The Shadow of a Sin

CHAPTER XXVIII

The beautiful November day was drawing to a close as Lady Dartelle and Hyacinth neared the end of their journey. It had been a lovely day. The branches of the trees were all bare of leaves, but the sun shone brightly and the sky was clear.

After the railway journey was ended, as they drove along the country roads, a faint color came into Millicent's face, faint and exquisite as the delicate bloom on the inner leaf of a wild rose, and a light shone in her eyes. New life had come to her. The trees seemed to spread out their grand branches as though to welcome her. The time was not so long since she had talked to them in her pretty childlike way, believing they could hear if not answer her. The life in that dull London house, where no green leaf was to be seen, faded like a heavy dream. She could have stretched out her hands to the trees, in fondest welcome. How had she lived so long without seeing them? A long, deep sigh escaped her. Lady Dartelle looked up.

"I hope you are not tired, Miss Holte?" she said.

"No, not at all, thank you; but the country looks so beautiful, and the trees are like dear old friends."

Her ladyship did not look very well pleased; she had not bargained for a sentimental governess.

"I hope," she returned stiffly, "you will find better friends at Hulme Abbey than the trees are likely to prove."

Another cry of delight escaped Hyacinth, for, on turning a sharp corner of the road, the sea lay spread out before them.

"Is Hulme Abbey near the sea?" she asked.

"Almost too near," said Lady Dartelle, "for when the wind blows and the tide is high we can hear the noise of the surf too plainly – that is the only fault that any one could possibly find with Hulme. Do you like the sea, Miss Holte?"

She did not know. She had seen it twice – once when the world was all fair and she was going to Bergheim, and again when the waves had sobbed a dull requiem to all her hope and her love. Did she like it? The very music seemed full of the sorrow of her life. She thought that she would soon grow to love it with a passion that only poets lavish on the fair beauties of nature. Then the gray turrets of the Abbey came in sight.

"We are at home," said Lady Dartelle.

Hulme Abbey was neither so spacious nor so magnificent as Queen's Chase. It was an ancient building of imposing aspect, with square towers and an old-fashioned gateway, the windows were large, and the exterior of the house was ornamented with heavy carvings of stone. The building stood in the midst of the beautiful grounds; a long chestnut avenue at the back led to the woods, and these last sloped down to the very edge of the sea.

"We are not many minutes' walk from the shore," said Lady Dartelle, "and one of your most important duties, Miss Holte, will be to take Miss Clara down to the sea every day. The walk will be most beneficial to her."

The lonely, sorrowful heart clung to that idea of the sea; it would be a companion, almost a friend to her. It had a voice that would speak to her, that would tell her of her love, lost forever, and that would whisper of the mysteries of life, so hard to understand. Lady Dartelle almost wondered at the rapt, sublime expression that came over the sweet, sad face. In another moment they were in the spacious entrance-hall, servants bowing, Lady Dartelle proud and patronizing.

"You are tired, and will like to go to your room," she said. "King, show Miss Holte to her room."

So for that one night the young girl escaped the ordeal she had dreaded – the introduction to the daughters of Lady Dartelle.

Hyacinth rose early the next morning. She could not control her impatience to see the sea; it was as though some one she loved were waiting for her. After a few inquiries from one of the servants, she found her way to the shore; her whole heart went out in rapture to the restless waters. She sat down and watched the waves as they rolled in and broke on the shore. The smell of the salt breeze was delicious, the grand anthem of the waves was magnificent to hear; and as she sat there she wept – as she had not wept since her sorrow fell upon her – tears that eased her heart of its burning load, and that seemed to relieve her brain of its terrible pressure.

Where was Adrian? The waves murmured his name. "My love, my lost, my own," they seemed to chant, as the murmur died along the shore. Where was he? Could it be that these same waves were chanting to him?

"If I could only go to him," she said, "and fall sobbing at his feet, and tell him how I love him!"

Presently she went back to the house, feeling better than she had felt for long months, and found, to her great relief, that none of the ladies were up yet. The servant who had attended to her the night before was in her room.

"My name is Mary King, miss," she said, "and my lady told me I was to attend the school-room. Would you like to see it?"

Millicent followed her and the girl led the way to a pretty little room that overlooked the woods. It was plainly furnished; but there was a piano, an easel, and plenty of books and flowers.

"This is the school-room, miss," said the maid, "and my lady thought that, as Miss Clara will be here for only six hours during the day – that is, for study – it would answer as a sitting-room for you as well."

Hyacinth desired nothing better than the grand old trees to look at. The maid wondered that she looked from the window instead of round the room.

"I will bring you your breakfast at once, miss," said the girl. "Miss Clara takes hers with you."

