Read Ebook: Amethyst: The Story of a Beauty by Coleridge Christabel R Christabel Rose

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 988 lines and 92835 words, and 20 pages

"Of course," said Amethyst, "I should have liked the balls and everything very much. But I hope you don't think, dear auntie, that I'm such a selfish girl as to think of that when you are in trouble. Besides, if we can't afford them, it would be wrong of course to go in for them. I like teaching, I shouldn't be dull. There would be garden-parties in the holidays. My cream muslin will do all this summer. And as for opportunities--if you mean about marrying--I'm sure, auntie, I've heard you say, over and over again, that if they are to come, they will come, wherever one may be. And if not--why, I can be quite happy as I am."

As the girl spoke, in her fresh cool young voice, Miss Haredale felt that her line of education had been very successful since Amethyst could think thus, and also that it was incumbent on Amethyst's guardians to think otherwise.

She did not much enjoy, nor greatly value beauty. She had deep reasons for distrusting the kind of beauty which Amethyst inherited. But she was perfectly aware that her young niece was beautiful, and that, whatever Amethyst might think at eighteen, the matter would look very different to her at eight and twenty.

"My dear," she said, "it can't be. Your parents would never consent, and you don't know what you are talking of. There's only one right thing to do. As I can no longer do my duty by you, or give you proper advantages, I--I--must give you up, and let you go home. Indeed, I have agreed to do so."

Miss Haredale turned her face away in the struggle to control her tears, so that she did not see the look that was not sorrow on Amethyst's face. But in another moment the girl's arms were round her neck.

"No--no, auntie," she said, "that would not be right at all. You often say how poor my father is for his position, and how he let me go because there were so many girls to provide for. It wouldn't be at all right for me to go back on his hands now, and to leave you in your trouble. I won't do it, auntie."

"My dear," said Miss Haredale, "you will be a great deal more on his hands if you don't get a chance of settling yourself. If only I knew better--if only I thought that all was as it should be! You are a dear good affectionate child, and I've kept you too innocent and ignorant. But you will be a good girl, Amethyst, wherever you may be. I am sure I could trust you."

"Oh yes, auntie, I think you could," said Amethyst, simply. "But I should be helped to be good if I went on at Saint Etheldred's."

"I will talk to you presently," said Miss Haredale, after a tearful pause. "Run away, my darling, and leave me to compose myself."

Amethyst, with the despised list in her hand, went away into her own bedroom, and sat down by the window to think on her own account. She had been taken from her home at seven years old, and since then, her intercourse with it had been confined to short visits on either side, and even these had ceased of late years, as Lord and Lady Haredale had lived much on the continent. She knew that her father's affairs were involved, that the heir, her half-brother, was in debt, and, as Miss Haredale put it, "not satisfactory, poor dear boy." She knew also that her half-sister, Lady Clyste, lived abroad apart from her husband, and that her own younger sisters had travelled about and lived very unsettled lives. But what all these things implied, she did not know at all. She thought her little-known mother the loveliest and sweetest person she had ever seen, and when she heard that her family were going to settle down for a time at a smaller place belonging to them not far from London, she had been full of hope of closer intercourse.

And now, the thought of going into society with her mother was full of dazzle and charm. She had had a very happy life. Her home with her aunt had been made bright by many little pleasures, and varied by all the interests of her education. The Saint Etheldred's of which she had spoken was a girls' school in the neighbourhood of Silverfold, founded and carried on with a view to uniting the best modern education with strict religious principles. Amethyst and a few other girls attended as day scholars. She had been thoroughly well taught; her nature was susceptible to the best influences of the place, and she was popular and influential with her school-fellows.

She saw a tall girl, slender and graceful, holding her long neck and small head with an air of dignity and distinction; which, nevertheless, harmonised perfectly with the simplicity and modesty of her expression. "Grown-up," in her own sense she might be, but she had the innocent look of a creature on whom the world's breath had never blown; and though there was power in the smooth white brow, and spiritual capacity in the dark grey eyes, there was not a line of experience on the delicate face; the full red lips lay in a peaceful curve, and over the whole face there was a bloom and softness that had never known the wear and tear of ill-health, or ill feelings.

