How the First Floor Went to Crowley Castle, Pt. 1

Part 1 of How the First Floor Went to Crowley Castle by Elizabeth Gaskell From the Extra Christmas Number of All the Year Round Conducted by Charles Dickens 3rd of December, 1863 Reader's Note How the First Floor Went to Crowley Castle was published as the second of seven chapters of Mrs Liripa's Lodgings. Mrs Liripa is the landlady of a lodging house at No. 81 Norfolk Street Strand, London. The story is told to her lodger, the Major. End of Reader's Note I've come back to London, Major, possessed by a family story that I've picked up in the country. While I was out of town, I visited the ruins of the great old Norman Castle of Sir Mark Crowley, the last baronet of his name, who has been dead nearly a hundred years. I stayed in the village near the castle, and thence I bring back some of the particulars of the tale I'm going to tell you, derived from old inhabitants who heard them from their fathers no longer ago. We drove from our little sea-bathing place in Sussex to see the massive ruins of Crowley Castle, which is the show excursion of Merton. We had to alight at a field-gate, the road further on being too bad for the slightly-built carriage or the poor, tired Merton horse, and we walked for about a quarter of a mile through uneven ground, which had once been an Italian garden, and then we came to a bridge over a dry moat, and went over the groove of a portcullis that had once closed the massive entrance, into an empty space, surrounded by thick walls, draperied with ivy, unroofed and open to the sky. We could judge of the beautiful tracery that had been in the windows, by the remains of the stonework here and there, and an old man, ever so old, he called himself when we inquired his exact age, who scrambled and stumbled out of some lair in the least devastated part of the ruins at our approach, and who established himself as our guide, showed us a scrap of glass, yet lingering in what was the window of the great drawing-room, not above seventy years ago. After he had done his duty, he hobbled with us to the neighbouring church, where the knightly Crowleys lie buried, some commemorated by ancient brasses, some by altar tombs, some by fine Latin epitaphs bestowing upon them every virtue under the sun. He had to take the church key back to the adjoining parsonage, at the entrance of the long straggling street, which forms the village of Crowley. The castle and the church were on the summit of a hill, from which we could see the distant line of sea beyond the misty marshes. The village fell away from the church and parsonage, down the hill. The aspect of the place was little, if at all, changed from its aspect in the year 1772. But I must begin a little earlier. From one of the Latin epitaphs, I learnt that Amelia Lady Crowley died in 1756, deeply regretted by her loving husband, Sir Mark. He never married again, though his wife had left him no heir to his name or to his estate, only a little tiny girl, Theresa Crowley. This child would inherit her mother's fortune, and all that Sir Mark was free to leave. But this little was not much. The castle and all the lands going to his sister's son, Marmaduke, or as he was usually called, Duke Brownlow. Duke's parents were dead, and his uncle was his guardian, and his guardian's house was his home. The lad was some seven or eight years older than his cousin, and probably Sir Mark thought it not unlikely that his daughter and his heir might make a match. Theresa's mother had had some foreign blood in her, and had been brought up in France, not so far away, but that it might be seen by anyone who chose to take an easy day's ride from Crowley Castle for the purpose. Lady Crowley had been a delicate, elegant creature, but no great beauty, judging from all accounts. Sir Mark's family were famous for their good looks. Theresa, an unusually lucky child, inherited the outward graces of both her parents. A portrait which I saw of her, degraded to a station over the parlour chimney-piece in the village inn, showed me black hair, soft yet arch-grey eyes, with brows and lashes of the same tint as her hair, a full, pretty, pouting, passionate mouth, and a round, slender throat. She was a willful little creature, but her father's indulgence made her more wayward. She had a nurse, too, a French bonne, whose mother had been about my lady from her youth, who had followed my lady to England, and who had died there. Victorine had been in attendance on the young Theresa from her earliest infancy, and almost took the place of a parent in power and affection, in power as to ordering and arranging almost what she liked, concerning the child's management, in love, because they speak to this day of the black year, when virulent smallpox was rife in Crowley, and when Sir Mark, being far away on some diplomatic mission, in Vienna I fancy, Victorine shut herself up with Miss Theresa when the child was taken ill with the disease, and nursed her night and day. She only succumbed to the dreadful illness when all danger to the child was over. Theresa came out of it with unblemished beauty. Victorine barely escaped with life, and was disfigured for life. This disfigurement put a stop to much unfounded scandal, which had been afloat, respecting the French servant's great influence over Sir Mark. He was, in fact, an easy and indolent man, rarely excited to any vehemence of emotion, and who felt it to be a point of honour to carry out his dead wife's wish that Victorine should never leave Theresa, and that the management of the child should be