CHAPTER VII.

ALL FOR TESSIE.

It was about this time that my eyes became first opened to the fact that old Mr. Lovett, notwithstanding his benevolent aspect and many protestations of affection, was exceedingly selfish with regard to his daughters. How those girls worked for, waited on, and believed in him! From the making of his bed and the setting in order of his room, to the starching and ironing of his muslin bands and the cooking of his particular dainties, Tessie and Ange did everything for him with their own hands. And what was better, they did it cheerfully. There was never any question with them as to _which_ should undertake the duties; they only vied with one another to perform them first. I never saw two daughters more devoted to their father in my life: yet there was a difference in the manner with which they served him.

Ange did it with blind unwavering faith in the privilege she enjoyed. It was impossible not to read her perfect admiration and pride in the expression of her face. Her father was the highest creature in the world to her, and she the most favoured of girls to be able to call him hers.

But with Tessie’s service, willingly though it was rendered, there was mingled a sort of pitying fondness—more like the protecting love we accord to a child, proud though we may be of him, than the humility with which we wait upon our superior. I used to think—and I thought a great deal in those days, more perhaps than was good for me—that the affection of Ange for her father resembled what a wife’s should be for her husband (but so very seldom is); whilst Tessie’s was more like that of a mother.

But without thus analysing their mainsprings, no doubt remained as to the love and duty they both displayed for him. And he took it all as his due. I could have forgiven him that, considering the relationship he bore to them, had he only appeared sometimes to consider them in return.

But his selfishness never permitted him to perceive that they made daily sacrifices on his account; that they lived on the commonest fare, pretending they liked it, whilst he enjoyed his flesh or fowl; and sat up late at night to recopy some faded old sermon, whilst he played cards with his friends in the _salle à manger_. Were he in the humour for it, he would keep them running up and down stairs on errands for him all day long, until they were quite faint with fatigue—especially Ange, who, notwithstanding her bright, fugitive colour, was, like most English girls reared on the Continent, anything but strong. And when he had kept them up long beyond their usual hour for rest, he would suddenly remember that a surplice, or a shirt, or something equally important, must be ‘got up’ by the following afternoon, and compel the poor children to be out of bed again the first thing in the morning, in order to get the washing and starching and ironing over before the more important duties of the day began.

Ange had said once that few people could ‘come down’ as gracefully as her father had. I used to think, on the contrary, that he had never learned how to ‘come down’ at all, but was like a spoilt child who will insist upon having all he wants, never mind what others may suffer in consequence!

His selfishness was especially apparent in the little trouble that he took to give his daughters any amusement. There were so few excitements in St. Pucelle; the days slipped away one after another in such a monotonous round of uneventfulness, that it was cruel to debar these girls of even one pleasure which they might have legitimately enjoyed.

Yet they might have been two little nuns, for the seclusion in which he kept them. Except to visit the poor or to walk in the fields, they scarcely ever left the house, and days sometimes elapsed without their putting their feet outside of it.

Their visit to the Château des Roses had been a real treat to them. They had talked of it for hours beforehand and for weeks after; but though the Baron de Nesselrode had begged Mr. Lovett over and over again to take us there for another day, he had put it off for his own business, until the matter had died away. On more than one occasion, during my residence in St. Pucelle, a little dance was got up by the visitors in the principal hotel, and the English curé’s pretty daughters were asked each time to be present.

I had seen Ange’s lovely face flush with anticipation, and Tessie’s also, though in a less degree, but it had all come to nothing. Mr. Lovett had hummed and hawed and smiled sweetly on the inviter, and as good as promised his girls should attend the party, and then dropped the subject altogether. Once I ventured to ask Tessie why she did not remind her father of his promise, as he might, perhaps, have forgotten it; but she shook her head, and said it would be better not. Ange and she had no dresses fit to appear in, and papa would not like to see them worse clad than the rest.

‘But a muslin dress, Tessie!’ I urged, ‘costs very little, and nothing could be more suitable for a dance in St. Pucelle!’

Still Tessie shook her head, and begged me to say no more about it, as it was impossible.

It was on that occasion, I remember, that I asked her, downright, what allowance her father gave her sister and herself for dress—and how they spent it.

