Honor Carmichael. A study

Front matter

HONOR CARMICHAEL. A STUDY BY HENRIETTA A. DUFF, AUTHOE OF " TIEQIKIA : A EOMAN SKETCH," ETC. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. 1880. Right of Translation Reserved. CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME Chap. Page. I. — Stephen's Idea. .... 1 II. — Andbomeda . . . . .14 III.— The Sea-Guxl 26 IV. — Stephen's Idea Geows . . .42 V. — A Bbeak in the Khythm . . .51 VI. — A Ghost Stoey . . . .62 VII.— A Faibt Stoet . . . .76 VIII. — Shoet But Not Sweet . . .86 IX.— Suspense . . . . .93 X.— The Lump op Ice . . . 102 XI. — What Gladys Saw in Madame Pleon's Cottage ..... Ill XII.— Wheee's Stephen? . . . .120 XIII. — Sœue Genevieve .... 136 XIV.— Whsee Stephen Was . . . .153 CONTENTS. IV Chap. Page XV.— How the News Came . . .179 XVI. — So Feaepul weee They op Inpection . 189 XVII.— At Madame Mebe's .... 200 XVIII. — Honoe's Eyes aee Opened . . . 215 XIX. — On the Steps ..... 226 XX.— Shadows ..... 238 XXI. — How Honoe Reached the Golden Gate . 248 XXII. — Cabbying the Ceoss .... 267 XXIII. — The Habvest at the Vicaeage . .

Chapter I

Stephen's idea. " Ah, think of how we looked, and what we said ; Laugh as I laugh ; your laugh is sweet to hear, Love was our sovereign then rose-garlanded." PHILIP BODEKE MARSTON. TEPHEN and Honor walked to gether, side by side. Gladys and her father went flitting on ahead. They went past the old grey church on the hill, and down through the narrow slanting streets towards the Rue Bon Secours. They walked fast, for it was near tea-time, and Gladys VOL. II. B gave the step. The other pair loitered a little, I am afraid. But for the strong, salt-tasted air, and the bright-eyed, merry-faced people who clattered about the street, and stared at them as they passed, they might all have been back again in St. Mark's Road. To Honor it was like a dream ; only she did not know which was the dream, the past or the present.

She seemed to be walking on air. She was breathing in happiness and love; but she was not conscious of either. It was one of those rare, strange, tremulous mo ments, when one is almost afraid to count up one's treasures, lest they should burst like bubbles at a breath. " I must look out for a lodging. I only came by this afternoon's boat," Stephen was saying, in his dear, delightful voice, as he went swinging along beside her in his own old way, with one hand in his pocket and the other left free for any emergency. " And I should like to get an Oriental master, if I can. Perhaps your father might be able to find me one ? I spoke to him about it as we came up the hill — and I spoke to him about something else, too, Honor." "Did you — did you?" she cried, and her eyes seemed absolutely to dance with delight.

" And what did papa say ?" " He said — well I am not quite sure what he said, or whether he quite under stood what I said. We talked a little about India, and he asked me how long I meant to remain there. And then he said something about that friend of yours over there — told me she was pretty, or clever, or something of that sort." Honor felt rather disappointed. She had made to herself a picture of her father hearing the news. He was to look surprised at first, then perhaps a little sorry at the thought of losing her, and B then, oh ! so glad to welcome Stephen as a son-in-law. She had looked at this picture over and over again. But Stephen's description was not in the least like it. It was humiliating to come in thus, between a geographical topic and an everyday remark about her own friend.

She would not think about it, however. She put the thought away from her with a thrill, as if it were a snow-flake she was shaking off her cloak. There should be no clouds before her sun, no snow or rain, either, in her summerland to-day. " At any rate, I have done what I ought to have done," said Stephen, in an explanatory sort of voice. " And I will not say much more, my prospects being still so uncertain. The next Indian mail will not be in for a fortnight, and perhaps the letter wiU not come even then." " Not come then ?" repeated Honor. " Oh, Stephen, perhaps — " and then she stopped short suddenly, and crimsoned aU over. Stephen Aylmer knew what she was going to say. " Perhaps it would never come at all." And then she would be glad. It was very hard upon these lovers that the shadow of parting should be thrown so immediately over the sunshine of their meeting.

