It was a bright and lovely afternoon in the midst of autumn. The

saloons of Waterloo Palace were thrown open for the admission of

all the rank and fashion of Verdopolis. The doors of the great library

were likewise unfolded, and there a knot of _bel-esprits_, the very

flower of Africa’s geniuses, had gathered round a large open bow-window

through which might be seen the extensive pleasure-grounds where

groups of the brighter children of fashion roamed idly about or reposed

under the shade of sequestered bowers. Of course my brother and Lady

Zenobia Ellrington formed the nucleus round which this literary party

had assembled. While they were conversing Lord Lofty entered and

took his station near them. He could not actually join their party,

because, though a man of considerable talent, he had never written

a book, painted a picture, or moulded a statue; and it is an understood

regulation of this chosen band that none but genuine authors and

artists shall have the privilege of entering into their high and

exclusive society. While he listened to the noble sentiment, the

brilliant wit, the exhaustless knowledge, and the varied information

which, clothed in the purest language and uttered in the soft subdued

tones which perfect refinement dictates, formed a conversazione of

such fascinating brilliancy as he had never heard before, undefined

longings arose in his heart to become a more immediate partaker of

the feast of reason and the flow of soul he witnessed. At this moment

the Marchioness of Douro, who, seated on a low footstool at the feet

of her husband and Lady Ellrington, had been gazing up at them with

her large blue eyes full of wonder and delight, suddenly exclaimed

in her usual artless manner: ‘I wish I had written a book!’

‘And so do I,’ was the response that immediately burst from Lofty’s

lips. The marquis smiled at the characteristic simplicity of Marian’s

aspiration; but he turned with a more serious air to Lofty, and said:

‘Well, and what is there to hinder you from writing as many books

as you like?’

‘Nothing, my lord, except that I have not the genius.’

‘Pshaw! nonsense! you can do anything you choose!’

‘Are you in earnest, Douro?’

‘In earnest? Yes, that I am: I never was more so in my life.’

‘Well, then, I really do think I’ll turn author.’

‘That’s right, Fred. I’ll breakfast with you to-morrow morning, and

we’ll talk the matter over at our leisure.’

Next day Arthur was punctual to his appointment. On entering the

breakfast-room he found Lord Frederic seated in a morning gown of

green and silver brocade with slippers to correspond, and on the

table beside him lay a quire of paper and an inkstand of elaborate

workmanship with golden pens, etc. The smile with which he viewed

these preparations would have undeceived any other than Lofty, whose

faculties were rendered, however, so obtuse by conceit that he conceived

it to be merely a token of approbation.

After the first cup or two of chocolate had been discussed the marquis

entered upon business by saying: ‘Well, Fred, do you continue in

the same mind I left you in last night?’

‘Certainly, my lord; I am even confirmed in my determination to become

an author. The only thing that puzzles me is on what subject to exercise

that genius which you flatter me I possess.’

After a moment’s silence and apparent consideration, Arthur said:

‘Of course you would desire something original. Talent like yours

would not be content to follow in any beaten path.’

‘Surely. In fact, I have determined that no hackneyed theme shall

receive immortality from my pen. Now, Douro, could you not help me

to one that has never been touched on before?’

‘I think I could; but before I mention it let me briefly define to

you the meaning of originality. It consists in raising from obscurity

some theme, topic, employment, or existence which has never been

thought of by the great mass of men, or thought of only to be despised;

in pouring around it the light of genius, proving its claim to admiration

by subtlety of logic, clothing it with all the bright tones of a

lively imagination, and presenting it thus adorned to the astonished

world. I counsel you, Fred, to take for your subject the unjustly

condemned art of the laundress. Write an essay on it divided into

three parts, viz.: washing, starching, and ironing. In the first,

summon up all your learning. Go back to the old times of Homer when

princesses bleached linen in the gardens of Adcinous. Trace the art

through the ramifications of ages and nations down to the present

day. Expatiate upon the purity of the employment; give it an allegorical

meaning, and conclude by saying that it excels all others in dignity

and honour. Let the second be a dissertation on the process of making

starch. Point out the grain which is most proper for it, and launch

a thundering anathema against all adulterators of the genuine article.

In the third, discourse most excellent music on the different kinds

of irons, as box-irons, flat-irons, and Italian irons, and mind you

give them the preference over such machines as mangles and calenders.

Do all this and I think I can promise you as the reward of your labours

renown of such a nature and extent as would satisfy the ambition

of most men.’

‘My lord,’ replied Lofty, ‘by this disinterested and noble counsel

you have conferred on me an eternal obligation. I will follow up

the hint you have given, and by so doing I hope to produce somewhat

that the gracious public will not willingly let die.’

From that day Lord Lofty became an altered man. He was no longer

the free, dashing, gallant young nobleman whose handsome exterior

and high-bred manners endeared him to the fair sex, and whose superiority

both mental and personal had entitled him to the rank of viceroy

in the world of fashion, subject only to those two mighty monarchs,

Douro and Ellrington. Seldom now was either ballroom, race ground,

parliament house, rotunda, or ring honoured with his presence. Day

and night he immersed himself in the solitude of his study and gave

access to none but my brother, who urged him unrelentingly to the

completion of the task which he had assigned him. Sometimes, indeed,

the unhappy gull ventured forth to his old haunts, but so changed

was he become in dress, language, and behaviour as scarcely to be

recognised by his most intimate friends. A shabby black coat was

generally wrapped round him; shoes trodden down at the heels garnished

his feet; and the fair hair which formerly was his greatest pride,

and which he usually wore arranged in clustering curls, now hung

neglected in elf-locks round a countenance that for consumptive paleness

and attenuation might have been envied by the veriest tea-taster

in existence. His conversation was in unison with his appearance,

whining, sickly, pedantic, and filled with that disgusting species

of affectation peculiar to literary coxcombs. The consequence of

this was that those who had been accustomed to consider his acquaintance

as an honour and a matter of boasting now grew ashamed to be seen

in company with him. When he entered a drawing-room the ladies turned

aside their heads, and the gentlemen regarded him with a glance of

undisguised contempt. Not a hand was stretched out to welcome him;

not a voice repeated his name except in atone of derision. These

things, however, he neither saw nor regarded. Fenced by a triple

shield of self-conceit, the scorn of women and the disgust of men

moved him no more than hailstones would a rock.

After some months of incessant labour he at length one evening announced

to the marquis that his work was completed.

‘Wait till to-morrow, Fred,’ replied that faithful friend. ‘I will

then accompany you to Sergeant Tree’s, and you shall taste the first

sweets of authorship.’

That night and the first hours of morning seemed to Lofty an age.

