CHAPTER III.
DESERTED.
The long-expected letter from Mentone, addressed to Eliza Bennett, arrived but a few days after Geoffrey Doyne had quitted Ines-cedwyn. Lady Wilson’s party had finished their wanderings for the present, and were settled in the Villa Abracci, but the event did not seem to have fulfilled the expectations of Mrs Barrington, who complained bitterly of all her surroundings. The heat was intolerable; the house had not sufficient accommodation; that odious Miss Russell had joined their party, and was making herself most conspicuous with Mr Wilson; poor dear Colonel Ellerman had died suddenly of bronchitis the week before; and those brutes of agents had written from London to say that the tenants in South Audley Street wished to give up the rooms at the end of three months. In fact, poor Mrs Barrington’s star was decidedly in the descendent.
‘Only fancy!’ she wrote, ‘those wretches giving up the rooms in July—the very month of all others when nobody wishes to remain in London. I made sure they would renew their agreement until Michaelmas. I think it is most inconsiderate of them, not to say dishonest—for there is no chance of my letting the rooms again. And what are we to do with ourselves in London at that time—you and I and Fenella? We shall be roasted alive. I should remain here, of course, or go on to some livelier place, only I am afraid I shall not be able to afford it. I hope to goodness you and the girl are not running into any expense that you can possibly avoid, for all my money has gone in railway fares, and the people here change their dresses so many times a day, I haven’t half enough clothes to wear. I consider that Lady Wilson ought, at the very least, to offer to pay my expenses back to England, for she has quite brought me here on false pretences. The weekly expenses are much higher than she said they would be, and she has given the best bedroom in the house to that hideous Anna Russell—after saying she couldn’t receive Fenella, too. Such deceit! And the son is exactly like his mother—stingy and false! I hate them both. I was dreadfully distressed to hear about your leg. You really should be more careful. It is selfish of you to go falling about in that way, when you know how I depend upon your services. What would you have done if I had required you to join me at Mentone? It’s just a chance that I did not. Lady Wilson’s maid is a fool; she can’t dress hair a bit, and the old woman is so selfish, she will hardly ever let her do any sewing for me. I often wish I had Fenella here to help me with needlework. I hope you or she will write soon and let me hear that your leg is healed again. I couldn’t stand crutches about the house. And I’m sure I’ve had trouble enough already. You may fancy the shock dear Colonel Ellerman’s death was to me. So sudden and so sad! And he’s left every halfpenny he possessed to his sister, too; it makes me so mad to think of it. However, I suppose it’s the will of Heaven. I am glad to hear your account of Miss Fenella’s looks. It is just as well one of the family should enjoy good health. I feel ill and weak enough myself. I am sure this place doesn’t agree with me, and Lady Wilson is the worst housekeeper I ever met. The dinners are simply not fit to eat.’
Eliza Bennett was as distressed by the receipt of this letter as if she took every word of it for gospel.
‘Your poor dear mamma!’ she exclaimed; ‘what worries she has in this life, to be sure! And to think that I am not with her, too! That is the cruellest part of it. Not that I could hope to be of much good (being only a servant), but still it’s hard for a lady who’s been used to have every comfort about her, to wait on herself, and eat dinners she don’t fancy; isn’t it, Miss Fenella?’
‘Mamma might have had us both with her if she had wished it; it’s her own fault that she’s alone!’ replied Fenella, with her eyes fixed upon the summer sky, and her heart filled to the very brim with Geoffrey Doyne.
‘Lor’! Miss Fenella, you seem to have grown very cold-like lately,’ remarked the servant. ‘You fretted so at parting with your mamma, I thought you’d be all in a flutter at the idea of meeting her again. Wouldn’t you like to go back to London, miss?’
The girl’s face flushed with the sudden joy of expectation. London was the happy place that held her lover.
‘To London, nurse! Oh yes, I should; very much indeed. But is there any chance of it?’
‘Well, I should say from your mamma’s letter as there was every chance, my dear; for here we are in the middle of July, and even if she don’t come back herself, some one must go and look after them rooms as soon as they’re empty.’
‘Let me write and tell mamma that we will look after them,’ cried Fenella impulsively, ‘and then she needn’t come home any sooner on that account. Let us go back to London together, nurse—you and I; it will be ever so much nicer than Ines-cedwyn.’
Eliza Bennett looked in the girl’s tell-tale face, and thought to herself. ‘That there chap’s in London, I’d take my oath of it;’ but all she said was,—
‘You can write what you please to your mamma, Miss Fenella; but we couldn’t go back, at any rate, till the end of July, for the parties don’t give up the rooms till that time.’
And her young mistress turned from her with a sigh, to console herself by writing a long letter to Geoffrey Doyne, in which she informed him of her mother’s permanent address, and begged him to lose no time in acquainting her with the news of their engagement.
