The Three Brides

'Are you quite sure it is not imagination?'

'O, Joanna, don't be like all the rest, blinded by her! You knew her always!'

'Only from below. I am four years younger; you know dear Emily was my contemporary.'

'Dear Emily! I miss her more now than even at Rockpier. But you, who were her friend, and knew Camilla of old, I know you can help me as no one else can.'

Jenny returned a caress; and Eleonora spoke on. 'You know I was only eight years old when Camilla married, and I had scarcely seen her till she came to us at Rockpier, on Lord Tyrrell's death, and then she was most delightful. I thought her like mother and sister both in one, even more tender than dear Emily. How could I have thought so for a moment? But she enchanted everybody. Clergy, ladies, and all came under the spell; and I can't get advice from any of them-even from Miss Coles-you remember her?'

'Your governess? How nice she was!'

'Emily and I owed everything to her! She was as near being a mother to us as any one could be; and Camilla could not say enough of gratitude, or show esteem enough, and fascinated her like all the rest of us; but she never rested till she had got her off to a situation in Russia. I did not perceive the game at the time, but I see now how all the proposals for situations within reach of me were quashed.'

'But you write to her?'

'Yes; but as soon as I showed any of my troubles she reproved me for self-will and wanting to judge for myself, and not submit to my sister. That's the way with all at Rockpier. Camilla has gone about pitying me to them for having to give way to my married sister, but saying it was quite time that she took charge of us; and on that notion they all wrote to me. Then she persuaded papa to go abroad; and I was delighted, little thinking she never meant me to go back again.'

'Did she not?'

'Listen! I've heard her praise Rockpier and its church to the skies to one person-say Mr. Bindon. To another, such as our own Vicar, she says it was much too ultra, and she likes moderation; she tells your father that she wants to see papa among his old friends; and to Mrs. Duncombe, I've heard her go as near the truth as is possible to her, and call it a wearisome place, with an atmosphere of incense, curates, and old maids, from whom she had carried me off before I grew fit for nothing else!'

'I dare say all these are true in turn, or seem so to her, or she would not say them before you.'

'She has left off trying to gloss it over with me, except so far as it is part of her nature. She did at first, but she knows it is of no use now.'

'Really, Lenore, you must be going too far.'

'I have shocked you; but you can't conceive what it is to live with perpetual falsity. No, I can't use any other word. I am always mistrusting and being angered, and my senses of right and wrong get so confused, that it is like groping in a maze.' Her eyes were full of tears, but she exclaimed, 'Tell me, Joanna, was there ever anything between Camilla and Mr. Poynsett?'

'Why bring that up again now?'

'Why did it go off?' insisted Lenore.

'Because Mrs. Poynsett could not give up and turn into a dowager, as if she were not the mistress herself.'

'Was that all?'

'So it was said.'

'I want to get to the bottom of it. It was not because Lord Tyrrell came in the way.'

'I am afraid they thought so here.'

'Then,' said Eleonora, in a hard, dry way, 'I know the reason of our being brought back here, and of a good deal besides.'

'My dear Lena, I am very sorry for you; but I think you had better keep this out of your mind, or you will fall into a hard, bitter, suspicious mood.'

'That is the very thing. I am in a hard, bitter, suspicious mood, and I can't see how to keep out of it; I don't know when opposition is right and firm, and when it is only my own self-will.'

'Would it not be a good thing to talk to Julius Charnock? You would not be betraying anything.'

'No! I can't seem to make up to the good clergyman! Certainly not. Besides, I've heard Camilla talking to his wife!'

'Talking?'

'Admiring that dress, which she had been sneering at to your mother, don't you remember? It was one of her honey-cups with venom below- only happily, Lady Rosamond saw through the flattery. I'm ashamed whenever I see her!'

'I don't think that need cut you off from Julius.'

'Tell me truly,' again broke in Lenore, 'what Mrs. Poynsett really is. She is a standing proverb with us for tyranny over her sons; not with Camilla alone, but with papa.'

'See how they love her!' cried Jenny, hotly.

'Camilla thinks that abject; but I can't forget how Frank talked of her in those happy Rockpier days.'

'When you first knew him?' said Jenny.

They must have come at length to the real point, for Eleonora began at once-'Yes; he was with his sick friend, and we were so happy; and now he is being shamefully used, and I don't know what to do!'

'Indeed, Lenore,' said Jenny, in her downright way, 'I do not understand. You do not seem to care for him.'

'Of course I am wrong,' said the poor girl; 'but I hoped I was doing the best thing for him.' Then, as Jenny made an indignant sound, 'See, Jenny, when he came to Rockpier, Camilla had been a widow about three months. She never had been very sad, for Lord Tyrrell had been quite imbecile for a year, poor man! And when Frank came, she could not make enough of him; and he and I both thought the two families had been devotedly fond of each other, and that she was only too glad to meet one of them.'

'I suppose that was true.'

'So do I, as things stood then. She meant Frank to be a sort of connecting link, against the time when she could come back here; but we, poor children, never thought of that, and went on together, not exactly saying anything, but quite understanding how much we cared. Indeed, I know Camilla impressed on him that, for his mother's sake, it must go no farther then, while he was still so young; and next came our journey on the Continent, ending in our coming back here last July.'

Jenny remembered that Raymond's engagement had not been made known till August, and Frank had only returned from a grouse-shooting holiday a week or two before the arrival of the brides.

'Now,' added Eleonora, 'Camilla has made me understand that nothing will induce her to let papa consent; and though I know he would, if he were left to himself, I also see how all this family must hate and loathe the connection.'

'May I ask, has Frank ever spoken?'

'Oh no! I think he implied it all to Camilla when she bade him wait till our return, fancying, I suppose, that one could forget the other.'

'But why does she seem so friendly with him?'

'It is her way; she can't be other than smooth and caressing, and likes to have young men about; and I try to be grave and distant, because-the sooner he is cured of me the better for him,' she uttered, with a sob; 'but when he is there, and I see those grieved eyes of his, I can't keep it up! And papa does like him! Oh! if Camilla would but leave us alone! See here, Jenny!' and she showed, on her watch-chain, a bit of ruddy polished pebble. 'Is it wrong to keep this? He and I found the stone in two halves, on the beach, the last day we were together, and had them set, pretending to one another it was only play. Sometimes I think I ought to send mine back; I know he has his, he let me see it one day. Do you think I ought to give it up?'

'Why should you?'

'Because then he would know that it must be all over.'

'But is it all over? Within, I mean?'

'Jenny, you know better!'

'Then, Lenore, if so, and it is only your sister who objects, not your father himself, ought you to torment poor Frank by acting indifference when you do not feel it?'