Part 14

"Noble lady," said he, "your physicians are honest men. They have told me, my hours are numbered; and, that I have a short time in which to express my thanks to your humanity; and to make up my accounts with the world. Will you indulge me with the means?"

And he stretched his hands towards the writing materials. Cornelia relinquished them to his eager grasp; though, at the same time, she expressed her dread of the exertion increasing his danger.

"This done!" replied he, "an hour more or less, in arriving at the goal, is of no consequence.--Delay me, sweet lady," continued he, observing her reluctance; "and you may deprive me of the victor's crown!"

Cornelia gave him the pen; and bowing gratefully, he began to write. She moved to withdraw, but looking up with a beseeching eye, he entreated her, as well as Lorenzo, to remain, to bear witness that the papers he was writing were penned by his own hand.

She retook her place, and soon found her presence necessary; for he was often faint under his task; and, after taking a restorative from her hand, in spite of all her persuasions to the contrary, recommenced it.

As he closed one packet, to begin another, she laid her hand upon his arm. "For the sake of all you revere in earth and heaven, desist!" cried she, "this perseverance is suicide."

"No," replied he, "there is but one man in the world, who could act by me, as your kinsman has done! And this deed is my last act of duty to him and to myself."

Cornelia said no more; but submitted with an awful awaiting of the conclusion.

By the Duke's orders, Lorenzo sealed the first packet, and returned it into his hand. No one saw how he directed it. The second packet was then sealed, and superscribed, and both put into a cover. This was also sealed, and when directed by the Duke's hand, he put it into that of Cornelia. She glanced upon the superscription.

"To my benefactress. But not to be opened until I am dead."

She read it, and for the first time in his sight, her eyes gushed out with tears. The burning hand, which then gratefully pressed her's as he relinquished the packet, would be cold and motionless, when she should break that seal! Human nature, pity, admiration! all struck at once upon her heart, and she trembled, almost to sinking.

The Duke observed her emotion, and made a sign to Lorenzo to withdraw. Both his hands now clasped her's, as with his dying eyes he gazed on her.

"Lady," said he, "when you open that packet, you will know that he who you now honour with your pity, was a being to be condemned; but, he trusts, to be pardoned also! I am a man, and I erred; but I am a Christian, and have contrition. When you know me, remember me with one of those tears, and my conscious soul will disdain the world's persisted obloquy!"

Cornelia wept the more at these words; but she strove to speak; and to gently extricate her hand from a grasp, which already seemed the convulsive pressures of death.

"You will tell de Montemar," cried he in great emotion; and in that moment, of what he thought mortal fainting, forgetting his caution:--"You will tell him----" he paused, and struggled for a few seconds--then gasping--relinquished the hand he held, and fell back upon his pillow.

Cornelia saw and heard no more; she fainted, and sunk upon the floor.

When she recovered, she found herself in another room, and supported by her uncle of Lindisfarne.

"Your fears are premature, my dear child;" cried the venerable man, as soon as she opened her eyes; "Lorenzo has just been in to tell me, your invalid guest is now recovering from the swoon in which you left him; and that the surgeons are in his chamber."

"Heaven has brought you my revered uncle!" cried she, "to sustain me. You will see him?"

"For that purpose," replied Mr. Athelstone, "I came."