The letters which came and went so constantly at this period, no less than the gold locket which Fenella wore next her heart both night and day, had not escaped the notice of Eliza Bennett, and they made her feel very uneasy. She could not be quite sure of what was going on beneath her eyes—whether it was a mere childish folly, not worth a second thought, or something more serious, that would raise Mrs Barrington’s anger. The amourettes of that lady herself had been so profuse and vicarious, that she had somewhat dulled thereby the sense of propriety in the breast of her servant; and Bennett was really unable to decide whether her mistress would ridicule her fears or blame her imprudence on the score of Fenella’s sea-side flirtation. Yet she could not help observing that the girl had grown more thoughtful since the young man’s departure, and she had detected her on more than one occasion crying quietly to herself. She had heard her talk in her sleep, too—murmuring broken sentences and loving words, as she lay flushed on her pillows, with her fair hair falling on her shoulders, and the child-like tears still trembling on her lashes. And yet, withal, Fenella seemed so happy and so well, it was difficult to believe that anything grieved her. So Bennett comforted herself with the idea that, if her young lady had had a little love affair, she’d soon forget all about it. Girls had many such, as a rule, before they settled down in life; and, at any rate, the gentleman had left Ines-cedwyn—that was one blessing—and it couldn’t be long now before her mamma came back to England to look after her herself.
Meanwhile, Fenella was what she seemed—as happy as she could be apart from Geoffrey. For these great loves pay heavy penalties for the bliss of being; they render separation an agony. But the tears which Bennett saw upon her sleeping face were not those of distrust, nor of fear. They were the natural outcome of a new-born excitement, that found its best relief in painless weeping. The days of separation were irksome to bear, but they were not intolerable; for Fenella had a firm belief in their speedy termination, and each one brought her some fresh assurance of Geoffrey’s love for her.
For here the man’s courage had utterly failed him. He knew he had pledged himself to do that which should kill all the new-born blossoming hopes in Fenella’s breast, as certainly as a knife drawn across her throat would destroy the fair young life she had given up to him. He knew that in a few weeks at the furthest, she would hear that, that would desecrate him in her eyes for evermore; that would make him appear falser and more cruel than anything she had ever dreamt of; that would destroy, not only her belief in him, but in God and Heaven, and even a hereafter. He knew all this, as surely as he knew that he was committing the basest action of his life in deserting her; and yet he had not the courage to strike the fatal blow, and let her learn the worst at once. He continued to write to her, and without a hint that he had renewed his engagement with Jessie Robertson. He told no further falsehoods, it is true; he ceased to allude to their own marriage, or their future life; but he told her she was his world, and that without her he should be miserable; and Fenella could imagine the rest. To be Geoffrey’s world was sufficient for her happiness, and, naturally, she continued to believe that all they had spoken of together would follow. The only shadow on her joy was their prolonged separation, and that was soon to be put an end to.
Mrs Barrington’s first letter from Mentone was speedily followed by another, equally querulous, in which she told her daughter and servant that she had had a violent quarrel with Lady Wilson, who was, without exception, ‘the most jealous, cross-grained, interfering old cat’ she ever met with, and affirmed her intention of returning to England as soon as ever the rooms in South Audley Street were ready to receive her, ordering Bennett and Fenella at the same time to take up their abode there before herself.
‘The agent tells me,’ she wrote, ‘that the creatures will go out on the thirty-first. You had better, therefore, travel up on the first, and I will join you on the second or third. I wouldn’t sleep in my room until you have seen it is thoroughly cleaned and set in its usual order, for any earthly consideration.’
To see the colour that flew into Fenella’s face at this intelligence was a revelation. She glowed like a carnation at the very thought.
‘On the first, Bennett! We are to go to London on the first of August!’ she exclaimed; ‘only five days more. What shall I do to make them pass away?’
‘You seem very anxious to leave poor Ines-cedwyn, miss,’ remarked Bennett curiously. ‘I’m afraid you’ve changed your mind about it since you first came here.’
The girl turned her grey eyes, in which the tears had suddenly risen, towards the sea.
‘Dear, sweet Ines-cedwyn!’ she murmured, ‘with its singing waves and golden sands. Can it ever seem less lovely to me than it does now? Oh no, nurse! I have not changed my mind, and I am not ungrateful. I shall always remember Ines-cedwyn as the place in which the happiest days of my life were passed; only—only,’ she added, a little wistfully, ‘I do want to go to London now.’
‘Well, my dear, I hope as you won’t be disappointed in it, but it’s very hot and dusty at this time of the year,’ grumbled Bennett, as she turned away.
Yet when the first of August arrived, and Fenella found herself once more in South Audley Street, with all the rooms in that delightful state of dirt and confusion in which lodgers are accustomed to leave them, and Bennett out of temper at the prospect of the work before her, she still went singing about to that unheard accompaniment of music in her heart.
