CHAPTER V.
SIR GILBERT CONROY.
A month after this date Fenella and her mother were settled in Paris, and mixing in all the dissipations of the French capital. Mrs Barrington had many acquaintances there, and having hired a suite of apartments in the very centre of the town, their lives soon became one round of gaiety. Theatres and operas, balls and conversaziones, followed one another in quick succession, and Fenella retired to bed each night almost too weary to think. It was good for her, and it would be untrue to say that she did not, in a measure, enjoy the change. To depict either a man or a woman as brooding incessantly over their trouble, and never for a moment losing sight of it, to raise cheerful eyes to the light of Heaven, would be utterly unnatural. No one ever did so in this world and preserved his senses. The strain upon the nerves would be too great, and the mind would break down beneath it. Fenella often returned from the gay scenes into which her mother took her, to think how much more she would have enjoyed them had Geoffrey Doyne not proved unfaithful, and sob herself to sleep over the remembrance. Yet, whilst she was mixing in them, they distracted her thoughts, and drew her out of herself. The theatre was a wondrous revelation to her; the opera, a sublime delight; even at the balls and assemblies she began to take pleasure in the knowledge that she was admired, and that all men did not consider her so worthless a thing that they could take her up, and cast her aside, as the humour seized them.
Mrs Barrington had shown wisdom in her generation in making her daughter’s sojourn in Sainte Pauvrette a time which she shuddered to recall. Anything which would expunge that terrible remembrance from her mind would have been welcome to Fenella; it may be supposed, then, how gladly she hailed the fresh scenes which opened before her, and how gratefully she accepted the salve they offered to her wounded vanity. For we are all mortal, and there is no doubt that trouble is easier to bear when we have less time to think about it. And it is well it is so, else the world would be full of lunatics and suicides. The man who receives a bullet during the heat of battle in his body, which the surgeons are unable to extract, will feel its presence to the last day of his life, and at some times more than at others. A change in the weather or a derangement of his system will cause the pain to be as acute as on the day he was shot; and yet when the sun shines, and his blood is free from acid, he may go for months without remembering he ever encountered such an accident. So it is with our hearts. The mercy of God and the goodness of friends may dull the sense of injury or loss for months together, but it never totally disappears. If a lesser grief overtakes us, a lesser love becomes estranged, the old wound opens and bleeds afresh, the bullet stirs in the flesh, and we recognise the fact that we are maimed for life. Let us not grudge the wounded, then, their moments of forgetfulness, nor ridicule the trifles which may have the power to divert their thoughts.
To an older person, perhaps, white satin and pearls might appear an unworthy panacea for a disappointed affection; but to a young creature like Fenella, who had never possessed anything but serge and cotton frocks before, they held their charm. She sighed, it is true, when she saw the pale loveliness, which Bennett had taken such pains to adorn, reflected in the looking-glass, and wondered, if Geoffrey could have seen her like that, if he would ever have forsaken her. Still, she preferred to be handsome rather than ugly, and could take a pride in her personal appearance, though her lover was not there to praise it. It was natural that she should do so, and it is of no use crying out against nature.
But there was one thing in which Fenella’s faith had been utterly destroyed and could never be built up again, and that was her mother’s love for her. Mrs Barrington would have had it otherwise. When she found that her daughter’s beauty had not been destroyed by her illness—that she was, in fact, better looking than she had been before, and that she made no objection to going out to dances and theatres every night, and wearing any sort of costume which was provided for her, Mrs Barrington’s good temper began to revive, and she would have had Fenella share her rouge and powder and her hare’s-foot, and forget all old injuries. But the girl was unable to do so. About the past she was as silent as the grave. She never mentioned Geoffrey Doyne, nor Ines-cedwyn, nor Sainte Pauvrette; but to blot out the memory of them was impossible. She could not forget her mother’s harshness and cruelty, nor the sneers and contempt cast upon her when her heart was bleeding for one word of affection or sympathy. She saw Mrs Barrington in her true colours—worldly, selfish, and deceitful; and as long as she lived, Fenella could never set her up again on the pedestal her childish enthusiasm had raised for her. She accepted her caresses without any exhibition of dislike; she thanked her for her compliments, and followed her wishes; but here the link between them ended. Mrs Barrington had brought her into the world, certainly; but Fenella, remembering Sainte Pauvrette, could never again think of her as her mother.
The word ‘mother’ is sacred. It holds within its couple of syllables a host of loving possibilities; and the woman who cannot sympathise with every pulsation of the life she gave, is not worthy of the name.
Fenella put the thought resolutely from her—it was only another trouble added to the load she bore—and tried to believe that the sweet dream she had once cherished was of a mother who had died when she was born.
Mrs Barrington was her adviser, and protector, and chaperon—everything that was needful in the world of fashion she had entered, but something which she never wished to encounter when alone. At such times, a suspicious reserve and awkwardness would fall upon both mother and daughter, which warned them to make the interview as short as possible.
