Part 2

"I cannot, Sir," cried Louis, "I cannot compromise myself one moment on so abhorrent a subject! How could I look up, if I were to be pointed at wherever I moved, as the future husband of this justly contemned widow of Count Altheim? My Lord, command me in every thing but this! Send me from Vienna,--banish me where you will, but do not entangle me farther with that insidious woman! Do not subject me to the consciousness, that I am any way deserving the punishment of being ensnared beyond the power of extrication."

"Louis," replied the Duke, "there is nothing that I can command, or counsel you to do, to unite the preservation of your private freedom, with your public duty, but a temporary system of deceiving the Empress and her favourite. When you entered a political career, you engaged on oath, to sacrifice every thing; your bosom's passions, and even your reputation with men, to the service of your country, should it be demanded. You are now called upon to perform the first part of this vow."

"Yes, Sir, but I did not engage to sacrifice my conscience. That belongs to God alone; and, I will perish, or keep it so."

"Then you must marry the Countess Altheim," calmly, rejoined his father.

"In the hour that I do," replied Louis, "I shall have given my heart's dearest blood to the country I have never seen! to the country I will never see! I will abjure the world, and retire to die a despised wretch, where I may not hear the derision I have plucked upon the name of de Montemar."

"And will that be obedience to your conscience?" asked the Duke, "if so, mark its inconsistency, and sometimes doubt its text. Before I quitted the Empress, I brought her to apologise to me, for the offensive innuendos she had dropped at the beginning. I brought her to tears, when I reminded her how I had served her and her daughter, in the establishment of the Pragmatic Sanction. But before I accomplished this conquest over a self-willed and powerful sovereign, I removed every impression from her mind that I had any other objection to the proposed union, than your youth, and the lady being so much your senior. In the moment of reconciliation, I smoothed your path. I alledged that my duty towards my new country, obliged me to write thither, to ask permission of the King and Queen of Spain to form a foreign alliance, before I could formally give my consent. In this, the Empress acquiesced. Here then, is one delay secured. Meanwhile, should you appear to concur heartily in the arrangement, I have little doubt of winning upon Elizabeth to grant the investiture before the messenger can return; the engine will then be restored to our own hand; and we may protract and excuse, and finally break away without danger."

"No, Sir," replied Louis, "I abhor this marriage, because of the want of all honourable principle in the woman who had infatuated me; and I never will move one step to avoid it, by becoming the thing I abhor. If my liberty is only to be regained by acting a falsehood,--a treacherous falsehood! I submit to my cruel destiny, and I will marry her."

"That is to yourself alone," replied the Duke, rising from his chair with a disturbed, and even a severe countenance. "But, remember, it is your duty to await the return of my messenger from Spain."

"I will wait, my father, as long as you please. But, I repeat, it is with no purpose to deceive. If I ever appear again in the presence of the Countess Altheim, to permit her to consider me as her future husband; it must be with the intention, on my part, to become so at the prescribed time. My weak vassalage to beauty has brought me to this; and heavy will be the punishment, but it is more tolerable than my own utter contempt." "You must visit her this evening."

"Not alone, my Lord! That never shall be exacted from me. Till she bears my name, no power shall compel me to be alone with her!"

"Who, then, must be your companion? I cannot."

"Tell the Empress, I demand it of her tenderness for the Countess's honour, that some person be always present when we meet. Should I ever find it otherwise, in that instant I will withdraw."

"In that, you are right," replied his father; and quitted the apartment.

CHAP. II.

Elizabeth's reply to Ripperda's note, respecting the delicate scruple of his son, told him that herself would be present at the scene of reconciliation.