Geoffrey was not there to meet her, it is true (how could he be?), but he was close at hand, and she had received a letter from him, not twelve hours before she left Ines-cedwyn, full of love and tender allusions to the past. And she had written in reply to say that she was there, actually there, in the same town with him; and it could not be long—it was impossible it could be long—before he held her in his arms. Mrs Barrington arrived to her time—dusty, dishevelled, and decidedly cross. But she could not restrain her surprise at the first view of Fenella.
‘Good heavens!’ she exclaimed, ‘what have you done to the child, Bennett? Why, she’s developed to a woman; and what a lovely colour she has! I must say it, my dear; your complexion would put the whole of Piver’s shop to shame. It is positively like nothing but lilies and carnations.’
‘Oh, mamma! I am so glad you think I am improved,’ said Fenella, with a bright blush, as she knelt beside Mrs Barrington’s chair. ‘I have been so happy down at Ines-cedwyn; I think that must be the reason that I look so well.’
‘It’s the mountain air and the smell of the sea, ma’am,’ put in Eliza Bennett, rather hurriedly; ‘it must be, for I am sure Miss Fenella has had no other doctors whilst you was away.’
‘Well, I wish I had had the same doctors myself, for I’m worn to death with my trip,’ replied her mistress fretfully. ‘Do get up, Fenella; you’re dragging my dress to one side, and I’m too tired to bear the weight of your arms upon my knees. I’m sure I wish I had never left London. I’ve lost all the fun of the season, and now I suppose we shall have to vegetate here whilst everybody is away at the sea-side.’
‘We shall manage to amuse ourselves, mamma, surely,’ said Fenella, smiling, as she thought of the occupation which was in store for both of them, in preparing for her wedding with Geoffrey Doyne.
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, child. Everybody is out of town at this time of the year, and the place is so hot and dusty, you can hardly stir out of the house. However, we must bear it as best we can, for there’s no alternative. I can’t go through the trouble and worry of letting the rooms again, and if I did so, I don’t know where on earth we should go.’
‘Oh no, mamma! Don’t think of it,’ cried Fenella. ‘We shall be very happy here—I am sure we shall—and there’s no knowing what may turn up to amuse and occupy us.’
But when Mrs Barrington found herself alone with her favourite servant, she told a very different story.
‘Bennett,’ she said confidentially, ‘I didn’t like to say too much before the girl (for girls are always so conceited about their personal appearance), but I never was so startled in my life as when I saw Fenella. I couldn’t have believed three months would make such a change in any one. She’s positively lovely; I have seen nothing to equal her in Paris or Mentone! And so fresh too; it’s what the men run after now-a-days, freshness! I shall let these rooms again as soon as ever I can, Bennett, and take her abroad.’
‘Let the rooms again, ma’am!’ echoed Bennett. ‘I thought as you said you had decided against it?’
‘So I did at first, you old goose; but don’t you see I shall have a better chance of marrying that girl now than at any other period of her existence. Three months ago no man would have looked at her—she was a child, a stick, a nonentity! But now they would just rave about her. She has unfolded like a rosebud opened this morning. She’s in the first flush of girlhood, and yet she’s a woman! You can see it by her eyes. I never was so astonished in the world before! What’s done it, Bennett? Has she had a love affair at Ines-cedwyn?’
‘Oh, dear no, ma’am!’ gasped Bennett, trembling from head to foot under the dread of discovery.
‘Ah well, I suppose it’s nature; but I must say she’s lovely, though I’m her mother. Whom does she take most after, Bennett—me, or the poor captain? I was always the fairer of the two, you know.’
‘Oh yes, ma’am; and Miss Fenella favours you wonderfully, especially about the skin. I don’t know as I ever saw such another skin as hers; it’s like white satin.’
‘And her figure’s very fine too; and men think so much of figures now-a-days. Everybody can have a pretty face who knows how to “make up” properly; but you can’t have a good figure in an evening dress, unless Heaven has given it to you. It would be an immense thing for me if I could marry Miss Fenella well, and without delay, Bennett—an immense thing. It would just save me from ruin, and nothing else. And she ought to go off! Dressed in white and silver, or white and gold, she would look splendid! glorious! I believe I could turn out that girl so that no one could come within a mile of her; and it would be worth my while to do it, at any price! How can we manage it, Bennett? Do ransack that good old head of yours, and find out some means by which we can carry on the war for a few months longer, until I have introduced her at Trouville or Baden, or some of those places where the best men go. And she speaks French so perfectly, that she might marry a foreigner and a title—one of those rich nobles who frequent the watering-places through the autumn months—and I should get her off my hands and out of my way at the same time.’
‘Yes, yes! My dear lady. We will manage it. Never you fear,’ replied the servant, in a soothing tone.
She generally treated her mistress as if she were a teething child that required conciliation; but the only childish thing about Mrs Barrington was her refractoriness. In all other things Eliza Bennett was as spun silk in her hands.
‘You’re so tired with your journey, ma’am,’ she continued. ‘You mustn’t think of anything now but getting rested. And you’ve had nothing to eat to-day, so to speak, and yet you turned against your dinner! Shall I run out and get you a little lobster with a dash of salad, and a glass of champagne, and see if that will tempt you to pick a bit?’
