CHAPTER IV.
OVER.
In the heart of the Wallon there lies a little village called Sainte Pauvrette, which is a mass of flowers and sweet-smelling herbs in summer, and a mass of snow and ice in winter. It possesses no baths, no mineral springs, no objects of historical interest—nothing, in fact, wherewith to tempt a visitor except its climate and its flowers. Tourists who know something of the country, and wish to get out of the beaten track of overdone cathedrals and exhausted picture-galleries, go to Sainte Pauvrette in the warm weather, when the hillside is covered with lemon-scented thyme and feathery sorrel and ruddy clover, and the surrounding country is redolent of lilies and roses and honeysuckle; but no one ever dreams of remaining there throughout the winter. When the snow falls, Sainte Pauvrette is left to the few peasants who till its fields and pray in its dirty little chapel. The wooden building that calls itself a hotel is boarded up and left to take care of itself; and the residents who have rooms to let, lock the doors and retreat to the lower regions, burrowing like moles until the sunshine shall tempt them to the upper world again.
But one day not two months after the events recorded in the last chapter, the inhabitants of Sainte Pauvrette were astonished by the arrival of two English ladies, who, with their maid, took up their quarters in one of the small furnished houses that had just been vacated by the summer visitors, and appeared disposed to settle themselves down there for the winter. The season of Sainte Pauvrette was over; the autumn, with its usual risk of fever and malaria, was close at hand; the rooms for hire had been cleaned and shut up for the next six months—and the people of Sainte Pauvrette would as soon have expected their patron saint to appear among them, and demand lodgings for the winter, as to see any more visitors. The circumstance was so unusual and startling that it caused endless talk amongst the villagers, and Madame Regnier (who was the lucky person to let her house to the new-comers) began to think she must be under the especial care of Providence, and that a miracle had been performed in her behalf. But the strangers—Mrs. Barrington, Fenella, and Eliza Bennett—kept entirely to themselves, and did not appear disposed to satisfy the curiosity of their neighbours. The tradespeople, who were chiefly small farmers, selling their own milk, bread, vegetables, and poultry, tried their best to extract some information from Eliza Bennett, but she was invulnerable. Either she could not or she would not understand what they said to her, and never did more than haggle with them over the prices of their merchandise, and carry off her bargains in her market basket. But the ladies were often seen about the village, and many were the conjectures made as to the reason of their sojourn there.
The young lady was sick. Sainte Pauvrette decided that point very speedily. And it was supposed that her mother had brought her to the village for the sake of her health. The peasants soon grew to recognise and smile at the sweet, sad face of Fenella as she passed amongst them, and to talk of the girl who sat sometimes motionless for hours on the hillside, looking at the horizon with a weary, impassive expression that made their hearts ache.
There were rumours, too, that the mother and daughter did not get on very well together, and Madame Jeanne, the proprietress of the wooden hotel (whose offers of accommodation Mrs Barrington had peremptorily refused), had a good deal to say to her neighbours on the subject of that lady’s treatment of Fenella.
‘Ma foi!’ she would exclaim, as she lounged against the outside wall of her house, knitting stockings of coarse yarn, and surrounded by a bevy of women, all knitting as if their lives depended on it,—‘ma foi!’ but I wouldn’t be the daughter of that Englishwoman for a great deal. She has a tongue the length of a cow’s tail; you may hear it from one end of Sainte Pauvrette to the other. And it’s my belief that when she gets into a rage, she beats her!’
‘You don’t mean to say that!’ cried her neighbours, as they drew closer.
Madame Jeanne nodded her head oracularly.
‘But I do! The screams that came from that house the other night were fearful. You might have thought there was murder being committed there, and so I told the English servant—bah! What an ogre she is! With never a smile nor a pleasant look on her face—and she said her young lady was subject to hysteria. But I don’t believe that. The mother beats her! Take my word for it.’
