The strange transfiguration of Hannah Stubbs
Hannah lay back in her chair, lazily, and fixed her large, full eyes
upon him.
“Why not?” she demanded.
“For a dozen reasons! Principally, because your husband so decidedly
set his face against it, and then because I--I, who am your greatest
and truest friend, Hannah, think it is beneath you, and degrades you.”
“But I must live!” persisted the woman.
“Are there not other ways? If your money will not suffice to keep you
comfortably for a year or two----”
“And what after that?” she exclaimed.
The Baron hesitated. Should he make the fatal plunge?
“My purse is always open to you, Hannah,” he faltered.
“I have already told you, Baron, that I cannot consent to be a
pensioner upon your charity,” she replied. “You speak of what the
world will say! The world would talk a great deal more of your paying
my bills, than it would of my giving séances to keep myself! It can
never be! That is decided!”
“Then give me the right to empty the contents of my purse at your
feet, Hannah,” cried Von Steinberg, losing control of himself. “Come
to me as my wife, and the mistress of all I possess! Marry me--be the
Baronne von Steinberg, and let us pass the rest of our lives
together.”
“I could not give up my title of Marchesa for that of Baronne,”
remarked Hannah, coolly.
“You may call yourself what you choose, so long as you will be my
wife!” repeated the Baron. “Hannah! I have longed to ask you this ever
since you were free. Crown my happiness by giving me your promise
now!”
“It is too soon to think of such a thing,” argued Hannah--“only three
months after my husband’s death!”
But her reluctance only urged him on to fresh entreaties. Perhaps she
was clever enough to know it would!
“What does that signify?” he said, “what is Time to dear Ricardo now,
and whose opinion do we care for, but his? He is happy, I am sure, and
would wish to see you happy, and well provided for, too. Come! Hannah,
do not let any absurd scruples stand in the way of my proposal. No one
need even know when the ceremony takes place. We are both almost
strangers in London!
“Who is to be the wiser what we do, or leave undone! Let me marry you
quietly some morning, as poor Ricardo did, and carry you off at once
to the Continent. There, we can stay a month, or a year, as pleases us
best, and when we return, I will instal you as mistress of my house in
Portland Place, and all I have. Come! is it a bargain?”
As Von Steinberg mentioned his property, Hannah’s eyes glistened with
pleasurable anticipation. _This_ was what she had been working
for--what she had known she would gain at the last. She turned her
voluptuous orbs upon him, and languidly held out her large hand.
The Baron seized it and kissed it with rapture. It would have
signified nothing to him at that moment, had it been twice as large.
The woman had magnetised his every sense, and he was a tool in her
hands.
“And when shall it be, Hannah?” he asked, as soon as he had recovered
his powers of speech. “To-day?--to-morrow?--it cannot be too soon.”
“Not for you, perhaps,” she replied, with all the airs of a grand
lady, “but you forget, Baron, that I cannot start on a wedding-tour,
in a black dress and a widow’s bonnet! You must be good enough to draw
my small principal from the bank for me, and allow me a few weeks in
which to spend it, so that I may be able to appear as your wife should
do!”
“A few weeks!” exclaimed Von Steinberg, with really comical dismay, “I
will send you the money this afternoon, and surely a few days should
see you fully equipped. You need not wait to have things made in
London. Get just what may be necessary for the moment, and buy your
wardrobe in Paris!”
“In Paris!” exclaimed Hannah, “will you really take me to Paris?”
“Certainly! and to stay there if you desire it! There is no place on
earth to which I would not take you, Hannah, if you told me to do so,
but I think a residence in Paris will suit us both entirely.”
He lavished kisses on her flat, good-humoured face, and Hannah
returned them in kind, for a passionate temperament was not the least
of her virtues.
Before they parted that morning, it was decided that the marriage
should take place privately in a fortnight’s time, and that they were
to leave England the same day for the Continent. Hannah promised she
would give no more public séances, and really looked quite handsome
under the prospect of renewed happiness--not to say the acquisition of
the house in Portland Place, and all its treasures, to which her eyes
had so longingly turned.
Once more by himself at home, Karl von Steinberg had leisure to wonder
if his action of the morning had been wise. Hannah had not proved, in
all things, quite amenable to the discipline of his old friend, but
then Ricardo _was_ old--he told himself--and May and December never
did hit it off well together yet. He was far more suitable in age to
Hannah, and would prove a livelier companion.
It was astonishing to remember how young she was--only nineteen--and
yet so worldly-wise in some things, and in others so quick and
cunning! She had wonderfully developed since her marriage--no one
would know her for the same girl--she doubtless possessed vast
capabilities, which travel and his society would tend to unfold. The
Baron quite anticipated bringing back an accomplished lady from the
Continent.
And he was not far wrong! Hannah _had_ developed powers of observation
and attainment, which bid fair to let her stop at nothing short of
excellence. Each time the Baron met her, face to face, the half-formed
doubts which he held, as to the wisdom of the marriage, faded away,
and left him with but one certainty--that he could not live without
her. The plans they had formed, then, were faithfully carried out, and
within a fortnight, the same Registrar who had married her to Signor
Ricardo, transformed Hannah Stubbs into the Baronne von
Steinberg--though (as she had previously informed her husband) she
always intended to retain her old title of Marchesa di Sorrento.
