The Haute Noblesse: A Novel

“I could not speak,” she said in a strange low voice full of the pain she suffered. “I tried to check you, but the words would not come. What you ask is impossible; I could not promise. It would be cruel to you – unjust, and it would raise hopes that could never be fulfilled.”

“No, no. Don’t say that,” he cried appealingly. “I have been premature. I should have waited patiently.”

“It would have been the same. Mr Leslie, you should not have asked this. You should not have exposed yourself to the pain of a refusal, me to the agony of being forced to speak.”

“I grant much of what you say,” he pleaded. “Forgive me.”

“Do not misunderstand me,” she continued, after a brave effort to master her emotion. “After what has passed it would be impossible. I have but one duty now: that of devoting myself to my father.”

“You feel this,” he pleaded; “and you are speaking sincerely; but wait. Pray say no more – now. There: let me say good-bye.”

“No,” she said sternly; “you shall not leave me under a misapprehension. It has been a struggle that has been almost too great; but I have won the strength to speak. No; Mr Leslie, it is impossible.”

“No, Mr Leslie, it is impossible!” The words were like a thin, sharp echo of those spoken by Louise, and they both started and turned, to see that Aunt Marguerite had entered the room, and had not only heard her niece’s refusal of Leslie, but gathered the full import of the sentence.

She stood drawn up half way between them and the door, looking very handsome and impressive in her deep mourning; but there was the suggestion of a faint sneering smile upon her lip, and her eyes were half-closed, as with hands crossed over her breast, she seemed to point over her shoulder with her closed black fan.

“Aunt!” exclaimed Louise. “How could – ”

Her strength was spent. She could say no more. Her senses seemed to reel, and with the impression upon her that if she stayed she would swoon away, she hurried from the room, leaving Leslie and the old woman face to face.

He drew a long breath, set his teeth, and meeting Aunt Marguerite’s angry look firmly, he bowed, and was about to quit the house.

“No, not yet,” she said. “I’m no eavesdropper, Mr Leslie; but I felt bound to watch over that poor motherless girl. It was right that I should, for in spite of all my hints, I may say my plain speaking regarding my child’s future, you have taken advantage of her helplessness to press forward your suit.”

“Miss Vine.”

“Miss Marguerite Vine, if you please, Mr Leslie,” said the lady with a ceremonious bow.

“Miss Marguerite Vine then,” cried Leslie angrily, “I cannot discuss this matter with you: I look to Mr Vine.”

“My brother is weak and ill. I am the head of this family, sir, and I have before now told you my intentions respecting my niece.”

“Yes, madam, but you are not her father.”

“I am her father’s sister, and if my memory serves me rightly, I told you that Monsieur de Ligny – ”

“Who is Monsieur de Ligny?” said Vine entering the room slowly.

“Mr Vine, I must appeal to you,” cried Leslie.

“No. It would be indecorous. I have told Mr Leslie, who has been persecuting Louise with his addresses, that it is an outrage at such a time; and that if our child marries there is a gentleman of good French lineage to be studied. That his wishes are built upon the sand, for Monsieur de Ligny – ”

“Monsieur de Ligny?”

“A friend of mine,” said Aunt Marguerite quickly.

“Mr Vine,” said Leslie hotly, “I cannot stay here to discuss this matter with Miss Vine.”

“Miss Marguerite Vine,” said the old lady with an aggravating smile.

Leslie gave an impatient stamp with one foot, essayed to speak, and choking with disappointment and anger, failed, and hurried out of the house.

“Such insufferable insolence! And at a time like this,” cried Aunt Marguerite, contemptuously, as her brother with a curiously absorbed look upon his face began to pace the room.

“He has sent the poor girl sobbing to her room.”

“Louise has not engaged herself to this man, Marguerite?”

“Engaged herself. Pah! You should have been here. Am I to sit still and witness another wreck in our unhappy family through your weakness and imbecility? Mr Leslie has had his answer, however. He will not come again.”

She swept out of the room, leaving her brother gazing vacantly before him.

“She seems almost to have forgotten poor Harry. I thought she would have taken it more to heart. But Monsieur de Ligny – Monsieur de Ligny? I cannot think. Another time I shall remember all, I daresay. Ah, my darling,” he cried eagerly, as Louise re-entered the room. “You heard what Mr Leslie said?”

