I took it up with fingers that shook in spite of me and read:--
MADLLE DE SAINTE AULAIRE.
I dropped the card, with a sigh of profound disappointment.
"At what time did this lady call, Collins?"
"Not very long after you left the house, sir. She said she would call again. She is at the White Horse."
"She shall not have the trouble of coming here," I said, drawing my chair to the table. "Send James up to the White Horse with my compliments, and say that I will wait upon the lady in about an hour"s time."
Collins darted away to despatch the message, and returning presently with the pale ale, uncorked it dexterously, and stood at the side-board, serenely indifferent.
"And what kind of person was this--this Mademoiselle de Sainte Aulaire, Collins?" I asked, leisurely bisecting a partridge.
"Can"t say, sir, indeed. Lady kept her veil down."
"Humph! Tall or short, Collins?"
"Rather tall, sir."
"Young?"
"Haven"t an idea, sir. Voice very pleasant, though."
A pleasant voice has always a certain attraction for me. Hortense"s voice was exquisite--rich and low, and somewhat deeper than the voices of most women.
I took up the card again. Mademoiselle de Sainte Aulaire! Where had I heard that name?
"She said nothing of the nature of her business, I suppose, Collins?"
"Nothing at all, sir. Dear me, sir, I beg pardon for not mentioning it before; but there"s been a messenger over from the White Horse, since the lady left, to know if you were yet home."
"Then she is in haste?"
"Very uncommon haste, I should say, sir," replied Collins, deliberately.
I pushed back the untasted dish, and rose directly.
"You should have told me this before," I said, hastily.
"But--but surely, sir, you will dine--"
"I will wait for nothing," I interrupted. "I"ll go at once. Had I known the lady"s business was urgent, I would not have delayed a moment."
Collins cast a mournful glance at the table, and sighed respect fully.
Before he had recovered from his amazement, I was half way to the inn.
The White Horse was now the leading hostelry of Saxonholme. The old Red Lion was no more. Its former host and hostess were dead; a brewery occupied its site; and the White Horse was kept by a portly Boniface, who had been head-waiter under the extinct dynasty. But there had been many changes in Saxonholme since my boyish days, and this was one of the least among them.
I was shown into the best sitting-room, preceded by a smart waiter in a white neckcloth. At a glance I took in all the bearings of the scene--the table with its untasted dessert; the shaded lamp; the closed curtains of red damask; the thoughtful figure in the easy chair.
Although the weather was yet warm, a fire blazed in the grate; but the windows were open behind the crimson curtains, and the evening air stole gently in. It was like stepping into a picture by Gerard Dow, so closed, so glowing, so rich in color.
"Mr. Arbuthnot," said the smart waiter, flinging the door very wide open, and lingering to see what might follow.
The lady rose slowly, bowed, waved her hand towards a chair at some distance from her own, and resumed her seat. The waiter reluctantly left the room.
"I had not intended, sir, to give you the trouble of coming here," said Mademoiselle de Sainte Aulaire, using her fan as a handscreen, and speaking in a low, and, as it seemed to me, a somewhat constrained voice. I could not see her face, but something in the accent made my heart leap.
"Pray do not name it, madam," I said. "It is nothing."
She bent her head, as if thanking me, and went on:--
"I have come to this place," she said, "in order to prosecute certain inquiries which are of great importance to myself. May I ask if you are a native of Saxonholme?"
"I am."
"Were you here in the year 18--?"
"I was."
"Will you give me leave to test your memory respecting some events that took place about that time?"
"By all means."
Mademoiselle de Sainte Aulaire thanked me with a gesture, withdrew her chair still farther from the radius of the lamp and the tire, and said:--
"I must entreat your patience if I first weary you with one or two particulars of my family history,"
"Madam, I listen."
During the brief pause that ensued, I tried vainly to distinguish something more of her features. I could only trace the outline of a slight and graceful figure, the contour of a very slender hand, and the ample folds of a dark silk dress.
At length, in a low, sweet voice, she began:--
"Not to impose upon you any dull genealogical details," she said, "I will begin by telling you that the Sainte Aulaires are an ancient French family of Bearnais extraction, and that my grandfather was the last Marquis who bore the t.i.tle. Holding large possessions in the _comtat_ of Venaissin (a district which now forms part of the department of Vaucluse) and other demesnes at Montlhery, in the province of the Ile de France---"
"At Montlhery!" I exclaimed, suddenly recovering the lost link in my memory.
"The Sainte Aulaires," continued the lady, without pausing to notice my interruption, "were sufficiently wealthy to keep up their social position, and to contract alliances with many of the best families in the south of France. Towards the early part of the reign of Louis XIII.
they began to be conspicuous at court, and continued to reside in and near Paris up to the period of the Revolution. Marshals of France, Envoys, and Ministers of State during a period of nearly a century and a half, the Sainte Aulaires had enjoyed too many honors not to be among the first of those who fell in the Reign of Terror. My grandfather, who, as I have already said, was the last Marquis bearing the t.i.tle, was seized with his wife and daughter at his Chateau near Montlhery in the spring-time of 1793, and carried to La Force. Thence, after a mock trial, they were all three conveyed to execution, and publicly guillotined on the sixth of June in the same year. Do you follow me?"
"Perfectly."
"One survivor, however, remained in the person of Charles Armand, Prevot de Sainte Aulaire, only son of the Marquis, then a youth of seventeen years of age, and pursuing his studies in the seclusion of an old family seat in Vaucluse. He fled into Italy. In the meantime, his inheritance was confiscated; and the last representative of the race, reduced to exile and beggary, a.s.sumed another name. It were idle to attempt to map out his life through the years that followed. He wandered from land to land; lived none knew how; became a tutor, a miniature-painter, a volunteer at Naples under General Pepe, a teacher of languages in London, corrector of the press to a publishing house in Brussels--everything or anything, in short, by which he could honorably earn his bread. During these years of toil and poverty, he married. The lady was an orphan, of Scotch extraction, poor and proud as himself, and governess in a school near Brussels. She died in the third year of their union, and left him with one little daughter. This child became henceforth his only care and happiness. While she was yet a mere infant, he placed her in the school where her mother had been teacher. There she remained, first as pupil, by-and-by as governess, for more than sixteen years. The child was called by an old family name that had been her grandmother"s and her great-grandmother"s in the high and palmy days of the Sainte Aulaires--Hortense."
"Hortense!" I cried, rising from my chair.
"It is not an uncommon name," said the lady. "Does it surprise you?"