Charlotte's Inheritance by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (a court of thorns and roses ebook free .TXT) 📕

own views somewhat misrepresented, she felt that an operation which appeared wise in the sight of such a lawyer, standing on such a Turkey hearthrug, commanding such gentlemanly-looking clerks as those who came and went at Mr. Greenwood's bidding, must inevitably be a proceeding at once prudent and proper.

The business of the insurance was not quite so easy as the interview with the lawyer. The doctor to whom Miss Halliday was introduced seemed very well satisfied with that young lady's appearance of health and spirits, but in a subsequent interview with Mr. Sheldon asked several questions, and shook his head gravely when told that her father had died at thirty-seven years of age. But he looked less grave when informed that Mr. Halliday had died of a bilious fever.

"Did Mr. Halliday die in London?" he asked.

"He did."

"I should like--ahem--if it were possible, to see the medical man who attended him. These fevers rarely prove fatal unless there is some predisposing cause."

"In this case there was none."

"You speak rather confidently, Mr. Sheldon, as a non-professional man."

"I speak with a certain amount of professional knowledge. I knew Tom Halliday for many years."

Mr. Sheldon forebore to state that Tom Halliday had died in his house, and had been attended by him. It is, perhaps, only natural that Philip Sheldon, the stockbroker of repute, should wish to escape identification with Philip Sheldon, the unsuccessful dentist of Bloomsbury.

After a little more conversational skirmishing, the confidential physician of the Prudential Step Assurance Company agreed to consider that Mr. Halliday's constitution had been in no manner compromised by his early death, and to pass Charlotte's life. The motives for effecting the insurance were briefly touched upon in Mr. Greenwood's letter of introduction, and appeared very proper and feasible in the eyes of the directors; so, after a delay of a few days, the young lady found herself accepted, and Mr. Sheldon put away among his more important papers a large oblong envelope, containing a policy of assurance on his stepdaughter's life for five thousand pounds. He did not, however, stop here, but made assurance doubly sure by effecting a second insurance upon the same young life with the Widow's and Orphan's Hope Society, within a few days of the first transaction.



Book the Sixth.


DIANA IN NORMANDY.

CHAPTER I.


AT CÔTENOIR.

Beaubocage, near Vevinord, March 15, 186--.

My darling Lotta,--As you extorted from me a solemn pledge that I would write you a full and detailed account of my adventures, I seat myself in Mademoiselle Lenoble's pretty little turret-chamber, in the hope of completing the first instalment of my work before papa or Gustave summons me to prepare for a drive and visit to the Convent of the Sacred Heart, which, I believe, has been planned for to-day.

What am I to tell you, dear, and how shall I begin my story? Let me fancy myself sitting at your feet before your bedroom fire, and you looking down at me with that pretty inquisitive look in your dear grey eyes. Do you know that M. Lenoble's eyes are almost the colour of yours, Lotta? You asked me a dozen questions about his eyes the other day, and I could give you no clear description of them; but yesterday, as he stood at the window looking out across the garden, I saw their real colour. It is grey, a deep clear grey, and his lashes are dark, like yours. How shall I begin? That is the grand difficulty! I suppose you will want to know something even about the journey. Everything was very pleasant, in spite of the cold blusterous March weather. Do you know what my last journey was like, Lotta? It was the long dreary journey from Forêtdechêne to St. Katharine's Wharf, when Mr. Hawkehurst advised and arranged my return to England. I had been sitting quite alone in a balcony overlooking the little town. It was after midnight, but the lights were still burning: I can see the lamplit windows shining through the night mist as I write this, end the sense of the hopeless misery of that time comes back to me like the breath of some freezing wind. I can find no words to tell you how desolate I was that night, or how hopeless.

