had my choice I’d rather marry a woman, only they say that’s nonsense.’

‘I should think it was, miss—too great nonsense to talk about.’

‘I won’t say it again then, but I don’t know why it should be. Honorée and I would never quarrel like Cécile and her husband if we lived in the same house. But if that is the case I shall never marry, for I should not care to have a man for a friend. They are rough, and they do not care for the same amusements as girls. I am sure we should not agree together.’

‘You’ll change your opinion, Miss Fenella, when you have seen more of gentlemen. You don’t know anything about them now, though bad’s the best, I must say. But all young ladies marry sooner or later.’

‘Oh no, nurse, not all! The nuns are ladies, but they never marry, and they are very happy. And I should like best of all to live with them. I mean to live with dear mamma, and wait on her till she wants me no longer, and then when she has gone to heaven I will come back to dear Ansprach and be buried with the sisters in the convent yard.’

‘Oh dear me, miss, that is sorrowful talking,’ remonstrated Eliza Bennett, with her mouth full of bread and butter.

‘Why?’ replied Fenella, with evident surprise. ‘We often have deaths here, because some of the nuns are so very old, and you should see how pleased they are to hear it is all over, and they are going to Jesus and the Blessed Virgin for ever. When one of the sisters die, the others take turns to watch by her coffin till she is buried, and I always coax chère mère to let me have my turn, although I am not a Catholic. And oh, nurse!’ exclaimed Fenella, with a sudden outburst of prophecy from her childish soul, ‘I have sometimes wondered if it would not be better if I died too whilst I was at Ansprach, and never went home to see mamma and what they call the “world again.”’

But this was a line of argument with which Eliza Bennett could not cope, and which half frightened her, for it revealed a nature deeper than any which she had yet been called upon to fathom.

‘Please don’t talk like that, miss, nor ask me such questions,’ she said nervously; ‘it isn’t right nor natural. I don’t mean to say as things mayn’t seem a bit strange to you in Audley Street after the convent, but still they’re your mamma’s ways, you know, and you must give in to them, and not put her out, and then you’ll be happy enough.’

‘Put her out! Do you mean vex her? Oh, no! that I never will. How can you think so for a moment. I am only afraid that I may disappoint her, and that she will not be able to love me as much as I shall want her to do. Nurse, shall I sleep in the same bed as my mamma? Do tell me.’

‘Well, I hardly know what to say to that, miss; your mamma never cared for any one sleeping alongside of her, so you mustn’t be vexed if you don’t share her bed, for, to tell truth, I don’t think you will.’

‘Nurse!’ exclaimed Fenella, as if struck by a sudden fear, ‘won’t she love me?’

There was so much energy in her tone that the old servant was quite taken aback.

‘Bless your heart, miss, of course she will. Whatever makes you ask me such a question. Why, all mothers love their children, and you an only one too, and such a fine grown young lady, and the very image of your papa; it would be against nature entirely if your mamma weren’t as proud of you as proud can be.’

‘But it is so long since she sent for me,’ said Fenella mournfully; ‘five whole years. I began to think I was never going home, and the other girls would hardly believe I had a mother. It made me feel almost ashamed, nurse, and as if I had done something wrong.’

‘Well, your mamma will make up for it now, miss, never fear! She has had more than enough to worry her, my dear, I expect, during the last few years, and perhaps she thought you was better away learning your books than knocking about with her.’

‘Worried!’ cried Fenella, with a startled look. ‘What can she have to worry her?’

Eliza Bennett looked mysterious. She longed to tell what was in her mind, but she had been too well trained to turn informer; and the girl’s eager tone of inquiry made her more cautious than she might otherwise have been.

‘Everybody has something to worry ’em,’ she answered, ‘and your dear mamma ain’t free from it, miss—no more than others. There’s always plenty of trouble in this world.’

‘Do you mean she is sorry? I never thought of that! Oh, I am so glad she has sent for me to comfort her! I am the proper person to comfort her. Am I not, Bennett? And I will—indeed, I will!’