Mrs Barrington, however, was quite in her element again. Her ambitious views for Fenella had all revived (though she did not like to say too much about them to the girl herself), and she spared no pains nor expense to render her as attractive as she possibly could.
The pale loveliness of the English girl, which owed so much to her lofty bearing and look of serious innocence, soon began to be talked of in the Parisian salons, and more than one man of fashion was said to be a suitor for her hand.
But Mrs Barrington was very cautious who she admitted as a visitor to her own house. She had no intention of marrying Fenella to a penniless attaché, or an officer dependent on his pay. She wanted to secure both a title and a fortune for her daughter, and the only admirer she had who combined these advantages was her own old acquaintance, Sir Gilbert Conroy.
Time had been—and not so very long ago either—when the fair widow had hoped to get Sir Gilbert for herself, but her chances had never had any existence except in her own brain, and she was sensible enough to perceive that, if she snubbed his advances to Fenella, he was not likely to ask for her mother’s hand instead. Besides, the baronet’s suit had great advantages. He was not a hot-headed boy, determined to have his own way at all hazards, and run the risk of a refusal by speaking too soon. He rather preferred the dignified old fashion of consulting the parents or guardians of the young lady he desired to make his wife, before he mentioned the subject to herself. And Mrs Barrington preferred this method of courtship also.
She knew Fenella’s impulsive temperament, and her love of truth and honour; and she was terribly afraid of what her daughter might say to any young man who addressed her on the subject of marriage. If the preliminary matters were kept in her hands, she felt that she could smooth down any little unpleasantnesses that may have occurred in the past, so as to make them appear rather desirable experiences for a young woman than otherwise.
Sir Gilbert Conroy was a gentleman in every sense of the word. He was a man of birth and education, of almost courtly breeding and ultra-refinement. In age he was about five-and-thirty; in appearance he was fair and aristocratic, with hair cropped closely to his head, and rather bald about the temples, where he brushed it backwards; with a handsome nose, quiet blue eyes, and a thin-lipped mouth shaded by a small moustache. He was a man whom any woman might have been proud to be connected with—but he was a man who would be severe in his judgments, and unforgiving where he was offended.
He had been struck with Fenella Barrington on the first occasion of their meeting at an embassy ball, and had assiduously followed up the acquaintance since. And the girl liked him—not with any idea of marriage (she had conceived a notion that it was impossible she could ever marry now), but as a pleasant acquaintance, who could talk more sensibly than the generality of men, and who always seemed delighted to meet her, and proud to be her partner for the evening!
But when Mrs Barrington first mentioned the possibility of her marrying Sir Gilbert Conroy, Fenella felt as if she had been struck with a sudden blow. It was the morning after they had attended a large party at the house of the Russian ambassador, and Eliza Bennett announced to her young lady that coffee was waiting for her in her mamma’s dressing-room.
‘The mistress is too tired to go downstairs, Miss Fenella; so she says, please will you go in and take it with her there.’
The girl threw on her robe de chambre, and obeyed the summons. Her cheeks were flushed from sleep; her eyes were languid; her fair hair hung in two thick plaits down her back.
‘Really, child,’ exclaimed Mrs Barrington, as she entered, ‘you grow handsomer every day. It’s no wonder Sir Gilbert is making such a fool of himself about you.’
Fenella laughed.
‘Poor Sir Gilbert! Why is he to be called a fool for liking me, more than any one else?’
‘Because he likes you more than any one else does. Surely, Fenella, you are not so blind as not to see that!’
The girl opened her eyes.
‘Does he? I hope not!’
‘And why so, my dear? Most young ladies would be proud of his preference. His title is one of the oldest baronetcies in England, and he has five thousand a-year on which to keep it up.’
‘Oh, I don’t mean that, mamma; I am aware he is rich; only—you know—it would be of no use his liking me, because I could never marry him—nor anyone! So I hope it is all fancy on your part.’
‘What nonsense, Fenella. You must put such fantastical ideas out of your head. And as for its being my fancy that Sir Gilbert likes you, he has already asked my consent to his proposing for your hand.’
Fenella grew scarlet.
‘Oh, mamma, did you tell him?’
‘What?’ cried Mrs Barrington sharply.
‘About—about—what has happened, you know.’
‘Am I a born fool, or an idiot?’ exclaimed her mother. ‘No! of course I didn’t tell him! What are you thinking of, Fenella?’
‘Forgive me, mamma! I ought to have known without asking. You would not tell him, naturally, for my sake as well as your own. But what did you say, then?’
‘I told him he had my heartiest wishes for his success, and he might propose to you whenever he liked.’
Fenella’s distress was genuine.
‘Oh, mamma, why did you do that, when you know I can have but one answer to give him? I couldn’t marry him even if I liked him. How could I? You might have saved me from the ordeal of having to tell him so.’
‘But you must tell him no such thing, Fenella, and I will not allow you to see Sir Gilbert again until I have talked you into a more sensible frame of mind. Now, my dear, do try and look at the matter in a reasonable light. You must marry; you know that!’