Amethyst's eyes filled with tears, as a sudden yearning for the home circle from which she had been shut out possessed her. The affections of a child taken out of its natural place cannot flow in one smooth unbroken stream, and Amethyst felt that there was a contention within her. Her heart went out to the unknown home, and though she went down-stairs again, prepared to urge her scheme of self-help upon her aunt, it was already with a conscious sense of self-conquest that she did so.

Miss Haredale stopped the girl's arguments at once.

"No, my child, my mind is made up, and your parents' too. What you propose is perfectly out of the question. But, remember, you may always come back to me, I will always make some sort of home for you if you really need it, and you will try to be a good girl; for--for I don't like all I hear of fashionable life. There will be great deal of gaiety and frivolity."

"But mother will tell me what is right," said Amethyst. "I can always ask her, and I'll always do what she thinks best."

"Oh, my dear child," cried Miss Haredale, with agitation inexplicable to Amethyst, "no earthly guide is always enough."

The words were spoken in the most matter-of-course way, as by one who believed herself to have found by experience the truth of what she had been constantly taught, and who did not suppose that any one else could doubt it.

Miss Haredale said nothing; but whether rightly or wrongly, she never gave Amethyst a clearer warning, or more definite advice than this.

NEIGHBOURS.

Market Cleverley was a dull little town, within easy reach of London, but on another line from Silverfold. The great feature of its respectable old-fashioned street was the high-built wall and handsome iron gates of Cleverley Hall, a substantial house of dark brick of the style prevalent in the earlier part of the last century. Nearly opposite the Hall was the Rectory, smaller in size, but similar in age and colour; and, beyond the large, long, square-towered church which stood at the end of the street, were the fields and gardens of Ashfield Mount, a large white modern villa built on a rising ground, which commanded a view of flat, fertile country, and of long, white roads, stretching away between neatly trimmed hedges.

The exchange of the dull but innocuous Admiral and Mrs Parry, at Cleverley Hall, for a large family of undoubted rank and position, who were supposed to be equally handsome and ill-behaved, and to belong to the extreme of fashion, could not fail to be exciting to the mother of two growing girls, and of a grown-up son, whose good looks and fair fortune were not to be despised. Mrs Leigh rented Ashfield from the guardian uncle of the owner, Miss Carisbrooke, a girl still under age, and had lived there for many years. Her son's place, Toppings, in a northern county, had been let during his long minority.

She was a handsome woman, still in early middle life, and, having been long the leader of Cleverley society, naturally regarded so formidable a rival as Lady Haredale with anxiety. She was indeed so full of the subject, that when Miss Margaret Riddell, the rector's maiden sister, came to see her for the first time, after a three months' absence abroad, she had no thoughts to spare for the climate of Rome, or the beauty of Florence; but began at once on the subject of the sudden arrival of the owners of Cleverley Hall, and the change from the dear good Parrys.

"Have you called there yet?" said Miss Riddell, as the two ladies sat at tea in the pleasant, well-furnished drawing-room at Ashfield Mount.

"Yes," said Mrs Leigh, "but Lady Haredale was out. Three great tall girls came late into church on Sunday, handsome creatures, but not good style. Gertie and Kate are very eager about them, of course, but I shall be cautious how I let them get intimate."

"But what is the state of the case about the Haredales? What has become of the first family?"

"Well, my cousin in London, Mrs Saint George, tells me that Lord Haredale is supposed to be very hard up; ill luck on the turf I fancy, and the eldest son's debts. He, the son, is a shocking character, drinks I believe. But my cousin thinks his father very hard on him. Then Lady Clyste, the first wife's daughter, does not show at all--lives on the continent. Sir Edward is in India; but everybody knows that there was a great scandal, and a separation."

"Well, they both seem pretty well out of the way, at any rate."

"Yes, but it is this Lady Haredale herself. There's nothing definite against her, Louisa says, but she belongs to the very fastest set! And these children have knocked about on the continent; and at Twickenham, where they have had a villa, they were always to be seen with the men Lady Haredale had about, and, in fact, chaperoning their mother.--A nice training for girls!"

"Poor little things?" said Miss Riddell. "Perhaps this is their first chance in life."