‘_Allowance!_’ she repeated, with open eyes. ‘Oh, Hilda! how can you think dear papa could afford to make us an allowance! You do not nearly understand how poor we are! Do you know, we should be unable to get on as well as we do, if it were not for the kindness of papa’s old pupil, the Prince de Ritzburg. He often sends us a bank-note in his letters, and when we lived near the Court, and any English nobles or princes were staying there, papa was invited to the state dinners, and there was always a bank-note put under his plate. Wasn’t it good of him? But he owes a great deal to papa, who was almost his only tutor.’

‘But, Tessie!’ I said, more interested in the question of her allowance than the gratitude of Prince Francius de Ritzburg, ‘if you have no money who pays for your dresses?’

‘We have only got a decent one apiece,’ she answered, laughing. ‘I think Madame paid for these; I know she went over to Artois in the spring and bought them, and grumbled terribly at the price. But they couldn’t have cost much, Hilda; they are only serge.’

‘I do not think anything you could wear could become you better, Tessie,’ I said truthfully; ‘still, I do wish your papa would let you go to this party. Ange _would_ enjoy it so.’

‘Of course she would—the darling! But we cannot afford it. It is quite impossible! so please say no more about it, Hilda.’

Yet the very same day, at dinner, Mr. Lovett had a dish of _salmi_ of wild duck stewed in port wine placed before him, and I noticed that Madame drew the cork of his second bottle of Moselle before we left the table. It was such things that, little by little, let daylight in upon my mind, until it was enabled to read his whole character aright.

Monsieur de Nesselrode had been constantly at the house since the day we spent at the Château des Roses, but no one saw much of him except Mr. Lovett. He would salute us on entering the room, or passing in the road, and address a few polite inquiries respecting our health; but the strict etiquette which is preserved between the unmarried of both sexes, abroad, was in full force with Ange and Tessie, who never seemed to speak to a man except in monosyllables.

I confess this extreme decorum rather oppressed me. I was always longing to have my inferior mind drawn out and elevated by those superior to itself, and my dear mother had encouraged me in the idea that men were meant to be friends to women as well as lovers; and that it was not always necessary that the last state should be worse than the first. I had been very proud, at one time, to be considered worthy of engaging in argument with such a clever man as Mr. Warrington, and had felt the greatest interest in trying to defeat him with his own weapons, which is not an unusual termination to such intellectual skirmishes. And now, to see Tessie’s drawn-down lip and Ange’s look of dismay, if I stopped to say more than ‘_Bon jour, monsieur_,’ when we met Armand de Nesselrode, was aggravating to me. I wanted very much to speak to him about young Thrale, for I had an intuition that he would try and befriend the boy, but it was quite impossible that I should do so before Mr. Lovett or either of the girls.

I had determined, therefore, that when an opportunity occurred for me to see the Baron alone, I would set all the absurd rules of foreign etiquette at defiance, and tell him just what was in my mind. More than that, I do not mind confessing, at this date, that on several occasions, when I was able to leave the house by myself, I walked up and down the hill that led to the château in hopes of seeing him; but fate was against me, and we never met. It was to be, however, and at last it came to pass.

One day, about a fortnight after Mr. Charteris had taken up his abode with us, most of which time he had spent at the château, or in the forest of Piron, some caprice—want of excitement, probably—took him back to Rille for a couple of nights.

We had been feasting—that is, I should say, Mr. Lovett had been feasting—more than usually well since his guest’s arrival, and owing to that, I suppose, on the very day he left us the old gentleman was obliged to take to his bed with a bilious attack.

Of course, his girls were in a fine fright. If their father had been seized with _cholera morbus_ they could scarcely have gone about with longer faces, and the fact that he could not eat anything seemed to fill them with greater alarm than anything else. In vain I assured them that fasting was the best thing possible under the circumstances; in vain did Madame Marmoret, who was in her very worst temper, thank the Blessed Virgin, in a voice that might have been heard at the other end of St. Pucelle, that her master at last knew what it was to have an empty stomach (though why that circumstance should render her so grateful I did not at that moment understand). Poor Tessie and Ange continued to look scared and pale, and could not be persuaded to leave their father’s bedside even to eat their own meals.

It was a very lonely day for me, for I did not consider the duties of a ward included making a third attendant in the sick-room; and I could not help feeling just a little wickedly pleased, with spiteful Madame Marmoret, that my guardian’s greedy selfishness should not go entirely unpunished.

‘Mamselle Ange is calling you,’ said Madame, in her curtest voice, as she thrust her head into the room where I was sitting, and ruminating on these things.