Stephen could not give up India, even for Honor's sake. He had made up his mind, and he meant to stick to it. What else could he do ? He had no pro fession, no prospects ; no friends, except his uncle, Sir Henry Aylmer ; no fortune, except a paltry £400 a-year ; and what could they do with that ? No, India was the place for him, and to India he meant to go. But at the same time he was not un sympathetic, and he had not known Honor all these years for nothing. The pain of parting would be intense. He knew that. It must be so. But he thought she rather exaggerated matters ; as he, perhaps, was disposed to under estimate them. It was not her own pain she thought of so much, as the loss she would be to her father and sister. How would they get on without her ? And who would do this and this, and that and that ; knowing their everyday ways, and guessing and gratifying their desires before they knew them themselves.

This was Honor's thought at that exact moment; and Stephen knew it. She did not put her thought into words, but Stephen longed to answer her in words. It was so absurd, on the face of it. Why anybody could do the things Honor had done— a servant — a governess. Gladys must have a governess soon. There was old Pincock, for instance. She would be delighted to give up her school and go and keep house for the Vicar. Why, she might — she understood the Vicar and his ways so well — she was not bad-looking either, nor so very old, after all ; not that that would signify to a man of Mr. Car michael's tastes; at which simple but sublime solution of all doubts and difficul ties, Stephen laughed aloud. "What is it?" asked Honor, whose mind had been travelling too, but who had not arrived at any mirthful con clusion.

" Do tell me what you are laughing at." But Stephen declined to tell her. " A brilliant idea had just struck him," he said, " but it required maturing. He could not divulge it just yet. In the meantime, had Honor heard lately from Miss Pincock ?" Honor was beginning to explain how she had not written lately; it was her own fault, she had been busy, etc., and was going on to ask after aU her friends in London, when to her unmitigated astonishment she discovered that they were entering the Rue Bon Secours, and that Gladys was already flying back towards them. " Tea — tea !" cried the child, who was still a great way off. And then, as she came nearer, she glanced at Honor, and said — " Why, where are your gloves, Honor ? And what have you done with your parasol ?" A most precise person in matters of dress was Gladys.

Honor was conscience-stricken. She must have left both these articles in the Avenue Mont St. Michel, and neither she nor Stephen had discovered their absence till that moment. "You cannot go back for them now," cried Gladys, fancying she saw symptoms of such an inclination on her sister's face. " It is tea-time, you know." " I will fetch them for you, after wards," says Stephen, smiling. And then they all go in to tea. Tea again in the Chaplain's room. I am really ashamed to introduce you to another feast there. You will think my friends the Carmichaels not only spent their own time in eating and drinking, but also kept a sort of " house of call for wayfarers ;" as a certain hospitable house in a certain London square, with a suggestive name, is well christened. But this was a tea above all teas, and deserves to be recorded.

How Stephen ate and draik, devouring a skinny-legged chicken all by himself, and murdering innumerable French words, to Gladys' amusement and delectation. How he admired everything, from the thick white chinj, cups, which he declared held no more ttan a thimble, to Rosaline's high white cip, as she came clacking into the room, staring at the beau Anglais, and wondering at his prodigious appetite. How Gladys laughed till she choked, and Honor till the tears ran down her cheeks. How even Mr. Carmichael looked up from his book more than once, and smiled benignly at them ; and the people in the street outside, stood still now and then, and wondered what was going on within. All these things Honor remembered in after years, and would tell you with varying accuracy how many of those gigantic cups of tea Stephen drank on that occasion.