As soon as breakfast was over he stationed himself at the window

and continued impatiently looking out for Arthur’s appearance. At

length about eleven o’clock a.m. he perceived him advancing with

his usual stately tread up the street. Flinging open the sash he

jumped out and ran to meet him. As they walked towards the great

bookseller’s the marquis mentioned that he had invited a few friends

to meet him there that morning, as he wished them to be spectators

of Lofty’s triumph. The latter bowed and expressed his gratitude

for what he considered to be another instance of my brother’s attachment

to him. They now entered the shop. Above a hundred men of the highest

rank were assembled there, including Castlereagh, Molyneux, Aberford,

Beauclerk, Sidney, Russell, Howard, Morpeth, etc., and by himself,

leaning against a pillar, was Hamilton the architect, his pale face

and his usually downcast eyes glowing with uncommon ardour behind

the marble slab which, supported on Ionic columns, forms the counter.

Sergeant Tree was seated in an elevated armchair. To him Lofty immediately

advanced and, presenting his manuscript, said in a loud and pompous

tone of voice:

‘Look at that, sir, and tell me what you will give me for it.’

Tree took out his spectacles, placed them with all imaginable

tranquillity, and after reading the title-page and glancing over the

body of the work returned it coolly to the washerwoman, saying in his

quiet business-like manner: ‘This, my lord, is not in my way. You have

probably mistaken me for Mrs. Bleachum, the washerwoman.’

A peal of laughter from the noble bystanders accompanied these words.

Lofty stood motionless a moment as if transfixed, then turned to

the marquis with a look of speechless agony. Instead of the cloud

of sympathetic sorrow he had expected to see brooding on his friend’s

brow his eyes fell on a countenance illumined by a smile of arch,

cold, triumphant, deep and devilish meaning. It pierced at once the

thick veil of infatuation that obscured his-mental vision, and suddenly

the light of truth burst on him with almost annihilating splendour.

While he stood more like a statue than a living man Arthur advanced

and said in a low and soft voice, but so distinct as to be heard

by all present:

‘Well, Frederic, don’t you think a rejected essay is almost as agreeable

as a condemned tragedy?’

C. BRONTË,

_October 6th_, 1833.

A PEEP INTO A PICTURE BOOK

CHARLOTTE BRONTË was eighteen years of age when she wrote these

descriptions of the principal characters in her stories. ‘The land

of the Genii’ had become ‘The Kingdom of Angria’; the Duke of Wellington

was almost forgotten; and her early hero, the Marquis of Douro, had

received various other titles, including that of Duke of Zamorna,

and had been elected King of Angria. He had developed a character

totally different from that of the studious and ingenuous youth of

Charlotte Brontë’s earlier stories.

At this time his first wife, Marian Hume, is supposed to have been

dead several years, and he is married to Mary Henrietta, the daughter

of his Prime Minister—Alexander Percy, Viscount Ellrington and Earl

of Northangerland.

Alexander Percy (sometimes called Alexander Rogue) was originally

a pirate, and was one of the creations of Charlotte’s brother, Patrick

Branwell Brontë, when very young. On pp. 175-179 of _A Bibliography

of the Writings in Prose and Verse of the Members of the Brontë Family_,

1917, by Thomas J. Wise, is printed a poem of one hundred and twenty-eight

lines entitled ‘The Rover.’ This is a poem by Patrick Branwell Brontë

descriptive of one of Alexander Percy’s adventures when he was a

pirate. It was from this character that Branwell Brontë took the

pseudonyms of ‘Northangerland’ and ‘Alexander Percy,’ which he continued

to use until the end of his life.

The first wife of Northangerland also is dead at this time, and he

is married to Lady Zenobia Ellrington, who in earlier stories (‘Albion

and Marina,’ ‘The Rivals,’ and ‘Love and Jealousy’) was the rival

of Marian Hume for the affections of the Marquis of Douro.

General Thornton is the guardian of the young Lord Wellesley, the

supposed author of the manuscript in which ‘A Peep into a Picture

Book’ was found.

C. W. H.

A PEEP INTO A PICTURE BOOK

FROM THE MANUSCRIPT ENTITLED

CORNER DISHES

BEING

A SMALL COLLECTION OF

MIXED AND UNSUBSTANTIAL

TRIFLES

IN PROSE AND

VERSE

BY

LORD CHARLES ALBERT

FLORIAN WELLESLEY.

Begun May 28th, 1834.

Finished June 16th, 1834.

A PEEP INTO A PICTURE BOOK

IT is a fine, warm, sultry day, just after dinner. I am at Thornton

Hotel. The General is enjoying his customary nap; and while the serene

evening sunshine reposes on his bland features and unruffled brow,

an atmosphere of calm seems to pervade the apartment.

What shall I do to amuse myself? I dare not stir lest he should awake;

and any disturbance of his slumbers at this moment might be productive

of serious consequences to me: no circumstance would more effectually

sour my landlord’s ordinarily bland temperament. Hark! There is a

slight, light snore, most musical, most melancholy: he is firmly

locked in the chains of the drowsy god.

At the opposite end of the room three large volumes that look like

picture books lie on a sideboard; their green watered-silk quarto

covers and gilt backs are tempting, and I will make an effort to

gain possession of them. Softly, softly: there, I have thrown down

a silver fruit knife and a piece of orange peel! He stirs! I must

pause awhile or he will certainly awake. Hem! the worthy gentleman

settles down to his former tranquillity; the incipient frown which

contracted his forehead is past away; and the rest of a good conscience,

the calm of a mental and corporeal healthiness, sleeps there again.

With zephyr-step and bosomed breath I glide onward to the sideboard,

I seize my prize, and being once more safely established in my chair

I open the volumes to see if the profit be equivalent to the pains.

Eureka! Eureka! ‘Tree’s Portrait Gallery of the Aristocracy of Africa’!

Why, here is cent. per cent. indeed! The very thing; the beau-ideal

of provision for an after-dinner’s amusement! However languid and

unfitted for exertion, the veriest gourmand could not turn with disgust

from such placid entertainment as is here prepared for him; the sleepiest

eye might wander unwearied over the silent visions that here follow

each other in a succession so dreamy and voiceless.

I am no gourmand after dinner; I am as active as before; but just

now the pleasure of hanging over forms that speak without sound,

of gazing into motionless eyes that search your very heart, is more

attractive to me than sprightlier employments.

The second volume is nearest to my hand, and I will raise first from

the shadow of gossamer paper, waving as I turn it like a web of woven

air, the spirit whosoever it be, male or female, crowned or coroneted,

that animates its frontispiece.

A mighty phantom has answered my spell: an awful shape clouds the

magic mirror! Reader, before me I behold the earthly tabernacle of

Northangerland’s unsounded soul! There he stands: what a vessel to

be moulded from the coarse clay of mortality! What a plant to spring

from the rank soil of human existence! And the vessel is without

flaw: polished, fresh, and bright from the last process of the maker.