‘No, indeed I don’t. I never intend to marry. I have given up all thoughts of it—once and for ever.’
‘And how do you suppose I am to support you, then?’ exclaimed her mother. ‘Do you think I have sufficient money to maintain a household, and provide you with dresses, and take you about to places of amusement, for the remainder of your life?’
Fenella stared.
‘Yes, I thought so, mamma. Haven’t we money? Didn’t papa leave any behind him?’
‘Your papa!’ repeated Mrs Barrington witheringly. ‘A fine provision he left us! The pension for a post-captain’s widow, and a few thousands in the bank. Why, I spent that to the last farthing ages ago, and have nothing but my pension at the present time. I am going in debt for every mortal thing we use, and eat, and wear. And then you sit there and tell me calmly that you never intend to marry! Why, it’s flying in the face of Providence; it’s condemning us both to perpetual poverty, and your mother to losing everything she possesses; for if I can’t pay my bills, my creditors will certainly put in a distraint upon the furniture in South Audley Street.’
‘Oh, mamma! Mamma! Why didn’t you tell me of this long ago? Why have you dressed me up in expensive clothes, and taken me to all these fine places, when you could not afford it? I would rather have gone in sackcloth and eaten dry bread, than run you into such terrible difficulties!’
‘Why have I done it, Fenella?’ replied Mrs Barrington. ‘Why, to procure you the very chance which you declare you shall throw away—to see you suitably married, and placed above the reach of poverty and care.’
‘But how can I, mamma? Answer the question yourself. How can I?’ said Fenella pleadingly.
‘I suppose I can guess what you are alluding to,’ replied her mother coldly; ‘but if you intend to let that foolish love affair stand in the way of your future prospects, all I can say is that you will be intensely selfish. Most people would think you had caused me sufficient trouble and anxiety already, without making more. If you are really sorry for what is past, Fenella, now is your time to redeem it. You will never have a better chance.’
‘Oh, I am sorry,’ returned the girl, with troubled eyes and clasped hands; ‘God knows I am! But how can I remedy it? You know my heart is broken, mother; that my whole life is spoiled. What man would marry me now, if he knew the truth?’
‘No one, of course! Very few men would marry at all if they knew the truth about the women they make their wives. But who do you suppose will tell Sir Gilbert Conroy anything? I sha’n’t—you may take your oath of that; and our dear good Bennett is as secret as the grave. There is no fear of his ever knowing the truth. You may set your mind entirely at rest on that point.’
‘But I wouldn’t accept him unless he knew it,’ said Fenella. ‘Mamma, what do you take me for? Do you think I could be so false, so dishonourable as that?’
Mrs Barrington wheeled round in her chair and regarded her daughter with the utmost astonishment.
‘Fenella,’ she said solemnly, ‘you’re a born fool, and where you get it from beats my comprehension. If you are going to enter into marriage with the idea of telling your husband everything that has ever happened to you, or that ever will happen to you, you may dismiss at once the idea of having any peace in your life. Why, if the world were conducted on that plan, it would be a perfect volcano! Now, I have seen a great deal more of it than you have, and you must allow yourself to be guided by me. Your husband will never tell you any more about his own affairs than he chooses, you may make up your mind to that; and the less you tell him about yourself the better.’
But Mrs Barrington’s worldly wisdom had no effect upon the frank and generous mind of her daughter.
‘Mamma,’ she said, ‘if I marry Sir Gilbert Conroy, or anybody else, you know that I can never love him. I might learn to be grateful for his kindness to me, but my heart is gone. I don’t think I’ve got any heart left. I feel as if the place where it ought to be was empty.’
‘That’s nonsense, my dear,’ said her mother impatiently. ‘We are all like that when we’re young. We have a first love, and we fancy we can never love again; and after a while we find the difficulty is to keep ourselves from loving too much. And even if it were not the case, it’s no good carrying that enthusiastic, gushing sort of feeling into marriage. It worries a man to death, and wears out his affection sooner than anything else. Never refuse any attention your husband may wish to show you, but keep your own feelings within bounds. That is the secret of a happy marriage, and you will find a man will care all the more for you if there is a little indifference and reserve on your part.’
Fenella sighed. Her idea of a happy marriage had been so very different from that.
‘But if it is unnecessary to give love to the man you marry, mamma,’ she answered, ‘is it not all the more incumbent to be perfectly open with him? And I could not live my life with a secret always weighing at my heart. I should fancy each time he frowned at me that he was going to tell me he had discovered I was false to him.’
‘Oh, well, if you are determined to stand in your own light and mine, and take no advice from those who know better than yourself, there is no more to be said on the subject,’ replied Mrs Barrington, with the air of a martyr; ‘but I must say that it is hard upon me—bitterly, cruelly hard.’
‘Oh, how can I help you?’ cried the girl. ‘What can I do to remedy the evil I have brought upon us both?’