‘Yes, if you like, Bennett,’ returned the lady languidly, ‘for I really don’t feel as if I could keep on my legs much longer.’
‘Lie down, my dear mistress,’ exclaimed the servant anxiously, ‘and don’t move till I’ve brought you something to eat. There! Let me loose your hair, and give you a fan and the eau de Cologne. And would you like Miss Fenella to sit with you, ma’am, whilst I’m away?’
‘No, Bennett, thank you. I shall do very well. I feel as if I were at home again, now I have you to cosset me and look after me. I’m a poor creature, and cannot live without love.’
The servant’s plain face glowed with ardour.
‘You will always have mine, my dear, dear lady,’ she replied.
‘Ah well, I hope I may, Bennett; but the world is very ungrateful, and the best friends change sometimes. You would be surprised to see the alteration in those horrid Wilsons. The old woman hardly spoke to me the last week I was in Mentone; and as for her son, his behaviour was positively disgusting. He and that odious creature Anna Russell used to leave the house directly after breakfast, and never reappear till dinner-time. It was most improper, as I told his mother, and then we had a fight about it. I can’t stand that sort of people, Bennett; they’re low-bred and presuming, and directly they find a cause for quarrel, their bad blood comes to the front. I shall never call upon Lady Wilson again.’
‘No, my dear lady; I hope you won’t. You’ve been too good and condescendingly to her already. And you mustn’t think no more of Mr Wilson either. He ain’t worthy of the likes of you!’
‘Dear me, no! Of course that’s all over. And poor Colonel Ellerman too. It’s enough to upset a woman (isn’t it, Bennett?) losing two of them so near together, and so unexpectedly!’
‘Ah! There’s as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it, ma’am; and, please the Lord! I shall live to see you riding over the heads of such people as the Wilsons yet.’
‘Well, if I can only get Miss Fenella married and out of the way, I think I shall have as good a chance as any. By-the-bye, Bennett, as you go for the lobster, you might as well look in at the agents, and tell them to put the rooms on their books again. Say I’ll let them on any reasonable terms, for I know I can’t get a high rent at this time of the year. But I’m determined to take that girl abroad, Bennett, if I pawn my jewellery to accomplish it. After all, it would be worth my while, for I could get it out again as soon as ever she was married.’
Filled with this new idea, Mrs Barrington became so friendly and confidential with her daughter, that Fenella (remembering her first reception) was agreeably surprised. She did not know the little plot that was hatching beneath her mother’s flattering notice of her beauty or her talents. She believed it to be genuine. And so, in part, it was. Mrs Barrington could not live without some excitement, and Fenella’s improved appearance had suggested a new excitement to her. Having a handsome demoiselle à marier to take about and add a fresh attraction to her own society, was a different thing altogether from being annoyed by the presence of a half-formed school-girl, whom no man would wish to own either by marriage or adoption. And the notion having once entered her head, she became crazy to put it into execution.
Fenella was pleased and startled, at first, by her mother’s cordiality towards her; but as the days went on without bringing tidings of Geoffrey Doyne, her spirits began to sink. She had not the slightest doubt of her lover, but her heart was filled with every sort of fear for him. Was it possible, she thought, that he had never received her last letter from Ines-cedwyn? Was he still sending his to the old address? and was Martha too stupid to forward them to London? Could he be ill, or dying?—(the ignorant imagine no greater calamity than death can befall those whom they love)—or had his family refused their consent to his marriage, and was he afraid to come and break the news to her? These, and a hundred other doubts that made her heart sick with apprehension, surged and swayed through Fenella’s bosom, until she felt as if she must seek Geoffrey out at all hazards, and learn the truth. But that the truth could involve anything worse than annoyance, or delay, never entered her mind. How could it—with Geoffrey?
Her mother and she kept very close to the house during those few days of suspense. Mrs Barrington (who was naturally lazy and untidy) never appeared en grande tenue unless there was something to be gained by it, and considered a soiled dressing-gown the proper costume to wear during a month when nobody was likely to call, and there was no object in showing herself abroad. She sat indoors, therefore, all day fanning herself, and making calculations for her proposed autumn manœuvres; whilst Fenella read novels from the circulating library, or the contents of the newspapers, aloud to her.
One evening during the first week they spent in London, the girl was sitting with a very heavy heart, trying thus to amuse her mother. She had stolen out that afternoon, and slipped a letter in the post herself—imploring Geoffrey to let her know at once whether he had received the news of her arrival in town. And now she felt almost numbed by the suspense of waiting for an answer, as if life or death hung on the chance of her receiving it by return of post.
‘I think that story’s abominably stupid,’ said Mrs Barrington presently. ‘The man’s a stick, and the woman’s a goody. Don’t you think so, Fenella?’