Are the raptures which we anticipate in marriage, or any other
exploit, ever realised to their full extent? As a rule, surely not,
and Von Steinberg was no exception. Hannah remained the same after
marriage as she had been before, but the novelty of possession soon
wore off, and when that occurred, Von Steinberg of all men, with his
cool, calculating German temperament, was the most likely to see the
spots upon the sun.
However, they established themselves in Paris, and a few months of the
gay city did wonders for his wife in the way of polish and manners.
Naturally quick and cunning, and with a remarkable facility for the
acquisition of languages, the Marchesa soon lost most of her
vulgarisms and became quite _au fait_ with great people and their
ways.
The English who met her abroad, put all her eccentricities down to the
fact that she was an Italian Marchesa, and the Parisians ascribed them
to the misfortune of her having been born a Briton. But Hannah made
the most of her opportunities. She went out whenever she was invited,
mixing freely with foreigners, as well as her own countrymen, and in
consequence, gathering knowledge and information wherever they were to
be found.
By this means, when, after a year’s residence abroad, Baron von
Steinberg brought his wife back to England, if not still in love with
her, he had ceased to be ashamed of her. But the same perplexity which
had puzzled him in Ricardo’s time, still stirred in his brain. _What_
was it in Hannah that attracted him, spite of himself? Sometimes he
felt ready to lay down his life for her--at others, he regarded her
with disfavour, almost with repugnance!
But as the mistress of his house--the dispenser of his
hospitality--she was perfect. She had a courteous and gracious manner,
which she extended equally to peer and peasant, and which made
strangers, who had never seen another side to her character, consider
her the most charming hostess under the sun. Whilst when at other
moments she spoke her mind freely--far too freely--concerning people
and their actions, her visitors still ascribed it to her genuineness
and total disregard of what the world might say, or think.
What astonished Von Steinberg more than anything else, was the
complacency with which she accepted the fact of his wealth, and the
nonchalance with which she treated his pictures, and statues, and
hot-house flowers. She took everything that he gave her, as if she had
been used to it all her life--she accepted it from him graciously, but
she was not overwhelmed with gratitude for his generosity. He would
not have had her betray her lowly birth and breeding, by expressing
ignorance of such luxuries, but it amazed him, all the same.
He thought his wife had everything she could have expected, and a
great deal more than she had any right to demand, but yet Hannah was
not satisfied. As soon as they were settled in town, they commenced to
give a series of magnificent parties, and their rooms were crowded
with sycophantic guests, mostly of the middle class--the sort of
people who will go anywhere--to whom a party means a dance, or a
supper, and who care nothing who gives it, so long as it is given.
His visitors satisfied the Baron, but the Marchesa had higher
views--she aspired to see the aristocracy sitting round her
dinner-table, and quoting her hospitality as the freest in London--her
cook as the best to be got anywhere. It was all very well, she
thought, to be entertaining Colonel and Mrs. Langley, or Mr. and Mrs.
Belleville, but what use were they to her in return?
She wanted Dukes and Duchesses and Earls and Countesses at her
receptions, and to make them not only come, but _ask_ to come. She
racked her clever brain over this many a time and oft, without letting
her husband into the secret, and one day the opportunity came to her.
She was receiving a number of ladies at afternoon tea, when the
conversation suddenly turned on Spiritualism.
The Marchesa, who was leaning back on a settee, arrayed in a tea-gown
of maize coloured satin, trimmed with costly lace, affected to know
nothing of the matter.
“What is it?” she inquired, languidly, “nothing wicked, I hope, Mrs.
Mostyn.”
“O! dear me, no! Marchesa, how could you imagine such a thing?”
replied her guest. “It is only a game, you know! Sitting round a table
and making it spin and answer questions, and all such nonsense!”
“It is a great deal more than that,” interposed an unmarried lady,
named Selwyn, “it is a very serious thing! Spiritualism is raising the
spirits of the Dead, and our clergyman, Mr. Tennant, says it is
sorcery, and condemned by Scripture. My mamma will not hear of my
having anything to do with it, which has been a great disappointment
to me, for the Countess of Loreley----”
“Well! if you are interested in the pursuit, I am sure there can be no
need to wait for your mamma’s permission,” interrupted Mrs. Mostyn,
rudely, “you are surely old enough to judge for yourself. I do think
it is so ridiculous of mothers, trying to keep their grown-up
daughters in leading strings. Why! I had a couple of children before I
was your age!”
“You were speaking of the Countess of Loreley,” said the Marchesa,
with the apparent view of changing the conversation, “does her
Ladyship take an interest in the subject?”
“O! yes, she is quite wild about it,” replied Miss Selwyn, who was
looking red and confused from Mrs. Mostyn’s attack; “and mamma has
prevented my going there as often as usual, in consequence. Lady
Loreley is my godmother, you know, and I used to be always at her
house, but now----”
“Has Mrs. Selwyn compelled you to give up the Countess’s
acquaintance?” asked Hannah, indifferently.
“O! no, but I do not see her so often, and never when there is to be a