‘The only thing you can do, you refuse to do,’ said her mother, reproachfully.
‘I cannot do a dishonourable action,’ replied Fenella, with dignity.
And after that conclusion they passed several days in a miserable state of coldness and silence towards each other.
Mrs Barrington confided the whole affair to Bennett, and implored her to argue it out with Fenella. For the sympathy she had displayed during her illness had drawn the girl and the old woman very closely together. Indeed, Bennett may be said to have been the only real friend Fenella had; and many a time since those miserable days had she cried herself to sleep upon the servant’s bosom. So it seemed nothing more than natural when Bennett said to her,—
‘Why have you made your mamma so angry with you, Miss Fenella? What is it that you don’t like in Sir Gilbert Conroy?’
‘I like him well enough, Bennett,’ said the girl, with a sigh. ‘In fact, I see nothing to dislike in him. Only that has nothing to do with marriage, you know; and mamma can’t understand that it is impossible for me to forget.’
‘But it’s your duty to forget, my dear,’ replied Bennett, who was brushing Fenella’s hair at the time. ‘Here’s Sir Gilbert Conroy, a fine, handsome gentleman, with plenty of money to keep you comfortable and give you everything you want, and dying to make you his lady, and yet you won’t listen to a word he says. And all because of a business as can never come to anything. For, you see, there’s where it is, Miss Fenella. If there was any hope or probability like of things turning out as you would wish them, there might be some sense in waiting; but you know as there isn’t. And when all’s said and done, my dear, the first wasn’t a patch upon Sir Gilbert.’
‘Don’t, nurse—don’t,’ murmured Fenella, in a voice of pain, as her hands went up to shade her blinded eyes. Ah! that First! Let a dozen come after him—fairer, better, and more true than he—but they will never have the power to drive his image from the heart that sheltered it.
The nurse laid down her brush, and kissed the crown of the fair head that was bowed upon the dressing-table.
‘There—there, my lamb,’ she said affectionately; ‘I wish I had bit out my tongue afore I’d said them words. But it was for the sake of your mamma, Miss Fenella. She’s regular put out, my dear; and no wonder, for she quite counted on your marriage as a means of righting herself, and I’m afraid she’ll be in a terrible fix if you continue to set your face against it.’
Fenella looked up suddenly.
‘Bennett, tell me the truth,’ she said. ‘Are we so very poor? is mamma really in want of money?’
‘Indeed she is, miss. Don’t you remember my telling you at the convent a year ago, that your dear mamma was full of troubles, and it was her debts at that time that worried her so, though, of course, it wasn’t fit telling to a child. And they’ve gone on increasing ever since, till I’m sure I don’t know how the mistress will go back to London, unless she finds some way out of ’em first.’
‘And I must have been an extra expense to her,’ said Fenella, with a sigh.
‘Well, miss, you have—there’s no denying it! What with your long illness, and your dresses, and hire of carriages, and all that. But the mistress did it with an object. So she’s naturally disappointed at your refusing to marry Sir Gilbert. And to be “my lady” too, miss! I wonder how you can!’
‘Mamma has hardly spoken to me for three days,’ said Fenella.
‘No, my dear! But she will, directly she sees you have changed your mind. She’s had a many troubles in this life, poor dear lady! And it seems hard that you should add to ’em—don’t it, now?’
‘If you will do up my hair, I will go and speak to her about it,’ said Fenella wearily; and half-an-hour later she walked into her mother’s room.
‘Mamma, I have come to tell you that I have made up my mind to accept Sir Gilbert’s offer,’ she said; ‘but it must be on one condition, that you tell him my whole history. Tell it him without reserve, mamma; don’t spare me in any way; and if, after hearing it, he should still wish to make me his wife, I will marry him!’
Mrs Barrington was just about to call her by her favourite name of a fool, and say she might as well have kept her wonderful condescension to herself, when it suddenly struck her that she might find a way by which to keep the game in her own hands. So she smiled sweetly instead, and answered.
‘Well, Fenella, if this is the only condition on which you will listen to Sir Gilbert’s suit, of course I must comply with it, but I have already told you my opinion of the matter. It is quixotic and unnecessary! And if he does propose to you afterwards (which I doubt), you must be doubly grateful to him in return. He has been waiting nearly a week for his answer, and I received a note from him this morning on the subject. I shall therefore write and tell him to call upon me this evening. Madame de Beaupré can chaperon you to the Thellussons. It is better that you should be out of the way, as the interview is likely to be a painful one.’
‘I have been thinking a great deal about it,’ replied Fenella, ‘and I am sure it is the only right and honourable course to pursue. And if it fails, mamma (as doubtless it will), then you must let me go out as a governess or a companion, and earn my own living. It is unfair that I should be a burden on you any longer, just because I have been so wicked and so weak.’
‘A governess!’ thought Mrs Barrington as her daughter left the room. ‘As if I could allow such a scandal, and with that face too! But if my right hand has not lost its cunning, I will contrive this marriage for her.’
