Works of Ellen Wood, page 831
“Strange, that we rarely can tell how these things happen,” she said, with a genial smile. “Miss Beauclerc must have a curious idea of strength, to suppose my fingers could have broken that bishop. Thank you very much, Sir Isaac.”
Frederick St. John went out with the dean. “I do hope you will write to Mr. Pym?” he said.
“I intend to,” answered the dean.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
WALKING OUT TO DINNER.
IF Mrs. Darling’s hurried visit to England was caused by the fact of the repairs in progress at her cottage, being at a standstill, the repairs must be at a stand-still yet; for the lady did not go farther than Castle Wafer. On the morning following her arrival, Sir Isaac politely asked whether she would not remain a few days with them before going on; and Mrs. Darling took him at his word and did remain. Georgina also remained, and things seemed to go on very smoothly and quietly, but Mrs. Carleton remained a great deal in her own room; and to Mr. Frederick St. John’s eyes her mother’s face wore a strangely haggard, anxious look.
“Is Mrs. Carleton well?” he asked her one day.
“Quite well, thank you,” responded Mrs. Darling, stooping, as she spoke, to pluck a geranium.
“I have not liked her look at times,” continued Frederick, boldly. “I was fearing she was not in — altogether good health.”
“She is in excellent health,” was the reply, and Mrs. Darling faced the speaker with a look intended to express surprise. “Charlotte was always strong. She and Rose are like myself, blessed with rude health: I cannot say as much for the other two. I want to take Charlotte away with me; but she does not feel inclined to come, and was quite angry when she saw me arrive. She is very happy here.”
No more was said, for Mrs. Darling sauntered leisurely away. Frederick St. John had gained nothing by his move.
The dean, who had written to Mr. Pym, received in due course that gentleman’s answer. Mr. Norris, of Norris Court, had died mad. The widow, subsequently Mrs. Darling, had hushed the matter up for the sake of her child, and succeeded in keeping it secret. He, Mr. Pym, had never disclosed it to mortal ears; but the high character of the Dean of Westerbury was such that he knew he might safely confide the fact to him. Indeed, from the tenour of the dean’s letter, he felt there might be some essential reason for not remaining silent.
“You see,” cried Frederick, when the dean showed him the letter, “I was right.”
“Nay,” dissented the dean. “Right as to your suspicion that madness was in the family; but this does not prove that it has yet attacked Mrs. Carleton.”
“I suppose it would not prove it to most minds; it does to mine, in a very great degree. You will at least admit that this renders her a most undesirable wife for Isaac.”
“Granted. But, Frederick, my opinion is that Sir Isaac is in just as much danger from her as you are, and no more. Rely upon it he has no idea of marrying.”
Frederick was silent. In a sense he agreed with the dean; but he knew how subtle is the constant companionship of a designing and attractive woman; and that the danger was all the greater where that companionship had been previously held aloof from, as in the case of Sir Isaac.
Two or three days passed on, and nothing occurred to disturb the peace even of fanciful Frederick St. John. The old routine of life was observed at Castle Wafer, varied with visits to the Rectory, or with the Rectory’s visits back again. But for the suspicion he was making so great a trouble of, Mr. St. John would have felt supremely happy. A strangely bright feeling was stealing over him; a feeling whose source he did not question or analyze. The influence of Georgina was quietly making its way in his heart; perhaps, unconsciously to himself, it had ever in a degree lain there.
Mrs. Darling sat in her room, writing letters. Mrs. Carleton was with her, looking from the window, the folds of her silver-grey brocade rustling with every movement. She wore very slight mourning now.
“Charlotte, my dear child,” suddenly cried Mrs. Darling, “I am writing to the cottage. Let me once again ask you when you will be ready to go with me?”
“Never — to Alnwick. When I left the cottage to become George St. John’s wife, I left it, as a residence, for ever.”
“Where will you go? Will you go into Berkshire? — will you go to London? — to Brighton? — to Paris? Only say where — I don’t wish to force you to Alnwick.”
