Mount Royal: A Novel. Volume 2 of 3

"There was an English gentleman staying here about three weeks ago: a Mr. Hamleigh. Do you remember him?" she asked.

The waiter interrogated himself silently for half a minute, and then replied in the affirmative.

"Was he an invalid?"

"Not quite an invalid, Madame. He went out a little – but he did not seem robust. He never went to the opera – or to any public entertainment. He rode a little – and drove a little – and read a great deal. He was much fonder of books than most English gentlemen."

"Do you know where he went when he left here?"

"He was going to the Italian lakes."

Christabel asked no further question. It seemed to her a great privilege to have heard even so much as this. There was very little hope that in her road of life she would often come so nearly on her lost lover's footsteps. She was too wise to desire that they should ever meet face to face – that she, Leonard's wife, should ever again be moved by the magic of that voice, thrilled by the pathos of those dreamy eyes; but it was a privilege to hear something about him she had lost, to know what spot of earth held him, what skies looked down upon him.

CHAPTER VIII

"I HAVE PUT MY DAYS AND MY DREAMS OUT OF MIND."

It was the end of May, when Christabel and her husband went back to England and to Mount Royal. Leonard wanted to stay in London for the season, and to participate in the amusements and dissipation of that golden time; but this his wife most steadfastly refused. She would be guilty of no act which could imply want of respect for her beloved dead. She would not make her curtsy to her sovereign in her new character of a matron, or go into society, within the year of her aunt's death.

"You will be horribly moped in Cornwall," remonstrated Leonard. "Everything about the place will remind you of my poor mother. We shall be in the dolefuls all the year."

"I would rather grieve for her, than forget her," answered Christabel. "It is too easy to forget."

"Well, you must have your own way, I suppose. You generally do," retorted Leonard, churlishly; "and, after having dragged me about a lot of mouldy old French towns, and made me look at churches, and Roman baths, and the sites of ancient circuses, until I hated the very name of antiquity, you will expect me to vegetate at Mount Royal for the next six months."

"I don't see any reason why a quiet life should be mere vegetation," said Christabel; "but if you would prefer to spend part of the year in London I can stay at Mount Royal."

"And get on uncommonly well without me," cried Leonard. "I perfectly comprehend your meaning. But I am not going in for that kind of thing. You and I must not offer the world another example of the semi-attached couple; or else people might begin to say you had married a man you did not care for."

"I will try and make your life as agreeable as I can at the Manor, Leonard," Christabel answered, with supreme equanimity – it was an aggravation to her husband that she so rarely lost her temper – "so long as you do not ask me to fill the house with visitors, or to do anything that might look like want of reverence for your mother's memory."

"Look!" ejaculated Leonard. "What does it matter how things look? We both know that we are sorry for having lost her – that we shall miss her more or less every day of our lives – visitors or no visitors. However, you needn't invite any people. I can rub on with a little fishin' and boatin'."

They went back to Mount Royal, where all things had gone as if by clockwork during their absence, under Miss Bridgeman's sage administration. To relieve her loneliness, Christabel had invited two of the younger sisters from Shepherd's Bush to spend the spring months at the Manor House – and these damsels – tall, vigorous, active – had revelled exceedingly in all the luxuries and pleasures of a rural life under the most advantageous circumstances. They had scoured the hills – had rifled the hedges of their abundant wild flowers – had made friends with all Christabel's chosen families in the surrounding cottages – had fallen in love with the curate who was doing duty at Minster and Forrabury – had been buffeted by the winds and tossed by the waves in many a delightful boating excursion – had climbed the rocky steeps of Tintagel so often that they seemed to know every stone of that ruined citadel – and now had gone home to Shepherd's Bush, their cheeks bright with country bloom, and their meagre trunks overshadowed by a gigantic hamper of country produce.

