The Evolution of a Wife. A romance, etc

Chapter I

The sweet-voiced bells of the old cathedral of Altenbourg had just ceased ringing the Ave Maria. The long white wall of the Bernese Oberland was dyed a clear dazzling pink in the afterglow of the sunset, and all the scholars of the Grey Nuns' school came rushing out into the large old convent garden for twenty minutes' exercise and recreation before supper. Marie de Hauteville and Heloise von Kessler strolled off with arms entwined down a long shady walk at the side of the garden farthest from the convent — down, indeed, to the high wooden gates which closed out the view of the steep picturesque old street beyond. " Oh, this prison ! " sighed Marie de Hauteville. " Only five more weeks," said Heloise von Kessler. ' ' That miserable Corneille ! why ever does his wretched ' Horace ' make such long speeches, I wonder ?

I don't think it a bit natural. A man " — " Oh, Marie, there he is again ! " Both girls stopped short. A bright pink overspread Marie's cheeks, two mischievous dimples appeared at the corners of her mouth, and her large violet eyes, so dull and languid a moment before, sparkled with new life. She looked up. Over the high wall of the convent garden the side wing of a large handsomely-built modern house could be seen. In the balcony of one of the upper rooms a young man vvas standing, smoking a cigarette, and watching the two girls with intense interest. When Marie de Hauteville raised her laughing eyes, he made her a low bow, flushing slightly, and flinging away his cigarette. "Shall I bow back?" said Marie. "Oh, Heloise, what fun! Why shouldn't I? What would Mother Superior say, or Sœur Gabrielle, if she should be spying?

How lucky there are no windows on this side of the convent ! He is very handsome ! Yes ; I shall certainly bow back to him ! " Once more she looked up, and, with a charming smile, displaying two rows of milk - white teeth, she made a hesitating little bow to the young man in the balcony. He replied to her salutation by placing a rather fat but remarkably white hand, with a flashing diamond ring on the little finger, over his heart, and making her a second still lower obeisance. "Come, Heloi'se, let us walk to the gate, and then give one more glance on our way back again — quick ! It must be nearly supper-time," said Marie. She was almost tremulous with excitement. "I never thought he would be there again to-night. This is the fourth evening," she added. "Walk slower," said Heloi'se; "you mustn't show him you are at all excited, or think anything of it ; that's always fatal with men."

Marie laughed excitedly. They stood still a minute or two by the heavy wooden gates, then turned and walked slowly back. At the place where they had stopped before, opposite a flowering currant - bush covered with sweetly-scented pink blossoms, the two girls slackened their steps ; and, just as Marie was about to look upwards, something flew through the air and fell at her feet. "Oh, la belle rose!" she exclaimed, stooping down to pick up an exquisite creamy rose with a faintly pink heart. She had scarcely raised it from the ground when a loud clanging bell caused both her and Heloi'se to give a guilty start. With a hurried glance and an enchanting smile up at the balcony, Marie slipped the rose into the large pocket of her school apron of black alpaca, and she and Heloise ran off, their feet barely touching the ground as they fled, to escape a bad mark for entering the reTectoire after the bell had ceased ringing.

Five minutes later, Marie de Hauteville and Heloise von Kessler stood facing each other, at the top and bottom of a long narrow table, in the cool reTectoire. Both panted slightly, both had flushed cheeks and bright eyes. Marie was busily engaged in pouring milk out of huge white stone jugs into two rows of thick common glasses. Heloise was occupied in placing a large square piece of bread and a small square piece of cheese on a regiment of thick white plates, arranged in piles of four around her. Another long table, super intended by two Grey Nuns, vvas placed at the opposite side of the long chilly refectoire. At one end of the room, on a raised platform, the Mother Superior stood — a tall commanding figure, with a half-open book in her hand — waiting to begin the evening reading until the pupils should have begun their supper.

"The reading for to-night, my children," she announced, in high-pitched, slightly nasal accents, "is the Life of S. Hyacintha Mariscotti, who was changed, through the wonderful grace of God, from a vain frivolous seeker of men's admiration into a humble penitent and tear-stained saint."