‘Eh! What, mamma? Oh yes, I do!’ exclaimed Fenella suddenly, as she caught the meaning of her mother’s words.
‘I don’t think you’re enjoying it much more than I am, my dear, and I don’t wonder at it,’ resumed Mrs Barrington. ‘The last chapter has been a perfect sermon, and I hate preaching, especially in a novel. Suppose you read me the paper instead? I haven’t had time to look at it to-day. You’ll find the Standard on that table.’
Fenella put down the novel and rose to fetch the paper, with that heart-sickening suspense (which those who have experienced the feeling will best recognise) still uppermost in her mind.
‘Let’s have the epitome of news,’ said Mrs Barrington, as the girl reseated herself. ‘Or stay, Fenella; read the list of marriages and deaths first. Not the births, my dear (nobody cares about births except the people concerned; they’re much too common); but you see lots of names amongst the marriages and deaths of people you have heard of, though you may not know. Just run over the names as they stand, Fenella; that will be quite enough. Dear me! I wish my sight were not so weak by gas light. It makes me feel quite an old woman to be so dependent on others.’
The girl began to read as she was ordered:—Adams—Messiter; Arbuthnott—Clive; Barclay—Smith; Cadogan—Matthews; Doyne—Robertson. And there she stopped.
‘Go on, my dear,’ said her mother somewhat impatiently.
But Fenella did not go on. Her eyes were staring in a blank vacuous manner at the following words:—
‘August 3rd, at the Church of St Mary le Strand, by the Rev. ——, Geoffrey Doyne, Lieut. H.M. XXX. Regiment of Hussars, second son of Jasper Doyne, J.P., of Ryelands, in the county of Buckinghamshire; to Jessie, fourth daughter of James Robertson, M.D., of 44 Blenheim Square, W.C.’
Mrs Barrington could not stand the suspense.
‘Do go on, Fenella,’ she repeated irritably; ‘it drives me wild when people stop in the middle of reading in that way. Whatever have you got there—anything interesting?’
But all the answer she received was conveyed by the sound of a heavy fall. Fenella had fainted on the floor. At this sight Mrs Barrington became terribly alarmed. She was a woman who lost all presence of mind in an emergency.
‘Bennett! Bennett!’ she screamed, flying to the door, ‘come down here at once. Miss Fenella has fainted.’
The servant was in the room in a minute, and kneeling beside the unconscious girl.
‘Why, bless my heart alive!’ she exclaimed, ‘how did this happen?’
‘I don’t know, I’m sure,’ wailed Mrs Barrington; ‘she was reading the Standard to me only a minute ago, when she suddenly fell on the floor. Oh dear! Oh dear! I hope she’s not going to take to fainting; it’s the most tiresome habit a girl can have; you never know when it’ll come on. Did you see anything of this in the country, Bennett?’
‘Bless you, no, ma’am! And don’t go to frighten yourself; it’s only an accident. Young ladies will faint sometimes. It’s the heat of the weather most likely, or Miss Fenella has over-tired herself. We must lay her down flat, that’s the best way; and please to give me the eau de Cologne and your fan, and I’ll soon bring her to.’
But though Eliza Bennett made every effort to restore Fenella to consciousness, twenty minutes elapsed, and still the girl lay, rigid as stone and white as a broken lily, prostrate upon the ground.
‘I don’t like this, ma’am,’ said Bennett, shaking her head as she found her restoratives had no effect. ‘I am afraid it is more than an ordinary swoon. Don’t you think we’d better send round for Dr Metcalfe?’
‘It surely can’t be necessary,’ replied her mistress. ‘Oh! Don’t tell me there’s more trouble in store for us, Bennett, and I’m to have a doctor’s bill added to my other worries. Dash some more water in her face. I’m sure she blinked last time you did it. Perhaps she’s only shamming. Girls will sham sickness, you know, sometimes. They think it’s interesting!’
‘Miss Fenella ain’t shamming,’ said the servant indignantly; ‘and indeed, ma’am, you must please to send Mrs Watson for the doctor, for I can’t take the responsibility of this on myself any longer.’
Mrs Barrington was frightened into concession, and the medical man, who lived close at hand, was soon in the room. He raised Fenella’s head and looked in her face. ‘Cut her dress and her laces,’ he said curtly.
‘Oh dear, sir, they’re as loose as they can be!’ remonstrated Bennett.
‘Be good enough to do as I tell you,’ was the reply; and when she had obeyed him, he lifted the girl upon the couch, and laid his ear upon her chest.
‘That will do,’ he said presently, as he rose to his feet; ‘and now, where is her bedroom? I will carry her up to bed.’
Bennett led the way, and Dr Metcalfe lifted the girl’s slight figure in his arms, and followed her. The mother was left behind, wringing her hands in feeble lamentation.
‘I hope to goodness this is not the beginning of an illness,’ she thought selfishly, ‘for it will ruin all my plans if Fenella goes and loses her good looks just as she requires them most.’