When Sir Gilbert Conroy walked into her little salon that evening, he found her looking the very soul of honour and the pink of propriety, arrayed in a grey cashmere dress, with a white lace fichu that gave her almost the look of a quaker.
‘No, no! Sir Gilbert,’ she said playfully, as she saw his glance wander round the room, ‘you will not find my little girl hidden under any of the sofa or chair covers. Fenella is spending the evening at the Thellussons. I thought it best she should be out of the way whilst you and I discuss this subject together.’
‘I am afraid Miss Barrington’s absence does not augur a favourable answer to my suit,’ replied Sir Gilbert, flushing up to the roots of his fair hair.
‘Indeed! You are quite mistaken! My daughter is exceedingly well disposed—shall I say too well disposed?—to receive your advances, and thinks highly of the compliment you pay her. But Fenella feels that you are the soul of honour, Sir Gilbert (as she is herself), and, therefore, before granting you an interview, she has set me a little task which she thinks I can execute better than she can.’
‘A task!’ echoed Sir Gilbert.
‘Yes! I am sure you will laugh at us for a couple of silly women, and I told my daughter so; still, I could not blame her decision, as it was founded on the very principles it has been the aim and object of my life to instil into her.’
‘You alarm me, Mrs Barrington! Pray don’t keep me in suspense,’ gasped the baronet.
‘Indeed, I will not, for it is not worth while,’ laughed the lady pleasantly. ‘The fact is, Sir Gilbert, about a year ago my silly child had one of those foolish love affairs which we all know of, and laugh at,—a boy-and-girl flirtation, which never could have come to anything, and which she had almost forgotten, until the agitation caused by your very flattering proposal recalled it to her mind. And then she begged me to tell you of it before you met again. I thought it perfectly unnecessary to worry you about such a trifle, and told her so; but Fenella’s soul is of so pure and lofty a character that I cannot bear to dull even its lightest aspiration. She is so truthful, so honourable, so open, Sir Gilbert. Her mind is like a sheet of crystal.’
‘Yes,’ stammered the baronet uneasily; ‘but—but—about this love affair, Mrs Barrington? Are you quite certain she has forgotten all about it, or that it may not crop up to disturb our domestic felicity? Is the gentleman in England still? Is she likely to meet him again?’
Mrs Barrington was annoyed that he took her communication so seriously.
‘In England? Oh, dear, no! He went to the colonies, or he’s dead—or something. I forget which. But he was such a boy, it’s really not worth inquiring. And as for Fenella meeting him again—why, my dear Sir Gilbert, she wouldn’t speak to him if she saw him in the streets to-morrow!’
‘But these first attachments are sometimes the most enduring, you know, Mrs Barrington; and if your daughter had quite forgotten all about hers, I hardly think she would have considered it necessary to ask you to break the intelligence to me.’
Then Mrs Barrington could have bitten out her tongue that she had told him anything at all. It would have been just as easy to have assured Fenella that she had. She played with her fan, and looked virtuously reproachful.
‘If you take it in that light, Sir Gilbert, I shall be indeed sorry that I spoke. Need I have said anything to you on the subject at all? It was only the extreme purity of my child’s mind—the truthfulness of her feelings—that made her think of making such a confession! She would not go to you with even the shadow of a secret (however innocent) upon her soul. But it is only a mind of equal candour with her own that could appreciate the delicacy of her motives.’
‘But I can—I do!’ exclaimed Sir Gilbert. ‘I confess that one of the great attractions that drew me to your daughter, Mrs Barrington, was her youth and apparent innocence. I have grown sick and weary of the women of the world, with their artifice and falsehood and intrigues. I long to have an unsophisticated, guileless maiden for my wife. Indeed, I would put none else in the place once occupied by my honoured mother. I come of an old and unblemished family; and one of our proudest boasts is that no one has ever been able to point the finger of scorn at a Lady Conroy!’
Mrs Barrington went pale with agitation.
‘Good heavens! Sir Gilbert, what are you thinking of? Would you link such an expression as that with the silly little flirtation I have just been foolish enough to tell you of?’
‘No—certainly not,’ he answered; ‘and if I cannot secure even your lovely and innocent daughter for my wife without hearing that she has already been courted by one of my own sex, it is hopeless for me to look farther.’
‘Unless you go to the nursery for your Lady Conroy,’ laughed Mrs Barrington. ‘But, unfortunately, I have no more daughters there, Sir Gilbert, or I should certainly ask you to go and take your choice of them. You are a son-in-law of whom any woman might be proud.’
‘You are very good to say so, my dear madam,’ replied the baronet. ‘Am I to understand, then, that Miss Barrington consents to receive my offer for her hand?’
‘The silly creature waits to see if you will renew it after having heard this terrible secret of her former life—that she actually flirted for the space of a few weeks with a lad, who ought to have been whipped by his tutor for his precocity.’
