Beatrix Cadell. An episode in the life of a man of the world

Front matter

AN EPfSODE TN THE LIFE OF A MAN OF THE WORLD. BY FRANCES LAYLAND. "The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of IIea%-en." Paradise Lost (MlLTON). " See whether thy sorrow did not spring from some worldly disappointment." — Romaine. LONDON : SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT & Co., Limited, 1S92. PLYMOUTH : BOWERING AND CO., PRINTERS, OEORCE STREET, CONTENTS. chap. i-age i. her childhood . . 9 ii. philip ogden . . 27 iii. " until the end comes " . 46 iv. "do not laugh at me ! " . . . 59 V. "OH, LOVE!" . . . . 76 VI. THE OTHER WOMAN . . . . 94 VII. A COUNTY DINNER PARTY . . . II4 VIII. MONTE CARLO . . . . 138 IX. THE NATURE OF A " CAD " . . . 163 X. "WHAT HAS SOCIETY DONE FOR ME?" . 191 XI. PARIS . . . . . 2l8 XII. "yes, you must marry'' . . 230 XIII. DOUBTS . . . . . 251 XIV. three months later . . . 267 XV.

A DIGRESSION . . . . 29O XVI. THE beginning OF the end . . 308 xvii. "who is beata?" . . . . 320 Will. THE QUESTION SOLVED . . . 340 XIX. HER TERRIBLE TEMPTATION . . . 355 XX. RIGHT AT LAST . . . THIS STORY, WHICH HAS GIVEN ME SO MUCH PLEASURE TO WRITE, I DEDICATE TO MY MOTHER.

Chapter I

" Oh, the dreary, dreary moorland ! oh, the barren, barren shore ! " "Break, break, break On thy cold grey stones, O Sea ! And I would that my tongue could utter The thoughts that arise in me." Tennyson. gjK$*(£?|| I "■'•' a bleak, i old d.i\ al the end of Novembei . Bsg |Sg black and threatening clouds sailed sullenly Bjga]g^| across the sky, carrying in their blackness heavy squalls of wind and rain ; the rocky Yorkshire coast looked grim and uninviting to passing vessels, as they skurried along under shortened sail, their bows dipping deeply into the angry sea. The waves, rolling in long green lines one after another, thundered on to the beach, the swelling lines breaking up into a mass of foam and salt sea spray ; and the sea-gulls, making the grimness of the scene more grim and chilling by their hideous screams, kept near the shore, or settled on the rocks for shelter and rest.

The little fishing village of Culross, dreary and poverty stricken, had been built in a hollow, formed by a natural break in the coast-line. Years ago it had been fairly B flourishing — fishing was good, and heavy catches were the rule. The adjacent neighbourhood, although not a fertile district, produced sufficient to maintain the scanty population. The neighbouring gentry were represented by the Cadells of Cadell Manor, and the Lysons of Huyton Hey; both had been rich and influential families, living a great part of the year on their estates, and were accordingly a source of livelihood for many of their poor neighbours. But this comparatively flourishing state of things had ceased. For twenty years or more the fishing had either failed, or else the increase of population could not find sustenance enough in what they caught.

The poor land could not assist in any way to meet the increasing wants of the workers — it refused to yield more than it had done before ; indeed, in many cases it scarcely repaid the labour bestowed upon it. The two families had gradually fallen from their high estate. The Lysons had become extinct in the direct line, and the title and estates had gone away to a distant branch of the family, who had settled in a more genial part of the country. The old mansion was shut up ; a steward came to live in a small house in the village, and the land was allowed to be fallow, as the new owner, accustomed to richer and better soil, had an idea that it had been worked beyond its power. Cadell Manor, an ancient stone-built mansion of the early part of the sixteenth century, lay nearer the sea and Culross than did Huyton Hey.

The family had formerly owned large estates in Northumberland and Sussex, and had taken a prominent place not only in the three counties, but also in London ; for the Cadells had been able statesmen, men of letters and science, and had for generations held high positions of trust, both at Court and in the Government. But that was forty years ago. Gradually the broad acres had slipped away from the hands which had held them so long. Sir Hulbert Cadell, who had been Ambassador successively in Paris, Vienna, and Madrid, lived far above his means ; he had married, moreover, a beautiful Spanish woman with a pedigree as long as his own, and a name as famous in her own country as that of a Stanley in his ; but beyond her pedigree, her name, and her face she was portionless. The want of gold on Lady Cadell's part would not have been a misfortune ; if it had not been that her extravagance was in keeping with her other qualities.

