Amethyst: The Story of a Beauty

“Charles,” she said.

The sick man started up and swore at her for a ghost. Then his eyes cleared a little, and he stuttered out —

“Amethyst! Oh, damn it all. Go away; you mustn’t stop here, here with me. And there’s Blanche; you mustn’t stay with Blanche. Take her away, Aunt Anna. Take her away this moment.”

Blanche gave a sort of laugh, and then began to sob hysterically.

“Hush, Charles,” said Amethyst, “I came to see you. You won’t hurt me, – and Blanche – is very kind. Lie still. – Una sent you her love.”

Her lips and hands trembled a little, but her eyes were full of yearning pity. Never, in her loveliest moments, had she looked as she did now.

She stood by Charles, and laid her hand on his, then glanced from him to his other sister, of whom he had spoken thus.

She looked at this sister, who had loved foolishly, and married unlovingly, and then yielded to the passion that offered a change from the dullness of the world’s prosperity, and she thought of herself, and of what so easily might have been her fate; and no longer scorn and hatred, but a deep and awful pity filled her soul for those who had not been saved as she had, and who had been unable to save themselves.

She did not in the least know what to do, however much she might pity, and had turned to the white-capped peasant who was acting as nurse, when there was a rush up-stairs, and the host who had received them dashed into the room and shouted out something in Italian. Blanche, who understood, screamed aloud, and crying out —

“He says my father has had a fit and is brought in – dead,” rushed down the stairs, while Miss Haredale, half distracted, followed her, and host and nurse flew to join the fray.

Charles had grasped Amethyst’s hand, she thought that he might die at that moment, and dared not leave him. Of what passed in that dreadful hour, when she was left alone with the dying man, she never afterwards spoke. The sun was setting in a fiery glow, and streamed in at the window on to the bed, revealing with the dreadful clearness of a light from heaven, its squalor and wretchedness, and the misery and degradation of him who lay on it.

There was shouting and calling below, and terrible crazy utterances from Charles, mixed now and then with a kindly word, “Una – good girl – poor little Carrie,” then frightful visions and fear, oaths and cursing, and over all the approach of the King of Terror in his most awful form.

Amethyst was utterly ignorant and helpless, she could have done little, had she had trained skill. But she stood by and touched him and spoke to him, and uttered prayers that were at first mere outbursts of fear, mere cries for help in her extremity. But gradually they grew conscious and clear, and she prayed for her brother’s soul with all her might, and her terror passed away, as he sank into quieter mutterings. She prayed aloud with the instinct of a child, but as the yearning impulse grew stronger, it found fewer words. She said, “Our Father – Our Father,” over and over again, as if she could and need say nothing more, and at last came a weak hoarse echo to her voice.

“Our Father – ” muttered Charles, with the last look of his dying eyes fixed on his young sister’s beautiful face, on which the last rays of the sunlight fell.

“An angel – down in hell! Our Father – ” he said, and then his head fell back, the great change came, and Amethyst saw him die.

“Oh, my dear, I had to leave you; but your father’s breathing still. Come down; and here’s the doctor, let him see Charles;” and Miss Haredale, pale and shaking, but with composure gained from the very extremity, came into the room, followed by an Italian doctor, who gave one glance at the bed.

“The young lady must not stay here,” he said, “there is no more to be done. Nor you either, Signora; Milord will perhaps have need of you.”

Miss Haredale gave a little gasp of horror; but she was hardly able to realise anything fresh. She took Amethyst down-stairs to the coffee-room, which had been cleared of all its occupants; while Lord Haredale, who had fallen down in the street, not far from the inn, had been laid on a bed, roughly made up on one of the tables. Two Englishmen, who had some slight acquaintance with him, were there, and had sent for the doctor, and done what they could to help the helpless ladies, and now, one of them, hearing what had happened up-stairs, went to see the doctor and make the first needful arrangements.

Lord Haredale was quite unconscious; there was no chance, the doctor said, of a rally, but it might not be over for some hours. Lady Clyste sat crouched up by a stove at the end of the room, crying in a violent unrestrained fashion. Miss Haredale sat down by her brother’s side, shedding a few tears, but faithfully watching him; while Amethyst, stupefied and silent, stood at the sick man’s feet. Presently the other Englishman came back and spoke to her.

“Miss Haredale?” he said, bowing. “My name is Williams. I had the honour of his lordship’s acquaintance. You are perhaps hardly aware how quickly arrangements have to be made in this country. And the expense is great. Your brother’s funeral, would it be here? Have you friends to consult?”

“Oh, no,” exclaimed Miss Haredale, interposing. “Impossible! anything but that. We all lie at Haredale.”

Amethyst looked at Mr Williams, who was not a very prepossessing person; but he was much better than no one, and she decided to trust him.

“I have some money,” she said, “but I don’t know. We must telegraph to my mother at Bordighera, and, yes – to another friend. But – is there no one here – an English chaplain or clergyman?”

Mr Williams never appeared to have heard of such an official, but he promised to inquire, and to despatch the telegrams to Lady Haredale, and to Sylvester Riddell, who could surely come for an hour or two and help them in such extremity, then all would be well. Then he departed, promising to do all he could to delay matters till something definite occurred, with a glance at Lord Haredale’s heavily-breathing figure.

