A BROKEN BLOSSOM. A Novel.

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

CHAPTER I. ALONE.

I was alone—I felt it for the first time in my life—horribly and fearfully alone. Everything around me was unchanged, and yet nothing looked the same. The August sun streamed in mercilessly through the white window blind, lighting up every nook and corner of the commonly-furnished room. I had known those ornaments upon the chimney-piece for years past—that Parian figure of Innocence, 2pretending to be modest behind a rag of drapery about the size of a housemaid’s duster—and that fine Court gentleman in imitation Dresden, who never left off beckoning to the lady who stood opposite to him, hiding her face coquettishly behind a fan. I had heard the tick of the carriage clock, which was one of the very few remnants left of our former luxury, ever since I could remember anything, without having noticed that it was particularly loud; and I had trodden and retrodden the green and red Brussels carpet beneath my feet without having observed that it was woven in the colours of a macaw. But now, as I sat in the armchair, with my hands folded listlessly upon my lap and my

blistered eyes staring vacuously at all around me, the rag with which Innocence defended her modesty appeared so ludicrously small, and the smirk of the lady and gentleman courtiers such a veritable leer, that I burst 3into a nervous hysterical giggle as I caught sight of them. The tick of the clock upon the mantelpiece, too, seemed to strike like a hammer on my empty, bewildered brain; and I perceived, to my horror, that a blue and yellow worsted, that made me shudder each time I looked at it, was twisted amongst the red and green pattern of the carpet. It appeared strange to me that I should never have observed that glaring blue and yellow line before, when it seemed to stand out now from the rest of the design as if the carpet were all yellow and blue, and nothing else. What a fool I must have been all these years to imagine it was red and green! The idea of my folly was so ludicrous that I began to giggle again, and ended in a burst of tears that left me no better than before. I had shed so many tears during the last week, they seemed to have lost their effect upon me.

They only inflamed my eyes anew, and 4caused their lids to smart more. I felt cold, too, although the day was unusually warm, and my head was like a ball of fire. After a while I rose, and, leaning my elbows on the mantelpiece, stared at myself in the glass. People had called me pretty sometimes, and I believed that they spoke the truth, but few would have said so now.

My eyes were dull and fishy; my complexion sodden; my hair rough and in disorder. I looked to myself like an old woman; older than she had done when I had seen her last with her own living face upon her.

It was a week now since she had left me—eight whole days; and I was still alive. It seemed marvellous to me!

I was not a young girl—I had completed my twenty-fourth year; and I knew, of course, that the majority of daughters were called upon to see their mothers leave this world 5before them. But then my mother had not been like other women’s mothers. She was my friend and companion—my second self—the only confidante I had ever made. We had almost grown up together, for there were but eighteen years between us, and I felt utterly stunned and lost to think that she could go and leave me behind her—alone. How often we had talked together of leaving the rooms we had occupied so long at Norwood, and travelling, in the modest style our limited means would admit of, through Switzerland and Germany and France! Unless I married, meanwhile, she said with a smile (knowing well there was not a man on earth who had the power to separate me from her), we really must think of breaking up our English establishment this autumn, and making a move southward—that is, if Mr. Lovett approved of the plan.

Mr. Lovett was a personage of whom I 6had often heard, but never seen. He was a clergyman, and had been an intimate friend and schoolfellow of my late father, and my mother held his name in infinite respect. He was the trustee also, of our small capital, and the quarterly interest of it always came to us through his hands. He lived abroad, which was the reason I had never met him, but his name was as familiar to me as a household word. If Mr. Lovett approved, then, my dear mother had said, we should travel together that autumn, and I had been looking forward to the novel pleasure with unmixed delight. And now, the autumn had not yet come, and she was—where? As these thoughts recurred to me, I pressed both my hands to my head to prevent my screaming aloud. It was too horrible—too dreadful—I could not realise it!