‘The young lady certainly looks very sad,’ interposed another woman. ‘She has the face of an angel, and the air of a martyr. I was watching her yesterday morning. She sat for two hours on the bench by the ruined chapel without moving. And in this cold weather too! It is not natural that a young girl should neither jump nor run. But I do not think she could be merry if she tried. She has a face full of care and sorrow. And she cannot be more than seventeen or eighteen years old.’
‘It is Madame sa Mère that gives her that face,’ rejoined Madame Jeanne. ‘She is a fury, a virago, a devil, that woman, and capable of anything that is bad.’
‘She pays the rent regularly, and they are quiet and respectable tenants,’ said Madame Regnier, who was naturally on Mrs Barrington’s side, ‘and you only spread these tales about them, Madame Jeanne, because they would not take rooms in your wooden hotel. And they were quite right too! It is draughty enough in winter to kill a delicate demoiselle like Miss Barrington. But you have no right to speak against them on that account; and if you say more, I will inform Père Antoine of your behaviour, and have you openly rebuked for scandal.’
‘Bah, pig!’ cried Madame Jeanne, opening her black eyes at Madame Regnier, with a moue of disdain; ‘go to—! Tell the priest and whom you will; but all your talking will not alter matters. Everybody in Sainte Pauvrette has heard the quarrels that go on in that house! It was only the other day that mademoiselle ran out of it bareheaded, with a great angry red mark across her face, and would have traversed the village so, had not the ogre servant appeared and pulled her indoors again. They ill-treat la petite, I tell you! She is sick and ailing, poor child—consumptive, most likely, like all those English; and they make her miserable. I have seen the tears pouring down her face like rain. It is a pity she has no father to defend her! A man is bad enough when he takes a spite against you, and knocks you about; but, ma foi! he is nothing to a woman. A bad woman is a devil, and nothing less, and your Madame Barrington is a bad woman, and I say it!—eh, Madame Regnier? You had better go at once and tell Père Antoine so, and I’ll repeat it to his face. What d’ye make of that?’
‘She pays her rent regularly,’ grumbled Madame Regnier, ‘so it’s not my place to speak against her. And as for the rest, Madame Jeanne, we must each think what we choose about it.’
Whatever they chose to think could hardly have been worse than the reality. The autumn and winter months which she passed in Sainte Pauvrette were such a tumultuous mixture of anger, strife, reproaches, and hopeless misery, that Fenella Barrington, through all the rest of her weary life, could never look back upon them without a shudder—as a man who has passed days and nights of suspense tossing about the cruel ocean, living in the very shadow of death, and beaten upon by all the storms of heaven, might look back and wonder he still lived to tell the tale.
Her mother’s conduct to her at this period was the very refinement of cruelty. Had she only struck the wretched girl—as she too often did to satisfy her own feelings of rage and disappointment—it would have been as nothing compared to the sneers and reproaches and abuse cast at the absent, which were so much harder to bear. And Fenella could not say a word in defence of herself or him. She was condemned to sit and hear it all in silence, whilst she pressed her hands upon her aching bosom where the image of Geoffrey Doyne (though shattered into fragments) was still cherished as the holiest thing she had ever possessed.
How often, whilst the villagers of Sainte Pauvrette watched her sitting on the hillside, motionless for hours, she was longing to die—praying, in a sort of half-conscious way, that God would send down His Angel of Death to take her out of a world which had opened upon a scene of so much perplexity and trouble for her.
But Fenella hardly knew what she really wished for. The present and the future were alike blanks. All she knew for certain was that Geoffrey Doyne had passed out of her life—that he belonged to another woman—that she should never see him again, nor hear his voice; and the mere fact of this knowledge was too wonderful a mystery for her to fathom. For she did not even know how it had happened, or why. Not a line, not a sound, had reached her since she had read the public announcement of his marriage; and sometimes she would wonder, in a vague, childish way, if it had been all a dream, and pinch her arm, with a sad smile, to see if she were real. But then remembrance would rush back upon her—rush back with a feeling of shame and horror that would flood her pale cheeks with crimson, and retreat as suddenly, leaving them white with despair.
