CHAPTER XVI.
As is usual in such cases, the woman was the first to regain her presence of mind. The encounter was as unexpected to Hannah, as to the Baron, but she evinced no visible sign of surprise. She only stood quite still, as if she had never seen him before.
Von Steinberg, on the contrary, was nearly betraying her and himself. He stammered and stuttered and coloured rosy red, but at last managed to utter,
“Ah! Mrs. Brown! Of course! I think we have had the pleasure of meeting before,” and advanced towards her, holding out his hand.
Hannah accepted the hand, without comment.
“Met before!” exclaimed Mrs. Roster. “O! where? I flattered myself that I was the discoverer of Mrs. Brown’s remarkable talents,--at least in our own circle. I suppose then, Baron, that you have already been present at her marvellous séances.”
“Mrs. Brown is the widow of an old and dear friend of mine,” he answered, evasively.
“A widow!” echoed the lady of the house; “and does your husband ever return to you, Mrs. Brown? How intensely interesting! This will make the third time we have sat with her, Baron,” she continued to Von Steinberg, “and each time we have seen the form of a man whom no one in the party recognised. I wonder if it could have been Mr. Brown.”
“Hush!” said the Baron, cautiously, and indeed the pallor which had suddenly stolen over Hannah’s usually rubicund countenance, quite justified him in saying so.
“O! I am sorry!” returned Mrs. Roster, as she busied herself in pressing the medium to take some refreshment before she entered the séance room.
Hannah faintly asked for a glass of water, and sat down apparently exhausted in her chair. When the water was brought to her, she drank a little, and finally declaring she felt too ill to sit, and must postpone the séance to another day, she rose and quitted the room and house.
The disappointed sitters gazed at each other in consternation. Colonel Roster attributed all the blame to his wife.
“What on earth made you allude to her dead husband in so indiscreet a manner?” he demanded, sharply. “You have just spoilt our evening! What widow ever wanted the return of Number One, to spy out her doings with Number Two? We have no one but you to thank for this disappointment!”
“O! I am sorry,” cried his wife; “I thought as everybody’s relations came back through her, Mr. Brown would be sure to have done so. And it was only a surmise on my part after all. You say you know her, Baron! Is she always as sensitive as this?”
“By no means,” replied Von Steinberg, “and I think she must really be feeling ill. Besides, she has no reason to fear the return of her husband, who was very good to her! I cannot believe that your allusion had anything to do with her defalcation. She felt unequal to the sitting--that is all!”
“You take a load off my mind by saying so,” said Mrs. Roster, “and I can only hope that when she comes here again, you will be with us, as on this occasion.”
“You are very kind,” returned Von Steinberg, “but may I ask you one question? Mrs. Brown was going to sit with you professionally, of course! What is her fee? I should like to ascertain, for the information of my friends!”
“Two guineas!” replied the lady, without hesitation. “She did not ask more! I heard of her through my dressmaker, Mrs. Folkstone, but I understood that she gave her services somewhat secretly, and it was not to be talked about. I am so sorry you have missed seeing her--but perhaps you have sat with her already.”
“Once or twice,” said Von Steinberg, carelessly, and then the subject dropped.
His friends detained him so late that he could not get out to the cottage at Hampstead that night, or he certainly would have followed Hannah to her home, and asked the reason of what he had seen and heard. He could hardly understand why, but he disliked the idea of her selling her services to the public, exceedingly.
It was no matter to him that she was dowdily dressed, and known as “Mrs. Brown”;--he could not bear to think that she placed herself under such an obligation to strangers--that she should belong, as it were, to the public, when he wanted to have her entirely as his own.
His meditations that night revealed the truth to him. He was so fascinated by Hannah Ricardo, that he wished to marry her, and shield her for ever from the slights and obligations of the world. No one could have been more amazed than himself, when he had arrived at this conclusion. He had been a student of men and manners, but he had never lit on anything more incomprehensible than this before.
He wanted to marry Hannah Stubbs--he, who had so opposed the same idea in his friend. Ricardo had formed the wish, in order to keep Leonora by his side, whilst he, Von Steinberg, desired the same thing solely for Hannah.
He longed to possess this woman, with her overwhelming personality--her clumsy movements--her broad smile--her arch looks and witching eyes--for herself alone, and himself entirely.
He tried to recall her, as she used to be, but failed to do so. She seemed to have cast aside her chrysalis shell and emerged (in mind at least) a butterfly! And yet outwardly, there was no difference!
Where did the fascination lie? He could not determine, but felt that it was there, and that in her was contained the happiness of his future life.
He rose early, and was at the Hampstead cottage by eleven o’clock.
His first words to her were those of reproach.