The flower has sprung up to mature beauty, but not a leaf is curled,

not a blossom faded. This portrait was taken ere the lights and shadows

of twenty-five summers had fallen across the wondrous labyrinth of

Percy’s path through life. At this moment a gleam of sunlight, real

deep gold in hue, comes through the kindled window-panes, and falls

richly and serenely on the picture. It is a softened glory, for the

sun is far west and its amber rays shed inexpressible tranquillity

wherever they descend. How sweetly they sleep on that brow! and on

those Ionic features! Percy! Percy! never was humanity fashioned

in a fairer mould. The eye follows delighted all those classic lines

of face and form: not one unseemly curvature or angle to disturb

the general effect of so much refined regularity; all appears carved

in ivory. The grossness of flesh and blood will not suit its statuesque

exactness and speckless polish. A feeling of fascination comes over

me while I gaze on that Phidian nose defined with such beautiful

precision; that chin and mouth chiselled to such elaborate perfection;

that high, pale forehead, not bald as now, but yet not shadowed with

curls, for the clustering hair is parted back, gathered in abundant

wreaths on the temples and leaving the brow free for all the gloom

and glory of a mind that has no parallel to play over the expanse

of living marble which its absence reveals. The expression in this

picture is somewhat pensive, composed, free from sarcasm except the

fixed sneer of the-lip and the strange deadly glitter of the eye

whose glance—a mixture of the keenest scorn and deepest thought—curdles

the spectator’s blood to ice. In my opinion this head embodies the

most vivid ideas we can conceive of Lucifer, the rebellious archangel:

there is such a total absence of human feeling and sympathy; such

a cold frozen pride; such a fathomless power of intellect; such passionless

yet perfect beauty—not breathing and burning, full of tightening

blood and fiery thought and feeling like that of some others whom

our readers will recollect,—but severely studied, faultlessly refined,

as cold and hard and polished and perfect as the most priceless brilliant.

And in his eye there is a shade of something, words cannot express

what. The sight may catch, but not fix it. A gleam, scarcely human,

dark and fiend-like, it steals away under the lash, quivers sometimes

with the mysterious tremor of a northern light, fixes stedfastly

on some luckless bystander, who shrinks from the supernatural aspect,

and then is all at once quenched. Once that marvellous light fell

on me; and long after I beheld it vanish its memory haunted me like

a spirit. The sensation which it excited was very singular. I felt

as if he could read my soul; and strange to tell there was no fear

lest he should find sinful thoughts and recollections there, but

a harassing dread lest anything good might arise which would awake

the tremendous power of sarcasm that I saw lurking in every feature

of his face. Northangerland has a black drop in his veins that flows

through every vessel, taints every limb, stagnates round his heart,

and there in the very citadel of life the albinous blood of the patrician

is the bitterest, rankest gall. Let us leave him in that shape, ‘bright

with beauty, dark with crime.’ He has sailed over many seas, wandered

in many lands; just so with that look buried in profound meditation

I can imagine him pacing the silent quarter-deck of his own _Red

Rover_, his eyes fixed on the sullen sea that moans round him on

every side, watching the mighty plunges of the waves rushing on as

if they had an aim in their journey, as if they would bound on before

his gallant ship, and were seeking the land she sought with emulous

intent to outstrip the wanderer of their green wilderness, and to

teach her that ocean would not brook her haughty defiance. Farewell,

Percy!

I turn the leaves and behold—his countess!

Hum! hum! I am not on very good terms with this celebrated lady,

as all the world knows; yet plain truth compels me to confess that

she is a very fine woman, a superb daughter of Verdopolis; and Frederick

de Lisle has done her justice; so has Edward Findan. A mere blue

ought not to be so handsome. What eyes! What raven hair! What an

imposing contour of form and countenance!

She is perfectly grand in her velvet robes, dark plume, and crown-like

turban. The lady of Ellrington House, the wife of Northangerland,

the prima donna of the Angrian Court, the most learned woman of her

age, the modern Cleopatra, the Verdopolitan de Staël: in a word,

Zenobia Percy! Who would think that that grand form of feminine majesty

could launch out into the unbridled excesses of passion in which

her ladyship not unfrequently indulges? There is fire in her eyes,

and command on her brow; and some touch of a pride that would spurn

restraint in the curl of her rich lip. But all is so tempered with

womanly dignity that it would seem as if neither fire nor pride nor

imperiousness could awaken the towering fits of ungoverned and frantic

rage that often deform her beauty. Her hands, look at them, they

are well formed and small, white and sparkling with rings; is it

natural that such hands should inflict the blows that sometimes tingle

from them? I think not; but my scarlet ears and aching bones have

more than once borne incontestable witness how the case stands! The

truth is her fingers though slender are long and like those of Zamorna,

and like his they possess more vigour than their fragile structure

would seem to indicate. She can spar, I verily believe, with her

own husband, one of the best boxers on record, though now a little

disabled by a tormenting complaint from long-continued exertion.

Her employment, however, as here represented is of a higher order

than pugilistic achievement. She leans on a large clasped volume,

another of equal size lies open before her, and: one taper forefinger

directs the spectator’s attention to the page while her eye looks

into his with an earnest and solemn air as if she were warning him

of the mighty treasures contained in the maxims of ancient lore to

which she points. As I turn from this pictured representation of

the countess I must say she is a noble creature both in mind and

body, though full of the blackest defects: a flawed diamond; a magnificent

landscape trenched with drains; virgin gold basely adulterated with

brass; a beautiful intellectual woman, but an infidel.

The next portrait is that of His Grace the Duke of Fidena. I feel

as if awaking from a feverish dream, a distempered vision of troubled

grandeur and stormy glory, as I raise my eyes from the lord and lady

of Pandemonium, from Sin and Satan, and let them fall on Prince John,

the Royal Philosopher. How grave! what severe virtue! what deep and

far-sought and well-treasured wisdom! what inflexible uprightness!

