After dinner, St. Aubyn having some engagement, left the fair friends alone, and they enjoyed a long and confidential conversation.
From Laura, Lady St. Aubyn learnt that Lady Juliana was well known to her, and that in spite of her austere and forbidden manners, and the pleasure she undoubtedly took in contradicting almost every thing she heard, she was yet a woman of good sense, and would most certainly, could her esteem be once engaged, prove to Ellen a steady and valuable friend: "Especially," added Laura, "should any thing happen to Lord St. Aubyn, for she is his only near relation to whom he could confide the future interests, either of his wife or child; and young and beautiful as you are, my dear Ellen, no doubt St. Aubyn thinks such an additional support would be highly desirable for you." Seeing she was deeply affected, for Ellen now believed she could discern the cause of St. Aubyn's anxiety for her being on good terms with his aunt, and connected it with the painful circumstances he had told her were hanging over him, Laura now added, with a pensive smile, "Nay, my dear friend, do not be distressed. I have of late thought so much of mortality, I was not sensible how much you would be pained by the suggestion; but certainly, St. Aubyn will not leave you a moment the sooner for my hinting the possibility of such an event."
Ellen endeavoured to shake off the painful ideas which forced themselves upon her, and asked Miss Cecil if she had known much of the former Countess. "Not very much," said Laura: "she was very handsome, but the character of her beauty was so different from yours, that I have often wondered how St. Aubyn came to choose two so different; though, indeed, I believe I should hardly say choose, for Lady Rosolia de Montfort was not so much his choice as that of his relations—at least, I believe he would never have thought of her as a wife if they had not."
"Who was she? Do tell me a little about her: I am quite a stranger to all particulars."
"I know little more than I have told you, except that she was the only daughter of the late Earl de Montfort, a distant relation of Lord St. Aubyn's. Lord de Montfort, during the life of his elder brother, went to Spain in a diplomatic situation, and there married the daughter of the Duke de Castel Nuovo: this marriage with an English protestant, was, for a long time, opposed by the lady's relations: but, at length, moved by fear and compassion for her, whose attachment threw her into a lingering disease, which threatened her existence, they consented on one condition, namely, that the sons of the marriage should be educated Roman Catholics, and on the death of their father, be placed with their maternal grandfather, while they permitted the daughters to be brought up in the Protestant religion, hoping, perhaps, that the influence of a mother over females might ultimately bring them also over to her faith: but the Countess died young: one son and one daughter were her only children, the boy some years younger than his sister: they both remained with their father (who soon after his marriage became Earl de Montfort), sometimes in Spain, sometimes in England, till the marriage of Lady Rosolia with Lord St. Aubyn, though she was frequently his mother's guest, both in London and at St. Aubyn Castle, where the young Edmund also often spent some time: he was a very fine and amiable boy, and excessively attached to his sister.
When Lord de Montfort died, the son was claimed by his maternal grandfather, and Lord and Lady St. Aubyn went to Spain with him, where she died: report spoke unfavourably of her conduct during her abode on the Continent; indeed, in England, the gaiety of her manners, especially after the death of Lord St. Aubyn's mother, approached more nearly to the habits of foreign ladies than those of England. It was said, that while abroad, Lord St. Aubyn was involved in many unpleasant circumstances by her behaviour: certain it is, that on his return, he appeared overwhelmed with melancholy, which was the more extraordinary, as it was well known they had not lived on very affectionate terms even before they had quitted this country."
"And what became of her brother: where is the young Lord de Montfort?" asked Ellen. "He has remained ever since in Spain," replied Laura; "but as he will very soon be of age, he must then, I suppose, return to England to take possession of his estates, of which Lord St. Aubyn is the guardian."
"Oh," thought Ellen, "is it to his return St. Aubyn looks with so much apprehension and dismay? What! O! what is the strange mystery in which this story seems to be involved?"