To go to this portentous interview, was, to Louis, like setting forth to execution. A curtain seemed to have dropped between him and all the world. It closed out, not only every domestic comfort, but every aim of ambition. Fame was now robbed of its glory; and the ardour of pursuit, turned into a joyless resolve of fulfilling his task from a sense of duty alone. His heart felt like a petrifaction in his breast; his veins were chilled; and, with a cloud over every faculty, he paced his way, as a man in a dream, through the often trod, but now hateful galleries of the Imperial Palace. He knew not how his faultering steps bore him into the _boudoir_ where he expected to see Otteline, but instead of her pleading or resentful form, he found himself in the august presence of the Empress.

She advanced to meet him, all smiles; but what her first words were, he knew not. She observed his pale looks, and the distracted wandering of his eyes; but she would not notice either.

"Whatever was your quarrel with Otteline, in your last meeting;" continued she, "her gentle spirit is ready to grant you forgiveness. Shall I conduct you to her feet?"

"To her presence, Madam," replied Louis, recalling his attention; "I shall be honoured in following Your Majesty; but not to her feet. I cannot ask her forgiveness, for addressing her with candour."

Elizabeth looked sternly at him.

"Young man, you are not come here, to brave the Empress of Germany! Beware, Louis de Montemar, of insulting my friend, beyond, even her persuasions to pardon!"

"I come to speak the truth;" replied he, "to declare that I am ready to fulfil every claim that Countess Altheim demands of my honour; but also to throw myself on Your Majesty's justice to me, and tenderness for her; by a frank avowal, that I shall contract this marriage against my heart, and against my conviction, that my honour does not acknowledge the pledge she asserts."

The Empress remained indignantly silent, while he briefly recapitulated the cause of his repugnance to the union she was determined to accomplish.

"It is as impossible for me to restore her to my esteem," added he, "as to relinquish my nature. But if, under the circumstances I have mentioned, Your Majesty deems me bound, where no engagement was made; and when I have already told her, that our hearts are as separated as our natures;--I am ready to submit to become her husband, with the cold, soul-less duty, the name may enforce."

Louis stood firm, though pale and respectful, before the resentful gaze of Elizabeth.

"Sir," said she, "you know how to insult; and you know how to attempt to wrest from a tender woman, the rights you have given her over your honour,--But I am her protectress; and shall hold the chain that binds you, until death severs it. Young man, I know more of that vain heart, than I can easily pardon.--And yet, you dare to tell me, that your honour made no engagement with Countess Altheim, because you did not say, in veritable words--_I offer you my heart, my hand, my fortune, and my life!_ But, did you not weep on her hand? Did you not press it to your breast, while you vowed you loved, adored, and lived only in her smile? Did you not proffer her your life, to clear her aspersed fame? Did you not pledge her your heart; were you not sensible that you were master of hers? and what was all this, but a bond to be hers; a pledge, that you were hers? What is _honour_, if it be only a word and not an action? and, in this case, an interchange of soul for soul?--All this has passed between you, and yet you talk of your honour being your own!"

Louis stood impressed, but not confounded by the truth of this appeal. While he felt the reproach to many of his sex, he might have said with Hamlet:--

"Let the galled jade wince; my withers are unwrung!"

Elizabeth observed a change in his countenance, and with all the woman in her Imperial heart, she exclaimed, "Oh, man, man!" But checking herself from completing the apostrophe, she turned proudly away, and walked up the room. She returned, and addressed him.

"I have condescended to argue thus with you, because you are the son of the Duke de Ripperda. His unswerving probity disdains subterfuge; act as becomes his son, and I may forget, what Otteline is too ready to pardon."

Louis looked up. The noble candour in his eyes almost dazzled the stedfast, doubting gaze of Elizabeth.

"Had I sought a subterfuge," replied he, "I should have merited the utmost of Your Majesty's disdain; but from the first moment that I found myself too sensible to her charms, I struggled against the disclosure; and when circumstances extorted the confession from me, with the declaration of my love, I also declared that I was not at my own disposal. These reproaches, do not, then hold on me. For had she still appeared, what I then supposed her; had my father refused his consent, I would have proved my fidelity by never giving my hand to any other woman."