Presently she heard Dr Metcalfe’s footstep descending the stairs again, and waited near the door in expectation of his entering to give her further information about her daughter. But he passed her landing and walked straight out of the house.
‘Such extraordinary behaviour,’ as Mrs Barrington said to her servant a few minutes later; ‘just as if I had no concern in the matter, and wasn’t even the girl’s mother! But what did he say upstairs, Bennett? Is this fainting fit a mere accident, or is it likely to occur again? I shall go mad if she takes to having them as a regular thing.’
‘Oh no, ma’am! It won’t be as bad as that; but I’m bound to say the doctor looked grave about it, and he’ll see Miss Fenella the first thing to-morrow morning. It was terrible to watch her come-to, ma’am. I thought she was going out of her mind. But the doctor give her a powerful sleeping draught, and she dropped off like a child. But I don’t think he likes the looks of her at all.’
‘It is I that shall go out of my mind with all this worry,’ cried Mrs Barrington. ‘However, I don’t believe she can be really ill with that lovely colour, and I daresay Dr Metcalfe is making all the fuss he can over it, just to run up a bill. It’s the way with those doctors—once get into their hands, and you never get out again.’
‘I am afraid I must go back to Miss Fenella now, ma’am,’ said Bennett; ‘for the doctor’s orders are that she’s not to be left for a minute, and she’s to stay in bed till after he’s seen her to-morrow.’
‘Of course,’ replied Mrs Barrington petulantly. ‘I knew how it would be. I’m to lose you now, and wait on myself, I suppose. Oh! These children! These children! What a plague and a nuisance they are, to be sure!’
But the affectionate mother enjoyed a good night’s rest, notwithstanding her anxiety, although her servant sat beside her daughter’s bed until the morning. The report she then made to her mistress was anything but reassuring.
‘I can’t make Miss Fenella out at all, ma’am,’ she said; ‘she opened her eyes a good while since, but she’s never turned in her bed, nor spoken a word to me. She looks fixed like, and I do hope the doctor will keep his promise to come and see her.’
The doctor did keep his promise, and at ten o’clock Bennett tapped again on her mistress’s door.
‘Dr Metcalfe is here, if you please, ma’am, and he’s seen Miss Fenella, and he’d like to speak a few words with you before he leaves the house.’
‘Very well, Bennett; just tie a ribbon in my hair, and give me that blue shawl. You must tell the doctor I’m en deshabille, you know; but I’ve been too terribly anxious about the dear child to think of my dress.’
Mrs Barrington repeated something to the same effect when the doctor entered her room, but was unable to extract a compliment from him in return. He took all her excuses literally.
‘You have every cause for anxiety, madam,’ he answered gravely, ‘and I am afraid that what I have to tell you will increase instead of diminish it. I am sorry to say that I find Miss Barrington in a very unsatisfactory state of health. I believe she has spent this summer away from you?’
‘Yes; I sent her to Ines-cedwyn, a most charming place in Wales, under the charge of my own maid, who was formerly her nurse. I thought the dear girl required sea air, and so I forced myself to make the sacrifice of parting with her. But it is one of the healthiest spots in the world. Surely she cannot have contracted any illness there?’
‘Miss Barrington’s present attack, madam, is more mental than physical,’ replied Dr Metcalfe, ‘but I can tell you the cause from which it has sprung. You must not think I am meddling with your private affairs in speaking plainly, but I consider it my duty to let you know the truth.’
He posed himself opposite to her, with one arm leaning on the mantelpiece, whilst he entered into a detail of Fenella’s symptoms.
Mrs Barrington listened to him in silence—an angry and indignant silence—feeling with each word he uttered that the fabric of her hopes crumbled into smaller atoms. Fenella with une affaire de cœur; the girl for whom she had formed such ambitious projects, breaking her heart for some nameless nobody in the wilds of Wales; her daughter, struck to the ground by some stupid flirtation that had made itself patent to the eyes of the first stranger she had called in to prescribe a soothing draught. It was too disappointing, too humiliating. At the idea of it Mrs Barrington went pale beneath her rage, and trembled from head to foot.
‘I am afraid I have wounded you,’ said Dr Metcalfe kindly, as he concluded, ‘but it was impossible to help doing so. As her mother, I considered it only right that I should speak openly to you.’
‘Oh yes! Of course—of course,’ stammered Mrs Barrington; and then she added, ‘I was just thinking of taking her abroad.’
The doctor caught at the idea.
‘The very best thing you could do for her, Mrs Barrington. You must be aware that in these cases change of air and scene, and a little seclusion—unless, indeed, any attachment the young lady may have formed might be brought to a happy issue instead. But I am sure I need not hint at such alternatives to you. Your own heart and your affection for your daughter will prove better guides in such a contingency than any advice you could receive from strangers.’
But all Mrs Barrington said was,—
‘I conclude there will be no further need of your attendance, Dr Metcalfe, and we shall leave town as soon as possible.’
