Chapter XXII: All About a Stupid French Marigold

The invitation sent to the young ladies by Madame de Castella had been given at the pressing instigation of Adeline. The nervous, anxious tones of the little notes enclosed from herself, praying them to accept it, at once proved the fact to Mary Carr.

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.

"See, see!" exclaimed old Madame de Beaufoy, hobbling to the window. "Is not that the carriage?--far off, there;--at the turn by the windmill."

It was the carriage: the aged eyes were the quickest, after all: and it came speedily on. Two dusty-looking figures were in it, for they sat with it open. Madame de Castella and her sister hastened to the hall to receive the travellers, and the old lady thrust her head out at one of the windows. Adeline had risen in terrible agitation, and was leaning on the back of a chair. Her very lips were white. Mr. St. John advanced and bent over her.

"My dearest love," he whispered, "you are ill, and I dare not protect you as I could wish. Be under no apprehension of any unwelcome scene with him: sooner than suffer it I will declare all."

He took up a flacon of eau de Cologne, and saturated her handkerchief. Mary Carr was looking on. She could not hear his words; but she marked his low, earnest voice, his looks, his actions, she saw how it was from that hour. "There will be tribulation in the house, ere this shall be over!" was her mental exclamation. But she little anticipated the deep tribulation that was indeed to come.

The Baron did not make his appearance until he had been to his dressing-room. He looked very presentable when he came in, though his hair was shorter than ever, and the curled corners of his yellow moustache were longer. His greeting of Adeline was in this fashion: advancing quickly towards her until he came within three paces, he there made a dead standstill, and placing his feet in the first position, as dancing-masters say, slowly bowed his head nearly down to the ground, and in ceremonious words, "hoped he had the honour of finding mademoiselle in perfect health." That was all: he did not presume even to touch her hand: any such familiarity would, in good French society, be deemed the perfection of bad taste. Rose just smothered a scream of delight when she saw the bow, and gave Mr. St. John such a pinch on the arm, that the place was blue for days afterwards. But what a bow St. John received the Baron with when they were introduced--distant, haughty, and self-conscious, conscious of his own superiority. Certainly, in outward appearance, there was a wide contrast, and Mr. St. John, on this particular evening, seemed quite aware of his own personal gifts. De la Chasse was superbly dressed: a blue satin vest, curiously-fine linen of lace and embroidery, with various other magnificent et ceteras. St. John was in slight mourning attire, black clothes, a plain white waistcoat, and not a bit of finery about him; but he looked, as Rose Darling said, fit for a prince.

Dinner was announced. The Baron de la Chasse advanced to the aged mistress of the house, St. John to Madame de Castella, and Signor de Castella to Rose. Miss de Beaufoy, Adeline, and Mary Carr, went in together. It was a formal dinner, and Adeline was sick at heart.

It happened, in the course of the following morning, that the three young ladies and the Baron were alone in the western drawing-room--the one, you may remember, opening to the colonnade. The conversation flagged. De la Chasse, though a sensible man, did not shine in that flowing, ready style of converse so natural to Frederick St. John; and Adeline seemed utterly spiritless. Mary Carr went upstairs to her chamber, but before she had been there five minutes, Rose came dancing in.

"Where have you left Adeline?" inquired Miss Carr.

"Where you did--with the Baron. I thought I might be _de trop_, and so came away. It is not pleasant to reflect that you may be spoiling a scene, all tenderness and sweetmeats, as Charlotte Singleton calls it. I say, though, Mary, did you see St. John whispering last night to her at the piano, whilst he was pretending to be engaged turning over for me? It's satisfactory to have two strings to one's bow."

Before another word could be said, in rushed Adeline, in high excitement. "Mary! Rose!--Rose! dear Mary! never you leave me alone with that man again! Promise it!--promise it to me!"

"What is it? What has he done?" they asked, in excessive astonishment.