Integrity that Death could not turn from the path of right; Firmness

that would stoop to the block rather than yield one jot of its just,

mature, righteous resolution; Truth from which the agonies of the

wheel would be powerless to wring a word of equivocation; and to

speak verity, Pride that could no more be thawed than the icebergs

of Greenland or the snows of his own Highland hills. There is a look

too of prejudice in his rather stern forehead, a something which

tells us that Fidena could be an unforgiving, almost a vindictive,

enemy, if stubbornly opposed or wantonly insulted. An air of reserve,

of stiffness, which warns us that the son of Alexander,—all good,

wise, and just, as he is,—lays emphasis on the forms of Courts, the

usages of high circles. He will brook no breach of them, however

trivial, in those under his authority. That cold eye and aristocratic

mien say that jealousy would be quickly aroused by any mingling of

ranks, any inroads of plebeians on the rights of patricians, any

removing of landmarks or undermining of old institutions. He looks

chill, almost forbidding. Something like a cold feeling of restraint

creeps over us whilst we gaze: the virtues pictured in his stately

features seem of that high and holy order which almost exempt their

possessor from sympathy with mankind. Thoughts of martyrs or patriots,

a zealous but stern prophet chosen in evil times to denounce judgment,

not to proclaim mercy, recur to our minds. Yet John is not altogether

what he appears; or rather he is that and more too. I have seen him

in private life in moments of relaxation when surrounded by his family

and one or two bosom friends. Nothing in such circumstances can be

more fascinating than his winning, easy manner, his calm cheerfulness,

his pleasing, philosophical gravity of aspect and demeanour. For

hours I have watched him while he sat on a sofa with his lovely wife

beside him, and the beautiful Marchioness of Douro sitting at his

feet; and heard the benignant simplicity with which he poured out

the stores of his varied and extensive erudition, answering so kindly

and familiarly each question of the fair listeners, mingling an air

of conjugal tenderness in his manner to his wife, and earnest melancholy

gentleness in that to Marian such as always characterized his treatment

of her. Poor thing! she looked on him as her only friend,—her brother,

her adviser, her unerring oracle; with the warm devotedness that

marked her disposition she followed his advice as if it had been

the precept of inspired revelation. Fidena could not err; he could

neither think nor act wrongly: he was perfect. Those who thought

him too proud were very much mistaken. _She_ never found him so.

Nobody had milder and softer manners; nobody spoke more pleasantly.

Thus she would talk; then blush with anger if any one contradicted

her too exclusively favourable opinion. Prince John, I believe, regarded

Marian as a delicate flower planted in a stormy situation; as a lovely,

fragile being that needed his careful protection; and that protection

he would have extended to her at the hazard of life itself. To the

last he tried to support her. Many lone days he spent in watching

and cheering her during her final lingering sickness; but all the

kindness, all the tenderness in the world were insufficient to raise

that blighted lily so long as the sunshine of those eyes which had

been her idolatry was withered; and so long as the music of that

voice she had loved so fondly and truly sounded too far off to be

heard. Fidena was in the house when she died. He had left the chamber

but a few minutes before Zamorna entered it. On quitting the bedside,

as he hung over his adopted sister for the last time, a single large

tear, the only one anguish, bodily or mental, ever wrung from the

exalted soul of the Christian philosopher, dropped on the little

worn hand he held in his; and he muttered half aloud: ‘Would to God

I had possessed this treasure; it should not thus have been thrown

away.’

Marian’s portrait comes next to Fidena. Every one know what it is

like: the small delicate features, dark blue eyes full of wild and

tender enthusiasm, beautiful curls, and frail-looking form, are familiar

to all; so I need not pause on a more elaborate detail.

After her the frank face of General Thornton looks out on the gazer

with a hearty, welcoming aspect. You almost hear his doric accents

exclaiming: ‘Well, how do you do, this evening? Fine, summer weather!

I’m taking a bit of a stroll to Girnington Hall. Will ye come with

me and see how the cattle thrive?’ Honest, honest Thornton! there

are few men so worthy as thyself in the world. Thou hast been wronged,

vilely and shamefully wronged; yet not a shadow of discontent in

that smooth, broad brow, with its dashing swirl of hair, intimates

that thou art an ill-used man. Never did a word of complaint fall

from those fresh-coloured, well-formed lips. Hearty execrations have

often poured from them, but not a single whine. Thornton bears a

resemblance to Prince John; faint indeed and rather uncertain as

to its locality, but still sufficient to point out their relationship.

The complexions of both are fair and northern; the eyes are of similar

colour: a clear and lively grey; and the nose not unlike in contour.

Their forms, however, are very different, the general’s being middle-sized

and somewhat stout, the duke’s tall, thin, and stately. But their

minds! There the great distinction lies; no wonder they hate each

other! Fire and flint could no more amalgamate than them.

Lady Maria Sneachy, a real, dazzling, brilliant, smiling beauty!

What large, imperial eyes; what a magnificent neck and brow; and

how haughtily she lifts her fair head with its weight of glancing

black ringlets! She seems to scorn the earth which her small foot

presses, and to look round in supreme contempt of beggarly man and

all his trifling concerns. He may gaze at her, worship her, but let

him aspire no higher. The laugh of satire that can burst from those

lips is cutting to the last degree. I have seen many a wretch writhing

under it, and pitied the despair with which he turned away from the

royal coquette to seek happiness in a less splendid and less disdainful

form. People say that Maria has found her tamer now. I know not how

that is, but I think the King of Angria is too well satisfied with

his present Queen, who fits herself to him and all his proud strange

ways more perfectly every day, to choose even so grand a successor

as Maria Sneachy would be.

Augustus, Marquis of Rosendale—young Highland Red-Deer! Fidena may

be proud of his son. I never saw a child who better merited the epithet,

‘handsome,’ than does this juvenile prince. All his limbs and features

are so round and regular. Look at those fleshy, plump arms naked

to the shoulder; on that fair and florid face with its fearless blue

eye, and the curly grace of his plentiful light hair; on that bold

white forehead which will be bared yet to the mountain winds of his

fatherland when he fronts them in the storm of the chase, and to

the keener gales of war when he follows the sound of the trumpet

and charges either to the rescue or ruin of that banner whose orb

is rising, but which ere then will be in its glowing noontide. Prince

John should watch Augustus; let him not follow his young god-father

in infancy or he will do it hereafter in manhood.

Here the second volume closes. I now take up the first.

Fire! Light! What have we here? Zamorna’s self, blazing in the frontispiece

like the sun on his own standard. De Lisle has given him to us in

full regimentals—plumed, epauletted, and sabred (I wish the last

were literally true, by-the-bye!). All his usual insufferableness

or irresistibleness, or whatever the ladies choose to call it, surrounding

him like an atmosphere, he stands as if a thunderbolt could neither

blast the light of his eyes nor dash the effrontery of his brow.

Keen, glorious being! tempered and bright and sharp and rapid as

the scimitar at his side when whirled by the delicate yet vigorous

hand that now grasps the bridle of a horse to all appearance as viciously

beautiful as himself. O Zamorna! what eyes those are glancing under

the deep shadow of that raven crest! They bode no good. Man nor woman

could ever gather more than a troubled, fitful happiness from their

kindest light, Satan gave them their glory to deepen the midnight

gloom that always follows where their lustre has fallen most lovingly.

This, indeed, is something different from Percy. All here is passion

and fire unquenchable. Impetuous sin, stormy pride, diving and soaring

enthusiasm, war and poetry, are kindling their fires in all his veins,

and his wild blood boils from his heart and back again like a torrent

of new-sprung lava. Young duke? Young demon! I have looked at you

till words seemed to issue from your lips in those fine electric

tones, as clear and profound as the silver chords of a harp, which

steal affections like a charm. I think I see him bending his head

to speak to the Countess Zenobia or the Princess Maria or Lady Julia

or perhaps Queen Henrietta, while he whispers words that touch the

heart like a ‘melody that’s sweetly played in tune.’ A low wind rises

and sighs slowly onward. Suddenly his plumes rustle; their haughty

shadow sweeps over his forehead; the eye,—the full, dark, refulgent

eye,—lightens most gloriously; his curls are all stirred; smiles

dawn on his lip. Suddenly he lifts his head, flings back the feathers,

and clusters of bright hair, and, while he stands erect and god-like,

his regards (as the French say) bent on the lady, whoever it be,

who by this time is of course seriously debating whether he be man

or angel, a momentary play of indescribable expression round the

mouth, and elevation of the eyebrows, tell how the stream of thought

runs at that moment; the mind which so noble a form enshrines! Detestable

wretch!—I hate him!

