Eight years have passed, and Clara Stanley is still unmarried; yet she is happy and contented, for she is once more amid the scenes of her childhood; once more the centre of a domestic circle, who vie with each other who can love her best. Two years after she heard of Granville Dudley’s marriage, finding a London life less and less suited to her tastes, and not conceiving any actual duty bound her to reside with her uncle’s family, she resolved on making her home with an intimate friend of her mother’s, who was associated with all the happy memories of her own childhood and youth. Reduced circumstances had lately compelled Mrs. Langley to take pupils; a fact which had instantly determined Clara’s plans. She was the more desirous for retirement and domestic ties, from the very notoriety which the constant success of her literary efforts had flung around her. She did not disdain or undervalue fame; but all of expressed admiration, all public homage, was so very much more pain than pleasure, that she shrunk from it; longing yet more for some kindly heart on which to rest her own. Let us not be mistaken: it was not for love, in the world’s adaptation of the word, she needed; it was a parent’s fostering care—a brother’s supporting friendship—a sister’s sympathy, or one friend to love her for herself, for the qualities of heart, not for the labours and capabilities of mind. From the time she heard of Dudley’s marriage, all thought of individual happiness as a wife faded from her imagination. Her only efforts were to rouse every energy to supply objects of interest and affection, and so prevent the listlessness and despondency too often the fate of disappointed women. This had, at first, been indeed a painfully difficult task; for her heart had whispered it was because she was different from her fellows, because she was what the world termed literary and learned, Granville had shunned her; and a few words, undesignedly and carelessly spoken by Charles Heyward, relative to Dudley’s dislike to female literature, from its effects on his mother, confirmed the idea, and made her shrink from her former favourite pursuits. But she, too, had a character to sustain; and once more she compelled herself to work, believing that her talents were lent her to be instruments of good, not to lie unused. And yet, to a character of strong affections and active energies, mental resources, however varied, were not quite sufficient for happiness; and therefore was it she formed and executed the plan we have named.
So seven years had sped, and there was little variation in the life of our heroine for her biographer to record. Her constant prayer was heard. Her name had become a household word, coupled with love, from the pure high feelings and ennobling sympathies which her writings had called forth. Her works had made her beloved and revered, though her person, nay, her very place of residence and all concerning her were, as she desired, utterly unknown. This in itself was happiness, inexpressibly heightened by her present domestic duties, lightening Mrs. Langley’s household cares; giving part of every day to that lady’s pupils; teaching them not only to be accomplished and domestic, but to be thinkers; training the heart, even more than the mind; making nature alike a temple and a school: all the sweet charities of home were now hers, and her heart was indeed happy and once more at rest.
And was Granville Dudley, then, forgotten? When we say that Clara might have married more than once, and most happily, but that she had refused, simply because she could not permit an unloved reality to usurp the place of a still loved shadow—all doubts, we think, are answered.
Of Granville Dudley she could never hear; all trace of him seemed lost. Within the last few years the newspapers had indeed often teemed with the praises and speeches of a Sir Dudley Granville; but, though the conjunction of names had at first riveted her eye and made her heart turn strangely sick, she banished the thought as folly. It was a Granville Dudley, not a Dudley Granville, whom she had too fondly loved.
Miss Stanley had resided about seven years with Mrs. Langley, when application was made to the latter lady to receive the only child of Sir Dudley Granville as her pupil. The child was motherless, and in such very precarious health, that the milder climate of Devonshire had been advised, as, combined with extreme care, the only chance of rearing her to womanhood. Mrs. Langley’s establishment was full, six being her allotted number, which no persuasion had as yet ever induced her to increase. There was something, however, in the appearance of the little Laura which so unconsciously won upon Clara, that she could not resist pleading in the child’s behalf; and as one of the pupils was to leave the next half year, Mrs. Langley acceded. Clara’s name, however, had not been mentioned in this transaction. The lady who had the charge of Laura had indeed conversed with her, and had been charmed with her manner; but little imagined she was enjoying the often-coveted honour of conversing with an authoress, and one so popular as Clara Stanley. She said that Laura, though eight years old, literally knew nothing. Lady Granville had been the belle of her time, but one who had the greatest horror of all learning in woman, and in consequence possessing nothing of herself but showy accomplishment, which told in society. She had neglected the poor child, wasted alike her own health and her husband’s income in the sole pursuit of pleasure, and hurried herself to an early grave. Laura’s health had been so delicate since then, that her father feared to commence her studies, even while he was most anxious she should become a sensible and accomplished woman, with resources for happiness within herself.
“And she shall be, if I can make her so,” was Clara’s inward thought, as she looked on the sweet face of the child, and a new chord in her heart was touched she knew not wherefore. It was impossible to analyse the feeling, even to one long accustomed to analysing hearts, and Clara gave it up in despair; but affection and interest alike clung round the child, who gave back all she received. Her weak health prevented her entering into all the routine of the schoolroom, and she became Clara’s constant companion and pupil. Repeatedly the artless letters of the child to her doting father teemed with the goodness, the gentleness, the tenderness of Miss Stanley; soon convincing Sir Dudley how quick and ready were her powers of comprehension, and filling his heart with gratitude towards that kind friend, whom he knew not, guessed not was the authoress of the same name whose gentle eloquence in her sex’s cause had even now his admiration.
Laura Granville had been with Mrs. Langley about eight months, when she became extremely ill, from an epidemic that had suddenly broken out in the village; all Mrs. Langley’s household were attacked by it in a greater or less degree, but in Laura alone did it threaten to be fatal. Careless of her own fatigue, Clara devoted herself, day and night, to the young sufferer. Her affections had never before been so warmly enlisted; not one of her young friends had ever become so completely part of herself, and as she watched and tended her morning prayers for her recovery, it seemed as if the child must be something nearer to her than in reality she was.
An express had been sent off for Sir Dudley Granville; but, from his having gone unexpectedly to visit a friend in Germany, it was unavoidably delayed on its way, and nearly three weeks elapsed ere the baronet reached Ashford. From the haste with which he had travelled, no account of her progress could reach him; and it was in a state of agony and suspense no words can describe that the father flung himself from his carriage at Mrs. Langley’s gate, and rushed into her presence.
“Your child lives; is rapidly recovering—may be stronger than she has been yet,” were the first words he heard, for his look and manner were all-sufficient introduction; and the benevolent physician, who had that instant quitted his little patient, grasped Sir Dudley’s hand with reassuring pressure. The baronet tried to return it with a smile, but his quivering lip could only gasp forth an ejaculation of thankfulness, and sinking on a chair, he covered his face with his hand.
“Let me see this incomparable young woman, the preserver of my child!” he passionately exclaimed, as Dr. Bernard and Mrs. Langley, after describing the progress and crisis of Laura’s illness, attributed her unexpected recovery, under Providence, to the incessant care and watchfulness of Miss Stanley, the physician declaring his utmost skill had been, without it, of no avail whatever. Being assured his appearance would not injure Laura, who was, in truth, daily expecting him, he eagerly followed Mrs. Langley to the room, and paused a moment on the threshold unobserved.
Laura was sitting up in her little bed, supported by pillows, looking pale and delicate, indeed, but smiling with that joyous animation which, in childhood, is so sure a sign of returning health; and dressing, with the greatest zest, a beautiful doll, which, with its plentifully-supplied wardrobe, lay beside her. Near the bed, and seated by a small table, covered with books and writings, was Clara, who, by the rapid movement of her pen, and her immovable attention, was evidently deeply engrossed in her employment. Sir Dudley could not see her face, for it was bent down, and even its profile turned from him, but a strange thrill shot through him as he gazed.
“Oh! look, Miss Stanley, how beautiful your work shows, now she is dressed. How kind you were to make her all these pretty things. I can do it all but these buttons, will you do them for me?”
Clara laid down her pen with a smile, to comply with the child’s request; and as she did so, Laura laid her little head caressingly on her bosom, saying, fondly, “Dear, dear, Miss Stanley, I wish papa would come; he would thank you for all your goodness much better than I can.”
“I wish he would come, for your sake and his own, dearest—not to thank me, though I shall not love you the less for being so grateful, Laura,” was the reply, in a voice, whose low, musical tones brought back, as by a flash of light to Sir Dudley’s heart, feelings, thoughts, memories, of past years, which he thought were hushed for ever.
“Miss Stanley! Clara! inscrutable Providence!—is it to you I owe my child?” he exclaimed, springing suddenly forward, and clasping his little child to his heart—one moment covering Laura’s upturned face with kisses, the next turning his earnest, grateful gaze on the astonished Clara.
For an instant her heart grew faint, for the fatigue of long-continued nursing had weakened her; nor could she realize in that agitating moment the lapse of ten years, since she had last looked on his face, or listened to its richly expressive voice. Time had passed over her heart, leaving its early dream unchanged, and vainly she strove to feel how long a period had flown. All seemed a thick and traceless mist; but when she succeeded in shaking off that prostrating weakness, forcing herself to remember it was Sir Dudley Granville, not Granville Dudley, who had thus addressed her, still one fact was certain, the object of her first, her only affection was at her side once more—it was his child her care had saved.
Day after day did Clara Stanley and Sir Dudley Granville pass hours together by the couch of Laura. Though conscious her secret was still her own, and grateful that, after the first burst of natural feeling, Granville’s manner to her was only that of an obliged and appreciating friend, Clara’s peculiarly delicate feelings would have kept her from Laura’s room during the visits of her father; but the child was restless and uncomfortable whenever she was absent, and Granville so evidently entreated her continued presence, that to keep away was impossible. It was during these pleasant interviews Sir Dudley related the cause of his change of name. He had become, most unexpectedly, the heir to his godfather, Sir William Granville, who had left him all his estates, on the sole condition of his adopting, for himself and his heirs, the name of Granville—Sir Granville Granville, he added, with a smile, was not sufficiently euphonious, and so he had placed the Dudley first instead of last. He alluded in terms of the warmest admiration to her works, and wondered at his own stupidity in never connecting the Miss Stanley of his Laura’s letters with the authoress he had once known. A very peculiar smile beamed on the lips of Clara as he thus spoke, but she did not say its meaning.
One day, some six or seven weeks after Granville’s appearance at Ashford, Clara had just comfortably seated herself at her desk, after seeing Laura ensconced in her little pony chaise, when she was startled by hearing Sir Dudley’s voice, in accents of unusual seriousness, close beside her.
“Will you tell me, Miss Stanley, how you can possibly contrive to unite so perfectly the literary with the domestic characters? I have watched, but cannot find you fail in either—how is this?”
“Simply, Sir Dudley, because, in my opinion, it is impossible to divide them. Perfect in them, indeed, I am not; but though I know it is possible for woman to be domestic without being literary—as we are all not equally endowed by Providence—to my feelings, it is not possible to be more than usually gifted without being domestic. The appeal to the heart must come from the heart; and the quick sensibility of the imaginative woman must make her feel for others, and act for them, more particularly for the loved of home. To write, we must think, and if we think of duty, we, of all others, must not fail in its performance, or our own words are bitter with reproach. It is from want of thought most failings spring, alike in duty as in feeling. From this want the literary and imaginative woman must be free.”
Granville’s eyes never moved from the fair, expressive face of the gentle woman who thus spoke, till she ceased, and then he paced the room in silence; till, seating himself beside her, he besought her to listen to him, and pity and forgive him, and prove that she forgave him; and, ere she could reply, he poured forth the tale of his earlier love—how truly he loved her, even when his idle prejudices against literary women caused him to fly from her influence, and enter into a hurried engagement with one, beautiful indeed, but, from having no resources within herself, the mere votaress of pleasure and outward excitement. How bitterly he had repented through seven weary years the misery he had brought upon himself—how constantly he had yearned for a companion of his home and of his mind—and how repeatedly, as he glanced over her pages, where pure fresh feeling breathed in every line, and the love of home and its sacred ties were so forcibly inculcated, he had cursed his own folly. How he had sought to drown thought in a public career, but had still felt desolate; and now that he looked on her again, not only in her own character, but as the preserver of his child, how completely he felt that happiness was gone from him for ever, unless she would give it in herself!
Clara’s face was turned from him as he spoke, but, ere he concluded, the quick, bright tears were falling in her lap; and when she tried to meet his glance and speak, her lip so quivered that no words came. It was an effort ere she could tell her tale; but it was told at length, though Granville’s ardent gratitude was for the moment checked by her serious rejoinder.
“It is no shame now, dear Granville, to confess how deeply and constantly I have returned your affection; but listen to me ere you proceed further. I do not doubt what you say, that your prejudices are all removed; but are you certain, quite certain, that a woman who has resources of mind as well as of heart can make you happy, as you believe? At one-and-twenty you could have moulded me to what you pleased. I doubt whether I should have written another line, had you not approved of my doing it. At one-and-thirty this cannot be. My character—my habits are formed. I cannot draw back from my literary path, for I feel it accomplishes good. Can I indeed make your happiness as I am? Dearest Granville, do not let feeling alone decide.”
“Feeling! sense! reason! Clara—my own Clara—all speak and have spoken long. Make my child but like yourself, and with two such blessings I dare not picture what life would be—too, too much joy.”
And joy it was. Joy as it seemed. Granville has felt that for once imagination fell short of reality, for his path is indeed one of sunshine; and as Lady Granville, the authoress, continues her path of literary and domestic usefulness, proving to the full how very possible it is for woman to unite the two, and that our great poet[3] is right when, in contradiction to Moore’s shallow theory of the unfitness of genius to domestic happiness, he answered—“It is not because they possess genius that they make unhappy homes, but because they do not possess genius enough. A higher order of mind would enable them to see and feel all the beauty of domestic ties.”
3. Wordsworth.
Helon.
A FRAGMENT FROM JEWISH HISTORY.
“Joy! joy! Spring hath come!
Bounding o’er the earth,
Laughing in the insect’s hum,
In the flow’ret’s birth.
Ere his spirit springs above,
Summer’s wreath to twine,
Oh, what joy for me, my love!