‘Won’t you do as well?’ I answered, as curtly as herself, for the woman’s persistent rudeness was beginning to make me angry.

‘You can go and ask her,’ she said, as she slammed the door in my face, and I felt if this kind of thing went on much longer, I should be hung for putting arsenic in Madame’s matutinal cup of coffee.

I walked out of the front door and through the garden-gate in the side wall to the corridor, rather than pass through her domains whilst she remained in so vile a mood.

‘What is it you want of me, Ange?’ I asked.

‘Only to give a message to Monsieur le Baron, if he should call,’ she whispered. ‘Papa’s kind regards, and he is too ill to see him to-night. Do you mind, Hilda dear? I would ask Madame, but she is in such a dreadful temper. Tessie and I have had to do everything for ourselves.’

‘I don’t mind at all. It is no trouble. But are you not coming down to tea?’

‘I think we might, one at a time, as papa is asleep.’

I persuaded her to return with me, and, protected by each other’s presence, we made a raid upon the larder, and procured all that was necessary for the meal ourselves, whilst Madame called us by every name she could possibly think of. We were ‘pigs,’ ‘thieves,’ ‘beggars,’ ‘paupers,’ ‘vile English,’ everything, in fact, that was bad; but we laughed in her face, and carried off our bread and butter and coffee to the _salle_ in triumph.

And then I made pale little Ange refresh herself before returning to the side of her petulant old parent, when it was her sister’s turn to come down and be comforted with the assurance that the attack would do her father all the good in the world, and bring him out again in the course of a few days with a more brilliant complexion than before.

They stayed with me as short a time as they could, and I did not press them to remain longer. I had made a great resolution to speak to the Baron about Arthur Thrale that very night. Such an opportunity as now presented itself might never occur again, and I was determined not to lose it.

So, after the girls had left me, I sat in the _salle_ awaiting his arrival.

About eight o’clock he came. He looked rather startled as he perceived that, except for myself, the room was empty, but I soon told him the reason.

‘Mr. Lovett is not well to-day, monsieur, and the girls are nursing him,’ I said in my faltering French—I could speak the language better with any one than with the Baron—‘but I have little doubt he will be downstairs again to-morrow.’

‘In that case, mademoiselle,’ he answered, ‘I suppose I had better take my leave.’

I can see him now as he uttered those words with a slight tone of regret in his voice.

I was sitting in the broad windowsill, which was framed in a clustering wreath of vine and fig leaves, and he was standing leaning against the wall, and looking down upon me with those unfathomable dark eyes of his, and his broad-brimmed soft felt _sombrero_ in his hand.

‘Will you not rest yourself for a few minutes before you start again, monsieur?’ I said politely, waving my hand towards a chair.

‘If I thought—if I believed,’ he stammered—‘that is, if I shall not be infringing the rules of etiquette, I shall be only too much pleased to exchange a few words with mademoiselle.’

‘It is according to your own pleasure,’ I answered. ‘In our country, the rules are not so strict with regard to ladies and gentlemen conversing together as they are in yours. We have much greater freedom in England than you have here.’

‘And much happier marriages in consequence,’ he said, as he seated himself. ‘Yes, I have heard as much, and there is scarcely a Frenchman who does not deplore the formalities of society that require him to marry a wife to whose mind he is a stranger.’

‘Yet I suppose none of you are found brave enough to break through so formidable a barrier as custom,’ I replied, curious to find out, on Tessie’s account, if my companion were already _fiancé_ or not. ‘You yourself, monsieur, have doubtless been compelled to follow the example of those who have gone before you.’

‘Ah! mademoiselle! I fear you are laughing at me. You forget the terrible reverse which my fortune has experienced. What father would promise the hand of his child to a beggar? It is true that I was _fiancé_ to my cousin, Mademoiselle Blanche de Beaupré, before I lost my money, when our betrothal was at once cancelled.’

‘You do not appear to have felt it much,’ I said, smiling.

‘Can I be expected to do so? I used to see my cousin at intervals in the presence of her parents. She was very charming—not strictly handsome, perhaps, but distinguished in appearance and innocent as a child. She would doubtless have been all I could have desired in the Baronne de Nesselrode, but I never spoke two words to her alone in my life.’

‘Do you think she would have made you happy, then?’

‘Ah! mademoiselle, happiness is hardly the thing we think of most in married life. Society requires so much of us, it is impossible for a husband and wife to be always together; and to feel more than a proper esteem for one another would soon prove _ennuyante_; more than that, a source of unhappiness, because it would create a longing for each other’s company which could not be gratified.’

