Chapter 16

THE FORSAKEN WIFE.

He prayeth best who loveth most All things both great and small, For the good God who loveth us, He made and loveth all.

--_Coleridge_.

To account for the strange visit of the countess to Hannah Worth we must change the scene to Brudenell Hall.

From the time of her sudden arrival at her husband's house, every hour had been fraught with suffering to Berenice.

In the first instance, where she had expected to give a joyful surprise, she had only given a painful shock; where she had looked for a cordial welcome, she had received a cold repulse; finally, where she had hoped her presence would confer happiness, it had brought misery!

On the very evening of her arrival her husband, after meeting her with reproaches, had fled from the house, leaving no clew to his destination, and giving no reason for his strange proceeding.

Berenice did not understand this. She cast her memory back through all the days of her short married life spent with Herman Brudenell, and she sought diligently for anything in her conduct that might have given him offense. She could find nothing. Neither in all their intercourse had he ever accused her of any wrong-doing. On the contrary, he had been profuse in words of admiration, protestations of love and fidelity. Now what had caused this fatal change in his feelings and conduct towards her? Berenice could not tell. Her mind was as thoroughly perplexed as her heart was deeply wounded. At first she did not know that he was gone forever. She thought that he would return in an hour or two and openly accuse her of some fault, or that he would in some manner betray the cause of offense which he must suppose she had given him. And then, feeling sure of her innocence, she knew she could exonerate herself from every shadow of blame--except from that of loving him too well, if he should consider that a fault.

Therefore she waited patiently for his return; but when the night passed and he had not come, she grew more and more uneasy, and when the next day had passed without his making his appearance her uneasiness rose to intolerable anxiety.

The visit of poor Nora at night had aroused at once her suspicions, her jealousy, and her compassion. She half believed that in this girl she saw her rival in her husband's affections, the cause of her own repudiation and--what was more bitter still to the childless Hebrew wife--the mother of his children! This had been very terrible! But to the Jewish woman the child of her husband, even if it is at the same time the child of her rival, is as sacred as her own. Berenice was loyal, conscientious, and compassionate. In the anguish of her own deeply wounded and bleeding heart she had pitied and pleaded for poor Nora--had even asserted her own authority as mistress of the house, for the sake of protecting Nora: her husband's other wife, as in the merciful construction of her gentle spirit she had termed the unhappy girl! But then, my readers, you must remember that Berenice was a Jewess. This poor unloved Leah would have sheltered the beloved Rachel. We all know how her generous intentions were carried out. A second and a third day passed, and still there came no news of Herman.

Berenice, prostrated with the heart-wasting sickness of hope deferred, kept her own room. Mrs. Brudenell was indignant at her son, not for his neglect of his lovely young wife, but for his indifference to a wealthy countess! She deferred her journey to Washington in consideration of her noble daughter-in-law, and in the hope of her son's speedy reappearance and reconciliation with his wife, when, she anticipated, they would all go to Washington together, where the Countess of Hurstmonceux would certainly be the lioness and the Misses Brudenell the belles of the season.

On the evening of the fourth day, while Berenice lay exhausted upon the sofa of her bedroom, her maid entered the chamber saying:

"Please, my lady, you remember the young woman that was here on Friday evening?"

"Yes!" Berenice was up on her elbow in an instant, looking eagerly into the girl's face.

"Your ladyship ordered me to make inquiries about her, but I could get no news except from the old man who took her home out of the snowstorm and who came back and said she was ill."

"I know! I know! You told me that before. But you have heard something else. What is it?"

"My lady, the old woman Dinah, who went to nurse her, never came back till to-day; that is the reason I couldn't hear any more news until to-night."

"Well, well, well? Your news! Out with it, girl!"

"My lady, she is dead and buried!"

"Who?"

"The young woman, my lady. She died on Saturday. She was buried to-day."

Berenice sank back on the sofa and covered her face with her hands. So! her dangerous rival was gone; the poor unhappy girl was dead! Berenice was jealous, but pitiful. And she experienced in the same moment a sense of infinite relief and a feeling of the deepest compassion.

Neither mistress nor maid spoke for several minutes. The latter was the first to break silence.

"My lady!"

"Well, Phoebe!"

"There was something else I had to tell you."

"What was it?"

"The young woman left a child, my lady."

"A child!" Again Berenice was up on her elbow, her eyes fixed upon the speaker and blazing with eager interest.

"It is a boy, my lady; but they don't think it will live!"

"A boy! He shall live! He is mine--my son! I will have him. Since his mother is dead, it is I who have the best right to him!" exclaimed the countess vehemently, rising to her feet.

The maid recoiled--she thought her mistress had suddenly gone mad.