Then thou wilt be mine!
“Joy! joy! though awhile,
Dearest, we must part,
Warmly will thy sunny smile
Rest upon my heart.
Spring the earth is greeting, love,
With a crown of flowers;
For the hour of meeting, love,
Sweeter hopes are ours.”
So sung, in a rich, mellow, though somewhat subdued voice, a young man, as he stood beneath the window of a grim old mansion. The sun had but just risen, and sky and earth seemed still bathed in his soft rosy glow. Flowers of delicate form and many a brilliant tint were gemming the greensward, which looked fresh and bright as emerald. Fringed with hoary rocks and thick dark woods, lay the deep blue waters of the lovely Rhine, seeming as if the spirits of the early morning had flung on them a rich robe of golden sheen. Even the black forest in the far distance, and the old, apparently half-ruinous mansion itself, all but laughed in the glowing light; hailing, as they did, the new birth of nature, as well as that of the day. Spring had, within the last few days, leaped from the arms of winter; and flowers and birds, and earth and sky, welcomed his birth, as with a very jubilee of gladness.
The deep seclusion of the scene, however, was remarkable: castles and towns, convents and monasteries, generally studded the banks of the Rhine, even as early as the close of the eleventh century, the period of our narrative; but here there was not a habitation of any kind visible, save this one old house and its out-door offices.
It was a Hebrew school or college, the origin of which was so far removed into the past as to be involved in mystery. From its extreme seclusion it had remained undisturbed, when elsewhere every trace of Israels locality had been washed out in blood. Century after century beheld it occupied by a succession of venerable teachers, learned in all the mysteries of their law, and faithful to its every ordinance; by some few Hebrew families who, from being pupils, loved its peaceful seclusion too well to exchange it for the dangers of towns; and by some youths, brought there by anxious parents, or there own will, to learn such lessons as would bid them live to glorify their faith, or die to seal its truth with blood.
The young minstrel, whose song we have given, had been one of these pupils since the age of ten, and was about returning to Worms, his native city, to see his widowed mother, from whom he had been parted fourteen years, obtain her blessing on his choice (the daughter of one of his teachers), and then return for his betrothed, either to dwell in this safe retreat or elsewhere, as circumstances might be.
A knapsack was on his shoulder, and in his eager look upward as he sung, his cap had fallen off, and one of those countenances which, once seen, rivet themselves upon the heart, was fully displayed. It was purely spiritually noble; expressive of every emotion which can elevate and rejoice, and utterly devoid of that abject mien and fearful glance, the brand which persecution laid on the Israelites of towns.
A sweet face appeared for a minute at the window as the song ceased; a smile whose sunny warmth the poet had, not too glowingly described, a fond wave of the hand, and then the window was tenantless again, and the young man turned away, still humming—
“For the hour of meeting, love,
Sweeter hopes are ours;”
when he was joined by the companion for whom he had waited: a man some ten years his senior, dark and stern in aspect, as if every human emotion had been battled with and conquered.
“Joy—hope! Have such words meaning for an Israelite?” he said, bitterly. “Art thou of the doomed and outcast race, and canst yet sing in the vain dream of joy? Knowest thou not the fate of Israel, when once looked on by man? The rack, cord, death! Hast thou not heard, that in this new war of the accursed Nazarene, their holy war, the signal for marching is the death-shriek of the slaughtered Jews? Spires, Metz, Cologne, Treves, Presbourg, Prague, ask them the fate of Israel, and sing if thou canst. Ask yonder river, from whose kindly waters those who had sought their calm repose, rather than wait the cruelty of man, were drawn forth and butchered on the blood-reeking land. Ask yon river the fate of the hundreds who threw themselves within it—and then sing of joy!”
“I do know these things, Arodi,” was the calm reply, though the flushed cheek denoted some feeling of pain. “I know that for Israel there is only such joy as may be resigned at a moment’s call; only such hope as looks beyond this world for perfection and fulfilment. Think you because, with a grateful heart and joyful song, I breathed forth a dream of earthly happiness, that I am less fitted than yourself to give up all of joy, hope, and love, if such be the will of God?”
“It cannot be. You love, you are joyful. You have woven sweet dreams, whose destruction will bow you to the dust. Human affections fetter your soul to earth. How can it give itself to God?”
“Through the blessings He has given; blessings which so fill my heart with love for Him, that without one murmur I would resign them at His call.”
“You think so now; beware lest this, too, prove a dream. For me, hope and joy are as far from me as yon blue arch from the cold earth on which I see but my brethren’s blood.”
“Look beyond it, then,” answered Helon, fervently. “Why should there not be joy for Israel? Dark as is his present, so bright will be his future. As both have been prophesied, so both will be fulfilled.”
He spoke in vain; as well might he have striven to pour forth sunshine on the dark bosom of night, as infuse his spirit in the heart of his companion.
Their way being long, and travelling tedious, from the trackless forests and mountain torrents which they were repeatedly compelled to cross, they found they had miscalculated their time, and that the solemn festival of the Passover, which they had hoped to celebrate in Worms, would fall some few days before they reached it. Remembering that a kind of hostelry, kept by one of their brethren, lay but a few roods out of their way, they determined on abiding there till the festival was over.
It was on the fourth day that a man rushed into the court, covered with dust and mud, and so exhausted as barely to be able to tell his horrible tale. Massacre and outrage again menaced the hapless Jews. He stated that, on the first day of Passover, as the procession of the Host had passed down the Jewish quarter of Worms, a cry arose that it had been insulted by two Jews, who had vanished directly afterwards. That, were not the real criminals given up, the whole Jewish population should be exterminated, without regard to age, sex, or rank. Seven days were allowed them to determine their own fate; a useless delay, for when all were innocent, who could avow guilt? The city gates were closed; not a Jew allowed egress from the town, and, at the imminent risk of his own life, the bearer of these horrible tidings had alone escaped.
Darker and sterner grew the countenance of Arodi, as he heard. He had neither relative nor friend amid the doomed, but once more the curse had fallen on his people, and he burst forth in fearful execration.
“Ye sang of joy,” he exclaimed, turning fiercely towards Helon, on whose face, though pale as marble, a strange yet beautiful light had fallen. “Sing on! a joyous song to greet a mouldering home and murdered parent. Ye dared hope—ye dared be joyful—’tis the wrathful voice of the avenger!”
“Peace, Arodi; they shall yet be saved.”
“Saved! bid the ravening wolf release the lamb, the hungry lion his fought-for prey.” Helon’s sole answer was so thrilling in its low brief words, that Arodi started several paces back, gazing on him, as if he had doubted or understood not the meaning of his words. “Canst thou—wouldst thou—what! resign all?” he rather permitted to fall from his lips than said.
“I do not resign them—’tis but their exchange for bliss which is unfading.”
“And Admah—Helon, hast thou thought of her?”
“Thought of her!” and the strong convulsion passing over Helon’s face and frame was indeed sufficient answer. Yet he added calmly, after some minutes’ pause, “For this she, too, would resign me. Her spirit speaks within me, bidding me do what my full soul prompts. What is the happiness of one compared with the lives of hundreds?”
The soul of the dark, stern man shook within him. He battled with emotion for the first time in vain. Falling on Helon’s neck, these words broke forth in sobs: “Forgive me, oh, forgive me, brother! I despised, contemned thee; yet from thee I learn my duty. ‘Whither thou goest, I will go,’ What thou doest, I will do. Brother, make me as thyself.”
But one night intervened, and the wretched Jews of Worms, in the stern stillness of utter despair, awaited their fearful doom. The festive rejoicing which, even in the darkest era of persecution, ever attended the Passover, was changed into deepest mourning. Not one ray of human hope illumined this horrible darkness. The similar fate of hundreds, aye, thousands, even millions, yet rung in their ears. He who alone could save had turned His face in wrath from his afflicted people. They had but one consolation, and mothers clasped closer their unconscious babes, and husbands their trembling wives, in the one glad thought that none would be left to lament the other—they should die together.
Night fell, calmly and softly; oh who that looked up on those radiant heavens, losing all of earth in the thoughts of the hundreds and hundreds of unknown worlds filling the vast courts of trackless space, can imagine without a shudder, the mighty mass of human passion and human suffering which one little corner of the globe contains? Who that feels for one brief minute the pressure of infinity upon his soul, speaking, as it will, in the solemn stillness of spiritual night, can come back to earthly things, without shuddering at the awful amount of countless cruelties worked by insect man, without feeling that we have indeed
“Need of patient faith below
To clear away the mysteries of such woe?”
There was one lone watcher of the silent night, but he thought not of these things. For above an hour a tall muffled figure had been standing without the window of a lowly Jewish dwelling, gazing within, and wrapt up in the strong emotions which the gaze called forth. A lamp was burning on a table, round which a mother and her children sat. Years had passed, long years, since the lone watcher had been among those loved ones, save in dreams; and now, while his whole heart yearned to fling himself upon that mother’s neck, and feel her kiss, and claim her blessing—to clasp hands once more with those loved companions of his childhood, now sprung into sweet blooming youth—he dared not follow feeling’s impulse. Better his own heartsick yearning, the agonized throb of human love and human fear, than the momentary bliss of meeting, to part again for ever.
He had seen the burst of terror, of the wild clinging to life, even such life as theirs, natural to youth, soothed by a mother’s prayer. He had seen them twine hand in hand with hers, and lift their bright heads to heaven in that meek, enduring constancy, the undying attribute of persecuted Israel; and then the mother was alone, and the watcher beheld the calm a brief while give way, and natural anguish take its place.
“My God! thou wilt spare one,” fell on the hushed air, “my firstborn, first-loved, my beautiful Helon! I had thought to look on him again, but I bless thee that thou hast refused my prayer. Bless him, oh, bless him, Father! my own bright boy!”
Was it her own low sob she heard, or its echo, that she so started even from so much grief and looked fearfully round? There seemed a shadow between the window and the faint moonlight, but ere she could trace it to a human form it had gone.
The morning was clothed in dull, leaden clouds; and, flocking from their dwellings, as was their wont, on the seventh day of Passover, in holiday attire, and with composed appearance, every Jewish family sought the synagogue. Divine service commenced, proceeded, and was concluded without interruption. Scarcely, however, had they reached the outer court to return to their homes, than fearful shouts smote the ear, waxing louder, hoarser, more terrible with every passing moment. On came the infuriated crowd, a dark impenetrable phalanx, increasing in every street, and fearfully illumined with blazing torches held aloft; blades gleaming in the red flame; clubs, axes, pitchforks, every weapon that first came to hand. On they came, wrought into yet wilder frenzy, yet deeper thirst for human blood, by their own mad shouts, and the lurid flames that, as they rushed down the Jewish quarter, marked their progress. And how stood their victims? So firm, so motionless in the shadow of their house of prayer, that even the wild mob, when they first beheld them, fell back a moment powerless. Formed in a compact square, woman, children, and tottering age in the centre, youth and manhood stood around, with arms folded and head erect; not a limb, not a muscle moved; not a sound broke forth, even when their fiendish foes poured down and faced them. It was an awful pause; lasting not a minute, yet seeming to be hours; and then, with brandished arms and wilder cries, they rushed on to the work of death.
“Back!” exclaimed a voice not loud nor stern, but so thrillingly distinct and sweet, that it was heard by every individual of both parties, and involuntarily compelled obedience. “Back!—touch not the innocent. Ye have demanded the criminals, BEHOLD THEM! Ye have sworn their lives shall suffice—take them, torture them as ye list; but touch not, on your peril, touch not these!”
Two strangers stood suddenly between the murderers and the victims, as the unknown voice spake, the one in the loveliest bloom of youth, the other in manhood’s prime. With an appalling yell of disappointed malice, hate, and aggravated wrath, the fierce crowd rushed forwards, and closed round the voluntary martyrs. And here we pause, for how may the pen linger on the horrible tortures, the agonizing death inflicted on these noble men; or the horror of the stunned yet liberated Israelites, in being forced by their tormentors to witness the fate of their preservers? Yet no groan escaped the victims, to glut the long pent-up fury of their foes; no word to reveal to their brethren whence they came or who they were, or that they had spoken but to save.
The poet’s prophecy was fulfilled: “Ere spring had changed to summer,” Helon and his faithful Admah had met again, where hope was lost in fulfilment, temporal joy in an eternity of bliss. The summer flowers had twined their clinging tendrils round a lowly tomb of pure white marble in the grave-yard of that old mansion, Helon’s home so long, and half hiding the single word “Admah” with their radiant clusters, whispered in sweet breath to the passing breeze the bliss of a pure spirit, so early freed from the detaining fetters of a broken heart.
To this day the names of the martyrs rest unknown; but the two lamps still kept burning to their memory, in the synagogue of Worms, testify the truth of this fearful tale, and bear witness to a faith, a self-devotedness in scorned and hated Israel, unsurpassed in the annals of the world!
Lucy. AN AUTUMN WALK
It was a lovely afternoon, in the fall of the year; that season by many deemed the most melancholy of them all. The fallen leaves, the decay of vegetation, the absence of flowers, the trees shorn of their summer glory, are to some such painful emblems of man’s estate, that they shrink in strange and melancholy trembling from the calm and pensive aspect of autumn, as if the death of nature whispered of their own. Yet it is not so. Autumn, even in its sadness, looks beyond the grave, and breathes of immortality. The shorn tree will put on its gala dress again; the withered hedge will send forth the loveliest flowers. Earth, burdened now in seeming with its emblems of decay, in reality derives thence her nourishment and strength, and will spring up again, bright and beautiful, strong and smiling in her reawakened joy. And shall man alone, amid the creation of Omnific love, pass hence for ever? No, oh, no! As a flower to bloom and be cut down, so as a flower will he burst forth again in a lovelier world and never-ending spring.
