The Grey Woman by Mrs. Gaskell (Part 1) updated

"indeed, I have sometimes fancied since that the flower-garden, to which the only access from the castle was through his rooms, was designed in order to give me exercise and employment under his own eye."

What is it that makes his fall in love? Is it a pretty face? A fancy title? An obligation? In this Elizabeth Gaskell tale, narrator Rae Wilson invites us to explore that very question.

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No Way Out - by David Robson

Mozart – Eine Kleine Nachtmusik – Serenade In G Major 

The Mooche by Duke Ellington

"Sneaky Snitch" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Echoes in the Dark, a podcast dedicated to the oral tradition of storytelling. If you're looking to enjoy more classic literature, struggle to find the time to read, hate reading, or just love listening to stories, then this podcast is for you. At the end of each story, I'll share my analysis on the story's deeper meanings. The Grey Woman by Mrs. Gaskell, Elizabeth Gaskell, is a short story that was originally published in 1861 in volume 4 of Charles Dickens All the Year Round. Gaskell wrote some 35 short stories in addition to her other written works. Many of her short stories were published by Dicklins. This entire story is told in first person limited. If you want to follow along, you can get a coffee on my website, betteressaywriting.com. The Grey Woman by Mrs. Gask. There is a mill by the Necker side, to which many people resort for coffee, according to the fashion which is almost national in Germany. There was nothing particularly attractive in the situation of this mill. It is on the Mannheim, the flat and unromantic side of Heidelberg. The river turns the mill wheel with a plenteous gushing sound. The outbuildings and the dwelling house of the miller form a well kept dusty quadrangle. Again, further from the river there is a garden full of willows and arborers and flower beds, not well kept, but very profuse in flowers and luxuriant creepers nodding and looping the arbors together. In each of these arbors is a stationary table of white painted wood and light movable chairs of the same color and material. I went to drink coffee there with some friends in eighteen forty six. The stately old miller came out to greet us, as some of the party were known to him of old. He was of a grand build of a man, and his loud, musical voice, with its tone friendly and familiar, was a rolling laugh of welcome. Went well with the keen bright eye, the fine cloth of his coat, and the general look of substance about the place. Poultry of all kinds abounded in the mill yard, where there were ample means of livelihood for them strewed on the ground. But not content with this, the miller took out handfuls of corn from the sacks and threw liberally to the cocks and hens that ran almost under his feet in their eagerness. And all the time he was doing this, as it were habitually, he was talking to us, and ever and anon calling to his daughters and the servant maids to bid them hasten the coffee we had ordered. He followed us to an arbor and saw us served to his satisfaction with the best of everything we could ask for. And then left us to go round to the different arborers and see that each party was properly attended to. And as he went, this great, prosperous, happy looking man whistled softly, one of the most plaintive airs I ever heard. His family have held this mill ever since the old Palatinate days, or rather, I should say, have possessed the ground ever since then, for two successive mills of theirs have been burnt down by the French. If you want to see Shea in a passion, just talk to him of the possibility of a French invasion. But at this moment, still whistling that mournful air, we saw the miller going down the steps that led from the somewhat raised garden into the mill yard. And so I seemed to have lost my chance of putting him in a passion. We had nearly finished our coffee and cutchen, and our cinnamon cake when heavy splashes fell on our thick leafy covering. Quicker and quicker they came, coming through the tender leaves as if they were tearing them asunder. All the people in the garden were hurrying under shelter, or seeking for their carriages standing outside. Up the steps the miller came hastening with a crimson umbrella fit to cover everyone left in the garden, and followed by his daughter and one or two maidens, each bearing an umbrella. Come into the house. Come in, I say. It is a summer storm and will flood the place for an hour or two till the river carries it away. Here, here And we followed him back into his own house. We went into the kitchen first. Oh such an array of bright copper and tin vessels I never saw. And all the wooden things were as thoroughly scoured. The red tile floor was spotless when we went in, but in two minutes it was all over slop and dirt with the tread of many feet, for the kitchen was filled, and still the worthy miller kept bringing in more people under his great crimson umbrella. He even called the dogs in and made them lie