Christabel felt a bitter pang as the carriage drew up to the porch, and she saw the neat little figure in a black gown waiting to receive her – thinking of that tall and noble form which should have stood there – the welcoming arms which should have received her, rewarding and blessing her for her self-sacrifice. The sacrifice had been made, but death had swallowed up the blessing and reward: and in that intermediate land of slumber where the widow lay there could be no knowledge of gain – no satisfaction in the thought of her son's happiness: even granting that Leonard was supremely happy in his marriage, a fact which Christabel deemed open to doubt. No, there had been nothing gained, except that Diana Tregonell's last days had been full of peace – her one cherished hope realized on the very threshold of the tomb. Christabel tried to take comfort from this knowledge.

"If I had denied her to the last, if she had died with her wish ungratified, I think I should be still more sorry for her loss," she told herself.

There was bitter pain in the return to a home where that one familiar figure had been the central point, the very axis of life. Jessie led the new Mrs. Tregonell into the panelled parlour, where every object was arranged just as in the old days; the tea-table on the left of the wide fireplace, the large low armchair and the book-table on the right. The room was bright with white and crimson may, azaleas, tea-roses.

"I thought it was best for you to get accustomed to the rooms without her," said Jessie, in a low voice, as she placed Christabel in the widow's old chair, and helped to take off her hat and mantle, "and I thought you would not like anything changed."

"Not for worlds. The house is a part of her, in my mind. It was she who planned everything as it now is – just adding as many new things as were needful to brighten the old. I will never alter a detail unless I am absolutely obliged."

"I am so thankful to hear you say that. Major Bree is coming to dinner. He wanted to be among the first to welcome you. I hope you don't mind my having told him he might come."

"I shall be very glad to see him: he is a part of my old life here. I hope he is very well."

"Splendid – the soul of activity and good temper. I can't tell you how good he was to my sisters – taking them about everywhere. I believe they both went away deeply in love with him; or at least, with their affections divided between him and Mr. Ponsonby."

Mr. Ponsonby was the curate, a bachelor, and of pleasing appearance.

Leonard had submitted reluctantly to the continued residence of Miss Bridgeman at Mount Royal. He had been for dismissing her, as a natural consequence of his mother's death; but here again Christabel had been firm.

"Jessie is my only intimate friend," she said, "and she is associated with every year of my girlhood. She shall be no trouble to you, Leonard, and she will help me to save your money."

This last argument had a softening effect. Mr. Tregonell knew that Jessie Bridgeman was a good manager. He had affected to despise her economies while it was his mother's purse which was spared; but now that the supplies were drawn from his own resources he was less disposed to be contemptuous of care in the administrator of his household.

Major Bree was in the drawing-room when Christabel came down dressed for dinner, looking delicately lovely in her flowing gown of soft dull black, with white flowers and white crape about her neck. The Major's cheerful presence did much to help Mr. Tregonell and his wife through that first dinner at Mount Royal. He had so many small local events to tell them about, news too insignificant to be recorded in Jessie's letters, but not without interest for Christabel, who loved place and people. Then after dinner he begged his hostess to play, declaring that he had not heard any good music during her absence, and Christabel, who had cultivated her musical talents assiduously in every interval of loneliness and leisure which had occurred in the course of her bridal tour, was delighted to play to a listener who could understand and appreciate the loftiest flights in harmony.

The Major was struck with the improvement in her style. She had always played sweetly, but not with this breadth and power.

"You must have worked very hard in these last few months," he said.

"Yes, I made the best use of every opportunity. I had some lessons from a very clever German professor at Nice. Music kept me from brooding on my loss," she added, in a low voice.

"I hope you will not grow less industrious now you have come home," said the Major. "Most women give Mozart and Beethoven to the winds when they marry, shut up their piano altogether, or at most aspire to play a waltz for their children's dancing."

"I shall not be one of those. Music will be my chief pursuit – now."

The Major felt that although this was a very proper state of things from an artistic point of view, it argued hardly so well for the chances of matrimonial bliss. That need of a pursuit after marriage indicated a certain emptiness in the existence of the wife. A life closed and rounded in the narrow circle of a wedding ring hardly leaves room for the assiduous study of art.

