Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon

by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

  Christabel’s pale calm face showed no sign of the mental strain of the last twenty-four hours. There was such a relief in having done with the false life which she had been leading in the past month; such an infinite comfort in being able to fall back into her old self; such an unspeakable relief, too, in the sense of having saved herself on the very brink of the black gulf of sin, that it was almost as if peace and gladness had returned to her soul. Once again she had sought for comfort at the one Divine source of consolation; once more she had dared to pray; and this tardy resumption of the old sweet habit of girlhood seemed like a return to some dear home from which she had been long banished. Even those who knew so little of her real character were able to see the change in her countenance.

  “What a lovely expression Mrs. Tregonell has to-day!” murmured Mr. Faddie to his neighbour, Mrs. St. Aubyn, tenderly replenishing her hock glass, as a polite preliminary to filling his own. “So soft; so Madonna-like!”

  “I suppose she is rather sorry for having driven away her husband,” said Mrs. St. Aubyn, severely. “That has sobered her.”

  “There are depths in the human soul which only the confessor can sound,” answered Mr. Faddie, who would not be betrayed into saying anything uncivil about his hostess. “Would that she might be led to pour her griefs into an ear attuned to every note in the diapason of sorrow.”

  “I don’t approve of confession, and I never shall bring myself to like it,” said Mrs. St. Aubyn, sturdily. “It is un-English!”

  “But your Rubric, dear lady. Surely you stand by your Rubric?”

  “If you mean the small print paragraphs in my prayer book, I never read ‘em,” answered the Squire’s wife, bluntly. “I hope I know my way through the Church Service without any help of that kind.”

  Mr. Faddie sighed at this Bœotian ignorance, and went on with his luncheon. It might be long before he partook of so gracious a meal. A woman whose Church views were so barbarous as those of Mrs. St. Aubyn, might keep a table of primitive coarseness. A Squire Westernish kind of fare might await him in the St. Aubyn mansion.

  An hour later, he pressed Christabel’s hand tenderly as he bade her good-bye. “A thousand thanks for your sweet hospitality,” he murmured, gently. “This visit has been most precious to me. It has been a privilege to be brought nearer the lives of those blessed martyrs, Saint Sergius and Saint Bacchus; to renew my acquaintance with dear Saint Mertheriana, whose life I only dimly remembered; to kneel at the rustic shrines of Saint Ulette and Saint Piran. It has been a period of mental growth, the memory of which I shall ever value.”

  And then, with a grave uplifting of two fingers, and a blessing on the house, Mr. Faddie went off to his place beside Clara St. Aubyn, on the back seat of the landau which was to convey the departing guests to the Bodmin Road Station, a two-hours’ drive through the brisk autumn air.

  And thus, like the shadowy figures in a dissolving view, Christabel’s guests melted away, and she and Jessie Bridgeman stood alone in the grand old hall which had been of late so perverted from its old sober air and quiet domestic uses. Her first act as the carriage drove away was to fling one of the casements wide open.

  “Open the other windows, Jessie,” she said impetuously; “all of them.”

  “Do you know that the wind is in the east?”

  “I know that it is pure and sweet, the breath of Heaven blowing over hill and sea, and that it is sweeping away the tainted atmosphere of the last month, the poison of scandal, and slang, and cigarettes, and billiard-marker talk, and all that is most unlovely in life. Oh, Jessie, thank God you and I are alone together, and the play is played out.”

  “Did you see your husband to-day before he left?

  “No. Why should we meet any more? What can we two have to say to each other?”

  “Then he left his home without a word from you,” said Jessie, with a shade of wonder.

  “His home,” repeated Christabel; “the home in which his poor mother thought it would be my lot to make his life good and happy. If she could know — but no — thank God the dead are at peace. No, Jessie, he did not go without one word from me. I wrote a few lines of farewell. I told him I had prayed to my God for power to pity and forgive him, and that pity and pardon had come to me. I implored him to make his future life one long atonement for that fatal act last year. I who had sinned so deeply had no right to take a high tone. I spoke to him as a sinner to a sinner.”