She spent money as freely as she bandied words with the courtiers at the Spanish Court ; she had no idea of economy, no wish or inclination to live otherwise than did the great nobles and princes who met in her salon. For twenty years Lady Cadell laughed and danced and wasted her husband's estates, and then suddenly, without more than two days' illness, died of inflammation of the lungs, the consequence of a severe cold caught one damp, chilly evening while sitting on a balcony in Vienna in her low evening dress. After her death Sir Hulbert sent in his resignation, and returned to England and Cadell — returned to find his estates in Northumberland and Sussex so heavily encum bered that there was nothing he could do to save them. They were sold, and he retired to the old manor-house near Culross, broken in spirit and heart, and no ambition on this side of the grave.

He brought his son home with him — a boy of five years of age, handsome, wilful, and passionate, with all his mother's selfish nature and heedless ways. This boy, born after fifteen years' of married life, was very precious to his father; he loved him as few men love their sons, but he met with little, if any, return. Young Hulbert Cadell lived at Cadell until he was twenty years of age, but he lived there against his will, and with one continual murmur of discontent. In vain, as he grew older, did his father patiently point out to him the necessity there was for him to live quietly, if they also wished to live honestly. Young Hulbert paid little heed to his father's loving words. He wanted to see the world, to mix with men and women in his own station, to have more change, more excitement, more freedom.

When he reached his twentieth year he also reached the limit of his patience, and without a word of farewell to his father, with no compunction for so selfishly leaving him, old and sorrow-stricken as he was, he quitted Cadell. The blow was so sudden, so unexpected, and altogether so heavy, that Sir Hulbert was never the same again. He became morose and silent, often breaking out with fierce and uncontrollable fits of temper ; but he was too proud to sorrow openly, or to make any inquiries about his absent son. Three years passed away, and one day there came a clergyman to Cadell, a kindly, elderly man, who brought sorrowful tidings to the stricken old man. Young Hulbert Cadell was dead, had in fact died before the clergyman quitted his side. He died of a slow, wasting fever at a small seaport town, not fifty miles from Culross.

The clergyman believed that he was then on his way home, and had had no idea that the end was so near. One token of his son did the clergyman bring to Cadell, and that was a little baby girl of scarcely two months, whose mother had died in giving her birth, and who, when she reached her grandfather's hands, had no friend or relative save him. The clergyman brought with the baby the certificate of her parents' marriage, her baptismal record, and her dead father's ring ; beyond that her attire was of the poorest and scantiest, for young Hulbert Cadell had found life harder than he had ever imagined, and nothing but wilful pride had prevented him from returning to his home months before. Sir Hulbert had been bitterly disappointed in his son, but all the same he felt deeply his early and unhappy death.

Of the child he took scarcely any notice ; it was a girl. Perhaps if it had been a boy he might have shown more affection, more interest ; but as it was he glanced at it once, and then handed it over to the care of his housekeeper. Fortunately the child was a strong, healthy baby, dark haired and eyed, with a dark skin. The old woman, anxious to do her best for the helpless little orphan, whose dead father had been her greatest interest in the great empty house, watched over her with anxious care, and had the satisfaction of seeing her grow and thrive as the months went on. Little Beatrix passed from babyhood to childhood in the usual way ; she was much the same as other babies, neither better nor worse ; she had her moments of temper like all children, and her hours of sleep and play. She had not been a pretty baby, nor was she a pretty child.

Her dark hair, glossy though it was, was too thick and short to be attractive ; her great eyes, almost black in colour, were too intense for a child ; her sallow skin scarcely ever had a tinge of colour in it, and rosy cheeks are childhood's greatest beauty ; her features, straight and delicate though they were, were too strongly marked and decided. She was always tall for her age, and very thin ; altogether she was not an interesting child, either in con versation or appearance. A more lonely little creature never existed. Her infantile life was passed with the housekeeper, a worthy woman in her own position, but neither educated nor in her first youth. She was kind to the child, and attended carefully to its bodily requirements; but, as was natural, she did not comprehend the necessity there was for any moral or religious training.

Every child requires sympathy of some sort, or from some source, but poor little Beatrix received none. She had no playfellows or playthings, not even a doll. Mrs. Boyde had forgotten that children ever had such things. She imagined that as long as Beatrix was well fed, warmly clothed, and had a fair amount of fresh air every day, she had all that was necessary. She provided no amusement for her, she was taught nothing, nor was she expected to learn anything. The numberless hours that the little grey-robed figure, with its bushy black head, stood patiently at the side windows in the housekeeper's room no one can say. She stood there for hours, and watched in winter the great bare branches of the trees in the courtyard waving their naked arms wildly or gently in the breeze, as the case might be.