down under the tables. His daughter said something to him in German, and he shook his head merrily at her. Everybody laughed. What did he say? I asked. She told him to bring the ducks in next, but indeed, if more people come, we shall be suffocated. What with the thundery weather and the stove and all these steaming clothes? I really think we must ask leave to pass on. Perhaps we might go in and see Frau Schira. My friend asked the daughter of the house for permission to go into an empty chamber and see her mother. It was granted, and we went into a sort of saloon overlooking the Neckar. Very small, very bright, and very close. The floor was slippery with polish, long narrow pieces of looking glass against the walls reflected the perpetual motion of the river opposite. A white porcelain stove, with some old fashioned ornaments of brass about it, a sofa, covered with utrech velvet, a table before it, and a piece of worceted worked carpet under it, a vase of artificial flowers, and lastly an alcove with a bed in it, on which lay the paralyzed wife of the good miller, knitting busily formed the furniture. I spoke as if this was all that was to be seen in the room, but sitting quietly while my friend kept up a brisk conversation in a language which I but half understood. My eye was caught by a picture at a dark corner of the room. And I got up to examine it more nearly. It was that of a young girl of extreme beauty, evidently of middle rank. There was a sensitive refinement in her face, as if she almost shrank from the gaze which, of necessity, the painter must have fixed upon her. It was not over well painted, but I felt that it must have been a good likeness from this strong impress of peculiar character, which I have tried to describe. From the dress I should guess it had to have been patent in the later half of the last century. And I afterwards heard that I was right. There was a little pause in the conversation. Will you ask Frau Scherder who this is? My friend repeated my question and received a long reply in German. Then she turned around and translated it to me. It is the likeness of a great aunt of her husband's. My friend was standing by me and looking at the picture with sympathetic curiosity. See? Here is the name on the open page of this Bible Anna Scherer 1778. Frau Scherer says there is a tradition in the family that this pretty girl, with her complexion of lilies and roses, lost her colour so entirely through fright that she was known by the name of the Grey Woman. She speaks as if this Anna Schera lived in some state of lifelong terror. But she does not know details, refers me to her husband for them. She thinks he has some papers which were written by the original of that picture for her daughter, who died in this very house not long after our friend there was Mary. We can ask Air Scherer for the whole story if you like. Oh yes, pray do, said I. And as our host came in at that moment to ask how we were faring, and to tell us that he had sent to Heidelberg for carriages to convey us home, seeing no chance of the heavy rain abating, my friend, after thanking him, passed on to my request. Ah, said he, his face changing. The Aunt Anna had a sad history. It was all owing to one of those hellish Frenchmen and her daughter suffered for it. The cousin Ursula, as we all called her when I was a child. To be sure, the good cousin Ursula was his child as well. The sins of the fathers are visited on their children. The lady would like to know all about it, would she? Well, there are papers, a kind of apology the Aunt Anna wrote for putting an end to her daughter's engagement, or rather facts which she revealed that prevented cousin Ursula from marrying the man she loved. And so she would never have any other good fellow. Else I have heard say my father would have been thankful to have made her his wife. All this time he was rummaging in the drawer of an old fashioned bureau, and now he turned around with a bundle of yellow MSS in his hand, which he gave to my friend, saying, Take it home, take it home, and if you care to make out our crap German writing, you may keep it as long as you like and read it at your leisure. Only I must have it back again when you have done with it, that's all. And so we became possessed of the manuscript of the following letter, which it was our employment, during many a long evening that ensuing winter, to translate and in some parts to abbreviate. The letter began with some reference to the pain which she had already inflicted upon her daughter by some unexplained opposition to a project of marriage. But I doubt F, without the clue with which the good miller had furnished us, we could have made out even this much from the passionate broken sentences that made us fancy that some scene between the mother and daughter, and possibly a third person, had occurred just before the mother had begun to write. Thou dost not love thy child, mother? Thou dost not care if her heart is broken. Oh God! And these words of my heart beloved Ursula ring in my ears as if the sound of them would fill them when I lie a