I dared not think of my future life; or of the next day, that was to be the beginning of that hopeless future. I was obliged to bind my thoughts to the present and all its dreariness; and a kind of dull apathetic feeling, which was too dull for despair, took possession of me that night. While I was sitting there Mr. Hawkehurst came to me, and told me that my father had become involved in a quarrel, under circumstances of a very shameful nature, which I need not tell you, darling. He recommended me to leave Forêtdechêne--indeed, almost insisted that I should do so. He wanted to rescue me from that miserable life. Your lover had noble and generous impulses even then, you see, dear; at his worst he was not all bad, and needed only your gentle influence to purify and elevate his character. He gave me all the money he possessed to pay the expenses of my journey. Ah, what a dreary journey! I left Forêtdechêne in the chill daybreak, and travelled third class, with dreadful Belgians who smelt of garlic, to Antwerp. I slept at a very humble inn near the quay, and started for England by the Baron Osy at noon next day. I cannot tell you how lonely I felt on board the steamer. I had travelled uncomfortably before, but never without my father and Valentine--and he had been always kind to me. If we were shabbily dressed, and people thought ill of us, I did not care. The spirit of Bohemianism must have been very strong with me in those days. I remembered how we had sat together on the same boat watching the sleepy shores of Holland, or making fun of our respectable fellow-passengers. Now I was quite alone. People stared at me rudely and unkindly, as I thought. I could not afford to dine or breakfast with the rest; and I was weak enough to feel wounded by the idea that people would guess my motive for shunning the savoury banquets that sent up such horrid odours to the deck where I sat, trying to read a tattered Tauchnitz novel. And the end of my journey? Ah, Charlotte, you can never imagine what it is to travel like that, without knowing whether there is any haven, any shelter for you at the end of your wanderings! I knew that at a certain hour we were to arrive at St. Katharine's Dock, but beyond that I knew nothing. I counted my money. There was just enough to pay for a cab that would carry me to Hyde Lodge. I should land there penniless. And what if my cousin Priscilla should refuse to receive me? For a moment I fancied even that possible; and I pictured myself walking about London, hungry and homeless.

This was my last journey. I have dwelt upon it longer than I need have done; but I want you to understand what it is that makes Gustave Lenoble dear to me. If you could feel the contrast between the past and the present as I felt it when I stood on the deck of the Dover packet with him by my side, you would know why I love him, and am grateful to him. We stood side by side, watching the waves and talking of our future, while my father enjoyed a nap in one of the little deck cabins. To Gustave that future seems very bright and clear; to me it seems unutterably strange that the future _can_ be anything but a dismal _terra incognita_, from the contemplation of which it is wise to refrain.

Papa stays with Gustave at Côtenoir; but it had been arranged for me to visit Mademoiselle Lenoble, Gustave's aunt, at Beaubocage, and to remain with her during my stay in Normandy. I at once understood the delicate feeling which prompted this arrangement. We dined at Rouen, and came to Vevinord in a coach. At Vevinord a queer little countrified vehicle met us, with a very old man, of the farm-servant class, as coachman. Gustave took the reins from the old man's hand and drove to Beaubocage, where Mademoiselle Lenoble received me with much cordiality. She is a dear old lady, with silvery bands of hair neatly arranged under the prettiest of caps. Her gown is black silk, and her collar and cuffs of snowy whiteness; everything about her exquisitely neat, and of the fashion of twenty, or perhaps thirty, years ago.

And now, I suppose, you will want to know what Beaubocage is like. Well, dear, much as I admire Mademoiselle Lenoble, I must confess that her ancestral mansion is neither grand nor pretty. It might have made a very tolerable farmhouse, but has been spoiled by the architect's determination to make it a château. It is a square white building, with two pepper-castor-like turrets, in one of which I write this letter. Between the garden and the high road there is a wall, surmounted with plaster vases. The garden is for the greater part utilitarian; but in front of the salon windows there is a grassplot, bordered by stiff gravel-walks, and relieved by a couple of flower-beds. A row of tall poplars alone screens the house from the dusty high road. At the back of it there is an orchard; on one side a farmyard; behind the orchard lie the fields that compose the farm of Beaubocage and the paternal estate of the Lenoble family. All around the country is very flat. The people seem to be kind and simple, and devotedly attached to "Mademoiselle." There is a rustic peacefulness pervading everything which, for me, stands instead of beauty.

I am hypocrite enough to pretend to be pleased with everything, for I can perceive how anxiously M. Lenoble watches me in order to discover whether I like his native country. He was not born at Beaubocage, but in Paris. Mademoiselle Lenoble told me the story of his childhood, and how she brought him to Beaubocage, when quite a little fellow, from Rouen, where his father died. About his mother there seems to have been some mystery. Mademoiselle told me nothing of this, except that her brother, Gustave the elder, made a love-match, and thereby offended his father. She has the little crib in which her nephew, Gustave the younger, slept on the night of his coming. It had been his father's little bed thirty years before. She shed tears as she told me the story, and how she sat and watched by the little fellow as he cried himself to sleep with his head lying on her arm, and the summer moonlight shining full upon his face.

I was deeply touched by her manner as she told me these things; and I think, if I had not already learned to love M. Lenoble, I should love him for the sake of his aunt. She is charming; a creature so innocent and pure, that one considers one's words in speaking to her, almost as if she were a child. She is about forty years older than I; yet for worlds I would not tell her of the people and the scenes I have beheld at foreign watering-places and gambling-rooms. She has spent the sixty years of her life so completely out of the world, that she has retained the freshness and sweetness of her youth untainted in the least degree. Can there be magical philtre equal to this--a pure unselfish life, far away