In summer she stood and longed for a little more freedom, or for an hour of liberty to run over the green lawn, when the full-leaved trees cast long, deep shadows in the grass, and the countless birds sang blithe songs of warm days and sunny hours, of sweet flowers and full nests. Alas ! she longed in vain. Sir Hulbert Cadell, not wishing to see his solitary little grand-daughter, had given strict orders that she was never to be allowed on the lawn, nor, indeed, outside the housekeeper's domain, after certain hours ; so she pined away in secret, with no loving one to notice the world of sadness that was gathering in her great black eyes, or the wistful curves that her sweet, firm mouth was taking. It is true she had never known the sweetness of a loving presence, or the touch of kindly hands ; but instinct told her her little life had not been lived as it might have been, that it could and should have held better things for her, and made her childhood what it was meant to be.

She felt this vaguely, but she spoke no word of what was passing in her busy little brain. By nature she was not talkative, and as Mrs. Boyde was very deaf, and no longer young, she cared little for conversation. There were but three other servants at the manor — the butler, who was the housekeeper's husband, and two women servants. The greater part of the fine old house was closed. Sir Hulbert lived entirely in the red parlour, a square apartment of moderate size near the hall door, and whose windows looked out on to the lawn ; his bedchamber was directly overhead, the first room in that wing. Beatrix slept in a little room leading out of the housekeeper's, the two maid-servants next to her, and all three bedrooms were on the opposite side of the house to Sir Hulbert's, so that there was never any chance of her encountering him.

When Beatrix was fourteen Mrs. Boyde suddenly remem bered that she could neither read nor write, and, when that idea had dawned upon her, she began to wonder whether Sir Hulbert intended his grand-daughter to grow up absolutely ignorant. The housekeeper had forgotten how quickly the years were slipping away, and that while they only brought additional aches and pains to her rheumatic body, they were bringing womanhood to Beatrix. She sat in her chair by the broad hearth, and looked at the tall, thin girl beside the window, and as she looked she began to pity the solitary child, whose childhood had been so dreary and sad, so entirely apart from all natural affection. She was a kindly woman, and had done her duty by her charge, as far as in her lay ; but as she looked at Beatrix she began dimly to understand that the girl required more than she could give, that there were many things necessary for a young lady's education of which she knew nothing.

As she thus thought she also acknowledged to herself that Sir Hulbert had certainly not done his duty to his orphan grand-child. If he was not responsible for her existence, neither was she. It was more than hard, it was unnatural, that he should visit the sins of her father on her defenceless head. As far as Mrs. Boyde knew, she had no living relative except Sir Hulbert ; her mother had been the only child of one of the Leslies of Stanhope — a third or fourth son's child, who had married against his parent's wishes, and had therefore been discarded by them. Sir Hulbert was an old man, and very infirm ; for years he had not quitted Cadell, his daily walks rarely extending out of sight of the house. He had no visitors, for there was no one but the fisher-people within ten or twelve miles of the manor-house.

Culross was too small and insignificant a village to have either a clergyman or a doctor. Redhaven was the nearest town, and twice a month a curate from the church there came over to Culross and held an afternoon service in a large room. Everyone who needed the service of baptism, marriage, or burial had to be driven or to walk to Redhaven, eleven miles further inland. The inconvenience of this arrangement did not impress the villagers, because they had not known anything different ; they submitted to the dreary eleven miles there, and the still more dreary eleven miles back, as they submitted to the cold, biting winds, and the scanty food, which was their lot. They had little to be thankful for, if thankfulness is to be measured by comforts and sufficiency of food ; but they were a patient, hard working lot, and took their few hours of sunshine and plenty gratefully, bearing the many hardships and dreary hungry days with a stolid patience which was worthy of deep admiration.

Sir Hulbert had not felt the complete isolation which was his lot when he came home to settle at Cadell. Perhaps he was selfish in his sorrow, and forgot that while he had lived his life, had satiated himself through experience of all that life can give, it was otherwise with his son, growing up to manhood in the dreary old mansion. Sir Hulbert forgot that he too had been young; that he had been ambitious, restless, and eager to try his wings ; that his youth had been partly spent in the capitals of other countries, in travelling and seeing all that a young man best likes to see ; that his early manhood had passed in a whirl of excitement ; that, in short, he had for many years of his life been one of fortune's favourites. How then could he sympathise with an unsatisfied longing for freedom, such as his son had felt !