confided to her. Only once had there been a struggle for power between Sir Mark and the Bon, and then she had won the victory. And no wonder, if the old butler's account were true, for he had gone into the room unawares, and had found Sir Mark and Victorine at high words. And he said that Victorine was white with rage, that her eyes were blazing with passionate fire, that her voice was low, and her words were few, but that, although she spoke in French, and he the butler only knew his native English, he would rather have been sworn at by a drunken grenadier, with a sword in his hand, than have had those words of Victorine's addressed to him. Even the choice of Theresa's masters was left to Victorine. A little reference was occasionally made to Madame Hortry, the parson's wife, and a distant relation of Sir Mark's. But, seeing that, if Victorine chose so to order it, Madame Hortry's own little daughter Bessie would have been deprived of the advantages resulted from gratuitous companionship in all Theresa's lessons. She was careful how she opposed or made an enemy of Mademoiselle Victorine. Bessie was a gentle, quiet child, and grew up to be a sensible, sweet-tempered girl, with a very fair share of English beauty, fresh complexion, brown-eyed, round face, but a stiff, though well-made figure, as different as possible from Theresa's slight, graceful form. Duke was a young man to these two maidens, while they to him were little more than children. Of course, he admired his cousin Theresa the most, who would not? But he was establishing his first principles of morality for himself, and her conduct towards Bessie, sometimes jarred against his ideas of right. One day, after she had been tyrannizing over the self-contained and patient Bessie, so as to make the latter cry—and both the amount of the tyranny and the crying were unusual circumstances, for Theresa was of a generous nature when not put out of the way—Duke spoke to his cousin. "'Theresa, you had no right to blame Bessie as you did. It was as much your fault as hers. You were as much bound to remember Mr. Dawson's directions about the sums you were to do for him as she was. The girl opened her great-great eyes in surprise. She to blame! What does Bessie come to the castle for? I wonder. They pay nothing. We pay all. The least she can do is remember for me what we are told. I shan't trouble myself with attending to Mr. Dawson's directions. And if Bessie does not like to do so, she can stay away. She already knows enough to earn her bread as a maid, which I suppose is what she'll have to come to.' The moment Theresa had said this, she could have bitten her tongue out for the meanness and rancour of the speech. She saw pain and disappointment clearly expressed on Duke's face, and, in another moment, her impulses would have carried her to the opposite extreme, and she would have spoken out her self-reproach. But Duke thought it his duty to remonstrate with her, and to read her a homily, which, however true and just, weakened the effect of the look of distress on his face. Her wits were called into play to refute his arguments. Her head, rather than her heart, took the prominent part in the controversy, and it ended unsatisfactorily to both—he going away, with dismal though unspoken prognostics, touching what she would become as a woman, if she were so supercilious and unfeeling as a girl. She, the moment his back was turned, throwing herself on the floor, and sobbing as if her heart would break. Victorine heard her darling's passionate sobs and came in. "'What hast thou, my angel? Who has been vexing thee? Tell me, my cherished.' She tried to raise the girl, but Theresa would not be raised, neither would she speak till she chose, in spite of Victorine's entreaties. When she chose, she lifted herself up, still sitting on the floor, and putting her tangled hair off her flushed, tear-stained face, said, "'Never mind, it was only something Duke said. I don't care for it now.' And refusing Victorine's aid, she got up and stood thoughtfully, looking out of the window. "'That Duke!' exclaimed Victorine. "'What business has that Mr. Duke, to go vex my darling? He is not your husband yet, that he should scold you, or that you should mind what he says?' Theresa listened and gained a new idea. But she gave no outward sign of attention, or of her now hearing for the first time, how that she was supposed to be intended for her cousin's wife. She made no reply to Victorine's caresses and speeches. One might almost say she shook her off. As soon as she was left to herself, she took her hat, and going out alone as she was want, in the pleasure-grounds, she went down the terrace steps, crossed the bowling-green, and opened a little wicket-gate which led into the garden of the parsonage. There were Bessie and her mother, gathering fruit. It was Bessie whom Theresa sought, for there was something in Madame Hortory's silky manner that was always rather repugnant to her. However, she was not going to shrink from her resolution, because Madame Hortory was there. So she went up to the startled Bessie, and said to her, as if she were reciting a prepared speech, Bessie, I behaved very crossly to you. I had no business to have spoken to you as I did. Will you forgive me? was the predetermined end of this confession. But somehow, when it came to that, she could not say it, with Madame Hortory standing by, ready to smile, and to curtsy, as soon as she could catch Theresa's eye. There was no need to ask forgiveness, though, for Bessie had put down her half-filled basket, and came softly