“Hannah! how could you do this thing without letting me know? It nearly paralysed me to meet you at the Rosters last night in the capacity of a public medium. What would dear old Ricardo say, if he could know it?”
“Then he should have left me enough to exist upon,” replied Hannah, “Charlotte and I can’t live on dry bread--even if we got enough of that!”
“But I have asked you again and again, in case of need, to apply to me. What is the use of being your friend, if I may not have the pleasure of helping you out of your difficulties? You deprive me of one of the great privileges of friendship! And to sit when you are ill too! It is so unlike you to turn faint! You must have been sadly overworking yourself! Are you quite recovered this morning?”
“Quite, thank you,” replied Hannah, reservedly--reservedly on purpose to make him speak out.
“I am glad of that,” said Von Steinberg, “but to return to our subject;--I trust you do not intend to follow up Spiritualism as a means of livelihood for the future!”
Hannah lay back in her chair, lazily, and fixed her large, full eyes upon him.
“Why not?” she demanded.
“For a dozen reasons! Principally, because your husband so decidedly set his face against it, and then because I--I, who am your greatest and truest friend, Hannah, think it is beneath you, and degrades you.”
“But I must live!” persisted the woman.
“Are there not other ways? If your money will not suffice to keep you comfortably for a year or two----”
“And what after that?” she exclaimed.
The Baron hesitated. Should he make the fatal plunge?
“My purse is always open to you, Hannah,” he faltered.
“I have already told you, Baron, that I cannot consent to be a pensioner upon your charity,” she replied. “You speak of what the world will say! The world would talk a great deal more of your paying my bills, than it would of my giving séances to keep myself! It can never be! That is decided!”
“Then give me the right to empty the contents of my purse at your feet, Hannah,” cried Von Steinberg, losing control of himself. “Come to me as my wife, and the mistress of all I possess! Marry me--be the Baronne von Steinberg, and let us pass the rest of our lives together.”
“I could not give up my title of Marchesa for that of Baronne,” remarked Hannah, coolly.
“You may call yourself what you choose, so long as you will be my wife!” repeated the Baron. “Hannah! I have longed to ask you this ever since you were free. Crown my happiness by giving me your promise now!”
“It is too soon to think of such a thing,” argued Hannah--“only three months after my husband’s death!”
But her reluctance only urged him on to fresh entreaties. Perhaps she was clever enough to know it would!
“What does that signify?” he said, “what is Time to dear Ricardo now, and whose opinion do we care for, but his? He is happy, I am sure, and would wish to see you happy, and well provided for, too. Come! Hannah, do not let any absurd scruples stand in the way of my proposal. No one need even know when the ceremony takes place. We are both almost strangers in London!
“Who is to be the wiser what we do, or leave undone! Let me marry you quietly some morning, as poor Ricardo did, and carry you off at once to the Continent. There, we can stay a month, or a year, as pleases us best, and when we return, I will instal you as mistress of my house in Portland Place, and all I have. Come! is it a bargain?”
As Von Steinberg mentioned his property, Hannah’s eyes glistened with pleasurable anticipation. _This_ was what she had been working for--what she had known she would gain at the last. She turned her voluptuous orbs upon him, and languidly held out her large hand.
The Baron seized it and kissed it with rapture. It would have signified nothing to him at that moment, had it been twice as large. The woman had magnetised his every sense, and he was a tool in her hands.
“And when shall it be, Hannah?” he asked, as soon as he had recovered his powers of speech. “To-day?--to-morrow?--it cannot be too soon.”
“Not for you, perhaps,” she replied, with all the airs of a grand lady, “but you forget, Baron, that I cannot start on a wedding-tour, in a black dress and a widow’s bonnet! You must be good enough to draw my small principal from the bank for me, and allow me a few weeks in which to spend it, so that I may be able to appear as your wife should do!”
“A few weeks!” exclaimed Von Steinberg, with really comical dismay, “I will send you the money this afternoon, and surely a few days should see you fully equipped. You need not wait to have things made in London. Get just what may be necessary for the moment, and buy your wardrobe in Paris!”
“In Paris!” exclaimed Hannah, “will you really take me to Paris?”
“Certainly! and to stay there if you desire it! There is no place on earth to which I would not take you, Hannah, if you told me to do so, but I think a residence in Paris will suit us both entirely.”
He lavished kisses on her flat, good-humoured face, and Hannah returned them in kind, for a passionate temperament was not the least of her virtues.
Before they parted that morning, it was decided that the marriage should take place privately in a fortnight’s time, and that they were to leave England the same day for the Continent. Hannah promised she would give no more public séances, and really looked quite handsome under the prospect of renewed happiness--not to say the acquisition of the house in Portland Place, and all its treasures, to which her eyes had so longingly turned.
