All ran down at once from the room where we had been sitting; Louise and the old clergyman to the great hall, I and my two young cousins to welcome the baron at the drawbridge. He came, accompanied by a long train of retainers, with a carriage and a horse litter containing his new wife and her manifold attendants. The torches and lanterns showed us a countenance much changed since we had last seen him, older in appearance than in reality, thinner, and more harsh than ever. There was a heavy frown, too, upon his brow, and it was evident that something had gone wrong on the road.
To me he spoke but one word in answer to my inquiries after his health, and the boys, who were pressing round him with the eagerness of natural affection, he pushed roughly away, telling them that they encumbered him. He then approached the side of the carriage and handed out the lady, who, being of course masked for the journey, did not suffer her face to appear. He led her at once into the hall, where Louise and the old clergyman had remained; and his daughter, who was the only person that seemed to shrink back from himself and his new wife, was the only one to whom he spoke kindly and tenderly.
There, sheltered from the wind, and with plenty of light around, the lady took of her velvet mask; and oh, how every idea which I had previously formed of what her person was likely to present, vanished in a single instant! As she lifted that mask from her face, the imagination of memory conjured up in a moment the beautiful form of the first wife, and set it beside the new one. Certainly I had expected to find transcendent beauty in the being who had lured the heart of the husband away from such a lovely and amiable being; and who, after having made her miserable through life, had taken her place when dead.
The figure of the new baroness was fine, it is true; tall, commanding, and well-proportioned; but it wanted that soft and easy grace, that flowing symmetry of every line which had distinguished her predecessor; and if there was a difference and an inferiority in figure, what was there not in countenance? She was no longer young; the features were large and strongly marked, the eyes bright, indeed, and full of fire, but that was the fire of a harsh and domineering temper; and they were only softened, if at all, by a look of wanton meaning which sometimes came across them. The lips were thin, and generally closely shut, though the teeth were fine which they concealed; the chin was rounded, but somewhat projecting; the cheek bones were high, and the skin, though not brown, was coarse. There was a good deal of colour in the face; so much, indeed, that I should have supposed it not altogether natural, had it not been roughly scattered over the cheek with a sort of mottled appearance, which convinced me that art had no share in placing it there. The hair was fine and luxuriant, although she had passed her prime, and her hand was large and somewhat coarse, though much pains had been taken to keep it soft and white.
She gazed at Louise from head to foot, with a look of scrutiny and apparently some surprise.
"You told me that she was a girl, a mere child," the lady said, addressing the baron as he introduced his daughter to her. "Why this is a woman!"
"She was a child when I left her, madam," replied the baron, "and you may see that she is a child in heart still by the blushes which your words call up."
"She looks all the prettier for them," replied the baroness; "but I must teach her not to be such a spendthrift, and to reserve them for occasions when they will have some effect. And, pray, who is this young gentleman!" she proceeded, turning towards me while that meaning look came up in her eyes. "Not your eldest son, I suppose, my lord, for he was only twelve years old when last I heard of him, and he has not probably made such a rapid jump as the young lady. If he have, he has gotten him goodly limbs in a short time." And she ran over me with the same unblushing effrontery with which she had gazed upon Louise.
"This, madam," replied the baron, bitterly, "is a cousin of mine, Henry de Cerons, son of another cousin, Henry de Cerons, who has done me the honour of living in my house for the last twenty years."
The blood came up into my cheeks as I heard him speak. "I have been, madam," I said, taking up the words immediately, "a poor pensioner upon my cousin's bounty since the period that he speaks of. It was then that the death of my noble father left me dependant, with nothing but a sword, which he had rendered glorious, for my future fortune."