Eliza Bennett felt deeply for her young mistress during her illness. Though the people of Sainte Pauvrette found her curt and harsh of speech, she only assumed that manner to cover her emotion. She could hardly trust herself to think of Fenella, far less to speak of her. Had she been left to her own devices, she would have been the tenderest of nurses and comforters to the forlorn and unhappy girl, but Mrs Barrington would not permit it. She had her own reasons for keeping up a sense of her ingratitude and folly in Fenella’s breast. She wanted to force her daughter to throw off the disappointment and depression under which she laboured, and make her thankful to rush back into the world as soon as she was strong enough to do so.
She tried to explain her motives to Eliza Bennett, but though the servant was afraid (in consequence) to show all the sympathy she felt for her young mistress, she could not approve of the harshness Mrs Barrington displayed towards her. She often attempted to stand between the mother and daughter on the occasion of those sad quarrels, which had made themselves patent to the ears of Sainte Pauvrette; but she found that her interference only made matters worse, and her best plan was to preserve neutrality.
One terrible night, however, when the frosts of December and January had covered the country with a pall of white, and the snow lay several feet deep in the lower parts of the village, an altercation—which commenced (on Mrs Barrington’s part) with covert sneers and words of contempt, and culminated in loud tones of anger and several smart blows—had nearly proved the end of poor Fenella’s troubles.
She stood before her mother, half fainting from fear, and without a word to say in self-defence, until the indignities offered her, and the abuse cast upon one whom (though unnamed) she could not hear reviled with impunity, sent all the blood in her body rushing to her brain, and deprived her of the mastery over her senses. With a loud cry to God for mercy, and before Mrs Barrington (being alone) could prevent the action, Fenella had flown bareheaded from the house, and flung herself into a sluggish stream, half ice and half water, which ran in front of it.
Then Mrs Barrington was thoroughly alarmed, and screamed to Eliza Bennett for assistance; and all the neighbours were roused by the disturbance, and brought lanterns and lighted pine torches to help in the search.
They had not to go far. The senseless figure of Fenella was soon found—thrown violently across the mixture of ice and muddy water of which the winter stream was composed; and being wrapped up in a blanket by Bennett, was carried back to the house and placed in bed. But the inhabitants of Sainte Pauvrette had plenty to say of the occurrence afterwards, and Madame Jeanne was not backward in giving her opinion on the matter.
‘Did I not tell you what that Englishwoman was?’ she exclaimed next day, when it was openly announced in the village that the poor young lady was lying dangerously ill of a brain fever. ‘A pig! a devil! For all the fine yellow curls that she keeps in a box, and the pretty pink colour she would have us believe to be her own! She has used that poor demoiselle shamefully ever since she came here, and now she wants to kill her—that is my belief! Else why does not she have a doctor to see her in this fever; and why has she sent away the ogre, Mademoiselle Elise, just when she wants her help most? Oh, but you need not stare at me in that manner! I only tell the truth, and Madame Regnier cannot deny it, although she is so anxious to make out her tenant to be everything that is good. Mademoiselle the ogre left Sainte Pauvrette this morning by ten o’clock. I met her walking on the road to Arniers to catch the diligence, with her large basket on her arm; and when I asked her the reason of her journey, she replied she had business to do for her mistress in Arniers. But she has not returned, mes dames—she has not returned; and meanwhile la belle petite lies in bed with an attack of the brain, and no doctor is sent for to attend her; and Collette, who has been engaged to do their housework, is not permitted to go into the room, of which the door is kept locked by her mother. But if she dies,’ continued Madame Jeanne, with a threatening shake of the head,—‘if that beautiful young lady dies, without help or assistance, and after all the cruelty she has been subjected to, I shall say it is murder, for one—let who will be the other.’