up to Theresa, stealing her brown-soil-stained little hand into the young lady's soft white one, and looking up at her with loving brown eyes. I'm so sorry, but I think it was the sums on page 108. I've been looking and looking, and I am almost sure— Her exculpatory tone caught her mother's ear, although her words did not. I am sure, Miss Theresa, Bessie is so grateful for the privileges of learning with you, it is such an advantage to her. I often tell her, take pattern by Miss Theresa, and do as she does, and try and speak as she does, and there'll not be a parson's daughter in all Sussex to compare with you. Don't I, Bessie?" Theresa shrugged her shoulders, a trick she had caught from Victorine, and turning to Bessie, asked her what she was going to do with those gooseberries she was gathering. And as Theresa spoke, she lazily picked the ripest out of the basket and ate them. "'They're for a pudding,' said Bessie. "'As soon as we have gathered enough, I'm going in to make it.' "'Oh, I'll come and help you,' said Theresa eagerly. "'I should so like to make a pudding. Our Monsieur Antoine never makes gooseberry puddings.' Duke came past the parsonage an hour or so afterwards, and looking in by chance through the open casement windows of the kitchen, saw Theresa, pinned up in a bib and apron, her arms all over flower, flourishing a rolling pin, and laughing and chattering with Bessie, similarly attired. Duke had spent his morning ostensibly in fishing, but in reality in weighing in his own mind what he could do or say to soften the obdurate heart of his cousin. And here it was, all inexplicably right, as if by some enchanter's wand. The only conclusion Duke could come to was the same that many a wise and foolish man had come to before his day. "'Well, women are past my comprehension, that's all.' When all this took place, Theresa was about fifteen. Bessie was perhaps six months older. Duke was just leaving Oxford. His uncle, Sir Mark, was excessively fond of him—yes, and proud too, for he had distinguished himself at college, and everyone spoke well of him. And he, for his part, loved Sir Mark, and unspoiled by the fame and reputation he had gained at Christchurch, paid respectful deference to Sir Mark's opinions. As Theresa grew older, her father supposed that he played his cards well in singing Duke's praises on every possible occasion. She tossed her head and said nothing. Thanks to Victorine's revelations, she understood the tendency of her father's speeches. She intended to make her own choice of husband when the time came, and it might be Duke, or it might be someone else. When Duke did not lecture or prose, but was sitting his horse so splendidly at the meet, before the huntsman gave the blast—found!—when Duke was holding his own in discourse with other men, when Duke gave her a short sharp word of command on any occasion, then she decided that she would marry him, and no one else. But when he found fault, or stumbled about awkwardly in a minuet, or talked moralities against dueling, then she was sure that Duke should never be her husband. She wondered if he knew about it, or if anyone had told him as Victorine had told her. If her father had revealed his thoughts and wishes to his nephew, as plainly as he had done to his daughter, this last query made her cheeks burn, and, on days when the suspicion had been brought by any chance prominently before her mind, she was especially rude and disagreeable to Duke. He was to go abroad on the grand tour of Europe, to which young men of fortune usually devoted three years. He was to have a tutor, because all young men of his rank had tutors, else he was quite wise enough and steady enough to have done without one, and probably knew a great deal more about what was best to be observed in the countries they were going to visit, than Mr. Roberts, his appointed bear-leader. He was to come back, full of historical and political knowledge, speaking French and Italian like a native, and having a smattering of barbarous German. And he was to enter the house as a county member, if possible, as a borough member at the worst, and was to make a great success. And then, as everyone understood, he was to marry his cousin Theresa. He spoke to her father about it before starting on his travels. It was after dinner in Crowley Castle. Sir Mark and Duke sat alone, each pensive at the thought of the coming parting. "'Theresa is but young,' said Duke, breaking into speech after a long silence. "'But if you have no objection, uncle, I should like to speak to her before I leave England about my—my hopes.' Sir Mark played with his glass, poured out some more wine, drank it off at a draught, and then replied, "'No, Duke, no. Leave her in peace with me.' "'I have looked forward to having her for my companion through these three years. They'll soon pass away—to age, but not to youth. And I should like to have her undivided heart till you come back. No, Duke, three years will soon pass away, and then we'll have a royal wedding.' Duke sighed, but said no more. The next day was the last. He wanted Theresa to go with him to take leave of the hortuse at the Parsonage, and of the villagers, but she was willful and would not. He remembered years afterwards how Bessie's gentle, peaceful manner had struck him as contrasted with Theresa's on that last day. Both girls regretted his departure. He had been so uniformly gentle and thoughtful in his behaviour to Bessie, that, without any idea of love, she felt him to be her pattern of noble, chivalrous manhood, the only person except her father