She had been so well, and we had been so happy, until two short weeks before. She 7was only forty-two years of age, and very youthful-looking; our friends had often said, in jest, that I was the older and the graver of the two. She was a tall woman, with an unusually fine figure, and a bright speaking face that would have looked young to the last; a soft, fair complexion, sunny blue eyes, and a mouth that was always ready for a kiss. She had a happy temperament, too, that ever looked on the brighter side, and was capable of taking the keenest enjoyment and interest in everything that was beautiful in Art or Nature.

If I had ever thought of death coming between us two, it was of dying myself, with my head on that dear bosom, and those kind eyes fixed on me to the last. But if she would have suffered in that instance as I had suffered during the past fortnight, I thanked God for singling me out as His victim.

8At that phase of my existence I felt there was nothing else to thank Him for.

Eight days before, she had been with me, struggling, it is true, in the last throes of the fearful malady that separated us, but still there, with her dear blue eyes, grown meek with suffering, turned lovingly to me, and her hot, fevered hand able to acknowledge the clasp of mine. And then arrived that awful moment when the light faded and the grasp relaxed, and they half pulled, half pushed me out of the room; and something seemed to burst in my head, and make a thousand wheels, like the burring of machinery, go round and round in my brain, until they expended themselves like fireworks, and went out one after another, and my spirit escaped somewhere into a land of darkness and forgetfulness. As soon as I came to myself again, and they would let me leave my room, I rushed to her.

9I could not believe but that she was still living: that she yet could open her eyes and look at me, or clasp my hand. I rushed into the room and ran straight up to the bed; but I had been absent for an hour, and the officious attendants had already what they termed ‘laid her out.’ I pulled off the sheet impetuously, intending to cast myself upon her breast, but drew back in horror.

That straightened flattened figure, like a bad model made in discoloured wax—those dark, closed, sunken eyes—that pinched and drawn-down nose—those livid, half-parted lips—they never belonged to the mother who bore me. As well assure me that the house I see fallen to decay, with clouded panes and shuttered windows and stained walls, is the same that I have passed when the sunlight played on every square of glass, and dainty lace curtains shaded, and many-coloured blossoms ornamented every sill. It was the 10casket that had once enshrined her soul, I knew; but that it was my mother, I never realised. It was my first view of the common change—so common and yet always so strangely new—and it was my first and last view of the shape that had held what was so dear to me. I clasped both my hands before my eyes, and fled from it in loathing. They called me unnatural and hard, and begged of me to look at it again; but no persuasions could induce me to re-enter the chamber. On the contrary, I sat in my own room, trying hard to forget I had ever seen it. I wanted

to remember my mother at her best and brightest. I wanted to think of her as she had appeared to me as a little child—when I had thought her the cleverest and most beautiful and most wonderful of created beings—who knew everything and could do everything, and read my mind before I had expressed it. And I wanted to think of her as 11she had been to the last—my friend and companion, who sympathised in all my troubles and took pleasure in all my joy. And I felt as if the happier remembrance could never come back to me while that remained in the room that had been hers, lying stark and stiff upon the bed, or cased within its narrow coffin, with a sheet drawn over it to keep off the flies, and a few July roses lying prone upon its sunken surface. Ah! how I suffered during those days of waiting, heaven and my own heart only knew. I longed for two things only: that the dreaded funeral might be over and done with, and I might be able to go away somewhere—no matter where, so long as the place was very distant from that in which I had been so miserable—and that I

might never see any of the things again by which I was then surrounded.

And now one of my wishes had been realised, and I had followed the dark coffin to 12Norwood Cemetery, and seen it lowered into a grave dug in the grass. And I had come back to the house again, to find it still more empty than before.

That was yesterday. The people of the house had drawn up the blinds again, and the chamber in which she had died was having ‘a regular turn out.’ I could hear the maidservants from where I sat, throwing the casements wide, and laughing with one another as they shook the bed and pillows, and smartly swept the carpet which had been innocent of broom so long. I heard them rattling the glass and china, and moving the furniture about the room, and my heart sickened afresh at the unusual sound of bustle. Pshaw! what did it matter, after all? They could not disturb her, lying six feet under ground in Norwood Cemetery; and as for me, I must get used to such things. Yet, for all that, my lip was quivering terribly as a knock at the 13door caused me to turn from the looking-glass to confront my landlady, Mrs. Medlicott.