  “I hope he does repent — that he will atone,” said Miss Bridgeman, gloomily. “His life is in his own keeping. Thank God that you and I are rid of him, and can live the rest of our days in peace.”

  Very quietly flows the stream of life at Mount Royal now that these feverish scenes have passed into the shadow of the days that are no more. Christabel devotes herself to the rearing of her boy, lives for him, thinks for him, finds joy in his boyish pleasures, grieves for his boyish griefs, teaches him, walks with him, rides with him, watches and nurses him in every childish illness, and wonders that her life is so full of peace and sunshine. The memory of a sorrowful past can never cease to be a part of her life. All those scenes she loves best in this world, the familiar places amidst which her quiet days are spent, are haunted by one mournful shadow; but she loves the hills and the sea-shore only the dearer for that spiritual presence, which follows her in the noontide and the gloaming, for ever reminding her, amidst the simple joys of the life she knows, of that unknown life where the veil shall be lifted, and the lost shall be found.

  Major Bree is her devoted friend and adviser, idolizes the boy, and just manages to prevent his manliness deteriorating under the pressure of womanly indulgence and womanly fears. Jessie has refused that faithful admirer a second time, but Christabel has an idea that he means to tempt his fate again, and in the end must prevail, by sheer force of goodness and fidelity.

  Kneeling by Angus Hamleigh’s grave, little Leo hears from his mother’s lips how the dead man loved him, and bequeathed his fortune to him. The mother endeavours to explain in simplest, clearest words how the wealth so entrusted to him should be a sacred charge, never to be turned to evil uses or squandered in self-indulgence.

  “You will try to do good when you are a man, won’t you, Leo?” she asks, smiling down at the bright young face, which shines like a sunbeam in its childish gladness.

  “Yes,” he answers confidently. “I’ll give Uncle Jakes tobacco.”

  This is his widest idea of benevolence at the present stage of his developement.

  THE END

  PHANTOM FORTUNE

  This novel was published in 1883. It is another sensation narrative involving a family secret, but also tackles the theme of the brutalities of British imperialism in India.

  A ‘yellowback’ edition of the novel

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER I.

  CHAPTER II.

  CHAPTER III.

  CHAPTER IV.

  CHAPTER V.

  CHAPTER VI.

  CHAPTER VII.

  CHAPTER VIII.

  CHAPTER IX.

  CHAPTER X.

  CHAPTER XI.

  CHAPTER XII.

  CHAPTER XIII.

  CHAPTER XIV.

  CHAPTER XV.

  CHAPTER XVI.

  CHAPTER XVII.

  CHAPTER XVIII.

  CHAPTER XIX.

  CHAPTER XX.

  CHAPTER XXI.

  CHAPTER XXII.

  CHAPTER XXIII.

  CHAPTER XXIV.

  CHAPTER XXV.

  CHAPTER XXVI.

  CHAPTER XXVII.

  CHAPTER XXVIII.

  CHAPTER XXIX.

  CHAPTER XXX.

  CHAPTER XXXI.

  CHAPTER XXXII.

  CHAPTER XXXIII.

  CHAPTER XXXIV.

  CHAPTER XXXV.

  CHAPTER XXXVI.

  CHAPTER XXXVII.

  CHAPTER XXXVIII.

  CHAPTER XXXIX.

  CHAPTER XL.

  CHAPTER XLI.

 
CHAPTER XLII.

  CHAPTER XLIII.

  CHAPTER XLIV.

  CHAPTER XLV.

  CHAPTER XLVI.

  CHAPTER I.

  PENELOPE.

  People dined earlier forty years ago than they do now. Even that salt of the earth, the elect of society, represented by that little great world which lies between the narrow circle bounded by Bryanstone Square on the north and by Birdcage Walk on the south, did not consider seven o’clock too early an hour for a dinner party which was to be followed by routs, drums, concerts, conversazione, as the case might be. It was seven o’clock on a lovely June evening, and the Park was already deserted, and carriages were rolling swiftly along all the Westend squares, carrying rank, fashion, wealth, and beauty, political influence, and intellectual power, to the particular circle in which each was destined to illumine upon that particular evening.