The day was well suited for such consoling musing; there was a balmy freshness in the air, a clearness in the atmosphere, in the cloudless expanse of azure, stretching above and around; a warmth and glow in the sun, even as he approached the west, unusual to the season. And there was beauty, too, in the landscape; or the fountain of enjoyment which Nature had unsealed in our hearts, bathed the scene in its own bright colouring, as in those exquisite lines of Coleridge:—
* * * “We receive but what we give,
And in our hearts alone does Nature live;
Ours her wedding garment, and ours her shroud,
And would we ought receive of higher worth
Than that inanimate, cold world allow’d
To the poor, loveless, ever-anxious crowd?
Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth
A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud,
Enveloping the earth.”
The trees lifted up their graceful heads to the circling heaven; every branch and every spray clearly defined against the blue; so still, so moveless, they looked like pencil-sketches of exquisite delicacy and softness. Then often, as in beautiful relief, started up a gigantic holly, every leaf green and glossy as in the richness of summer, with clusters of its bright scarlet berries standing out against the dark leaf, like sprays of coral. Ever and anon, a break in the hedge displayed towering hills and far-stretching meadows, green and glistening from the late rains; while bold crags, chained by the grey lichen and golden stonecrop, and patches of gloomy firs, frowning like grim shadows in the sunshine, proclaimed the mountainous district to which we were approaching, and heightened, by contrast, the beauty all around. There was something in the whole aspect of Nature so calm, so cheerful, bereft as she was of every flower and leaf, and all her rich summer hoards, that made us compare her to one on whom affliction has fallen with a heavy hand, whose flowers of life are withered, but who can yet lift up heart and brow, with serene and placid faith, to that heaven where the vanished flowers wait her smile again.
The very sounds, too, were in unison with the scene. The sweet note of many an English bird, not in full chorus of melody, as in the warmth and luxury of summer, but one or two together, answered by others as they floated to and fro in the field of azure, or paused a moment on the quivering spray. Then came the twinkling gush of a silvery stream, seeming, by its blithesome voice, to rejoice in its increase of waters from previous heavy rains. Then, sparkling and leaping in the glittering rays, like a shower of silver, a rustic watermill became visible through the trees; the music of its splash and foam bringing forth the voice of memory yet more thrillingly than before, for it was a sound of home. We paused; when suddenly another sound floated on the air, of more mournful meaning. It was the solemn toll of a church bell, distinct though distant, possessing all that simple sanctity peculiar to the country—that voice of wailing which comes upon the heart as if the departed, whom it mourns, had had its dwelling there, claiming kindred alike with our sorrows and our joys. We hurried on, and just as we neared the ivy-mantled church, the solemn chanting of a psalm by several young and most sweet voices sounded in the dim distance, and becoming nearer and more near, proclaimed the approach of the funeral train. The peculiar mode of tolling the bell, as is customary in those primitive districts of the north of England, had already betrayed the sex of the departed, and with foreboding spirits we listened for the age. We counted twenty-one of those mournful chimes, and then they sunk in silence solemn as their sound.
The church was situated midway on the ascent of a hill, or rather mount, guarded by a thick grove of yews and firs, their sad and pensive foliage assimilating well with the olden shrine. The ivy had clambered over the slender buttress, clustering round the old square belfry, decking age with beauty, and moss and lichen pressed forth in fantastic patches on the roof. The green earth was filled with lowly graves, thickly twined with evergreen shrubs and hardy flowering plants. Headstones and marble tombs there were; some so crusted over by the cold finger of Time, that even the briefest record of those who slept beneath was lost for ever; and others gleaming pure and white in the declining sun, seeming to whisper hope and faith in the very midst of desolation and death.
The clergyman stood at the churchyard gate, waiting the arrival of the corpse. He was leaning against the stone pillar which held the hinges of the gate, his head buried in his hands, and his bowed and drooping aspect breathing a more than common love. His figure was so peculiarly youthful, we wondered at his full canonical costume.
The psalm continued; now low, as mourning the departed—now in solemn rejoicing that a ransomed soul was free. The snow-white pall which covered the coffin, the white dresses and hoods of the bearers and the young girls, who, to the number of eight or ten, headed the train, confirmed the mournful tale which the bell had already told. A young girl of one-and-twenty summers was passing to her last long home. There were but few chief mourners, and these seemed struggling to subdue their grief to the composed and holy stillness meet for such an hour. As the train entered the last winding path of the ascent, the bell began again to toll, and the sound seemed to rouse the young minister from his all-absorbing grief. He started, with a visible shudder, and the expression of agony that his face revealed haunted us for many a long day. There was a strong effort at control; and he turned to meet the corpse, repeating, as he did so, in low impressive tones, part of the burial service. He walked at the head of the train to the place appointed—the centre of a little cluster of yews; and there, in silent awe, we watched the ceremony of the interment.
An aged minister had been among the train of mourners, and, as they entered the churchyard, had approached the officiating clergyman, evidently entreating to perform the melancholy office in his stead. The reply was merely a strong grasp of the hand and a mournful shake of the head; and the old man fell back to his place, his eyes still fixed on his young brother, and gradually they filled with large tears, which fell unconsciously, and seemed more for the living than the dead. Once only the service was wholly inarticulate, and the old man drew near hurriedly, as fearing the calm of mental torture must at length give way; but still he struggled on, though the tone in which the awful words—“earth to earth, and dust to dust,” now at length pronounced, was as if the very spirit had been wrung to give them voice. Never did the sound of filling in the grave fall with such cold and heavy weight on our hearts as at that moment; yet still, spell-bound, we lingered.
The early twilight of autumn had deepened the beautiful blue of the heavens, as the service concluded, and with low, subdued chant the mourning train departed. The slender forms of the young girls, in their snowy robes, gleaming strangely and fitfully through the darkening shadows of the winding paths; their sweet, young voices sounding almost like spirit music, as they faded, fainter and more faint in the far distance.
Still the young clergyman remained, pale, rigid, moveless, gazing on the newly-turned earth, till he fancied he was alone with the homes of the dead; and then, with a low, smothered groan of anguish, he flung himself on the damp grave, clasping it with his outstretched arms, pressing his cold lips upon it, his whole frame quivering with the effort to restrain his bursting sobs. The old man hurried forwards and laid his trembling hand on his arm, the tears streaming down his furrowed face the while, and with faltering accents conjured him to take comfort, for his poor mother’s sake.
“I will, I will,” was the agonized reply. “Leave me, leave me to my God. He will bring peace. I see but the cold grave now; but faith will come again. She is free, rejoicing. She will know now how much, how faithfully—but leave me, leave me now.” And the old man turned sorrowingly away; and softly and sadly, for such grief might not bear a witness, we departed also—our last lingering glance revealing the youthful mourner kneeling in voiceless supplication on the sod.
To the aged minister so often mentioned we were indebted for that true English hospitality, still so warmly proffered in these “nooks of the world,” and in listening to the following sad and simple story, the evening hours sped on.
Lucy Lethvyn was the daughter of a rich merchant, in one of our large commercial cities of the north of England. The village of Elmsford had been the site alike of her childhood and happy school-days; and so associated was it with hours of peace and joyance, far removed from the strife and confusion around her city home, that her wonted summer visit to its shades and flowers was ever welcomed with delight.
At the Vicarage of Elmsford, then occupied by our venerable host, Mr. Evelyn, Mrs. Lethvyn and her daughters were constant visitors; and there it was that Nevil Herbert, the young clergyman who had so deeply interested us, again met Lucy after a lapse of seven years. Formerly they had been frequent companions, from the near relationship of their parents; and Nevil had been accustomed to think of Lucy as the gentle, artless, affectionate little girl of ten summers, he had last beheld her. Her occasional letters, breathing the same fresh, child-like spirit, increased this illusion. She had called him brother, and often wished he had indeed been such; and he had laughingly acknowledged and promised to value the relationship. In those seven years of separation, however, Nevil’s lot had changed. At eighteen he lost his father, and the same stroke cast him and his mother penniless on the cold world. A rich relation promised to give him a collegiate education, preparatory to his taking orders, a living being in his gift. The offer, benevolently made as it was, might not be rejected; though to Nevil, the parting with his mother, for her also to endure the miseries of dependence, was fraught with such anguish, that he would willingly have worked for her in the meanest capacity, so that she might still feel free.
Mrs. Herbert was, however, much too unselfish to permit this; she soothed, urged, and in part comforted him, by the anticipation of the time when they might be once again together, assuring him that to contribute to that joyful end, much more painful alternatives could be borne than the one that she had chosen.
On all that Nevil Herbert had to endure in college, we have no space to linger. Suffice it he was poor—he was dependent; and however lavish may be the kindness and benevolence bestowed, it will not take away the sting contained in these two words, or permit the taking that station in the world for which such spirits pine. It is strange how often poverty will change to reserve, and bitterness, and pride, dispositions which in affluence would have been humble, and loving, and open as the day. And sad, oh! how bitterly sad it is that the cold, heartless world should fling such scorn and contempt upon that word, and shrink from the children of poverty, noble-gifted though they be, as they would from crime, and, by a thousand nameless slights and petty provocations, add a hundred-fold to the misery already theirs. Philosophy may preach, and religion soothe; but while such things are, poverty must ever be regarded as a doom of horror and of dread.
Nevil Herbert’s peculiarly sensitive nature caused him to feel these evils even more keenly than the multitude so situated; and therefore the rest and peace of the vicarage of Elmsford was, indeed, to him almost heaven upon earth. There nothing ever galled him, but all around breathed the balm of that true sympathy and appreciation, which, raising the drooping spirit to its proper level, restores its self-esteem, and consequently its happiness.
Nevil was just two-and-twenty when his ideal of female loveliness and innocence burst upon him in most exquisite reality, through the child-like loveliness and artlessness of Lucy. Alike the favourites of the vicar, he rejoiced to see them together, and never dreamed that to his petted Nevil danger might thence accrue. To him Lucy was still a child, as so she was to herself and all around her, but to one, and that one, unhappily, was Nevil. He guessed not her influence till he returned to his solitary studies, and then he felt, too keenly, that, despite his every resolution, he loved—and loved in vain; not only from their different stations, but that it was still only as a brother she regarded him.
The next recess found them again together, more closely than before, for Lucy was the old man’s guest equally with himself; but a change had come upon her—not towards Nevil, but in herself. The child had sprung into the woman—the incipient germs of thought and feeling burst into the full-blossomed flowers. There was a deeper tone in her sweet voice, a more intense light in her radiant eye, a fuller sentiment in her bright smile. Yet to Nevil’s eye alone these things were visible. None other, even of those who loved her best, saw the change; but Nevil read by the light of his own feelings, and they told him she, too, loved—and loved another.
It was even so, and from her own lips the artless tale was poured into his ear. She called and felt him brother, and claimed his sympathy as such; feeling that, did she conceal anything which concerned her happiness from one so true, and kind, and good as Nevil Herbert, she wronged him, and deserved to lose his friendship altogether; and even at such a moment Nevil’s martyr spirit did not forsake him. The hand, indeed, was cold and damp which pressed the fairy one held out to him, as she spoke, but the lip did not quiver, nor the voice falter, in which he assured her that her confidence was not misplaced—that her happiness and interest were dear to him as his own.
A few weeks brought Mr. and Mrs. Lethvyn and Mordaunt Lyndsey to the vicarage. Handsome, intelligent, and animated, there was much in the latter to possess and win. He had been Lucy’s partner at her first ball, and by the magic charm of his varied conversation, the magnetic power which fascinates at a first interview, and calling forth the yearning to know more, gradually changes into earnest and lasting love, fixed that evening indelibly on her mind and heart.
It is in vain to argue either on the birth, the nature or the duration of love. It may spring into existence unconsciously; becoming so completely part of our being, that it remains unknown until some sudden shock of joy or grief awakens us from our rest, and dooms us to an almost overpowering sense of joy or an equal intensity of grief; or one little hour may reveal depths within the human heart, whose existence was never known before—will awaken restless, baseless imaginings, that linger, strengthening with every interview, till the earthly fate is fixed for ever. And how may we argue on this, how seek its explanation? Yet who, that hath once opened the wide, mysterious volume of the human heart, will deny that so it is?
It was so with Lucy. She who had remained free and child-like in her intercourse with Nevil Herbert (though her character assimilated with his far more than with Lyndsey’s), was chained and bound for ever beneath the magic of Mordaunt Lyndsey’s voice and smile. The spell of their first interview lingered to the second, and each day, each week strengthened Lucy’s love.
Mordaunt Lyndsey was an orphan, and not rich enough to wed a portionless bride; but, unlike Nevil, as he knew not the privation and bitterness of dependence, so was he utterly ignorant of those finely organized feelings which could debar his association with the wealthier than himself. He made his way in the world, for he had good connections, well-sounding friends, and so was courted and received. It was some little time before Mr. Lethvyn could give his consent to their union, his ambition looking higher for his Lucy, but his paternal affection was stronger than his ambition; and perceiving how completely her happiness was bound up with Mordaunt’s, for whom he himself felt prepossessed, he not only gave unqualified approval, but settled on his darling a portion almost startling in its profuseness, and promised his influence to get Mordaunt entered as partner in the firm. Lucy was still so young, that her parents prevailed on Lyndsey, though very much against his inclination, to wait six months, and celebrate their nuptials with the completion of her eighteenth year.
It had been with perfect sincerity that Nevil Herbert had promised Lucy to comply with her artless entreaty; and, like Mordaunt, not only for her dear sake, but from the same honourable and religious principles which actuated all his conduct. Why, he asked himself, should he hate and shun a fellow-creature because he was happier than himself? and could he have esteemed as he wished, and hoped to do, young Lyndsey, this principle would have been followed by a friendship as disinterested as was felt by man.
But this could not be. Rendered watchful and penetrative by his pure and most unselfish affection, a very, very brief interval of intimate association convinced him that Mordaunt was not a character worthy of one like Lucy. She would need, as a wife, tenderness as unvarying as it was exclusive, sympathy in all her high, pure feelings, as in detestation of all worldliness and art; encouragement in her simple duties and tastes; in a word, love as faithful, as clinging, as constant as her own, and this Nevil saw Mordaunt could not give. Even now, Lucy was not the world to him as he was to her, and Herbert could not argue that such difference was but in nature, that man could not love as woman; for his own aching spirit told him the creed was false.