‘Miss Barrington might have been sure I should not have permitted such a trifle to stand in the way of my happiness,’ rejoined Sir Gilbert. ‘At the same time, as I confess I am rather sensitive on such matters, will you ask her, as a personal favour, not to allude to the subject before me? Perhaps it is as well I should have heard it; but having heard it, I should wish to forget it again. Cannot it be buried in oblivion? I should like to try and fancy (even if it be only a fancy) that my wife never had a lover before myself.’
‘And neither has she, my dear Sir Gilbert. You surely would not dignify the wretched boy I spoke of by the name of “lover”? However, I shall repeat your wishes to Fenella, and I am certain they will be attended to. When may I count on the pleasure of seeing you again?’
‘With your permission I will call to-morrow afternoon,’ he said, as he rose to take his leave. ‘I shall not be quite happy until I have learned Miss Barrington’s decision from her own lips.’
‘Well, of all the glaring pieces of folly I ever took part in, this is the worst,’ thought Mrs Barrington, when the baronet had disappeared. ‘Fenella as nearly lost her chance of becoming Lady Conroy as possible, and entirely through her own fault. The idea of rousing a man’s suspicions unnecessarily! I wish I had followed my own judgment and told him nothing. However, the girl is so strange, she might allude in some way to the matter, so it is as well, perhaps, that he should be prepared. But it must go no farther. I must impress on Fenella the absolute necessity of holding her tongue henceforward.’
As soon as she returned home from the Thellussons, Fenella ran up to her mother’s room, eager to learn her fate.
‘Well, mamma!’ she exclaimed breathlessly, as she entered it, ‘has he been?’
‘Yes, certainly; Sir Gilbert is too much of a gentleman not to keep his appointments.’
‘And you told him?’
‘I did!’
‘Everything?’
‘Everything!’
The girl leaned back against the wall, almost speechless from excitement.
‘Oh!’ she gasped. ‘What did he say?’
‘He said all that was most kind and courteous. His affection for you is great enough to surmount any obstacle. He renews his offer of marriage to you.’
The faint colour died out of Fenella’s cheeks. It was evident which way her hopes had lain. But surprise was her predominant feeling at the news.
‘You told Sir Gilbert everything, and yet he said that?’ she asked incredulously.
‘Haven’t I answered the question already! Do you doubt my word?’ returned Mrs Barrington, in a sharp voice.
‘Oh no, mamma; but it seems so wonderful to me! I thought when he heard it he would just walk out of the house and never come back again. What did you tell him? Does he know that I cannot pretend to love him; that—that—I cannot forget what is past, whatever pleasures the future may hold for me? I will be a good wife to him, mamma (as far as I can), and I shall always feel grateful for his forbearance in this matter; but I hope you told him that he must not expect any more?’
‘If you will sit down and talk like a reasonable creature, instead of a woman out of a play, I will repeat exactly what passed between us,’ replied Mrs Barrington.
She saw that it would be useless to try half measures with Fenella; that if her conscience were not entirely satisfied, she would probably speak to Sir Gilbert herself on the subject; and that, whilst she was about it, she might as well tell a good lie as a feeble one. The girl sat down, but impatiently, with large wondering eyes of expectation still turned upon her mother.
‘I told Sir Gilbert Conroy everything, from the beginning to the end,’ commenced Mrs Barrington emphatically, whilst her daughter’s face grew scarlet. ‘Of course he was very much distressed at hearing it (who wouldn’t be?); I am not sure that he didn’t shed tears, but men are sensitive about such things, and he turned his head the other way.’
‘How good of him,’ murmured Fenella.
‘He felt it deeply, there is no doubt—and so did I. It was anything but a pleasant task you set me, Fenella; but when his emotion had subsided, he told me it could make no difference in his affection for you; on the contrary (if anything), he loved you more for what you had suffered, and he repeated his offer to make you his wife.’
‘He must be a very generous man,’ said her daughter meditatively.
‘He is more than generous,’ replied Mrs Barrington; ‘he is noble, chivalrous, heroic! But he coupled his decision with a request which I was obliged to accord him in your name, Fenella, and which you must be good enough to pay particular attention to.’
‘What is it, mamma?’ said the girl dreamily.
‘Sir Gilbert said to me, “I am willing to overlook and forget all that is past, Mrs Barrington, on one condition, and that is, that a total silence is preserved on the subject henceforward. I love your daughter dearly, and am most desirous of making her Lady Conroy; but I am a proud man, and do not care to think that any one ever courted my wife before myself. I should wish to fancy (even if it be only fancy) that I am her first lover.”’
‘He can never be my lover,’ cried Fenella quickly.
‘Oh, don’t be so tiresome,’ said her mother, ‘catching one up in that rude way. It is not at all likely he will be your lover—husbands never are—but the thing is, that you are not to speak of, nor allude to the other; nor to anything, in fact, that happened before your marriage.’
‘Am I likely to do so?’ sighed Fenella, with her hand pressed upon her aching heart.