Chapter II

It was the 19th of June— a brilliant Sunday morning — the Fete Dieu, or, as we call it in England, the Feast of Corpus Christi. The picturesque old city of Altenbourg seemed to have blossomed out into new life during the short summer night. All the old houses, with their projecting upper storeys, were decorated with banners and streamers. Cords were stretched across the road from the higher windows of houses on opposite sides of the streets, from which sheets were suspended stuck over with small bunches of bright flowers, interspersed with gilt paper stars and little sacred pictures. Garlands of evergreens and pink paper roses connected the finer houses of the principal streets — Rue de Lausanne and the Rue S. Jean — with their opposite neighbours. At the end or in the centre of every street wooden altars were erected, entirely covered with masses of flowers of all kinds and colours, and on each of these temporary altars the Sacred Host would rest.

It was to be carried in procession from the high altar of the old cathedral all through the city. The clear air was full of the sound of bells answering each other — from the splendid peal in the old cathedral towers perched on top of the steep hill, down to the two shrill discordant bells of the chapel of the convent of Grey Nuns in the valley by the river. Old Josef, the convent gardener, was tugging away at their rusty chains. He was probably the only person in a bad temper in the whole of Altenbourg that day ; but then Josef never was in a good temper. " I only wish he would marry Elise, Tante Mathilde's cook," Marie de Hauteville used to say. " She is the crossest woman in the world. They would be such a good match ! " The pupils of the Grey Nuns had been up since five o'clock that morning.

Three temporary altars were erected at the bottom of the large old convent garden. Marie de Hauteville, who had a special talent for arranging flowers, had dressed the principal one — it was a mass of lovely crimson roses with a heart of pure white ones in the centre. On either side were two smaller altars. Over one was a sort of shrine or grotto covered with box, in which was placed a beautiful statue of the Blessed Virgin, clothed in blue and white, with clasped hands, looking upward in prayer. This was the pride of the convent, and had been brought from Lourdes by the Mother Superior, who had made a pilgrimage there the year before. The altar of the Virgin was all covered with white pinks, with a large M in blue cornflowers in the middle. The third altar was S. Joseph's, all decked out with tall white lilies and pale pink roses, and hung round with festoons of large white marguerites.

It had been dressed entirely by the "little ones" of the convent school, in honour of the patron saint of children — the pure and gentle S. Joseph. The Mother Superior had indeed given them some hints, and watched them at work during the morning, since when they could do nothing but contemplate their handiwork with proud and beaming faces. " If only Mother Superior had brought back a pretty S. Joseph too, when she came from Lourdes ! " sighed Ninette Mayer, the little girl from next door. "The Baby is very pretty, at anyrate," answered another "little one"; "and perhaps," she added, with great hesitation — "perhaps le bon S. Josef n'^tait pas beau." She became very red in the face as she saw the look of shocked horror that overspread Ninette Mayer's prim little countenance at the semi-sacrilege of such a supposition.

The procession was not expected to reach the convent until at least three o'clock in the afternoon. Twelve o'clock dinner was a better meal than usual that day, and, after it was over, all the little ones had to be dressed. Each elder girl had a special prot.g^e among them, for whose tidiness both in her person and belongings she was entirely responsible ; and there was quite a spirit of rivalry between them as to the appearance of their respective protegees on any festal occasion like the present. The long " dormitoire des enfants " vvas transformed into a very babel of shrill childish voices and high-pitched French tones this afternoon. "Tiens-toi tranquille, Coco, que je t'arrange un peu les cheveux ! " exclaimed Marie de Hauteville, busily brushing out the long pale golden hair of her petite prot£g_e. "Yes, you shall wear your hair all loose to-day, Coco," she added; "it is so pretty like that."

"Oh, Marie, do you also wear your hair loose — it would reach to your knees, it is so thick and lovely, just like Sœur P^tronille's picture of S. Madeleine," said the child, wriggling round to stroke the soft brown head bending over her. " Take it out of those two ugly plaits, and oh, let me brush it, ma jolie petite maman. Marie laughed, and gently kissed the long thin little face so eagerly turned towards her. It was always a slight grief to her that her little protegee was not a pretty child. All the little ones wore white dresses, pale blue sashes, and little white veils falling over their shoulders and down below their waists. The elder girls were dressed in pale grey, with pale pink sashes and long white veils falling nearly to the edge of their dresses. Marie de Hauteville had tied two little pink bows at the ends of her long light brown plaits.