Time passed. The Lethvyns and Mordaunt returned to their city homes, and Nevil to his solitary studies. Weeks sped on to months, the eventful day was near at hand, and Lucy’s bridal attire nearing its completion. The nuptials were to be on a scale almost princely; for as princes did Lethvyn’s ambitious spirit regard the merchants of England, forgetting, in his vast schemes and golden visions, that the wealth of yesterday may be poverty the morrow. The expected bridal was the talk of the city; anxiety for her child’s happiness the only thought of the mother; love for Mordaunt the sole existence of Lucy; and therefore it was not very strange that by these severally interested parties Lethvyn’s unusually harassed countenance and excited manner were unnoticed. Ten days before that appointed for the bridal, however, the blow fell—the firm failed. Lethvyn was utterly and irretrievably ruined, unable, by the dishonest conduct of one of the partners, even to pay one shilling in the pound.
The usual excitement which such events in provincial cities always create, was heightened by the universal sympathy for the principal sufferers. Lethvyn’s profuse benevolence and affability having made him generally beloved, many pressed forward eager to prove what they felt; but the unfortunate man turned from them with a heart-sickness, a loathing of himself and the whole world, which no human consolation could remove.
That her father should be so prostrated by his failure was a matter of grief, but scarcely of surprise, to Lucy; but that it could in any way affect Mordaunt, was a mystery she could not solve. Loving him, and him alone, with such love that she cared not how lowly was their dwelling—nay, rejoicing that she could now prove her love in a hundred little caressing ways, which in a wealthier and more influential station would be denied her—how could the thought enter her pure mind, that in his affection her wealth had equal resting with herself?—that his ardent desire for the speedy celebration of their marriage originated as much to possess her dowry as herself? the insecure tenure of merchants’ wealth never having for one instant faded from his mind.
To Elmsford, at the earnest entreaty of Mr. Evelyn, the ruined family retired; but vain were all exertions of his friends to rouse Mr. Lethvyn from his despondency; he drooped and drooped, and there were times when he would fix his eyes on his Lucy with such an expression of intense suffering, of foreboding misery, that she would fly to him, fold her arms about his neck, and weep, and then conjure him to tell her what he feared; and then he would fold her closer and closer, the big tears rolling down cheeks on which the furrows of age had been hollowed in a single week, but the cause of such emotion never found a voice.
Too soon, however, did the cause reveal itself. With every manifestation of strong feeling and real affection, Mordaunt Lyndsey confessed that to give Lucy the home and comforts which he felt she so deserved and needed, he had not the adequate means. They were both still young, and he would go abroad, seek his fortune in India, where a lucrative situation had been offered him; and if, indeed, his Lucy would love him still, through absence, and distance, and time, he would in a few brief years either send for her to join him, or return for her himself, as circumstances would permit.
Pale, rigid, almost breathless, Lucy sat while her lover spoke, her hands pressed tightly one over the other, and every feature still almost to sternness; but as he fixed the full glance of his eyes on hers—and they seemed to glisten in tears as he called her name in that accent of love which ever thrilled through her heart and frame—she fell upon his bosom, and, with a passionate burst of weeping, besought him not to leave her. Were there not some sweet spots in England—oh! surely there were—where they might live, even with his moderate means, in comparative affluence? Solitude, privation—all more welcome, rather than part with him.
“And so sacrifice your first bloom, your glowing youth my Lucy, and struggle on through life, wasting your best years, buried in a wild, amid rude boors, who could neither understand nor love you.”
“What care I for others? Have I not you, dearest Mordaunt? Do I seek, ask for, need aught else?”
“For that very love I would not so sacrifice you, sweet one; and—and—oh! Lucy, forgive me—man is different to woman. My spirit is restless and ambitious. I could not live in the retirement of an English cottage, and restlessness might seem like irritability; and then—then, Lucy, you would—you must cease to love me!”
She lifted up her sweet face, and, oh! the expression of unutterable sadness upon it. A chill had fallen on her yearning heart, stagnating its every bounding pulse—a sickness and dread, more agonizing than parting’s self; for, for the first time, she felt “he does not love as I love;” but she spoke no word, she uttered no sigh—it was but the shadow on that lovely face which betrayed the cloud that had buried the sunshine of her heart; and when with words of repentant agony, almost in tears, Mordaunt flung himself on his knees before her, covering her cold hand with kisses, and imploring her not to doubt his love, his truth, because he had thus spoken, she tried to smile, to forget herself for him, drawing from him with such sweet gentleness his plans and wishes, that his spirits returned, and he forgot even the fancy that he had given her pain, or that the word of a moment could break the fond dream of months.
Mordaunt Lyndsey went to India. We may not linger on that bitter parting, or on the feelings of either save to say, that with Mordaunt sorrow was so transient, that ere the long voyage was completed, new scenes, new hopes, new wishes had obtained such dominion there was scarcely a void remaining. With Lucy could this be? Alas! she was a young and loving woman; and in those words we have our answer. Nor was she one who had ever so sought outward excitement and enjoyments, as to find in them relief from anxiety, or rest from sorrow. The simple, trusting religion of her own heart—the refreshing and soothing influences of nature—the calm repose of seeking the happiness of others, of devotion to all who gave her the sweet meed of affection; these were her consolations, and enabled her to meet her heart’s deep loneliness with cheerfulness and smiles. And when Mr. Lethvyn sunk gradually away, it seemed not only with individual and present sorrows, but with dim forebodings of his child’s future, it was Lucy who soothed and comforted her mother, and, by her meek and gentle influence, restored peace and serenity to their lowly cottage, and robbed even the memory of death of its lingering sting.
And towards Mordaunt, what were her feelings? Though the conviction that his love was not as hers never left her mind, her affection was too pure and true to know the shadow of a change. She thought it was but the diverse nature of man and woman; that the varied pursuits, the very strength of the one prevented the exclusiveness, the devotedness of the other, and her gentle spirit turned longingly to the time when she should be all his own; and, when, perhaps, tired of excitement and ambition, his heart would turn to his home and to herself for rest and peace, and she would be to him, indeed, almost as he had ever been to her.
His truth she never doubted. Deception, fickleness, or caprice, unkindness or neglect, were things unknown to her; and how then could she associate them with the earthly idol her soul enshrined? She had carried the guilelessness, the innocence, the freshness of the child into the deeper feelings, the clinging devotedness of the woman. Her being was wrapt in the beautiful halo her fancy had flung round another, and did a storm disperse that halo, it would have crushed her in the same destroying blast.
It was this child-like confiding spirit, the rays of her own heart, which shed such warmth and glow over Mordaunt’s letters; for by spirits more exacting and suspicious, the vital spark from the heart, giving life to the words of the head, would have been found wanting.
In the second year of their separation, Mr. Evelyn was raised to a deanery in one of the adjoining counties, and his former living became the property of Nevil Herbert, who had just received his ordination. Again, therefore, was this noble-hearted young man thrown into the closest intimacy with the gentle object of his ill-fated attachment, and in circumstances which could not fail to strengthen its endurance and its force. The barrier between wealth and poverty had been shivered—Lucy was now but his equal; nay, circumstances had rather placed him above her. An unexpected legacy, and some recovered debts of his late father, had given him not only independence, but competence; and he could now have offered her the home, the simple comforts and enjoyments which the more he knew her, the more he felt were all she needed for her happiness. Her friendship, the regard of her poor widowed mother, the delight with which ever the young Margaret welcomed his visits, the consciousness that he was of use to them, all prevented his keeping aloof, as perhaps would have been better for his peace: besides, how could he do so without some cause?—he, whose adversity their prosperity had soothed and blessed! No, better the torture of lingering in her presence, feeling she was the property of another, and that other, one who loved not, valued not as he did, than be, even in seeming, one of the butterfly crowd, who sport in the sunshine to fly from the storm. And though repeatedly alone together, though thrown in constant association, intimate and affectionate, in very truth as a brother with a sister, never once in those eighteen months did Nevil Herbert, by sign or word, betray to Lucy or to any other, even to his much-loved mother, the dread secret which bowed his heart and paled his cheek, and dashed his youth with the calm seriousness—the quiet hush of age.
It was three years after Mordaunt Lyndsey’s departure that the longed-for summons came. He could not return for her himself, his situation would not permit his absence for so long a time; but if, indeed, she loved him still sufficiently to encounter the miseries of a long voyage, of a life in India, the banishment from mother, sister, friends—all for him alone, the sooner their term of suffering and separation closed, the happier for them both; but if time had cooled the enthusiasm of her love—if one feeling of regret, however faint, bound her to England—one emotion of dread accompanied the idea of the voyage, or the thought of dwelling in a strange and dangerous land—he released her from her engagement. She was free. He besought her to think well ere she decided; that he could not, dared not, urge her to make such a weighty sacrifice for him. He did not dilate on his own feelings, but if Lucy marked the omission, she believed he had done so purposely, that no thought of him should bias her decision. Yet even what appeared to her guileless spirit his unselfish resignation of personal happiness for her sake, could not remove the bitter anguish it was to feel, that even now, tried as she had been through absence and time, he did not, could not, understand the might, the devotedness of her love.
“I will go to him—he shall learn how much I love him, if he know it not now,” was her inward ejaculation; and at that moment Nevil Herbert entered the room. She welcomed him gladly, for she needed him even more than usual; and in agitated accents entered at once on the subject which engrossed her, pausing, in sudden fear, as she beheld Nevil’s very lips grow white, and the damp drops standing like beads on his high forehead.
“Nevil, dear—dear Nevil, you are ill; and I, selfish as I am, prevent your going home to rest. You are more than tired. Pray let me get something for you.”
She laid both hands on his arms as she spoke, looking up in his agitated face with an expression of such anxious affection, that it was with difficulty Nevil could restrain himself from snatching her to his bosom, and pouring forth the agony which at that moment well-nigh prostrated mind and frame; but he did not. Even at that moment religion and virtue were triumphant; he conquered the wild impulse of passion, assured her it was but passing faintness, which a glass of water would remove; and when she flew to fetch it, he bowed his head upon his hands in prayer, and, on her return, received it with his own meek, soul-felt smile.
With all the artless confidence of her nature, Lucy imparted every feeling which that letter caused, except its pain, for that would seem reproach on Mordaunt. She would depart herself for answer—to write first would be but waste of time. The term of parting known, it was better for her mother as for herself to be spared the suffering of anticipation; besides, her uncle only waited for her to set sail for India;—his wife went with him, and such an opportunity might not occur again.
And what could Nevil Herbert answer? Could he reiterate Mordaunt’s own counsel, and beseech her to ponder well ere her final decision? A chill for her had fallen on his heart. He bade her repeat again and again that part of Lyndsey’s letter which she had confided to him; and each time confirmed the dread conviction, that it was in no spirit of self-sacrifice Mordaunt had written, but that the engagement hung upon him as a weight and chain, from which he longed to be released, yet shrunk from the dishonour of breaking it himself. In vain Nevil struggled with the idea; it would force itself upon his mind, regard it which way he would. Could he but have believed she was going to happiness, he would not have paused till all in his power was done to forward it; but, as it was, the chaos of that fond and faithful heart no words are adequate to describe. He felt she was going to misery, which he was denied all power, all possibility of averting—nay, which he was compelled, by a stern peremptory destiny, to advise and forward.
A few words must suffice to narrate Lucy’s departure from her native shores, and uneventful voyage. Doting as she did upon her mother, yet so strong, so omnipotent, was that young girl’s love for her betrothed, that even this pang was assuaged by the intense delight which even to think of gazing on his face, of listening to his voice again, never, never more on earth to be divided, emanated over her whole being. The long weary months of the voyage were beguiled by such fond visions; they told of dangers, of hovering storms, and she smiled, as if love could guard her even from these; and the fond fancy was realized, for she reached India in safety.
To Mrs. Lethvyn and Margaret, Lucy’s departure was indeed desolation; and as Nevil tried to soothe and comfort by the anticipation of her happiness—oh! what a storm of contending feelings crushed his very heart. He heard her mother bewail that love had not sprung up between her Lucy and himself; that two beings, each so fitted to form the happiness of the other, fate had so divided; and, though his very spirit trembled, he smiled, and with gentle monition, soothed the momentary irritability by a reference to that wiser, kinder Providence, from whom all things, even the darkest, have their source in love.
From a return ship, which had met the Syren about two hundred miles from her destined port, the anxious friends of Lucy received intelligence of her safety thus far; and Nevil nerved his heart and frame to receive, without any visible emotion, the intelligence expected in her next—her arrival and her marriage.
The time seemed unusually long before the Indian mail came in; and when he saw by the papers that it had, and the postman passed the vicarage, evidently on his way to the widow’s cottage, Nevil felt as if all physical power had departed from him. How long he thus sat he knew not;—the papers on which he had been writing notes for his next sermon were before him, and his mother fancied he was still busied with them. A hurried step aroused him, and Margaret Lethvyn rushed into the parlour, every feature betraying agitation.
“Oh! Mr. Herbert, come—pray come with me to poor mamma. Lucy, our own dear, injured Lucy! That wretch—that villain Mordaunt! Oh! that I were but a man, that I could but seek revenge!”
“Margaret!” exclaimed Nevil, springing from his seat, and convulsively grasping her arm, his face livid as death, while that of the young, high-spirited Margaret glowed like crimson; “revenge! for what? on whom?—what of—of—speak, for God’s sake!”
“He has deceived, has dealt falsely and foully with her—our own Lucy; who left friends, home—all, all for him; and loved him with such love! Oh! Mr. Herbert, do not chide me for the sinful feelings, but I must hate him—must pray for vengeance on him. He has deceived her. Even when he sent for her, he was MARRIED—MARRIED to another!”