Indeed, as soon as he received Louis's few lines, imparting his indispensable absence, and obligation to leave Cornelia to take charge of his invalid friend; the good Pastor judged, that whoever this nameless person might be, and for whatever reasons his reception at Morewick was to be generally concealed; yet it was his duty not to allow his niece to be with servants alone, in the distressing scene which the agitated letter of his nephew confessed might be anticipated during his absence. Notwithstanding all Louis's caution in his first communications respecting his foreign friend; and his subsequent reserve while continuing his apologies from the same cause, for his and Cornelia's detention at Morewick; Mr. Athelstone drew his own conclusions, that there was more unexplained, than the fantastic mystery of a foreigner wishing to travel incognito. He knew Louis's mind too well, to believe that he would adopt with such carefulness of concealment, so trifling a whim. He was convinced that danger to one party at least, hung over the discovery; and in his guesses, he was not very remote from the truth. The more his suspicions gained ground, from the style of his nephew's last letter, the more he saw the propriety of acting in defiance of Louis's positive request, that he would allow none of the Lindisfarne family to interrupt the charitable duties of Cornelia. The earnestness of this injunction; (for it was put, so as not to admit of a discussion;) confirmed Mr. Athelstone in an idea, that peril was attached to the entertainer of this mysterious personage; and resolving to protect his nephew and his niece in the possible dilemma into which humanity on one side, and romantic generosity on the other, might involve their safeties, he ordered a post chaise to await him on the opposite shore. Without imparting any thing of these reflections or motives to Mrs. Coningsby, he left his directions with her and Alice, to prepare every comfort for the expected reception of the Marchioness and her daughter. Busy in the hospitable bustle of such arrangements, the happy mother and her favourite child, saw Mr. Athelstone depart to rejoin Cornelia, without a suspicion of the nature of his errand. He alighted in the hall at Morewick, at the very moment Lorenzo had found Miss Coningsby lying insensible in the room of the stranger, who at the instant seemed beyond all future pain. She was brought into the next chamber, and delivered into the arms of her uncle; while Lorenzo recalled the medical assistants to his master's friend: and the result he communicated, as soon as the Duke breathed, to the benevolent inquiries of the Pastor.

When Cornelia had sufficiently recovered from her swoon to speak with composure, she related with brief eloquence, all that had passed between her and the invalid since his restored senses. Unconsciously to herself, her heart spoke; and she ended her communications by affirming, that notwithstanding his acknowledgement of errors, and the secrecy that involved him, she must believe him to be a man not less illustrious in the nobleness of his life, than in birth and station.

Mr. Athelstone listened attentively to all she had to say and to conjecture about the object of their discourse. She always distinguished him, by the approving and pitying appellation of _the noble sufferer_; and the penetration of her uncle, soon discovered, that his niece was no longer an impartial speaker.

"Cornelia," replied he, "I perceive you have no suspicion, who this _noble sufferer_ may be?"

"None, my uncle."

"But I have. I recognise him in every word you have uttered, except his repentance; and that may be yet the salutation of Iscariot!"

"My uncle! what do you mean?" "I mean to speak of one," returned the Pastor, "_whose heart was lifted up because of his beauty; and he corrupted his wisdom, by reason of his brightness; and where we should have found light, there was darkness, and the mouth of the grave_!"

Cornelia sunk into a seat. "Sir," cried she, "you terrify me with an unutterable apprehension! If he be what you suppose, you are a Christian minister! Go to him, in this his last hour; and save him if it be possible, from the death whence there is no recall!"

Her hands were clasped over her face, as she pronounced the last words. Lorenzo at the same moment appeared at the door; and beckoning Mr. Athelstone, the pious man left the room, with the intention, if Duke Wharton yet breathed, to obey the prayer of his niece, in exhorting him to a sincere repentance.

CHAP. XXI.

On the evening of the second day after his departure from Morewick, Louis found himself clasped to the veteran bosom of Santa Cruz; ardently embraced by Ferdinand; and caressed with maternal fondness, by the enraptured Marchioness.

"We are come to live amongst you for a long time;" cried she, "to seek those blessings of health at Lindisfarne for my beloved Marcella, which her brother found so abundantly."

Louis assured her of the happiness such an intention would bring to his family; and he soon read in the looks of Ferdinand, that it was as a privileged lover, he was now returning to the feet of Alice. The present grief which Louis had in the depths of his heart, he hid there, and smiled his congratulations to the animated eyes of his friend.