"Your father gives his consent!" answered the Empress, "and as you yield obedience to his commands, it is well they coincide with the bonds of your honour. I accept your offered terms for my friend; your hand, with the consideration due to your wife. For know, vain boy, that Otteline has a spirit as dignified as it is tender; and will not brook obloquy, either from her lover, the world, or her husband!"

Louis would have spoken, but she put out her hand in sign of silence.

"Follow me, Marquis," cried she, "and the consequences of the next two hours be on your own head."

The consequences he already felt in his heart; and, without further look of remonstrance, or attempt to utter another word, he bowed and obeyed.

She opened a door in the farthest apartment, and discovered the beautiful favourite, seated on a sofa awaiting them. She was luxuriant in every charm. And perhaps the flush of a smothered indignation, irradiated her complexion with redoubled brilliancy. But all was worse than lost upon the senses of Louis. Every beauty appeared to him, like the serpents on the Gorgon's head, wreathing to sting him. She rose as the Empress entered.

"Otteline," cried Her Majesty with a proud smile; "I have brought you a penitent. Can you pardon and receive him again to your heart?"

"Oh, Wharton!" exclaimed the inmost soul of Louis, at that moment recollecting the rejected warning of his friend; "This _Semiramis_ and her _subtle confidant_, have, indeed, bound me in a toil unto death!"

As he approached, the Countess made some answer, which he rather heard in its tones than its words; for almost instantly, Elizabeth had put the hand of Otteline into his. He held it, but it was without pressure; without recognizance of the delight with which he once grasped it. "Now," continued the Empress, "I am happy since I see the son of my earliest counsellor, thus affiance himself to the cherished friend of my youth!"

As she spoke, she pressed their hands together, while a mortal coldness shot through the heart of Louis, at this consummation of his fate; and stupified, he neither saw nor heard for a few moments. In this interval the Empress disappeared. Otteline sunk, weeping into a chair. He turned his eyes upon her; but no sympathy was in their beams; no belief in the semblance of her tears. She looked up and met his rigid observation. Her beautiful eyes swam, like sapphire gems in the summer dew. A soft attraction was in their lucid rays. A melancholy smile, gave utterance to her faultering accents; and holding out the hand he had dropped, she gently, timidly, and tenderly articulated,

"De Montemar! Is it a mutual forgiveness? The hand that is now yours, is a feeble pledge of the reconciliation of my heart!"

Louis did not approach her. He felt there was poison in that honeyed tongue; and though he came to commit himself to her for ever, he shrunk from being cozened again, by her charms or her art, to become a willing sacrifice. Could he now unite himself to her from any other impulse than hard, extorting duty, he felt how deep would be his degradation in his own thoughts; and he looked down to shut all these witcheries from his eyes.

After a minute's pause, while he stood painfully silent, she resumed in great emotion.

"What is it I have done, to deserve this harsh contempt? Oh, de Montemar, I have only proved myself, a fond, a feeble woman? For your sake, I gave way to the suggestions of a zeal, that would have carried me, as surely on the points of your enemies' daggers, as to violate the letter which gave notice of your danger.--And thus am I repaid!"

With a suffocating gasp, she fell back into the chair on which she sat, and covered her face with her hands. Her whole frame was shook, as if life were indeed passing in agonizing throes from her body. The heart of man could not bear this. Could these mortal struggles be indeed dissimulation?--Whatever they might be, he could not look on them unmoved. He hastily approached her, and touched her hand. It was cold as death, but the plastic fingers closed on his agitated pressure. He trembled fearfully as he drew it away from her pale face, and beheld those matchless features convulsed with mental agony. Again her eyes opened upon him, as he hung over her. They fixed themselves on his face, with a languid, but pleading sorrow.

"Countess!" said he in a voice of anguish. "Oh, call me Otteline--your Otteline!" cried she, impetuously grasping his arm, and hiding her face on it; "or, repeat that word, and release me, by killing me! But, I have survived your esteem, and why should I longer wish to live?"