  Stateliest among London squares, Grosvenor — in some wise a wonder to the universe as newly lighted with gas — grave Grosvenor, with its heavy old Georgian houses and pompous porticoes, sparkled and shone, not alone with the novel splendour of gas, but with the light of many wax candles, clustering flower-like in silver branches and girandoles, multiplying their flame in numerous mirrors; and of all the houses in that stately square none had a more imposing aspect than Lord Denyer’s dark red brick mansion, with stone dressings, and the massive grandeur of an Egyptian mausoleum.

  Lord Denyer was an important personage in the political and diplomatic world. He had been ambassador at Constantinople and at Paris, and had now retired on his laurels, an influence still, but no longer an active power in the machine of government. At his house gathered all that was most brilliant in London society. To be seen at Lady Denyer’s evening parties was the guinea stamp of social distinction; to dine with Lord Denyer was an opening in life, almost as valuable as University honours, and more difficult of attainment.

  It was during the quarter of an hour before dinner that a group of persons, mostly personages, congregated round Lord Denyer’s chimney-piece, naturally trending towards the social hearth, albeit it was the season for roses and lilies rather than of fires, and the hum of the city was floating in upon the breath of the warm June evening through the five tall windows which opened upon Lord Denyer’s balcony.

  The ten or twelve persons assembled seemed only a sprinkling in the large lofty room, furnished sparsely with amber satin sofas, a pair of Florentine marble tables, and half an acre or so of looking glass. Voluminous amber draperies shrouded the windows, and deadened the sound of rolling wheels, and the voices and footfalls of western London. The drawing rooms of those days were neither artistic nor picturesque — neither Early English nor Low Dutch, nor Renaissance, nor Anglo-Japanese. A stately commonplace distinguished the reception rooms of the great world. Upholstery stagnated at a dead level of fluted legs, gilding, plate glass, and amber satin.

  Lady Denyer stood a little way in advance of the group on the hearthrug, fanning herself, with her eye on the door, while she listened languidly to the remarks of a youthful diplomatist, a sprig of a lordly tree, upon the last début at Her Majesty’s Theatre.

  ‘My own idea was that she screamed,’ said her ladyship. ‘But the new Rosinas generally do scream. Why do we have a new Rosina every year, whom nobody ever hears of afterwards? What becomes of them? Do they die, or do they set up as singing mistresses in second-rate watering-places?’ hazarded her ladyship, with her eye always on the door.

  She was a large woman in amethyst satin, and a gauze turban with a diamond aigrette, a splendid jewel, which would not have misbeseemed the head-gear of an Indian prince. Lady Denyer was one of the last women who wore a turban, and that Oriental head-dress became her bold and massive features.

  Infinitely bored by the whiskerless attaché, who had entered upon a disquisition on the genius of Rossini as compared with this new man Meyerbeer, her ladyship made believe to hear, while she listened intently to the confidential murmurs of the group on the hearthrug, the little knot of personages clustered round Lord Denyer. ‘Indian mail in this morning,’ said one—’nothing else talked of at the club. Very flagrant case! A good deal worse than Warren Hastings. Quite clear there must be a public inquiry — House of Lords — criminal prosecution.’

  ‘I was told on very good authority, that he has been recalled, and is now on his passage home,’ said another man.

  Lord Denyer shrugged his shoulders, pursed up his lips, and looked ineffably wise, a way he had when he knew very little about the subject under discussion.

  ‘How will she take it, do you think?’ inquired Colonel Madison, of the Life Guards, a man about town, and an inveterate gossip, who knew everybody, and everybody’s family history, down to the peccadilloes of people’s great grandmothers.

  ‘You will have an opportunity of judging,’ replied his lordship, coolly. ‘She’s to be here this evening.’