“Mamma, I beg you not to worry me on this point. I am very comfortable at Castle Wafer, and you need not try to force me away from it. It is lost labour.”
Mrs. Darling made no reply. It would have been useless. All her life she had found it “lost labour” to endeavour to force Charlotte to do anything against her will; and sometimes she felt the yoke upon her was a very heavy one. She bent over her writing again in silence. Presently Charlotte spoke, abruptly:
“How long is that girl going to remain here?”
Mrs. Darling’s train of thought just then was roaming to many things, pleasant or unpleasant, and she thought “that girl” must mean Honour Tritton. Charlotte’s eyes were ablaze with light at the mistake; and Mrs. Darling could have bitten her tongue out for her incaution in mentioning the name. What she next said, did not mend it.
“Charlotte, my darling, I really beg your pardon. I’m sure I don’t know how I came to think of her, unless it was that I was talking to her this morning. You — —”
“Talking to her!” came the imperative interruption. “I should like to know, mamma, what you can have to say to her. If every one had their deserts, Honour Tritton would be — would be —— What did she presume to say of me?”
“My dear Charlotte!” cried the unfortunate mother, half aghast at the tone in which the last sentence was spoken, “she did not presume to speak of you at all. It was only a casual meeting in one of the lower passages. She just dropped a curtsey, and asked how I was: that was all.”
“She presumed to put herself in my way the other day, that woman; I know that,” scornfully returned Mrs. Carleton.
“But that it might be said I made too much of a trifle utterly beneath me, I should ask Sir Isaac to banish her from Castle Wafer.”
“Oh, Charlotte! What, because she — she happened to meet you?”
“No. For the misery she wrought in the years gone by. I wonder what brought her here — why she came?”
Mrs. Darling had heard of the meeting with Honour on the stairs, and knew as much of the scene as though she had been present. She passed to another topic.
“Then it was of Miss Beauclerc you spoke, Charlotte?”
“It was of Miss Beauclerc. I want to know what she stops here for.”
The low, impressive whisper in which this was spoken, astonished Mrs. Darling. What had Charlotte got in her head now?
“My dear, it cannot matter to you whether she stays here or whether she goes home.”
“But it does matter: it matters very much. She is staying as a spy upon me.”
“A spy? Charlotte!”
“She is. She is doing what she can to turn Sir Isaac against me.”
“Oh, Charlotte! Indeed you are mistaken. I am quite sure she is doing nothing of the sort.”
“I tell you yes. Look there!”
Mrs. Darling rose in obedience, and glanced from the window in the direction in which Charlotte had pointed. Georgina Beauclerc, in her flowing dinner-dress of a clear white muslin, was marching about with Sir Isaac, both her hands clasped upon his arm, her pretty head and its silken hair almost touching his face as she talked to him. That Sir Isaac was bending down to the fair head, a great deal of tender love in his face, might be discerned even at this distance.
“He promised to ride out with me this afternoon; he was going on his pony, and I was to try Mr. St. John’s grey horse, and she came and took him from me. He gave me up for her with scarcely a word of apology, and they have been away together for hours somewhere on foot. She cannot let him rest. The moment she is dressed for dinner, you see, she lures him to her side again. And you say she is not plotting against me?”
What could Mrs. Darling reply? The idea had taken possession of Charlotte, and she knew that no earthly argument would turn it by so much as a hair’s-breadth. The shadow of a trouble that she should not have strength to combat fell upon her; and as Charlotte abruptly left the room, she took a letter from her pocket and read it with a gleam of thankfulness, for it told of the speedy arrival of one who might be of use.
Mrs. Carleton descended, glancing to the left and right of the broad staircase, into all its angles, over the gilded balustrades down on the inner hall, as had been her custom since that encounter with Honour. Not with open look, but with stealthy glance, as if she dreaded meeting the woman again. She went into the drawing-room, and stood gazing through the open window with covert glances, partially shielding herself behind the blue satin curtains. Georgina was on the terrace with Sir Isaac, and on them her regard was fixed. A gaze, evil, bitter, menacing. Her eyes shone with a lurid light, her lips were pale, and her hands were contracted as with irrepressible anger. In the midst of these unwholesome signs, as if instinct whispered to her that she was not alone, she turned and saw, quietly seated at a table near, and as quietly regarding her, Frederick St. John.