After breakfast Lady Dartelle came in with the written order of studies in her hand, and then Millicent found that her office was no sinecure. There was one thing pleasant – every day she must spend two hours out of doors with the young ladies in order to converse in French and Italian with them.

Lady Dartelle added that she had one remark to make, and that was that she had noticed in Miss Holte a tendency to dreaminess – this was always bad in young people, but especially out of place in a governess. She trusted that Miss Holte would try and cure herself of it. When the lady had gone away, the girl looked round the room, she wondered how long she would have to live in it, and what she would have to pass through. What sorrowful thoughts, what ghosts of her lost love and lost happiness would haunt her! But in her wildest dreams she never fancied anything so strange as that which afterward came to pass.

She found that it was not without reason that she had dreaded the ordeal of meeting the young ladies. They were not amiable girls. They were tall, with good figures and high-bred faces – faces that, if they had taken the trouble to cultivate more amiability and good temper, would even have been passable, if not comely, but they wore continually an expression of pride, discontent, and ill-temper. Lady Dartelle, like the valiant and enterprising lady that she was, did her best with them and tried to make the most of them. She tried to smooth down the little angularities of temper – she tried to develop the best traits in their characters and to conceal their faults. It was a difficult task, and nothing but the urgency of the case would have given her ladyship courage. The Misses Dartelle had been for three years in society, and all prospect of their settlement in life seemed remote. It was a serious matter to Lady Dartelle. She did not care to pass through life with two cross old maids hampering her every movement.

Sir Aubrey had listened to his mother's complaints, and had laughingly tried to comfort her. "I shall come down some time in February," he said; "and I will bring some of the most eligible bachelors of my acquaintance with me. If you make good use of the opportunity, you will surely get one of the girls 'off.' I know how fatal country-house life is to an idle man."

The prospect was rather a poor one; still Lady Dartelle was not without hope.

The gentleman who was to win one of the Misses Dartelle was not to be envied for the exceeding happiness of his lot. They treated the governess with a mixture of haughty scorn and patronizing disdain which at times even amused her. She was, as a rule, supremely indifferent, but there were times when a sarcasm from one of the young ladies brought a smile to her lips, for the simple reason that it was so very inappropriate.

CHAPTER XXIX

Time passed on and Christmas came at last. By that time Hyacinth had grown accustomed to her new home. Dr. Chalmers had been to see her, and had professed himself delighted with the change in her appearance. She did not regain all of her lost happiness, but she did regain some of her lost health and strength. Though she had not a single hope left, and did not value her life, the color slowly returned to her face and the light to her eyes. The fresh sea-breeze, the regular daily exercise, the quiet life, all tended to her improvement. She did not seem the same girl when Christmas, with its snow and holly, came round.

Hyacinth found wonderful comfort in the constant childish prattle and numerous questions of little Clara; the regular routine of studies took her thoughts in some measure from herself. She was obliged to rouse herself; she could not brood over her sorrows to the exclusion of everything else. She had thought her heart dead to all love, and yet at Hulme Abbey she had learned to love two things with a passion of affection – one was her little pupil; the other, the broad, open, restless sea. How long her present mode of life was to last she did not know – she had not asked herself; some day or other she supposed it would end, and then she must go somewhere else to work. But it was certain she would have to work on in quiet hiding till she died. It was not a very cheerful prospect, but she had learned to look at it with resignation and patience.

"The end will come some day," she thought; "and perhaps in a better world I shall see Adrian again."

Adrian – he was still her only thought. When she was sitting at times, by the sea-shore, with the child playing on the sands, she would utter his name aloud for the sake of hearing its music.

"Adrian," she would say; and a light that was wonderful to see would come over the lovely face. "Adrian," the winds and waves would seem to re-echo; and she would bend forward, the better, as she thought, to hear the music of the name.

"Mamma," said Veronica to Lady Dartelle one day, "I think you have done a very foolish thing."

"What is that, my dear?" asked the lady, quite accustomed to her daughter's free criticism.

"Why, to bring that girl here. Do you not see that she is growing exceedingly beautiful? You do not give her enough to do."

"I quite agree with Veronica, mamma," put in Mildred; "you have let your usual judgment sleep." Lady Dartelle looked up in astonishment.

"I assure you, my dears, that when I saw her first she did not look even moderately pretty."

"She has very much altered then," said Veronica. "When she came in with Clara yesterday, I was quite astonished. I have never seen a color half so lovely on any face before."

"I hope," observed Mildred, "that you will keep to your resolution, and not allow her to appear when we have visitors. You know how Aubrey admires a pretty face. Remembering how many plain women there are in the world, and how few pretty ones, it seems odd that you did not bring a plain one here."

A slight expression of alarm came over Lady Dartelle's face.

