Chapter 18

BERENICE.

Her cheeks grew pale and dim her eye, Her voice was low, her mirth was stay'd; Upon her heart there seemed to lie The darkness of a nameless shade; She paced the house from room to room, Her form became a walking gloom.

--_Read_.

It was yet early in the afternoon when Berenice reached Brudenell Hall.

Before going to her own apartments she looked into the drawing room, and seeing Mrs. Brudenell, inquired:

"Any news of Herman yet, mamma, dear?"

"No, love, not yet. You've had a pleasant drive, Berenice?"

"Very pleasant."

"I thought so; you have more color than when you went. You should go out every morning, my dear."

"Yes, mamma," said the young lady, hurrying away.

Mrs. Brudenell recalled her.

"Come in here, if you please, my love; I want to have a little conversation with you."

Berenice threw her bonnet, cloak, and muff upon the hall table and entered the drawing room.

Mrs. Brudenell was alone; her daughters had not yet come down; she beckoned her son's wife to take the seat on the sofa by her side.

And when Berenice had complied she said:

"It is of yourself and Herman that I wish to speak to you, my dear."

"Yes, mamma."

The lady hesitated, and then suddenly said:

"It is now nearly a week since my son disappeared; he left his home abruptly, without explanation, in the dead of night, at the very hour of your arrival! That was very strange."

"Very strange," echoed the unloved wife.

"What was the meaning of it, Berenice?"

"Indeed, mamma, I do not know."

"What, then, is the cause of his absence?"

"Indeed, indeed, I do not know."

"Berenice! he fled from your presence. There is evidently some misunderstanding or estrangement between yourself and your husband. I cannot ask him for an explanation. Hitherto I have forborne to ask you. But now that a week has passed without any tidings of my son, I have a right to demand the explanation. Give it to me."

"Mamma, I cannot; for I know no more than yourself," answered Berenice, in a tone of distress.

"You do not know; but you must suspect. Now what do you suspect to be the cause of his going?"

"I do not even suspect, mamma."

"What do you conjecture, then?" persisted the lady.

"I cannot conjecture; I am all lost in amazement, mamma; but I feel--I feel--that it must be some fault in myself," faltered Berenice.

"What fault?"

"Ah, there again I am lost in perplexity; faults I have enough, Heaven knows; but what particular one is strong enough to estrange my husband I do not know, I cannot guess."

"Has he never accused you?"

"Never, mamma."

"Nor quarreled with you?"

"Never!"

"Nor complained of you at all?"

"No, mamma! The first intimation that I had of his displeasure was given me the night of my arrival, when he betrayed some annoyance at my coming upon him suddenly without having previously written. I gave him what I supposed to be sufficient reasons for my act--the same reasons that I afterwards gave you."

"They were perfectly satisfactory. And even if they had not been so, it was no just cause for his behavior. Did he find fault with any part of your conduct previous to your arrival?"

"No, mamma; certainly not. I have told you so before."

"And this is true?"

"As true as Heaven, mamma."

"Then it is easy to fix upon the cause of his bad conduct. That girl. It is a good thing she is dead," hissed the elder lady between her teeth.

She spoke in a tone too low to reach the ears of Berenice, who sat with her weeping face buried in her handkerchief.

There was silence for a little while between the ladies. Berenice was the first to break it, by asking:

"Mamma, can you imagine where he is?"

"No, my love! And if I do not feel so anxious about him as you feel, it is because I know him better than you do. And I know that it is some unjustifiable caprice that is keeping him from his home. When he comes to his senses he will return. In the meanwhile, we must not, by any show of anxiety, give the servants or the neighbors any cause to gossip of his disappearance. And I must not have my plans upset by his whims. I have already delayed my departure for Washington longer than I like; and my daughters have missed the great ball of the season. I am not willing to remain here any longer at all. And I think, also, that we shall be more likely to meet Herman by going to town than by staying here. Washington is the great center of attraction at this season of the year. Everyone goes there. I have a pleasant furnished house on Lafayette Square. It has been quite ready for our reception for the last fortnight. Some of our servants have already gone up. So, my love, I have fixed our departure for Saturday morning, if you think you can be ready by that time. If not, I can wait a day or two."

"I thank you, mamma; I thank you very much; but pray do not inconvenience yourself on my account. I cannot go to town. I must stay here and wait my husband's return--if he ever returns," murmured Berenice to herself.

"But suppose he is in Washington?"

"Still, mamma, as he has not invited me to follow him, I prefer to stay here."

"But surely, child, you need no invitation to follow your husband, wherever he may be."

"Indeed I do, mamma. I came to him from Europe here, and my doing so displeased him and drove him away from his home. And I myself would return to my native country, only, now that I am in my husband's house, I feel that to leave it would be to abandon my post of duty and expose myself to just censure. But I cannot follow him farther, mamma. I cannot! I must not obtrude myself upon his presence. I must remain here and pray and hope for his return," sighed the poor young wife.