Once more by himself at home, Karl von Steinberg had leisure to wonder if his action of the morning had been wise. Hannah had not proved, in all things, quite amenable to the discipline of his old friend, but then Ricardo _was_ old--he told himself--and May and December never did hit it off well together yet. He was far more suitable in age to Hannah, and would prove a livelier companion.
It was astonishing to remember how young she was--only nineteen--and yet so worldly-wise in some things, and in others so quick and cunning! She had wonderfully developed since her marriage--no one would know her for the same girl--she doubtless possessed vast capabilities, which travel and his society would tend to unfold. The Baron quite anticipated bringing back an accomplished lady from the Continent.
And he was not far wrong! Hannah _had_ developed powers of observation and attainment, which bid fair to let her stop at nothing short of excellence. Each time the Baron met her, face to face, the half-formed doubts which he held, as to the wisdom of the marriage, faded away, and left him with but one certainty--that he could not live without her. The plans they had formed, then, were faithfully carried out, and within a fortnight, the same Registrar who had married her to Signor Ricardo, transformed Hannah Stubbs into the Baronne von Steinberg--though (as she had previously informed her husband) she always intended to retain her old title of Marchesa di Sorrento.
Are the raptures which we anticipate in marriage, or any other exploit, ever realised to their full extent? As a rule, surely not, and Von Steinberg was no exception. Hannah remained the same after marriage as she had been before, but the novelty of possession soon wore off, and when that occurred, Von Steinberg of all men, with his cool, calculating German temperament, was the most likely to see the spots upon the sun.
However, they established themselves in Paris, and a few months of the gay city did wonders for his wife in the way of polish and manners. Naturally quick and cunning, and with a remarkable facility for the acquisition of languages, the Marchesa soon lost most of her vulgarisms and became quite _au fait_ with great people and their ways.
The English who met her abroad, put all her eccentricities down to the fact that she was an Italian Marchesa, and the Parisians ascribed them to the misfortune of her having been born a Briton. But Hannah made the most of her opportunities. She went out whenever she was invited, mixing freely with foreigners, as well as her own countrymen, and in consequence, gathering knowledge and information wherever they were to be found.
By this means, when, after a year’s residence abroad, Baron von Steinberg brought his wife back to England, if not still in love with her, he had ceased to be ashamed of her. But the same perplexity which had puzzled him in Ricardo’s time, still stirred in his brain. _What_ was it in Hannah that attracted him, spite of himself? Sometimes he felt ready to lay down his life for her--at others, he regarded her with disfavour, almost with repugnance!
But as the mistress of his house--the dispenser of his hospitality--she was perfect. She had a courteous and gracious manner, which she extended equally to peer and peasant, and which made strangers, who had never seen another side to her character, consider her the most charming hostess under the sun. Whilst when at other moments she spoke her mind freely--far too freely--concerning people and their actions, her visitors still ascribed it to her genuineness and total disregard of what the world might say, or think.
What astonished Von Steinberg more than anything else, was the complacency with which she accepted the fact of his wealth, and the nonchalance with which she treated his pictures, and statues, and hot-house flowers. She took everything that he gave her, as if she had been used to it all her life--she accepted it from him graciously, but she was not overwhelmed with gratitude for his generosity. He would not have had her betray her lowly birth and breeding, by expressing ignorance of such luxuries, but it amazed him, all the same.
He thought his wife had everything she could have expected, and a great deal more than she had any right to demand, but yet Hannah was not satisfied. As soon as they were settled in town, they commenced to give a series of magnificent parties, and their rooms were crowded with sycophantic guests, mostly of the middle class--the sort of people who will go anywhere--to whom a party means a dance, or a supper, and who care nothing who gives it, so long as it is given.
His visitors satisfied the Baron, but the Marchesa had higher views--she aspired to see the aristocracy sitting round her dinner-table, and quoting her hospitality as the freest in London--her cook as the best to be got anywhere. It was all very well, she thought, to be entertaining Colonel and Mrs. Langley, or Mr. and Mrs. Belleville, but what use were they to her in return?
She wanted Dukes and Duchesses and Earls and Countesses at her receptions, and to make them not only come, but _ask_ to come. She racked her clever brain over this many a time and oft, without letting her husband into the secret, and one day the opportunity came to her.
She was receiving a number of ladies at afternoon tea, when the conversation suddenly turned on Spiritualism.
The Marchesa, who was leaning back on a settee, arrayed in a tea-gown of maize coloured satin, trimmed with costly lace, affected to know nothing of the matter.
“What is it?” she inquired, languidly, “nothing wicked, I hope, Mrs. Mostyn.”