who was steadily kind to her. She admired his sentiments. She esteemed his principles. She considered his long involvement of his ideas as the truest eloquence. He had lent her books. He had directed her studies. All the advice and information which Theresa had rejected had fallen to Bessie's lot, and she had received it thankfully. Theresa burst into a passion of tears as soon as Duke and his suite were out of sight. She had refused the farewell kiss her father had told her to give him, but had waved her white handkerchief out of the great drawing-room window—that very window in which the old guide showed me the small piece of glass, still lingering. But Duke had ridden away with slack rein and downcast head, without looking back. His absence was a great blank in Sir Mark's life. He had never sought London much as a place of residence. In former days he had been suspected of favouring the Stuarts, but nothing could be proved against him, and he had subsided into a very tolerably faithful subject of King George III. Still, a cold shoulder having been turned to him by the court party at one time, he had become prepossessed against the English capital. On the contrary, his wife's predilections and his own tendencies had always made Paris a very agreeable place of residence to him. To Paris he at length resorted again, when the blank in his life oppressed him. And from Paris, about two years after Duke's departure, he returned after a short absence from home, and suddenly announced to his daughter and the household that he had taken an apartment in the Rue Louis-Lagrande for the coming winter, to which there was to be an immediate removal of his daughter, Victorine, and certain other personal attendants and servants. Nothing could exceed Theresa's mad joy at this unexpected news. She sprang upon her father's neck, and kissed him till she was tired, whatever he was. She ran to Victorine, and told her to guess what heavenly bliss was going to befall them. Dancing round the middle-aged woman, until she, in her spoilt impatience, was becoming angry. When, kissing her, she told her, and ran off to the parsonage, and thence to the church, bursting in upon morning prayers, for it was All Saints' Day, although she had forgotten it, and flipping a scrap of paper, on which she had hastily written, we are going to Paris for the winter, all of us, and bowled into a ball, from the castle pew to that of the parson. She saw Bessie Redden as she caught it, put it in her pocket unread, and, after an apologetic glance at the curtain seat in which Theresa was, go on with her meek responses. Theresa went out by the private door in a momentary fit of passion. Stupid, cold-blooded creature, she said to herself. But that afternoon, Bessie came to the castle, so sorry, and so losing her own sorrow in sympathy with her friend's gladness, that Theresa took her into favour again. The girls parted with promises of correspondence, and with some regrets, the greatest on Bessie's side, some grand promises of Paris fashion, and presents of dress, Theresa made in her patronising way, but Bessie did not seem to care much for them, which was fortunate, for they were never fulfilled. Sir Mark had an idea in his head, of perfecting Theresa's accomplishments and manners, by Parisian masters, and Parisian society. English residents in Fenice, Florence, Rome, wrote to their friends at home about Duke. They spoke of him, as of what we should, at the present day, call a rising young man. His praises ran so high, that Sir Mark began to fear lest his handsome nephew, feted by princes, courted by ambassadors, made love to by lovely Italian ladies, might find Theresa too country-bred for his taste. Thus had come about the engaging of the splendid apartment in the Rue Louis-Lagrande. The street itself is narrow, and nowadays we are apt to think the situation close, but in those days it was the height of fashion, for the great arbiter of fashion, the Duc de Richelieu, lived there, and to inhabit an apartment in that street, was in itself a mark of montant. Victorines seemed almost crazy with delight, when they took possession of their new abode. This dear Paris, this lovely France, and now I see my young lady, my darling, my angel, in a room suited to her beauty and her rank, such as my lady her mother would have planned for her, if she had lived. Any allusion to her dead mother always touched Theresa to the quick. She was in her bed, under the blue-silk curtains of an alcove, when Victorines said this, being too much fatigued after her journey to respond to Victorines' rhapsodies. But now she put out her little hand, and gave Victorines a pressure of gratitude and pleasure. Next day she wandered about the rooms, and admired their splendour, almost to Victorines' content. Her father, Sir Mark, found a handsome carriage and horses for his darling's use, and also found, that's not less necessary article, a married lady of rank, who would take his girl under her wing. When all these preliminary arrangements were made, who so wildly happy as Theresa? Her carriage was one of the newest fashion, fit to vie with any on the Cour de la Reine, the then fashionable drive. The box at the Grand Opera, and at the Francaise, which she shared with Madame la Duchesse de Gilles, was the centre of observation. Victorines was in her best humour. Theresa's credit at her dressmakers was unlimited. Her indulgent father was charmed with all she did and said. She had masters, it is true. But, to a rich and beautiful young lady, masters were wonderfully complacent. And with