Bennett, who was perfectly aware that the last thing Mrs Barrington would regard as an alleviation of her cares would be the appearance of her tall womanly daughter, here wiped her mouth in token of having finished her breakfast, and was significantly silent. She tried to appear at her ease, but, in reality, she was full of nervous apprehension, which amounted to cowardice. She had been twenty years in the service of Mrs Barrington, and since her husband’s death she had been her housekeeper, lady’s-maid, and humble friend,—in fine, the recipient of all her secrets. Mrs Barrington would not have parted with her on any consideration—she would have been afraid to do so; and Eliza Bennett knew it well; and yet she was so much under the thumb of her mistress, that she had no will of her own. She did not love her; on the contrary, she despised her for her heartlessness and artifice. She derived no particular benefit from remaining in her service; and yet, had her life depended on it, she would not have left her,—nor did she do so until the strange fascination which Mrs Barrington exercised over her was exhausted.

Fear is a much stronger motive power to bind people together than love,—fear of the world—fear of change—fear of themselves. How many uncongenial couples does it not link fast for life, and make them jog on, afraid to rupture the unholy spell that unites them, until death causes the parting to be inevitable. There was a subtle, secret magnetism in Mrs Barrington for Eliza Bennett, which the servant felt but could not analyze, and the mistress wielded without knowing whence her power came.

The rest of that day was spent, as far as Fenella was concerned, in a very tearful and unhappy manner. Five years is a long while for any one to spend in one place and with one set of people, and to a young girl of sixteen it appears a lifetime.

Fenella ran from the farmyard to the gymnasium, and the flower garden to the chapel, and wept freely as she thought she might never see any of them again. She visited the kitchens and laundry and class-rooms, and felt intuitively, as she bade farewell to the sisters who had surrounded her childhood with kindness and care, and the schoolfellows who had shared her pleasures and advantages, that the happiest and most peaceful years of her life were over. But the great trial to her in leaving Ansprach was parting with her bosom friend Honorée St Just.

Fenella was not a general lover. She possessed a full, impulsive nature that could rejoice in the sunshine and the blossoms, and the singing of the birds, and sometimes, when all the world smiled at her, and her spirit seemed to rush forth to meet it, her heart would overflow and she would weep for very gladness. But though she felt deeply, she was not sentimental. She had never nursed sickly fancies after the fashion of school girls. She was impulsive and emotional, but what she loved she must look up to. Hers was a nature that all through life would feel the necessity of a passionate love—the necessity of a friend whom she could worship—of some one to whom she would be the very first, in whom she could confide every thought that came into and over-weighted her active brain.

She was clever, but she was dependent on others for sympathy. Left to herself and her own thoughts, Fenella would have sunk into a miserable being. And for the last few years Honorée St Just, who was much older than herself, had been the depository of all Fenella’s half-fledged thoughts, and she felt the wrench of parting from her terribly. It was only by oft-repeated promises of a speedy reunion at Honorée’s house in Germany, where she protested her parents should invite Fenella to visit her, that the young girls could be persuaded to separate, and when at last Eliza Bennett found herself with her charge outside the convent walls of St Barbara, she was afraid that Fenella’s grief would make her ill. But it subsided sooner than she expected. These impulsive natures suffer keenly, but they do not suffer long, unless the wound is incurable, and then may Heaven help them, for they twist and writhe above the unextracted weapon, until death mercifully closes the scene.

But to a girl of sixteen who had spent the greater part of the last five years within a convent garden, the mere fact of travelling was an excitement and distraction; and when the next morning broke and they found themselves at Calais, ready to cross over to Dover by the midday boat, Fenella was able to look at the scenes that passed around her with dry eyes, and to comment on them with all the natural liveliness of her disposition.

But Eliza Bennett could not make out her young lady. She was puzzled to know what to answer to the extraordinary questions she put to her. She had never been brought in contact with such a womanly child before. Fenella had no shyness in her composition, and her innocence made her afraid of nothing. She would as soon have addressed a stranger passing in the street as the servant that walked beside her. They had some hours to wait in Calais, and they employed them in traversing the town. As they came opposite a church a wedding party issued from it, the bride resplendent in her foreign finery—a bright blue dress trimmed with velvet, and a cap decorated with satin ribbons and orange blossoms.