Meanwhile what the irate hotel-keeper said was true. Eliza Bennett had gone that morning to Arniers; more, she had crossed to England. She and her mistress had been closeted all night with the unfortunate girl who had been rescued from the mud and the ice, and who only returned to consciousness to fall into a burning fever, and rave deliriously of the troubles which had occasioned it.
‘This is the climax,’ said Mrs Barrington, with a look of despair, and as if the climax had not been in a great measure brought on by herself. ‘We must lock the door of her room, Bennett, and let no one but ourselves pass in and out. She talks in French, and I would not have these ignorant creatures overhear what she says for any mortal consideration.’
The two women consulted long and earnestly on what was best to be done in the matter; and when the morning dawned, the key unturned in the lock of Fenella’s door, and Eliza Bennett, creeping out of it, with a white and troubled face, went up to her own room, and attired herself in her walking things.
In the space of a few minutes her mistress followed her, with a large basket on her arm.
‘You will travel as quickly as ever you can,’ she said, as she placed some money in her hands, ‘and return to us as soon as possible. This fever is sure to abate in a few hours, and I shall not keep Fenella here one day longer than is absolutely necessary.’
‘Return to you, my dear mistress!’ exclaimed the servant; ‘why, what else should I do? Am I not taking this journey entirely for your sake and that of the dear child! Keep her as cool as possible, ma’am, and don’t let her have anything but slops and fever drinks till I come back. I will be with you at the end of a week again, without fail.’
Mrs Barrington sat down and began to cry feebly.
‘I don’t know what I shall do without you,’ she wailed; ‘it’s horrible to sit and listen to her ravings and reproaches; but I am sure it is best that you should go to England at once, and then the business will be over. But you are a dear, good, valuable creature Bennett, and I shall count the minutes till you come back again.’
She kissed the servant on both cheeks as she spoke, and Eliza Bennett went on her way rejoicing. She crossed to Dover the same day, and was at Ines-cedwyn by the following evening. It was evident that the business she had been entrusted to transact for her mistress was, in some manner, concerned with her brother Benjamin, and the place where Fenella had made that fatal acquaintance in the ruined bungalow, which brought ill-luck to all who meddled with it. There was no necessity for Eliza Bennett to remain in Ines-cedwyn after she had obtained the information which she came to seek. She was anxious to rejoin her mistress, and the associations of her birthplace had become distasteful to her.
She had adhered faithfully, however, to the business upon which Mrs Barrington had sent her to England, and been careful not to say a word about her young lady’s illness, or the cause. She was, therefore, considerably startled the next morning, as she was preparing to leave the cottage, to hear Martha say,—
‘By the way, ’Liza, do you remember the talk as there was here last summer about Miss Fenella having got a beau? Well, I expect that young feller’s bin hangin’ about here again in hopes of gettin’ another sight of ’er. I don’t know ’im, of course, no more than Adam, but Tugwell the boatman says he has met ’im several times in Lynwern; and the day before yesterday, when I came back from Freshpool (where I had gone about some eggs), my servant girl told me as a gentleman had called to see me, and seemed quite put out like by my being from home. He was a fine-lookin’ feller too, the girl says—tall and ’ansome; and it may have been ’im, and it may not, but it seems likely—now don’t it?’
Eliza Bennett turned white and red under this exordium, as if she had been accused of having a ‘beau’ herself.
‘It ain’t of much consequence one way or the other,’ she replied, trying to speak indifferently; ‘my young lady looks higher than that comes to. You don’t suppose she would think twice of a beau as she picked up on the Ines-cedwyn sands?’
‘Lor’, no! In course not; only I thought I might as well mention it to you. Well, good-bye, ’Liza, and thank you for thinking of us in this matter, and thank your mistress, too, for the recommendation. And I shall hear from the parties, I suppose, in a few days. I’m glad to have ’ad this peep at you, though you don’t look over and above well, to my mind; but I ’opes you’ll get over safe to your ladies, and that it won’t be long afore you’re all back in England again.’
