"So happy to have the honour of meeting you again, though it is upon this melancholy occasion!" cried the Comte, who was very fond of talking and had hastened to fasten himself on Mr. St. John. "What a sad thing that consumption is! And de la Chasse is here! How he must feel her loss! the engaging, beautiful demoiselle that she was!"
The procession moved on. To the church first, and then to the grave. But amidst all its pomp and show, amidst the tall candles, the glittering crucifixes, the banners of silver and black, amidst the array of priests and their imposing vestments; through the low murmurs of their soothing chant, lost in the echoes of the streets; even beyond that one dark mass, the chief feature of the pageant, borne by eight men with measured tread, through his regrets for what was in it--his buried love--there came something else, totally foreign to all this, and uncalled for by will, floating through the mind of Mr. St. John.
The curious tale whispered to him by Rose Darling the previous day, touching the fancies of Mrs. Carleton St. John, was connecting itself, in a haunting fashion, with certain words he had heard dropped by Honour at Castle Wafer.
[CHAPTER XXXII.]
SOME MONTHS ONWARDS
It was August weather. The glowing sunlight of the day had faded, and the drawing-rooms were lighted at Castle Wafer. A small group of guests had gathered there; it may almost be said a family group; had been spending there some five or six weeks. Changes have taken place since you met them last. Its master has come into the inheritance so coveted by Mrs. Carleton St. John for her own child: and he is also in stronger health than he has been for years. Look at him as he sits in the remotest corner of the room, his table covered with books and bearing a small shaded reading-lamp. But he is not reading now; he is listening with a fond smile to a charming girl in white evening attire, as she sits close to him and talks in a low voice. Her great eyes, of a blue grey, are raised to his face, and the gold chain glistens on her fair white shoulders as she bends towards him, and she seems to be petitioning some favour; for he keeps shaking his head in the negative, as if to tantalize her; but the kindly look in his eyes, and the sweet smile on his face are very conspicuous. You have met her before: it is Miss Beauclerc, the daughter of the Dean of Westerbury.
Unpleasantly conspicuous, that smile and that tender look, to one of the distant group. The glittering chandelier--and only one chandelier has been lighted tonight, as is usual on these quiet evenings--is reflected as in a thousand prisms by the wax-lights, and the glitter shines full on the face of this one lady, who sits back in the satin chair unnoticed, her dark eyes disagreeably fierce and eager. Is she a young girl? She really looks like one, in her black silk dress with its low simple body and short sleeves, edged only with a narrow ruching of white crape; looks almost as young as Miss Beauclerc. But she is not young; she has passed her thirtieth year, and more than that; and you have met her before, for she is the widow of George Carleton St. John of Alnwick. They call her here at Castle Wafer Mrs. Carleton, in a general way, as her additional name would interfere with Mrs. St. John's. We had better do the same. Sometimes they call her Charlotte; and she likes that best, for she hates the name of Carleton, simply because it was the name of her late husband's first wife.
Right underneath the chandelier, both of them at some sort of work, sit Mrs. St. John and Mrs. Darling. Mrs. St. John has recovered the accident of a year ago; it left a languor upon her which she is rather too fond of indulging. Isaac St. John is glad that visitors should be staying at Castle Wafer, for they divert his stepmother, whom he greatly esteems and respects, from her own fancied ailments. That accident would seem to have aged her ten years, and you would take her to be nearly sixty. Lastly, talking and laughing at the open glass doors, now halting inside, now stepping forth on the terrace in the balmy summer's night, are Rose Darling and Frederick St John. Frederick has been but a few days arrived, after an absence of many months, chiefly spent in the Holy Land; the rest have been for six weeks at Castle Wafer.
Six weeks, and they went for only one! Isaac pressed the visit upon Mrs. Carleton, whose position he much pitied, and politely invited Mrs. Darling to accompany her with any of the Miss Darlings she might like to bring. Mrs. Darling accepted the invitation and brought Rose. The other two were staying with old Mrs. Darling in Berkshire, who was flourishing and seemed likely to live to be a hundred. It almost seemed to Isaac St. John, in his refined sensitiveness, that he had committed a wrong on Charlotte St. John, by succeeding to the property that would have been her husband's and then her son's, had they lived. Could he have done it with any sort of delicacy, he had made over to her a handsome yearly income. Indeed, he had hinted at this to Mrs. Darling, but that lady said she felt sure it could not be done with Charlotte's proud spirit. Isaac hoped still: and meanwhile he pressed Charlotte to stay with them at Castle Wafer, not to run away, as her mother talked of doing. Mrs. Darling had been talking of it this month past; and her departure was now really fixed for the morrow. She was going with Rose to Paris; but Charlotte had accepted the invitation to remain.
Her fate really deserved sympathy. Bereft of her husband, of her cherished son, bereft not only of the fortune but also of the position she had thought to secure in marrying the master of Alnwick, she had perforce retired into a very humble individual again, who could not keep up much of an establishment of her own. In health she was perfectly well: all that dark time seemed to have passed away as a dream: she was better-looking than ever, and the inward fever that used to consume her and render her a very shadow, did not waste her now. Mrs. Darling had spoken to her seriously of what her future plans should be: that lady herself would probably have desired nothing better than to keep her favourite daughter with her always: but her other daughters rose rather rebelliously against it, and some unpleasantness had been the result.