“Yes, father.”

“And refused him?”

“Yes.”

Her father took her hand, and stood trying to collect his thoughts, which, as the result of the agony from which he had suffered, seemed now to be beyond control.

“Yes,” he said at last, “it was right. You could not accept Mr Leslie now. But your aunt said – ”

He looked at her vacantly with his hand to his head.

“What did your aunt say about your being engaged?”

“Pray, pray, do not speak to me about it, dear,” said Louise, piteously. “I cannot bear it. Father, I wish to be with you – to help and comfort, and to find help and comfort in your arms.”

“Yes,” he said, folding her to his breast; “and you are suffering and it is not the first time that our people have been called upon to suffer, my child. But your aunt – ”

“Pray dearest, not now – not now,” whispered Louise, laying her brow against his cheek.

“I will say no more,” he said tenderly. “Yes, to be my help and comfort in all this trouble and distress. You are right, it is no time for thinking of such things as that.”

Chapter Forty One

Aunt Marguerite Makes Plans

“I could not – I could not. A wife should accept her husband, proud of him, proud of herself, the gift she gives him with her love; and I should have been his disgrace. Impossible! How could I have ever looked him bravely in the face? I should have felt that he must recall the past, and repented when it was too late.”

So mused Louise Vine as she sat trying to work that same evening after a wearisome meal, at which Aunt Marguerite had taken her place to rouse them from their despondent state. So she expressed it, and the result had been painful in the extreme.

Aunt Marguerite’s remedy was change, and she proposed that they should all go for a tour to the south of France.

“Don’t shake your head, George,” she said. “You are not a common person. The lower classes – the uneducated of course – go on nursing their troubles, but it is a duty with people of our position to suffer and be strong. So put the trouble behind us, and show a brave face to the world. You hear this, Louise?”

“Yes, aunt,” said Louise, sadly.

“Then pray listen to it as if you took some interest in what I said, and meant to profit by it, child.”

Louise murmured something suggestive of a promise to profit by her aunt’s wisdom, and the old lady turned to her brother.

“Yes, George, I have planned it all out. We will go to the south of France, to the seaside if you wish, and while Louise and I try and find a little relaxation, you can dabble and net strange things out of the water-pools. Girl; be careful.”

This to poor Liza, whose ears seemed to be red-hot, and her cheeks alternately flushed and pale, as she brought in and took out the dinner, waiting, at other times being dispensed with fortunately. For Liza’s wits were wool-gathering, according to Aunt Marguerite’s theory, and in her agitation respecting the manner in which she had been surprised, when yielding to her mother’s importunities, she was constantly watching the faces or her master and Louise, and calculating the chances for and against ignominious dismissal. One minute she told herself they knew all. The next minute her heart gave a thump of satisfaction, for Louise’s sad eyes had looked so kindly in hers, that Liza told herself her young mistress either did not know or was going to forgive her.

Directly after Liza dropped the cover of a vegetable dish in her agitation right on Aunt Marguerite’s black silk crape-trimmed dress, for her master had told her to bring him bread, and in a tone of voice which thrilled through her as he looked her in the face with, according to her idea, his eyes seeming to say, “This is some of the bread you tried to steal.”

Liza escaped from the room as soon as possible, and was relieving her pent-up feelings at the back door when she heard her name whispered.

“Who’s there? what is it?” she said.

“It’s only me, Liza, my dear. Has she told – ”

“Oh, mother! You shouldn’t,” sobbed Liza. “You won’t be happy till you’ve got me put in prison.”

“Nonsense, my dear, they won’t do that. Never you fear. Now look here. What became of that parcel you made up?”

“I don’t know; I’ve been half wild ever since, and I don’t know how it’s going to end.”

“Then I’ll tell you,” cried the old fish-woman. “You’ve got to get me that parcel, or else to make me up another.”

“I won’t; there?” cried Liza angrily.

“How dare you say won’t to your mother, miss!” said the old woman angrily. “Now look here; I’m going a bit farther on, and then I’m coming back, and I shall expect to find the napkin done up all ready. If it isn’t you’ll see.”

Liza stood with her mouth open, listening to her mother’s retiring footsteps; and then with a fresh burst of tears waiting to be wiped away, she ran in to answer the bell, and clear away, shivering the while, as she saw that Aunt Marguerite’s eyes were fixed upon her, watching every movement, and seeming to threaten to reveal what had been discovered earlier in the day.