‘Oh yes! We shall be home in the summer, never fear! Good-bye to you, Martha,’ said Eliza Bennett, as she set off to walk to Lynwern.
She plodded along the country road, over ruts hardened by the ice and snow, with her head bent down upon her bosom, and her mind filled with her sister-in-law’s communication.
‘I’d like to catch him hangin’ about any place as we was in,’ she thought indignantly; ‘I’d let ’im know what was what—the dirty, mean, sneaking scoundrel, to go and leave a poor girl in that way, and cause us all this misery! I only wish I had the handling of him! I’d make him pay for his whistle.’
She was so absorbed in her dreams of revenge that she stumbled up against some one in the road, before her brother Benjamin’s cottage was out of sight, and had to draw back with a demand for pardon.
‘It is of no consequence,’ replied a sweet, grave voice; ‘but I think I am speaking to Mrs Bennett, am I not?’
The woman looked up quickly. Before her stood a gentleman—young, handsome, tall and upright—a gentleman whom she had never seen before except by the uncertain light of the moon, but whom she recognised at once. It was, in fact, Geoffrey Doyne; and so great in the magic of beauty, and a superior station, and another sex, that, as Eliza Bennett looked at him, all her deep-laid plans of revenge melted into thin air.
‘No, sir,’ she answered, in a voice that palpably trembled, ‘I am not Mrs Bennett; I am her sister-in-law, Eliza Bennett.’
‘Eliza Bennett!’ he repeated quickly; ‘is it possible? Are you the person—the maid—that accompanied a young lady down to Ines-cedwyn last summer?’
‘Yes, sir, I am,’ said Eliza stoutly. (‘He’s very handsome, the villin!’ she thought to herself, ‘and he’s got a winning way with his tongue, drat it! But he sha’n’t get any information of her whereabouts out of me—not if he was to drag me at the tail of four wild ’orses.’)
‘Oh! Then you can tell me where she is?’ exclaimed Geoffrey Doyne excitedly. ‘Give me her address, I beg of you, in Heaven’s name! I have a particular—a very particular reason for wishing to obtain it.’
The servant looked him full in the face.
‘And I may have a particular reason, sir, for wishing to keep it from you; for, if I’m not greatly mistaken, you are the same gentleman that used to meet my young lady down on the sands here last summer.’
Geoffrey Doyne’s eyes fell before hers.
‘Yes,’ he answered, in a low voice, ‘I am the same.’
‘Well, may God forgive you for it,’ said the woman, ‘for I can’t. You’ve ruined her life as surely as ever a man ruined a woman! And I brought her up from a baby; she is like my own child to me. You might as well have killed me at the same time; I couldn’t have felt it more,’ and Eliza Bennett caught up her woollen shawl to wipe away two large tears that were rolling down her cheeks.
At her words Geoffrey Doyne became pallid with fear.
‘Killed her! Ruined her!’ he repeated vehemently, as he caught the servant by the arm; ‘in God’s name tell me what you mean! Is she ill—is she dead? What have I done? If you don’t put me out of this suspense, I shall go mad!’
They were just opposite the Beach Bungalow as he spoke. Eliza Bennett glanced at it significantly.
‘Come in here, sir,’ she said,—‘I don’t want the whole village to hear what I’ve got to say to you—and I’ll tell you what you’ve done.’
She led the way into the ruined villa, and Geoffrey Doyne followed her, sick at heart with remorse and apprehension.
‘May I make so bold, sir,’ began Eliza Bennett, as soon as they were sheltered from observation, ‘as to ask if—so be—you’re married?’
‘Yes!’ he replied; ‘I am.’
‘And what’s the good, then, of your hanging about Ines-cedwyn to try and see my young lady? What could you say to her—how could you look at her, if you did meet?’