Nevil Herbert sunk back on his seat with a groan so deep, a shudder so convulsive, that his mother and Margaret flew to his side in terror. It was long ere he could rouse himself; his forebodings all were realized; the blow had fallen; and for Lucy—who may tell the agony of Nevil’s heart, when he thought of its effect on her?
It was but too true. Incapable of any strong or enduring emotion, still seeking and loving worldly aggrandizement above all other consideration, Mordaunt Lyndsey had not been a year in India before he felt his engagement with Lucy as a heavy chain, which he longed to cast aside. He found himself courted and followed; and could he but have stifled the voice of conscience, would have married before the termination of eighteen months. A nature heartless as his own could neither appreciate nor understand the depth of Lucy’s. He purposely became colder and colder in his letters, but the warmth and trust of her own heart prevented her perceiving it. He magnified the miseries, the dangers of an Indian life, particularly to a female so thoroughly English as Lucy; but all was in vain;—every post brought him letters full of love and confidence, as at first. His feeble affections had been transferred to a wealthy heiress, caught by the diamonds which had sparkled in her ball costume. Dazzled into forgetfulness of all the past, conscience became drowned in the mad excitement and hilarity with which he pursued his advantage, and not till he was irretrievably engaged, did he remember he was the betrothed of another.
In one part of her statement Margaret was wrong. Mordaunt was not actually married when he last wrote to Lucy. In vain even his heartless nature struggled to write those words which could separate her from him for ever. For the first time the full extent of her love seemed to rush upon him, and he started up, and cursed his evil stars for making him such a wretch. For a moment, the idea of dissolving his present engagement entered his mind; but ere he reached the door, a vision of gold and gems, of untold wealth, came upon him, and the demon triumphed. His better angel fled; and he wrote to Lucy, as we have seen, believing, with pertinacious self-delusion, that his meaning would be so evident that she would break off the engagement herself—she must read that he was changed. At least she would write again ere she decided on leaving England, and then it would be easy for him to prevent it; and confiding in this, not a month after his letter had been despatched, the heiress became Mordaunt Lyndsey’s wife.
Our tale is well-nigh done, for to breathe one word of Lucy’s feelings would be profanation. In vain her aunt and uncle conjured her to remain with them in India, and prove how little Mordaunt’s baseness had affected her, by a speedy marriage with another, above him alike in birth, wealth, and station; for such unions in India were easily accomplished. By some, perhaps, the proposal would have been seized with avidity, and a broken heart effectually concealed beneath an outward show of prosperity and pride. With Lucy this could not be. The storm had burst, the halo was dissipated; its beauty and its sunshine, its purity and truth, vanished like falling stars in the dark abyss of fathomless space; and the gentle spirit, folded in the glowing halo, lay shrined ’neath the shock. Her yearnings were now for home, for a mother’s tenderness, a sister’s caressing love, a brother’s supporting friendship, which would lead her failing heart up to the only fount of peace. And, after a long and weary interval—a voyage, whose many dangers, delays, and all but shipwreck, were, it seemed, as unfelt as unnoticed—those yearnings were at length fulfilled.
Again was Lucy Lethvyn an inmate of her mother’s lowly roof; but oh! how unspeakably changed, yet still so exquisitely, so radiantly lovely, that the eye turned again and again upon her, first in delight, and then with such a strange quivering of the lip and eyelid, betraying that tears were nigh. The smile—oh! what a history gleamed from it, of a woman’s heart broken, yet even from its every shivered fragment reflecting the quickness and confidence—aye, and deep heavenly love, which had descended on it from above. Not a bitter word, not an unkind reflection, not a selfish murmur ever escaped those lips. Those who loved and tended her alone occupied her thoughts and deeds. There were times, indeed, when a paroxysm of mental agony came upon her, bowing her fragile frame even to the dust; but of these intervals no earthly eye was witness. They were only marked by a rapid increase of exhaustion, and all the fatal evidences of decline and death; and so months passed. And Nevil, may we write of him, as day by day he watched over the fading form of one so long, so secretly, so unchangeably beloved. Alas! for him, even as for Lucy, silence is the most eloquent. We do not give such feelings words.
Autumn had come with a mildness and beauty unusual and most soothing. Lucy’s couch had been drawn to the window at her own request, and her eyes wandered over the landscape with a pleased and quiet smile. Nevil Herbert was alone beside her; he had been reading from that blessed book which had given comfort and strength to both, but had paused, seeing her inclined to speak.
“Yes!” she exclaimed, the fervour of her spirit flushing her cheek with sudden crimson, “yes! His words and works alike proclaim Him Love! Oh, Nevil! God has heard my prayer. He has spared me till I could realize the beauty and goodness, and the glory of this world. There was a time when, outward and inward—all was dark. Not a ray illumined the sluggish depths of misery and despair. Beauty had vanished with truth. I prayed for death; and once, as I stood alone upon the deck, the dread temptation was upon me to end misery and life together. It was but one plunge, one little moment’s resolution, and all would be over. All! Oh, what a flash of bewildering and awful light burst upon my mental darkness, sent as an angel of mercy to my soul! I had loved a mortal, and not God! The world was beautiful with human love—not with His, from whom it sprang;—and the light of human love was quenched, to teach me other things: and then it was I prayed, in the deep agony of remorse, my God would spare me, even in suffering, till even this world were lovely to my heart once more; till I could feel His love more deep, more precious, than the love of man. And he has done this, Nevil, dearest Nevil. A few, a very few hours, and I shall be with Him whose all is joy, and loveliness, and love, for ever and ever.”
There was no answer, and Lucy turned with difficulty towards him. His face was buried in his hands, and his whole frame shaken as with convulsion.
“Nevil,” she said, softly, “dearest Nevil, you are in sorrow, and I can do nothing to relieve it; I—to whom you have been such a true consoling friend. I have long feared you had some secret grief; not in the selfishness of my joy, but since—since I have returned. Oh, that I could be to you what you have been to me!”
It was too much for Nevil. In the passionate emotion of that moment, he flung himself on his knees beside the couch, poured forth the torrent of that overwhelming love—how it had lingered with him through years of hopelessness and misery; and he besought her, in agony, to say that she would live—live to bless him yet; and, as he spoke, the pious, the strong-hearted Nevil Herbert wept, till, as an infant, his very soul seemed powerless within him.
“And you have loved me thus!—you, the good, the noble, the exalted! Oh! I thought human love was all an idle dream—a vain delusion; but it is not—it is not. Even this may be beautiful and true,” murmured Lucy, raising herself with difficulty till her head rested on the bosom of Nevil. “Do not—do not weep, Nevil! Our Father will bring peace and love. And, oh! if the pure and ransomed spirits may hover beside those still lingering on this earth, be it mine the blessed task of bringing you the comfort I would give you now. I was never worthy of such love—and from you, dearest Nevil!—how much less worthy now, that even, were life granted, I could give but a broken heart, whose all of life and energy had been devoted to another. You must not weep for me, Nevil! You must not let my memory blight your path of holiness and good. Think of all you have been to me, have done for me; and—and if that will comfort you, oh! believe all—all of love this aching heart may yet give to earth, Nevil, dearest Nevil! is your own!”
She raised that sweet face, which had become suddenly pale and dim, as if a shadow had stolen over it. Nevil clasped her convulsively to his heart, and struggled vainly to speak; his white and quivering lips pressed hers with a long, lingering kiss, and she shrunk not from them. It was his first and last; for sleep stole upon her, and bowed her head more heavily, more caressingly upon his bosom. And Nevil stilled his heart’s full beating, and hushed his very breath, lest that calm slumber should be broken. He yearned to look once more in those lovely eyes, to drink in once, but once again, the gushing music of that thrilling voice; but vain those mortal yearnings. Human love, the purest, mightiest, has no power to chain the heaven-born spirit from its soaring flight. She never woke again!
And Mordaunt Lyndsey—was there no vengeance, no retribution for him? Did justice indeed so slumber? Long years rolled on ere aught could be distinguished to mark his prosperous path from that of his fellows; but some twenty years after our “Autumn Walk” in the lovely vales of Westmoreland, we learned that the hand of Heaven had dashed his lot with poison. A blooming family had sprung up around him; but each more or less touched by the malady of their mother. He had wedded madness!
The Spirit’s Entreaty. FOUNDED ON A HEBREW APOLOGUE.
There was a pause in the courts of heaven. Seven times had the voice of the Eternal resounded through the vast realms of space, and from the very centre of chaotic darkness a world of beauty had sprung forth. Thousands of angelic spirits floated round and round the new-born globe, tending the innumerable sources of loveliness and life, which had burst at once into perfected being at the all-creating word. With every new creation, an increased effulgence flashed over the angelic hosts; and richer tones of mighty harmony proclaimed the power, and the glory, and the mercy of their God.
Deep in the unfathomable abyss of formless space hung the new-formed world, suspended from its parent heaven by chains of diamond light, visible only to the pure spirits, who on them ascended and descended, in performance of their newly-assigned employments.
Myriads of celestial beings stood in dazzling files without the veil, which in unapproachable and indescribable splendour concealed the throne of the Creator; whence issued that Eternal voice which spake, and creation was! None, not even the highest and the purest, the most etherealized amidst those spiritual ranks, could gaze on the ineffable glory piercing through the effulgent veil; nor dared approach it, without covering his face with his glittering pinions, and falling low in prostrate adoration. In their several ranks they stood, the glorious archangels to whom the ways, clearly as the works of the Eternal, were revealed. Hierarchs, who had penetrated deeper and deeper the mysteries of infinity, and by longed-tried obedience, and faithfulness, and love had won the glorious privilege of commune with the Ineffable Majesty of the Supreme. Even to the young seraph, commencing his heavenly career, satisfied to labour and to love, till he should pass through the intermediate ranks, and rising higher and higher in angelic intellect, and the beatified nature of his tasks at length attain the archangelic goal.
Seven times had gone forth the Omnific Word, and seven times had the Eternal pronounced it good; and each time of that approving Word, had the resplendent pinions of the hosts of heaven fluttered in irrepressible rejoicing, till space itself seemed lost in one vast flood of glistening and iris-coloured light, and music, soft, spiritual, and thrilling, marked every movement of the radiant wings, and filled up each pause of song.
And then, midst the deep stillness which succeeded, again spake the Eternal voice: “Let us make man!” and the mandate with the velocity of light rushed through the angelic-peopled courts; and every spirit of every rank, and every host, caught up the Omnific Word, and, in the full song of adoration, testified their joy. But suddenly a hush sunk on the rejoicing myriads; for, darting at the same instant from their respective ranks nearest the Eternal’s throne, three glorious spirits met together before the resplendent veil, and prostrated themselves in supplication.
They were of the highest order of the archangels, each intrusted with an attribute of his Creator to uphold its glory and its beauty amidst the celestial and spiritual worlds. And one spake, and his wings of sapphire, his dazzling brow, his radiant eye, before whose single look the mists of error passed; his crystal spear, before whose slightest touch, falsehood fled trembling and self-abhorred; alike proclaimed the gift of which he was the guardian. The Spirit of Truth implored—
“Father, create him not—life will be overshadowed by deceit!” and the spirit bowed his effulgent brow upon his wings in grief.
And then the second spirit spake,—akin to Truth, but sterner. His glorious brow was shaded by a glittering helm, and his right hand grasped an unsheathed sword; a raiment, resembling an hauberk of golden light, clothed his graceful limbs, and the rich full voice, in its entreaty, breathed his name.
“Father and Lord, create him not! He will destroy yon beautiful world by his unrighteousness; and I, unto whom thou hast entrusted thine attribute of Justice, will seem to him, in his darkened light, as the avenger. Father, create him not!”
And then spake the third archangel,—his pure white pinions fluttered tremulously around him, and the exquisite beauty of his youthful face seemed disturbed by the intense ardour of his supplication; a wreath of amaranths bound back his flowing hair from a brow of such transcendent loveliness, that one look upon it filled the soul with balm; he held a bough of emerald, resembling the olive-leaf, but radiant with a liquid lustre unknown to the plants of earth.
“Create him not, oh, Father!” implored the spirit, and the brightness of his meekly expressive orbs was dimmed; “create him not! he will chase me from the earth. Peace will be but a name amidst the awful scenes of internal and external war, with which man’s passions will devastate yon beautiful world. Father, create him not!”
The spirit ceased; and, hushed to a solemn stillness, the listening myriads waited the answering Word. The effulgence piercing through the veil, appeared slightly shadowed, as if the Almighty presence had withdrawn his immediate glory, and the entreaty of his favoured angels would be granted. But far, far, in the unfathomable distance, a resplendent star seemed floating towards the veil, and faint yet thrilling melody proclaimed the rapid advance of angel wings. On, on—and the semblance of a star gave place to the form of a beatified spirit, whose dazzling loveliness irradiated space itself, and heightened the glory all around; and every rank he passed hailed him, even in that awful hour, with an irrepressible burst of song, and drew closer and closer round; and watched him with such love as only angels feel; and he smiled on them, but paused not in his rapid course, and the smile kindled hope anew, and confidence and joy banished the momentary shade.
It was the Spirit of Love; the best beloved of the Eternal; the guardian essence of the whole angelic hosts; angels and archangels, heirarchs and seraphs, alike acknowledged him, and bowed before his sway, as the representative of the Supreme. And on he floated in his indescribable beauty, and every court of heaven sent forth increased effulgence as he passed. He neared the veil, and bowed down before it, and then he spake, and his low soft tone penetrated the farthest limit of that immeasurable space.
“Create him, oh, Father!” he prayed; “create him to love, and be beloved! What if he err? what if he sin? Thou wilt pardon him; for thy love is greater than his sin!”
A burst of bewildering glory flashed through the veil upon him, as he knelt, and darted its dazzling rays through the thousand ranks of heaven at the same moment. It was the assenting sign of the Eternal; and again the Omnific Word went forth: “Let us make man!” and millions and millions of voices swelled the glad chorus, that another and yet mightier creation should bear witness to the loving mercy of their God. And Truth, and Justice, and Peace joined in the thrilling strain, for the Spirit of Love had touched them with his quivering breath, and they felt his words were true. Man might still err, but created in love, the immortal spirit breathed into the shell of clay; the angelic hosts gave vent to the full song of rejoicing; for the Spirit of Love hovered over the new-born world, as over theirs, endowed by the measureless compassion of the Eternal to purify and pardon.