It was three o'clock. The great wooden gates of the convent garden were thrown wide open. The Mother Superior and all the Grey Nuns, some twenty in number, with their blooming "garden of girls," stood waiting just in side the gateway to receive the procession. Each of the little ones held a basket filled with rose petals, and the elder ones had sheets of MS. music in their hands. The procession was coming. They could hear the singing far up the steep winding street ; they could see the gay banners and brilliant vestments filing down the hill towards them. "Josef, ring faster and louder," called out the Mother Superior. Every heart beat quicker. There was an over powering sense of awe and approaching mystery, that made some of the more sensitive of the pupils almost hysterical. Ninette Mayer sobbed aloud, and had to be consoled by kind Sœur Marie-Thekla.

Even Coco ceased to whisper and fidget with the long pale blue ribbons tied to the handle of her basket. The procession was come ! Through the gates stalked a gigantic Swiss clad in brilliant scarlet breeches and coat, bearing an enormous banner. He was followed by a long file of little <rirls with wreaths of white roses (made of book muslin) on their heads ; then came little boys in scarlet cassocks and white lace surplices ; then older boys wafting smoking censers ; then a troop of priests bearing great gilt crucifixes and gaudy banners ; then — under a canopy — slowly walked the old Bishop of Altenbourg, bearing the Host in a golden pyx. As he entered the garden gate, he raised it high above his head and blessed the Mother Superior, the nuns, and the children. All fell on their knees, there was a moment's breathless silence ; then, rising, the little ones, walking backwards before the Host, began to strew the pathway from the gates to the central altar with their rose petals, while the elder pupils, led by Sœur Gabrielle, broke into a shrill hymn of triumphant praise and welcome to the Sacred Host.

Marie de Hauteville had been for ten years a pupil at the Convent of Grey Nuns. Hers was one of those natures where custom soon exhausts any emotion. When once the novelty of any sensation had worn off, it ceased to affect her deeply. Indeed she seldom vvas strongly moved for long, although she was a very affectionate, open-hearted, and somewhat impulsive girl. She had seen the procession ten times ; therefore, after a momentary feeling of awe and religious en thusiasm, she was able to glance at those who followed the old Bishop, and beyond them at the large crowd which had accompanied the procession into the convent garden. Just behind her godfather — the old Bishop of Altenbourg was Marie's godfather — stalked Heloise von Kessler's uncle, "the old General," in a gorgeous uniform, his breast resplendent with no less than fifteen various crosses, medals, and decorations of honour.

With him walked the young Count Victor von Weisenfels, tall, straight, and handsome, with an enormous pair of light brown moustaches, curled fiercely upwards like a wild bull's horns, and his thick hair, cut a la brosse, standing bristling up all over his head. His alert eyes met Marie's wandering glance, and the two exchanged a smile— of meaning admiration on his part, of pleased friendliness on hers. There followed all the male representatives of all the Alten bourgeoise aristocracy; then the children from the orphanage, boys and girls ; then the students from the Jesuits' College, in black cassocks edged with scarlet — there were not more than three new ones since last year, noted Marie ; then followed the crowd, chiefly well-dressed bourgeoisie men and women. Finally, a small group of brilliantly-dressed ladies, — mothers, aunts, and elder sisters of the pupils at the convent school, who arrived just in time to take part in the short service after the Host was placed on the central altar.

Nearly all of them had, in their younger days, dressed the altars in the old convent garden, patiently practised stepping backwards along the middle walk, and cracked their girlish voices in the shrill hymn of welcome to the Sacred Host. The short service was over, and the old Bishop and long procession had filed away to visit the last altar, in the marketplace down in the Basseville. All the ladies remained behind, and many ofthe gentlemen had slipped out of the procession, and stood laughing and talking with them and the nuns and their pupils in the bright old-fashioned garden. Heloise von Kessler seized Marie de Hauteville by the arm. " Look, there's your blond monsieur talking to Ninette Mayer, with her uncle and aunt," she whispered hastily. Marie turned quickly. Yes, it was he! She had thought, seeing him in the balcony, that he would have been taller.