His heart was subdued; and with tears starting from his own eyes, he exclaimed. "And is it possible that you do really love me?"

In that moment she was on her knees beside him. She clasped her hands; and looked up with such beaming beauty in every feature, such effulgence in her dewy eyes; that his were rivetted on her, as they would have been on a kneeling angel. Her lips appeared vainly to attempt sounds, that were too big for utterance; and, finding it impracticable, she turned towards him, and meeting the relenting expression of his anguished countenance, she smiled like heaven, and threw herself upon his breast. Louis's heart heaved, and panted under the beautiful burden it sustained, as her sighs breathed on his cheek, and her tender tears bathed it; but, even in that moment of female victory, the excess of his emotion smote on that betrayed heart: and sensible to all the shame of his defeat, the rapid current in his veins, chilled to its former ice; and, with a tremor, far from ecstacy, he replaced her in her chair, and, almost unconsciously knelt down by her side.--But the attitude was dictated by his humbled sense of his own weakness, not, indeed, addressed to her; though he now believed she loved him; and while he looked on her agitated frame, he thought to himself:--

"If I cannot be happy myself, in the degradation to which I am doomed; at least, I do not leave you miserable! I will cherish, and protect; and, perhaps, recall that fond heart, to respect the principles of her husband!" As he thus thought, he raised her hand to his lips; and, by that action, sealed to himself, the compact to be hers.

"My de Montemar!" murmured the Countess, feeling the import of this mute symbol. At this crisis, she heard a light step in the room. She looked round, and beheld the young Arch-duchess, standing pale, and fixed in the middle of the floor, with her eyes rivetted on the kneeling figure of Louis.

"The Princess!" exclaimed Otteline, in a voice of surprise, to Louis.

He started from his knee, and in the confusion of his feelings, retreated a few paces back. The gentle Maria Theresa smiled mournfully, but did not speak. Taking her hand, the Countess enquired her commands. The Princess still kept her eyes fixed on Louis, while, in a suppressed and unsteady voice, she answered her governess.

"My mother wishes to speak with you. But, perhaps, had she known the Marquis was here, she would not desire you to leave him. God bless you, Marquis!" cried he, addressing him with agitated earnestness; "Be kind to my Otteline; for, when you are married, I shall never see her more."

With the last words, she tore her eyes from his face, and threw herself into the bosom of the Countess.--Otteline looked her adieu to her lover, as in a tumult of undescribable disorder he hurried out of the room.

CHAP. III.

Though Ripperda had made it a point with the Empress, that there should be no public intimation given of the proposed marriage of her favourite with his son, until the Queen's consent should arrive; it is probable Her Majesty might have sent it abroad by a private whisper, had she not seen the prudence of not stimulating the ill offices of the Princess de Waradin, and others, by any hint that the heir they courted for their daughters was promised to their proudest enemy.

When Elizabeth appeared to grant this silence as a favour, she insisted that it should not deter Louis from making his daily visits at the Altheim apartments; it was a respect due to the amiable forbearance of his future bride; and it should always be in the presence of one of her confidential ladies, who was also a friend of the Countess.

Louis had now abandoned himself to his fate. But he had hardly given full sway to compulsive duty, and to the pleasing credulity that was re-awakened by compassion, before a thousand circumstances arose, to bid all his former repugnance return. The veil of imagination had been too forcibly rent from his eyes, ever to pass again between him and the object of his past idolatry. Unblinded by its delusions, every succeeding day shewed him clearer views of a character she vainly sought to disguise in assumed sentiment and delicacy. He perceived that her defects were not merely those of a perverting education, but of a radically warped mind. She had no spontaneous taste for moral greatness. Grandeur was her object; but it was that of station, of splendour, of dictating power. But still she loved him! loved him with a devotion, a fondness, a bewitching fascination, that, at times, made him almost forget she was not the perfection that might have been the mistress of his soul. The beautiful deception never lasted many minutes; and his heart sighed for its partner, with a sterile consciousness that spoke of desolation, and dreariness, and solitude, through the whole of his after-life.