dying, and her poor, tear stained face comes between me and everything else. Child, hearts do not break. Life is very tough as well as very terrible. But I will not decide for thee. I will tell thee all, and thou shalt bear the burden of choice. I may be wrong. I have little wit left, and never had much, I think. But an instinct serves me in place of judgment, and that instinct tells me that thou and thy Henri must never be married. Yet I may be in error. I would fain make my child happy. Lay this paper before the good priest Shriesheim, if after reading it thou hast doubts which make thee uncertain. Only I will tell thee all now, on condition that no spoken word ever passes between us on the subject. It would kill me to be questioned. I should have to see all present again. My father held, as thou knowest, the mill on Neckar, where thy newfound uncle Shira, now lives. Thou rememberest the surprise with which we were received there last vintage twelve month? How thy uncle disbelieved me when I said that I was his sister Anna, whom he had long believed to be dead, and how I had to leave thee underneath the picture painted of me long ago and point out feature by feature the likeness between it and thee. And how, as I spoke, I recalled first to my own mind and then by speech to his, the details of the time when it was painted. The merry words had passed between us then, a happy boy and girl. The position of the articles of furniture in the room, our father's habits, the cherry tree now cut down, the shaded the window of my bedroom, though which my brother was wont to squeeze himself in order to spring on the topmost bow that would bear his weight, and thence would pass me back his cap laddened with fruit to where I sat on the windowsill, too sick with fright for him to care much for eating the cherries. And at length Fritz gave way and believed me to be his sister Anna, even as though I were risen from the dead. And thou rememberest how he fetched in his wife and told her that I was not dead, but who has come back to the old home once more changed as I was. And she would scarce believe him and scanned me with a cold, distrustful eye, till at length, for I knew her of old as Babette Mueller, I said that I was well to do, and needed not to seek out friends for what they had to give. And then she asked, not me but her husband, why I had kept silence so long, leading all, father, brother, everyone that loved me in my own dear home, to esteem me dead. And then thine uncle, thou rememberest, said he cared not to know more than I cared to tell, that I was his honour found again to be a blessing to him in his old age as I had been in his boyhood. I thanked him in my heart for his trust, for were the need for telling all less than it seems to me now, I could not speak of my past life. But she, who was my sister in law still, held back her welcome, and for want of that, I did not go to live in Heidelberg as I had planned before, in order to be near my brother Fritz, but contented myself with his promise to be a father to my Ursula when I should die and leave this weary world. That Babette's Mueller was, as I may say, the cause of all my life's suffering. She was a baker's daughter in Heidelberg, a great beauty, as people said, and indeed as I could see for myself. I too, thou sawest my picture, was reckoned a beauty, and I believe I was so. Babette's Mueller looked upon me as a rival. She liked to be admired and had no one much to love her. I had several people to love me. Thy grandfather, Fritz, the old servant Kotchin, Karl, and the head apprentice at the mill, and I feared admiration and notice, and the being stared at as they shone Millerin whenever I went to make my purchases in Heidelberg. Those were happy, peaceful days. I had Kotin to help me in the housework, and whatever we did pleased my brave old father, who was always gentle and indulgent towards us women, though he was stern enough with the apprentices in the mill. Carl, the oldest of these, was his favourite, and I can see now that my father wished him to marry me, and that Carl himself was desirous to do so. But Karl was rough spoken and passionate, not with me but with others, and I shrank from him in a way which I fear gave him pain. And then came thy uncle Fritz's marriage, and Babette was brought to the mill to be its mistress. Not that I cared much for giving up my post, for, in spite of my father's great kindness, I always feared that I did not manage well for a large family. With the men and the girl under Kachin, we sat down eleven each night to supper. But when Babette began to find fault with Kachin, I was unhappy at the blame that fell on faithful servants, and by and by I began to see that Babette was egging on Carl to make more open love to me, and as she once said, to get done with it, and take me off to a home of my own. My father was growing old and did not perceive all my daily discomfort. The more Carl advanced, the more I disliked him. He was good in the main, but I had no notion of being married and could not bear anyone who talked to me about it. Things