"I dislike that style of thing so very much," said Mrs Leigh; "with my girls I cannot be too particular."

Miss Riddell knew very well that this sentence might have been read, "with my boy I cannot be too particular;" and she was herself concerned at the report of the new-comers, though, being a woman of a kindly heart, she thought with interest and pity of the handsome girls, with their bad style--the result evidently of a bad training.

"I must go and call--of course," she said.

"Oh, of course--and I hope you and the Rector will come to meet them, we must have a dinner-party for them as soon as possible. Besides, it is time that Lucian came forward a little, if he is so shy when he goes back to Lancashire, he will make no way at all in his own county."

Miss Riddell's reply was forestalled by the entrance of the subject of this remark, who came up and shook hands with her cordially, but with something of the stiff politeness of a well-bred school-boy.

"Ah, you hear what I say, Lucian," said his mother, "there are several things in store for you, which I do not mean to let you shirk in your usual fashion."

"But I don't want to shirk, if you are asking the Rector and Miss Riddell to dinner," said the young man. "I'm very glad to see you back again, Miss Riddell; and if I must take in this formidable Lady Haredale, you'll sit on the other side--won't you?--and help me to talk to her?"

"I fancy from what I hear that you won't find that difficult," said Miss Riddell, "or disagreeable; but, if you like, I will report on her after my first visit."

"Ah, thanks--give me the map of the country beforehand. Syl coming down this Easter?"

"I think so, for a week or two," said Miss Riddell, as she took her leave. "Come some day soon, and see my Italian photographs; you know you are always welcome."

"I will," said Lucian; "the mother can't say I shirk coming to see you."

"No, Lucian, I have no fault to find with you. You know I always take your part. Good-bye for the present."

Miss Riddell watched him as he walked away down the garden whistling to his dog--a tall fair youth, handsome as a young Greek, possessing indeed a kind of ideal beauty, that seemed almost out of character in the simple good-hearted boy who loved nothing so well as dogs and horses, liked to spend all his days in the roughest of shooting-coats, was too shy to enjoy balls and garden-parties , and except on the simplest topics, in the home circle, or with his old friend Sylvester Riddell, never seemed to have anything to say. He was not clever, and cared little for intellectual interests, but he had managed to get himself decently through the Schools, and never seemed to have found it difficult to behave well.

His mother often declared herself disappointed that he did not make more of himself; but Miss Riddell wondered if there was much more to make.

She was interested in him, however, for ever since she had come to live with her widowed brother, the young people of the neighbourhood had formed one of the great interests of her life; and it was with every intention of giving a kindly welcome to the new-comers, that she set out on the next day to call on Lady Haredale. Within the wrought-iron gates of Cleverley Hall, a short straight drive led up to the house, defended by high cypress hedges, cut at intervals into turrets and pinnacles, troublesome to keep in order, and sombre and peculiar in effect. Miss Riddell wondered what the fashionable family would think of them. She was shown into a long drawing-room, where a tall slim figure rose to receive her, and three tall children started up from various parts of the room.

Lady Haredale was girlishly slight and graceful. She seemed to have given her daughters their delicate outlines and pale soft colouring, neither dark nor fair; but as Miss Riddell watched the manner and expression of the four, it seemed to her that the mother's was much the simpler, and less affected; while she looked almost as youthful, and much more capable of enjoyment than her daughters. She was dressed in a shabby but becoming velvet gown, which told no tale of extravagance or of undue fashion.

"You know, Miss Riddell," she said presently, in a sweet cheerful voice, "we are supposed to come here to be economical. This is our retreat. These children are getting too big to be dragged about on the continent. Aren't they great girls? I have had them always with me. Now we ought to shut them up in the school-room."

"Have they a governess?" asked Miss Riddell.

"Why--not at present. You see there wasn't money enough both for education and frocks--and I'm afraid I chose frocks," said Lady Haredale, with a voice and smile that almost made Miss Riddell feel that frocks were preferable to education.

"They have some time before them," she said.

"Poor little penniless things," said Lady Haredale, with a light laugh. "They haven't any time to waste. This creature--come here, Una--is really fifteen."

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet