The Baron had been driven home to Aix in his britzka, promising to return for some final arrangements on the morrow, when he hoped to find the health of the Grafine restored; prayers were over; the household were all a-bed, or supposed to be so, and Charlie sat in his own room, looking sadly out upon the distant lights of Aix, which seemed to twinkle like the stars above them.
He had ample food for reflection. Fear of the Baron's influence on Ernestine he had none; but he had real fear of the influence her family, and long-trained habits of implicit obedience, might have on her, and genuine love and truth are commodities too scarce and valuable in this world to be wasted.
How much, thought Charlie, were Herminia and her cousin to be envied; they had been, and were, so successful in their love, and all through the fortunate little scheme of the Countess and Ernestine.
How he longed to show the latter to his sisters; for Charlie had three, in that dear old home in Warwickshire, all softly featured and gently mannered girls, such as England excels in, more than all the world besides. Would they love her? But could they fail to do so? Well, his father might, perhaps, oh, no! he could not look coldly on her, because she was a foreigner. Pure innocence and beauty belong to no country in particular; and Ernestine looked more thoroughly English than many an English lady Charlie had seen in Regent Street and the Row.
What was to be the end of all this?
In spite of all his prudence and the suggestions of reason, Charlie had fallen madly in love, without considering what a costly whim a high-born wife would prove to a Prussian subaltern; or how the prize was to be obtained, the whim gratified.
Eleven was struck by the great old clock in the hall of the Schloss, and Charlie, who had been awaiting it, watch in hand, took his wax taper, and softly and swiftly descended the great staircase to the boudoir of the Countess, a small octagonal apartment that opened off the drawing-room.
It was, of course, without a fireplace; but, in lieu thereof, in one corner stood the prettiest of little German stoves, a black iron cylinder, or column, surmounted by a large coronet of ornamental brass, and set on a block of white marble. Numerous statuettes under glass shades, and pretty bijou articles, littered all the marble and marqueterie tables, with Dresden china vases of flowers, gathered fresh that morning by Ernestine and Herminia in the garden at the foot of the castle rock. The furniture and hangings were all pale blue silk, trimmed with white lace or silver; water-colours decorated the wall, and, in a place of honour, hung a Berlin engraving representing the meeting of Wellington and Blucher at La Belle Alliance.
A moderator lamp, upheld by a bronze Atlas, was suddenly flashed up, and Ernestine stood before Charlie Pierrepont. She had let all her hair down, probably previous to coiling it up for the night, and now its silky masses floated over her shoulders far below her waist, and out of their darkness, her pale, minute, and delicately cut face came with strong distinctness in the subdued light of the lamp. How lovely she looked just then; her form, though mignonne, round and full. She threw her arms round Charlie, and putting her head on his shoulder, in a way she had like a petted love-bird, placed her sweet face amid the masses of her hair on his neck, and her lover gazed at her for some seconds ere he seated her by his side, with a kind of adoration, for she was in all the pride of her beauty and purity; and, as a writer says, with truth, 'There is nothing in the universe so exquisite, so fascinating, so irresistibly alluring, as a young girl! A girl in the first dawn of earliest womanhood, fresh and fragrant as a flower, and, alas! as fragile, for that bloom of youth is as evanescent as it is lovely, and its loss is never, to my mind, compensated by any maturer charm. Let who will inhale the perfume of the opening rose, but the sweet shy mystery of the folded bud for me!'
And some such thoughts ran through the mind of Charlie as he gazed upon her.