‘Certainly, madam! I had no intention of calling again. May I express a hope of seeing you and Miss Barrington at some future time, and under pleasanter circumstances?’
He gave her his hand as he spoke, and she thrust a fee into it.
‘But it will be the last,’ she thought angrily, as he disappeared; ‘never shall he cross my threshold again after what he has said to me to-day.’
She sat for some time where the doctor had left her—too paralysed, apparently, to move or speak. The first thing that roused her from her reverie was the sound of the opening door. As it turned on its hinges, Eliza Bennett’s face peeped wistfully into the room.
‘Is the doctor gone, ma’am?’ she demanded.
The question seemed to goad Mrs Barrington into action. She sprang to her feet, and confronted the terrified servant with the face of a fury.
‘Is the doctor gone?’ she repeated. ‘Yes, he is gone; and do you know what he came to tell me? That you have been faithless to the trust I reposed in you, and that whilst I thought that wretched girl upstairs was safe under your care, you let her go rushing all over the place by herself just as she chose, and making love to every cockney tourist that came in her way.’
‘I, ma’am—I?’ gasped Eliza Bennett, panic-stricken by the accusation. ’Oh, don’t go to say that of me, ma’am, when you know I was laid up in my bed, unable to lift hand or foot for five weeks at a stretch, and knew no more of what was going on outside than the babe unborn.’
‘Then you ought to have known,’ thundered her mistress, ‘or set some one else to look after her! You’ve behaved most treacherously to me, and all the harm that comes of this will be laid at your door.’
‘But what has Miss Fenella done, ma’am? I’m sure if a young lady like her is not to be trusted on a beach alone, who is?’
‘What has she done? It is you who should be able to answer that question. Whom did she meet? Who did she see down there? What man has dared to make love to her? That is what I want to know.’
Bennett’s thoughts flew at once to the gentleman in the Beach Bungalow—the letters and the locket; but she considered it her duty to Fenella to stand firm to her ground.
‘Nobody, ma’am,’ she answered; ‘that I’m sure of! How should there be, when Ines-cedwyn’s such a lonely place? We were the only visitors there this summer.’
‘You’d better first hear what Dr Metcalfe has told me,’ replied her mistress; and she repeated the statement of the medical man for the benefit of the servant.
Bennett’s face became as white as chalk during the narration.
‘Will you still insist in maintaining that you know nothing of the matter?’ demanded Mrs Barrington angrily.
‘I don’t believe it’s true—and I know nothing about it,’ repeated the servant stoutly.
‘I’ll see if the girl is as obstinate as you are,’ exclaimed her mistress, darting upstairs.
Bennett, fearing the scene that might ensue between the mother and daughter, followed her quickly, and reached the spot as soon as she did.
Fenella was standing in the centre of the room, supporting herself with one hand against the iron railing at the foot of the bed. The dressing-gown she wore was not whiter than her complexion; her hair was tossed in the wildest confusion over her breast and shoulders; her grey eyes had a scared and piteous look in them, as if she had just awakened from some hideous dream. It was evident that she had guessed, or overheard, the substance of the communication which Dr Metcalfe had made to her mother.
Mrs Barrington advanced upon the trembling girl with the air of a virago.
‘Well!’ she exclaimed, in a shrill, coarse voice (it is astonishing how coarse the most delicate and apparently well-bred women can be when their tempers are raised), ‘are you not ashamed to stand there staring at me in that brazen way, when the whole town is ringing with your disgrace? Do you know what the doctor has told me? Oh, don’t pretend to shrink, and be extra modest, after the bold manner in which you have been conducting yourself. You’re a nice young lady to be trusted to go about alone, flirting with every low fisherman you may meet upon the beach! Tell me the name of the man who dared to make love to you at Ines-cedwyn, you innocent piece of goods! You—’
But Fenella did not speak. She continued still and rigid as a figure of marble, with her eyes fixed upon vacancy.
‘Do you hear what I say to you?’ screamed Mrs Barrington. ‘Tell me the name of the man who presumed to make love to my daughter (though he never would have done so if you hadn’t given him encouragement), and I will have him whipped through the streets like a hound. Henry Wilson would do it for me, if he were not a cur himself—or Colonel Ellerman, only he’s dead. Good heavens! What did your father mean by dying in that stupid manner, and leaving us to look after such things for ourselves? Why haven’t we a man to fight our battles for us? But you shall tell me the name of that fellow, or I’ll shake it out of you.’
Still the girl’s mouth did not unclose, and Bennett, who was watching her anxiously, saw her white teeth press upon her under lip until she made the blood come. It was evident that she was resolved to keep her own secret.
‘Oh! You’re obstinate, are you?’ exclaimed Mrs Barrington, ‘and you will try to defy me! You think you can bring all this trouble upon our heads with impunity; that you can go tumbling about the house and fainting, and being threatened with a brain attack, for the sake of some disgraceful love affair that you ought to be ashamed to think of; and I’m to pass it over, and take you to my arms again, and say you’re a very good girl! I’ll tell you what I say, and that is that you’re a born idiot! Just as I was going to take you to Paris or Brussels, too, and introduce you to society! And now, you may be ill for months, you ungrateful, wicked girl! But I am not going to be fooled by you! You shall tell the name of that man, if you die for it.’
