Mount Royal: A Novel. Volume 3 of 3Braddon, M. E. (Mary Elizabeth)
General
Mount Royal: A Novel. Volume 3 of 3
Braddon, M. E. (Mary Elizabeth)
Fiction
She was going to say, "Have you forgiven him for what was done at St.
Nectan's Kieve?" but she checked herself when the words were on her
lips. What if Leonard's crime was not forgiven, but forgotten? In that
long dreary winter they had never spoken of the manner of Angus
Hamleigh's death. Christabel's despair had been silent. Jessie had
comforted her with vague words which never touched upon the cruel
details of her grief. How if the mind had been affected by that long
interval of sorrow, and the memory of Leonard's deed blotted out?
Christabel's new delight in frivolous things--her sudden fancy for
filling her house with lively people--might be the awakening of new
life and vigour in a mind that had trembled on the confines of madness.
Was it for her to recall bitter facts--to reopen the fountain of tears?
She gave one little sigh for the untimely dead--and then addressed
herself to the duty of pleasing Christabel, just as in days gone by her
every effort had been devoted to making the elder Mrs. Tregonell happy.
"I suppose you had better ask Mrs. Fairfax Torrington," she suggested.
"Yes, Leonard and she are great chums. We must have Mrs. Torrington. And
there are the St. Aubyns, nice lively girls and an inoffensive father
and mother. I believe Leonard rather likes them. And then it will be a
charity to have Dopsy and Mopsy."
"I thought you detested them."
"No, poor foolish things--I was once sorry for Dopsy." The tears rushed
to her eyes. She rose suddenly from her chair, and went to the window.
"Then she has not forgotten," thought Jessie.
So it was that the autumn party was planned. Mr. Faddie was doing duty
at the little church in the glen, and thus happened to be in the way of
an invitation. Mr. Montagu was asked as a person of general usefulness.
The St. Aubyn party brought horses, and men and maids, and contributed
much to the liveliness of the establishment, so far as noise means
gaiety. They were all assembled when Baron de Cazalet telegraphed from a
yacht off the Lizard to ask if he might come, and, receiving a
favourable reply, landed at Penzance, and posted over with his valet;
his horse and gun cases were brought from London by another servant.
Leonard had been home nearly a fortnight, and had begun to accept this
new mode of life without further wonder, and to fall into his old ways,
and find some degree of pleasure in his old occupations--hunting,
shooting.
The Vandeleur girls were draining the cup of pleasure to the dregs.
Dopsy forgot her failure and grief of last year. One cannot waste all
one's life in mourning for a lover who was never in love with one.
"I wore bugles for him all last winter, and if I had been able to buy a
new black gown I would have kept in mourning for six mouths," she told
her sister apologetically, as if ashamed of her good spirits, "but I
can't help enjoying myself in such a house as this. Is not Mrs.
Tregonell changed for the better?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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