were in this way when I had an invitation to go to Carlsro to visit a school fellow of whom I had been very fond. Babette was all for my going. I don't think I wanted to leave home. And yet I had been very fond of Sophie Rubrik, but I was always shy among strangers. Somehow the affair was settled for me, but not until both Fritz and my father had made inquiries as to the character and position of the Rubrics. They learned that the father had held some kind of inferior position about the Grand Duke's court and was now dead, leaving a widow, a noble lady, and two daughters, the elder of whom was Sophie My Friend. Madame Rubrik was not rich, but more than respectable gentile. When this was ascertained, my father made no opposition to my going. Babette forwarded it by all the means in her power, and even my dear Fritz had his word to say in its favour. Only Katchin was against it. Catchin and Carl. The opposition of Carl did more to send me to Carl's room than anything, for I could have objected to go, but when he took upon himself to ask what was the good of going on a gating visiting strangers of whom no one knew anything, I yelled it to circumstances, to the pulling of Sophie and the pushing of Babette. I was silently vexed. I remember, at Babette's inspection of my clothes, at the way in which she settled that this gown was too old fashioned or that too common to go with me on my Visit to a noble lady, and at the way in which she took upon herself to spend the money my father had given me to buy what was requisite for the occasion. And yet, I blamed myself, for everyone else thought her so kind for doing all this, and she herself meant kindly too. At last I quitted the mill by the necker side. It was a long day's journey, and Fritz went with me to Karl's room. The Ruprex lived on the third floor of a house a little behind one of the principal streets, in a cramped up court, to which we gave admittance through a doorway in the street. I remember how pinched their rooms looked after the large space we had at the mill, and yet they had an air of grandeur about them which was new to me, and which gave me pleasure, faded as some of it was. Madame Rupre was too formal of a lady for me. I was never at my ease with her. But Sophie was all that I had recollected her at school, kind, affectionate, and only rather too ready with her expressions of admiration and regard. The little sister kept out of her way, and that was all we needed. In the first enthusiastic renewal of our early friendship. The one great object of Madame Rupreck's life was to retain her position in society, and as her means were much diminished since her husband's death, there was not much comfort, though there was a great deal of show in their way of living, just the opposite of what it was at my father's house. I believe that my coming was not too much desired by Madame Rubrik, as I brought with me another mouth to be fed. But Sophie had spent a year or more in entreating for permission to invite me, and her mother, having once consented, was too well bred not to give me a stately welcome. The life in Carlsruhe was very different from what it was at home. The hours were later, the coffee was weaker in the morning, the pottage was weaker, the boiled beef less relieved by other diet, the dresses finer, the evening engagements constant. I did not find these visits pleasant. We might not knit, which would have relieved the tedium a little, but we sat in a circle, talking together, only interrupted occasionally by a gentleman, who, breaking out of the knot of men who stood near the door, talked eagerly together, stole across the room on tiptoe, his hat under his arm, and, bringing his feet together in the position we call the first at the dancing school, made a low bow to the lady he was going to address. The first time I saw these manners, I could not help smiley, but Madame Rupert saw me and spoke to me next morning rather severely, telling me that, of course, in my country breeding, I could have seen nothing of court manners or French fashions, but that was no reason for my laughing at them. Of course I tried never to smile again in company. This visit to Carl's room took place in eighty-nine, just when everyone was full of the events taking place at Paris, and yet Carlsroom French fashions were more talked of than French politics. Madame Rubrik especially thought a great deal of all French people, and this again was quite different to us at home. Fritz could hardly bear the name of a Frenchman, and it had nearly been an obstacle to my visit to Sophie that her mother preferred being called Madame to her proper title of Frau. One night I was sitting next to Sophie and longing for the time when we might have supper and go home, so as to be able to speak together a thing forbidden by Madame Rupert's rules of etiquette, which strictly prohibited any but the most necessary conversation passing between members of the same family when in society. I was sitting, I say, scarcely keeping back my inclination to yawn when two gentlemen came in, one of whom was evidently a stranger