"Then why can"t you say something? I want a man"s opinion of our prospects. Good gracious, how you fidget! Put yourself in Romayne"s place, and tell me this. If _you_ had left Stella--"
"I should never have left her, Mrs. Eyrecourt."
"Be quiet. You don"t know what you would have done. I insist on your supposing yourself to be a weak, superst.i.tious, conceited, fanatical fool. You understand? Now, tell me, then. Could you keep away from your wife, when you were called back to her in the name of your firstborn child? Could you resist that?"
"Most a.s.suredly not!"
I contrived to reply with an appearance of tranquillity. It was not very easy to speak with composure. Envious, selfish, contemptible--no language is too strong to describe the turn my thoughts now took. I never hated any human being as I hated Romayne at that moment. "d.a.m.n him, he will come back!" There was my inmost feeling expressed in words.
In the meantime, Mrs. Eyrecourt was satisfied. She dashed at the next subject as fluent and as confident as ever.
"Now, Winterfield, it is surely plain to your mind that you must not see Stella again--except when I am present to tie the tongue of scandal. My daughter"s conduct must not allow her husband--if you only knew how I detest that man!--must not, I say, allow her husband the slightest excuse for keeping away from her. If we give that odious old Jesuit the chance, he will make a priest of Romayne before we know where we are.
The audacity of these Papists is really beyond belief. You remember how they made Bishops and Archbishops here, in flat defiance of our laws? Father Benwell follows that example, and sets our other laws at defiance--I mean our marriage laws. I am so indignant I can"t express myself as clearly as usual. Did Stella tell you that he actually shook Romayne"s belief in his own marriage? Ah, I understand--she kept that to herself, poor dear, and with good reason, too."
I thought of the turned-down page in the letter. Mrs. Eyrecourt readily revealed what her daughter"s delicacy had forbidden me to read--including the monstrous a.s.sumption which connected my marriage before the registrar with her son-in-law"s scruples.
"Yes," she proceeded, "these Catholics are all alike. My daughter--I don"t mean my sweet Stella; I mean the unnatural creature in the nunnery--sets herself above her own mother. Did I ever tell you she was impudent enough to say she would pray for me? Father Benwell and the Papal Aggression over again! Now tell me, Winterfield, don"t you think, taking the circ.u.mstances into consideration--that you will act like a thoroughly sensible man if you go back to Devonshire while we are in our present situation? What with foot-warmers in the carriage, and newspapers and magazines to amuse you, it isn"t such a very long journey. And then Beaupark--dear Beaupark--is such a remarkably comfortable house in the winter; and you, you enviable creature, are such a popular man in the neighborhood. Oh, go back! go back!"
I got up and took my hat. She patted me on the shoulder. I could have throttled her at that moment. And yet she was right.
"You will make my excuses to Stella?" I said.
"You dear, good fellow, I will do more than make your excuses; I will sing your praises--as the poet says." In her ungovernable exultation at having got rid of me, she burst into extravagant language. "I feel like a mother to you," she went on, as we shook hands at parting. "I declare I could almost let you kiss me."
There was not a single kissable place about Mrs. Eyrecourt, unpainted, undyed, or unpowdered. I resisted temptation and opened the door. There was still one last request that I could not help making.
"Will you let me know," I said, "when you hear from Rome?"
"With the greatest pleasure," Mrs. Eyrecourt answered, briskly.
"Good-by, you best of friends--good-by."
I write these lines while the servant is packing my portmanteau.
Traveler knows what that means. My dog is glad, at any rate, to get away from London. I think I shall hire a yacht, and try what a voyage round the world will do for me. I wish to G.o.d I had never seen Stella!
Second Extract.
Beaupark, February 10.--News at last from Mrs. Eyrecourt.
Romayne has not even read the letter that she addressed to him--it has actually been returned to her by Father Benwell. Mrs. Eyrecourt writes, naturally enough, in a state of fury. Her one consolation, under this insulting treatment, is that her daughter knows nothing of the circ.u.mstances. She warns me (quite needlessly) to keep the secret--and sends me a copy of Father Benwell"s letter:
"Dear Madam--Mr. Romayne can read nothing that diverts his attention from his preparation for the priesthood, or that recalls past a.s.sociations with errors which he has renounced forever. When a letter reaches him, it is his wise custom to look at the signature first.
He has handed your letter to me, _unread_--with a request that I will return it to you. In his presence, I instantly sealed it up. Neither he nor I know, or wish to know, on what subject you have addressed him. We respectfully advise you not to write again."
This is really too bad; but it has one advantage, so far as I am concerned. It sets my own unworthy doubts and jealousies before me in a baser light than ever. How honestly I defended Father Benwell! and how completely he has deceived me! I wonder whether I shall live long enough to see the Jesuit caught in one of his own traps?
11th.--I was disappointed at not hearing from Stella, yesterday. This morning has made amends; it has brought me a letter from her.
She is not well; and her mother"s conduct sadly perplexes her. At one time, Mrs. Eyrecourt"s sense of injury urges her to indulge in violent measures--she is eager to place her deserted daughter under the protection of the law; to insist on a rest.i.tution of conjugal rights or on a judicial separation. At another time she sinks into a state of abject depression; declares that it is impossible for her, in Stella"s deplorable situation, to face society; and recommends immediate retirement to some place on the Continent in which they can live cheaply. This latter suggestion Stella is not only ready, but eager, to adopt. She proves it by asking for my advice, in a postscript; no doubt remembering the happy days when I courted her in Paris, and the many foreign friends of mine who called at our hotel.