‘Oh, I don’t know—I cannot tell!’ he exclaimed wildly. ‘Only the separation, the silence, the want of seeing her is more than I can bear. If you will only tell me where she is, or take a letter to her, that I may have one word of kindness, one word of pardon in reply, I fancy I could bear the rest with fortitude. Mrs Bennett, I ought to have gone back to India long ago. My leave was up in the autumn, but I got an extension, only for this—to find out her address and see her once before I go. Then I will leave England and trouble her no more.’
‘You will never get your wish through me, sir,’ said Eliza Bennett, ‘for I’ll neither tell you where she is, nor carry any notes between you. You’ve done her enough mischief already, and you’ve put it out of your power to do her any good. The best thing you can do now, for her and yourself, is never to write to her nor see her any more.’
‘But does she ever speak of me? Does she remember me?’ he demanded eagerly.
‘Remember you!’ echoed the servant, in a tone of contempt. ‘I should think you’d given her enough cause to remember you, in this life and the next too! But there are different sorts of remembrance, sir, and if my young mistress is the lady I take her for, her best remembrance of you will be one of hatred and of scorn!’
‘I deserve it,’ he answered brokenly.
‘And so you do,’ said Bennett, with the want of delicacy that usually characterises her class, ‘and so you’ll say twice over when you’ve heard what I’ve got to tell you.’
And thereupon she gave him an account of Fenella’s mental and bodily sufferings during the autumn and winter, sparing no detail that might add to the colouring of the picture, and winding up with a description of her attempt at self-destruction, and the brain fever that had succeeded it.
‘And now, what do you think of yourself, sir?’ she said, as she concluded. ‘You’re a nice sort of gentleman, aren’t you, to ask me to carry notes to that poor suffering angel, and rake up all her troubles afresh, just as she has a chance maybe of getting over them. We’d never have known your name even, if it hadn’t been for her delirious ravings; but we sha’n’t forget it in a hurry, you may take your oath of that! And don’t you attempt to come nigh her again, sir—not for the rest of your mortal life,—for I do believe her mamma would tear you limb from limb if you did.’
Geoffrey Doyne during her relation had shown every symptom of the deepest feeling. His brow had flushed darkly with shame, his nostrils had quivered, his lips grown white, his whole frame shaken with emotion. And now that it was concluded, all he seemed able to do was to lean against the window-sill, whilst the words, ‘My God! My God!’ seemed to be wrung from the very depths of his tortured heart. His suffering was so self-evident that even Eliza Bennett could not help pitying him.
‘Don’t take on like that, sir,’ she said soothingly; ‘it won’t mend the past, and the best thing we can all do now is to try and forget it. I don’t know, I’m sure, as I’ve done right to tell you so much; but it’ll be safe with you, and I thought as you ought to know what my young lady has gone through. Maybe it will save others, for you gentlemen don’t seem to stand at nothing when you’ve set your mind upon a thing. But I didn’t mean to upset you like this, sir, and I beg your pardon if I’ve gone too far.’
‘No, no! I should wish to have known it,’ he said huskily; and then he pulled out several pieces of gold from his waistcoat-pocket, and tried to thrust them in her hand. But she put them back again proudly.
‘No, Mr Doyne. I couldn’t take your money, thank you; not even if I’d done anything to deserve it, which I haven’t. But I hope you’ll give me your promise before you go never to try and write to Miss Fenella again. Don’t make the harm you’ve done, worse, sir. You’ve got your own lady to consider and to look after now, and you can’t do no good to mine! Will you promise me this?’
‘Yes—I promise!’ he said, in a broken voice.
‘And please not to walk alongside of me to Lynwern either, sir! Meeting of you has upset me more than I care to think of, and I’d like to be alone for the rest of the journey.’
‘I will respect your wishes,’ replied Geoffrey Doyne quickly; and then, raising his hat, as if she had been his equal, he left the ruined bungalow, and strode along the cliffs in the opposite direction to Lynwern.
Eliza Bennett looked after him for a few moments before she pursued her own way.