‘Well, that’s the condition, my dear, and I hope you understand it. Sir Gilbert is coming here to-morrow afternoon to receive his answer from your own lips. Just give it simply and say no more about it. Let the past be buried in oblivion, as he wishes it to be, and depend upon it you will be as happy a woman as the world contains. It is an excellent marriage, and I must say, after your escapade of last year, that you are a very lucky girl to secure it, and it is much more than you deserve.’
‘I know that,’ said Fenella, ‘and I shall always be very grateful to Sir Gilbert for his kindness to me; but as for being happy, mother, that is impossible.’
‘Stuff and nonsense, child! Don’t begin to pose for a martyr, and fancy you are being dragged into a marriage against your will, like the heroine of a novel.’
‘Oh no! I should never be so silly as that, because I really wish to be married. I am sure I shall be happier with Sir Gilbert than I am at home,’ replied the girl ingenuously.
‘Well, I must say that’s grateful of you; and after all the trouble you’ve given me!’ cried Mrs Barrington.
‘Yes, I suppose I must have been the cause of a great deal of trouble and disappointment to you, mamma, and I am sorry for it; but still, you know, we have not been very happy together, and if Sir Gilbert really loves me, I am sure I shall grow fond of him. My heart does ache so for love sometimes,’ cried Fenella, in a voice of pain.
Mrs Barrington thought it just as well to keep down her rising wrath, and be polite to the future Lady Conroy.
‘Well, my sweet girl, I acknowledge we might have spent a pleasanter year than the last; but there have been causes, you know, Fenella, and my maternal pride has been sorely wounded. But it will be better now, dearest, will it not? Bennett and I will do our utmost to get together a decent trousseau for you, and once launched on the world as Lady Conroy, you will never remember your former life except as an ugly dream.’
‘Will he want it to be soon?’ faltered Fenella.
‘I should think so, my dear. Sir Gilbert is not a boy, you see, and there is no reason for delay. I shall see you presented at Court before you are eighteen.’
‘Yes, I was only seventeen last birthday,’ said Fenella, with a piteous smile, as the mention seemed to recall how much she had passed through before that time.
‘Most people would take you for older,’ remarked Mrs Barrington. ‘Sir Gilbert thought you were nineteen or twenty.’
‘The last year has made a woman of me; I shall never be a girl again,’ said her daughter, as she gathered up her evening wraps and retired to bed.
But the night did not bring much rest to her. Emphatically as Mrs Barrington had asserted that Sir Gilbert Conroy had been made acquainted with all the facts of her former life, Fenella was not satisfied. She had learnt to distrust her mother’s statements—to discredit her pretty oaths and smiles, as she did her blooming cheeks and perfumed skin—and she lay awake, wondering how she could arrive at the truth for herself. She did not feel any particular agitation at the idea of seeing Sir Gilbert Conroy and telling him that she would be his wife. Her heart was empty and sodden, and she thought she would just as soon marry him as remain single: it was all the same to her; she could never feel very happy or very miserable again, and she believed that her future life would be more bearable passed with Sir Gilbert than with her mother. So that when the baronet entered her presence the following afternoon, he could detect nothing different from her usual appearance, except a questioning look in her eye, as if she longed to find out exactly what he thought of her. But she coloured when he approached her side, and he interpreted the action according to his own wishes.
‘Miss Barrington,’ he commenced, as he took her hand, ‘your mother has, of course, prepared you for this interview. Am I right in conjecturing that you would not have granted it unless you intended to give me a favourable answer?’
‘Yes,’ she said quietly, ‘mamma has told me all about it, and—I thank you, Sir Gilbert.’
‘Does that mean that you will be my wife, Fenella?’
‘Since you wish it to be so—yes.’
At this answer Sir Gilbert naturally professed to be enraptured. He kissed the hand he held, and, not being rebuked for forwardness, kissed the fair face that glowed above it, and then he put his arm round her waist, and drew Fenella to a sofa, and sat down beside her, and talked of his mansion in town and his castle in Scotland—of the family jewels which had not been worn since the death of his mother, Lady Valeria Conroy, and how she had been the daughter of the Duke of Ben Nevis, whose kinsman, David of Ben Nevis, had fought side by side on the field of Bosworth with his own great ancestor, Gilbert de Conn, one of the ‘roys’ or ‘kings’ of Scotland. For Sir Gilbert’s favourite hobby was the age and stainlessness of his family tree, and he looked down with the supremest contempt on all the unfortunate ones of the earth who could not produce a parchment roll inscribed with their pedigree.
Fenella’s parents were not noble, but he had taken good care to ascertain before proposing to her that the family on both sides was irreproachable. He would not have transformed Venus Aphrodite herself into Lady Conroy unless she had been able to prove that she had respectable ancestors. But even the enumeration and description of the late Lady Valeria’s diamonds and emeralds did not seem to awaken much interest in the bosom of the girl, who kept her clear, grey eyes fixed upon Sir Gilbert with the same questioning look in them with which she had welcomed him.