"Phoebe," said the countess eagerly, "what is the hour?"

"Nearly eleven, my lady."

"Has it cleared off?"

"No, my lady; it has come on to rain hard; it is pouring."

The countess went to the windows of her room, but they were too closely shut and warmly curtained to give her any information as to the state of the weather without. Then she hurried impatiently into the passage where the one end window remained with its shutters still unclosed, and she looked out. The rain was lashing the glass with fury. She turned away and sought her own room again--complaining:

"Oh, I can never go to-night! It is too late and too stormy! Mrs. Brudenell would think me crazy, and the woman at the hut would never let me have my son. Yet, oh! what would I not give to have him on my bosom to-night," said Berenice, pacing feverishly about the room.

"My lady," said the maid uneasily, "I don't think you are well at all this evening. Won't you let me give you some salvolatile?"

"No, I don't want any!" replied the countess, without stopping in her restless walk.

"But, my lady, indeed you are not well!" persisted the affectionate creature.

"No, I am not well, Phoebe! My heart is sore, sore, Phoebe! But that child would be a balm to it! If I could press my son to my bosom, Phoebe, he would draw out all the fire and pain!"

"But, my lady, he is not your son!" said the maid, with tears of alarm starting in her eyes.

"He is, girl! Now that his mother is dead he is mine! Who has a better right to him than I, I wonder? His mother is gone! his father--" Here the countess suddenly recollected herself, and as she looked into her maid's astonished face she felt how far apart were the ideas of the Jewish matron and the Christian maiden. She controlled her emotion, took her seat, and said:

"Don't be alarmed, Phoebe. I am only a little nervous to-night, my girl. And I want something more satisfactory than a little dog to pet."

"I don't think, my lady, you could get anything in the world more grateful, or more faithful, or more easy to manage, than a little dog. Certainly not a baby. Babies is awful, my lady. They aint got a bit of gratitude or faithfulness in them; and after you have toted them about all day, you may tote them about all night. And then they are bawling from the first day of January until the thirty-first day of December. Take my advice, my lady, and stick to the little dogs, and let babies alone, if you love your peace."

The countess smiled faintly and kept silence. But--she kept her resolution also.

The last words that night spoken after she was in bed, and when she was about to dismiss her maid, were these:

"Phoebe, mind that you are not to say one word to any human being of the subject of our conversation to-night. But you are to call me at eight o'clock, have my breakfast brought to me here at half-past eight, and the carriage at the door at nine. Do you hear?"

"Yes, my lady," answered the girl, who immediately went to the small room adjoining her mistress' chamber, where she usually sat by day and slept by night.

The countess could only sleep in perfect darkness; so when Phoebe had put out all the lights she took advantage of that darkness to leave her door open, so that she could listen if her mistress was restless or wakeful. The maid soon discovered that her mistress was wakeful and restless.

The countess could not sleep for contemplating her project of the morning. According to her Jewish ideas, the motherless son of her husband was as much hers as though she had brought him into the world. And thus she, poor, unloved and childless wife, was delighted with the son that she thought had dropped from heaven into her arms.

That anyone should venture to raise the slightest objection to her taking possession of her own son never entered the mind of Berenice. She imagined that even Mrs. Brudenell, who had treated the mother with the utmost scorn and contumely, must turn to the son with satisfaction and desire.

In cautioning Phoebe to secrecy she had not done so in dread of opposition from any quarter, but with the design of giving Mrs. Brudenell a pleasant surprise.

She intended to go out in the morning as if for a drive, to go to the hut, take possession of the boy, bring him home and lay him in his grandmother's lap. And she anticipated for her reward her child's affection, her husband's love, and her mother's cordial approval.

Full of excitement from these thoughts, Berenice could not sleep; but tossed from side to side in her bed like one suffering from pain or fever.

Her faithful attendant, who had loved her mistress well enough to leave home and country and follow her across the seas to the Western World, lay awake anxiously listening to her restless motions until near morning, when, overcome by watching, she fell asleep.

The maid, who had been the first to close her eyes, was the first to open them. Remembering her mistress' order to be called at eight o'clock, she sprang out of bed and looked at her watch. To her consternation she found that it was half-past nine.

She flew to her mistress' room and threw open the blinds, letting in a flood of morning light.

And then she went to the bedside and drew back the curtains and looked upon the face of the sleeper. Such a pale, sad, worn-looking face! with the full lips closed, the long black lashes lying on the waxen cheeks, the slender black brows slightly contracted, and the long purplish black hair flowing down each side and resting upon the swelling bosom; her arms were thrown up over the pillow, and her hands clasped over her head. This attitude added to the utter sadness and weariness of her aspect.