‘Mr. Warrington wishes to speak to you, if you please, miss.’

Mrs. Medlicott’s voice was unusually low and subdued. You would have thought, to hear her, that butter would not melt in her mouth; and to me, who knew how spiteful and shrill her tones could be on occasions, the change was irritating. What had happened to me more than to others, that a common lodging-house keeper should presume to show me compassion!

‘Show him in,’ I answered, almost sharply.

Mr. Warrington was my mother’s solicitor. I had seen him at the funeral yesterday, as I had seen the rest of the mourners, through a sort of misty haze, but we had not spoken to each other. I knew he came to talk to me now about money, and my future mode of 14living, and my soul sickened at the mere idea; but nothing could make me worse than I was, so I said: ‘Show him in.’

Mr. Warrington was not at all like the conventional family lawyer. He was a fashionable man in appearance, not more than forty, and always looked distinguished, in well-cut clothes, trimly-arranged hair, and a fresh bouquet in his button-hole. To-day it was composed of lilies of the valley and gardenias; and the faint smell of the latter blossom recalled to my mind, I could not tell why, the painful scene of yesterday, with so much acuteness, that I felt as though I must tear it from his breast and trample it under foot. But I schooled myself to raise my heavy eyes in his direction, and greet him with composure. Then we shook hands in complete silence.

‘I trust I have not called upon you too early, Miss Marsh,’ commenced Mr. Warrington; 15‘but I was anxious to see if I could be of any use, and also to have a little conversation with you about your money-matters.’

‘Yes?’ I said, interrogatively.

‘I received a letter this morning, also, from your trustee, Mr. Lovett, the contents of which he is desirous I should communicate to you. You have no personal knowledge of Mr. Lovett, I believe, Miss Marsh?’

‘None whatever!’

‘But you are aware, I suppose, that your—your late mother’s income was derivable from a pension granted her on your father’s death, in recognition of his scientific discoveries, and a sum of money vested in East India property which realised about one hundred and fifty pounds a year?’

‘Yes; I have heard so.’

‘The Rev. Horace Lovett, who was your father’s most intimate friend, was left trustee for this small property during your 16mother’s lifetime. At her death it was to revert, unconditionally, to you; but Mr. Lovett is still willing to continue his trust, if you wish it, and will re-appoint him to the charge.’

‘I have no choice in the matter. You had better arrange it all, Mr. Warrington.’

‘But shall I seem impertinent if I ask you what you intend to do?’

‘I have no intentions of any sort.’

‘You will not continue to live here?’

‘Oh no! I suppose things will settle themselves in due time, and I shall drift on somewhere. It will be all “drifting” henceforward. I cannot look forward to “living” again.’

‘No, no; of course not—not for the present; no one could expect it,’ replied Mr. Warrington, soothingly. ‘But you are too young to live alone, Miss Hilda.’

‘Am I? Numbers live alone who are as 17young as I am. And I see no alternative.’

‘There are several! Young ladies situated as you are, generally try to board with some pleasant family; or they have an older lady to live with them, and chaperon them into the world.’

‘I shall want no chaperonage,’ I said sadly, recalling the arm on which I had leant for so many years; ‘neither shall I go out into the world. I am only sure of one thing, that I must leave this place; but whether to go into a convent or on the stage is perfectly indifferent to me. I have no present, Mr. Warrington, and no future! All I desire to do is to forget.’

‘Come, come! you mustn’t talk to me in that strain,’ he answered. ‘I know it is quite natural, but it is not like the sensible, philosophical reasoning I have heard you exercise on the behalf of others. You 18have doubtless experienced a very heavy loss——’

‘Mr. Warrington, will you be good enough not to speak to me about it? You may say what you like about myself, but nothing, please, that refers to the past.’