"He has done nothing. But I dare not be alone with him, lest he should talk of the future. He has been inquiring after the engagement-ring. Hush! do not ask me any questions now," concluded Adeline. "I wish to Heaven, Rose, you could induce the Baron to fall in love with you!"

"Much obliged for the transfer," said Rose, with a laugh. "Perhaps you'll get him first to dye those appendages to his face: yellow is not a favourite colour of mine."

De la Chasse intended to remain but a week. He purposed leaving on Tuesday morning. His visit was passing quietly enough; there had been no outbreak between him and St. John, only excessive coolness. Had de la Chasse been an Englishman, an explanation could scarcely have been avoided; for an Englishman would inevitably, by speech, manner, or action, have shown that he was the young lady's lover: but in France these things are managed differently.

Madame de Beaufoy issued invitations for Monday evening to as many neighbours as were within driving-distance. A soirée dansante, the cards said, when they went out.

On the Monday afternoon, when the three young ladies were in the western drawing-room together, the Baron entered, and addressing Adeline, formally requested her to grant him the honour of a few minutes' conversation.

A strange rising in the throat; a dread, that caused her frame to quiver; a terrified, imploring, but unavailing look at Rose and Mary; and the door closed on them, and Adeline and her acknowledged lover were left alone.

She need not have feared. The Baron did not say a word to her that he might not have said to her mother. But he produced from his pocket the engagement-ring, which had been taken to Paris to be made smaller--it was a plain circlet of gold--and requested she would grant him the honour of allowing him to replace it on her finger.

Without a word of remonstrance--for what could she say?--and sick at heart, Adeline held out her hand; and the Baron ventured ceremoniously to touch it, while he slipped on the ring: in the very act and deed of doing which, the door opened, and into the room strode Mr. St. John, twirling in his hand a French marigold.

He saw them standing together, Adeline's hand stretched out, and meeting both of his; and he looked black as night. It has been said, in this book or another, that Frederick St. John was of quick temperament: on rare occasions he gave way to violent explosions of passion. It is probable that an outburst would have come then; but the Baron, with a polite bow to Adeline, quitted the room. And Mr. St. John, though certain as man could well be that he had no cause for jealousy, gave way to the irritation of his hasty spirit.

"So, Mademoiselle de Castella," he broke forth, "you have been enjoying a stolen interview with your lover! I must beg your pardon for having unintentionally interrupted it."

She turned deprecatingly to him; she did not speak, or defend herself from the charge; but the look of anguish on her countenance was so keen, the glance at himself so full of pure, truthful love, that the gentleman's better nature revolted at the temper he had shown, and he caught her to his heart.

"But they were cruel words," she sobbed; "and just now I have enough to bear."

"Let this be my peace-offering, my darling," he said, placing in her hand the French marigold.

St. John had long ago heard the tale of the French marigold, and Miss Rose Darling's sombre forebodings touching himself. He had been assiduously cultivating the flower in the garden at the Lodge, and this, that he now gave to Adeline, was the first which had appeared.

"This ring, Adeline," he said, drawing it from her finger. "He placed it there, I suppose?"

"You saw him doing so," she answered.

He slipped it into his waistcoat pocket, and then drew out his watch.

"Give me back the ring, Frederick."

"No, Adeline. It shall never encircle your finger again."

"But what am I to say if its absence is noticed? He said mamma had given him permission to replace it. She will be sure to ask where it is."

"Say anything. That it fell off--or wear a glove until evening. I will then tell you what to do. I cannot stay longer now."

When Mary Carr was dressed for the evening ball, she went into Adeline's room. Louise was putting the finishing strokes to her young lady's toilette, and very satisfactory they were, when Madame de Castella entered, holding in her hand a small circular case.

"Look here, Adeline," she said, opening it and displaying a costly bracelet, one of beauty and finish so rare, that all eyes were riveted on it. Exquisitely wrought, fine gold links, in the different crossings of which were inserted brilliants of the purest water, with pendant chains flashing with brilliants and gold.