He was looking at her. She flushed, and, smiling slightly, turned away again. Her half-sister Ernestine, a bright sweet-looking little thing of about sixteen, came running up to her. "Marie, Marie, viens vite — voila Tante Mathilde qui m'envoie a te chercher."

Chapter III

She was not really their aunt ; but Marie and Ernestine, in common with most of the young people of Alten bourg, called her Tante Mathilde. She was, besides, Marie's godmother. There she stood, talking to the Mother Superior and the Countess von Weisenfels. They had all been schoolfellows together — how long ago ! — at the Grey Nuns' Convent. Madame de Bienforte, otherwise known as Tante Mathilde, was a tall striking-looking woman. She was not, and never could have been, handsome ; yet tradition said she had had hosts of admirers in her young days. She had such a pleasant face, despite its plainness ; such a glow of "peace and goodwill towards men," and women too, shone in her kindly eyes ; her smile was so frank and winning, that few could resist her. She had married late in life, despite all her many good chances, a not wealthy man — a retired Colonel of the Pope's Swiss Guard ; but he had died after five short years of wedded happiness, and people said that Tante Mathilde had never been the same woman since.

"Ma chere petite!" she cried, kissing Marie with effusion on both cheeks; "how you are grown! you are really become quite a belle demoiselle. Tiens, Victorine ! " she exclaimed to the Countess von Weisen fels ; " how like she is to poor Marguerite ! C'est vraiment extraordinaire! Dear me! it seems to me now that I am once more a girl here in this old garden. Ah, what a happy time it was ! " Marie de Hauteville made a very expressive little moue at these words, carefully withdrawing behind the Mother Superior's back. "Who is that fat little man with such a red face, and the yellow woman in the green bonnet, talking to one of your little ones, Madeleine?" asked the Countess von Weisenfels of the Mother Superior; "they seem very common sort of people to be here," she added. "Those are M. Mayer and his sister from next door.

The little girl is their orphan niece, and the fair young man is her brother, just returned from England to manage the business for his uncle." "The business]" exclaimed the Countess. "You don't mean to tell me that Mayer is the rich watch maker and cement person ? Fancy having his niece here with our daughters ! Really, chere Madeleine, I think it very odd and rash of you to allow it. As M. le G6n£ral von Kessler rightly says, one must make a sharp distinction, specially in these terrible times of anarchy, democracy, and socialism." Now Tante Mathilde had one little foible, harmless enough, but very amusing and utterly incomprehensible to all her Altenbourg friends and relatives. She was — an Anglomaniac ! She had never been in England, it is true, but nevertheless she proudly declared herself to be more English than the English themselves ; she spoke English whenever she could, read mostly English literature of a very mild character, and dressed in what she considered a peculiarly English style.

Peculiar it certainly was ; as to its being Eng lish — perish the thought ! No sooner did she hear that M. Mayer's nephew had just returned from England than a burning desire to practise her English took possession of her soul. She wished, besides, to show Victorine von Weisenfels and the Mother Superior that she, with her broad English ideas of freedom and independence, made little or no distinction between the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie, so long as these last were people of great wealth and education. " I am going to speak to old Mayer," she announced decidedly. "I saw in the English newspaper— which I take in weekly— that he gained the International prize at the orchid show in London last month. I shall even ask him to let me visit his splendid hothouses." She glanced a little defiantly at the Countess von Weisenfels, and walked off with a long manly stride.

"Comme je suis tout-a-fait Anglaise ! " she thought proudly to herself. Marie de Hauteville, hanging closely and somewhat heavily on her arm, accompanied her. "Mathilde was always so peculiar! I believe the mother of that young man and little girl was no less a personage than the grocer's daughter ! It's a good thing for Mathilde that her brother the General isn't here to see her talking to ces affreuse gens-la," ended the Countess, staring fixedly with her cold haughty grey eyes through her raised tortoiseshell lorgnon at the Mayer family. "Fancy shaking hands with the man ! " she shuddered, and turned away utterly disgusted. M. Mayer became redder than ever at the great honour thus publicly done him by Madame de Bienforte, and his always fussy and self-important manners became so pompous, and yet so flustered when she actually asked him to present to her his sister and their nephew, that Marie de Hauteville with great difficulty refrained from laughing out loud.

