Phantom Fortune by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (love novels in english TXT) 📖

/> What a relief, what an unspeakable solace Maulevrier's presence would be in that dreary house, smitten to a sudden and awful stillness, as if by the Angel of Death!

'No, I do not want Maulevrier!' answered her ladyship impatiently.

'May I sit here and read to you, grandmother?' Mary asked, timidly. 'Mr. Horton said you were to be kept very quiet, and that we were not to let you talk, or talk much to you, but that we might read to you if you like.'

'I do not wish to be read to. I have my thoughts for company,' said Lady Maulevrier.

Mary felt that this implied a wish to be alone. She bent over the invalid's pillow and kissed the pale cheek, feeling as if she were taking a liberty in venturing so much. She would hardly have done it had Lesbia been at home; but she had a feeling that in Lesbia's absence Lady Maulevrier must want somebody's love--even hers. And then she crept away, leaving Halcott the maid in attendance, sitting at her work at the window furthest from the bed.

'Alone with my thoughts,' mused Lady Maulevrier, looking out at the panorama of wintry hills, white, ghost-like against an iron sky. 'Pleasant thoughts, truly! Walled in by the hills--walled in and hemmed round for ever. This place has always felt like a grave: and now I know that it _is_ my grave.'

Fräulein, and Lady Mary, and the maid Halcott, a sedate personage of forty summers, had all been instructed by the doctor that Lady Maulevrier was to be kept profoundly quiet. She must not talk much, since speech was likely to be a painful effort with her for some little time; she must not be talked to much by anyone, least of all must she be spoken to upon any agitating topic. Life must be made as smooth and easy for her as for a new-born infant. No rough breath from the outer world must come near her. She was to see no one but her maid and her granddaughter. Mr. Horton, a plain family man, took it for granted that the granddaughter was dear to her heart, and likely to exercise a soothing influence. Thus it happened that although Lady Maulevrier asked repeatedly that James Steadman should be brought to her, she was not allowed to see him. She whose will had been paramount in that house, whose word had been law, was now treated as a little child, while the will was still as strong, the mind as keen as ever.

'She would talk to him of business,' said Mr. Horton, when he was told of her ladyship's desire to see Steadman, 'and that cannot be allowed, not for some little time at least.'

'She is very angry with us for refusing to obey her,' said Lady Mary.

'Naturally, but it is for her own welfare she is disobeyed. She can have nothing to say to Steadman which will not keep till she is better. This establishment goes by clockwork.'

Mary wished it was a little less like clockwork. Since Lady Maulevrier had been lying upstairs--the voice which had once ruled over the house muffled almost to dumbness--the monotony of life at Fellside had seemed all the more oppressive. The servants crept about with stealthier tread. Mary dared not touch either piano or billiard balls, and was naturally seized with a longing to touch both. The house had a darkened-look, as if the shadow of doom overhung it.

During this regimen of perfect quiet Lady Maulevrier was not allowed to see the newspapers; and Mary was warned that in reading to her grandmother she was to avoid all exciting topics. Thus it happened that the account of a terrible collision between the Scotch express and a luggage train, a little way beyond Preston, an accident in which seven people were killed and about thirty seriously hurt, was not made known to her ladyship; and yet that fact would have been of intense interest and significance to her, since one of those passengers whose injuries were fatal bore the name of Louis Asoph.


CHAPTER XVII.


'AND THE SPRING COMES SLOWLY UP THIS WAY.'

The wintry weeks glided smoothly by in a dull monotony, and now Lady Maulevrier, still helpless, still compelled to lie on her bed or her invalid couch, motionless as marble, had at least recovered her power of speech, was allowed to read and to talk, and to hear what was going on in that metropolitan world which she seemed unlikely ever to behold again.

Lady Lesbia was still at Cannes, whence she wrote of her pleasures and her triumphs, of flowers and sapphire sea, and azure sky, of all things which were not in the grey bleak mountain world that hemmed in Fellside. She was meeting many of the people whom she was to meet again next season in the London world. She had made an informal _début_ in a very select circle, a circle in which everybody was more or less _chic_, or _chien_, or _zinc_, and she was tasting all the sweets of success. But in none of her letters was there any mention of Lord Hartfield. He was not in the little great world by the blue tideless sea.

There was no talk of Lesbia's return. She was to stay till the carnival; she was to stay till the week before Easter. Lady Kirkbank insisted upon it; and both Lesbia and Lady Kirkbank upbraided Lady Maulevrier for her cruelty in not joining them at Cannes.