But just opposite, separated only by a transparent sheet of silver

paper, there is something different: his wife, his own matchless

Henrietta! She looks at him with serene eyes as if the dew of placid

thought could be shed on him by the influence of those large, clear

stars. It reminds me of moonlight descending on troubled waters.

I wish the parallel held good all the way, and that she was as far

beyond the reach of sorrows arising from her husband’s insatiable

ambition and fiery impetuosity as Dian is above the lash of the restless

deep. But it is not so: her destiny is linked with his; and however

strange the great river of Zamorna’s fate may flow; however awful

the rapids over which it may rush; however cold and barren the banks

of its channel; however wild, however darkly beached and stormily

billowed the ocean into which it may finally plunge, Mary’s must

follow. Fair creature! I could weep to think of it. For her sake,

I hope a bright futurity for her lord; pity that the shadow of grief

should ever fall where the light of such beauty shines. Every one

knows how like the duchess is to her father: his very image cast

in a softer—it could not be a more refined—mould. They are precisely

similar, even to the very delicacy of their hands. As Byron says,

her features have all the statuesque repose, the calm classic grace,

that dwells on the Earl’s. She, however, has one advantage over him:

the stealing, pensive brilliancy of her hazel eyes, and the peaceful

sweetness of her mouth, impart a harmony to the whole which the satanic

sneer fixed on the corresponding features of Northangerland’s face

totally destroys. The original paintings of these two engraved portraits,

namely, Zamorna’s and his lady’s, hang in the grand refectory at

Wellesley House. Five hundred guineas was the sum paid for each.

They are de Lisle’s, and rank amongst his most splendid _chefs-d’œuvre_.

I know of no parallels to them, except those of Percy and Zenobia

in the central saloon at Ellrington Hall. Search all the world from

Iceland to Australia, and you will not find four human beings, male

and female, to compare with them.

Hector Mirabeau Montmorency, Esq.! These features are somewhat stern

to gaze on after such a continuation of the beautiful. They are far,

however, from being harsh and disagreeable. A great deal of stuff was

written some years ago about the exaggerated and grotesque character of

this gentleman’s physiognomy. I remember several libellous assertions

to that effect in the long since exploded catch-penny of Captain Tree’s

denominated: ‘The Foundling.’[8] But, indeed, where all the rest was a

compound of the grossest falsehood, where Lord and Lady Ellrington, Mr.

Sydney, the Duke of Wellington, the whole concern of the Philosopher’s

Island,—tutors, masters of colleges, students and all,—were hashed up

into one wild farrago of bombast, fustian and lies, why should the

Lord of Derrinane escape more than others? It is not to be wondered at

that this same work, which gave a detailed account of Zenobia Percy’s

declaring in solemn soliloquy that she hated her husband—abhorred,

loathed, detested her own Alexander—which afterwards showed her

daring him in the most insolent language to his fate, glorifying the

young Marquis of Douro, and anathematizing _him_; and which, to crown

all, made Percy offer to commit an act that certainly was more than

excusable—almost justifiable after such provocation,—namely, the final

settling of so shrewish and shameless a wife, introduced a third

person to prevent the deed, and made his interference successful.

The volume which contained all this, I say, should excite but small

accession of wonder by the few lines that describe Montmorency as

a broad, low man, bandy-legged, squinting, his head covered with a

shock of shaggy black hair, and his eyes of the consistency of boiled

gooseberries: green, glassy, and ghost-like. The fact is Hector is

a tall, well-proportioned, robust figure, with red hair, a florid

complexion, an expression of eye which indicates good humour, powerful

talent, and no small degree of ferocity. His countenance is certainly

not so femininely elegant as that of Northangerland, nor so fierily

magnificent as that of Zamorna, but it is the countenance of a

gentleman and a Glass-towner, not of a brownie and a bear.

8 ‘The Foundling: A Tale of Our Own Times,’ by Captain Tree, is an

unpublished story containing about thirty-five thousand words, which

was commenced by Charlotte Brontë on May 31st, 1833, and completed

on June 27th, 1823. The manuscript is described, and facsimiles of

two pages of the manuscript are given, by Mr. T. J. Wise in his book,

_A Bibliography of the Writings in Prose and Verse of the Members

of the Brontë Family_, published in 1917.—C. W. H.

Hist! Thornton is awakening!

‘Heigho, Charles, what are ye about there?’

‘Looking at pictures.’

‘Looking at pictures? Aye, that ye are with a vengeance! Do ye see

what you’ve done? Daubed your hands with ink, and then rubbed them

over every other portrait in the book. Well, child, thou dost try

my patience! Take away your fingers this minute. There! he’s drawn

a scrawl across Lady Julia Sydney’s bonny face and spoiled the handsomest

lass in the book! Leave the room and get me _The Cook’s Guide_: you

shall learn a page of recipes for this business before ever you have

a morsel of supper. Poor Julia! she’s fairly changed into a blackamoor;

and there’s John with an ink mark across his forehead that makes

him frown like death. Faith, that was a lucky hit! I’ve a’most a

good mind to forgive you for it; but I willn’t either: there’s a

hundred pounds thrown away, and I won’t have such work.’

All this was very true. While examining the portraits I had been

jotting down the few remarks here contained. The ink had been communicated

by the pen to my fingers, and by them to each leaf as I turned it

over. If crime can be expiated by punishment, however, my sin was

soon washed away. Till ten o’clock that night I was engaged in lifting

up my voice over the pathetic pages of _The Cook’s Guide, or, Every

Man his own Housekeeper_—(I think that is the title of the abomination);

and, let me assure the reader, such a penalty as this might be the

guerdon of graver guilt.

C. BRONTË,

_May 30th_, 1834.

MINA LAURY

I

FROM the first part of the manuscript entitled ‘Passing Events,’

completed by Charlotte Brontë on her twentieth birthday, April 21st,

1836.

C. W. H.

MINA LAURY

I

THE Cross of Rivaulx![9] Is that a name familiar to my readers? I

rather think not. Listen, then. It is a green, delightful, and quiet

place, half way between Angria and the foot of the Sydenham Hills,

under the frown of Hawkscliffe, and on the edge of its royal forest.