them, as with all the world, she did what she pleased. Of Parisian society she had enough and more than enough. The Duchess went everywhere, and Theresa went too. So did a certain Count de la Grange. Some relation or connection of the Duchess. Handsome, with a South of France handsomeness, with delicate features, marred by an over-softness of expression, from which, so men said, the tiger was occasionally seen to peep forth. But, for elegance of dress and demeanour, he had not his fellow in Paris, which of course meant, not in the world. Sir Mark heard rumours of this man's conduct, which were not pleasing to him. But when he accompanied his daughter into society, the Count was only as deferential as it became a gentleman to be, to so much beauty and grace. When Theresa was taken out by the Duchess to the opera, to Balls, to Petit Supé, without her father, then the Count was more than deferential, he was adoring. It was a little intoxicating for a girl brought up in the solitude of an English village, to have so many worshippers at her feet all at once, in a great gay city. And the inbred coquetry of her nature came out, adding to her outward grace, if taking away from the purity and dignity of her character. It was Victorine's delight to send her darling out to raid for conquest. Her hair delicately powdered and scented with Maréchal, her little mouche put on with skill, the tiny half-moon patch to lengthen the already almond-shaped eye, the minute star to give the effect of a dimple at the corner of her scarlet lips, the silver gauze looped up over the petticoat of blue brocade, distended over a hoop, much as gowns are worn in our days, the coral ornaments of her silver dress matching with the tint of the high heels to her shoes. And at night, Victorine was never tired of listening and questioning, of triumphing in Teresa's triumphs, of invariably reminding her that she was bound to marry the absent cousin, and return to the half-feudal state of the old castle in Sussex. Still, even now, if Duke had returned from Italy, all might have gone well. But when Sir Mark, alarmed by the various proposals he received for Teresa's hand from needy French noblemen, and by the admiration she was exciting everywhere, wrote to Duke and urged him to join them in Paris on his return from his travels, Duke answered that three months were yet unexpired of the time allotted for the grand tour, and that he was anxious to avail himself of that interval to see something of Spain. Sir Mark read this letter aloud to Teresa, with many expressions of annoyance as he read. Teresa merely said, of course, Duke does what he likes, and turned away to see some new lace brought for her inspection. She heard her father sigh over a re-perusal of Duke's letter, and she set her teeth in the anger she would not show in acts or words. That day the Count de Grange met with gentler treatment from her than he had done for many days, than he had done since her father's letter to Duke had been sent off to Genoa. As ill fortune would have it, Sir Mark had occasion to return to England at this time, and he, guileless himself, consigned Teresa and her maid Victorine, and her man Felix, to the care of the duchess for three weeks. They were to reside at the Hotel de Gilles during this time. The duchess welcomed them in her most caressing manner, and showed Teresa the suite of rooms with a little private staircase appropriated to her use. The Count de Grange was an habitual visitor at the house of his cousin the duchess, who was a gay Parisian, absorbed in her life of giddy dissipation. The Count found means of influencing Victorine in his favour, not by money, so coarse a bribe would have had no power over her, but by many presents accompanied with sentimental letters, breathing devotion to her charge, an extremist appreciation of the faithful friend whom Teresa looked upon as a mother, and whom for this reason he, the Count, revered and loved. Intermixed were wily allusions to his great possessions in Provence, and to his ancient lineage, the one mortgaged, the other disgraced. Victorine, whose right hand had forgotten its cunning in the length of her dreary vegetation at Crowley Castle, was deceived, and became a vehement advocate of the dissolute adonis of the Paris salons in his suit to her darling. When Sir Mark came back, he was dismayed and shocked beyond measure by finding the Count and Teresa at his feet, and treating him to forgive their stolen marriage—a marriage which, though incomplete as to its legal forms, was yet too complete to be otherwise than sanctioned by Teresa's nearest friends. The duchess accused her cousin of perfidy and treason. Sir Mark said nothing. But his health failed from that time, and he sank into an old querulous grey-haired man. There was some ado, I know not what, between Sir Mark and the Count, regarding the control and disposition of the fortune which Teresa inherited from her mother. The Count gained the victory, owing to the different nature of the French laws from the English, and this made Sir Mark abjure the country and the city he had loved so long. Henceforward, he swore, his foot should never touch French soil. If Teresa liked to come and see him at Crowley Castle, she should be as welcome as a daughter of the house ought to be, and ever should be, but her husband should never enter the gates of the house since Sir Mark's lifetime. For some months he was out of humour with Duke because of his tardy return from his tour and his delay in joining them in Paris, through which, so Sir Mark fancied, Teresa's