Phoebe slowly shook her head, murmuring:

"I can't think why a lady having beauty and wealth and rank should break her heart about any scamp of a man! Why couldn't she have purchased an estate with her money and settled down in Old England? And if she must have married, why didn't she marry the marquis? Lack-a-daisy-me! I wish she had never seen this young scamp! She didn't sleep the whole night! I know it was after four o'clock in the morning that I dropped off, and the last thing I knew was trying to keep awake and listen to her tossing! Well, whatever her appointment was this morning, she has missed it by a good hour and a half; that she has, and I'm glad of it. Sleep is the best part of life, and there isn't anything in this world worth waking up for, as I've found out yet! Let her sleep on; she's dead for it, anyway. So let her sleep on, and I'll take the blame."

And with this the judicious Phoebe carefully drew the bed curtains again, closed the window shutters, and withdrew to her own room to complete her toilet.

After a little while Phoebe went below to get her breakfast, which she always took in the housekeeper's room.

Mrs. Spicer had breakfasted long before, and so she met the girl with a sharp rebuke for keeping late hours.

"Pray," she inquired mockingly, "is it the fashion in the country you came from for servants to be abed until ten o'clock in the morning?"

"That depends on circumstances," answered Phoebe, with assumed gravity; "the servants of noble families like the Countess of Hurstmonceux's lie late; but the servants of common folks like yours have to get up early."

"Like ours, you impudent minx! I'll have you to know that our family--the Brudenells--are as good as any other family in the world! But it is not the custom here for the maids to lie in bed until all hours of the morning, and that you'll find!" cried Mrs. Spicer in a passion.

"You'll find yourself discharged if you go on in this way! You seem to forget that my lady is the mistress of this house," said Phoebe, seating herself at the table, which was covered with the litter of the housekeeper's breakfast.

Before the housekeeper had time to reply, or the lady's maid had time to pour out her cold coffee, the drawing-room bell rang. And soon after Jovial entered to say that Mrs. Brudenell required the attendance of Phoebe. The girl rose at once and went up to the drawing room.

"How is the countess this morning?" was the first question of Mrs. Brudenell.

"My lady is sleeping; she has had a bad night; I thought it best not to awake her," answered Phoebe.

"You did right. Let me know when she is awake and ready to receive me. You may go now."

Phoebe returned to her cold and comfortless breakfast, and had but just finished it when a second bell rang. This time it was her mistress, and she hurried to answer it.

The countess was already in her dressing-gown and slippers, seated before her toilet-table, and holding a watch in her hand.

"Oh, Phoebe," she exclaimed, "how could you have disobeyed me so! It is after ten o'clock!"

"My lady, I will tell you the truth. You were so restless last night that you could not sleep, and I was so anxious for fear you were going to be ill, that indeed I could not. And so I lay awake listening at you till after four o'clock this morning, when I dropped off out of sheer exhaustion, and so I overslept myself until half-past nine; and then my lady, I thought, as you had had such a bad night, and as it was too late for you to keep your appointment with yourself, and as you were sleeping so finely, I had better not wake you. I beg your pardon, my lady, if I did wrong, and I hope no harm has been done."

"Not much harm, Phoebe; but something that should have been finished by this time is yet to begin--that is all. In future, Phoebe, try to obey me."

"Indeed I will, my lady."

"And now do my hair as quickly as possible."

Phoebe's nimble fingers soon accomplished their task.

"And now go order the carriage to come round directly; and then bring me a cup of coffee," said the lady, rising to adjust her own dress.

Phoebe hurried off to obey, and soon returned, bringing a delicate little breakfast served on a tray.

By the time the countess had drunk the coffee and tasted the rice waffles and broiled partridge, the carriage was announced.

Mrs. Brudenell met her in the lower hall.

"Ah, Berenice, my dear, I am glad to see that you are going for an airing at last. The morning is beautiful after the storm," she said.

"Yes, mamma," replied the countess, rather avoiding the interview.

"Which way will you drive, my dear?"

"I think through the valley; it is sheltered from the wind there. Good-morning!"

And the lady entered the carriage and gave her order.

The carriage road through the valley was necessarily much longer and more circuitous than the footpath with which we are so familiar. The footpath, we know, went straight down the steep precipice of Brudenell hill, across the bottom, and then straight up the equally steep ascent of Hut hill. Of course this route was impracticable for any wheeled vehicle. The carriage therefore turned off to the left into a road that wound gradually down the hillside and as gradually ascended the opposite heights. The carriage drew up at a short distance from the hut, and the countess alighted and walked to the door. We have seen what a surprise her arrival caused, and now we must return to the interview between the wife of Herman and the sister of Nora.