"Our Marcella," said the Marquis, "is suffering under sorrow as well as illness. While I went to Rome on a mission of consequence to us all, I left her with my wife, under the care of my sister, the abbess of the Ursalines; and on my return, I found I had lost my sister by a sudden death; and that my daughter, from the shock, was reduced to the brink of the grave."

"But she is now out of danger, I trust?" replied Louis in a tone, which could not be mistaken.

"And a letter from you, was our first comfort!" was the inward response of the Marchioness, though her lips made no reply. She left that to the calmer reason of her husband.

The letter, her thoughts referred to, was from de Montemar to Ferdinand, in answer to one, wherein he enlarged on Marcella's changed wishes with regard to a monastic life. When Louis came to that subject, without being aware of the clearness with which his words unfolded his own heart, he wrote as follows:

"I begin to think my probationary conflicts, instead of confirming my spirit, have, in some cases at least, a contrary effect. I felt so much in reading your sister's _wish_ to bury herself from all she has hitherto blessed with her virtues, that--I wish I could for ever be kept in ignorance of the time when she is really professed. At least, Ferdinand, do you refrain from telling it to me, and I shall not dread to open your letters."

Ferdinand shewed this paragraph to his mother. The lamp in his own soul had discovered sleeping love, in every unconscious line. The Marchioness had observed the powerful impression which de Montemar made on the memory of her daughter, when she first admired his filial enthusiasm in the Val del Uzeda. From that hour, her distaste, as well as her religious opinions, was adverse to a monastic vow. But when her awakened sensibility comprehended the feelings of her brother; though unconscious of the new principle within her, which pleaded his cause even against her own heart, she became willing to sacrifice herself for his happiness. In Barbary, as in Spain, she found nothing but what increased her admiration, even to reverence, in the devoted son of the misled Duke de Ripperda. And, being so devoted a son, it never crossed the pure heaven of her mind, that any idea of her, but as a _sister of Mercy_, could ever occur to his heart. She believed, that she also thought of him as a "thing enskied and sainted," and that his remembrance would be as innoxious to her peace, after they had separated for ever in this world, as that of the most lovely characters she had read of, who were now in the grave; but whose society would be one of her felicities in the life to come.

But she deceived herself. The sting was in her heart. She saw Louis de Montemar no more, but his image was ever before her, his words, his looks, his actions; and, finding the secret of her soul, in its anguish and her despair; she every hour urged her parents to shut her up from the world, which contained the object who made her feel that she was no longer mistress of herself. This fatal secret she revealed to no one. It preyed upon her heart, and her life; and, not until the Marchioness was secluded with her in the convent of the Ursalines, did she penetrate its depth and power. She also had wept in silence, over what she had too soon discerned; this unhappy, unuttered passion: and a sad immature grave, seemed ever opening before the feet of her most loved child.

But, when her eyes fell on the paragraph concerning Marcella, in the letter from Louis to Ferdinand, she became convinced that the tenderness was mutual; and that mutual was the hopelessness and misery.

Without appearing to design any peculiar communication to her daughter, she read the letter to her; and dwelt with particular emphasis on that comprehensive sentence. Marcella listened, as if transfixed by a shaft. She durst not receive its import; she feared there would be crime in even wishing it real; although her abbess aunt had put a decisive on her monastic intentions, by telling her there would be positive guilt in her becoming a Catholic nun, with her religious reservations.

"Not a nun!" murmured she to herself, "but I have never been allowed to consider myself with any connection with the world. I feel as if I sinned in the very wish! and I must be a recluse." She leaned her throbbing head upon her hand. "My child," said her mother, tenderly drawing near her; "what do you think of de Montemar's animated gratitude, in these touching sentiments?"

"That it is gratitude!" replied Marcella, rising with a forced smile, "and I am obliged to him for anticipating a pity, which my aunt teaches me, I cannot with conscience put myself into the condition to merit."

"And do you see no more than gratitude and compassion here?" asked the Marchioness, re-reading the passage, and holding her daughter's arm while she did so. "Were I to speak what I think, this matchless young man loves you!"