marriage had been brought about. But when Duke came home, depressed in spirits and submissive to his uncle, even under unjust blame, Sir Mark restored him to favour in the course of a summer's day, and henceforth added another injury to the debtor's side of the Count's reckoning. Duke never told his uncle of the woeful ill-report he had heard of the Count in Paris, where he had found all the better part of the French nobility, pitying the lovely English heiress, who had been entrapped into a marriage with one of the most disreputable of their order—a gambler and a reprobate. He could not leave Paris without seeing Teresa, whom he believed to be as yet unacquainted with his arrival in a city. So he went to call upon her one evening. She was sitting alone, splendidly dressed, ravishingly beautiful. She made a step forward to meet him, hardly heeding the announcement of his name, for she had recognised a man's tread, and fancied it was her husband coming to accompany her to some grand reception. Duke saw the quick change from hope to disappointment on her mobile face, and she spoke out at once her reason. "'Adolphe promised to come and fetch me. The princess receives to-night. I hardly expected a visit from you, Cousin Duke," recovering herself into a pretty proud reserve. "'It is a fortnight, I think, since I heard you were in Paris. I had given up all expectation of the honour of a visit from you.' Duke felt that, as she had heard of his being there, it would be awkward to make excuses, which both she and he must know to be false, or explanations, the very truth of which would be offensive to the loving, trusting, deceived wife. So he turned the conversation to his travels, his heart aching for her all the time, as he noticed her wandering attention when she heard any passing sound. Ten, eleven, twelve o'clock, he would not leave her. He thought his presence was a comfort and a pleasure to her. But when one o'clock struck, she said some unexpected business must have detained her husband, and she was glad of it, as she had all along felt too much tired to go out. And besides, the happy consequence of her husband's detention had been that long talk with Duke. He did not see her again after this polite dismissal, nor did he see her husband at all. Whether through ill chance or carefully disguised purpose, it did so happen that he called several times. He wrote several notes requesting an appointment, when he might come with the certainty of finding the count and countess at home, in order to wish them farewell before setting out for England. All in vain! But he said nothing to Sir Mark of all this. He only tried to fill up the blank in the old man's life. He went between Sir Mark and the tenants, to whom he was unwilling to show himself, unaccompanied by the beautiful daughter who had so often been his companion in his walks and rides, before that ill-omened winter in Paris. He was thankful to have the power of returning the long kindness his uncle had showed him in childhood, thankful to be of use to him in his desertion, thankful to atone in some measure for his neglect of his uncle's wish that he should have made a hasty return to Paris. But it was a little dull after the long excitement of travel, after associating with all that was most cultivated, and seeing all that was most famous in Europe, to be shut up in that vast, magnificent, dreary old castle, with Sir Mark for a perpetual companion, Sir Mark and no other. The parsonage was near at hand, and occasionally Mr. Hortory came in to visit his parishioner in his trouble. But Sir Mark kept the clergyman at pay. He knew that his brother in age, his brother in circumstances, but had not Mr. Hortory an only child and she a daughter, were sympathizing with him in his sorrow, and he was too proud to bear it. Indeed, sometimes he was so rude to his old neighbour, that Duke would go next morning to the parsonage to soothe the smart. And so, and so, gradually, imperceptibly, at last his heart was drawn to Bessie. Her mother angled and angled skilfully, at first scarcely daring to hope, then, remembering her own descent from the same stock as Duke, she drew herself up and set to work with fresh skill and vigour. To be sure, it was a dangerous game for a mother to play, for a daughter's happiness was staked on her success. How could simple, country-bred Bessie help being attracted to the courtly, handsome man, travelled and accomplished, good and gentle, whom she saw every day, and who treated her with the kind familiarity of a brother, while he was not a brother, but in some measure a disappointed man, as everybody knew? Bessie was a daisy of an English maiden, pure good to the heart's core, and most hidden thought, sensible in all her accustomed daily ways, yet not so much without imagination, as not to desire something beyond the narrow range of knowledge and experience in which her days had hitherto been passed. Add to this her pretty figure, a bright, healthy complexion, lovely teeth, and quite enough of beauty and her other features to have rendered her the belle of a country town, if a lot had been cast in such a place. And it is not to be wondered at, that, after she had been secretly in love with Duke, with all her heart for nearly a year, almost worshipping him, he should discover that, of all the women he had ever known, except perhaps the lost Theresa, Bessie Hawtree, had it in her power to make him the happiest of men. Sir Marr grumbled a little, but nowadays he grumbled at everything, poor disappointed, all but childless old man. As to the vicar, he