Idalie. THE STORY OF A PICTURE.
No place is more calculated to call forth all the vagaries of the imagination than an old half-ruined castle, surrounded by wood and mount, hoar from many centuries, and lying in such deep seclusion, as to be unseen by the mere casual traveller. On such a spot, completely circled by a branch of the Cevennes, in the ancient district of Auvergne, it was once my hap to light. Trees of such gigantic growth, that they appeared bending beneath the weight of ages, frowning rocks, and overgrown brushwood formed so close a fortification, that the building might have been passed and repassed within a mile of its vicinity undiscovered.
It was a gothic chateau of the olden time, just sufficiently ruinous to give it the interest of age, yet containing costly tapestried chambers, panelled halls, long rambling galleries, secret rooms, and those deep dark dungeons, where many a brave man has languished and died unknown, save by his ruthless captor, all still in sufficient preservation to fill the mind with visions of the past as with the breathing realities of the present. There was a small chapel in the building, which had once been evidently richly adorned, but whose shrines and hangings were now all crumbling to decay. It was a melancholy visionary place, yet infused with a charm impossible to be resisted, and day after day my wanderings turned to the chateau; contented at first with rambling over chamber, hall, and gallery, imagination feasting on the thoughts of what had been the life, the stir, the pageantry, where all was now the solitude of silence and neglect. There were still some pictures hanging from the walls, but seemingly so resigned to the cobweb and the dust, that I had heeded them little, till one day the sun gleaming upon an antique frame, unobserved before, attracted me to the picture it enshrined, and in a moment heart, mind, and fancy were irresistibly enchained.
To attempt description of that face, to say why it haunted me for days and nights, as something almost unearthly, would be a hopeless task; yet turn from it as I would, or seek amusement in other objects, still it rose before me, pale, shadowy, yet so lovely, baffling every effort to dismiss it from my mind. Stars and braids of diamonds seemed still literally to glisten in the long jetty tresses, falling as a veil around her. Hands small, thin, and delicately white were crossed upon her bosom; the large dark eyes were raised, and the pale lips parted as in prayer; she seemed standing near an ancient altar; but every other object in the picture time had rendered wholly indistinct.
That I could obtain any information from the half-blind, wholly deaf guardian of the chateau was little probable; but the old man, to my astonishment, volunteered the tradition of the portrait, even before I had sufficiently rallied from its effect to look into its past. This tale, when separated from the garrulous annotations of his age and office, was simple and brief enough, yet to resist its spell was impossible. The beings of whom I heard seemed to breathe and move around me, the old castle to resume the state and order which had characterised it nearly three centuries ago, the very woods to lose their wild appearance, and blending in beautiful keeping with mount and rock, and richly-cultured lands, seemed to teem with the innumerable retainers of the proud nobles to whom they had once belonged. Under the influence of such dreamy visions the following papers were hastily written. Pretensions to a connected romance they have none; they tell but the story of a picture, which I would fain bring before the mind’s eye of the reader, even as its remembrance still so vividly lingers on my own.
It was the third day of the brilliant show, yet was there no relaxation of chivalric ardour, nor semblance that lords and gentles were wearied with martial sports, or that the galaxy of beauty which the ornamented galleries presented had in aught diminished of loveliness and grace. Never had the fair sun of Paris looked down on a scene of more spirit-stirring interest, never had the blue arch of heaven re-echoed more martial sounds than on the day which witnessed the last tournament of France. The lists extending through the most central parts of Paris, flanked on one side by the terrific towers of the Bastile, were adorned by pavilions and tents of every variety of colouring and material. Heavy brocades, velvets, and silks, adorned with the devices of their owners, betrayed the names and bearings of well-nigh all the nobility of France. Over one, whose silver covering glittered so resplendently in the July sun that the aching eye turned from its lustre, hung the heavy folds of France’s banner, the fleur de lis, which, combined with the splendid accoutrements of esquires and pages lingering around, proved that majesty itself was amongst the combatants. The light breeze sporting with the many standards, at times gave their devices to view, at others, laid them idly by their staves. Streamers and pennons in gay relief stood forth against the clear blue sky; while the brilliant armour, the glittering spears, and stainless blades so multiplied the dazzling rays, there seemed a hundred suns.
France and Scotland, Spain and Savoy, in the honour of which last these jousts were given, were all marshalled in the lists, for none chose to remain mere spectators of games in which their chivalric spirits so heartily sympathised. The princes of the lordly house of Guise vying, in richness of apparel and number of retinue, with royalty itself. Montmorenci, Coligny, Andelot, Condé, Nemours—names bearing with them such undying memories, their mention is sufficient—all were this day present; for the blood-red standard of intolerance and persecution as yet remained unfurled. The very sounds that stirred the air added to the excitement of the scene. There were the proud neighings, the hurried snort of eager chargers impatient for the onset; the pealing shouts of welcome as each knight was recognised, marching at the head of well-trained bands to his pavilion; the answering cheers of the men-at-arms; the trampling of many steeds; the frequent clash of steel, as the knights passed and repassed in the lists ere they formed into bands; now and then the loud voice of the herald, or the shrill prolonged blast of the trumpet, and ever and anon a thrilling burst of martial music, lingering awhile in its own rude tones, then subsiding gently into the softer song of minstrelsy and love, more fitted to the ears of beauty than the wilder notes of war.
And beauty was indeed assembled in the many galleries erected round the lists. Even had there been no Catherine de Medicis, whose character was not yet fully known, and who now, as the queen consort, claimed and received universal homage; no fair and gentle Elizabeth, the youthful bride of Spain, whose child-like form and diminutive though most expressive features accorded little with the heavy gorgeousness of her jewelled robes; no retiring yet much-loved Margaret, the sister of Henri and bride of Savoy; no Anne of Este, whose regal beauty and majestic mien would have done honour to a diadem—had there been none of these, there was yet one in the royal group who, though girlhood had barely reached its prime, fascinated the gaze of every eye and fixed the homage of every heart. The diamond coronet of fleur de lis entwining the sterner thistle, that lightly wreathed her noble brow, betrayed her rank; and the simple mention of Mary of Scotland, the queen dauphine, is all-sufficient to bring before the reader a fair, bright vision of loveliness and grace, that imagination only can portray. She sate the centre of a fair bevy of young girls, indiscriminately of France and Scotland, all bearing on the smooth brow, the smiling lip, the unpaled cheek true tokens of those fresh unsullied feelings found only in early youth.
The trumpets breathed forth a prolonged flourish, echoed on every side by the silver clarion and rolling drum, and Henri himself entered the lists. Clothed in the richest armour, mounted on a beautiful Arabian, and still wearing across his breast the black and white scarf in homage to Diana, the chivalric monarch challenged one by one the bravest warriors and the first nobles of his kingdom. Excited by the presence of his distinguished guests, he appeared this day urged on by an ardour and impetuosity which, while it endeared him to his subjects, caused many a female heart to tremble.
“Has thy knight turned truant, Idalie, or is he so wearied from the exertions of the last two days he has no strength or will for more?” asked the queen dauphine of one beside her, whose large dark eye and soul-speaking beauty betrayed a birth more southern than Scotia’s colder shores.
“He enters not the lists, royal madam,” she answered, in a lowered voice, “for, he fears the challenge of the king—fears not defeat, but conquest. The king has skill as yet unrivalled, courage none dare question; but the practice of a soldier brings these things to greater perfection than monarchs ever may obtain. Our gracious sovereign challenges the bravest knights to-day, and therefore does the count avoid the lists.”
“Perhaps he does well. But see how gallantly thy father bears himself; disease hath worked him but little, or rusted his sword within its scabbard. I would trust myself to the men of Montemar, Idalie, with better faith than to many of those more courtly-seeming bands. And who is yon gallant, bearing thy colours? Is the young esquire of thy father a rival to the goodly count?”
“Not so, gracious lady. Louis de Montemar and I are cousins in kindred, friends in affection, and playfellows from infancy. I broidered him the scarf he wears as token of my love, when he doffed the page’s garb and donned the squire’s. When he hath won his spur, perchance my scarf will be of little value.”
“Thinkest thou so? Methought the lowly homage that he tendered spoke humbler greeting than that of a brother. But there is some stir below; the trumpets sound the king again as challenger.”
A long flourish of trumpets again riveted the attention of the spectators, and the heralds in set phrase, challenged, on the part of their liege lord and gracious sovereign Henri of France, Gabriel de Lorges, Comte de Montgomeri, to run three courses with the lance or spear, and do battle with the same. Thrice was the count challenged according to form, but there was no answer.
A deadly pallor spread over the flushed cheek of Idalie de Montemar, and, clinging to the dauphine’s seat, she exclaimed, “Lady, dearest lady, oh, do not let this be! in mercy speak to her grace the queen, implore her to avert this combat!”
“Thou silly trembler, what evil can accrue? Nay, an thou lookest thus, I must do thy bidding,” and Mary hastily approached the seat of Catherine de Medicis, whom, however, she found already agitated and alarmed, and in the very act of despatching an esquire to implore the king to leave the lists. Somewhat infected with the terror she witnessed, yet unable to define it, the dauphine returned to her seat, seeking to reassure the trembling Idalie, and watch with her the effect of the queen’s solicitation.
At the moment of the esquire’s joining the knightly ring, the Comte de Montgomeri, unarmed and bareheaded, had flung himself at the king’s feet, imploring him in earnest accents to withdraw his challenge, and not expose him to the misery and danger of meeting his sovereign even in a friendly joust. It was no common fear, no casual emotion impressed on the striking countenance of Montgomeri; he was not one to bend his knee in entreaty, even to his sovereign, for a mere trivial cause. The princes and nobles round were themselves struck by his earnestness, knowing too well his great valour and extraordinary skill in every martial deed to doubt them now. The king alone remained unmoved.
“Tush, man!” he said, joyously; “what more harm will your good lance do our sacred person, than those whose blows yet tingle on our flesh? we have run many a gallant course to-day, and how shall we be the worse for a tilt with thee? Marry, thou art over bold, sir knight, we will not do thy courage such dishonour as to tax it now; yet, by our Lady, such presumption needs a check. Come, rouse thee from this folly, and don thine armour, as thou wouldst were our foes in Paris; my chaplet is not perfect till it hath a leaf from thee.”
“It may not be, my liege. I do beseech your grace to pardon me, and seek some opponent more worthy of this honour.”
“I know of none,” replied the king, so frankly and feelingly, that the warrior’s head bent even to the ground; “and Montgomeri will obey his sovereign, if he will not oblige his friend. Sir Count, we COMMAND your acceptance of our challenge.”
Sadly and slowly the count rose from his knee, and was reluctantly withdrawing, when the king again spoke—
“We would not, good my lord, that you should prepare to accept our challenge even as a criminal for execution; therefore, mark you lords and gentles, and bear witness to our words—whatever ill or scathe may chance to us in our intended course, we hold and pronounce Gabriel de Lorges, Comte de Montgomeri, guiltless of all malice, absolving him from all intentional evil, even if he work us harm. How now, sir squire, what would our royal consort, that ye seek us thus rudely?”
The esquire bent his knee, and delivered his message.
The king laughed loud and lightly.
“By our Lady, this is good,” he said. “Heard ye ever the like of this, my lords? What spell doth our brave Montgomeri bear about him, that we may not meet him even as others in friendly combat? Back to your royal mistress, Conrad; commend us in all love and duty to her grace, and say we will break this lance unto her honour. Would she have our noble guests proclaim Montgomeri so brave and skilful that Henri dared not meet him even after his challenge had gone forth? Shame, shame, on such advisers!”
The esquire withdrew, and the king taking a new lance, and mounting a fresh charger, slowly proceeded round the lists, attended by pages and esquires, and managing his fiery steed so gracefully as to rivet on him many admiring glances. He paused beneath the queen’s gallery, doffing his deep-plumed helmet a moment in the respectful greeting of a faithful chevalier; then looking up, he smiled proudly and undauntedly. At that moment the trumpets proclaimed the entrance of the challenged, and the king hastily replacing his helmet, clasped it but slightly, and galloped to his post.
A loud shout of welcome greeted the appearance of Montgomeri, and as the spectators marked the pink and white scarf across his shoulder, and the opal clasp that secured the deep plumes of his helmet, all eyes involuntarily turned to see the fair being to whom those colours proclaimed him vowed; nor when they traced the bandeau of opals on the pale high brow of Idalie de Montemar, her flowing robes secured by a girdle of the same precious stones, and discovered it was to her service the knight was pledged, did they marvel that at length the cold, stern, unbending Gabriel de Lorges had bowed beneath the spell of love.
The lists were cleared, and deep silence reigned amidst the assembled thousands. The combatants, ere the signal sounded, slowly traversed the lists, meeting at both extremities, and greeting each other in all solemn and chivalric fashion. Montgomeri’s lance sank as he saluted the queen’s pavilion, but it was to Idalie his lowest homage was tendered. She sought to smile in answer; but her lip only quivered, for her eye, awakened by love, could trace his deep reluctance to accept the challenge.