You see a fair house whose sash-windows are set in ivy grown thick

and kept in trim order. Over the front door there is a little porch

of trellis-work, all the summer covered with a succession of verdant

leaves and pink roses: globes, buds, and full-blown blossoms. Within

this in fine weather the door is constantly open and reveals a passage

terminating in a staircase of low white steps traced up the middle

by a brilliant carpet. There are no decided grounds laid out about

the Cross of Rivaulx; but a lawn-like greenness surrounds it, and

the last remnants of Hawkscliffe shade it in the form of many wild-rose

trees and a few lofty elms. You look in vain for anything like a

wall or gate to shut it in. The only landmark consists in an old

obelisk with moss and wild-flowers at its base and a half-obliterated

crucifix sculptured on its side. Well, this is no very presuming

place, but on a June evening not seldom have I seen a figure whom

every eye in Angria might recognise stride out of the domestic gloom

of that little hall and stand in pleasant leisure under the porch

whose flowers and leaves were disturbed by the contact of his curls.

It is but a lodge to the mighty towers of Hawkscliffe, which being

five miles distant buried in the chase are of less convenient access.

The day is breezeless, quite still and warm. The sun far declined,

for afternoon is just melting into evening, sheds a deep amber light.

A cheerful air surrounds the mansion, whose windows are up, its door

as usual hospitably apart; and the broad passage reverberates with

a lively conversational hum from the rooms which open upon it. The

day is of that perfectly mild, sunny kind that by an irresistible

influence draws people out into the balmy air; and see, there are

two gentlemen lounging easily in the porch sipping coffee from the

cups they have brought from the drawing-room, and a third has stretched

himself on the soft moss in the shadow of the obelisk. But for these

figures the landscape would be one of exquisite repose. They break

the enchantment of sun, sky, pleasant home, and waveless trees. Their

dress is military: they are officers from Angria, from the headquarters

of Zamorna’s grand army. Two at least are of this description. The

other, reclining on the grass, a slight figure in black, wears a

civil dress. That is Mr. Warner, the Home Secretary. Another person

was standing by him, whom I should not have omitted to describe.

It was a fine girl dressed in rich black satin with ornaments like

those of a bandit’s wife, in which a whole fortune seemed to have

been expended; but no wonder, for they had doubtless been the gifts

of a king! In her ears (she was not too refined for the barbaric

magnificence of earrings) hung two long clear drops red as fire and

suffused with a purple tint that showed them to be the true oriental

ruby. Bright, delicate links of gold circled her neck again and again;

and a cross of gems lay on her breast, the centre stone of which

was a locket enclosing a ringlet of dark brown hair. With that little

soft curl she would not have parted for a kingdom.

9 The name of Rivaulx was probably obtained from Rivaulx Abbey (now

in ruins), founded in 1131 for the Cistercians. It is in the N. Riding

of Yorkshire, in Rye Dale, at the foot of the Hambleton Hills.—C.

W. H.

Warner’s eyes were fixed with interest on Miss Laury as she stood

over him, a model of beautiful vigour and glowing health, a kind

of military erectness in her form so elegantly built, and in the

manner in which her neck sprung from her bust and was placed with

graceful uprightness on her falling shoulders. Her waist too falling

in behind, and her fine slender foot supporting her in a regulated

position, plainly indicated familiarity from her childhood with the

sergeants’ drill.

All the afternoon she had been entertaining: her exalted guests,—the

two in the porch were no other than Lord Hartford and Enara,[10]

and conversing with them frankly and cheerfully, but with a total

absence of levity, a dash of seriousness, an habitual intentness

of purpose that had more than once attracted to her the admiring

glance of the Home Secretary. These and Lord Arundel were the only

friends she had in the world. Female acquaintance she never sought,

nor if she had sought would she have found them. And so sagacious,

clever, and earnest was she in all she said and did that the haughty

aristocrats did not hesitate to communicate with her often on matters

of first-rate importance. Mr. Warner was now talking to her about

himself.

10 General Henri Fernando de Euara, known in the army as ‘The Tiger.’—C.

W. H.

‘My dear madam,’ he was saying in his imperious but still dulcet

tone, ‘it is unreasonable that you should remain thus exposed to

danger. I am your friend; yes, madam, your true friend. Why do you

not hear me and attend to my representations of the case? Angria

is an unsafe place for you; you ought to leave it.’

The lady shook her head: ‘Never till my master compels me; his land

is my land.’

‘But—but, Miss Laury, you know that our army has no warrant from

the Almighty of conquest. This invasion may be successful, at least

for a time, and then what becomes of you? When the duke’s nation

is wrestling with destruction, his glory sunk in deep waters, and

himself diving desperately to recover it, can he waste a thought

or a moment on a woman? You will be at the tender mercies of Quashia,[11]

and of Sheik Medina,—I mean of the detestable renegade Gordon,—before

you are aware.’

11 Quashia Quamina Kashna, an African chief.—C. W. H.

Mina smiled. ‘I am resolved,’ said she. ‘My master himself shall

not force me to leave him. You know I am hardened, Warner; shame

and reproach have no effect on me. I do not care for being called a

camp-follower. In peace and pleasure all the ladies in Africa would

be at the duke’s beck; in war and suffering he shall not lack one

poor peasant girl. Why, sir, I’ve nothing else to exist for; I’ve no

other interest in life. Just to stand by His Grace and watch him and

anticipate his wishes, or when I cannot do that to execute them like

lightning when they are signified; to wait on him when he is sick or

wounded, to hear his groans and bear his heartrending animal-patience

in enduring pain; to breathe if I can my own inexhaustible health and

energy into him; and oh! if it were practicable, to take his fever

and agony, to guard his interests, to take on my shoulders power from

him that galls me with its weight; to fill gaps in his mighty train

of service that nobody else would dare to step into; to do all that,

sir, is to fulfil the destiny I was born to. I know I am of no repute

among society at large, because I have devoted myself so wholly to one

man. And I know that he very seldom troubles himself to think of what

I do; and has never and can never appreciate the unusual feelings of

subservience, the total self-sacrifice I offer at his shrine. But then

he gives me my reward, and that an abundant one. Mr. Warner, when I

was at Fort Adrian and had all the yoke of governing the garrison and

military household I used to rejoice in my responsibility and to feel

firmer the heavier the weight was assigned me to support. And when my

master came over, as he often did, to take one of his general surveys,

or on a hunting expedition with some of you, his officers, I had such

delights in ordering the banquets and entertainments and in seeing the

fires kindled up and chandeliers lighted in those dark halls, knowing

for whom the feast was made ready; and it gave me a feeling of ecstasy

to hear my young master’s voice as he spoke to you or Arundel or to

that stately Hartford, and to see him moving about secure and powerful

in his own stronghold, to know what true hearts he had about him,

assured as I was that his generals and ministers were men of steel,

and that his vassals under my rule were trusty as the very ramparts

they garrisoned. The last summer evening that he came here the sun and

flowers and quietness brightened his noble features with such happiness

I could tell his heart was at rest, for as he lay in the shade where

you are now I heard him hum the airs he long ago played on his guitar

at Mornington. I was rewarded then to feel that the house I kept was

pleasant enough to make him forget Angria, and recur to home. The west,

the sweet west, is both his home and mine.’