  ‘But do you think she’ll show?’ asked the Colonel. ‘The mail must have brought the news to her, as well as to other people — supposing she knew nothing about it beforehand. She must know that the storm has burst. Do you think she’ll — —’

  ‘Come out in the thunder and lightning?’ interrupted Lord Denver; ‘I’m sure she will. She has the pride of Lucifer and the courage of a lion. Five to one in ponies that she is here before the clock strikes seven!’

  ‘I think you are right. I knew her mother, Constance Talmash. Pluck was a family characteristic of the Talmashes. Wicked as devils, and brave as lions. Old Talmash, the grandfather, shot his valet in a paroxysm of delirium tremens,’ said Colonel Madison. ‘She’s a splendid woman, and she won’t flinch. I’d rather back her than bet against her.’

  ‘Lady Maulevrier!’ announced the groom of the chambers; and Lady Denyer moved at least three paces forward to meet her guest.

  The lady who entered, with slow and stately movements and proudly balanced head, might have served for a model as Juno or the Empress Livia. She was still in the bloom of youth, at most seven-and-twenty, but she had all the calm assurance of middle-age. No dowager, hardened by the varied experiences of a quarter of a century in the great world, could have faced society with more perfect coolness and self-possession. She was beautiful, and she let the world see that she was conscious of her beauty, and the power that went along with it. She was clever, and she used her cleverness with unfailing tact and unscrupulous audacity. She had won her place in the world as an acknowledged beauty, and one of the leaders of fashion. Two years ago she had been the glory and delight of Anglo-Indian society in the city of Madras, ruling that remote and limited kingdom with a despotic power. Then all of a sudden she was ordered, or she ordered her physician to order her, an immediate departure from that perilous climate, and she came back to England with her three-year-old son, two Ayahs, and four European servants, leaving her husband, Lord Maulevrier, Governor of the Madras Presidency, to finish the term of his service in an enforced widowhood.

  She returned to be the delight of London society. She threw open the family mansion in Curzon Street to the very best people, but to those only. She went out a great deal, but she was never seen at a second-rate party. She had not a single doubtful acquaintance upon her visiting list. She spent half of every year at the family seat in Scotland, was a miracle of goodness to the poor of her parish, and taught her boy his alphabet.

  Lord Denyer came forward while his wife and Lady Maulevrier were shaking hands, and greeted her with more than his usual cordiality. Colonel Madison watched for the privilege of a recognising nod from the divinity. Sir Jasper Paulet, a legal luminary of the first brilliancy, likely to be employed for the Crown if there should be an inquiry into Lord Maulevrier’s conduct out yonder, came to press Lady Maulevrier’s hand and murmur a tender welcome.

  She accepted their friendliness as a matter of course, and not by the faintest extra quiver of the tremulous stars which glittered in a circlet above her raven hair did she betray her consciousness of the cloud that darkened her husban
d’s reputation. Never had she appeared gayer, or more completely satisfied with herself and the world in which she lived. She was ready to talk about anything and everything — the newly-wedded queen, and the fortunate Prince, whose existence among us had all the charm of novelty — of Lord Melbourne’s declining health — and Sir Robert Peel’s sliding scale — mesmerism — the Oxford Tracts — the latest balloon ascent — the opera — Macready’s last production at Drury lane — Bulwer’s new novel — that clever little comic paper, just struggling into popularity — what do you call the thing — Punch? — yes, Punch, or the London Charivari — a much more respectable paper than its Parisian prototype.

  Seated next Lord Denyer, who was an excellent listener, Lady Maulevrier’s vivacity never flagged throughout the dinner, happily not so long as a modern banquet, albeit more ponderous and not less expensive. From the turtle to the pines and strawberries, Lady Maulevrier held her host or her right-hand neighbour in interested conversation. She always knew the particular subjects likely to interest particular people, and was a good listener as well as a good talker. Her right-hand neighbour was Sir Jasper Paulet, who had been allotted to the pompous wife of a court physician, a lady who had begun her married life in the outer darkness of Guildford Street, Bloomsbury, with a household consisting of a maid-of-all-work and a boy in buttons, with an occasional interregnum of charwoman; and for whom all the length and breadth of Harley Street was now much too small.