‘Well, he may be a villin, but he’s a fine-looking gentleman,’ she thought as she dried her eyes, ‘and they would have made a handsome couple. What a thousand pities it is that Miss Fenella couldn’t have him. But there! It’s always the way in this world. Them as ought to come together, don’t; and them as ’ates each other like poison, is tied for life. The more I sees of marriage, the more thankful I am as I was never tempted into it!’
She pursued her road to Lynwern after this, and proceeded on her journey back to Sainte Pauvrette. And a few hours later Geoffrey Doyne followed her to London, and walked into the presence of his wife. They were living at an hotel, preparatory to going back to India. There was no lack of love on the part of Mrs Geoffrey Doyne towards her husband, and (except when dark thoughts of Fenella Barrington interposed between them) he usually returned her ebullitions of affection with a certain degree of interest. It is difficult for a young and ardent nature not to evince some feeling when clasped in the arms of a pretty woman who has every right to expect an adequate return. And Geoffrey Doyne had a very affectionate disposition. His fault was that he loved too much, not too little. He was passionate, moreover, and easily moved; and to be caressed, and flattered, and made much of, was almost a necessity to him. But on this occasion his wife found all her artifices to attract his notice, failures. He had been absent nearly a week, on some business of which she had not the faintest idea; and yet when he returned home, instead of being glad to see her again, and anxious to hear what she had been doing in his absence, he was morose, gloomy, and dejected, complained of every dish that appeared on the dinner-table, and scarcely spoke a dozen words to her during the evening. Had she indulged his mood and left him to himself, she would have been rewarded by seeing the cloud gradually pass away (at all events, to outward view), but Jessie did not understand how to treat her husband.
That phantom of a former love, which he had once mentioned to her, was ever coming between them now, and she was always quick to ascribe his varying moods to regret that he had married her. For six months they had been husband and wife, but they were no nearer each other in love or confidence or friendship than they had been at first. Geoffrey accepted her attentions to him, and that was all.
Women are very apt to imagine that the possession of the beloved object is everything, and that they can bear the idea of a rival better if they know him to be, beyond all dispute, their own. They too often live to find out they have deceived themselves. To be married to a person you love, but who does not love you, is very much like trying to grasp a bubble—each time your fingers close upon it you will find them still unsatisfied and empty.
‘What is the matter, Geoffrey?’ demanded Jessie, as he thrust away the wine decanters and leant back moodily in his chair. ‘I never saw any one so disagreeable as you have made yourself to-night. If this is the effect of having a holiday, I should say you had better remain at home for the future. Where have you been?’
‘It would not interest you to know,’ Geoffrey.
‘Oh, that is as good as saying that you don’t intend to tell me! Just as when you receive a letter and put it into your pocket without showing it to me, and declare it is on business that I can’t understand.’
‘Perhaps it is!’
‘But I have a right to ask where you’ve been, and whom you’ve seen, Geoffrey; and if you refuse to tell me, I shall think the very worst.’
‘That will only hurt yourself, Jessie. Aren’t you content with having married me, with knowing that, wherever I go, you have a right to demand to follow? And can’t you let me enjoy a few hours’ liberty without pestering to ascertain exactly where I have spent them?’
‘No, I can’t! Because I always suspect you go where that other girl lives (the girl you told me of, you remember); and I always shall suspect it when you go away alone in this mysterious manner, as long as ever I live. I know when you are thinking of her, too—when you pucker up your eyebrows, Geoffrey, and look gloomy, and speak in that horrible cross way; and you make me miserable—you know you do.’
‘You make yourself miserable, you mean. However, if what you say is true, don’t recall her memory by mentioning the subject. I have already told you it is an unpleasant one to me.’
‘Oh yes! Because you wish you had married her instead of me; and you get wretched when you think of it. But it is most unfair of you to go and see her, behind my back; and everybody would say the same.’
‘I have not been to see her,’ replied Geoffrey, with visible annoyance.
‘But you think of her—you cannot deny it.’
‘Yes, I do think of her! A man has, not absolute control over his thoughts.’