“O! dear me, no! Marchesa, how could you imagine such a thing?” replied her guest. “It is only a game, you know! Sitting round a table and making it spin and answer questions, and all such nonsense!”
“It is a great deal more than that,” interposed an unmarried lady, named Selwyn, “it is a very serious thing! Spiritualism is raising the spirits of the Dead, and our clergyman, Mr. Tennant, says it is sorcery, and condemned by Scripture. My mamma will not hear of my having anything to do with it, which has been a great disappointment to me, for the Countess of Loreley----”
“Well! if you are interested in the pursuit, I am sure there can be no need to wait for your mamma’s permission,” interrupted Mrs. Mostyn, rudely, “you are surely old enough to judge for yourself. I do think it is so ridiculous of mothers, trying to keep their grown-up daughters in leading strings. Why! I had a couple of children before I was your age!”
“You were speaking of the Countess of Loreley,” said the Marchesa, with the apparent view of changing the conversation, “does her Ladyship take an interest in the subject?”
“O! yes, she is quite wild about it,” replied Miss Selwyn, who was looking red and confused from Mrs. Mostyn’s attack; “and mamma has prevented my going there as often as usual, in consequence. Lady Loreley is my godmother, you know, and I used to be always at her house, but now----”
“Has Mrs. Selwyn compelled you to give up the Countess’s acquaintance?” asked Hannah, indifferently.
“O! no, but I do not see her so often, and never when there is to be a séance! Very unfair, isn’t it? not that I care so much about the séance, but I would not lose Lady Loreley’s goodwill for all the world.”
“The Countess believes in Spiritualism then?”
“O! yes! entirely! She is always sitting with some medium or other, but she says they are very unsatisfactory. She told me yesterday, that she would give hundreds of pounds to find a medium, who could bring her little Rosie back to speak with her again.”
“Much better leave the poor child in peace--wherever she may be!” remarked Mrs. Mostyn with a sneer.
“Perhaps you have never lost a child, Mrs. Mostyn,” said the single lady.
“No! nor you either, I conclude, my dear,” replied the other, “but all this talk about Spiritualism is only got up for want of a better excitement. For my own part I don’t believe a word of it, and I am sure the Marchesa agrees with me!”
“One should be careful to reserve one’s opinion, when one has not inquired into a thing!” replied Hannah, as she reclined on her couch and gently fanned herself.
But when her visitors rose to depart, and Miss Selwyn was about to leave the room with the rest of the party, she detained her by a gentle pull at her sleeve.
“Wait a moment longer,” she whispered, “I want to speak to you,” and Miss Selwyn, who was only too pleased to be singled out for favour by the Marchesa, dallied with a book of engravings, which lay upon a side table, until the rest were gone.
“Tell me more about this poor Countess,” said Hannah, drawing nearer to her; “I feel so interested in any one who has lost a dear child--a girl, I think you said.”
“O! yes, Marchesa,” replied Miss Selwyn, “Lady Rose Charleville--such a dear little creature. She died of scarlet fever at seven years old, and though Lady Loreley has married daughters, she has never forgotten her. She always cries when Lady Rose is mentioned.”
“Poor dear!” said Hannah, sympathetically, “how I wish I could help her! And I think I could, if she would come and see me!”
“Could you _really?_” cried Miss Selwyn, clasping her hands, “O! Marchesa, how she would bless you for it! She would worship you! But how is it to be accomplished?”
“That is _my_ secret, my dear! I know more of this matter than I chose to say in public, and if you like to bring your Countess here, I will introduce her to some one who may put her in the way of seeing her child again! But you mustn’t chatter on the subject, for if the Baron heard that I encouraged anything of the sort, he would be very angry. It is not only your mamma, Miss Selwyn, who disapproves of Spiritualism.”
“O! I know that, and I would not mention what you have told me for all the world. But when may I bring the Countess here!”
“On second thoughts, I think you had better tell her what I have said, and leave her to make her own appointment with me. I could not permit you to assist at our conference, you know, for fear of offending your mamma.”
“Perhaps it will be better not,” replied the girl, in a disappointed tone, “for I have promised mamma never to attend a sitting again. May I tell Lady Loreley that you will have the medium here to meet her, Marchesa? I shall see her this evening!”
“You had better say nothing, but what I have told you--that if she wishes it, I think I can help her to see her child again. Then she can make an appointment with me, or not, as she chooses!”
“Fancy! her _not_ choosing!” exclaimed Miss Selwyn, “why, she will rush to you as soon as ever she can!”
And in effect, the very next day Hannah received a coronetted note from the Countess of Loreley, to say that, with her kind permission, she would call in Portland Place that afternoon.