These words, from the lips of her mother, were more than Marcella could bear; she gasped and fell into her arms.

When the Marquis returned from his successful mission to Rome, he found his sister dead; and his wife in possession of his daughter's unlimited confidence; but that timid and self-accusing daughter, was brought to the verge of the grave by sorrow for the deceased, and shame at the weakness of her heart.

His first communication to the Marchioness was to prepare her family for crossing with him to England.

"I have given my sanction to Ferdinand's attachment to the niece of Mr. Athelstone;" said he, "travelling and change of scene will be beneficial to Marcella; and our friends of Lindisfarne will give us the welcome of kindred."

Marcella obeyed the commands of her father in these preparations: and perhaps the more readily, since her mother's irrepressible and constant representations of Louis's demonstrations of a peculiar sentiment for her, had in spite of her own prepossessions to the contrary, and what she would not acknowledge to herself, given her an idea of the possibility of what her mother believed, being true. In urging these sometimes visionary arguments, the Marchioness at last said to her.

"Should you and the Marquis de Montemar meet as I expect, it is not probable that your father would be more inexorable to his daughter and best loved friend, than he has proved himself to Ferdinand and Alice Coningsby!"

"If I go to England," returned Marcella, and she believed she spoke the truth, "I will never meet the Marquis de Montemar at all, if you, my dear mother, are to draw any conclusions from that, that I expect, or even wish him to consider me in any other light than as a _professed nun_. That sin of my imagination is now over: I shall see my father's friend with the confidence of a sister. But no more."

If the Marchioness thought otherwise, she did not express it; and Marcella was not again persecuted on the subject.

Being in England; and learning from her mother, (who glided out of the room with the information;) that the preserver of her father and her brother, was then in the house; she did not deny the next request, that she would obey her father's wish in joining the party in the drawing-room. She felt confident in her own resolves; and with a serene aspect, put her arm on her mother's to comply.

She was in black.--It was the first time Louis had seen her out of the dress of a nun; and, on her entrance, he started with an emotion that surprized him, at so unexpected a change.

Her face and hands were pale; but a gentle colour, like the soft reflection from the rose, passed over her cheek, as he approached her. She tried to meet him with tranquillity; and to look at him with the open eye of friendly cognizance. But the moment his hand touched hers, her eye-lids fell; and a chill ran through her whole frame, to blanch her cheeks; and shook her with such a trembling, that the Marchioness made a sign to her husband to assist her in bearing her to the sofa.

The Marquis sat for same time, rubbing his daughter's cold hands in his; and the Marchioness touched her forehead and lips with essence. Louis did not venture to follow her to the sofa, but remaining standing where the group left him; and, as she lay, like a lilly on a velvet pall; so fair and fragile, in her mourning garments, he felt the possibility of his feeling a yet bitterer pang, than the death of his false friend. But the moment he thought so, he checked the selfish sentiment; and said in anguish of spirit to himself.--"O no! For with that gentle being dwells innocence and virtue.--When she goes hence her translation is to heaven:--And, can I mourn with bitterness, her who is in blessedness? But when the deluding, the betrayer, the impenitent! are called away! then my cry may be that of David--Oh, thou who wert once my friend--_would to God, I could have died for thee_!"

Ferdinand observed his countenance, and touched his arm.--"Why do you gaze with such despair on my sister?" whispered he, "Her illness is merely weakness, from fatigue. Lindisfarne will restore us all!"

"Heaven grant it!" was the response of Louis, as he recalled himself from the momentary wandering of his thoughts.

Marcella soon after re-opened her eyes; and having recovered her perfect recollection, she also strove to rally her self possession; and, though with still down-cast lids, she stretched out her hand to her father's friend, as he again advanced to impress it with his lips;--and in a calm, but low voice, expressed her pleasure at seeing him returned in safety to the country of his dearest relations. Louis, without attending to all the import of his words, replied by saying, that he trusted she would consider them as her own.

