“I had thought as much,” remarked the Countess, “and had so expressed myself to Admiral Enright. As it adjoins my estate, I will make you a proposition. With your consent—and also that of your future husband—I will purchase the Batistelli castle and grounds at their proper valuation. Should this offer prove acceptable, it is my intention to raze the castle to the ground, and remove the hedge which has divided the estates for so many years. Thus all unpleasant memories will be banished. I shall be glad, for Paris is too noisy, and I shall have this castle to be the shelter of my declining years.”
This plan proved agreeable, and it was arranged that some of the Batistelli servants, including Clarine, should be added to the Mont d’Oro household; the others were dismissed with gratuities.
The next day the Osprey set sail from Ajaccio, bearing the Admiral and his daughter. It was arranged that Vandemar and Vivienne, and Jack and Bertha, accompanied by the Countess Mont d’Oro, should go at once to Paris.
CHAPTER XXXII.
“MERRIE ENGLAND.”
Vivienne had wished Clarine to accompany her to England, for Vandemar had expressed his intention of making that country his future home.
“No, my darling,” said the old nurse, “I would like to go with you, but those whom I have served, and all, whom I have loved, excepting yourself, are dead and buried here in Corsica. Until within a short time, you have loved me better than any one else in the world, but now your love—all your love—belongs to another, and old Clarine will not ask you to divide it. I have not long to stay—you will not blame me, I know—but when I die, I wish to be buried in my native land. I could not die happy if I were to be laid away in that far off country, so far from those I——” Here the old nurse’s feelings overcame her, and her voice was so choked with sobs that she could not speak. Vivienne comforted her as best she could, and told her that she would write to her regularly, and that some day she might come with her husband to pay her a visit.
“Countess Mont d’Oro has agreed to take you into her household, Clarine. If she had not done so, I should have insisted upon your going with me, but with her I know that you will be well treated, and if you are sick you will have the best of care. She has promised me as much.”
Vandemar had a conversation with Admiral Enright before the sailing of the Osprey.
“My duty is to join my ship at once,” the young man had said.
“Young people do not see their duty sometimes as clearly as do their elders,” the Admiral had replied. “The time you spent in that dungeon has broken you down physically—I will not say mentally—as much as a three years’ cruise would have done. I am commander of the ship and I know that my action will be sustained by the Admiralty. I grant you a furlough of thirty days. If you cannot make Mademoiselle Batistelli your wife and join me at Portsmouth by the end of that time, you deserve to be court-martialled, and I will see that you are.”