‘Who are those people, nurse?’ demanded Fenella, with interest. ‘What have they been about? Is it a first communion?’

‘Bless my soul, Miss Fenella, it’s a wedding! Don’t you see the flowers in the bride’s cap?’

‘Is it?’ indifferently; and then, after a pause, she added,—‘Why do people go to church when they’re married, Bennett?’

‘Why, to say prayers, Miss Fenella, of course.’

‘Couldn’t they pray at home?’

‘Well, I suppose so, but then there’s the marriage vows, you see. They go to the parson, and he makes them swear they will live together all their lives.’

‘What! in the same house always? Why should they swear that? Suppose after a time they got tired of each other and wanted to live in different houses, what would they do then?’

‘Oh, miss, you mustn’t think of such a thing. Marriage is binding for life, you know, and when people have once entered on it, they never dream of changing.’

‘Don’t they? Then why does the priest make them swear not to?’

Eliza Bennett met Fenella’s eyes fixed upon hers, and resolute for an answer, and had to think before she concocted one.

‘Lor! my dear child, whatever would your mamma say if she heard you? Why, they haven’t taught you nothing at that convent. Why do married people swear to keep to each other? Why, because it’s the law of the land, miss, as they should do so; and they’d be chopping and changing all round if they hadn’t something to hold ’em together; but when they’ve made a vow, of course it’s all right, and they never think of such a thing.’

Fenella pondered on this mystery for a minute or two, then she said,—

‘Do mothers take vows that they’ll always live with their children, nurse?’

‘Dear me no, miss, their hearts keep them to each other—it’s nature, you see; they couldn’t turn against their little ones any more than they could against themselves.’

‘Isn’t marriage nature, then, and haven’t the married people hearts? Wouldn’t that keep them together as well as going into church and swearing?’

‘I’m sure I can’t tell you, miss; you do put such strange questions you quite flurry me. But you’ll be married yourself some day, and then you’ll understand all about it. They look happy enough any way, don’t they? See how the girl is smiling at her friends—’

At that moment the wedding party passed close to them, and one of the men, struck by Fenella’s face, remarked to his companion,—

‘Mon Dieu! qu’elle est belle! la petite Anglaise!’

Eliza Bennett saw the look of admiration that accompanied the words.

‘I hope that fellow didn’t say anything rude to you, miss?’

She looked at her young mistress as she spoke, and seemed to see, for the first time, what she would become. The lily was flushed with the excitement and the fresh sea air; a delicate pink glow was spreading over her features, as if the rising sun had touched the petals of a flower—a glow that made her eyes look bluer, her hair more sunny, her parted lips like carmine.

The servant took in the fascination of her appearance at a glance, and pulled her to one side.

‘Come on, Miss Fenella, we mustn’t loiter like this; ladies should never stand about the streets; besides, it’s nearly twelve, and we go on board at one. It is time we were making our way to the restaurant; you must have a good luncheon before we start.’

She led the girl away as she spoke, and they entered the restaurant. But Fenella was too excited to eat; her loving heart was filled now with the idea of meeting her mother again, and she but half finished the bason of soup which Bennett ordered for her. As the servant, much confused by the foreign coins with which her purse was filled, bustled away to the counter to pay for what they had consumed, Fenella’s attention was attracted by the figure of a young gentleman, who leaned against the side of the open doorway, and gazed at her.

He was a tall, slight youth of about two-and-twenty, and there was something about his appearance that betokened an Irish descent. His fine silky hair and moustaches were of the darkest shade of brown; his blue eyes were shaded by black pencilled brows, and thick lashes that lay upon his cheek as though he had been a child; his delicate nose and closed nostrils showed a refined and artistic disposition, and his mouth (or what could be seen of it), if weak and pleasure-seeking, was very tender, and had a certain melancholy droop at the corners, that would have led a stranger to believe its owner to be the possessor of very deep feelings.