Certainly "the nephew" was very good-looking as he stood there bareheaded before them. Tante Mathilde was talking to M. Mayer about his orchids, his hothouses, and his nephew's English education. Marie let her tiny lace-edged handkerchief fall to the ground. The nephew bent down, and, picking it up, returned it to her with a low bow and an eloquent look: their fingers touched. " Merci, monsieur," murmured Marie. "You like flowers, mademoiselle?" said the young man. " What a pity he flushes so much when he speaks ! and he is rather stout for so young a man," thought Marie as she answered, "Oh, I love them — and you?" "J'adore les roses," he murmured, fixing his eyes on a dark crimson rose that Mademoiselle de Hauteville wore stuck into her pale pink ribbon belt. " Eh bien ! thank you, M. Mayer," Tante Mathilde was saying; "then I shall come on Thursday after noon to visit the orchids, at about four o'clock."

" Oh, Tante Mathilde," broke in Marie, to her godmother's astonishment, and somewhat to her dis may, " do let me come too ! I love orchids so much, and I have never seen any good ones." "But, my child — and your studies? Mother Superior — ? " "Thursday afternoon is our halfholiday," said Marie. " I am sure M. Mayer will let me come?" and she turned and looked at the fat little man with such a radiant smile that he bowed almost to the ground, murmuring, "Trop d'honneur." " Eh bien! nous allons demander la Mere Superieure," said Madame de Bienforte. She looked at the girl with a slightly puzzled expression as they walked back to where the Mother Superior stood talking to the young Count Victor von Weisenfels, just returned from the procession. Henri Mayer, with a look of beatitude in his large dark grey eyes, stooped down and picked up a dark crimson rose lying on the ground, near where Marie had stood ; then he turned and said abruptly to his uncle and aunt — " Je m'en vais : je m'ennui ici."

All the ladies and gentlemen retired at the invitation of the Mother Superior into the reTectoire, where they partook of a substantial afternoon tea, or " gouteV' as it is called at Altenbourg. Some of the elder pupils poured out the tea at a side table, while others handed it round to the visitors. Marie de Hauteville and Heloi'se von Kessler, assisted by Count Victor von Weisenfels, poured cream into the cups. Then all the pupils sat down to the long tables, and the visitors waited on them with much laughter and merry talk. Count Victor brought Marie a little pink sugar cake in the shape of a heart. "Pour toi, Marie," he murmured, slipping it on to her plate. Marie bit a small piece out of it. "It is very sweet, Victor," she half whispered, with such a glance from under her long dark lashes that the young man felt a strange sensation of sudden dizziness almost take away his breath for a moment.

He bent over the girl, determined to say something more, he scarcely knew what, when his mother's sharp voice was heard calling across the room in trenchant tones to him to go at once to find their carriage. " I am too fatigued to remain here one moment longer," said she. Victor left the room immediately, and Marie de Hauteville sprang up from her place and went across to the little ones' table. "Tiens, Coco!" she exclaimed hurriedly; " te voilk un de ces petits gateaux a la confiture que tu aimes tant ; " and she hastily placed the pink sugar heart on the delighted child's plate, and returned to her seat, a bright flush on her pretty face. " In three weeks more you and I shall be able to have as many sugar cakes as we please," she whispered to Heloi'se von Kessler. "Yes; but you won't get many more from Victor von Weisenfels," answered her friend, who had silently placed half of a white sugar heart, with sponge-cake and jam inside it, on Marie's plate.

Chapter IV

" Oh, Heloise, do I really look nice? Ernestine, lend me your best gloves — there's an angel ! " said Marie, turning from the tiny mirror, hanging from a nail in a corner of the long dormitoire. "Oh, Marie, you always look beautiful," said the little sister fervently, as she held out a pair of light grey kid gloves towards her with an adoring glance. Heloise tied her friend's pale pink sash very tightly, to give her a small waist, then both kissed the girl fondly. "Good-bye, Heloise! good-bye, ma petite! I will bring you back some flowers and bon-bons if I can," cried Marie, running along the echoing stone-paved corridor, springing down the grey granite staircase, and entering the parloir as sedately as a demure kitten. Tante Mathilde vvas sitting in the parloir talking with the Mother Superior, awaiting her god-daughter in high good-humour.