to the whole party, from the formal manner in which the host led him up, and presented him to the hostess. I thought I had never seen anyone so handsome or so elegant. His hair was powdered, of course, but one could see from his complexion that it was fair in its natural state. His features were as delicate as a girl's and set off by two little mouche, as we called patches in those days, one at the left corner of his mouth, the other prolonging as if it were the right eye. His dress was blue and silver. I was so lost in admiration of this beautiful young man that I was as much surprised as if the angel Gabriel had spoken to me when the lady of the house brought him forward to present him to me. She called him Monsieur de la Tourelle, and he began to speak to me in French, but though I understood him perfectly, I dare not trust myself to reply to him in that language. Then he tried in German, speaking it with a kind of soft lisp that I thought charming. But before the end of the evening, I became a little tired of the affected softness and effemency of his manners and the exaggerated compliments he paid me, which had the effect of making all the company turn around and look at me. Madame Rubric was, however, pleased with the precise time that displeased me. She liked either Sophie or me to create a sensation. Of course she would have preferred that it should have been her daughter, but her daughter's friend was the next best thing. As we went away, I heard Madame Rubric and Monsieur de la Tour reciprocating civil speeches with might and man, from which I found out that the French gentleman was coming to call on us the next day. I do not know whether I was more glad or frightened, for I had been kept upon stilts of good manners all evening. But still, I was flattered when Madame Rupreck spoke as if she had invited him, because he had shown pleasure in my society, and even more gratified by Sophie's ungrudging delight at the evident interest I had excited in so fine and agreeable a gentleman. Yet, with all this, they had hard work to keep me from running out of the salon the next day, when we heard his voice inquiring at the gate on the stairs of Madame Rubrik's. They had made me put on my Sunday gown, and they themselves were dressed as for a reception. When he was gone away, Madame Rubric congratulated me on the conquest I had made, for indeed he had scarcely spoken to anyone else beyond what mere civility required, and had almost invited himself to come in the evening to bring some new song, which was all the fashion in Paris, he said. Madame Ruprec had been out all morning, as she told me, to glean information about Monsieur de la Tourelle. He was a proprietaire, had a small chateau on the Voyages Mountains, he owned land there, but had a large income from some sources quite independent of his property. Altogether he was a good match, as she emphatically observed. She never seemed to think that I could refuse him after this account of his wealth, nor do I believe she would have allowed Sophie a choice, even had he been as old and ugly as he was young and handsome. I do not quite know. So many events have come to pass since then and blurred the clearness of my recollections. It was not large nor grand, but it was strong and picturesque. I used to wish that we lived in it rather than in the smart, half furnished apartment in new edifice, which had been hastily got ready for my reception. Incongruous as the two parts were, they were joined into a hole by means of intricate passages and unexpected doors, the exact positions of which I never fully understood. Monsieur de la Tourelle led me to a suite of rooms set apart for me, and formally installed me in them, as in a domain of which I was sovereign. He apologized for the hasty preparation which was all he had been able to make for me, but promised before I asked, or even thought of complaining, that they should be made as luxurious as heart could wish before many weeks had elapsed. But when, in the gloom of an ominous evening, I caught my own face and figure reflected in all the mirrors which showed only a mysterious background and the dim light of the many candles, which failed to illuminate the great proportions of the half furnished salon, I clung to Monsieur de la Tourelle and begged to be taken to the rooms he had occupied before his marriage. He seemed angry with me, although he affected to laugh, and so decidedly put aside the notion of my having any other rooms but these, that I trembled in silence at the fantastic figures and shapes which my imagination called upon as peopling the background of those gloomy mirrors. There was my boudoir, a little less dreary, my bedroom with its grand and tarnished furniture, which I calmly made into my sitting room, locking up the various doors which led into the boudoir, the salon, the passages, all but one, through which Monsieur de la Tourelle always entered from his own apartments in the older part of the castle. But this preference of mine for occupying my bedroom annoyed Monsieur de la Tourelle, I am sure, though he did not