But what should a child like Fenella, just let loose from school, know of the subtle signs of physiognomy, when even the oldest and most experienced amongst us refuse to be guided by them. All she saw was a very handsome young man, whose eyes were fixed earnestly upon her face, and her first thought was, whether it was the quaintness of her convent garb that had excited his curiosity. The idea made her colour and look conscious, and she turned slightly to one side. But the mesmeric influence of the eyes, that never moved for a moment from her face, forced her after a while to meet them again, and her frank childish glance was once more mingled with his own. This time she noted the melancholy of his expression, and wondered what had caused it.

‘Is he in any pain or trouble? Can he want to speak to me?’ she thought.

When Eliza Bennett returned to her seat, Fenella communicated this idea to her.

‘Do you see that gentleman who is looking at me, nurse?’ she whispered. ‘I think he must want to say something. Perhaps he is sick, or sorry. Shall I go and speak to him?’

‘Goodness me! no, Miss Fenella! The impudent rascal to go staring a young lady out of countenance after that fashion. I’ll get one of the waiters to turn him out of the restaurant, if he don’t mend his manners.’

‘Don’t say that, nurse! Indeed, he is not rude; he has only looked at me. Oh! I hope he did not hear what you said about him.’

For the ‘impudent rascal,’ perceiving the advent of a middle-aged chaperon with a flustered manner, had concluded to shift his position for a while, and sauntered into the sunshine.

‘A good thing if he did, Miss Fenella,’ replied Eliza Bennett. ‘However, he seems to have taken the hint, so I’ll go and see after the luggage. If you’ll wait here for me, you’ll be safe enough.’

‘Safe!’ echoed the girl; ‘safe! why what should happen to me?’ and then the servant left her again, and she leaned her head upon her hand, and tried to realise what she would feel when once more within the embrace of her mother. Then the young man, with the earnest glance and the tender droop in his mouth, noting that the coast was clear, returned to his former position, and fixed his gaze once more upon Fenella’s face. She did not raise her eyes, but she knew that his were on her. She felt them, as one feels the heat of fire, even through her sheltering hand, and her nature stirred uneasily beneath their influence.

‘He must want to speak to me,’ she said to herself; ‘else why should he look so earnestly at me. Perhaps he has had a misfortune; he may have been robbed of his purse, and be unable to pay his passage home; or he may be a stranger who cannot speak the language and make his wants known, and he sees I am English and wishes me to help him. How can I be so unkind as to take no notice? He may find no one else to assist him. Surely that would not be doing as I would be done by.’

At this juncture Fenella, moved by an irresistible impulse, rose hastily from the table and walked towards the door. The young man, who had been so fascinated by her appearance, thought that she was offended by his admiration, and was about to leave the restaurant in token of it.

He was a gentleman, and regretted he had been so thoughtless, and so he drew to one side respectfully as she approached the threshold, and slightly raised his hat. But what was his astonishment when the childish figure stopped directly in front of him, and two kind, fearless eyes were raised innocently to his face.

‘Why do you look at me?’ demanded Fenella. ‘Are you in trouble? Can I assist you?’

The stranger blushed scarlet; her quiet question took him so completely aback he had not a word to say for himself. He could only stammer forth some awkward thanks for her kindness, and a denial that he needed anything. But Fenella did not blush; she only smiled.

‘I am glad it is nothing,’ she said; ‘I thought you wanted to speak to me,’ and then she returned to her seat without any confusion, and sat down again to wait for Eliza Bennett.

Meanwhile, had she felt annoyance at the stranger’s admiration, she could not have taken a better means of preventing his continuing a display of it. He could not look at her again after the innocent misconstruction she had put upon his motives. He walked straight away from the restaurant on board the steamer that waited to take them to Dover. And in a few minutes Fenella was claimed by Bennett and hurried after him, and it was not until she stepped on deck and caught sight of him, again eagerly watching their movements, that she had time to tell the servant what had occurred.

‘Nurse,’ she said, as she followed her to the cabin, ‘did you see that gentleman that looked so hard at me in the restaurant, leaning on the bridge as we came on board? He is going to England with us. But he is not in any trouble, because I asked him. I think he was only looking at me to please himself, for he said he was very much obliged, but he did not want anything.’