Mina paused and looked solemnly at the sun now softened in its shine

and hanging exceedingly low. In a moment her eyes fell again on Warner.

They seemed to have absorbed radiance from what they had gazed on.

Light like an arrow-point glanced in them as she said:

‘This is my time to follow. Ill not be robbed of those hours of blissful

danger when I may be continually with him. My kind, noble master

never likes to see my tears, and I will weep before him night and

day till he grants what I wish. I am not afraid of danger. I have

strong nerves. I don’t wish to fight like an Amazon; and fatigue

I never felt. I will die or be with him.’

‘What has fired your eyes so suddenly, Miss Laury?’ asked Lord Hartford,

now advancing with Enara from their canopy of roses.

‘The duke, the duke,’ muttered Henri Fernando; ‘she won’t leave him,

I’ll be sworn.’

‘I can’t, general,’ said Mina.

‘No,’ answered the Italian; ‘and nobody shall force you. You shall

have your own way, madam, whether it be right or wrong.’

Before Miss Laury could answer a voice from within the mansion spoke

her name.

‘It is my lord!’ she exclaimed, and ran over the sward, through the

porch, along the passage, to a summer parlour whose walls were painted

a fine pale red, its mouldings burnished gilding, and its window-curtains

artistical draperies of dark blue silk covered with gold waves and

flowers. Here Zamorna sat alone. He had been writing. One or two

letters, folded, sealed, and inscribed with western directions, lay

on the table beside him. His gloves and cambric handkerchief with

a crown wrought upon it in black hair appeared on his desk. He had

not uncovered since entering the house three hours since; and either

the weight of his dragoon helmet or the gloom of its impending plumes

or else some inward feeling had clouded his face with a strange darkness.

Mina closed the door and softly drew near. Without speaking or asking

leave she began to busy herself in unclasping the heavy helmet. The

duke smiled faintly as her little fingers played about his chin and

luxuriant whiskers, and then, the load of brass and sable plumage

being removed, as they arranged the pressed masses of glossy brown

ringlets and touched with soft cool contact his feverish brow. Absorbed

in the grateful task she hardly felt that His Majesty’s arm had encircled

her waist, and yet she did feel it too and would have thought herself

presumptuous to shrink from the endearment. She took it as a slave

ought to take the caress of a Sultan, and obeying the gentle effort

of his hand slowly sank on to the sofa by her master’s side.

‘My little physician,’ said he, meeting her adoring but anxious upward

gaze with the full light of his countenance, ‘you look at me as if

you thought I was not well. Feel my pulse.’

She folded that offered hand, white, supple, and soft with youth

and delicate nature, in both her own, and whether Zamorna’s pulse

beat rapidly or not his handmaid’s did as she felt the slender grasping

fingers of the monarch laid quietly in hers. He did not wait for

the report, but took his hand away again, and laying it on her raven

curls said:

‘So, Mina, you won’t leave me though I never did you any good in

the world? Warner says you are resolved to continue in the scene

of war.’

‘To continue by your side, my lord.’

‘But what shall I do with you, Mina? Where shall I put you? My little

girl, what will the army say when they hear of your presence? You

have read history? Recollect that it was Darius who carried his concubines

to the field, not Alexander! The world will say: “Zamorna attends

to his own pleasures and cares not how his men suffer.”’

Mina writhed at these words as if the iron had entered into her soul.

A vivid burning flush crimsoned her cheek, and tears of shame and

bitter self-reproach gushed at once into her bright black eyes. Zamorna

was touched acutely.

‘Nay, my little girl,’ said he, redoubling his caresses and speaking

in his most soothing tone, ‘never weep about it. It grieves me to

hurt your feelings, but you desire an impossibility, and I must use

strong language to convince you that I cannot grant it.’

‘Oh, don’t refuse me again,’ sobbed Miss Laury. ‘I’ll bear all infamy

and contempt to be allowed to follow you, my lord. My lord, I’ve

served you for many years most faithfully, and I seldom ask a favour

of you. Don’t reject the first request of the kind I have ever made.’

The duke shook his head, and the meeting of his lips, too placid

for the firm compression, told that he was not to be moved.

‘If you should receive a wound, if you should fall sick,’ continued

Mina, ‘what can surgeons and physicians do for you? They cannot watch

you and wait on you and worship you like me, and you do not seem

well now. The bloom is so faded on your complexion, and the flesh

is wasted round your eyes. Do not look so calmly resolved: let me

go!’

Zamorna withdrew his arm from her waist. ‘I must be displeased before

you cease to importune me,’ said he. ‘Mina, look at that letter.

Read the direction,’ pointing to one he had been writing. She obeyed.

It was addressed to, ‘Her Royal Highness, Mary Henrietta, Duchess

of Zamorna.’

‘Must I pay no attention to the feelings of that lady?’ pursued the

duke, whom the duties of war and the conflict of some internal emotions

seemed to render peculiarly stern. ‘Her public claims must be respected

whether I love her or not.’

Miss Laury shrunk into herself. Not another word did she venture

to breathe. An unconscious wish of wild intensity filled her that

she were dead and buried, and insensible to the shame that overwhelmed

her. She saw Zamorna’s finger with the ring on it still pointing

to that awful name, a name that raised no impulse of hatred: far

too high and blessed did the exalted lady seem for that; but only

bitter humiliation and self-abasement. She stole from her master’s

side feeling that she had no more right to sit there than a fawn

has to share the den of a royal lion; and murmuring that she was

very sorry for her folly, was about to glide in dismay and despair

from the room. But the duke rising up arrested her, and bending his

lofty stature over her as she crouched before him folded her again

in his arms. His countenance relaxed not a moment from its sternness,

nor did the gloom leave his magnificent but worn features as he said:

‘I will make no apologies for what I have said, because I know, Mina,

that as I hold you now you feel fully recompensed for my severity.

Before I depart I will speak to you one word of comfort which you

may remember when I am far away and perhaps dead. My dear girl! I

know and appreciate all you have done, all you have resigned, and

all you have endured, for my sake. I repay you for it with one coin:

with what alone to you will be of greater worth than worlds without

it. I give you such true and fond love as a master can give to the

fairest and loveliest vassal that ever was bound to him in feudal

allegiance. You may never feel the touch of Zamorna’s lips again.

There, Mina!’ And fervently and almost fiercely he pressed his lips

to her forehead. ‘Go to your chamber; to-morrow you must leave for

the west.’

‘Obedient till death,’ was Miss Laury’s answer as she closed the

door and disappeared.

• • • • • • •

C. BRONTË,

_April 21st_, 1836.