Ten, I think, was the number started with ; but it grew as the years grew, and on one occasion I remember hearing it gravely stated to have been nineteen. This was contra dicted by some one present, but the original statement that there never had been such a tea before or since remained unopposed. It was a feast fjr the gods, and the gods were present — Cupid and Psyche, at any rate. Cupid was certainly not siperior to the mortal viands placed before him, but seemed to find them ver\ much to his taste. Psyche, on the other hand, fed literally as the gods feed. She poured herself out a cup of tea, she crumbled a piece of toast on her plate ; but she fed on love, and drank in happiness. And a most delicious repast she found it. " I do not know that I admire that friend of yours very much, after all, Honor," said Stephen, suddenly, during a little pause.

He had been peeling a peach for Gladys, and popped it down on her plate as he spoke. The child looked up and laughed, and expressed her gratitude to Stephen by ably seconding his remark. " She is just like a cat," she said, in her pouting, baby way. Honor laughed too. " Have you been thinking about her ever since ?" she asked, archly. " What, more tea ? Pass your cup, then. I think I can squeeze out a few more drops from this most long-suffering teapot." Mr. Carmichael did not laugh, however, though he looked up slowly from his book. " I am afraid you are growing rather pert, Gladys," he said, gently. " As for Miss Murray, I should hardly have thought you had time to judge of her merits, Aylmer. She appears to me to be a person of great intelligence, and as handsome as she is clever." This was a long speech for Mr. Car michael to make, and Stephen and Honor looked at each other in some surprise.

He was certainly rather distrait to-day. Perhaps his book did not interest him. Perhaps (this was Honor's explanation) he was thinking over some news he had heard that afternoon. " I certainly had not time to judge of Miss Murray's intelligence, sir," returned Stephen, quietly. " As for her beauty — when — " and the young fellow stopped suddenly, and began to laugh again, as he had laughed in the street a little while ago. Mr. Carmichael pulled his book back before him with an impatient move ment. He resumed his reading. The manners of the rising generation were certainly not pleasing. " What is it, Stephen ?" asks Honor, laughing too. There is nothing so infectious as laughing. It beats scarlet fever and yawning all to nothing. " Have you another brilliant idea ?"

Chapter II. Andromeda

" Evermore The young life comes, bound to the cruel rocks Alone. Before it the unfathomed sea Smiles, filled with monstrous growths." lewis morris. in the Avenue Mont jn mM P St. Michel, another interview %$JjlL& was taking place between another father and daughter. Colonel Murray was still standing by the window when his daughter came in again, with her wind-blown, tumbled hair, and great dilating eyes. She began tidy ing the things that lay scattered about on the floor; or rather she imagined she was doing so, after a method of her own. Mademoiselle Madelon was of a different opinion, when she came in an hour later. " So you have picked up some new friends, Valentine ?" said her father, turning round, and looking at her. He held the little Book of Hours in his hand, and had evidently been glancing through its pages.

But he re-clasped it now, stroked it gently, and placed it in his pocket in an absent sort of way. " Yes, father," replied Valentine, slowly, " I have picked up some new friends, as you say — or rather they picked me up, I think. The girl did, out of the sea, at any rate." " Who are they — what do you know of them ?" asked her father. " I don't know much ; I only know that they have been very kind to me," answered Valentine, with some warmth, but speaking rather unwillingly too. It was not a subject into which her father would be likely to enter sympathetically. " They are quite different from any other people we, or, at least, I have ever met before ; so much so, that, at first, I almost tried not to know them ; but it seemed a sort of fate that I should do so." Colonel Murray looked at her again keenly.

Was Valentine beginning to find out anything amiss in her own way of life, he wondered ? " You do not ask after your other fate," he said, abruptly, after a pause. Valentine was sitting on the floor with one of the little cotton frocks on her lap. There were some bits of lace on the frocks which she had begun to tear off. She waited till she came to the end of one of the bits ; then she looked up and said coldly : — " I suppose you mean Graf von Reichenau. I hope he was well when you left him ?" " He was quite well when I left him," replied the Colonel, coldly too. " And you will soon have an opportunity of judging of his state of health for yourself. Graf Otto will be here in three weeks' time, Valentine." Another little frock had been taken up and begun upon. Snip, snip, rip, went the lace.