stood astonished and almost dismayed. "'Have you thought enough about it, Mr. Duke?' the parson asked. Young men are apt to do things in a hurry, that they repent at leisure. Bessie is a good girl, a good girl, God bless her! But she has not been brought up as your wife should have been. At least as folks will say your wife should have been. Though I may say for her, she has a very pretty sprinkling of mathematics. I taught her myself, Mr. Duke. "'May I go and ask her myself? I only want your permission,' urged Duke. "'Ay, go, but perhaps you had better ask madam first. She will like to be told everything as soon as me.' But Duke did not care for madam. He rushed through the open door of the parsonage, into the homely sitting-rooms, and softly called for Bessie. When she came, he took her by the hand and led her forth into the field-path at the back of the orchard, and there he won his bride, to the full content of both their hearts. All this time the inhabitants of Crowley Castle, and the quiet people of the neighbouring village of Crowley, heard but little of the countess, as it was their fashion to call her. Sir Mark had his letters from her, it is true, and he read them over and over again, and moaned over them, and sighed, and put them carefully away in a bundle. But they were like arrows of pain to him. None knew their contents, none, even knowing them, would have dreamed any more than he did, for all his moans and sighs, of the utter wretchedness of the writer. Love had long since vanished from the habitation of that pair—a habitation, not a home, even in its brightest days. Love had gone out of the window, long before poverty had come in at the door. Yet that grim visitant, who never tarries in tracking a disreputable gambler, had now arrived. The count lost the last remnants of his character as a man who played honourably, and thenceforth that being pretty nearly the only sin which banished men from good society in those days. He had to play, where and how he could. Theresa's money went as her poor angry father had foretold. By and by, and without her consent, her jewel-box was rifled. The diamonds round the locket holding her mother's picture were wrenched and picked out by no careful hand. Victorine found Theresa crying over the poor relics, crying at last, without disguise, as if her heart would break. "'Oh, Mama, Mama, Mama!' she sobbed out, holding up the smashed and disfigured miniature as an explanation of her grief. She was sitting on the floor on which she had thrown herself in the first discovery of the theft. Victorine sat down by her, taking her head upon her breast and soothing her. She did not ask who had done it. She asked Theresa no question which the latter would have shrunk from answering. She knew all in that hour, without the count's name having passed the lips of either of them, and from that time she watched him as a tiger watches his prey. When the letters came from England, the three letters from Sir Mark and the affianced bride and bridegroom, announcing the approaching marriage of Duke and Bessie, Theresa took them straight to Victorine. Theresa's lips were tightened, her pale cheeks were paler. She waited for Victorine to speak. Not a word did the Frenchwoman utter, but she smoothed the letters one over the other, and tore them in two, throwing the pieces on the ground and stamping on them. "'Oh, Victorine!' cried Theresa, dismayed at passion that went so far beyond her own. "'I never expected it. I never thought of it. But perhaps it was but natural—' "'It was not natural. It was infamous. To have loved you once and not to wait for chances, but to take up with that poor mean girl at the parsonage. "'Pah! And her letter! Sir Mark is of my mind, though, I can see. I am sorry I tore up his letter. He feels he knows that Mr. Duke Brownlow ought to have waited, waited, waited. Someone waited fourteen years, did he not? The Count will not live for ever.' Theresa did not see the face of wicked meaning as those last words were spoken. Another year rolled heavily on its course of wretchedness to Theresa. That same revolution of time brought increase of peace and joy to the English couple, striving humbly, striving well, to do their duty as children to the unhappy and deserted Sir Mark. They had their reward in the birth of a little girl. Yet, close on the heels of this birth, followed a great sorrow. The good parson died, after a short sudden illness. Then came the customary trouble after the death of a clergyman. The widow had to leave the parsonage, the home of a lifetime, and seek a new resting-place for her declining years. Fortunately for all parties, the new vicar was a bachelor, no other than the tutor who had accompanied Duke on his grand tour, and it was made a condition that he should allow the widow of his predecessor to remain at the parsonage as his housekeeper. Bessie would fain have had her mother at the castle, and this course would have been infinitely preferred by Madam Hawtree, who indeed suggested the wish to her daughter. But Sir Mark was obstinately against it. Nor did he spare his caustic remarks on Madam Hawtree, even before her own daughter. He had never quite forgiven Duke's marriage, although he was personally exceedingly fond of Bessie. He referred this marriage in some part, and perhaps to no greater extent than was true, to Madam's good management in throwing the young people together, and he was explicit in the expression of his opinion. Poor Theresa! Every day she more and more bitterly rued her ill-starred marriage. Often and often she cried