CHAPTER IX.

       AT KÖNIGSGRAAF.

       Table of Contents

      Very shortly after this there came a letter from Lady Frances to Paradise Row—the only letter which Roden received from her during this period of his courtship. A portion of the letter shall be given, from which the reader will see that difficulties had arisen at Königsgraaf as to their correspondence. He had written twice. The first letter had in due course reached the young lady's hands, having been brought up from the village post-office in the usual manner, and delivered to her without remark by her own maid. When the second reached the Castle it fell into the hands of the Marchioness. She had, indeed, taken steps that it should fall into her hands. She was aware that the first letter had come, and had been shocked at the idea of such a correspondence. She had received no direct authority from her husband on the subject, but felt that it was incumbent on herself to take strong steps. It must not be that Lady Frances should receive love-letters from a Post Office clerk! As regarded Lady Frances herself, the Marchioness would have been willing enough that the girl should be given over to a letter-carrier, if she could be thus got rid of altogether—so that the world should not know that there was or had been a Lady Frances. But the fact was patent—as was also that too, too-sad truth of the existence of a brother older than her own comely bairns. As the feeling of hatred grew upon her, she continually declared to herself that she would have been as gentle a stepmother as ever loved another woman's children, had these two known how to bear themselves like the son and daughter of a Marquis. Seeing what they were—and what were her own children—how these struggled to repudiate that rank which her own were born to adorn and protect, was it not natural that she should hate them, and profess that she should wish them to be out of the way? They could not be made to get out of the way, but Lady Frances might at any rate be repressed. Therefore she determined to stop the correspondence.

      She did stop the second letter—and told her daughter that she had done so.

      "Papa didn't say I wasn't to have my letters," pleaded Lady Frances.

      "Your papa did not suppose for a moment that you would submit to anything so indecent."

      "It is not indecent."

      "I shall make myself the judge of that. You are now in my care. Your papa can do as he likes when he comes back." There was a long altercation, but it ended in victory on the part of the Marchioness. The young lady, when she was told that, if necessary, the postmistress in the village should be instructed not to send on any letter addressed to George Roden, believed in the potency of the threat. She felt sure also that she would be unable to get at any letters addressed to herself if the quasi-parental authority of the Marchioness were used to prevent it. She yielded, on the condition, however, that one letter should be sent; and the Marchioness, not at all thinking that her own instructions would have prevailed with the post-mistress, yielded so far.

      The tenderness of the letter readers can appreciate and understand without seeing it expressed in words. It was very tender, full of promises, and full of trust. Then came the short passage in which her own uncomfortable position was explained;—"You will understand that there has come one letter which I have not been allowed to see. Whether mamma has opened it I do not know, or whether she has destroyed it. Though I have not seen it, I take it as an assurance of your goodness and truth. But it will be useless for you to write more till you hear from me again; and I have promised that this, for the present, shall be my last to you. The last and the first! I hope you will keep it till you have another, in order that you may have something to tell you how well I love you." As she sent it from her she did not know how much of solace there was even in the writing of a letter to him she loved, nor had she as yet felt how great was the torment of remaining without palpable notice from him she loved.

      After the episode of the letter life at Königsgraaf was very bitter and very dull. But few words were spoken between the Marchioness and her stepdaughter, and those were never friendly in their tone or kindly in their nature. Even the children were taken out of their sister's way as much as possible, so that their morals should not be corrupted by evil communication. When she complained of this to their mother the Marchioness merely drew herself up and was silent. Were it possible she would have altogether separated her darlings from contact with their sister, not because she thought that the darlings would in truth be injured—as to which she had no fears at all, seeing that the darlings were subject to her own influences—but in order that the punishment to Lady Frances might be the more complete. The circumstances being such as they were, there should be no family love, no fraternal sports, no softnesses, no mercy. There must, she thought, have come from the blood of that first wife a stain of impurity which had made her children altogether unfit for the rank to which they had unfortunately been born. This iniquity on the part of Lady Frances, this disgrace which made her absolutely tremble as she thought of it, this abominable affection for an inferior creature, acerbated her feelings even against Lord Hampstead. The two were altogether so base as to make her think that they could not be intended by Divine Providence to stand permanently in the way of the glory of the family. Something certainly would happen. It would turn out that they were not truly the legitimate children of a real Marchioness. Some beautiful scheme of romance would discover itself to save her and her darlings, and all the Traffords and all the Montressors from the terrible abomination with which they were threatened by these interlopers. The idea dwelt in her mind till it became an almost fixed conviction that Lord Frederic would live to become Lord Hampstead—or probably Lord Highgate, as there was a third title in the family, and the name of Hampstead must for a time be held to have been disgraced—and in due course of happy time Marquis of Kingsbury. Hitherto she had been accustomed to speak to her own babies of their elder brother with something of that respect which was due to the future head of the family; but in these days she altered her tone when they spoke to her of Jack, as they would call him, and she, from herself, never mentioned his name to them. "Is Fanny naughty?" Lord Frederic asked one day. To this she made no reply. "Is Fanny very naughty?" the boy persisted in asking. To this she nodded her head solemnly. "What has Fanny done, mamma?" At this she shook her head mysteriously. It may, therefore, be understood that poor Lady Frances was sadly in want of comfort during the sojourn at Königsgraaf.

      About the end of August the Marquis returned. He had hung on in London till the very last days of the Session had been enjoyed, and had then pretended that his presence had been absolutely required at Trafford Park. To Trafford Park he went, and had spent ten miserable days alone. Mr. Greenwood had indeed gone with him; but the Marquis was a man who was miserable unless surrounded by the comforts of his family, and he led Mr. Greenwood such a life that that worthy clergyman was very happy when