It was of an older, more delicate kind, perhaps, than the other. It came to pieces in her hands. She went on pulling away at the threads, however. Would she speak when she came to the end of that bit ? The Colonel stood watching her. A curious determined look had grown into both their faces. " You do not seem much elated by my news," said the Colonel, sardonically, but speaking a little anxiously, too. It was not the first time he had done vol. 11. c battle with his daughter, and he had not always come off victoriously. She was altogether unlike other women he had known, who would shake before his anger like a leaf in a storm. The truth was, she resembled himself. It is always curious to observe the manner in which kindred dispositions act upon one another. The most common result is a chronic spirit of contradiction ; sometimes it begets an invincible anti pathy ; rarely, very rarely, does it pro duce sweetness or sympathy.

I have known two sisters, absolutely identical in character, appear totally dissimilar when in each other's company. Apart, their views on all things were as twin thoughts ; together, as sworn foes. Had they re sembled each other less, their natures would probably have fitted, the one into the other, like pieces of a dissecting puzzle. At it was, they merely stood one on the top of the other, angle over angle, curve under curve. What did it matter which was uppermost ? An acute observer might indeed remark that the stronger character of the two (there are degrees among dwarfs, as among giants) would usually take up the weaker position. The weaker character would, as a rule, be the foremost one, looking like a martyr, singing away to itself like an angel of sweetness and forbearance. The stronger one lies underneath, smothered in silence and suppression.

But people in general do not take note of these subtleties. In this world, at any rate, he who cries loudest is soonest listened to, not he who most deserves to be heard. Neither Valentine nor her father, how ever, had begun to cry out as yet. The girl sat on the floor, still and silent ; pulling away at her lace, and glancing up now and then with eyes as deep and grey as smouldering embers. Her c father stood against the table, glowering at her. Suddenly he threw down upon her hands a little shower of bank-notes and gold pieces. " That is for your trousseau," he said, abruptly. " You had better set about it at once. Old Madelon can go with you to the shops. She can pay Madame Pulliot's rent, and spend the rest on your finery. Only see that you get a handsome trousseau, one befitting the rank of the Grafin von Reichenau — (the more so, in deed, as it has to be purchased with the Graf's own money.)" This last sentence the Colonel muttered under his breath, and Valentine did not catch it.

She would not have done so in any case, perhaps, for at the words, " Grafin von Reichenau," she had started to her feet, panting like a wild war horse. The smouldering embers had caught fire at last. "Oh, father — father!" she cried, stretching out her hands, as Andromeda stretched out hers towards the rock before Perseus appeared, and whilst the dragon's mouth still yawned horribly wide and close to her poor little naked feet. " Spare me, father ! I cannot — I will not — I dare not become Grafin von Reichenau !" Colonel Murray's eyes flashed. " Why, what change is this ?" he cried, fiercely. " Who have you been seeing during my absence ?" he asked, with sudden suspicion. " Are these the sentiments of your English friends ?" " It is no change, as you know well enough, father," said poor Andromeda, pitifully.

She knew there was no Perseus in the air for her, and she felt she must save herself, or sink into those hateful, yawning jaws. " From the first I said I never would marry the Graf von Reichenau ; from the first I knew I never could love him " " Love — love !" interrupted the Colonel, with a laugh that was not pleasant to hear. " What do you know about love, I should like to know ?" "What, indeed?" returned Valentine, bitterly. " I have not known much of it, in the course of my life, certainly. But I do know, or have heard, or read somewhere, that marriage without love is a bad thing. Is this news to you, my father ?" The father winced. It was a random shot ; but it hit straight for all that. " It cannot be that you do not know this," pursued Valentine, unconsciously. " You, who have been about so much in the world, must have seen scores of such marriages.