And now began for Christabel a life which seemed to her to be in some wise a piece of mechanism, an automatic performance of daily recurring duties, an hourly submission to society which had no charm for her – a life which would have hung as heavily upon her spirit as the joyless monotony of a convict prison, had it not been for the richness of her own mental resources, and her love of the country in which she lived. She could not be altogether unhappy roaming with her old friend Jessie over those wild romantic hills, or facing the might of that tremendous ocean, grand and somewhat awful even in its calmest aspect. Nor was she unhappy seated in her own snug morning-room among the books she loved – books which were always opening new worlds of thought and wonder, books of such inexhaustible interest that she was often inclined to give way to absolute despair at the idea of how much of this world's wisdom must remain unexplored even at the end of a long life. De Quincey has shown by figures that not the hardest reader can read half the good old books that are worth reading; to say nothing of those new books daily claiming to be read.

No, for a thoroughly intellectual woman, loving music, loving the country, tender and benevolent to the poor, such a life as Christabel was called upon to lead in this first year of marriage could not be altogether unhappy. Here were two people joined by the strongest of all human ties, and yet utterly unsympathetic; but they were not always in each other's company, and when they were together the wife did her best to appear contented with her lot, and to make life agreeable to her husband. She was more punctilious in the performance of every duty she owed him than she would have been had she loved him better. She never forgot that his welfare was a charge which she had taken upon herself to please the kinswoman to whom she owed so much. The debt was all the more sacred since she to whom it was due had passed away to the land where there is no knowledge of earthly conduct.

The glory of summer grew and faded, the everlasting hills changed with all the varying lights and shadows of autumn and winter; and in the tender early spring, when all the trees were budding, and the hawthorn hedges were unfolding crinkly green leaves among the brown, Christabel's heart melted with the new strange emotion of maternal love. A son was born to the lord of the manor; and while all Boscastle rejoiced at this important addition to the population, Christabel's pale face shone with a new radiance, as the baby-face looked up at her from the pillow by her side – eyes clear and star-like, with a dreamy, far-away gaze, which was almost more lovely than the recognizing looks of older eyes – a being hardly sentient of the things of earth, but bright with memories of the spirit world.

The advent of this baby-boy gave a new impulse to Christabel's life. She gave herself up to these new cares and duties with intense devotion; and for the next six months of her life was so entirely engrossed by her child that Leonard considered himself neglected. She deferred her presentation at Court till the next season, and Leonard was compelled to be satisfied with an occasional brief holiday in London, during which he naturally relapsed into the habits of his bachelor days – dined and gamed at the old clubs, and went about everywhere with his friend and ally, Jack Vandeleur.

Christabel had been married two years, and her boy was a year old, when she went back to the old house in Bolton Row with her husband, to enjoy her second season of fashionable pleasures. How hard it was to return, under such altered circumstances, to the rooms in which she had been so happy – to see everything unchanged except her own life. The very chairs and tables seemed to be associated with old joys, old griefs. All the sharp agony of that bitter day on which she had made up her mind to renounce Angus Hamleigh came back to her as she looked round the room in which the pain had been suffered. The flavour of old memories was mixed with all the enjoyments of the present. The music she heard this year was the same music they two had heard together. And here was this smiling Park, all green leaves and sunlight, filled with this seeming frivolous crowd; in almost every detail the scene they two had contemplated, amused and philosophical, four years ago.

The friends who called on her and invited her now, were the same people among whom she had visited during her first season. People who had been enraptured at her engagement to Mr. Hamleigh were equally delighted at her marriage with her cousin, or at least said so; albeit, more than one astute matron drove away from Bolton Row sighing over the folly of marriage between first cousins, and marvelling that Christabel's baby was not deaf, blind, or idiotic.

Among other old acquaintance, young Mrs. Tregonell met the Dowager Lady Cumberbridge, at a great dinner, more Medusa-like than ever, in a curly auburn wig after Madame de Montespan, and a diamond coronet. Christabel shrank from the too-well-remembered figure with a faint shudder; but Lady Cumberbridge swooped upon her like an elderly hawk, when the ladies were on their way back to the drawing-room, and insisted upon being friendly.