So Lady Maulevrier had to resign herself to that solitude which had become almost the habit of her life, and to the society of Mary and the Fräulein. Mary was eager to be of use, to sit with her grandmother, to read to her, to write for her. The warm young heart was deeply moved by the spectacle of this stately woman stricken into helplessness, chained to her couch, immured within four walls. To Mary, who so loved the hills and the streams, the sun and the wind, this imprisonment seemed unspeakable woe. In her pity for such a martyrdom she would have done anything to give pleasure or solace to her grandmother. Unhappily there was very little Mary could do to increase the invalid's sum of pleasure. Lady Maulevrier was a woman of strong feeling, not capable of loving many people. She had concentrated her affection upon Lesbia: and she could not open her heart to Mary all at once because Lesbia was out of the way.

'If I had a dog I loved, and he were to die, I would never have another in his place,' Lady Maulevrier said once; and that speech was the keynote of her character.

She was very courteous to Mary, and seemed grateful for her attentions; but she did not cultivate the girl's society. Mary wrote all her letters in a fine bold hand, and with a rapid pen; but when the letter-writing was over Lady Maulevrier always dismissed her.

'My dear, you want to be out in the air, riding your pony, or scampering about with your dogs,' she said, kindly. 'It would be a cruelty to keep you indoors.'

'No, indeed, dear grandmother, I should like to stay. May I stop and read to you?'

'No, thank you, Mary. I hate being read to. I like to devour a book. Reading aloud is such slow work.

'But I am afraid you must sometimes feel lonely,' faltered Mary.

'Lonely,' echoed the dowager, with a sigh. 'I have been lonely for the last forty years--I have been lonely all my life. Those I loved never gave me back love for love--never--not even your sister. See how lightly she cuts the link that bound her to me. How happy she is among strangers! Yes, there was one who loved me truly, and fate parted us. Does fate part all true lovers, I wonder?'

'You parted Lesbia and Mr. Hammond,' said Mary, impetuously. 'I am sure they loved each other truly.'

'The old and the worldly-wise are Fate, Mary,' answered the dowager, not angry at this daring reproach. 'I know your sister; and I know she is not the kind of woman to be happy in an ignoble life--to bear poverty and deprivation. If it had been you, now, whom Mr. Hammond had chosen, I might have taken the subject into my consideration.'

Mary flamed crimson.

'Mr. Hammond never gave me a thought,' she said, 'unless it was to think me contemptible. He is worlds too good for such a Tomboy. Maulevrier told him about the fox-hunt, and they both laughed at me--at least I have no doubt Mr. Hammond laughed, though I was too much ashamed to look at him.'

'Poor Mary, you are beginning to find out that a young lady ought to be ladylike,' said Lady Maulevrier; 'and now, my dear, you may go. I was only joking with you. Mr. Hammond would be no match for any granddaughter of mine. He is nobody, and has neither friends nor interest. If he had gone into the church Maulevrier could have helped him; but I daresay his ideas are too broad for the church; and he will have to starve at the bar, where nobody can help him. I hope you will bear this in mind, Mary, if Maulevrier should ever bring him here again.'

'He is never likely to come back again. He suffered too much; he was treated too badly in this house.'

'Lady Mary, be good enough to remember to whom you are speaking,' said her ladyship, with a frown. 'And now please go, and tell some one to send Steadman to me.'

Mary retired without a word, gave Lady Maulevrier's message to a footman in the corridor, slipped off to her room, put on her sealskin hat and jacket, took her staff and went out for a long ramble. The hills and valleys were still white. It had been a long, cold winter, and spring was still far off--February had only just begun.

Lady Maulevrier's couch had been wheeled into the morning-room--that luxurious room which was furnished with all things needful to her quiet life, her books, her favourite colours, her favourite flowers, every detail studiously arranged for her pleasure and comfort. She was wheeled into this room every day at noon. When the day was bright and sunny her couch was placed near the window: and when the day was dull and grey the couch was drawn close to the low hearth, which flashed and glittered with brightly coloured tiles and artistic brass.

To-day the sky was dull, and the velvet couch stood beside the hearth. Halcott sat at work in the adjoining bed-chamber, and came in every now and then to replenish the fire: a footman was always on duty in the corridor. A spring bell stood among the elegant trifles upon her ladyship's table; and the lightest touch of her left hand upon the bell brought her attendants to her side. She resolutely refused to have any one sitting with her all day long. Solitude was a necessity of her being, she told Mr. Horton, when he recommended that she should have some one always in attendance upon her.

As the weeks wore on her features had been restored to their proud, calm beauty, her articulation was almost as clear as of old: yet, now and then, there would be a sudden faltering, the tongue and lips would refuse their office, or she would forget a word, or use a wrong word unconsciously. But there was no recovery of power or movement on that side of the body which had been stricken. The paralysed limbs were still motionless, lifeless as marble;