Aunt Marguerite said nothing, however, then, for her thoughts were taken up with her project of living away for a time. She had been talking away pretty rapidly, first to one and then to the other, but rarely eliciting a reply; but at last she turned sharply upon her brother.

“How soon shall we be going, George?”

“Going? Where?” he replied dreamily.

“On the Continent for our change.”

“We shall not go on the Continent, Marguerite,” he said gravely. “I shall not think of leaving here.”

Aunt Marguerite rose from the table, and gazed at her brother, as if not sure that she had heard aright. Then she turned to her niece, to gaze at her with questioning eyes, but to gain no information there, for Louise gazed down at the work she had taken from a stand.

“Did you understand what your father said?” she asked sharply.

“Yes, aunt.”

“And pray what did he say?”

“That he would not go on the Continent.”

“What?”

“That he would not leave home with this terrible weight upon his mind.”

Aunt Marguerite sat bolt upright in her chair for a few moments without speaking, and the look she gave her brother was of the most withering nature.

“Am I to understand,” she said at last, “that you prefer to stay here and visit and nurse your Dutch friend?”

Her brother looked at her, but there was no trace of anger in his glance.

Aunt Marguerite lowered her eyes, and then turned them in a supercilious way upon Louise.

“May I count upon your companionship,” she said, “if I decide to go through Auvergne and stay there for a few days, on my way to Hyères.”

“If you go, aunt?” said Louise wonderingly.

“There is a certain estate in the neighbourhood of Mont d’Or,” she continued; “I wish to see in what condition it is kept. These things seem to devolve now on me who am forced to take the lead as representative of our neglected family.”

“For Heaven’s sake, Marguerite!” cried Vine impetuously. “No – no, no,” he muttered, checking himself hastily. “Better not – better not.”

“I beg pardon, brother,” she said, raising her glass.

“Nothing – nothing,” he replied.

“Well, Louise, child, I am waiting,” she continued, turning her eyes in a half pitying, condescending way upon her niece. “Well? May I count upon you?”

“Aunt dear – ”

“It will do you good. You look too pale. This place crushes you down, and narrows your intellect, my child. A little French society would work a vast change in you.”

“Aunt, dear,” said Louise, rising and crossing to her to lay her hands upon the old lady’s shoulder, “don’t talk about such things now. Let me come up to your room, and read to you a little while.”

Aunt Marguerite smiled.

“My dear Louise, why do you talk to me like this? Do you take me for a child?”

George Vine heaved a deep sigh, and turned in his chair.

“Do you think I have lived all these years in the world and do not know what is best for such a girl as you?”

“But indeed, aunt, I am not ill. I do not require a change.”

“Ah, poor young obstinacy! I must take you well in hand, child, and see if I cannot teach you to comport yourself more in accordance with your position in life. I shall have time now, especially during our little journey. When would it be convenient for you to be ready?”

“Aunt dear! It is impossible; we could not go.”

“Impossible? Then I must speak. You will be ready in three days from now. I feel that I require change, and we will go.”

“Margaret!” cried Vine, who during the past few minutes had been writhing in his seat, “how can you be so absurd!”

“Poor George!” she said, with a sigh, as she rose from her chair. “I wish I could persuade him to go. Mind, Louise, my child, in three days from now. We shall go straight to Paris, perhaps for a month. You need not trouble about dress. A few necessaries. All that you will require we can get in Paris. Come in before you go to bed, I may have a few more words to say.”

She sailed slowly across the room, waving her fan gently, as if it were a wing which helped her progress, as she preserved her graceful carriage. Then the door closed behind her, and Louise half ran to her father’s side.

“Shall I go up with her?” she whispered anxiously.

Her father shook his head.

“But did you not notice how strange she seemed?”

“No more strange, my dear, than she has often been before, after something has agitated her greatly. In her way she was very fond of poor Harry.”

“Yes, father, I know; but I never saw her so agitated as this.”

“She will calm down, as she has calmed down before.”

“But this idea of going abroad?”

“She will forget it by to-morrow. I was wrong to speak as I did. It only sets her thinking more seriously. Poor Margaret! We must be very patient and forbearing with her. Her life was turned out of its regular course by a terrible disappointment. I try always to remember this when she is more eccentric – more trying than usual.”