"My dear child, where have you been hiding yourself all these years?" she exclaimed, in her fine baritone. "I saw your marriage in the papers, and your poor aunt's death; and I was expecting to meet you and your husband in society last season. You didn't come to town? A baby, I suppose? Just so! Those horrid babies! In the coming century there will be some better arrangement for carrying on the species. How well you are looking, and your husband is positively charming. He sat next me at dinner, and we were friends in a moment. How proud he is of you! It is quite touching to see a man so devoted to his wife; and now" – they were in the subdued light of the drawing-room by this time, light judiciously tempered by ruby-coloured Venetian glass – "now tell me all about my poor friend. Was she long ill?"

And, with a ghoulish interest in horrors, the dowager prepared herself for a detailed narration of Mrs. Tregonell's last illness; but Christabel could only falter out a few brief sentences. Even now she could hardly speak of her aunt without tears; and it was painful to talk of her to this worldly dowager, with keen eyes glittering under penthouse brows, and a hard, eager mouth.

In all that London season, Christabel only once heard her old lover's name, carelessly mentioned at a dinner party. He was talked of as a guest at some diplomatic dinner at St. Petersburg, early in the year.

CHAPTER IX

"AND PALE FROM THE PAST WE DRAW NIGH THEE."

It was October, and the chestnut leaves were falling slowly and heavily in the park at Mount Royal, the oaks upon the hill side were faintly tinged with bronze and gold, while the purple bloom of the heather and the yellow flower of the gorse were seen in rarer patches amidst the sober tints of autumn. It was the time at which to some eyes this Cornish coast was most lovely, with a subdued poetic loveliness – a dreamy beauty touched with tender melancholy.

Mount Royal was delightful at this season. Liberal fires in all the rooms filled the old oak panelled house with a glow of colour, and a sense of ever-present warmth that was very comfortable after the sharpness of October breezes. Those greenhouses and hot-house, which had been for so many years Mrs. Tregonell's perpetual care, now disgorged their choicest contents. Fragile white and yellow asters, fairy-like ferns, Dijon roses, lilies of the valley, stephanotis, mignonette, and Cape jasmine filled the rooms with perfume. Modern blinds of diapered crimson and grey subdued the light of those heavily mullioned windows which had been originally designed with a view to strength and architectural effect, rather than to the admission of the greatest possible amount of daylight. The house at this season of the year seemed made for warmth, so thick the walls, so heavily curtained the windows; just as in the height of summer it seemed made for coolness. Christabel had respected all her aunt's ideas and prejudices: nothing had been changed since Mrs. Tregonell's death – save for that one sad fact that she was gone. The noble matronly figure, the handsome face, the kindly smile were missing from the house where the widow had so long reigned, an imperious but a beneficent mistress – having her own way in all things, but always considerate of other people's happiness and comfort.

Mr. Tregonell was inclined to be angry with his wife sometimes for her religious adherence to her aunt's principles and opinions in things great and small.

"You are given over body and soul to my poor mother's fads," he said. "If it had not been for you I should have turned the house out of windows when she was gone – got rid of all the worm-eaten furniture, broken out new windows, and let in more light. One feels half asleep in a house where there is nothing but shadow and the scent of hot-house flowers. I should have given carte blanche to some London man – the fellow who writes verses, and who invented the storks and sunflower style of decoration – and have let him refurnish the saloon and music-room, pitch out a library which nobody reads, and substitute half a dozen dwarf book-cases in gold and ebony, filled with brightly bound books, and with Japanese jars and bottles on the top of them to give life and colour to the oak panelling. I hate a gloomy house."

"Oh, Leonard, you surely would not call Mount Royal gloomy!"

"But I do: I hate a house that smells of one's ancestors."

"Just now you objected to the scent of the flowers."

"You are always catching me up – there was never such a woman to argue – but I mean what I say. The smell is a combination of stephanotis and old bones. I wish you would let me build you a villa at Torquay or Dartmouth. I think I should prefer Dartmouth: it's a better place for yachting."

"You are very kind, but I would rather live at Mount Royal than anywhere else. Remember I was brought up here."

"A reason for your being heartily sick of the house – as I am. But I suppose in your case there are associations – sentimental associations."