I dreaded breaking down before this hard, cynical man of the world, who looked upon death as the end of all things, and had frequently challenged me to prove to him, by even the feeblest argument, that the soul lived again after it had quitted the body.

‘Very well, Miss Hilda,’ he replied, nonchalantly; ‘your wishes shall be respected in all things. But since you have formed no plans for yourself, may I be permitted to suggest one for you? Mr. Lovett writes me most feelingly on the subject this morning, and proposes that you should go, as soon as ever you please, to St. Pucelle, and form one 19of his family circle, as long as it suits your convenience to do so.’

‘I go to St. Pucelle!’ I exclaimed.

‘Why not? It is a charming old-fashioned town, on the very frontiers of the Belgian territory, and Mr. Lovett’s family consists of two motherless daughters, who would form pleasant companions for you. Mr. Lovett is not rich, as you may suppose. The salary of a Protestant clergyman abroad is barely sufficient to enable him to live in decent gentility; but he offers, should you go there, to hand you over fifty pounds annually for your own expenses, and I do not think that you will easily find a pleasanter or cheaper home in which to establish yourself. And so eminently respectable, too; living in a clergyman’s family, and under the guardianship of your trustee. I hope you will think of the proposal favourably.’

‘To go to St. Pucelle!’ I repeated vaguely. 20Thoughts of the foreign trip that we had planned together rushed rebelliously into my mind, and for a few minutes I could not trust myself to speak. But as the mental mist cleared off, I found the plan that Mr. Warrington had proposed a very feasible one.

‘You cannot live alone,’ continued the solicitor, earnestly. ‘It is of no use discussing the question. You are too young, and, if you will forgive me for saying so, Miss Hilda, you are much too handsome, to set up housekeeping on your own account. You have your name, and the name of those who are gone, to consider, and I am sure you will never dream of doing anything that would have displeased them.’

‘No, no,’ I answered, hastily; ‘but I must have time to think about it.’

I had no friends to consult upon the subject. I suppose there never was a girl who found herself more completely thrown upon the 21world than I did. My father had been an only child, and my mother had come from Australia. Brothers and sisters, uncles, aunts, and cousins, were names unknown to me, except as they related to other people. I was literally my own mistress, and I felt terribly alone in remembering it—I, who had never felt alone in my life before. For the last few years I had believed myself to be so much of a woman, for my experience in some things had been greater than that of other girls, and she had made me her intimate companion, and unfolded all her mind to me as I had done mine to her. Now I felt like a little child that wanted advice and guidance, and had no one to depend on but herself. But Mr. Lovett’s offer had opened new ideas to me, and I felt it was not to be rejected hastily.

‘I suppose, if I go to St. Pucelle,’ I continued, after a pause, ‘that my stay there will 22be perfectly optional, and I shall be able to leave it whenever I choose?’

‘Certainly. I can have no idea that Mr. Lovett wishes to keep you a prisoner there. The proposal is evidently made only with a view to your benefit, and I will make it a proviso in my answer that your actions are to be perfectly uncontrolled. But, at the same time, let me ask what you could possibly do, at your age, in the world by yourself?’

‘Oh, don’t worry me!’ I said, impatiently; ‘there are a thousand things I could do if I chose, and I will never stay in any family whose habits are uncongenial to me. I have been used to have my own way too much for that!’

Mr. Warrington rose, and commenced smoothing down the nap of his hat, which the crape band of yesterday still encircled.

‘Very good, Miss Marsh! Then I will leave you to consider the matter at your 23leisure, and I hope you will give me the first intimation of your decision. I presume you have sufficient money in hand for current expenses?’

‘Yes, yes; I have everything I want,’ I answered. I was longing for him to be gone, and leave me to myself. Every moment he stayed recalled the past so vividly to me. After a few more words of courtesy, he bowed himself deferentially out of the room, and I was once more alone.

CHAPTER II. REFUSED.