She advanced threateningly upon the passive figure of Fenella as she spoke, and Bennett laid her hand upon her arm.
‘She’s really ill, ma’am,’ she whispered. ‘Pray be careful what you do to her; you may bring on another attack.’
But her mistress was in no mood to accept advice. She shook off Eliza Bennett’s touch as if it had been that of a scorpion.
‘Leave me alone! How dare you interfere?’ she said angrily. ‘I shall deal with my own daughter as I choose;’ and then she turned again upon the girl. ‘Do as I order you!’ she exclaimed. ‘Tell me the name of your lover at once, or I’ll strike you!’ and, lifting her arm, she brought it down with her utmost force against the white, sad face that confronted her.
Fenella did not utter a word of entreaty or remonstrance. She only shivered violently as the blow descended, and, sitting down upon the nearest chair, passed her own hand in a sort of wondering way across her eyes and forehead.
‘Oh, Lor’, ma’am! You do frighten me!’ said Bennett. ‘Let her be, my dear lady, at least for the present. She ain’t in a fit state to listen to you; indeed, she ain’t!’
‘It’s evident whose side you’re on,’ replied her mistress witheringly; ‘but you’ll do the girl no good by your partisanship, and that I can tell you. She has behaved in a manner to disgrace us all; and if she were dead and cold in her coffin, it would be the best thing that could happen to her.’
Then, for the first time, Fenella found her voice.
‘Oh, mother! Mother!’ she wailed, ‘pity me.’
But she might as well have appealed to a stone.
‘Pity you!’ repeated Mrs Barrington, with a sneer. ‘Despise you, you mean. You won’t find many to pity you for having ruined all your prospects in life. They will only laugh at and ridicule you for being such a fool. But if this lover of yours is a gentleman, and can be called to account for his treachery to you, he shall. If you want me to pity you, you must tell me his name; and, as your mother, I command you to do so.’
But Fenella had again relapsed into silence. Eliza Bennett tried the effect of coaxing.
‘Come, my dear,’ she said; ‘I daresay it’ll be hard-like, but you’d better confide everything to your mamma. She’s your best friend, Miss Fenella, and it’s useless trying to keep the truth back from her.’
The girl shook her head.
‘It wouldn’t be any good,’ she said simply.
‘Nonsense!’ replied Mrs Barrington. ‘A child like you is no judge of such matters, and, as Bennett tells you, I am your best friend. Come, Fenella, tell me this man’s name, and if things can be set right between you, they shall. I am sorry I slapped you, but you really are too provoking. However, I’ll look over everything that has passed between us, if you will place confidence in me now.’
And Mrs Barrington, who was intensely curious in the matter, lowered her head so that her daughter might whisper in her ear.
‘It would be useless,’ repeated Fenella, in a low voice of pain.
‘Why useless? Your obstinacy surpasses anything I have ever seen for a girl of your age. I tell you it is not useless. What makes you persist that it is so?’
‘Because—because he is married,’ said Fenella, with an effort that seemed to drag at her very heart-strings.
‘Married!’ screamed Mrs Barrington. ‘The disgraceful, dishonourable creature! And you, you shameless girl! What did you mean by letting a married man make love to you? I never heard of such abominable iniquity in all my life before. Here! Have I lived to the age of thirty years, or a little over, and travelled about the world, and seen all sorts of people, and it is left for my own daughter, a child of sixteen, to initiate me into the horrors of vice! Bennett, get me a glass of wine! Get me brandy! Get me anything that may help me to drown this terrible remembrance! Or, stay! Let me leave the room. I cannot breathe this atmosphere any longer! A married man! That I should have lived to hear such a thing! I, who have had but one aim throughout my sorrowful life—to keep myself and my child unspotted from the world. May Heaven forgive you, Fenella!’
And with this solemn adjuration, Mrs Barrington swept out of the room.
As soon as she had quite disappeared, Eliza Bennett advanced to the side of her young mistress. Fenella was seated where her mother had left her—still, white, and silent, with her piteous grey eyes staring at the opposite wall. The servant laid her rough hand on the girl’s soft fingers.
‘Pray to God, Miss Fenella,’ she said gently. ‘He loves you, my dear; He will hear you. Pray to Him, and maybe prayer will bring you comfort.’
Fenella lifted her eyes to those of the old woman wearily.
‘Is there a God, nurse?’ she asked. ‘I doubt it. The reverend mother in the convent used to tell me to pray to the good God, and He would protect me from all harm; and I have prayed to Him regularly, morning and evening, since. But I think He must have stayed behind in the convent, nurse. I don’t think He came out into the world—with me.’