Madame de Coulancourt was conveyed to Paris, and remained some time confined in the Abbey. Finally, as things settled into tranquillity under the Directory, she was brought to trial. Nothing whatever appearing to criminate her, she was released, and left in full possession of her estates, but strictly prohibited, under pain of forfeiture of her property and imprisonment, either to leave the country, or in any way, by letter or message, to communicate with England.
Madame de Coulancourt, grateful to Providence for her preservation from so many perils, selected a handsome mansion in Paris for residence, where she looked forward with hope to peace to restore her daughter to her; her son she firmly believed to have been beheaded. Some months after Jean Plessis obtained his liberty, and soon learned by diligent inquiries the fate of Madame de Coulancourt, and at once set out for Paris, thus relieving Madame de Coulancourt’s mind from great anxiety on his and his family’s account, for she feared he had perished in attempting her deliverance.
CHAPTER XVI.
Five years have passed since Mabel Arden was placed under the care of Mrs. Sampson; and she was now seventeen years of age. For the last six months she had quitted school, and remained under the care and protection of Madame Volney, who, with her daughter Agatha, resided in a pretty villa in the immediate vicinity of Southampton. Madame Volney’s income was five hundred a-year, having placed the large sum of money she had had bequeathed to her in the hands of Mr. Stanmore, who had invested it for her very advantageously.
The thousand pounds so generously left by Lieutenant O’Loughlin and our hero for Mabel’s benefit Mr. Stanmore also placed out at interest; and what the interest lacked in amount to discharge the expense of her schooling, the solicitor paid himself, so that the little capital remained untouched, Mr. Stanmore feeling satisfied that Mabel would in the end be able to establish her rights, and recover interest and principal out of the Etherton estates; but as to forcing Sir Godfrey to acknowledge his niece without certain proofs of her birth, &c., was out of the question.
About two years after the placing of Mabel at school, Sir Godfrey Etherton became somewhat embarrassed, through the imprudence of his son-in-law, Lord Coldburgh and Philip Etherton, who were fast friends, the former having induced his brother-in-law to join him in a security for fourteen thousand pounds—racing debts—which his lordship declared were to be paid for out of the proceeds of an estate in Dorsetshire, to be sold immediately. Unfortunately his lordship’s creditors, thinking he lived much too fast, brought matters to a close, and laid hands on all the property, politely requesting Mr. Philip Etherton to take up the bond for fourteen thousand pounds.
This Mr. Etherton could not do. Lord and Lady Coldburgh, in the end, were compelled to retire to a mansion his lordship possessed in Yorkshire and live (starve they styled it), on four hundred a year, the creditors having allowed them that sum from the property till the whole of the debts were paid off, which would not be for a term of fourteen years. Sir Godfrey Etherton had to pay a sum of nine thousand pounds, it being proved that part of the fourteen thousand pounds included gambling debts of his son. The baronet felt this severely, being both a penurious and heartless man, for he was quite satisfied in his mind that Mabel was his niece; but he was in great hopes that having lost the contents of the casket, and her mother being, as he believed, guillotined, he should never hear more of her claims.
The baronet insisted on his son giving up his racing associates and extravagant mode of life, fixing upon some wealthy heiress, and winding up his future by marriage. But Mr. Philip Etherton’s career was destined to be a very short one; the year after, whilst shooting with a friend, in loading his double-barrelled gun, the loaded barrel, by some unaccountable accident, went off, and the contents lodged in the brain of the unfortunate young man, killing him on the spot. This terrible catastrophe plunged the Etherton family into deep despondency. Sir Godfrey appeared to feel it as a judgment upon him for his cruelty and injustice to his orphan niece, and yet he strove in his own mind to convince himself that he acted from principle; “for why,” he argued, “should I receive a young girl as my niece simply upon a woman’s word, who may be, and no doubt is, an impostor?”
The baronet, immediately after the death of his eldest son, removed Howard Etherton from the navy, and he returned home. Sir Godfrey’s troubles and anxiety of mind respecting his brother’s wife and child brought on a heart disease, and in less than five years from Mabel’s residence in England he was gathered to his fathers, and Howard Etherton succeeded to the title and estates.