‘A pretty confession for a married man to make!’ pouted Jessie. ‘Why don’t you follow it up by saying that you love her still?’
The young man was fairly roused by this time.
‘I don’t deny it,’ he answered petulantly. ‘I do love her still.’
‘And I suppose you’ll end by running away with her, and leaving me to go back to papa in Blenheim Square! It is shameful, scandalous! And she must be a wicked, vile creature to encourage you to forget your duty in this way.’
Geoffrey Doyne rose from his chair, and struck his hand upon the table with a force that made the glasses ring.
‘Don’t you dare to speak of her in such terms before me,’ he said angrily. ‘She is no more vile nor wicked than yourself. She is as pure and good a girl as ever walked God’s earth, and you are the only person on whom there is any necessity to call “shame.” You chose to hold me to my promise of marriage, when you knew that my heart was no longer mine to give you; and, therefore, the consequences must be on your own head. I do love that girl you mention, earnestly, faithfully, affectionately, and I shall love her to my life’s end. There! You wished for the truth, and you have it. You exacted the payment of my bond to the last ounce of flesh. But you can’t have the blood, Jessie—my heart’s blood. That belongs to another, and ever will do so. And now, if you wish to preserve the peace, you will drop this subject once and for ever, as it can never raise anything but strife between us.’
This was all the satisfaction that she obtained from him, and a few weeks after they were on their way together to rejoin his regiment in India.
About the same time Eliza Bennett led Fenella out for her first walk in the open air. The girl, although much pulled down by her illness, was on the high road to recovery, but she did not appear to have regained her spirits with her strength. The little Wallon children ran out of the cottages as she passed, with bunches of violets and primroses in their hands, and Fenella smiled sweetly at them as she accepted their offerings. But the smile was as sad as ever, and the grey eyes still looked wistful and scared; and as, accompanied by her nurse, she dragged her steps up to the little churchyard, the peasant women shook their heads at one another, and said she would be carried there yet.
‘You mustn’t sit down, my dear,’ said Eliza Bennett; ‘it’s too cold for that yet. But you’ve done bravely for a first attempt, and we shall have you stout and strong upon your legs again before many days is past. You will try and leave off fretting now, my dear young lady, won’t you? for your own sake, and your mamma’s, and all as love you.’
‘Oh yes, nurse, I will try.’
‘It’s no use crying over spilt milk, Miss Fenella, and you’re too young and pretty to have your whole life wasted for a first mistake. You must try and look at what’s past in a sensible light, my dear; and you’ll live to laugh over these times, I warrant you.’
The girl shivered, but she answered in the same words as before.
‘Yes, nurse, I will try.’
Then Bennett lowered her voice.
‘Miss Fenella dear, you won’t mind what I’m going to say, but I couldn’t help guessing his name on account of your raving after him so in your illness, and when I was in London the other day about some money business of your mamma’s, I made a few inquiries—secret like—about him, and he’s gone, my dear. He’s left England for good and all, and you won’t never see him, nor be troubled with him again; and that ought to be as great a comfort to you as anything else—oughtn’t it, now?’
The blood had ebbed and flowed in Fenella’s wasted cheeks, as Bennett spoke to her, like waves of white and crimson, and when the servant turned for an answer, she saw a bright hectic spot burning under each of her eyes. But the tone in which she spoke was very calm and deliberate.
‘Thank you, nurse,’ she said wearily. ‘You meant it kindly, I know, but nothing is of any consequence to me now. Only, please remember (and I am sure you will, for my sake) that I would rather not hear you mention his name again. He is dead to me, nurse; I am dead; everything seems dead together. Don’t forget that, and never speak to me on the subject more! And now take me home; I have made myself worse by coming here; the sooner my mother takes me away from Sainte Pauvrette the better.’
She cast the violets and primroses upon the grave by which she had been standing as she spoke, and then throwing her arm about Bennett’s neck, turned from the spot without another word.