to herself when she was alone in the dead of the night. I cannot bear it! I cannot bear it! But again in the daylight her pride would help her to keep her woe to herself. She could not bear the gaze of pitying eyes. She could not bear even Victorine's fierce sympathy. She might have gone home like a poor prodigal to her father, if Duke and Bessie had not, as she imagined, reigned triumphant in her place, both in her father's heart and in her father's home. And all this while that father almost hated the tender attentions which were rendered to him by those who were not his Theresa, his only child, for whose presence he yearned and longed in silent misery. Then again, to return to Theresa, her husband had his fits of kindness towards her. If he had been very fortunate in play, if he had heard other men admire her, he would come back for a few moments to his loyalty, and would lure back the poor tortured heart, only to crush it afresh. One day, after a short time of easy temper, caresses, and levity, she found out something, I know not what, in his life, which stung her to the quick. Her sharp wits and sharper tongue spoke out most cutting insults. At first he smiled, as if rather amused to see how she was ransacking her brain to find stabbing speeches. But at length she touched some sore. He scarcely lost the mocking smile upon his face, but his eyes flashed lurid fire, and his heavy closed hand fell on her white shoulder with a terrible blow. She stood up, facing him tearless, deadly white. The poor old man at home, was all she said, trembling, shivering all over, but with her eyes fixed on his coward face. He shrank from her look, laughed aloud to hide whatever feeling might be hidden in his bosom, and left the room. She only said again, the poor old man, the poor old deserted desolate man, and felt about blindly for a chair. She had not sat down a minute though, before she started up and rang her bell. It was Victorine's office to answer it, but Teresa looked almost surprised to see her. You, I wanted the others, I want them all, they shall all see how their master treats his wife. Look here, she pushed the gauze neckerchief from her shoulder. The mark was there, red and swollen. Bid them all come here, Victorine, Amadé, Jean, Adèle, all. I will be justified by their testimony, whatever I do. Then she fell to shaking and crying. Victorine said nothing, but went to a certain cupboard, where she kept medicines and drugs, of which she alone knew the properties. There she mixed a draught, which she made her mistress take, whatever its nature was it was soothing. Teresa leaned back in her chair, still sobbing heavily from time to time, until at last she dropped into a kind of doze. Then Victorine softly lifted the neckerchief, which had fallen into its place, and looked at the mark. She did not speak, but her whole face was a fearful threat. After she had looked her fill, she smiled a deadly smile, and then she touched the soft bruised flesh with her lips, much as though Teresa were the child she had been twenty years ago. Soft as the touch was, Teresa shivered and started and half awoke. Have they come? she murmured. Amadé, Jean, Adèle. But without waiting for an answer, she fell asleep again. Victorine went quietly back to the cupboard where she kept her drugs, and stayed there, mixing something noiselessly. When she had done what she wanted, she returned to her mistress's bedroom and looked at her, still sleeping. Then she began to arrange the room. No blue silk curtains and silver mirrors now, as in the Rue Louis-Lagrande. A washed-out, faded Indian chintz, and an old battered toilette service of Japanware. The disorderly signs of the Count's late presence. An emptied flask of liqueur. All the time Victorine arranged this room, she kept saying to herself, at last, at last. Teresa slept through the daylight, slept late into the evening, leaning back where she had fallen in her chair. She was so motionless that Victorine appeared alarmed. Once or twice, she felt her pulse and gazed earnestly into the tear-stained face. Once, she very carefully lifted one of the eyelids, and holding a lighted taper-near, peered into the eye. Apparently satisfied, she went out and ordered a basin of broth to be ready when she asked for it. Again she sat in deep silence. Nothing stirred in the closed chamber. But in the street the carriages began to roll, and the footmen and torch-bearers to cry aloud their masters' names and titles, to show what carriage in that narrow street below was entitled to precedence. A carriage stopped at the hotel, of which they occupied the third floor. Then the bell of their apartment rang loudly, rang violently. Victorine went out to see what it was that might disturb her, darling, as she called Teresa to herself. A sleeping lady, as she spoke of her to her servants. She met those servants, bringing in their master the Count. Dead, dead, with a sword-wound, received in some infamous struggle. Victorine stood and looked at him. Better so, she muttered, better so. But, monseigneur, you shall take this with you, whithersoever your wicked soul is fleeing. And she struck him, a stroke on his shoulder, just where Teresa's bruise was. It was as light a stroke as well could be. But this irreverence to the dead called forth indignation, even from the hardened bearers of the body. Little wrecked Victorine! She turned her back on the corpse, went to her cupboard, took out the mixture she had made with so much care, poured it out upon the bare wooden floor, and smeared it about with her foot. End of part 1