‘I cannot bear to hear you talk like that, monsieur. Marriage with us is meant to be the holiest and happiest state possible on earth—the fusing of two lives into one; and you speak of it as if it were only a matter of convenience, and a wife were an unpleasant necessity that the less you saw of the better.’

I spoke petulantly, for I thought if these were his real sentiments, what chance was there that he would ever cast his eyes in the direction of my modest, gentle Tessie, who, though not calculated, perhaps, to shine in the world of society, would make so sweet and true a companion for a man’s privacy.

‘Pardon,’ he replied, ‘I spoke of marriage as it is amongst us—not as it should be. But I confess to never having met with these perfect unions. I regard them as I do heaven, as something that may exist, but which I am never likely to see.’

‘I have seen many of them. They are common enough in our country,’ I answered, thinking of my mother’s love for my dead father, and of dear Mrs. Sandilands, who had never changed her widow’s cap and gown, although she had parted with her husband ten years before.

‘So I have heard. In England people marry very early also, and on little money. That seems almost incredible to me.’

‘Do you think, then, that money is the source of happiness, monsieur?’

‘I have been led to believe that no _woman_ can be happy without it. When a man loses his fortune, he loses all chance of being loved; and that is a proof, is it not, that my belief is true?’

‘But I do not admit the truth of your assertion. A woman who is worth anything, will love a man all the more for his misfortunes. She is born to share and lighten his trouble. Whilst he is prosperous, he has friends all over the world. When he is unlucky, he should always be able to turn with confidence to the true heart that beats for him at home.’

‘Ah! mademoiselle! you are speaking now, not of women, but of angels.’

‘Then there are plenty of people on earth that ought to be in heaven!’

‘We have not such women in this country,’ said the Baron, musingly.

‘There must be good and bad in all countries, monsieur, if you only knew where to look for them. It is a common saying in ours, “A good daughter makes a good wife,” and it is very true. To understand a woman’s real character you must see her at home, with her parents and her brothers and sisters; and if she is loving and kind to them, she is pretty sure to be the same to you.’

I said this, intending it, of course, to direct his thoughts towards Tessie, but he did not seem to take the hint.

‘You must have had an excellent mother, mademoiselle, to teach you like this,’ was all he said.

‘Ah! she was so good, monsieur! Had you known her, you would never have thought evil of any woman again for her sake. My father was once very rich, as you were, and he lost almost all his money too, through an unlucky speculation. We had to give up our grand house and carriage and horses, and come down to live in furnished apartments. The loss broke my father’s heart, but I never once heard my mother complain. She never left his side until he died, and then she never left mine until she died herself. She was an angel to both of us; a true womanly angel, such as you may find in hundreds on this earth, if you have only the sense to know them when you see them, and the worth to deserve their love when you have found it.’

‘I am not worthy! I shall never deserve such love!’ he said, in a voice of pain.

‘Ah! monsieur, forgive me for speaking so boldly, but how much worthier you might make yourself of it, if you tried. I hope you did not think me forward for asking you to stay here for a few minutes to-night, but I have a great wish to intercede with you—not for yourself, but another.’

‘For Monsieur Charteris?’ he exclaimed quickly.

‘_Mr. Charteris!_’ I echoed, somewhat scornfully. ‘_No!_ If he chooses to do what is unwise, it is no concern of mine! He is quite old enough to look after himself. The one for whom I desire to ask your interference is young Arthur Thrale. He is only a boy, monsieur, and his relations at home are uneasy at the way in which he is going on in St. Pucelle. Will you try and prevent it? Will you speak to him yourself, and advise him to leave off coming here in the evening, and especially to give up playing cards? You know he loses money over them, and it is his father’s money he is wasting, not his own! Even if it were, I should ask the same thing of you: to stretch out your hand and save him. I cannot do it myself, for various reasons, the chief being that I live in this house. Will you do it for me?’

‘How can I tell the lad to give up that which he knows I practise myself?’ replied Monsieur de Nesselrode, with a very crestfallen air.

Should I be brave and go on and say all that was in my mind concerning him? His humble air reassured me. I resolved that I would.

‘Monsieur,’ I commenced again, pleadingly, ‘give it up on your own account also. It has already caused the misfortune of your life, and the continuance of it must be putting the day of your deliverance further and further off.’

‘It is,’ he muttered in a low voice.

