St. Martin's Eve: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

The return of Signor de Castella to Beaufoy, and consequently the visit of the Baron de la Chasse, had been subjected to another postponement of a week; but then the time was positively fixed, and Adeline knew it would be kept. Her suspense and fears were becoming intolerable. How avoid being often in the society of the baron, when he would be the only visitor in the house? It was this grave question that suggested to her the thought of asking for the presence of her schoolfellows. Madame de Castella fell all innocently into the snare, and acquiesced at once. Adeline had ever been an indulged child.

It was almost impossible for Adeline to conceal her terror as the days drew on. She knew her father's haughty, unbending character, his keen sense of honour. He would have been the last to force her into an unpalatable union, and had Adeline expressed the slightest repugnance to M. de la Chasse when it was first proposed, the affair would have been at an end. But she had cheerfully consented to it; the deeds of betrothal were signed on both sides, and M. de Castella's word and honour had been pledged. Never, Adeline feared, would he allow that betrothal, that word to be broken; never would he consent to entertain proposals for her from another.

Now that her eyes were opened, she saw how fearfully blind and hazardous had been the act by which she consented to become the wife of the Baron de la Chasse, a personal stranger. There are thousands who consent in the same unconscious haste, and know not what they do, until it is too late. It is gratifying to a young girl's vanity to receive an offer of marriage; to anticipate an establishment of her own; to leave her companions behind. Marriage is to her a sealed book, and she is eager to penetrate its mysteries. If a voice from a judicious friend, or a still small voice in her own conscience, should whisper a warning to wait, to make sure she is on the right path ere she enter its enclosures irrevocably, both are thrust aside unheeded. So the wedding-day comes surely on; and soon the once eager careless girl awakes to her position, and beholds herself as she really is--sacrificed. She is the wife of one whom she cannot love; worse still, perhaps not respect, now that she knows him intimately: there is no sympathy between them; not a feeling, not a taste, it may be, in common. But the sacrifice was of her choosing, and she must abide by it. Deliberately, of her own free will, she tied herself to him, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, until death shall them part. She has linked herself to him by a chain which divides her from the rest of the world; every thought of her heart belongs, of right, to him; she is his companion and no other's, and must obey his behests; at uprising and down-sitting, at the daily meals and in the midnight chamber she is his, his own, for evermore.

A strong impression, call it a presentiment if you will, had taken hold of Adeline, that the very first word of disclosure to her father, though it were but a hint of it, would be the signal for her separation from Mr. St. John. She spoke of this to him, and she wrung a promise from him that he would be for the present silent; that at least during this few days' visit of the Baron's he should continue to appear as he did now--an acquaintance only. Rose would be there, and St. John's intimacy with the family, his frequent presence at Beaufoy, might be accounted for by his relationship to her, No relationship whatever in point of fact, as the reader knows; but Adeline chose to construe it into one. Mr. St. John at first hesitated to comply with her wish. It is true that he would have preferred, for reasons of his own--his debts and his estrangement from his brother--not to speak to Signor de Castella just yet; but he was given to be ultra honourable, and to maintain silence in such a case, though it were but for a week or two, jarred against his nature. Only to her imploring petition, to her tears, did he at length yield, and then conditionally. He must be guided, he said, by the behaviour of de la Chasse. "Should he attempt to offer you the smallest endearment, should he begin to whisper tender speeches in your ear, I should throw prudence to the winds, and step between you."

"Oh, Frederick!" she answered, her cheek a burning red, her face bent in its maidenly confusion; "endearment--tender speeches--they are not known in France, in our class of society. Of such there is no fear. The Baron will be as politely ceremonious to me as though we were ever to remain strangers."

And Adeline was right.

Late in the afternoon of as hot and brilliant a day as the July sun ever shone upon, the carriage, containing the young-lady guests, which had been sent to Odesque to meet them, drew up at the château, in the very jaws of the lions. Mary Carr looked out. There, on the broad steps, in the exact spot where she had last seen him, looking as though not an hour had passed over his head since, stood Mr. St. John.

He assisted them to alight, and Adeline ran out to receive them, so charmingly lovely in her white morning dress and pink ribbons. Madame de Castella also appeared, and after a cordial welcome, ordered the coachman to speed back with haste to Odesque, or he would not be in time for the arrival of the Paris train.

"I expect my husband and M. de la Chasse," she explained, addressing her visitors. Mary Carr looked involuntarily at Adeline. She met the gaze, and a burning crimson rushed over her face and neck.

Before six the party had re-assembled, including Mr. St. John. They were in the yellow drawing-room, a very fine apartment, kept chiefly for show and ceremony, and one that nobody ever felt at home in. The windows overlooked the approach to the château; every one was gazing for the first appearance of the momentarily expected travellers, Adeline growing more pale, more agitated with every minute; so pale, so agitated, that she could not escape notice.