CHAPTER XXXIX.

LADY ADELA.

Winter had come, and passed; and spring flowers and sunshine gladdened the land.

In my Lady Acorn's dressing-room at Chenevix House stood my lady herself, her head and hands betraying temper, her tart tongue in loud assertion. Opposite to her, the same blonde, suave dame she had ever been, waited Madame Damereau. Madame was not tart or rude; she could not be that; but nevertheless she maintained her own cause, and gave my lady answer for answer.

Every available place in the room was covered with a robe, bonnet, mantle, or other choice article essential to a lady's attire: on the sofa lay a costly bridal dress. You might have fancied it the show-room itself of Madame Damereau. Lady Frances Chenevix was to be married on the morrow to Gerard Hope. The colonel had been telling them both ever since Christmas that he thought they ought to fix the day if they meant to marry at all, and so arrangements were made, and they named one early in April.

The articles lying about formed part of the trousseau of Lady Frances; the grievance distracting Lady Acorn was connected with them; for she saw great many more spread out than she had ordered, and was giving way to wrath. Madame Damereau, condescending to appear at Chenevix House this afternoon, to superintend, herself, the trying-on of the bridal robe, had arrived just in time for the storm.

"Was anything so unreasonable, was anything so extravagant ever seen before in this world?" demanded Lady Acorn, spreading out her arms to right and left. "I tell you there are fifty things here that I never ordered; that I never should order, unless I lost my senses. Look at that costly silk costume--that shaded grey--why, you'd charge five-and-twenty guineas for that, if you charged a farthing. Don't tell me, madame."

"Plutôt thirty guineas, I believe," equably answered madame. "It is of the richest, that silk. Miladi Frances intends it for her robe de voyage tomorrow."

"She may intend to go voyaging about in gold, but be no nearer doing it," retorted the countess. "I never ordered that dress, and I won't take it."

"Is anything the matter?" interrupted a joyous voice at this juncture, and Frances ran into the room with her bonnet on. "I am sorry to have kept you waiting, madame, but I could not help it. Is my lady mother scolding at my extravagance?"

"Extravagance is not the name for it," retorted the countess. "How dare you do these wild things, Frances? Do you suppose I should accept all these things, or pay for them?"

"No, mamma, I knew you would not," laughed Frances, "I shall pay for them myself."

"Oh, indeed! Where will the money come from?"

"Colonel Hope gave it me," said the happy girl, executing a pirouette. "A few days ago he put three bank-notes of one hundred pounds each into my hands, saying he supposed I could spend it; and I went to madame's at once. What a love of a costume!" cried Frances, turning to the grey silk which had so excited her mother's ire. "I am going away in that."

But the great event of this afternoon, that of trying-on the bridal dress, must be proceeded with, for Madame Damereau's time was more precious than that of ordinary mortals. The bride-elect was arrayed in it, and was pacing about in her splendour, peeping into all the mirrors, when a message was brought to Lady Acorn that Mr. Cleveland was below. He had come up from Netherleigh to perform the marriage ceremony, and was to be the guest for a day or two of Lord and Lady Acorn.

She went down at once, leaving Frances and Madame Damereau. There were many odds and ends of Netherleigh gossip she wished to hear from the Rector. He was bending over the drawing-room fire.

"Are you cold?" inquired Lady Acorn.

"Rather. As we grow older, we feel the cold and fatigue of a journey more keenly," he added, smiling. "It is a regular April day: warm in the sun, very cold in the wind and shade."

"He is getting older," thought Lady Acorn, as she looked at his face, chilled and grey, and his whitening hair; though, for a wonder, she did not tell him so. They had not met for some months. He had paid no visit to London since the previous November, and then his errand had been the same as now--to celebrate a marriage.

And, of the events of the past autumn and winter months there is not much to relate. Oscar Dalrymple was in his own place now, Knutford, Selina with a handsome income settled on her; and Robert and his wife lived at Moat Grange. They had been married from Grosvenor Square in November, Mr. Cleveland, as again now, coming up for it. Lady Adela was still at Netherleigh Rectory. And, perhaps it was of her that the countess wanted chiefly to question the Rector. She did not, however, do that all at once.

"All quite well at home?" she asked.

"Tolerably so, thank you," he replied. "Mary, as you know, is ailing: and will be for some little time to come."

"Dear me, yes," came the quick, irritable assent. "This baby will make the third. I can't think what you want with so many."

The Rector laughed. "Mary sent her love to you; and especially to Frances: and I was to be sure to say to Frances how sorry she was not to be able to be at her wedding. Adela also sent her love."

"Ah! And how is _she?_"

"She----" Mr. Cleveland hesitated. "She is much the same. Tolerably well in health, I think."