“Amethyst, Amethyst, do come here,” sobbed Blanche, calling to her. “Is Charles dead? Oh, how awful, how dreadful! – oh, I wish I hadn’t come!”

“I think you were quite right to come,” said Amethyst, as Blanche came towards her, catching hold of her, and clinging to her with a touch that strangely reminded her of Una’s agitated clasp. “Oh, come and sit here, let us talk of something else. Really, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be with me. Won’t they get us something to eat? These Italians are all so frightened when any one’s ill.”

Amethyst spoke to the old peasant woman, and asked her to fetch them soup or coffee. One trouble had succeeded another so rapidly that she seemed to have no feelings left.

The coffee was brought, and Lady Clyste revived a little as she drank it.

“So you had a great success in London? But why didn’t you marry that rich baronet? How pretty you are. Was there anybody else? I think you’d better have married him. Perhaps he wouldn’t have been such a jealous tyrant as Sir Edward. That was why I came away. There really wasn’t anything wrong; he had his amusements, and so had I.”

Amethyst could not answer, and suddenly Blanche changed her tone.

“But didn’t I hear that Oliver Carisbrooke was there? Oh, Amethyst, never you have anything to do with him. He was the ruin of me. There, he made me over head and ears in love with him, little, young thing that I was – and then he left me to bear all the blame. I declare, Amethyst, he planned it all, how I was to run away with him, and when he found out my mother’s money could be kept away from me, he threw me over. Oh, and he’s tried since. He’d make you believe anything. Being in love amuses him. He does that instead of gambling, or drinking, or being wicked like other men. He gets up an emotion! I hope you don’t like him.”

“No, I hate him,” said Amethyst under her breath.

“I want to hear all about you. Do you get on with my lady? I liked her – she was great fun. But when I was in trouble – ah, how she threw me over! And how she tried to cut me out! I could tell you – ”

Amethyst started up, and went over to her father’s side. In that presence, with that other awful death-bed fresh in her mind, this idle trifling seemed the most dreadful of all the horrors which she had had to face.

She knelt down by her aunt’s side, and laid her face against her shoulder, the child-love of long ago coming to her help; while Miss Haredale pressed her close, and watched in silence.

The hours passed, and there was no arrival from Bordighera, and no message.

Amethyst’s heart sank within her. Why did not her mother come? – And surely nothing but the worst trouble at Casa Remi could have kept Sylvester from coming to her help in such extremity.

In the dawn of the morning, without rally or suffering, Lord Haredale died, and, as Amethyst turned to face the chilly light at the opened door, there, with pale face and anxious eyes, stood Sylvester Riddell. She flew to him with outstretched hands.

“Oh, you are here?” she cried, “I have been longing – ”

Sylvester clasped her hands close.

“Oh, my dearest,” he cried. “It was almost all over last night. They never even gave me your telegram till too late. But he is still alive, and he caught a whisper of your trouble, and his first word was ‘Go.’ Now, now I can take care of you. How could your mother let you come?”

Chapter Thirty Seven

Peace

Three days after that night of watching there was a double funeral in the cemetery at Bordighera, and the last Baron Haredale, and the only heir to his title, were laid to rest under a foreign sky, far away from the home they had forfeited; for there was no money to spare for funeral journeys, or for ceremonies at the end of them. Haredale was mortgaged up to its chimney-tops, and the title died with its direct male heirs. There had been no time for more than telegrams from the solicitors in charge of the miserable family affairs; but it was hoped that some provision would be saved out of the wreck for Lady Haredale and her four young daughters.

There was much talk and much scandal among all the English colonies along the Riviera, and the misdeeds of the two last Haredales were whispered in drawing-rooms and discussed in clubs in all quarters. Nevertheless, the subjects of the scandal had been the possessor of, and the heir to, an English peerage, and various gentlemen presented themselves to follow the funeral; while every one looked with pity on the four tall girls, so young and so handsome, whose condition was all the more forlorn, because they could not really regret the loss either of father or brother.

Miss Haredale wept as much for the fall of her family as for the loss of her brother and nephew; and the white wreath, which Carrie Carisbrooke laid on Charles Haredale’s coffin, symbolised the kindliest feeling he had ever inspired. Mr Riddell arrived in time to conduct the funeral, and, by Lucian’s express desire, both his mother and Sylvester left his side to follow it.

Two of the nearest were absent. Lady Haredale would not go, she shut herself into her room overpowered by a real passion, of what kind her daughters could hardly tell, – whether of grief for her husband, nervous fright at the shock of the two sudden deaths, or of chagrin at her changed position.

“You see, I always liked my poor dear lord so much better than any one else, at bottom,” she said, with tears, to Amethyst; and then she added, “He was such a protection, I shall have to be so careful in future.”

Lady Clyste had fled from the scene of death the moment the watching of that awful night was over. She would not stay, she cried, as if passionately repenting the impulse that had brought her to the spot, and went away from Monte Carlo back to whence she came, so that the brief hours of the night when they had watched together seemed to Amethyst like a vision. They did not know where she lived, or the manner of her life, and she evidently meant to take no part in theirs.

It was not an occasion when plans and intentions could be put off or left untouched upon, and when the funeral was over, the four sisters went out, and sat under the olive trees together and talked over the future that lay before them, – not without a certain renewal of courage, for was it not far more in their own hands than it had ever been before?