"Oh, mamma!" was the enraptured exclamation. "What a lovely bracelet!"

"It is indeed, Adeline. It is yours."

"Ciel!" ejaculated Louise, lifting her hands.

"Mamma, how can I thank you!" she exclaimed, taking the jewels.

"You need not thank me at all, Adeline. It is the Baron's present. Make your acknowledgments to him."

Had the bracelet been a serpent, Adeline could not have dropped it quicker, and, but for Mary Carr, it would have fallen to the ground. Madame de Castella thought it was an accident.

"Don't be careless, child. Put it on. You must wear it tonight."

"Oh no, no, mamma!" she returned, her cheek flushing. "Not tonight."

"What nonsense!" exclaimed her mother; "you are as shy as a young child. When the Baron presented it to me for you, he said, 'Un petit cadeau pour ce soir.' Clasp it on, Louise."

"Mamma," she implored, a great deal more energetically than Madame de Castella thought the case could demand, "do not oblige me to appear in this bracelet tonight."

"Adeline, I _insist_ on its being worn. Persons who know you less well than we do, would suspect that affectation, more than delicacy, induced your refusal to wear a gift from one who will soon be your husband."

"Not my husband yet," faltered Adeline. "Not until next year."

"Indeed he will, Adeline," said Madame de Castella. "Before we go to the South."

Her colour came and went painfully. She sat down, gasping out rather than speaking, the words that issued from her white lips.

"We go to the South in two months!"

"Dear child," laughed Madame de Castella, "don't look so scared. There's no reason for it: a wedding is quite an everyday affair, I can assure you. This week I write to order your trousseau."

Louise fastened the bracelet on Adeline's arm, and she went down to the reception-rooms as one in a dream. If the younger guests, as they gazed on her excessive beauty, could but have read the bitter despair at her heart, the strife and struggle within, they would have envied her less. A single string of pearls was entwined with her hair, and she wore a pearl necklace; no other ornament, save this conspicuous bracelet of de la Chasse's. But in the bosom of her low white dress, almost hidden by its trimmings of lace, was enshrined St. John's French marigold.

The guests had nearly all arrived, and Adeline had done her best towards greeting them, when in passing in the direction of the colonnade, the Baron came up to her, She was longing for a breath of the evening air--as if that would cool the brow's inward fever!

"Permit me to exchange this flower with the one you have there, mademoiselle," he said, holding out a white camellia of rare beauty. And, with a light, respectful touch, he removed the French marigold from the folds of the lace.

Did de la Chasse suspect who had been the donor of that cherished French marigold? Did he remember seeing it in St. John's hand that same afternoon? It is impossible to tell; but he seemed more urgent over this trifling matter than a Frenchman in general allows himself to be.

"Sir, you forget yourself!" exclaimed Adeline, angry to excitement. "Return me my flower."

"It is unsuitable, mademoiselle," he rejoined, retaining his hold of the French marigold. "A vulgar, ordinary garden-flower is not in accordance with your dress tonight--or with you."

"You presume upon your position," retorted Adeline, pushing aside the white camellia, and struggling to keep down her anger and her tears. "Do not insult me, sir, but give me back my own flower."

"What is all this?" demanded M. de Castella, coming up. "Adeline, you are excited."

"I have incurred your daughter's displeasure, it would seem, sir," explained the Baron, showing symptoms of excitement in his turn. "Mademoiselle appeared in the rooms wearing this flower--a worthless, common garden-flower!--and because I wished to present her with one more suitable, she seems to imply that I only do it by way of insult. I don't understand, ma foi!"

"Nor I," returned M. de Castella. "Take the camellia, Adeline," he added, sternly and coldly. "Caprice and coquetry are beneath _you_."

The Baron put the camellia in her now unresisting hand, and amused himself with pulling to pieces the petals of the other flower. Adeline burst into a violent paroxysm of tears, and hurried on to the colonnade.