care to express his displeasure. He would always allure me back into the salon which I disliked more and more from its complete separation from the rest of the building, by the long passage into which all the doors of my apartment opened. This passage was closed by heavy doors and portiers, through which I could not hear a sound from the other parts of the house, and of course, the servants could not hear any movement or cry of mine unless expressly summoned. To a girl brought up as I had been in a household where every individual lived all day in the sight of every other member of the family, never wanted either chokeful words or the sense of silent companionship. This grand isolation of mine was very formidable, and the more so because Monsieur de la Tourelle, as landed proprietor, sportsman, and whatnot, was generally out of doors the greater part of every day, and sometimes for two or three days at a time. I had no pride to keep me from associating with the domestics. It would have been natural to me in many ways to have sought them out for word of sympathy in those dreary days when I was left so entirely myself. Had they been like our kindly German servants. But I disliked them. One and all, I could not tell why. Some were civil, but there was a familiarity in their civility which repelled me. Others were rude, and treated me more as if I were an intruder than their master's chosen wife. And yet, of the two sets, I liked these last the best. The principal male servant belonged to this latter class. I was very much afraid of him. He had such an air of suspicious surliness about him and all he did for me. And yet, Monsieur de la Toreux spoke of him as most valuable and faithful. Indeed, sometimes it struck me that Le Fre ruled his master in some things. In this I could not make out. For while Monsieur de la Toreux behaved towards me as if I were some precious toy or idol to be cherished and fostered and petted and indulged, I soon found out how little I, or apparently, anyone else, could bend the terrible will of the man who had, on first acquaintance, appeared to me too effeminate and languid to exert his will in the slightest particular. I had learnt to know his face better now, and to see that some venate depth of feeling, the cause of which I could not fathom, made his grey eye glitter with pale light, and his lips contract, and his delicate cheek whiten on certain occasions. But all had been so open and above bored at home that I had no experience to help me to unravel any mysteries among those who lived under the same roof. I understood that I had made what Madame Rupert and her set would have called a great marriage, because I lived in a chateau with many servants bound ostensibly to obey me as a mistress. I understood that Monsieur de la Tourelle was fond enough of me in his way, proud of my beauty, I dare say, for he often spoke about it to me. But he was also jealous and suspicious and uninfluenced by my wishes, unless they tallied with his own. I felt at this time as if I could have been fond of him too if he would have let me, but I was timid from my childhood, and before long my dread of his displeasure, coming down like thunder into the midst of his love, for such slight causes as a hesitation in reply, a wrong word or a sigh for my father, could not please him, when indeed I loved him. You may imagine how often I did wrong when I was so much afraid of him as to quietly avoid his company for fear of his outburst of passion. One thing I remember noticing that the more Monsieur de la Tourelle was displeased with me, the more Le Febvre seemed to chuckle, and when I was restored to favor, sometimes on as sudden an impulse as that which occasioned my disgrace, Le Fevre would look as at me with his cold, malicious eyes, and once or twice at such times he spoke most disrespectfully to Monsieur de la Tourelle. I have almost forgotten to say that. A Norman woman, Amante by name, was sent to Les Rocher by the Paris Milliner to become my maid. She was tall and handsome, though upwards of forty and somewhat gaunt, but on first seeing her I liked her. She was neither rude nor familiar in her manners, and had a pleasant look of straightforwardness about her that I had missed in all the inhabitants of the chateau, and had foolishly set down in my own mind as a national want. Amante was directed by Monsieur de la Torelle to sit in my boudoir and to be always within call. He always gave her many instructions as to her duties in matters which perhaps strictly belonged to my department of management. But I was young and inexperienced, and thankfully to be spared any responsibility. I dare say it was true what Monsieur de la Tourelle said, before many weeks had passed that for a great lady, a lady of a castle, I became sadly too familiar with my Norman waiting maid. But you know that by birth we were not very far apart in rank. Amante was the daughter of a Norman farmer, I of a German miller, and besides that my life was so lonely. It almost seemed as if I could not please my husband. He had written for someone capable of being