Louise shrank a little more round to the back of her father’s chair, as he drew her hand over his shoulder, and she laid her cheek upon his head as, with fixed eyes, she gazed straight before her into futurity, and a spasm of pain shot through her at her father’s words, “a terrible disappointment,” “eccentric.” Had Aunt Marguerite ever suffered as she suffered now? and did such mental agony result in changing the whole course of a girl’s young life?

The tears stood in her eyes and dimmed them; but in spite of the blurring of her vision, she seemed to see herself gradually changing and growing old and eccentric too. For was not she also wasting with a terrible disappointment – a blow that must be as agonising as any Aunt Marguerite could have felt?

The outlook seemed so blank and terrible that a strange feeling of excitement came over her, waking dream succeeding waking dream, each more painful than the last; but she was brought back to the present by her father’s voice.

“Why, my darling,” he said, “your hand is quite cold, and you tremble. Come, come, come, you ought to know Aunt Margaret by now. There, it is time I started for Van Heldre’s. I faithfully promised to go back this evening. Perhaps Luke will be there.”

“Yes, father,” she said, making an effort to be calm, “it is time you went down. Give my dear love to Madelaine.”

“Eh? Give your love? why, you are coming too.”

“No, no,” she said hastily; “I – I am not well this evening.”

“No, you are not well,” he said tenderly. “Your hands are icy, and – yes, I expected so, your forehead burns. Why, my darling, you must not be ill.”

“Oh no, dear. I am not going to be ill, I shall be quite well to-morrow.”

“Then come with me. The change will do you good.”

“No; not to-night, father. I would rather stay.”

“But Madelaine is in sad trouble, too, my child, and she will be greatly disappointed, if you do not come.”

“Tell her I felt too unwell, dear,” said Louise imploringly, for her father’s persistence seemed to trouble her more and more; and he looked at her wonderingly, she seemed so agitated.

“But I don’t like to leave you like this, my child.”

“Yes, yes; please go, dear. I shall be so much better alone. There, it is growing late. You will not stop very long.”

“No; an hour or two. I must be guided by circumstances. If that man is there – I cannot help it – I shall stay a very short time.”

“That man, father?”

“Yes,” said Vine, with a shudder. “Crampton. He makes me shiver whenever we meet.”

His face grew agonised as he spoke; and he rose hastily and kissed Louise.

“You will not alter your mind and come?” he said tenderly.

“No, no, father; pray do not press me. I cannot go to-night.”

“Strange!” said George Vine thoughtfully. “Strange that she should want to stay.”

He had crossed the little rock garden, and closed the gate to stand looking back at the old granite house, dwelling sadly upon his children, and mingling thoughts of the determined refusal of Louise to come, with projects which he had had in petto for the benefit of his son.

He shuddered and turned to go along the level platform cut in the great slope before beginning the rapid descent.

Chapter Forty Two

A Startling Visitation

“Fine night, master, but gashly dark,” said a gruff voice, as Vine was nearly at the bottom of the slope.

“Ah, Perrow! Yes, very dark,” said Vine quietly. “Not out with your boat to-night?”

“No, Master Vine, not to-night. Sea brimes. Why, if we cast a net to-night every mash would look as if it was a-fire. Best at home night like this. Going down town?”

“Yes, Perrow.”

“Ah, you’ll be going to see Master Van Heldre. You don’t know, sir, how glad my mates are as he’s better. Good night, sir. You’ll ketch up to Master Leslie if you look sharp. He come up as far as here and went back.”

“Thank you. Good night,” said Vine, and he walked on, but slackened his pace, for he felt that he could not meet Leslie then. The poor fellow would be suffering from his rebuff, and Vine shrank from listening to any appeal.

But he was fated to meet Leslie all the same, for at a turn of the steep path he encountered the young mine-owner coming towards him, and he appeared startled on finding who it was.

“Going out, Mr Vine?” he stammered. “I was coming up to the house, but – er – never mind; I can call some other time.”

“I would turn back with you, only I promised to go down to Mr Van Heldre’s to-night.”

“Ah, yes, to Van Heldre’s,” said Leslie confusedly. “I’ll walk with you if you will not mind.”

“I shall be glad of your company,” said Vine quietly; and they continued down to the town, Leslie very thoughtful, and Vine disinclined to converse.