Many mutual inquiries now took place, and her share of the conversation was carried on for nearly an hour, with a composure, on the side of her daughter, that surprised and pleased the Marchioness. When she appeared exhausted, her mother rose; and she, following her example, took the parental arm, and with a bend of her head to her father, quitted the room.

Santa Cruz turned towards Louis, as his daughter disappeared; and observed, with a solemn emotion at his heart, that his eyes followed with anxiety, the slow progress of Marcella from the room; that he gazed on the door, a long time after it was closed on her; and then withdrew his attention, with a heavy, and deep-drawn sigh.

"De Montemar," said the Marquis, "come with me into my chamber; for I have much to say to you." The conference lasted many hours.--Santa Cruz assured him, that he had left no power unexerted, day or night, to bring the prejudiced mind of the King of Spain, to a fair judgment on the Duke de Ripperda's political integrity, great exasperations, and religious penitence.--"The Queen was more placable on your behalf;" continued the Marquis, "since the subject in debate was a handsome young man, who admired her.--At least so Duke Wharton made her believe!"

"Duke Wharton!" echoed Louis.

"Yes," replied the Marquis, "that man was ever a Proteus; and never more so, than in the present instance. When I, and all the Spanish ministry, thought him the most active enemy you had; he became master of all the malignancy that was in arms or in ambuscade against you; and, by a generalship as effective as it was surprising, turned the whole battery against its inventors." "Marquis!" cried Louis, starting from his chair; "What is it you say?"

"The truth, though a strange one," replied Santa Cruz, "and this _ruse de guerre_ of his was so artfully managed, that not a man in the Spanish cabinet is aware of the hand that gave the overthrow. Being one in all their secret counsels, he influenced the separate members, to certain exaggerated conduct; and playing the one off against the other, in their allegations against your father, managed that contradictions should occur in every hearing before the King. And, by himself accusing you to the Queen, in terms to awaken her vanity against your enemies, and to influence it with a belief in your personal loyalty to her; he gained your point there. With your personal enemies, and his political friends, he affected to wonder at the Marquis de Montemar's restitution to the royal favour; while with me, he rejoiced in private,--laughing at the absurdity of such grey-beards, as the frowning de Castellor, and that earthworm de Paz, making any tilt against the armed virtue of ├ćneas and his Achates.

"And his cloud is a bright one!" continued the Marquis, kindling with his subject. "It has absorbed the follies of his youth. And, gazing with wonder at his capacity, I beheld with admiration, the man I once despised. In short, his genius, with a sort of supernatural cognizance, darts into the views of men, and turns their devices to the side of justice and honour!"

Louis's deep groans burst upon the ear of Santa Cruz. His face, for some time, had been covered with his hands. An amazed inquiry, and an agonized reply, soon informed the Marquis of its cause. Wharton, that unalienable, that energetic friend, was then at the point of death, in the house of his uncle at Morewick! was dying, under an impression that Louis was estranged from him; nay, had united with his father in denouncing him as a traitor! He might now be dead!--And he, who loved him to the last, never be able to pour out his gratitude for such noble assertion of that father's fame!

This information astonished, and distressed Santa Cruz; and the greater the extremity of the Duke, the more he thought himself called upon, to relate every thing explicitly to his agonized friend. In the course of this protracted conversation, he gave a brief account of all he knew of Wharton's conduct throughout the whole transactions relative to the Duke de Ripperda.

Wharton frankly acknowledged, that from the period he was convinced no impressions in behalf of the Stuart or Bavarian interests, could be made on Spain, he determined to overthrow the political power of him, who avowed himself the root of this obstinacy. Ripperda had proclaimed his devotion to the House of Brunswick, more than once, at the great councils of Vienna. He had affirmed his implacability to both pretenders, at the table of the Cardinal Giovenozzi; and he did it, with circumstances of such personal insult to Wharton, that the English Duke, at once laid a comprehensive plan to make him feel his power.