my companion at times, and now he was jealous of my free regard for her, angry because I could sometimes laugh at her original tunes and amusing proverbs, while when with him I was too much frightened to smile. From time to time, families from a distance of some leagues strove through the bad roads to their heavy carriages to pay us a visit, and there was an occasional talk of our going to Paris when public affairs should be a little more settled. These little events and plans were the only variations in my life for the first twelve months. If I accept the alternations in Monsieur de la Tourelle's temper, his unreasonable anger, and his passionate calmness. Perhaps one of the reasons that made me take pleasure and comfort in Amante's society was that whereas I was afraid of everyone, I do not think I was half as much afraid of things as of persons. Amante feared no one. She would quietly beard LaFebre, and he respected her all the more for it. She had a knack of putting questions to Monsieur de la Tour, which respectfully informed him that she had detected the weak point, but forbore to impress him too closely upon it out of deference to his position as her master, and with all her shrewdness to other, she had quite tender ways with me, all the more so at this time because she knew what I had not yet ventured to tell Monsieur de la Tourell, that by and by I might become a mother that wonderful object of mysterious interest to single women who no longer hope to enjoy such blessedness themselves. It was once more autumn, late in October, but I was reconciled to my habitation. The walls of the new part of the building no longer looked bare and desolate. The debris had been so far cleared away by Monsieur de la Tourelle's desire as to make me a little flower garden, in which I tried to cultivate those plants that I remembered as growing at home. Amontyana had moved the furniture in the rooms and adjusted it to our liking. My husband had ordered many an article from time to time that he thought would give me pleasure, and I was becoming tame to my parent imprisonment in a certain part of the great building, the whole of which I had never yet explored. It was October, as I say, once more. The days were lovely, though short in duration, and Monsieur de Matorelle had a occasion, so he said, to go to that distant estate, the superintendents of which so frequently took him away from home. He took Le Febre with him and possibly some more of the lackeys. He often did, and my spirits rose a little at the thought of his absence, and then the new sensation that he was the father of my unborn babe came over me, and I tried to invest him with this fresh character. I tried to believe that it was his passionate love for me that made him so jealous and tyrannical, imposing, as he did, restrictions on my very intercourse with my dear father, from whom I was so entirely separated, as far as personal intercourse was concerned. I had, it is true, let myself go into a sorrowful review of all the troubles which lay hidden beneath the seeming luxury of my life. I knew that no one cared for me except my husband and Amante, for it was clear enough to see that I, as his wife, and also uh Pauvenu, was not popular among the few neighbors who surrounded us. And as for the servants, the women were all hard and pudent looking, treating me with a semblance of respect that had more of mockery than reality in it, while the men had a lurking kind of fierceness about them, sometimes displayed even to Monsieur de la Toelle, who on his part, it must be confessed, was often severe to cr even to cruelty in his management of them. My husband loved me, I said to myself, but I said it almost in the form of a question. His love was shown fitfully and more in ways calculated to please himself than to please me. I felt that for no wish of mine would he deviate one tittle from any predetermined course of action. I had learnt the inflexibility of those thin, delicate lips. I knew how anger would turn his fair complexion to deadly white and bring the cruel light into his pale blue eyes. The love I bore to anyone seemed to be a reason for his hating them, and so I went on pitying myself one long dreary afternoon during the absence of his, of which I have spoken, only sometimes remembering to check myself in my murmurings by thinking of the new unseen link between us. And then crying afresh to think how wicked I was. Ugh how well I remember that long October evening. Amante came in from time to time, talking away to cheer me, talking about dress and Paris, and I hardly know what, but from time to time looking at me keenly with her friendly dark eyes, and with serious interest too, though all her words were about frivolty. At length, she heaped the fire with wood, drew the heavy silken curtains close, for I had been anxious hitherto to keep them open, so that I might see the pale moon mounting the skies as I used to see her, the same moon rise from behind the Kaiser stool at Heidelberg. But the sight made me cry, so Monty shot it out. She dictated to me as a nurse does to a child. Now