‘Miss Fenella, you don’t mean to tell me you spoke to him?’ exclaimed Eliza Bennett in dismay.

‘Yes, I did! I thought he might wish me to interpret for him or something, but he didn’t. Don’t you think he has a nice face?’

‘Goodness me, miss, you make my blood run cold; the idea of you speaking to a perfect stranger, and a man too! Why, he might be one of the swell mob for ought we know. Oh, Miss Fenella, don’t you never go and tell your mamma of what you’ve done, or I sha’n’t hear the last of it for having left you a minute by yourself.’

‘But why should mamma be angry, nurse? It wasn’t wrong.’

‘It was very wrong, indeed, Miss Fenella; it isn’t the custom, and every-thing’s wrong that isn’t the custom, and young ladies can never learn that too soon. However, you are but a child as yet, and don’t know any better, but you won’t do it again, my dear; will you, now?’

‘Not if it’s wrong,’ said Fenella quietly.

And then she allowed Eliza Bennett to fuss over her and tuck her up with shawls upon a sofa, where she lay for a couple of hours, enduring the purgatory of the ladies’ cabin, and thinking what a strange custom it was that forbade her to speak to her fellow-creatures. Whilst the servant, too nervous at the approaching interview with her mistress to take any rest, turned and tossed upon her couch, and tried to invent arguments to appease the threatened storm.

At last the steamer touched the Dover pier; and not in the best humour, Eliza Bennett dragged her charge after her up the steps of the gangway. As they reached the top, they again encountered the subject of their discussion, who had mounted before them, and was leaning over the railings gazing at Fenella. Had the stranger smiled whilst gazing, the girl might have thought with her attendant he meant to be rude, but as he only fixed two grave eyes upon her, she could not feel offended. But the expression in that steadfast glance had no such effect upon Eliza Bennett. All she read in it was pertinacity, which she considered it her duty to crush. She was a timid woman by nature, and, like many timid people, when she made an effort to be brave she became offensive. She pulled Fenella past the young gentleman almost roughly, as she exclaimed in an audible voice,—

‘Well, I never saw such impudence. I hope he’ll know you again to swear to.’

At these words Fenella looked up, startled and annoyed, and the stranger’s eyes again met hers. This time they made her feel uncomfortable—she hardly knew why, and she turned her head quickly away. But not before the young man had seen that she did not share the sentiments of her companion.

‘By Jove! What a sweet face,’ he thought, ‘and what a world of feeling lies in those eyes! I must get into the same compartment with that girl if I can.’

He ran along the line of carriages as the idea struck him, but he was already too late. Eliza Bennett had secured the only vacant seats in a compartment for Fenella and herself, and the stranger was obliged to content himself with a smoking carriage. Here he indulged freely in his favourite occupation, and tried hard to shake off the absurd fascination which the memory of this girl exercised over him, and for which he was ready to laugh at his own folly. But he found the task more difficult than he anticipated. As the wreaths of smoke from his cigar floated from him in ghostly rings of cloudy blue, they kept on shaping themselves into the form of an oval face, from which gleamed forth two clear innocent eyes, that almost seemed to look reproachfully at him. ‘What nonsense!’ he thought. ‘What is there so different in her from other women, that I can’t knock her out of my head? She’s nothing, after all, but a half-grown school-girl. Why can’t I think of something else?’ Why, not indeed! Who can tell? Was it his good angel that raised that vision to warn him against what might be; or was it his bad angel that evoked it for his greater condemnation in the years to come, when he should remember what had been and what was, and that he had heeded nothing but his own selfish gratification. He leapt out of the train as soon as it reached the London station, but the platform was crowded with passengers, and in the confusion he missed the two he sought to see. Luggage was being examined; porters were rushing to and fro; people were hustling each other in their eagerness to be served first, and whilst his eyes were still roving here and there in hopes of gaining some clue to the identity of the girl who had attracted his fancy, Fenella and Eliza Bennett were in a cab jolting along the streets on their way to Mrs Barrington’s apartments.