" Allons ! vite ! " she cried out, kissing Marie hastily; "it is already a quarter past four — always late ! " Marie glanced at Madame de Bienforte's costume as they hurried through the garden. If that vvas how the English ladies dressed, she would always get her clothes from Paris, like all the elegantes of Altenbourg, and not from London, like Tante Mathilde. Madame de Bienforte wore a small sailor hat perched jauntily on one side of her large square - shaped head, an elastic was attached to the narrow brim and passed through the buttonhole of her loose man-like jacket to prevent its flying away ; a flaunting white waistcoat spotted with red peeped out from under the cutaway coat, and the poor lady's fat neck was imprisoned in a shirt collar so high and so stiff that turning her head was an impossibility.

" I shall walk behind Tante Mathilde with my blond monsieur," thought Marie, noting the stiff collar with mischievous glee. They passed through large ornamental iron gates leading from the street into the garden next door. Truly, it was an earthly paradise : a smooth green lawn, large specimen trees of great beauty and rarity planted singly here and there, a fountain in the middle falling splashing into a large marble basin, bright beds of flowers, and along the lower wall, facing south, quite a small village of greenhouses. The old man and his nephew were awaiting them in the garden, and at once escorted them to examine the " houses." Henri Mayer and Marie fell behind the other two, and somehow the girl felt a strange unaccountable shyness creep over her under the ardent glances of her companion.

" What a dear little girl your sister Ninette is, M. Mayer ! " she said hurriedly, to break the awkward silence. "She tells me she has never spoken to you, Mademoiselle de Hauteville," said Henri, smiling. "We elder ones do not see the little ones often, except our own particular prot_g6es," said Marie, blushing slightly ; then she went on to explain to him their convent system of "Little Mothers" and "Protegees." " How I envy your proteg_e ! " said the young man. Marie laughed merrily ; she vvas completely at her ease with him now. "Tell me about England," she said as they wandered through the huge palm-house ; but Tante Mathilde turned round suddenly — not her head, but her whole person. " We are going at once to see the orchids, Marie; we must not delay long over the beautiful plants here," she called out ; and Marie and Henri followed her and M. Mayer through the long palm - house into the first orchid-house beyond.

There were three of them, of various degrees of heat: "The three degrees of comparison," said Marie, laughing, as they entered the first. "The three degrees of — feeling, shall I say?" answered Henri. "Admiration, friendship, and — love. Do you believe in friendships between men and women, mademoiselle ? " " Oh yes, of course I do," said Marie. " I have some men friends ; for instance, Victor von Weisenfels and I are very good friends." " He was a friend of mine once too," said Henri ; "we were at school together in England." " Were you?" exclaimed Marie, in a tone of such unfeigned surprise that the young man flushed some what angrily. " My sister is at school with you, Mademoiselle de Hauteville," he said shortly. The air was heavy and cool and damp in the first house ; long trails of orchids hung down from the roof, growing in moss suspended in wire baskets, or climbed up the sides of the house, planted in rich, moist, almost black soil.

Marie gazed silently at a beautiful, long, pale lilac flower, then she said in a very low voice — "You are very proud, M. Mayer, and I am very stupid. Forgive me — I didn't mean to hurt you. I "— "Forgive me, mademoiselle: I was rude. You are an angel. Let me too be one of your friends, I pray you," he added impulsively. Marie smiled, and held out a slender little hand — in Ernestine's best grey kid glove ! The young man took it eagerly, and, glancing quickly at the retreating backs of his uncle and Madame de Bienforte, he raised it to his lips. "We must follow my aunt," said Marie after a moment's pause. " Come, M. Mayer, into ' Friend ship,' " she added, laughing gaily. " N'est-ce pas superbe, Marie? " cried Tante Mathilde, pointing to an exquisite orchid : it was a pure sparkling white blossom in the shape of a little dove : Monsieur Mayer had just informed her sententiously that it was called " la Colombe."