She came up to him at once, her brow smoothed to its ordinary impassiveness.
“What a warm afternoon it has been, Mr. St. John!”
“Very warm.”
“You are ready for dinner early,” she said, in allusion to his notably late appearance for that meal; often coming in after they had sat down to table.
“I don’t dine at home to-day. I am going with Miss Beauclerc to the Rectory.”
“And Sir Isaac also?” she quickly asked.
“I think not.”
Sir Isaac and Georgina approached the window. They, with Frederick, had walked to the Rectory that afternoon, and the dean asked them to come in to dinner. It was very dull, he said, with only Miss Denison, who generally contrived to act as a wet blanket. So it was arranged that Georgina and Frederick should go; but Sir Isaac could not promise. It appeared that Georgina was now urging him to accompany them. Her voice was heard in the room.
“It is very uncharitable of you, Sir Isaac. You know what papa said it was for him, with that statue of a woman there. If you were shut up in a house with a female Hottentot, and you asked papa to come in as a relief, he would not think of refusing.”
“But I can’t go,” returned Sir Isaac, in laughing tones. “I told the dean that Mrs. St. John was not well enough to come down.”
“And you will let me walk all that way without you! It’s not kind, Sir Isaac. Suppose I get run away with? There may be kidnappers in the shrubbery.”
“You will have a more efficient protector with you than I could make; one young and powerful — I am old and weak.”
“Never old to me — never old to me. Oh, I wish you would come!”
“I wish I could, Georgina; you know that when you leave me, half my sunshine goes also. But I must head the table at home, in the absence of Mrs. St. John: I cannot leave my visitors.”
“Tiresome people!” apostrophized Georgina, in allusion to the lady visitors. “I know you would rather be with us. I shall tell papa that if he is fixed with Miss Denison, you are fixed with Mrs. Carleton. I don’t see how you would get through your days with her just now, if it were not for me.”
She stepped into the room, a saucy expression on her charming face; a loving smile on Sir Isaac’s. Mrs. Carleton was in time to catch a glimpse of each as she swiftly glided away in the distance; and neither had the remotest suspicion that their conversation had been overheard.
Frederick St. John rose. “I think we shall be late, Georgina.” —
“Shall we! I shall say it was your fault,” cried the happy girl, as she caught up her white mantle and straw hat from a chair. “I’m ready now.”
“Won’t you put your cloak on?”
“No. I am only taking it to come back in to-night. You may carry it for me.”
She placed it on his arm; and with her face shaded only by her little dainty parasol, they went out. Mrs. Carleton was at one of the other windows watching the departure.
“Do you know the time, Georgina?” he asked.
“Oh — more than five, I suppose.”
He held his watch towards her. It wanted only twenty-five minutes to six. “Of course you can say it is my fault if you like; but Mrs. Beauclerc will be excessively angry with both of us.”
“Not as angry as Miss Denison will be,” returned Georgina, laughingly. “Fanciful old creature! saying she gets indigestion if she dines later than half-past five. If I were papa, I should let her dine alone, and order the regular dinner at seven. See how quickly she’d come to her senses.”
“If you were your papa you’d do just as he does” cried Frederick. “And when you have a house of your own, Georgina, you will be just as courteous as he is.”
“Shall I? Not to Miss Denison. But I should take care not to have disagreeable people staying with me. I wouldn’t have Mrs. Carleton, for instance.”
“Do you think Mrs. Carleton disagreeable?” he asked. “I have heard you say you liked her.”
“So I did at first. I pitied her. But she gets very disagreeable. She looks at me sometimes as if she would like to kill me, and — see what she did yesterday.”
Georgina extended her wrist towards her companion. There was a blue mark upon it, as from pressure.