Do not add one more to the number in the person of your daughter." Colonel Murray laughed again. He was immensely relieved by Valentine's speech. " You ought to write a book, Valen tine," he said, mockingly. " An Eng glish novel; you have so much milk and-water sentimentality about you. But come, now, be reasonable. Life, as you know very well, cannot be carried on by the moralizings of novelists. Life requires beef and mutton, not sugar, and stuff of that sort " " Life requires love," interrupted Valentine, in a low, clear, but strange sounding, far-away sort of voice. In deed, she hardly recognized it herself. She hardly knew her own voice ; she hardly acknowledged her own thought. It was as if someone else had taken pos session of both for a second. Colonel Murray started. The voice spoke to him across a sea of years, and brought rolling towards him wave after wave of memories.

He saw his dead wife trembling before him ; his lost love stand ing up calm and cold, clear as the sky, that starless night at Coulanges. Which of these did Valentine resemble ? Neither, he well knew. She resembled himself — her father; the ruined, reckless, broken down, broken-hearted man. For a moment, selfish, and sinful, and involved in many ways as he was, he had pity upon her — pity upon the young life that was just beginning and that might end like his. For a moment he was consid ering whether Andromeda's father could not cut Andromeda's chain ; when sud denly the door opened, and Mademoiselle Madelon appeared. " Un jeune monsieur qui vient demander I'ombrelle de Mademoiselle Carmichael," announced she, in her croaky voice, as she went peering and poking about under the tables and chairs.

The father and daughter looked up as the old woman spoke, and saw the jeune monsieur standing in the doorway, tall, handsome, shy. " I am afraid I am intruding," says he, in his brusque British way. " No, I won't come in, thank you. I did not intend to come upstairs, but" (with a glance at Mademoiselle Madelon, indicat ing uncertainty as to her social condition) " I am afraid my French is very feeble, I could not make myself understood. Oh ! thanks, yes — that's the parasol. Good-night. Thanks."

Chapter III. The

sea-gull. " Alas, how easily things go wrong, A kiss too much, or a sigh too long, And there follows a mist, and a blinding rain, And life is never the same again." GEORGE MACDONALD. iFTER all, Mr. Aylmer need not have troubled himself to have climbed all that way up to Mont St. Michel after Honor's parasol, for Miss Murray could easily have brought it back with her when she came down to the Rue Bon Secours, as usual, next morning. Honor was rather surprised to see her. It was Valentine's custom to come in every morning and learn the arrange ments for the day, and take her part in them. But it seemed strange she should do so now that her father had returned to her, and on the very first day after his return, too. She said nothing, however, and they went out for their walk as usual. Down to the beach and back again.

As they came homeward along the port, Stephen Aylmer joined them. He had been to the Rue Bon Secours to inquire for them, and learning from Rosaline their probable whereabouts, had followed them thither. He scowled a little at Miss Murray at first, but on being formally introduced to her, shook hands pleasantly enough. Her company, how ever, evidently was not desired by him, for he placed himself by Honor's side, and made many surreptitious attempts to draw her down by-streets and winding alleys. But his endeavours were frus trated. Gladys distinctly declined the pleasure of Miss Murray's exclusive com pany, and hung back as Stephen hung back, and sometimes loitered behind altogether. So these four unwilling com panions walked abreast, untidily enough, hustling the passers-by, and hustling Stephen every now and then into the little gutters that ran along the sides of the street — which result did not altogether please Mr. Aylmer, and caused him to express a hope, as they sallied forth for their afternoon's walk, that they might not meet Honor's friend again.

Gladys fully entered into his feelings. " Let us go to Petit Pierreport," she said, delighted to have found an ally. " We shall not be so likely to meet her there." Honor nodded assentingly. Gladys kissed her hand to little Gaspard, who was sitting on the doorstep of the hair dresser's shop, eyeing them solemnly with his big black eyes ; and to Madame Pleon, who was pulling the dangling bell-wire at the convent-door, and asking through the grating for Sœur Genevieve ; and then off they started, up one street and down another, Gladys scudding on before, and keeping a sharp look-out at the street corners. " Oh, there she is !" cried the child, at last, clasping her hands together in dis may. " There she is, posting down the Grande Rue after us." " Could we not dive down a side street?" suggested Stephen.