In moments like these, how often has a frequent quotation of his Pastor-Uncle occurred to him! "He that does a base thing in zeal for his friend, burns the golden thread that ties their hearts together. Such proof of love is conspiracy, not friendship!"

In the midst of this banishment of his hopes, from ever knowing the sweets of domestic comfort again, he received large packets from the dear home, where his best instructor presided, and where perfect happiness dwelt with humility and innocence. The counsel of the venerable man strengthened him in every disinterested rule of life; but the letters of his aunt, and his cousins, made his yearning heart overflow with rebellious regrets. The spirit of virtue and of tenderness breathed through every eloquent line that dropped from the pen of Cornelia.

"Ah, sister of my soul!" cried he, "I could fly with thee into the bosom of paradise! Here is all celestial purity, all divine aspirations! and I wished to wander from such a heaven! I longed to busy myself in the ambitious turmoil of the world! I am in that world; and, what is my achievement? I find myself chained to the foot of a woman, my noble Cornelia would despise! I dare not confess to those who love and honour me, so degrading a disappointment of their hopes."

He turned to the gentle accents of his sweet Alice, breathed in a letter which had been wet with her grateful tears. Don Ferdinand had complied with her petition. He had written to her mother, and avowed his love for her daughter. But throwing himself upon her pity, he implored her not to betray him to his father; and to assure her that he meant nothing disobedient to him, nothing clandestine to her in the demand, he released Alice from every vow, only reserving one claim on her compassion; to be allowed, at some future day, to throw himself at her feet; should the issue of certain circumstances, which still gave him the privilege to hope, hereafter induce his father to consent to his happiness.

Alice added that her mother had written to Don Ferdinand, that she pardoned what had passed, in consideration of the amplitude of the restitution; that she should preserve his blameable conduct from his father's eye, since it was repented of, and relinquished; but, that he must not suppose she yielded any encouragement to the continuance of his attachment for her daughter, as she desired, that here all correspondence must cease.

"But," added Alice, "I know he will be true to what he has written; and I know I shall always love him dearer, for having taken that dreadful load from my heart. I am therefore quite sure I shall be content to await his father's consent, should it not come these many years. If you knew how happy I am now, since I can lift up my eyes in my dear mother's presence, and no longer feel ashamed at being pressed to the affectionate bosom of my blameless sister; you would be ready to pour as many tears of joy over the welcome of the little strayed lamb, as your kind heart shed floods of sorrow that melancholy night, when you found her so sadly wandered from her fold! Oh, my Louis, shall my gratitude to you ever find words to express it?"

Mrs. Coningsby's letter was not less energetic in thanks to her nephew for the judicious advice he had given to her almost infant Alice; and for the activity of his exertions, to bring it to effect.

Louis smiled with glistening eyes, over these letters; for he was yet to learn the science of forgetting his own privations, in the fullness of others. The comparison now only aggravated the pangs in his breast; and rising from meditations that subdued, agitated, and maddened him, he rushed into crowds for that dissipation of thought he vainly sought in the exercises of study, or the fulfilment of his official duties.

Count Koninseg had lately introduced him to a house, in which he moved about at perfect ease, and met with every gratification to put his usual indifference to gay society, to the test. It was the abode of the Count d'Ettrees, a French adventurer of rank, whose wife and sister formed an attraction of wit and beauty, that rivalled every other assembly in Vienna. Under their magic auspices, every amusement was presented that capricious fancy could desire or devise; and all lavished with a splendor of luxury, and an elegance of taste, which must soon have been exhausted, had not the fountain as it flowed returned by another channel to its native bed. Count d'Ettrees drew a revenue from that spirit for play, which his display of means excited in his guests.