Fate had so ruled him and his youth that he had no time to tire of Cadell ; he was there so seldom, and then only in the summer, that he grew to love the silent old house, the shady groves, and great gaunt trees. Quiet and solitude were for a time refreshing to the travelled man accustomed to the bustle and noise of cities, the whirl and fatigue of hurried journeys. When he returned to his boyhood's home, broken in spirits and fortune, he welcomed the undisturbed solitude eagerly. He had no wish to see his friends, or to feel that they were pitying him for his misfortunes. He preferred to shut himself up, to brood over his past life and blighted hopes, and devote all his spare time to the education of his little son. When that son, grown to man's estate, openly rebelled against parental authority and severity, and preferred to face the world by himself to passing his days in the dreary house and still more dreary moorland, Sir Hulbert was more than grieved ; he was astonished.

He had tasted the sweets of freedom, of a busy excited life, and the sweets had turned to ashes in his mouth. He had learned to value through bitter experience the blessings of a peaceful existence, and in his blindness and pre-occupation could not understand why his son did not share his views. When tidings of Hulbert's death were brought to him he accepted the fact silently — outwardly — but he showed neither love nor pity for the solitary little orphan that was the last representative of his name and race. He banished her to the housekeeper's rooms, to the other side of the house to that which he occupied, and he strove to banish her memory as effectually as he banished her little body. In a great measure he succeeded, and he really forgot how quickly the years slipped by, and that the little babe, so small and frail, was growing up all the time, and approaching more nearly every hour of her life that woman hood which would prevent his ignoring her any longer.

This forgetfulness on his part could not have gone on much longer, even if the housekeeper had not become alive to the necessity of something being done. Silent, submissive, and gentle as little Beatrix had generally shown herself, she was fast leaving her unquestioning childhood behind. She was beginning to long, as her father had done before her, for something different, for something better than the mere animal life she was leading. She was absolutely ignorant of everything. The housekeeper was not a religious woman, nor had she even troubled herself about sacred matters ; and in all these respects Beatrix was an absolute little heathen. The thoughts which troubled her little brain were vague and shadowy ; she had scarcely begun to put them into words. When that stage was reached there was but a narrow barrier between her and rebellion.

That evening Mrs. Boyde decided on taking a bold step. She felt it to be such ; nevertheless, she took it. She sent Beatrix upstairs to arrange her hair, and put on a clean pinafore, and then she took her to the red parlour. Beatrix had never been in that part of the house before. To keep her in the servants' side had not been a difficult matter, for the wing was complelely shut off from the principal part of the mansion by a door, and this Mrs. Boyde generally kept locked. Silently Beatrix followed the housekeeper through the long, empty corridors, across the great bare dining-hall, and out into the square stone passage before the door of the red parlour. Here Mrs. Boyde paused for a moment, probably to summon up all her courage, then she knocked gently, and taking Beatrix by the hand, opened the door and went in.

The room was square and very lofty ; a great window, fitted with numberless panes of diamond-shaped glass — some of them beautiful, with rich colouring and heraldic devices — seemed to fill up one side of the apartment opposite the door. Great curtains of handsome tapestry hung in long, straight folds from the ceiling to the floor ; the furniture was massive dark oak, with deep purple coverings in rich velvet. There were a few pictures, not more than five in all, but each a masterpiece ; on the high oaken mantel-shelf, which reached from the floor to the ceiling, were various costly jars of foreign make, and a few pieces of rare old china. The open hearth gave the other wise sombre room an appearance of comfort ; there was a large oaken chair standing beside it, with a screen between it and the door, which was the usual seat of the old baronet.

As Mrs. Boyde and Beatrix entered, Sir Hulbert, who was seated at the table engaged in writing, raised his head sharply, and as he saw who the intruders were a deep shadow of disapproval gathered over his face. " What do you want here ? " he inquired angrily, scarcely glancing at the shrinking child, who for the first time in her recollection beheld her grandfather. He had been a tall, broad-shouldered man in his day, and although bent by years and infirmities was still above the middle height. His keen brown eyes were as bright as they had been twenty years before, but his hair and eyebrows, moustache and beard, were as white as snow. He wore a long velvet dressing-gown and small velvet cap, and to his frightened little grand-daughter appeared at once a terrifying and an imposing personage.