" I am afraid not," said Gladys, de spondently. " She has seen us with those horrid cat's eyes of hers, and now she is waving her nasty green parasol " (with a double burr on all the r's), " to make us see her." Honor looked round with a chiding smile. She remembered her father's injunction. Perhaps Gladys was really growing rather pert. Stephen, however, laughed outright, and complimented the child on her progress in her r's. " We will walk together if Miss Murray joins us," he said, " and you shall give me a lesson in French pronunciation, Gladys." And walk with the child he did ; to the secret disappoint ment, perhaps, of both the other girls. There is not much to see at Petit Pierreport. It is only a small cluster of red-roofed cottages, crowned by a church, and dropped down like a flower bed on a bit of undulating ground, between the rolling sea on the one side, and the waving cornfields on the other.

It is a fishing village exclusively, but it possesses a quaint and ancient churchyard (the church itself has been pulled down and built up again many times), which goes sloping down to the sands, where the winds and waves make endless moan for the dead, long after their earthly friends have forgotten them. Part of this churchyard, the lowest part, nearest to the sea-wall, is appro priated to Protestant graves. There are not many of them in it, however, for Pierreport is a healthy place, and but few of the foreign visitors who come there for the summer months come to die. Mr. Carmichael had not yet had to read the funeral service over any one of his temporary and migratory flock. Nevertheless — actuated no doubt by that morbid love of tombs which inspires the ordinary Englishman to walk off his friends to the nearest cemetery, as " the prettiest point in the neighbourhood," — many and frequent were the pilgrimages made by the visitors at Pierreport to the tiny churchyard beside the sea.

Some came by to-day; two grand young ladies with their governess, a little bare-legged boy, their brother, running along behind them with a bunch of seaweed in his hand. They were the Mac B s from Madame Pulliot' s house in the Place Imperiale. They turned back, however, without entering the churchyard. A funeral was taking place among the crosses and flowers in the Roman Catho lic part of the burying ground. Gladys, who had run on before the rest of her party, stood at the gate, looking in with great awe-struck eyes. " Sœur Genevieve is there," she said, as the others came up. " Madame Pleon could not have found her at the convent, when she asked for her just now." " Come, Gladys," cried Honor, trying to lead the child away. The sight of all those weeping, black-robed people, made her shudder.

Stephen asked who Sœur Genevieve might be ? Honor began to explain. " She comes from the convent opposite our house in the Rue Bon Secours," she said. Then Valentine interposed. " She is one of those extraordinary beings who call themselves Brides of the Church, and yet dress themselves up as widows," she cried, with a mocking laugh. Stephen laughed too. He was fond of a joke, as most men are ; and though if Honor had happened to make that remark he would have been annoyed at her want of taste, it did not strike him in that light coming from Miss Murray. He even began to think her a sharp, amusing girl. A man's own particular womankind are always judged (by that officer himself, at least), by a very different standard from the rest of her sex. D VOL. IT. But to Honor this was all very horrible.

It seemed like laughing at the poor bereaved people, whose hearts were heavy, and whose eyes were sore with weeping. It seemed almost like mocking at the dead itself. She put her arm round Gladys' shoulder and led her away. They went and sat down on the sands with their faces towards the sea, their backs turned upon the little red-roofed village and its wavewashed churchyard. A fish-wife went by, with her basket on her back, her baby slung round her waist in a shawl. The Enghsh children disappeared along the sands like specks on the horizon. There was an old fisherman sitting under the shade of an old boat. He smoked his pipe, and mended his net, and mumbled away to himself. Some children played round him, amidst the scrubby furze bushes and short scant grass that fringed the shore. They were tiny toddling things, with bare legs, and little black caps tied down tightly under their little pink chins.