And all about a stupid French marigold!

"Let her go and have a cry to herself," said M. de Castella, walking off with the Baron; "it will bring her to reason. The coquetry of women passes belief. They are all alike. It appears I was mistaken when I deemed my daughter an exception."

Adeline, in her tears and excitement, rushed across the lawn. It was certainly a senseless thing to cry about, but, just then, a straw would have ruffled her equanimity. She had been compelled to wear the hated bracelet: she had been told that she would very speedily be made the wife of de la Chasse; she had stood by him, recognized by the crowd of guests as his future wife; and, blended with all this, was a keen sensation of disappointment at the non-appearance of Mr. St. John. She stood with her forehead pressed against the bark of a tree, sobbing aloud in her anguish where none could hear her. Presently, her ear caught the sound of footsteps, and she prepared to dart further away: but they were some that she knew and loved too well. He was coming through the shrubbery at a rapid pace, and she stood out and confronted him.

"Why, Adeline!" he exclaimed, in astonishment. And, then, the momentary restraint on her feelings removed, she fell forward in his arms, and sobbed aloud with redoubled violence.

"Oh, Adeline, what ails you? What has happened? Be calm, be calm, my only love! I am by your side now: what grief is there that I cannot soothe away?"

He became quite alarmed at her paroxysm of grief, and, half leading, half carrying her to the nearest bench, seated her there and laid her head upon his arm, and held her gently to him, and spoke not a word until she was calmer.

By degrees she told him all. The gift of the bracelet, her mother's threats of the coming marriage--_threats_ they sounded to Adeline--and the dispute with the Baron. Upon this last point she was rather obscure. "I had a simple flower in my dress, and he wanted me to replace it with a rare one, a camellia." She did not say it was the one he had given her; she would rather have led him to think that it was not: never, until she should be indeed his, could she tell him how passionately and entirely she loved. But he divined all; he required no telling. And yet, knowing this; knowing, as he did, how her very life was bound up in his; how could he, only a few weeks later, doubt, or profess to doubt, of this enduring love?

"Adeline," he said, as he paced the narrow path restlessly in the moonlight, she still sitting on the bench, "I have done very wrong: wrong by you and your friends, wrong by myself, wrong by de la Chasse. I see it now. I ought to have declared all before he came to Beaufoy. I will see M. de Castella tomorrow morning."

She shivered, as if struck by a cold wind. "Remember your promise."

"It must be done," he answered. "I yielded too readily to your wishes, perhaps to my own motives for desiring delay. But for you to be looked upon as his future wife--condemned to accept and wear his presents--this shall not be. It is placing us all three in a false position; you must see that it is. Neither did I know that the marriage was being hastened on."

"He goes away tomorrow morning, and all immediate danger will be over," she urged. "Do not yet speak words that might--nay, that _would_--lead to our separation! Let us have another week or two for consideration; and of--of happiness."

"I cannot imagine why you entertain these gloomy anticipations," he rejoined; "why think that my speaking to your father will be the signal for warfare. Believe me, Adeline, the St. Johns of Castle Wafer are not accustomed to find their overtures for an alliance despised; they have mated with the noblest in their own land."

"Oh, it is not that; it is not that! Frederick, you know it is not.--Hark!" she suddenly broke off, starting from her seat as if to fly. "There are footsteps approaching from the house. If it should be papa!--or de la Chasse!"

"And what if it be?" he answered, drawing her hand within his arm and raising himself to his full height, in the haughty spirit that was upon him, to stand and confront the intruders. "I will explain all now: and show that you are doing neither wrong nor harm in being here with me, for that you are my affianced wife."

But the footsteps, whosesoever they might be, passed off in a different direction: and they strolled on, talking, to the borders of the miniature lake. It was nearly as light as day, very warm, very beautiful. White fleecy clouds floated around the moon; the air, redolent with the odour of flowers, was one balmy breath of perfume; and Adeline forgot her trouble in the peaceful scene.

