Fabiola : or, The church of the catacombs - Digital Repository Services

as if it had never been, except as to the traces it left in the hearts
and secret thoughts of each of the de Vedelles.
DenUe coming amongst them was a little like the effect produced
in the drawing-room of that house when M. Lcscalle had
thrown open its windows, and let in air and sunshine.
The old Count had always wished for a daughter. He was
to use a French word very impressionable, and though reserved
and stern himself, gaiety had an irresistible charm for him.
His wife had been the comfort of his life. She had taken away,
as far as in her lay, every stone out of his path, smoothed his
mental pillow from morning to night, studied every turn of his
countenance, and reflected, in a softened and gentle form, the
shades which had saddened his existence. As to his sons of
Jacques he was both proud and fond, but there had never been
any intimacy between them, and he had become so early a com-
plete man of the world, and took even at nineteen or twenty
such a matter-of-fact view of men and things, that, in spite of
his handsome face and lively manners, there was nothing really
young about him, and by the time he was twenty-eight, his father
often felt himself, in some respects, the more youthful of
the two. He looked up to Jacques for advice :n worldly mat-
ters, and leaned upon him in all that had to do with the practi-
cal side of life.
George, as we have already said, was several years younger
than his brother. The Count and his wife had always longed to
have a second child, and though they would have liked better to
have had a girl, his birth gave them great delight. As a nttle
child, he had been delicate in health, and his mother, in conse-
quence, had spoiled him, which made his father send him to
school very early. He got on there extremely well and made
great progress in his studies. When he was about twelve years
old, Madame de Vedelles' father died in the island of Cuba, and
it became necessary for her and her husband to go and look after
the property which she inherited. They were to have been
abseitf for fifteen months, but a law-suit with the Spanish government
detained them there five years. During all that time,
the letters they received from France spoke of George's success
at his college examinations, and the prizes he won on every
occasion.
His masters always spoke of his excellent abilities and won-
derful facility in learning. His parents were joyfully anticipa-
ting that at the time of their return, after those long five years
of absence, he would be preparing for his examination at the
polytechnic school, and that they would arrive in time to enjoy the
brilliant success with which he was sure to pass it. But just as
they landed at Brest, in all the happy confidence that such would
be the case, they found a letter, which informed them that
George, exhausted by mental anxiety, superadded to the strain
of the last few months' intense study, had been seized with a
brain fever, and was lying between life and death, the delicate
organization he had inherited from his mother had given way
under this fierce pressure.
The unhappy parents rushed into a post-chaise, and in forty
hours were sitting by the bedside of their dying and unconcious
son. For many days the case seemed'utteny hopeless, and the
eminent physicians who attended him said his recovery would
be little short of a miracle. However unexpectedly, he did rerecover;
but remained in a state of prostration, both of body and
mind, so weak, that for months he could hardly stand or walk a
step, and sunk into such apathy that nothing could rouse or interest
him. The doctors predicted that his convalescence would be slow,
but that all would be right in time; what he required, they said,
was absolute rest and country air.
M. de Vedelles settled at his own place, Valsec, in Lorraine,
and with aching hearts the afflicted parents brought home tho
pale, languid, listless youth, for whom they hnd anticipated
such a brilliant career. By very slow degrees, the bracing air,
sitting out in the garden, and then ridinj, improved George's
health, and his -physical strength gradually returned; but thn
moral apathy remained tlie same. !!< was either incapable of
the slightest mental exert in I, and it hecams
very difficult to r.ny whether the- condition of hi:
777 A' DAUGHTER. 15
really precluded work of any kind or whether a morbid di
agement had taken possession of him. lie complained u
quent headache, was sensitively susceptible of tlie chan
the weather, irritably impatient of noise, wayward hi temper,
and inert in mood.
He had been spoilt as a child, and spoilt at school, by tin
feet facility with which he had carried everything before him,
and mastered, without effort, what to others were dill'n
His mother watched him with anxious affection, but she had i;o
discernment of character, and never saw what was n*
His father at first kept observing every turn of his cot
listened to each word he uttered, and devoted himself to 1,1m
with a restless solicitude. But when nearly three, years had
elapsed and no change took place, he could hardly restrain the
irritability and annoyance he felt at (1< -urge's pni'num-ed apathy
and entire idleness, especially when his bodily health returned
and he was able to ride for hours, and take long walks all over
the country with or without a gun on his shoulder.
There was no doubt that George was by nature indolent, ab-
sent, and careless about many things. These dcii
course increased to an extraordinary degree since his i
What had been looked upon as mere originality in the bright and
clever boy of twelve, became intolerable in his father's >
the lazy, incapable, and in moments of bitterness the Count in-
ternally added, the half-witted youth, whom he was iishair
and whose actual condition so painfully contrasted with the
bright promise of his childhood.
The more irritable his father became, the more plainly he
showed a sort of aversion to him, the more George's silence, reserve,
and apparent indifference to everything increased. Nothing
provoked the Count so much as to see him sitting for hours
gazing on the sea, or at the clouds, or in the evening at the stars,
or if there was a fire in the room at the blazing faggots and the
sparks they emitted.
He had a habit of scribbling on fragments of paper, and then
tearing them up and throwing them away, which provoked M.
de Vedelles, but he seldom took the trouble of writing a letter.
"It made his head ache," he said. Had his father been more
kind, or his mother been cleverer, or had his brother in tli
understood his character, this state of things could not have ex-
isted: but as it was, there seemed little hope of a change.
The domestic life of the family had thus settled into a groove
which was fatal to the happiness of its members. Jacques' principal
wish, in spite of his real affection for his mother, was to
get away: for the others the future seemed sad enough.
It was therefore singularly refreshing to all when anew element
was introduced into that home circle by Mdllc. de la Pi-
nede's presence. The Count wns charmed with his young
How could it havebeen otherwise? He saw her skilful care,
her watchful nursing, her sweet serenity, working a rapid improvement
in his wife. She was soon pronounced out of d
and, as far as her health was concerned, quickly 1
valescent. Her only anxiety seemed lest she should get well too
soon.
It was touching to see the little artifices she had recourse to in
order to keep up the idea that her life depended on Denise's care.
How they all leant upon this young girl, and what a strange in-
fluence she soon possessed
over that father and those two <
different from one another, yet each of them fcc'ing
that there
wns something in her nobler, purer, and higher than they l:;;.l
ever before known! And with all that superiority of character
and mind, she was so simple, so innocently guy, so femi-
ninely attractive.
The Count had never met with a woman at all like Penise de
la Pincde. He had known bad and good women, charming and
disagreeable women, clever women and silly women, free-think-
ing women and pious women; but never one who united so
much enthusiasm with so much practie;
bold and fearless in defence of all she believed and honored and
loved, so uncompromising and yet so fair-minded, so j>
at of difference of opinion in others, whilst so firm in lier
own convictions. He found pleasure in drawing her out. lie