“No, I am not going in, Mr Vine. Will you let me come and say a few words to you to-morrow?”

“Yes,” replied Vine gently.

He had meant to speak firmly and decisively, but a feeling of pity and sympathy for the young man, whose heart he seemed to read, changed his tone. It had been in his heart, too, to say, “It will be better if you do not come,” but he found it impossible, and they parted.

Leslie hesitated as soon as he was alone. What should he do? Go home? Home was a horrible desert to him now; and in his present frame of mind, the best thing he could do was to go right off for a long walk. By fatiguing the body he would make the brain ask for rest, instead of keeping up that whirl of anxious thought.

He felt that he must act. That was the only way to find oblivion and repose from the incessant thought which troubled him. He started off with the intention of wearying his muscles, so as to lie down that night and win the sleep to which he was often now a stranger.

His first intent was to go right up by the cliff path, by Uncle Luke’s, and over the hill by his own place, but if he went that way there was the possibility of finding Uncle Luke leaning over the wall, gazing out at the starlit sea, and probably he would stop and question him.

That night his one thought was of being alone, and he took the opposite direction, went down to the ferry, hunted out the man from the inn hard by, and had himself rowed across the harbour, so as to walk along the cliff eastwards, and then strike in north and round by the head of the estuary, where he could recross by the old stone bridge, and reach home – a walk of a dozen miles.

At the end of a couple of miles along the rugged pathway, where in places the greatest care was needed to avoid going over some precipitous spot to the shore below, Leslie stopped short to listen to the hollow moaning sound of the waves, and he seated himself close to the cliff edge, in a dark nook, which formed one of the sheltered lookouts used by the coastguard in bad weather.

The sea glittered as if the surface were of polished jet, strewn with diamonds, and, impressed by the similarity of the scene to that of the night on which the search had been carried on after Harry Vine, Leslie’s thoughts went back to the various scenes which repeated themselves before his mental gaze from the beginning to that terrible finale when the remains lay stark and disfigured in the inn shed, and the saturated cards proclaimed who the dead man was.

“Poor girl!” he said half aloud, “and with all that trouble fresh upon her, and the feeling that she and her family are disgraced for ever, I go to her to press forward my selfish, egotistical love. God forgive me! What weak creatures we men are.”

He sat thinking, taking off his hat for the cool, moist sea air to fan his feverish temples, when the solemn silence of the starry night seemed to bring to him rest and repose such as he had not enjoyed since the hour when Aunt Marguerite planted that sharp, poisoned barb in his breast.

“It is not that,” he said to himself, with a sigh full of satisfaction. “She never felt the full force of love yet for any man, but if ever her gentle young nature turned towards any one, it was towards me. And, knowing this, I, in my impatience and want of consideration, contrived my own downfall. No, not my downfall; there is hope yet, and a few words rightly spoken will remove the past.”

The feverish sensation was passing away swiftly. The calm serenity of the night beneath the glorious dome of stars was bringing with it restfulness, and hope rose strongly, as, far away in the east, he saw a glittering point of light rise above the sea slowly higher and higher, a veritable star of hope to him.

“What’s that?” he said to himself, as heard above the boom of the waves which struck below and then filled some hollow and fell back with an angry hiss, he fancied he heard a sob.

There was no mistake; a woman was talking in a low, moaning way, and then there came another sob.

He rose quickly.

“Is anything the matter?” he said sharply.

“Ah! Why, how you frightened me! Is that you, Master Leslie?”

“Yes. Who is it? Poll Perrow?”

“Yes, Master Leslie, it’s me.”

“Why, what are you doing here?” said Leslie, as cynical old Uncle Luke’s hints about the smuggling flashed across his mind.

“Nothing to do with smuggling,” she said, as if divining his thoughts.

“Indeed, old lady! Well, it looks very suspicious.”

“No, it don’t, sir. D’you think if I wanted to carry any landed goods I should take ’em along the coastguard path?”

“A man would not,” said Leslie, “but I should say it’s just what a cunning old woman’s brain would suggest, as being the surest way to throw the revenue men off the scent.”

“Dessay you’re right, Master Leslie, but you may search me if you like. I’ve got nothing to-night.”

“I’m not going to search you, old lady. I’ll leave that to the revenue men. But what’s the matter?”