The signal was given, and with a shock and sound as of thunder the knights met in the centre of the course. The lances of both shivered. A loud and ringing shout echoed far and wide, forming a deep bass to the military music bursting forth at the same moment; but then the sound changed, and so suddenly, that the shout of triumph seemed turned, by the very breeze which bore it along, to the cries of wailing and despair. The horses of both combatants were seen careering wildly, and with empty saddles, round the lists. Princes, nobles, and knights crowded so swiftly and in such numbers to the spot where the combatants had met, that the eager populace could trace nothing but that one warrior was down and seemingly senseless, the which no one could assert. Order and restraint gave place to the wildest tumult; the people, en masse, rushed indiscriminately into the lists, heedless of the efforts of the men-at-arms to keep them back, and scarcely restrained even by the rapid and agitated approach of the queen consort and the princesses towards the principal group. Words of terrific import were whispered one to another, till the whisper grew loud and rumour became certainty. The music ceased, save the solitary flourish of trumpets proclaiming the warlike sports concluded. As if by magic, the lists were cleared, the tents struck, and every trace of the tournament removed. But even then the popular ferment continued; there were men hurrying to and fro, little knots of persons assembling in the street, speaking in anxious whispers, or hastening in silence to their homes. Ever and anon the muffled tone of heavy bells came borne on the air, and then the dead silence, ever the shapeless herald of some dread calamity. Ere night all trace of the morning’s glittering splendour and animated life had disappeared, and Paris seemed changed into a very desert of solitude and gloom.
Eleven days had passed since the sudden termination of the fatal tournament, and Henri of France still lay speechless and insensible as he had fallen in the lists, when, from the insecure fastening of his helmet, it had given way before the lance of Montgomeri, and caused him to receive the full force of the blow on his eyebrow, thence fatally injuring the brain. Still life was not extinct, and, though against all reason, hopes were still entertained by many for his eventual recovery. In one of the apartments of the Louvre, forming the suite of the queen dauphine, sat the unfortunate Comte de Montgomeri and his betrothed bride. Sometimes sanguine that Henri would, nay, must recover; at others plunged in the depth of despair—had been the alternate moods of the count during these eleven days. His friends conjured him to lose no time in retiring from France, at least for a time; and Idalie herself, though she shrunk from the idea of parting, with an indefinable feeling of foreboding dread, yet so trembled for his safety if he remained, as to add her solicitations to those of others. Still the count lingered. The very thought of his having been the ill-fated hand to give the death-blow to the monarch he revered, and the friend he loved, was too horrible to be realized. He could not believe that such would be; yet so dark was his despair, so agonizing his self-accusations, that even his interviews with Idalie had lost their soothing sweetness, and he did but deplore that her pure love had been given to one so darkly fated as himself.
It was after one of these bursts of misery that the Comte de Montemar, who had been engaged with papers at the further end of the apartment, approached and sought to comfort him by an appeal to those holier feelings, which Montgomeri possessed in a much higher degree than most of his countrymen.
“It is not well, my friend,” De Montemar said, “to poison thus the brief moments we may yet pass together. Remember, thou wert no willing agent of that higher power, by whose mandate alone it was that our monarch fell. All may seem dark, yet even out of darkness He brought forth light—out of a very chaos the most unwavering order; and does He not do so still? Abide by the advice of those who urge thee to quit France till order is restored, and our gracious sovereign’s last words remembered and acted upon. Italian blood is hot and eager to avenge; but fear not, we shall meet again in happier days, and, oh, embitter not thus the few moments still left my poor child!”
Softened and subdued more than he had been yet, Montgomeri folded his arm round the weeping Idalie, kissed the tears from her pale cheek, conjured her forgiveness, and promised to battle with the despondency that almost crushed him.
“And wilt thou indeed do this?” she rejoined, imploringly. “Oh, bless thee for such promise! Yet I fear thee, Montgomeri. And when apart from me, and these troubled thoughts regain ascendency, thou wilt rush on danger, on death, to escape them. Think, then, dearest, that it is not your own life alone which you risk; that one is bound up in it which cannot rest alone. Will the ivy blossom and smile when the oak has fallen? And as the oak is to the lowly yet clinging ivy, so art thou to me.”
Folding her still closer, Montgomeri in his turn sought to reassure and soothe, but with less success than usual. Every look and tone of Idalie betrayed that heavy weight which had increased with each day that brought the hour of parting nearer. Breathed to none, and battled with as it had been, still it seemed to hold every faculty chained, and at length caused her head to sink on the bosom of De Lorges with such a burst of irrepressible anguish as to excite his alarm, and tenderly he conjured her to reveal its cause.
“I know it is a weakness, a folly, Gabriel, unworthy of the woman whom thou lovest; but scorn it not, upbraid it not, bid it go from me! Is there not woe enough in parting, that before the hope of meeting ever rises a dim and shapeless darkness impossible to be defined, yet so folding round my future as to bury all of hope, of trust, of every feeling, save that we shall not meet as we have parted?”
“Is it change in me thou fearest, love? No. Then heed it not; ’tis but a baseless fancy, which will come when the frame is weakened by the anguish of the mind. Believe me—”
He was interrupted. The hangings over the door leading by a private passage to the dauphine’s own rooms were suddenly drawn aside, and, closely muffled, Mary of Scotland stood before them, with anxiety and haste visibly imprinted on her features.
“This is no time for ceremony, my lord, or we would apologize for our intrusion,” she said, turning towards the Count de Montemar; “our business is too weighty for an indifferent messenger. Count de Lorges,” she added, addressing him abruptly, and pausing not for Montemar’s courtly words, “tarry not another night in Paris; you have been unwise to loiter here so long. Pause for no thought, no marvel. Fly at once; put the broad seas between you and France, and there may be happiness in store for you yet. Dearest Idalie, for thy sake, even as for Montgomeri’s, I am here: do not look upon me thus.”
“Now must we part—now? Your highness means not now!” exclaimed Idalie, as her cold hands convulsively closed round the count’s arm. “What has he done that he should fly?”
“Nothing to call the blush of shame to his cheek or thine, dear child. The words I have heard may mean nothing, may be but wrung from woman’s agony, for the grief of Catherine de Medicis is of no softening nature; yet ought Montgomeri to leave Paris without delay, for there may be some to act on broken words, even as on an imperial mandate. Detain him not, Idalie; we shall visit Scotland perchance ere long, and there no grief shall damp a bridal.”
“Stay but one moment more, royal lady,” entreated De Lorges, as the dauphine turned to go; “one word, for mercy. How fares the king? Is there no more hope? Does he still lay as he has done ever since that fatal stroke?”
Mary looked at him somewhat surprised, and very sorrowfully.
“No, Montgomeri, no!” she said, after a pause of much feeling; “the soul has escaped the shattered prison, and Henri is at rest.”
Montgomeri staggered back with a heavy, almost convulsive groan. He knew not till that moment how powerfully hope had sustained him. The shock was almost as fearful as if he had never thought of death; and yet the horrible conviction that he was a regicide had scarcely for one instant left his mind.
“Montemar, let not this be, for the sake of thy poor child, of both. Part them ere long,” whispered the queen (dauphine no more), as the count knelt before her in involuntary homage; “think not of us now. Would to God we were still Dauphine of France and not her queen. Montgomeri’s danger, I fear, is imminent; let him not linger, and may our Lady guard him still.”
She departed as she spoke; and Montemar, infected with her evident anxiety, hesitated not to obey.
“Rouse thee, Montgomeri,” he said, earnestly; “fly, for the sake of this poor, drooping flower; let not our Idalie weep for a darker doom than even this sad parting. Come to thy father’s heart awhile, my child. Have I no claim upon thy love?”
Gently he drew her from Montgomeri’s still detaining arm, almost relieved to find her insensible to any further suffering. His beseeching words to fly ere Idalie again awoke to consciousness, moved the count to action. Still he lingered to kiss again and again the pale cheek and lips of his beloved; then convulsively wringing the count’s hand, rushed from the room and from the palace at the very moment that voices shouted “Long live Francis the Second, God preserve the King!”
Eighteen months had passed, and still was the Count de Montgomeri an exile from his country; and so virulent was Catherine against him, so determinately forgetful of Henri’s last words, absolving the count of all intentional evil, whatever might ensue, that even his best friends dared not wish him back. For Idalie, this interval was indeed heavy with anxiety and sorrow, and all the bitter sickness of hope deferred. No doubt of his affection ever entered her heart; she knew him fond and faithful as herself; but there seemed no end, no term to the long, long interval of absence. Her future was bounded by the hour of meeting, and a very void of interest, and hope, and pleasure seemed the space which stretched between. Yet, for her father’s sake, her ever unselfish nature struggled with the stagnating gloom. The court was loathsome to them both, for even the friendship of the young queen could not remove from Idalie the horror which Catherine de Medicis inspired. In the Chateau de Montemar, then, these eighteen months had mostly been passed, and Idalie compelled herself to seek and feel interest in the families of her father’s vassals, and in the many lessons of feudal government and policy which, as the heiress of all his large estates and of his proud, unsullied name, her father delighted to pour into her heart.
One other subject engrossed the Count de Montemar, and of which he spoke so often and so solemnly to his daughter, that his feelings on the subject became hers; it was the wide-spreading over France of the new religion, deemed by all orthodox Catholics as a heresy, which, if not checked, would entirely subvert and destroy their ancient faith, and in consequence bring incalculable mischief to the country, both temporally and spiritually. De Montemar was no bigot, looking only to violent measures for the extermination of this far-spreading evil; but it grieved and affected him in no common degree. He spent hours and hours with his confessor and his daughter in commune on this one engrossing subject; and from the sincere and earnest lessons of the priest, a true and zealous though humble follower of his own church, he became more and more convinced of the truth of the olden creed, and what he deemed the foul and awful apostasy of the new.
Yet no violence of party spirit mingled in these discussions, and therefore it was that Idalie felt the conviction of the truth and beauty of her long-cherished religion sink into her soul like balm. Saddened by her individual sorrow, shrinking in consequence from all the exciting amusements then reigning in France, her fathers favourite subject became equally a resource and comfort to her, thus unconsciously fitting her for the martyr part which she was only too soon called upon to play.
The Count de Montemar had been a soldier from his youth, and was still suffering from the serious wounds received in his last campaign. Within the last three months he had gradually become weaker and weaker, till at length Idalie watched beside the couch, from which she had been told that her beloved and loving parent would never rise again. She had heard it with an agony of sorrow, which it was long ere the kindly sympathy of the benevolent priest and of her cousin Louis could in any degree assuage. Motherless from early childhood, a more than common tie bound her to her father; and so deep was the darkness which those cruel tidings seemed to gather round her, that even love itself succumbed beneath it, and the strange, wild yearning rose, that she, too, might “flee away, and be at rest.”
Unable to endure any longer these sad thoughts, Idalie arose from the seat where she had kept vigil for many weary nights and days, and looked forth upon the night. The moon was at the full, and shed such clear and silvery light around, that even the rugged crags and stunted pines seemed softened into beauty. The vale beneath slumbered in shadow, save where, here and there, a solitary tree stood forth, seemingly bathed in liquid silver. Sweet odours from the flowers of the night lingered on the breeze, and the rippling gush of a streamlet, reflecting every star and ray upon its bosom, was the only sound that broke the silence. The holy calm of Nature touched a responding chord in the heart of the watcher, and even grief felt for the moment stilled. A few minutes afterwards the voice of the count recalled her to his side.
“Is it a fancy, or was Louis here but now, my child?” he asked, feebly. “Is he from the court? and did he not bring news? Wherefore came he?”
“Because he heard that I was in sorrow, my dear father; and he sought, as he ever does, to soothe, or at least to share it.”
“Bless him for his faithful love! He has in truth been to me a son, and will be to thee a brother, mine own love; but tell me, is it indeed truth, or have my thoughts again wandered, has my young sovereign gone before me to the grave?”
“Alas! my father, ’tis even so.”
An expression of deep sorrow escaped the lips of the dying man, and for several minutes he was silent. When again he spoke, his voice was firmer.
“Idalie, my child, I shall soon follow my royal master; and it is well, for the regency of Catherine de Medicis can bring with it but misery. Listen to me, beloved one! I leave thee sole heiress of our olden heritage, of a glorious name, which from age to age hath descended in a line so pure, so stainless, that the name of De Montemar hath become a very proverb for all honourable and knightly deeds. There have been times when daughters, not sons, succeeded; and yet did its lustre not diminish nor its power decrease. Thou knowest this, my child. I know not wherefore I recall it now.”
“Dost thou doubt me, father?” replied Idalie, sadly, and somewhat reproachfully. “Thinkest thou my heart is so engrossed with selfish sorrows that I feel no pride, no love for mine ancient race, that its glory and its power shall decrease with me?”
“No, no, my noble child. Forgive me, I have pained thee, yet I meant it not.” Pausing a moment, he continued hurriedly, “Idalie, our faith, our blessed faith is tottering, falling in this land. Each month, each week the heretics gain ground; nor will all the bloody acts of Catherine and the princes of Guise arrest their progress. Were health and life renewed, I would neither raise sword nor kindle brand for their destruction; but my whole soul trembles for my native land. Idalie, my child, I know thy heart beats true as mine to our ancient creed. I know thou wilt never turn aside thyself from the one true path; but oh, for thy dead father’s sake, let not a heretic be master of these fair lands, and tempt thy vassals to embrace his soul-destroying creed. Thou wilt not wed with heresy, my child?”
“Never, my father! I can pity and pray for these misguided ones; but never shall my hand be given to one unfaithful to his God. Yet wherefore this fear? Am I not the plighted bride of one who would rather die than lead me astray, or turn aside himself?”
The fading eyes of the dying lit suddenly up with feverish radiance, his cheek burned, and his mind evidently so far wandered as to prevent either his hearing or understanding his daughter’s last words.
“And thou wilt promise this?” he said, in a voice at once alarmingly hollow, yet strangely excited; “thou wilt solemnly promise never to give thyself and thy fair heritage to the heretic; thou wilt not let the foul spot blacken our noble line? Promise me this, my child.”
Alarmed at the change in his appearance, and convinced that Montgomeri, who, when he left her, had been as true and zealous a Catholic as herself, was not of a nature to change, Idalie knelt down beside the couch, and in distinct and solemn accents made the vow required.
The Count de Montemar raised himself with sudden strength, and laid both his hands on the bent head of his child. “Now blessings, blessings on thee for this, my sainted one!” he said, distinctly; “thou hast removed all doubt, all fear; death has no terror now, no sting. God’s blessing be upon thee, love, and give—”
His voice sunk, but his lips still warmly pressed her brow, and minutes thus passed. A cloud had come before the moon, and when her light broke forth again, Idalie knelt by the couch of the dead.