"The house is filled with memories of my second mother!"

"Yes – and there are other memories – associations which you love to nurse and brood upon. I think I know all about it – can read up your feelings to a nicety."

"You can think and say what you please, Leonard," she answered, looking at him with unaltered calmness, "but you will never make me disown my love of this place, and its surroundings. You will never make me ashamed of being fond of the home in which I have spent my life."

"I begin to think there is very little shame in you," Leonard muttered to himself, as he walked away.

He had said many bitter words to his wife – had aimed many a venomed arrow at her breast – but he had never made her blush, and he had never made her cry. There were times when a dull hopeless anger consumed him – anger against her – against Nature – against Fate – and when his only relief was to be found in harsh and bitter speech, in dark and sullen looks. It would have been a greater relief to him if his shots had gone home – if his brutality had elicited any sign of distress. But in this respect Christabel was heroic. She who had never harboured an ungenerous thought was moved only to a cold calm scorn by the unjust and ungenerous conduct of her husband. Her contempt was too thorough for the possibility of resentment. Once, and once only, she attempted to reason with a fool in his folly.

"Why do you make these unkind speeches, Leonard?" she asked, looking at him with those calm eyes before which his were apt to waver and look downward, hardly able to endure that steady gaze. "Why are you always harping upon the past – as if it were an offence against you? Is there anything that you have to complain of in my conduct – have I given you any cause for anger?"

"Oh, no, none. You are simply perfect as a wife – everybody says so – and in the multitude of counsellors, you know. But it is just possible for perfection to be a trifle cold and unapproachable – to keep a man at arm's length – and to have an ever-present air of living in the past which is galling to a husband who would like – well – a little less amiability, and a little more affection. By Heaven, I wouldn't mind my wife being a devil, if I knew she was fond of me. A spitfire, who would kiss me one minute and claw me the next, would be better than the calm superiority which is always looking over my head."

"Leonard, I don't think I have been wanting in affection. You have done a great deal to repel my liking – yes – since you force me to speak plainly – you have made my duty as a wife more difficult than it need have been. But, have I ever forgotten that you are my husband, and the father of my child? Is there any act of my life which has denied or made light of your authority? When you asked me to marry you I kept no secrets from you: I was perfectly frank."

"Devilish frank," muttered Leonard.

"You knew that I could not feel for you as I had felt for another. These things can come only once in a lifetime. You were content to accept my affection – my obedience – knowing this. Why do you make what I told you then a reproach against me now?"

He could not dispute the justice of this reproof.

"Well, Christabel, I was wrong, I suppose. It would have been more gentlemanlike to hold my tongue. I ought to know that your first girlish fancy is a thing of the past – altogether gone and done with. It was idiotic to harp upon that worn-out string, wasn't it?" he asked, laughing awkwardly; "but when a man feels savage he must hit out at some one."

This was the only occasion on which husband and wife had ever spoken plainly of the past; but Leonard let fly those venomed arrows of his on the smallest provocation. He could not forget that his wife had loved another man better than she had ever loved or even pretended to love him. It was her candour which he felt most keenly. Had she been willing to play the hypocrite, to pretend a little, he would have been ever so much better pleased.

To the outside world, even to that narrow world which encircles an old family seat in the depths of the country, Mr. and Mrs. Tregonell appeared a happy couple, whose union was the most natural thing in the world, yet not without a touch of that romance which elevates and idealizes a marriage.

Were they not brought up under the same roof, boy and girl together, like, and yet not like, brother and sister. How inevitable that they must become devotedly attached. That little episode of Christabel's engagement to another man counted for nothing. She was so young – had never questioned her own heart. Her true love was away – and she was flattered by the attention of a man of the world like Angus Hamleigh – and so, and so – almost unawares, perhaps, she allowed herself to be engaged to him, little knowing the real bent of his character and the gulf into which she was about to plunge: for in the neighbourhood of Mount Royal it was believed that a man who had once lived as Mr. Hamleigh had lived was a soul lost for ever, a creature given over to ruin in this world and the next. There was no hopefulness in the local mind for the after career of such an offender.