"I suppose Robert Dalrymple and his wife are coming up today?"

"They came with me. Francis Netherleigh's carriage was waiting for them at the terminus. It brought me on also."

"And that poor girl Alice, is she any stronger?"

"She will never be stronger in this world," said the Rector, shaking his head. "But she is pretty well--for her. I think her life may be prolonged some few years yet."

"She and Gerard Hope had a love affair once; I am pretty sure of it. He liked her better than he liked Frances."

"Well, she could never have married. One so sickly as Alice ought not to become a wife; and she had, I expect, the good sense to see that. I know she is pleased at his marriage with Frances. She is most unselfish; truly good; there are not many like Alice Dalrymple. Her mother is surprisingly well," he went on, after a pause; "seems to have gone from an old woman into a young one. Robert's coming back did that for her."

"And now--what about Adela's behaviour? how is she going on?" snapped Lady Acorn, as if the very subject soured her.

"I wanted to speak to you about Adela," said Mr. Cleveland. "In one sense of the word, she is not going on satisfactorily. Though her health is pretty good, I believe, her mind is anything but healthy. Mary and I often talk of it in private, and she said I had better speak to you."

"Why, it is just the case of the MacIvors over again!" interrupted Lady Acorn. "Harriet sent Sandy to talk to me about it, just in this way, last summer."

"Yes, there has not been much change since then, I fancy. I confess that I am very sorry for Adela."

"Is she still like a shadow?"

"Like little else. The fever of the mind is consuming the body. I look upon it as the most hopeless case I have ever known. Adela does the same, though from a different point of view. She is dying for her husband's forgiveness. She would like to live in his memory as one not abjectly despicable, and she knows she must and does so live in it. She pictures his contempt for her, his condemnation of the way she acted in the past; and her humiliation, coupled with remorse, has grown into a disease. Yes, it is a miserable case. They are as entirely and hopelessly separated as they could be by death."

"Ah, Cleveland! You are here, then?"

The interruption came from the earl. He stepped forward to shake hands, and drew a chair beside the Rector.

"We were talking of Adela," said the countess, when the few words of greeting were over. "She has not come to her senses yet."

"I was saying that her case is certainly one of the most hopeless ever known," observed Mr. Cleveland. "She is as utterly separated from her husband as she could be by death, whilst both are yet living, and have probably a long life before them."

Lord Acorn sighed. "One can't help being sorry for Adela, wrong and mistaken though she was."

Mr. Cleveland glanced at the earl. "I am glad you came in," he said. "I wanted to speak to you as well as to Lady Acorn. Adela talks of going into a Sisterhood."

"Into a _what?_" cried her ladyship; her tone one of unbounded surprise.

"She has had the idea in her mind for some time, I fancy," continued the Rector. "I heard of it first last autumn, when she startled me one day by suddenly expressing a wish that she was a Roman Catholic. I found that the wish did not proceed from any desire to change her creed, but simply because the Roman Catholics possess places of refuge in the shape of convents, into which a poor creature, as Adela expressed it, tired of having no longer a place in the world, might enter, and find peace."

"She'd soon wish herself out again!" cried Lady Acorn: while the earl's generally impassive face wore a look of disturbance.

"I heard no more of this for some time," resumed Mr. Cleveland, "and dismissed it from my memory, believing it to have been only a hasty expression arising from some moment's vexation. But a week or two ago Mary discovered that Adela was really and truly thinking of retiring into some place of refuge or other."

"Into a convent?" cried Lady Acorn.

"No. And not into any institution of the Roman Catholics. It seems she has been corresponding lately with some of her former acquaintances, who might, as she thought, help her, and making inquiries of them. I noticed that letters came for her rather frequently, and I hoped she was beginning to take a little more interest in life. However, through some person or other, she has heard of an institution that she feels inclined to try. I think----"

"What is this institution?" imperatively demanded the countess. "If it's not a convent, what is it?"

"Well, it is not, as I gather, a religious institution at all, in the sense of setting itself up for religion especially, or professing any one particular creed over other creeds," replied Mr. Cleveland. "It is, in point of fact, a nursing institution. And Adela, if she enters it, will have to attend to the sick, night or day."

"Heaven help her for a simpleton!" ejaculated her ladyship. "Why, you might take every occupation known to this world, and not find one to which she is less suited. Adela could not nurse the sick, however good her will night be. She has no vocation for it."

"Just what my wife says. Some people are, so to say, born nurses, while others, and Adela is one of them, could never fit themselves for it. Mary told her so only yesterday. To this, and to other remonstrance, Adela has only one answer--that the probationary training she will have to undergo will remedy her defects and inexperience," replied the Rector.

