Ringfield: A Novel

by S. Frances Harrison

"I hope, said she, that Heaven
Will give me patience to endure the things
Which I behold at home…."

The glorious noonday sun was lighting up all the road to Clairville and making it possible for the peacock to revive his display of a glistening fan of feathers tipped with frosted filaments that were only rivalled by the pendant encrustations of the surrounding trees, and in a window of the manor Pauline was standing looking at the bird after showing Angeel the various little trifles she had brought with her. The child's infirmity did not prevent her from enjoying the good things of life; indeed, as frequently occurs in such cases, her senses were almost preternaturally acute and her faculties bright and sensitive in the extreme. In place of any system of general education, impossible during those sequestered years at Hawthorne in charge of her incapable mother, she had picked up one or two desultory talents which might yet stand her instead of mere bookishness; she was never without a pencil in her long white fingers and busied herself by the hour with little drawings and pictures of what she had seen in her limited experience, and some of these she had been exhibiting now to the person she held both in awe and adoration. Her kinship to this elegant, dark-haired lady had only recently been explained, and Pauline was trying to accustom herself to being addressed as "ma tante" and "tante chérie" with other endearing and embarrassing terms of regard.

But the time was going on and Miss Clairville turned from the window; a very little of Angeel was all she could stand just now.

"At this rate our beautiful view will soon disappear," she said, sitting down beside the basket-chair. "See then, mon enfant, how already the ice drips off the trees and all the pretty glass tubes are melting from the wires overhead! It is so warm too, like a day in spring. Eh! bien, I must go now back to my friends who are waiting for me. I have nothing more to show little girls. You have now the beads, the satin pincushion, and the little red coat that is called a Zouave jacket—see how gay! and you will find it warm and pleasant to wear when your kind maman makes it to fit you. And here too are the crayons to paint with and a new slate. Soyez toujours bonne fille, p'tite, and perhaps some day you will see your poor aunt again."

"Not my poor aunt! My rich, rich aunt."

"Ah—tais toi, ma p'tite! But you, too, are not poor any longer.
That reminds me, I must have a little talk with your kind maman."

With some difficulty overcoming her dislike of the individual and aversion to the entire family arrangement, Pauline walked out to the hall which separated the faded salon, where she had been sitting, from the still untidy bedroom and called for Artémise. In a few moments the widow of Henry Clairville came in sight at the top of the staircase leading to the upper room, her bright black eyes dulled and frightened and her hands trembling visibly, for was not Mlle. Clairville her enemy, being not only a relative now by marriage but her late mistress, tyrant and superior? But the certainty of leaving the neighbourhood in a very few days put Pauline so much at her ease that she could afford to show her brightest and most amiable side to her sister-in-law, and thus she made a graceful if authoritative advance to the bottom of the staircase and stretched forth both her white hands, even going the length of imprinting a slow kiss on the other's sunburnt cheek. Few could at any time have resisted the mingled charms of so magnetic a personality, with something of the stage lingering in it, an audacity, an impulsiveness, rare among great ladies, and it must be remembered that in the limited society of St. Ignace, Miss Clairville passed as a great lady, and was one indeed in all minor traits. Then the touch of her skin was so soft, there always exhaled a delicate, elusive, but sweet perfume from her clothes and hair, and even in her mourning she had preserved the artistic touches necessary to please. No wonder that the poor Artémise should burst into weak tears and cry for pity and forgiveness as that soft kiss fell upon her cheek and those proud hands grasped her own.

"Chut!" cried Miss Clairville, drawing the other into the salon. "I am not angry with you, child! If Henry made you his wife it was very right of him and no one shall blame you nor complain. Only had I known—ah, well, it might not have made so much difference after all. You are going to be very comfortable here, Artémise, and I shall write to you from time to time—oh, have no fear! regularly, my dear! And Dr. Renaud and his Reverence are to see about selling Henry's books and papers, and it is possible that they bring you a nice sum of money. With that, there is one thing I should like you to do. Are you listening to me, Artémise?"

"Bien, mademoiselle," answered Artémise, through her sobs. "I listen, I will do anything you say. I am sorry, ma'amselle. I should not be here, I know; it is you who should be here, here at Clairville, and be its mistress."

Still secure in her ideas of impending ease and happiness, and unaware of the course of tragic accident which was operating at that same moment against her visions of release and freedom and depriving her of the future she relied on, Pauline laughed musically at the notion.