“How did she do this!” he exclaimed, examining the wrist. “Not purposely, of course; that is, not intending to hurt me. I differed from her: it was about going out with Sir Isaac. She said it was too hot for me, and I said the hotter the pleasanter; and she caught me by the wrist as I was running away. I cried out with the pain; indeed it was very sharp; and Sir Isaac heard it outside and looked back. She laughed then, and so did I, and I ran away. This morning I saw that my wrist had turned blue.”
“Did you tell Isaac of this?”
“I don’t remember. Stay, though — I think I told him Mrs. Carleton had been preaching morality to me, as connected with sunstrokes and freckles,” continued the careless girl. “Please loose my hand, Mr. St. John.”
He released her hand, saying nothing. Georgina floated on by his side, her blue ribbons and her fair hair flashing in the setting sun as they passed through the shrubbery.
“I think she must be frequently out of temper,” continued Georgina, alluding still to Mrs. Carleton. “Did you see her as we passed the window just now? She looked so cross at me.”
“I presume she thinks she has cause for it,” observed Mr. St. John.
“What cause?”
“She is jealous of you.”
“Jealous of me?”
“Of you and Sir Isaac.”
Georgina’s grey eyes opened to their utmost width as she stared at the speaker.
“Jealous of me and Sir Isaac? Why, what could put such an idea into her stupid head? How could she be jealous of me, in relation to Sir Isaac? She might as well be jealous of papa.”
“I suppose she thinks that she, as chief guest, ought to receive more of the host’s attention than any one else,” he said, not caring to be more explanatory. “And therefore she does not like your monopolizing Isaac.”
“Oh!” cried Georgina, turning up her pretty nose. “I declare I thought you meant it in another light. I’ll take up Sir Isaac’s attention all to-morrow, just to tease her.”
He made no reply. He was thinking. It had not been his fault that Georgina’s stay at Castle Wafer was prolonged; but he had seen no feasible way of preventing it. And yet there was always an undercurrent in his heart — a wish that she was away from it, beyond the risk of any possible harm.
“Please put the mantle over my shoulders, Mr. St. John.”
“Ah, you are getting cold! You should have put it on at first.”
“Getting cold this warm afternoon! Indeed no. But in one minute we shall be in the Rectory grounds, liable to meet mamma or her charming guest. They would sing a duet all dinner-time at my walking here in nothing but my dinner-dress. Miss Denison comes out before dinner, and creeps round the paths for half-an-hour. She calls it ‘taking her constitutional.’ Thank you; she can’t find fault now.”
Mrs. Beauclerc was a fretful lady of forty-five; Miss Denison was a fretful lady of somewhat more: and Georgina was greeted with a shower of reproaches, for having kept dinner waiting. She laid the blame on Mr. St. John; and Miss Denison looked daggers at him to her heart’s content.
“I could not make him believe you were dining at the gothic hour of half-past five,” cried the imperturbable girl. “The more I told him to hasten the less he did so. And, mamma, Mrs St. John says will we all go to Castle Wafer for the evening.” She stole a glance at him. He was standing calm, upright; a half-tender, half-reproving look cast upon her for her nonsense. But he contradicted nothing.
The dean and Mr. St. John were sitting alone after dinner, when a servant came in and said a gentleman was asking if he could see Dr. Beauclerc. The dean inquired who it was, but the servant did not know: when he requested the name, the gentleman said he would tell it himself to the doctor.
“You can show him in here,” said the dean, who was one of the most accessible men living.
The servant retired, and ushered in a little grey-haired man in spectacles. The dean did not recognize him: Frederick St. John did, and with some astonishment. It was Mr. Pym of Alnwick.
He explained to the dean that a little matter of business had brought him into the neighbourhood, and he had taken the opportunity (following on the slight correspondence which had just taken place between them) to call on Dr. Beauclerc. Dr. Beauclerc — who was not addressed as “Mr. Dean” out of his cathedral city as much as he was in it — inquired how long he had been in the neighbourhood, and found he had only just arrived by the evening train, — had come straight to the Rectory from the station.