‘But,’ she said presently, interrupting him in the midst of a description of the gardens at Conroy Castle, ‘are you quite sure that I shall be able to please you in all things? I am not a very loving girl, you know (mamma will have told you that), and perhaps you might expect more from me than I shall feel myself able to perform.’
‘I shall always do my utmost to meet your wishes, Fenella, and I hope you will be as ready to meet mine. I expect no more from you than that. Is it too much?’
‘Oh no! How could I give you less?’ she murmured. ‘It is very, very good of you to accept so little,’ and then, with a sudden impulse, she laid her hand upon his arm. ‘Sir Gilbert, mamma said I was not to mention the subject, but I must—only this once. She told you last night everything—about—about—last year, and still you come and ask me to be your wife! How can I ever be grateful enough to you for your forbearance to me?’
He almost laughed at the varying colour which came and went in her cheeks, and made her look so earnest and so beautiful as she said the words.
‘My dearest girl,’ he answered, as he drew her closer to himself, ‘I had already forgotten all about it. I am a man of the world, you see, Fenella, and used to hear all sorts of things; and although I confess that, just at first, I was a little disappointed, the unworthy feeling soon wore off again, and I am perfectly contented to take you as you are! Only—will you grant me one favour?—not to make the past a subject of constant allusion! Let it die out, my dear Fenella, and forget it yourself, as I have.’
‘I will try,’ she replied, in a low voice; and Sir Gilbert recommenced his description of the glories upon which she was about to enter, whilst she mused to herself in silence, and thought what a generous, noble heart he must have, and how good and grateful she should be in return.
Before he left in the evening, the wedding was fixed for that day month. The baronet’s only near relation was a married sister, who would be charmed to find an excuse to visit Paris, and so he thought the marriage had better take place at the English Embassy, with as little fuss as needful.
‘Too soon! Too soon! Too terribly soon!’ cried Mrs Barrington playfully. ‘Why, my poor child will only be seventeen years and three months old! She oughtn’t to think of marriage even for the next five years—ought you, Fenella, darling? However, I suppose you wilful lovers will have your own way!’
But a look from her daughter’s eyes stopped Mrs Barrington’s banter. She was still very much afraid of Fenella, and would feel relieved when those honest, serious eyes of hers were well out of the way.
‘Will the time we have fixed upon be agreeable to you?’ said Sir Gilbert, turning to Fenella.
The girl started and flushed.
‘Oh yes; it is all the same to me! That is—I mean—I would rather please you than myself. It is the least I can do in return for all your goodness to me.’
That was the keynote of her life thenceforward, and her belief in it made her marriage seem almost a gladsome thing. She grew more and more contented with her prospects as the days went on. She felt that, by God’s mercy, she was going to lead an honourable and useful life for the future, and she tried to persuade herself that she was happy.
But there were times—sad times alone and in the dark—when the picture was reversed, and the past came back so vividly upon her memory that she was ready to leap out of bed, and write to Sir Gilbert and say she had been mad, and that never—never—never could she be his wife—nor the wife of any man. Times—when the passionate looks and tones of Geoffrey Doyne, as she remembered them upon the sands of Ines-cedwyn, would return to torture her with their dead sweetness—when she fancied she could hear his voice, and see his eyes, and feel the very clasp of his arms about her beating heart. And the present and the future would become a black and mighty void, and she stood face to face with the living, unforgotten past. But Fenella had strength at least to battle with such memories, and call herself hard names for weeping over them. She would resolutely stamp upon the vision; she would pray until she had drowned the voice; she would tell herself that she was worse than a fool even to bestow another thought upon the man who had been so base as to betray her. He was a traitor, she would say to herself, with the tears streaming down her face—a traitor and a liar! He must be, else why did he swear to keep to her alone when he knew he was going to marry another woman? Why did he accept her vows of fidelity when he was about to break his own? She would be brave—she would be strong—she would tear his very image from her heart; she would not shelter there one who could be so cowardly and so untrue to her and to himself.
Ah, how many women have said the same before! How many tortured wretches have cried to God to take away the memory that rose before them like a mocking devil, gibing at their despair! And with all their resolutions, their oaths, and their prayers, how hard it is—how bitterly hard—to erase a true love (however unworthy) from the heart! The man who is bound by swathes too powerful for him to rend asunder, may be strong, and courageous, and determined. He may fight like a lion for his release, he may strain every nerve and muscle to get free; but if the bonds are beyond his physical capability to rupture, he will only injure himself, and sink back again, exhausted by his efforts. It were wiser for him to accept the inevitable, and get up and walk through the world with as much ease as his crippled condition will allow him.
So Fenella waked up at the appointed time, to find that she was the wife of Sir Gilbert Conroy; waited on with all attention and kindness by her husband, and surrounded by every luxury that money could procure for her.
Yet the swathes were around her still, and she would lie bound with them in her coffin.