"Berenice, this is all wrong; you are morbid; not fit, in your present state of mind, to guide yourself. Be guided by me. Come with me to Washington. You will really enjoy yourself there--you cannot help it. Your beauty will make you the reigning belle; your taste will make you the leader of fashion; and your title will constitute you the lioness of the season; for, mark you, Berenice, there is nothing, not even the 'almighty dollar,' that our consistent republicans fall down and worship with a sincerer homage than a title! All your combined attractions will make you whatever you please to be."

"Except the beloved of my husband," murmured Berenice, in a low voice.

"That also! for, believe me, my dear, many men admire and love through other men's eyes. My son is one of the many. Nothing in this world would bring him to your side so quickly as to see you the center of attraction in the first circles of the capital."

"Ah, madam, the situation would lack the charm of novelty to him; he has been accustomed to seeing me fill similar ones in London and in Paris," said the countess, with a proud though mournful smile.

Mrs. Brudenell's face flushed as she became conscious of having made a blunder--a thing she abhorred, so she hastened to say:

"Oh, of course, my dear, I know, after the European courts, our republican capital must seem an anti-climax! Still, it is the best thing I can offer you, and I counsel you to accept it."

"I feel deeply grateful for your kindness, mamma; but you know I could not enter society, except under the auspices of my husband," replied Berenice.

"You can enter society under the auspices of your husband's mother, the very best chaperone you could possibly have," said the lady coldly.

"I know that, mamma."

"Then you will come with us?"

"Excuse me, madam; indeed I am not thankless of your thought of me. But I cannot go; for even if I had the spirits to sustain the role of a woman of fashion in the gay capital this winter, I feel that in doing so I should still further displease and alienate my husband. No, I must remain here in retirement, doing what good I can, and hoping and praying for his return," sighed Berenice.

Mrs. Brudenell hastily rose from her seat. She was not accustomed to opposition; she was too proud to plead further; and she was very much displeased with Berenice for disappointing her cherished plan of introducing her daughter, the Countess of Hurstmonceux, to the circles of Washington.

"The first dinner bell has rung some time ago, my dear. I will not detain you longer. Myself and daughters leave for town on Saturday."

Berenice bowed gently, and went upstairs to change her dress for dinner.

On Saturday, according to programme, Mrs. Brudenell and her daughters went to town, traveling in their capacious family carriage, and Berenice was left alone. Yes, she was left alone to a solitude of heart and home difficult to be understood by beloved and happy wives and mothers. The strange, wild country, the large, empty house, the grotesque black servants, were enough in themselves to depress the spirits and sadden the heart of the young English lady. Added to these were the deep wounds her affections had received by the contemptuous desertion of her husband; there was uncertainty of his fate, and keen anxiety for his safety; and the slow, wasting soul-sickness of that fruitless hope which is worse than despair.

Every morning, on rising from her restless bed, she would say to herself:

"Herman will return or I shall get a letter from him to-day."

Every night, on sinking upon her sleepless pillow, she would sigh:

"Another dreary day has gone and no news of Herman!"

Thus in feverish expectation the days crept into weeks. And with the extension of time hope grew more strained, tense, and painful.

On Monday morning she would murmur:

"This week I shall surely hear from Herman, if I do not see him."

And every Saturday night she would groan:

"Another miserable week, and no tidings of my husband."

And thus the weeks slowly crept into months.

Mrs. Brudenell wrote occasionally to say that Herman was not in Washington, and to ask if he was at Brudenell. That was all. The answer was always, "Not yet."

Berenice could not go out among the poor, as she had designed; for in that wilderness of hill and valley, wood and water, the roads even in the best weather were bad enough--but in mid-winter they were nearly impassable except by the hardiest pedestrians, the roughest horses, and the strongest wagons. Very early in January there came a deep snow, followed by a sharp frost, and then by a warm rain and thaw, that converted the hills into seamed and guttered precipices; the valleys into pools and quagmires; and the roads into ravines and rivers--quite impracticable for ordinary passengers.

Berenice could not get out to do her deeds of charity among the suffering poor; nor could the landed gentry of the neighborhood make calls upon the young stranger. And thus the unloved wife had nothing to divert her thoughts from the one all-absorbing subject of her husband's unexplained abandonment. The fire, that was consuming her life--the fire of "restless, unsatisfied longing"--burned fiercely in her cavernous dark eyes and the hollow crimson cheeks, lending wildness to the beauty of that face which it was slowly burning away.