‘Oh! monsieur! you have suffered very much! I know you have! Don’t drive away the bright hope that is in the future for you—the double hope of being able to move in your own sphere in the position your ancestors assigned you, and of making a little heaven for yourself at home. Do give up gambling, for the sake of your friends if not for yourself: for the sake of those whom you lead into wrong with you, and for the sake of the future.’

To my intense surprise, the Baron leapt to his feet and seized my hand.

‘I _will_!—I _will_!’ he exclaimed fervently. ‘As there is a God in heaven, mademoiselle, I swear to you I will never touch a card from this day again. You are right! you are _quite_ right! Every word you have uttered sounded on my heart like an inspiration. I have been miserable for months past. Each day I have gone deeper and deeper into debt, and put, as you say, the day of my liberty further away from me. It may be years before I am free, but I will never touch a card again so long as I live.’

‘Oh! I am so glad! I _am_ so glad!’ I cried, excited beyond measure at the unexpected success of my undertaking; ‘and you will never regret it, monsieur! I am sure you will not! And Mr. Thrale, too! You will speak to him and point out the folly of his losing his money for a mere game, and give him all the good advice in your power.’

‘Monsieur Lovett will be very much surprised at my determination,’ said the Baron, suddenly struck with the difficulties that stood in the way of reformation.

‘Tell him the truth! It is the best and most honourable course to pursue, and surely he can never so far deny his profession as to blame you for giving up what your conscience warns you against. And devote yourself to your hunting and shooting and reading, monsieur, until that happy time comes when you can go back to Paris and hold your own again. Perhaps you may marry Mademoiselle de Beaupré after all—who knows?’

‘Never, mademoiselle! Neither she, nor any other Paris belle. Doubtless, when I am once more in the enjoyment of my fortune, many women—such women as I spoke of to you—will be ready to spend it for me, but it will be in vain. You have opened my eyes this evening to the fact that there are other women in this world—disinterested, whole-hearted and true—and if I can find such an one willing to share my poverty, I will work day and night till I place her in the position my wife should hold: if not—why I will do without a Baronne de Nesselrode at all.’

‘Oh! you will find her, monsieur! never fear, if you will only keep a sharp look out,’ I answered, laughing.

If he had told me outright that he meant to try his luck with Tessie, I should hardly have believed more firmly than I did that her sweet face was in his mind’s eye as he spoke to me. It made me very glad. Her loving heart and patient endurance deserved so bright a lot that no one could envy her the best fortune that might occur. And _this_ fortune, I felt as I looked at Armand de Nesselrode, would be very bright indeed. The young man had so much good in him, beneath the crust of despondency and defiance of public opinion which his self-entailed losses and the desertion of his relatives had caused him to assume, and I was sure that renewed prosperity and the love of a true heart would bring out the best points of his character instead of obliterating them.

To some people misfortune acts as a blister instead of a purge: it irritates instead of humbling them; and when the wheel turns in the right direction, gratitude makes them good. So I believed it would be—was already commencing to be—with Armand de Nesselrode; so I fervently hoped it might be, for Tessie’s sake.

‘Mademoiselle!’ his soft voice broke in upon my reverie, ‘if I am not presumptuous in hoping you will listen to me, may I at some future day tell you of the chapter of accidents which led me to this downfall?’

‘I shall be very pleased to hear it, monsieur!’

‘I do not wish you to think me worse than I really am—you, who appear to believe I have still the capability of rising.’

‘I _do_ believe it!’

‘Then I will try and make your belief a certainty,’ he answered, as he bent over my hand and raised it, foreign fashion, to his lips, before he bowed and left me.

I was very much gratified with the success of my boldness. I felt that I had gained even more than I strove for. Monsieur de Nesselrode would not only give Arthur Thrale some sterling good advice, but do what was better still—set him the example of doing right.

For what Mr. Charteris and my guardian might think of the new arrangement I cared little. They must play by themselves for the future. It was not likely I should interfere to save either of them.

But the Baron was quite different. The Baron had a great end in view which he was destroying by this fatal proclivity for gaming, and no means could have been too strong to adopt in order to rescue him. Particularly as it was all for Tessie!

As I sat in the evening light after he had left me, thinking of the interview just concluded, and softly stroking the hand he had raised to his lips, I kept on repeating, in a tone of the greatest satisfaction to myself, that I had done it all for Tessie.

[Illustration: [Fleuron]]