"If you think there is any danger of that kind," she said, "I will send her away at once. But I am of opinion that you exaggerate her good looks. I see nothing so very noticeable about the girl. And you know I shall never be able to secure another governess so thoroughly accomplished on the same terms; that, of course, is a consideration."

"You can please yourself, mamma," returned Veronica. "But I warn you that, if you are not very careful, you will most bitterly repent having a girl of that kind about the place when Aubrey comes home. You may do your best to keep her out of the way; but, depend upon it, she will contrive to be seen. Where there's a will there's a way."

"I think you are alarming yourself unnecessarily, my dear Veronica," said Lady Dartelle.

"Am I, mamma? Then judge for yourself. I see the gleam of Clara's scarlet cloak through the trees – they are just returning. Send for Miss Holte; ask her some trifling question; and when she is gone tell me if you have ever seen a more beautiful face."

Lady Dartelle complied with her daughter's request and in a few minutes "Miss Holte" and her little pupil entered the room. Lady Dartelle asked Hyacinth some unimportant question, looking earnestly as she did so at the lovely face. She owned to herself that she had had no idea how perfectly beautiful it was; the faintest and most exquisite bloom mantled it, the sweet eyes were bright, the lips like crimson flowers.

"She must have been ill when I engaged her," thought her ladyship – "I will ask her." Smiling most graciously, she said: "You are looking much better, Miss Holte; the air of Hulme seems to agree with you. Had you been ill when I saw you first?"

The beautiful face flushed, and then grew pale. The young ladies looking on were quick to note it. "Yes," she replied, quietly, "I had been very ill for some weeks."

"Indeed! I am glad to see you so fully restored;" and then a gracious bow intimated to "Miss Holte" that the interview was at an end.

"There, mamma," cried Mildred; "you see that we are perfectly right. You must acknowledge that you have never seen any one more lovely."

Lady Dartelle looked slightly bewildered.

"To tell the truth, my dears," she said, "I have hardly noticed the young girl lately. All that I can say is that I did not observe anything so very pretty about her when I engaged her. I thought her very pleasant-looking and graceful, but not beautiful."

"I hope she is what she is represented," remarked Mildred; "but Mary King says that she has all the ways of a grand lady, and that she does not understand what I should have imagined every governess to be familiar with."

"My dear Mildred, you are saying too much. She is highly respectable – a ward or protégée of Mrs. Chalmers – the doctor would never have named her to me if she had not been all that was irreproachable."

"We will hope for the best; but I advise you again, mamma, to keep her out of sight when our visitors come."

Lady Dartelle smiled calmly – of the success of anything that she undertook that far-seeing lady never doubted. It was the end of January when Lady Dartelle received a letter from her son.

"Here is good news, my dear children," she said, smiling. "Your brother is coming; and he brings with him Lord Chandon and Major Elton. We shall have a very pleasant time, I foresee."

CHAPTER XXX

February came in mild and clear, with a pleasant foretaste of spring. In the woods the early violets were peeping out and the snow-drops were bowing their white heads; the buds were beginning to form on the hedges and trees, there was a faint song from the birds and silence reigned in the woods, as though the goddess of spring were hovering over them. It was Valentine's Day – in after-years Hyacinth remembered every incident of it – Clara had complained of not feeling well, and they had gone out into the woods – the governess and child. They sat down near a brook on some moss-covered stones. The child was unconsciously a poet in her way.

"Miss Holte," she said, suddenly, "do you never pity the flowers for being obliged to hide so long in the dark cold earth? How they must be longing for sunshine and for spring! It is just as though they were in prison, and the sun is the good fairy that lets them out."

Hyacinth made a point of never checking the child's thoughts; she always allowed her to tell them freely as they came.

"I think so much about the flowers," continued the little one; "it seems to me that in some distant way they are related to the stars. I wonder if they live as we do – if some are proud of their color, and some of their fragrance – if they love and hate each other – if some are jealous, and others contented; I should like to know."

"The world is full of secrets," returned Hyacinth, musingly – "I cannot tell. But, if flowers could have souls, I can imagine the kind of soul that would belong to each flower."

"So can I," cried the child, joyously. "Why is the world full of secrets, Miss Holte? Men are so clever; why can they not find all the secrets out?"

"Ah, my darling," sighed the young girl, "the skill of man does not go very far. It has mastered none of the great problems of life."

They walked down to the shore and watched the waves rolling in; great sheets of white foam spread over the sand, the chant of the sea seemed on that day louder and more full of mystery than ever.

"The salt breeze has blown away all my headache," said the child; "shall we go home, Miss Holte? Mildred says this is Valentine's Day. I wonder if it will bring anything pleasant to us. I wonder if it is a day we shall remember."