As spring advanced the ground improved. The hills dried first. And every day the poor young stranger would wander up the narrow footpath that led over the summit of the hill at the back of the house and down to a stile at a point on the turnpike that commanded a wide sweep of the road. And there, leaning on the rotary cross, she would watch morbidly for the form of him who never came back.

Gossip was busy with her name, asking, Who this strange wife of Mr. Brudenell really was? Why he had abandoned her? And why Mrs. Brudenell had left the house for good, taking her daughters with her? There were some uneducated women among the wives and daughters of the wealthy planters, and these wished to know, if the strange young woman was really the wife of Herman Brudenell, why she was called Lady Hurstmonceux? and they thought that looked very black indeed; until they were laughed at and enlightened by their better informed friends, who instructed them that a woman once a peeress is always by courtesy a peeress, and retains her own title even though married to a commoner.

Upon the whole the planters' wives decided to call upon the countess, once at least, to satisfy their curiosity. Afterwards they could visit or drop her as might seem expedient.

Thus, as soon as the roads became passable, scarcely a day went by in which a large, lumbering family coach, driven by a negro coachman and attended by a negro groom on horseback, did not arrive at Brudenell.

To one and all of these callers the same answer was returned:

"The Countess of Hurstmonceux is engaged, and cannot receive visitors."

The tables were turned. The country ladies, who had been debating with themselves whether to "take up" or "drop" this very questionable stranger, received their congée from the countess herself from the threshold of her own door. The planters' wives were stunned! Each was a native queen, in her own little domain, over her own black subjects, and to meet with a repulse from a foreign countess was an incomprehensible thing!

The reverence for titled foreigners, for which we republicans have been justly laughed at, is confined exclusively to those large cities corrupted by European intercourse. It does not exist in the interior of the country. For instance, in Maryland and Virginia the owner of a large plantation had a domain greater in territorial extent, and a power over his subjects more absolute, than that of any reigning grand-duke or sovereign prince in Germany or Italy. The planter was an absolute monarch, his wife was his queen-consort; they saw no equals and knew no contradiction in their own realm. Their neighbors were as powerful as themselves. When they met, they met as peers on equal terms, the only precedence being that given by courtesy. How, then, could the planter's wife appreciate the dignity of a countess, who, on state occasions, must walk behind a marchioness, who must walk behind a duchess, who must walk behind a queen? Thus you see how it was that the sovereign ladies of Maryland thought they were doing a very condescending thing in calling upon the young stranger whose husband had deserted her, and whose mother and sisters-in-law had left her alone; and that her ladyship had committed a great act of ill-breeding and impertinence in declining their visits.

At the close of the Washington season Mrs. Brudenell and her daughters returned to the Hall. She told her friends that her son was traveling in Europe; but she told her daughter-in-law that she only hoped he was doing so; that she really had not heard a word from him, and did not know anything whatever of his whereabouts.

Mrs. Brudenell and her daughters received and paid visits; gave and attended parties, and made the house and the neighborhood very gay in the pleasant summer time.

Berenice did not enter into any of these amusements. She never accepted an invitation to go out. And even when company was entertained at the house she kept her own suite of rooms and had her meals brought to her there. Mrs. Brudenell was excessively displeased at a course of conduct in her daughter-in-law that would naturally give rise to a great deal of conjecture. She expostulated with Lady Hurstmonceux; but to no good purpose: for Berenice shrunk from company, replying to all arguments that could be urged upon her:

"I cannot--I cannot see visitors, mamma! It is quite--quite impossible."

And then Mrs. Brudenell made a resolution, which she also kept--never to come to Brudenell Hall for another summer until Herman should return to his home and Berenice to her senses. And having so decided, she abridged her stay and went away with her daughters to spend the remainder of the summer at some pleasant watering-place in the North.

And Berenice was once more left to solitude.

Now, Lady Hurstmonceux was not naturally cold, or proud, or unsocial; but as surely as brains can turn, and hearts break, and women die of grief, she was crazy, heart-broken, and dying.

She turned sick at the sight of every human face, because the one dear face she loved and longed for was not near. The pastor of the parish, with the benevolent perseverence of a true Christian, continued to call at the Hall long after every other human creature had ceased to visit the place. But Lady Hurstmonceux steadily refused to receive him.

She never went to church. Her cherished sorrow grew morbid; her hopeless hope became a monomania; her life narrowed down to one mournful routine. She went nowhere but to the turnstile on the turnpike, where she leaned upon the rotary cross, and watched the road.

Even to this day the pale, despairing, but most beautiful face of that young watcher is remembered in that neighborhood.

Only very recently a lady who had lived in that vicinity said to me, in speaking of this young forsaken wife--this stranger in our land:

"Yes, every day she walked slowly up that narrow path to the turnstile, and stood leaning on the cross and gazing up the road, to watch for him--every day, rain or shine; in all weathers and seasons; for months and years."