The Ponsonby Diamonds | Page 3

with Lady Erstfield, and asked her to deliver it to Miss Temple as soon as ever she arrived. I then went to bid Lady Violet good-bye.
She looked even more wan and exhausted than when I had seen her in the morning. I thought it well to let her know about Miss Temple's arrival.
"She is a thoroughly nice girl," I said. "She will nurse you when you want to be nursed, and amuse you when you wish to be amused, and let you alone when you want quiet, and you will find her so fresh and bright and entertaining that you will soon, I am persuaded, be unable to do without her. Good-bye, now--I hope you will soon be much better, both for your mother's sake and your own."
Lady Violet raised her brows.
"Is mother unhappy about me?" she asked.
"She loves you," I replied, steadily, "and is getting quite worn out with anxiety about you. I wish her mind to be relieved as soon as possible, and I think it is your duty to do what you can towards this end."
"What can you mean?" asked Lady Violet.
"In your mother's presence," I answered, "you ought to endeavour as much as possible to overcome the melancholy which has taken such possession of you. Seem to be gay, even when you don't feel it. Try to appear well, even when you don't think you are. When you are alone with Miss Temple, you can do, of course, exactly as you please. But when with your father and mother, you ought to make a strenuous effort to overcome the morbid feelings, which are due entirely to the nervous weakness from which you are suffering."
Lady Violet looked at me intently.
"I love my father and mother," she exclaimed. "I would not willingly hurt the feelings of either. But, oh! how little you know what I suffer when you speak of my suppressing my trouble and terrible depression. Am I not always--always suppressing my fears? Oh, how hateful life is to me--how distasteful, how hollow. I should like to die beyond anything, and yet I am such a coward that the near approach of death would terrify me. Why was I born to be so miserable?"
"You were born to be happy," I answered, "or, at least, to be useful and contented. Your fear of death is perfectly natural, and I hope it will be many a long day before you are called upon to resign so precious a possession as life.
Remember, you have only one life--use it well--you will have to account for it some day; and now, good-bye."
I returned to London, and in about a week's time I received a letter from Miss Temple. It satisfied me thoroughly. Lady Violet was better. She went out for a little daily. She read to herself, and allowed Miss Temple to read to her. She was interested in a fancy fair which was to be held in the neighbourhood, and was helping Miss Temple to work for it. The nurse had also discovered that her patient had a love, almost a passion, for music. Miss Temple was an accomplished pianist before she took up her present profession, and she and Lady Violet spent a considerable portion of each day over the piano.
In short, Miss Temple was doing all that I expected her to do for the young girl whose life was so valuable. Lady Violet was undoubtedly already acquiring that outward view which means health both of mind and body.
Miss Temple's first letter was followed in the course of time by another, which was even more hopeful than the first. Lady Violet was devotedly attached to her, and could scarcely bear her out of her presence. The girls rode together, walked together, sketched and played together. The colour of health was coming back to Lady Violet's pale cheeks; she would soon, in Miss Temple's opinion, be restored to perfect health.
Lady Erstfield also wrote to me about this time, and spoke in rapture of the companion whom I had secured for her daughter.
"I cannot tell you what Beryl Temple is to us," she said; "we owe Violet's recovery to her wonderful tact, her sympathy, her genius. She is like no girl I ever met before--she fascinates and subjugates us all--we do not want ever to part with her--as to Violet, it would almost kill her, I think, were Beryl Temple now to leave us."
About a month after receiving these two letters I was astonished and much pleased to see an announcement in the Morning Post to the effect that a matrimonial alliance was arranged between Lady Violet Dalrymple, only daughter of the Earl and Countess of Erstfield, and Captain Geoffrey Ponsonby, of the Coldstream Guards, and that the marriage was likely to take place in December.
On reading this short paragraph I turned