"What made you so late?" she asked. "I had fancied you would come early."

"I have been to Odesque."

"To Odesque!"

He was drawing a small paper from his waistcoat pocket. Adeline saw that it contained a ring of plain gold. Motioning to her to take her glove off--and she obeyed mechanically--he proceeded to place it on her finger; speaking solemn words:

"With this ring I will thee wed: with my body I thee worship; with all my worldly goods I will thee endow, until death us do part: and thus do I plight unto thee my troth."

She knew the slightly altered words were in the English Protestant marriage-service, for she had heard Rose, and some of the other schoolgirls as foolish as Rose was, repeat them in their thoughtless pastime. There was a solemnity in Mr. St. John's voice and manner which imparted an awe to her feelings, never before experienced. The tears of deep emotion rose to her eyes and her frame trembled: she could not have been more strongly moved, had she in very truth been plighting her troth to him before the holy altar.

"Take you care of it, Adeline. Let none remove it from your finger as I removed the other. It shall be your wedding-ring."

"It is not the same ring?" she whispered, unable quite to recover herself. "His."

"_His!_ Look here, Adeline."

He took another ring from his pocket as he spoke. It was cut in two parts; and he threw them into the water.

"There goes his ring, Adeline. May his pretensions go with it!"

"It is for this you have been to Odesque?"

"It is."

They turned to the house, walking quickly now, neither caring for Adeline's absence to be so prolonged as to attract notice. Long as it may have seemed to take in the telling, she had yet been away from the house but a few minutes. Adeline could not quite forget her fears.

"If mamma could only be kept from ordering the trousseau!" she suddenly exclaimed, more in answer to her own thoughts than to him.

"Where's the necessity of preventing her?"

She looked up wonderingly, and caught his smile full of meaning, all apparent in the moonlight.

"The things ordered and intended for Madame de la Chasse--will they not serve equally well for Mrs. Frederick St. John?"

"Oh--but"--and her downcast face felt glowing with heat "nothing will be wanted at all yet for--any one."

"Indeed! _I_ think they will be wanted very soon. Do you suppose," he added; laughing, "I should be permitted to carry you away with me to the South without an outfit?"

"I am not going to the South now," she quickly said.

"Yes, Adeline. I hope you and I shall winter there."

"I am quite well now."

"I know you are: and that it will be almost a superfluous precaution. Nevertheless, it is well to be on the safe side. My darling!" and he bent over her, "you would not be dismayed at the prospect of passing a whole winter alone with me?"

Dismayed! To the uttermost parts of the earth with him, and for a whole lifetime Father, mother, country, home--what were they all, in comparison with him?

As they gained the open lawn, a dark figure swept across their path. Adeline shrank at being seen alone with Mr. St. John. It was Father Marc, the officiating priest of the little neighbouring chapel, and the family confessor, a worthy and very zealous man. He turned and looked at Adeline, but merely said, "Bon soir, mon enfant," and took off his hat to Mr. St. John. Mr. St. John raised his in return, saying nothing, and Adeline bent low, as one in contrition.

"Bon soir, mon père."

She glided onwards to a side door, that she might gain her chamber and see what could be done towards removing the traces of emotion from her face. Whilst Mr. St. John strode round to the front entrance, and rang such a peal upon the tinkling old bell that half-a-dozen servants came flying to the door.

And as Adeline stood by his side that night in the brilliant ball-room, and watched the admiration so many were ready, unsought, to accord him, and marked the cordial regard in which both her father and mother held him, and remembered his lineage and connections, the fortune and position that must eventually be his, she almost reasoned that overtures for her from such a man could never be declined.

But the Baron saw that she had thrown away the white camellia. "Petite coquette!" he exclaimed to himself, in tolerant excuse: not in anger. It never entered into the French brains of the Baron de la Chasse to imagine that the young lady, being under an engagement to marry him, could have the slightest wish to marry any one else.