The postscript gave me the excuse that I wanted. I knew perfectly well that it would be better for me not to see her--and I went to London, for the sole purpose of seeing her, by the first train.
London, February 12.--I found mother and daughter together in the drawing-room. It was one of Mrs. Eyrecourt"s days of depression. Her little twinkling eyes tried to cast on me a look of tragic reproach; she shook her dyed head and said, "Oh. Winterfield, I didn"t think you would have done this!--Stella, fetch me my smelling bottle."
But Stella refused to take the hint. She almost brought the tears into my eyes, she received me so kindly. If her mother had not been in the room--but her mother _was_ in the room; I had no other choice than to enter on my business, as if I had been the family lawyer.
Mrs. Eyrecourt began by reproving Stella for asking my advice, and then a.s.sured me that she had no intention of leaving London. "How am I to get rid of my house?" she asked, irritably enough. I knew that "her house"
(as she called it) was the furnished upper part of a house belonging to another person, and that she could leave it at a short notice. But I said nothing. I addressed myself to Stella.
"I have been thinking of two or three places which you might like," I went on. "The nearest place belongs to an old French gentleman and his wife. They have no children, and they don"t let lodgings; but I believe they would be glad to receive friends of mine, if their spare rooms are not already occupied. They live at St. Germain--close to Paris."
I looked at Mrs. Eyrecourt as I said those last words--I was as sly as Father Benwell himself. Paris justified my confidence: the temptation was too much for her. She not only gave way, but actually mentioned the amount of rent which she could afford to pay. Stella whispered her thanks to me as I went out. "My name is not mentioned, but my misfortune is alluded to in the newspapers," she said. "Well-meaning friends are calling and condoling with me already. I shall die, if you don"t help me to get away among strangers!"
I start for Paris by the mail train, to-night.
Paris, February 13.--It is evening. I have just returned from St.
Germain. Everything is settled--with more slyness on my part. I begin to think I am a born Jesuit; there must have been some detestable sympathy between Father Benwell and me.
My good friends, Monsieur and Madame Villeray, will be only too glad to receive English ladies, known to me for many years. The s.p.a.cious and handsome first floor of their house (inherited from once wealthy ancestors by Madame Villeray) can be got ready to receive Mrs. Eyrecourt and her daughter in a week"s time. Our one difficulty related to the question of money. Monsieur Villeray, living on a Government pension, was modestly unwilling to ask terms; and I was too absolutely ignorant of the subject to be of the slightest a.s.sistance to him. It ended in our appealing to a house-agent at St. Germain. His estimate appeared to me to be quite reasonable. But it exceeded the pecuniary limit mentioned by Mrs. Eyrecourt. I had known the Villerays long enough to be in no danger of offending them by proposing a secret arrangement which permitted me to pay the difference. So that difficulty was got over in due course of time.
We went into the large garden at the back of the house, and there I committed another act of duplicity.
In a nice sheltered corner I discovered one of those essentially French buildings called a "pavilion," a delightful little toy house of three rooms. Another private arrangement made me the tenant of this place.
Madame Villeray smiled. "I bet you," she said to me in her very best English, "one of these ladies is in her fascinating first youth." The good lady little knows what a hopeless love affair mine is. I must see Stella sometimes--I ask, and hope for, no more. Never have I felt how lonely my life is, as I feel it now.
Third Extract.
London, March 1.--Stella and her mother have set forth on their journey to St. Germain this morning, without allowing me, as I had hoped and planned, to be their escort.
Mrs. Eyrecourt set up the old objection of the claims of propriety. If that were the only obstacle in my way, I should have set it aside by following them to France. Where is the impropriety of my seeing Stella, as her friend and brother--especially when I don"t live in the same house with her, and when she has her mother, on one side, and Madame Villeray, on the other, to take care of her?
No! the influence that keeps me away from St. Germain is the influence of Stella herself.
"I will write to you often," she said; "but I beg you, for my sake, not to accompany us to France." Her look and tone reduced me to obedience.
Stupid as I am I think (after what pa.s.sed between me and her mother) I can guess what she meant.
"Am I never to see you again?" I asked.
"Do you think I am hard and ungrateful?" she answered. "Do you doubt that I shall be glad, more than glad, to see you, when--?"
She turned away from me and said no more.
It was time to take leave. We were under her mother"s superintendence; we shook hands and that was all.
Matilda (Mrs. Eyrecourt"s maid) followed me downstairs to open the door.
I suppose I looked, as I felt, wretchedly enough. The good creature tried to cheer me. "Don"t be anxious about them," she said; "I am used to traveling, sir--and I"ll take care of them." She is a woman to be thoroughly depended on, a faithful and attached servant. I made her a little present at parting, and I asked her if she would write to me from time to time.
Some people might consider this to be rather an undignified proceeding on my part. I can only say it came naturally to me. I am not a dignified man; and, when a person means kindly toward me, I don"t ask myself whether that person is higher or lower, richer or poorer, than I am.
We are, to my mind, on the same level when the same sympathy unites us.
Matilda was sufficiently acquainted with all that had pa.s.sed to foresee, as I did, that there would be certain reservations in Stella"s letters to me. "You shall have the whole truth from Me, sir, don"t doubt it,"