Madame must have the little kitten to keep her company, she said, while I go and ask Martin for a cup of coffee. I remember that speech and the way it roused me, for I did not like Amonty to think I wanted amusing my kitten. It might be my petulance, but this speech, such as she might have made to a child, annoyed me, and I said that I had reason for my loneliness of spirits, meaning that they were not of so imaginary a nature that I could be diverted from them by the gambles of a kitten. So, though I did not choose to tell her all, I told her part, and as I spoke, I began to suspect that the good creature knew much of what I withheld, and that the little speech about the Kinton was more thoughtfully kind than it had seemed at first. I said that it was so long since I had heard from my father, that he was an old man and so many things might happen. I might never see him again. And I so seldom heard from him or my brother. It was a more complete and total separation than I had ever anticipated when I married, and something of my home and of my life previous to my marriage I told the good Amonte, for I had not been brought up as a great lady, and the sympathy of any human being was precious to me. Amonte listened with great interest, and in return told me some of the events and sorrows of her own life. Then, remembering her purpose, she set out in search of the coffee which ought to have been brought to me an hour before, but in my husband's absence, my wishes were but seldom attended to. And I never dared to give orders. Presently she returned, bringing the coffee and a great large cake. See? said she, sitting it down, look at my plunder. Madame must eat. Those who eat always laugh, and besides, I have a little news that will please Madame. Then she told me that, lying on a table in the great kitchen was a bundle of letters come by the courier from Strasbourg that very afternoon. Then, fresh from her conversation with me, she had hastily untied the string that bound them, but had only just traced out one that she thought was from Germany when a servant man came in and, with the start he gave her, she dropped the letters, which he picked up, swearing at her for having untied and disarranged them. She told him that she believed there was a letter there for her mistress, but he only swore the more, saying that if there was, it was no business of hers or of his either, for that he had the strictest orders always to take all letters that arrived during his master's absence into the private sitting room of the latter, a room into which I had never entered, although it opened out of my husband's dressing room. I asked Amati if she had not conquered and brought me this letter. No, indeed, she replied. It was almost as much as her life was worth to live among such a set of servants. It was only a month ago that Jacques had stabbed Ballantin for some jesting talk. Had I never missed Ballantin, that handsome young lad who carried up the wood into my salon? Oh, poor fellow. He lies dead and cold now, and they said in the village he had put an end to himself, but those of the household knew better. Oh I need not be afraid. Jacques was gone, no one knew where, but with such people it was not safe to upbraid ordinance. Monseul would be home the next day, and it would not be long to wait. But I felt as if I could not exist till the next day without that letter. It might be to say that my father was ill, dying. He might cry for his daughter from his deathbed. In short, there was no end to the thoughts and fancies that haunted me. It was of no use for Monty to say that after all she might be mistaken, that she did not read writing well, that she had but a glimpse of the address. I let my coffee cool, my food all became distasteful, and I wrung my hands with impatience to get at the letter and have some news of my dear ones at home. All the time Amanti kept her imperturbable good temper, first reasoning, then scolding. At last she said, as if wearied out, that if I would consent to make a good supper, she would see what could be done as to our going to Monsieur's room in search of the letter after the servants were all gone to bed. We agreed to go together when all was still and look over the letters. There could be no harm in that. And yet somehow we were such cowards we dared not do it openly and in the face of the household. Presently my supper came up partridges, bread, fruits, and cream. How well I remember that supper. We put the untouched cake away in a sort of buffet and poured the cold coffee out the window in order that the servants might not take offense at the apparent fancifulness of sending down for food I could not eat. I was so anxious for all to be in bed that I told the footman who served that he need not wait to take away the plates and dishes, but might go to bed.

SPEAKER_00 53:14

Long after I thought the house was quiet, Amonty and her caution made me wait.

SPEAKER_01 53:20

Join me next week for part two, where we learn of Anna and Amonte's fates. I hope you enjoyed this story and do come back for another Gothic tale.