" If you please, sir, Miss Beatrix is fourteen years of age, and as I thought you must have forgotten her I took the liberty of bringing her for you to see." Sir Hulbert looked sharply and scrutinisingly at the thin, shy girl, who scarcely dared to lift her eyes from the oaken floor, so overawed was she by the unexpected interview. " What does she know ? " he asked at last. " Nothing, please you, sir ; there was no one to teach her." "True; I had forgotten that. On the whole, Mrs. Boyde, I do not see the necessity for her to learn anything. I suppose you can teach her the alphabet ? " " I might perhaps do so, sir, though I am not very well learned." " Well, you can try what you can do, and at the end of two months you can bring her to me again ; by that time she should be proficient in her A B C." " Very well, sir. Is there nothing else ?

" " No, nothing ; you may leave the room." Beatrix was no less eager than was the housekeeper to avail herself of this permission ; she felt chilled and depressed by the coldness with which her grandfather had spoken, not that she had expected anything pleasant, joy had so small a part in her young life. Mrs. Boyde carried out her master's instructions as well as she was able, and Beatrix, being anxious to learn, proved an apt and willing pupil. At the end of the two months she not only knew her alphabet, but could spell and read easy words, and had also begun to write a little. Her second visit to her grandfather was productive of a better result than her first had been. He heard her read in her primer, and made her write him a line from dictation. " You have learnt your lesson satisfactorily," he said coldly, being sufficiently just to say what he thought.

"For the future you can come here for an hour every evening, from six to seven, and sometimes I will teach you myself, if I feel inclined." Those daily hours were very trying for Beatrix ; her grandfather tired after six months' teaching, and left her to her own devices. By that time, however, she could read well enough to amuse herself, and as the manor was well stocked with books a new life began for her, beautiful indeed for the first few years that followed, when all she read was new to her, and unfolded by degrees wonders of which she had not even dreamed. . Naturally she lead indiscriminately; she had free access to all the books ; there was no one to guide her, or point out to her a course of study such as would have been beneficial ; and once having learned the key to the wonders which the dusty volumes held, she made use of it.

At the age of seventeen she was a tall, lanky girl, not by any means a pretty one ; for her eyes looked too large for her face, and had a seriousness of expression in them far beyond her years, and with no change from their unnatural gravity. She was a silent, repressed girl ; for her grandfather never allowed her to speak unless he spoke first. He had so long been accustomed to silence that her fresh young voice jarred upon him, and his ill temper was easily roused. As she grew older, and became more deeply versed in the worldly wisdom which she gradually acquired from so much reading, she also began to think, and her thoughts ran very much on the treatment she received from her only relative. Instinctively she felt that she was an eyesore to him, but then he was the same to her ; for she could not be expected to feel any affection for a man who treated her so harshly, and who showed her so plainly that her presence was objectionable to him.

Still she fretted over this know ledge, for she was impulsive and warm-hearted, and had a wealth of pent-up love and adoration in her heart ready and willing to be poured forth on the first person who should show her any sympathy and kindness. She learned from her books that there were people in the world who loved one another, who were all in all to each other, and whose lives were full with all she lacked, and the emptiness of her own became more apparent to her than ever. Sir Hulbert had grown more infirm, though he still moved about with the aid of two sticks, and Beatrix had begun to take her meals in the red parlour with him. This indulgence on his part was regarded with very mixed feelings by her. She acquiesced in the arrangement, for, uneducated though she was, she knew that her place was not in the housekeeper's room.

On the other hand, she found little pleasure in the tete-a-tete meals with her grandfather, who developed an unbearable temper when he had some object on which to vent it. Beatrix had so far borne it uncomplainingly ; for one thing she had been taught from her earliest years to regard Sir Hulbert as a very terrible personage, and a lifetime of such teaching could not be unlearned in a few weeks ; indeed, she never wholly lost her fear of him, though she often appeared to do so. A refined, educated man — such as the aged baronet was — could make his temper felt much more effectually, and in a thousand little stinging ways, which would have been impossible for a coarser or less intellectual nature ; the firmness of his perception enabled him to feel what would suit his purpose best, and make his passionate grand-daughter show what she suffered.

More than once, during her fourteenth and sixteenth birthdays, her shoulders had received a stinging blow from his stick. She submitted to it at first, though each fresh blow made her hate her grandfather more ; but after she was sixteen her whole woman's nature revolted against the unjust treatment, and she refused to allow it to continue. One morning, when Sir Hulbert was more than usually irritable, he struck her a violent blow, a blow which left its mark on her white skin for several weeks. The blood rushed to her face, as much from indignation as from pain, and she seized the stick firmly as he was about to raise it again. " I have had enough of this," she said, in a low, repressed voice. " I shall not allow you to do it again." She was young and strong, and Sir Hulbert was old and infirm, and he recognized the fact that her strength was superior to his ; nevertheless, he said furiously, " You will not allow it ?