Idalie de Montemar was not long permitted to indulge her grief in solitude. Scarcely two months after her loss, an express arrived from Paris, and she was compelled to prepare her chateau and vassals for the reception of the young king, the queen mother, and court, who in their progress to the south passed through Auvergne. Idalie roused herself from the sorrow which weighed so heavily on her spirits. Although chivalry had lost much of the enthusiasm and warmth which had characterised it not half a century previous, its memory still lingered in the minds of men; and something of this feeling actuated the men of Montemar as they looked on their youthful countess. Shrinking and timid as she had been while her parent lived, a new spirit now seemed her own; and it was with all the proud consciousness that she was now sole representative of one of the most ancient and most noble families of France that Idalie de Montemar, at the head of her loyal vassals, received her royal guests, and knelt in homage to the youthful Charles.
But amid all that royal group only one had power over the heart of Idalie, and she grieved to see the saddened brow and anxious glance, which had usurped the place of the radiant smiles and sparkling eye, which had never before failed to beam forth from the lovely countenance of Mary Queen of Scots. Robed so completely in white (the costume of royal widows) as to receive the designation of La Reine blanche, her beauty rather increased than diminished by its softened tone; she was to many an object of still deeper interest now than she had been hitherto; but it was very soon evident to Idalie that the petty mortifications springing from rooted envy and dislike, to which she was daily, almost hourly subjected by Catherine, were poisoning all youthful enjoyment, and that even while she clave with her whole soul to France, she felt it must not be her home much longer.
Feeling deeply, as she did, that it was to Mary’s faithful friendship her betrothed husband owed his life, Idalie’s high spirit rose indignant at this treatment. That the marked respect with which she treated her, the constant deference to her wishes, during the royal sojourn, exposed her to Catherine’s fatal malice, she cared not for. Soothed by her affection, roused to a sense of her own dignity as sovereign of Scotland, if no longer of France, it was during her sojourn at the Chateau de Montemar, Mary resolved on her return to her native land, and by earnest persuasions prevailed on the young countess to sue for the royal permission to accompany her. It was granted, ungraciously enough; for her engagement with the Count de Montgomeri was known, and the hatred borne by Catherine de Medicis towards that unfortunate nobleman had in no way diminished by time.
“Will the good Count Gabriel de Lorges accompany his young bride on her return? Know ye, my lords, if so, we will give him welcome,” the queen mother soon after inquired, in the hearing of Idalie, and in a voice so peculiarly sweet and gracious as to cause the countess’s heart, for the moment, to bound up with sudden hope of his permitted, even welcomed return, and then as suddenly sink down, she knew not wherefore, save that Catherine’s deadliest purposes ever breathed through smiles.
A few months after her visit to the chateau, Mary quitted France, attended by Idalie de Montemar, and some other youthful friends, to whom she clung, as the sole memories left her of that beautiful and happy land, which her foreboding spirit whispered she should never look on more. Intent on soothing the grief of her royal friend, Idalie had but little time to think of her own feelings; but when she did seek to define them, she became conscious that they were not all joy. Again did the same dim shadow envelope every thought, every hope directed towards the hour of meeting. Every day that brought it nearer seemed to throw a chilling weight on her heart’s ecstatic bound. Her very love felt too intense, too twined with her being, to find rest, even in the thought of looking on him, listening to him again. She strove with the baseless shadow, but it clung pertinaciously to every mental image, and weighed upon her spirits like lead.
Scotland was reached at last; the heavy pomp and ceremony attending the sovereign’s landing and progress to Holyrood at length at an end, and Idalie had retired to the chamber appointed for the use of herself and suite, seeking calmness and rest from the opposing emotions at one and the same time engrossing her.
Why should she not be joyful? the morrow Montgomeri would be at her side once more, and all unchanged to her; not a doubt had stolen on the bright vision of his love, not a shade darkened the pure thoughts of his constancy—what, then, did she dread?
A summons to the chamber of the queen startled her, for she had been dismissed, she thought, for the night. Hastily obeying, she ran lightly along the private gallery pointed out as her nearest way, and without pausing drew aside the arras and entered. A cry of astonishment, of bliss at the same moment escaped her lips, and, clasped to the heart of the Count de Montgomeri, all darkness and dread faded for the time in a burst of happy tears upon his bosom.
“Nay, chide me not, that my cheek is paler than when we parted, dearest,” said Idalie, after long and earnest commune, as they sat together the following day in an olden chamber of Holyrood, far removed from the sovereign and the court. “Thou too art changed; and if in thee, a soldier and a man, absence can have wrought furrows on thy brow, pallor on thy cheek, and even touched thy hair with grey, is it strange that I, a poor, weak girl, should suffer too? I scarce had loved thee, Gabriel, had there been no change.”
“I would not have taxed thy love, even had it left less touching impress on thy cheek,” replied the count; “but for me, harsh storms and ruffled thoughts have joined with the yearning thoughts for thee to make me as thou seest. Why look upon me thus? canst doubt me, dearest?”
“Oh, no, no! thy love is not changed, save that it may be dearer still; but thine eyes looked not thus the day we parted. There are deeper sterner feelings in thy soul than heretofore; the change is there. The storms of which thou speakest have not been outward only—glory, ambition, love, are not the sole occupants of thy spirit now.”
“And what if thou hast read aright, sweet one, wilt thou not love thy soldier still?”
“Oh, yes! for nought could enter the heart of De Lorges his Idalie may not revere. But tell me these inward storms—why is thy look, save when it is turned on me, so strangely stern? It was not always thus?”
“Call it not stern my love: ’tis but the shadow of my spirit’s change. I did not think thou wouldst so soon have marked it; yet ’tis not sternness, or if it be, ’tis only towards myself. When we parted, dearest, I lived for earth and earthly things; but with sorrow came thoughts of that higher world, which must banish the idle smile and idler jest; ’tis thus that I am changed.”
“And is this all?” faltered Idalie, looking fearfully in his face; “is this enough to cause the struggle, of which thy cheek and brow bear such true witness? The thought of heaven brings with it but balm and rest—not strife and pain. Gabriel, this is not all.”
“It is not all, my own! I would not have a thought concealed from thee; and yet I pause, fearing to give thee pain. Listen to me beloved one; and oh, believe, Montgomeri would not lightly turn aside from the path his fathers trod; yet hadst thou seen, as I have, the gross crimes, the awful passions, which have crept into the bosom of our holy church; the fearful darkness of ignorance and bigotry over-spreading the pure light marking the path of Jesus, thou wouldst feel with me, and acknowledge that I could not think of God and heaven, and yet be other than I am. Idalie, speak to me! wherefore art thou thus?”
He ceased in terror; her features had become contracted, her lip and check blanched almost as death. Her large eyes distended in their terrible gaze upon himself, and the hands which had convulsively closed on his, were cold and rigid as stone.
“It cannot, cannot be,” she murmured, in a low shuddering tone. “Montgomeri could not be other than true: no, no. Why will you speak thus, love?” she added, somewhat less unnaturally. “What can such strange words mean, save that thy sword, like my father’s, will never be unsheathed in persecuting wars—answer me, Gabriel, is it not so?”
“Alas! my love, I may not rest in quiet when the weapon of every true man is needed to protect the creed which conviction has embraced. In these dark times this badge of Protestantism and the sword of defence must ever be raised together. Idalie, the world may term me heretic; but thou—”
“Thou art no heretic; no, no—it cannot be!” burst from the wrung heart of Idalie, as she wildly sprang from his embrace, “Montgomeri, thou art deceiving me—thou wouldst try the love I bear thee! Oh, not thus, not thus! Say thou art no heretic; thou art still the man my father loved, trusted, blessed; him to whom he gave his child. Speak to me; answer me—but one word!”
“I will, I will, mine own! let me but see thee calm. Am I not thine own? Art thou not mine? Come to my heart, sweet one; thou wilt find no change towards thee!”
“Answer me,” she reiterated; “Gabriel, thou hast not answered! By the love thou bearest me, by the vow unto my father—to love and cherish me till death—by thine own truth—I charge thee answer me, thou art no heretic?”
“If to raise my voice against the gross abuses fostered by the Pope and his pampered minions in every land, to deny to them all allegiance, to refuse all belief in the intervention of saints and martyrs, or that absolution, bought and sold, can bring pardon and peace; if to read and believe the Holy Scriptures, and follow as they teach—if this is to be a heretic, Idalie, even for thy dear sake, I may not deny it. Yes, dearest, I am a heretic in all, save love for thee!”
A low, despairing cry broke from those blanched lips, and Idalie fell forward at his feet. It seemed long ere Montgomeri could restore her to life, though he used a tenderness and skill strange in a rough warrior like himself; but no fond look returned his anxious gaze. She struggled to withdraw herself from his embrace, but the tone of reproachful agony with which he pronounced her name rendered the struggle vain; and, clinging to him, she sobbed. “I thought not of this, dreamed not of this; even in the dark foreboding haze clinging round the hour of meeting. Gabriel, in mercy leave me, or I shall forget my vow, and hurl down on me the wrath of the dead.”
“Leave thee!—vow!—wrath of the dead!” he repeated. “Oh, do not talk so wildly, love; reproach, upbraid me, as thou wilt; but tell me not to leave thee. Wherefore should we part?”
“Gabriel, it must be! I have no strength when I gaze on thee. Let not perjury darken this deep misery: leave me!”
“Perjury! what hast thou sworn?” demanded Montgomeri, hoarse, and choked with strong emotion.
“Never to wed with heresy! To retain the faith of my ancestors pure and unsullied as I received it. My father, from his bed of death, demanded this vow, and I pledged it unhesitatingly; for could I doubt thee?”
She had spoken with unnatural composure, but there was such a sudden and agonized change on the features of the count, that it not only banished calmness, but reawakened hope.
“Oh, say thou wert deceiving me, Gabriel. Dearest Gabriel, have I not judged thee wrongly, that still we may pray together as we have prayed? Thou hast not turned aside from our old and sainted creed. Say but this grief is causeless; that I may still love thee without sin; that there is no need to part!”
“Part!” he passionately exclaimed, “and from thee? Oh, no, no!”
“Then thou art, in truth, no heretic? It has all been a dark and terrible dream, and we shall be happy yet love!” she answered, in a voice of such trusting joyance, that Montgomeri started from her side, and hurriedly paced the room.
She laid her hand gently on his arm, and looked up confidingly in his face; but its expression was enough. Shrinking from him, she implored, “Gabriel, Gabriel, look not on me thus, or that fearful dream will come again!”
“Would, would to God it were a dream!” he exclaimed, and his hands clasped both hers with convulsive pressure. “Idalie, I am no Catholic; I dare not again kneel as I have knelt, or pray as I have prayed. No, not even to retain thy precious love, to claim thee mine—thee, dearer than life, than happiness, than all, save eternity—I dare not deny my faith. But, oh, is there no other way? Can it be, that for this, a firm conviction of truth, an honest avowal of that which my soul believes, for this that we must part? Idalie, canst thou sentence me to this?”
“I have sworn,” she said, her white lips quivering with the effort. “My vow is registered in heaven—sworn unto the dead; by death only to be absolved.”
“To retain the line of Montemar unsullied in its ancient faith. Idalie, oh, hear me; let me plead now! Give to Louis de Montemar the government of thine ancestral lands, the control of thy vassals. Thou shalt seek them when thou wilt, unaccompanied by thy husband, unshackled by his counsels. I ask but for thee; and here, far removed from the blood and misery deluging unhappy France, we may live for each other still. May not this be, love, and yet thy vow remain unbroken?”
“Montgomeri, it may not be,” she said, in a low yet collected tone, for it seemed as if the noble spirit of her race returned to give her strength for that harrowing hour.
“Tempt me not by such words as these—the love I bear thee is trial all-sufficient. My oath was pledged that I would never wed with heresy—never give my hand to one unfaithful to our old and sainted creed. Perchance that oath alone may save me from a like perdition, and if so, then is it well.”
“And doth thou scorn me for this—despise and loathe me? Oh, Idalie, thou knowest not all I have endured. In mercy add not to the anguish of this hour, by scorn of the change which imperious conscience alone had power to impel.”
“Scorn thee, Montgomeri! No; if thou, the good, the wise, can thus decide, and so find peace, is it for me to judge thee harshly? No, Idalie can never blame thee, Gabriel.”
He caught her to his heart, and she resisted not the impassionate kisses he pressed on check and brow. She felt his hot tears fall fast upon her face, for in that suffering hour it was the iron-souled warrior that wept, not the pale, slight girl he held.
“This must not be, beloved,” she whispered, in low soothing tones. “Montgomeri, my noble love—for in this last hour I may still call thee so—oh, rouse thee from this woman’s weakness; this is no mood for thee. Thou must forget me, Gabriel; or so think of me as to be once again the brave, the high-souled warrior thou hast ever been. For my sake, rouse thee, love! The God we part to serve will hear my prayers, and bless thee.”
“And thou!” burst passionately from the lips of the count. “Oh, what shall comfort thee, and fill for thee the void of everlasting absence? In the rush of battle the warrior may find forgetfulness in death; but—”
“No, no, not death; Gabriel, for my sake, live, though not for me: add not this pang to a heart already tried enough. Promise me to live, and for me! Leave me to my God, Montgomeri, and He will give me peace.”
He could not answer, and minutes—many minutes—rolled away, and neither moved from the detaining arms of the other. Fortunately perhaps for both, a page entered with a summons to the count from the queen. Idalie lifted up her head, and while her very blood seemed turned to ice, a smile circled that pale lip.
“Thou must leave me, dearest. Mary loves not to wait, indulgent as she is.”
“But we shall meet again, sweet love?”
There was no answer; but Montgomeri would not understand that silence. He strained her once more to his heart, and turned away: another minute the arras fell, and he was gone. Idalie made one bound forward, as if to detain him, and, with a low shuddering cry, dropped senseless on the ground.