"But the life of a sick-nurse is so exhausting, so wearying to the frame and spirit!" cried Lord Acorn, who had listened in dismay. "Where is this place?"

"It is in Yorkshire. Three or four ladies, sisters, middle-aged, educated women of fortune, set up the scheme. Wishing, it is said, to satisfy their consciences by doing some useful work in the world, they pitched upon nursing, and began by going out of their home, first one and then another, whenever any poor peasant turned sick. They were, no doubt, good Christian women, sacrificing their own ease, comfort, and income for the benefit of others. From that arose the Institution, as it is called now; other ladies joined it, and it is known far and wide. I have not one word to say against it: rather would I speak in its praise; but it will not do for Adela. Perhaps you can remonstrate with her. It is not settled, I believe," added Mr. Cleveland. "Adela has not finally made up her mind to go; though Mary fears she will do so at once."

"Let her," cried the countess, in her vexation. "Let my young lady give the place a trial! She will soon come out of it again."

In truth, poor Adela was at a loss what to do with her blighted life--how to get through the weary days that had no pleasure in them. Netherleigh Rectory had brought to her no more rest than Sir Sandy's Scottish stronghold had brought, or the bleak old château in Switzerland. She wanted peace, and she found it not.

Some excitement crept into the daily monotony of her life whenever Sir Francis was staying at Court Netherleigh. It was not often. She could not bear to see him, for it brought back to her all the cruel pain of having lost him; and yet, when she knew he was at Netherleigh, she was unable to rest indoors, but must go out in the hope that she should meet him at some safe distance; for she never ventured within view. It was as a fever. And perhaps this very fact--that she could not, when he was breathing the same atmosphere, rest without striving to see him, combined with the consciousness that she ought not to do so--rendered her more anxious to get away from Netherleigh and be employed, mentally and bodily, at some wholesome daily work. Anyway, what Mr. Cleveland stated was quite true: Lady Adela was corresponding with this nursing institution in Yorkshire, with the view of entering it.

One phase of torment, which has not been mentioned, was growing to lie so heavily upon her mind as to be almost insupportable. It was the thought of the income allowed her by her husband. That she, who had blighted his life, should be living upon his bounty, indebted to him for every luxury that remained to her, was in truth hard to bear. If she could only get a living for herself, though ever so poor a one, how thankful she should be, she often told herself. And, perhaps this trouble turned the scale, or speedily would turn it, in regard to embracing this life of usefulness: for there would no longer be any necessity for the allowance from Sir Francis.

The wedding-day, Thursday, rose bright and glorious; just the day that should shine on all happy bridals. Frances was given away by her father, and Gerard was attended by a former fellow-clerk in the Red Tape Office. Colonel Hope had settled an income upon his nephew; but Gerard was still in the house in Leadenhall Street, and was likely to remain there: for the colonel disapproved of idle young men. Gerard had taken a small and pretty house at Richmond, and would travel to the City of a morning.

At the wedding breakfast-table at Lord Acorn's, Grace and Sir Francis Netherleigh sat side by side. Towards its close, Grace took the opportunity of saying something to him in a whisper.

"We have been so confidential on many points for years, you and I, unhappily have had to be so," she began, "that I think I scarcely need make an apology, or ask your forgiveness, for a few words I wish to say to you now."

"Say on, Grace," was the cordial answer.

"It is about Adela." And then she briefly touched upon what her father and mother had heard from Mr. Cleveland the day before: of Adela's unhappy frame of mind, and her idea of entering a nursing institution, to become one of its sisterhood.

Sir Francis heard her to the end in silence. But he heard her apparently without interest: and somehow Grace's anxious spirit felt thrown back upon itself.

"It has troubled us all to hear this, my father especially," she said. "It would be so laborious a life, so very unsuited to one delicate as Adela."

"I can readily understand that you would not altogether like it," he replied, at length. "If money could be of any use----"

"Oh no, no," interrupted Grace, flushing painfully. "The allowance you have made from the first has been so wonderfully liberal. I don't know why I mentioned the subject to you--except that we think it is altogether undesirable for Adela."

"Lord and Lady Acorn must be the best judges of that," was the very indifferent answer.

"Her mind is in the most unhappy state conceivable; as it has been all along. For one thing," added Grace, her voice sinking to a yet lower key, "I think she is pining for your forgiveness."

"That is not at all likely, I fancy," coldly returned Sir Francis. And as he evinced no inclination to continue the subject, but rather the contrary, Grace said no more.

She could not have told herself why she introduced it. Had it been with any hope, consciously, or unconsciously, of being of service to Adela, it had signally failed. Evidently his wife and her concerns were topics that bore no longer any interest for Francis Netherleigh.