MINA LAURY

II

FROM the final portion of an untitled manuscript which was completed

on January 17th, 1838.

C. W. H.

MINA LAURY

II

MISS LAURY was sitting after breakfast in a small library. Her desk

lay before her and two large ruled quartos filled with items and

figures which she seemed to be comparing. Behind her chair stood a

tall, well-made, soldierly young man with light hair. His dress was

plain and gentlemanly; the epaulette, on one shoulder, alone indicated

that he occupied an official capacity. He watched with a fixed look

of attention the movements of the small finger which ascended in

rapid calculation the long columns of accounts. It was strange to see

the absorption of mind expressed in Miss Laury’s face, the gravity

of her smooth white brow shaded with drooping curls, the scarcely

perceptible and unsmiling movement of her lips, though those lips in

their rosy sweetness seemed formed only for smiles. An hour or more

lapsed in this employment, the room meantime continuing in profound

silence broken only by an occasional observation addressed by Miss

Laury to the gentleman behind her concerning the legitimacy of some

item or the absence of some stray farthing wanted to complete the

accuracy of the sum total. In this balancing of the books she displayed

a most business-like sharpness and strictness. The slightest fault

was detected and remarked on in few words, but with quick searching

glance. However, the accountant had evidently been accustomed to

her surveillance, for on the whole his books were a specimen of

arithmetical correctness.

‘Very well,’ said Miss Laury, as she closed the volumes, ‘your accounts

do you credit, Mr. O’Neill. You may tell His Grace that all is quite

right. Your memoranda tally with my own exactly.’

Mr. O’Neill bowed.

‘Thank you, madam. This will bear me out against Lord Hartford. His

lordship lectured me severely last time he came to inspect Fort Adrian.’

‘What about?’ asked Miss Laury, turning aside her face to hide the

deepening of colour which overspread it at the mention of Lord Hartford’s

name.

‘I can hardly tell you, madam; but his lordship was in a savage temper.

Nothing could please him. He found fault with everything and everybody.

I thought he scarcely appeared himself, and that has been the opinion

of many lately.’

Miss Laury gently shook her head.

‘You shall not say so, Ryan,’ she replied in a soft tone of reproof.

‘Lord Hartford has a great many things to think about, and he is

naturally rather stern. You ought to bear with his tempers.’

‘Necessity has no law, madam,’ replied O’Neill with a smile, ‘and

I _must_ bear with them. But his lordship is not a popular man in

the army. He orders the lash so unsparingly. We like the Earl of

Arundel ten times better.’

‘Ah,’ said Miss Laury, smiling, ‘you and I are Westerns, Mr. O’Neill:

Irish,—and we favour our countrymen. But Hartford is a gallant commander.

His men can always trust him. Do not let us be partial.’

Mr. O’Neill bowed in deference to her opinion, but smiled at the

same time, as if he doubted its justice. Taking up his books he seemed

about to leave the room. Before he did so, however, he turned and

said:

‘The duke wished me to inform you, madam, that he would probably

be here about four or five o’clock in the afternoon.’

‘To-day?’ asked Miss Laury in an accent of surprise.

‘Yes, madam.’

She mused a moment, then said quickly: ‘Very well, sir.’

Mr. O’Neill now took his leave.

For a long time after the door had closed Miss Laury sat, with her

head on her hand, lost in a tumultuous flush of ideas and anticipations

awakened by that simple sentence: ‘The duke will be here to-day.’

The striking of a timepiece aroused her. She remembered that twenty

tasks awaited her direction. Always active, always employed, it was

not her custom to waste many hours in dreaming. She rose, closed

her desk, and left the quiet library for busier scenes.

Four o’clock came, and Miss Laury’s foot was heard on the staircase

descending from her chamber. She crossed the large light passage—an

apparition of feminine elegance and beauty. The robe of black satin

became at once the slender form, which it enveloped in full and shining

folds, and her bright blooming complexion, which it set off by the

contrast of colour. Glittering through her curls there was a band

of fine diamonds, and drops of the same pure gems trembled from her

small ears. These ornaments, so regal in their nature, had been the

gift of royalty, and were worn now chiefly for the associations of

soft and happy moments which their gleam might be supposed to convey.

She entered the drawing-room and stood by the window. From thence

appeared one glimpse of the highroad visible through the thickening

shades of Rivaulx. Even that was now almost concealed by the frozen

mist in which the approach of twilight was wrapped. All was very

quiet both in the house and in the wood. A carriage drew near; she

heard the sound. She saw it shoot through the fog; but it was not

Zamorna. No; the driving was neither the driving of Jehu the son

of Nimshi, nor that of Jehu’s postillions. She had not gazed a minute

before her experienced eye discerned that there was something wrong

with the horses.’ The harness had got entangled or they were frightened.

The coachman had lost control over them: they were plunging violently.

She rang the bell. A servant entered. She ordered immediate assistance

to be despatched to the carriage on the road. Two grooms presently

hurried down the drive to execute her commands, but before they could

reach the spot one of the horses, in its gambols, had slipped on

the icy road and fallen. The others grew more unmanageable, and presently

the carriage lay overturned on the roadside. One of Miss Laury’s

messengers came back. She threw up the window that she might communicate

with him more readily.

‘Any accident?’ she asked; ‘anybody hurt?’

‘I hope not much, madam.’

‘Who is in the carriage?’

‘Only one lady, and she seems to have fainted. She looked very white

when I opened the door. What is to be done, madam?’

Miss Laury answered directly: ‘Bring her into the house. Let the

horses be taken to the stables. And the servants: how many are there?’

‘Three, madam: two postillions and a footman.’

‘Do you know the liveries?’

‘Can’t say, madam. Postillions in grey and white, footman in plain

clothes. Horses frightened at a drove of Sydenham oxen, they say:

very spirited nags.’

‘Well, you have my orders: bring the lady in directly, and make the

others comfortable.’

‘Yes, madam.’

The groom touched his hat and departed. Miss Laury shut her window.

It was very cold. Not many minutes elapsed before the lady in the

arms of her own servants was slowly brought up the lawn and ushered

into the drawing-room.

‘Lay her on the sofa,’ said Miss Laury.

She was obeyed. The lady’s travelling-cloak was carefully removed

and a thin figure became apparent in a dark silk dress. The cushions

of down scarcely sank under the pressure, it was so slight.

Her swoon was now passing off. The genial warmth of the fire which

shone full on her revived her. Opening her eyes she looked up at

Miss Laury, who was now bending close over her and wetting her lips

with some cordial. Recognizing a stranger she shyly turned her glance

aside and asked for her servants.

‘They are in the house, madam, and perfectly safe. But you cannot

pursue your journey at present: the carriage is much broken.’

The lady lay silent. She looked keenly round the room, and seeing

the perfect elegance of its arrangement, the cheerful and tranquil

glow of its hearth-light, she appeared to grow more composed. Turning

a little on the cushions which supported her, and by no means looking

at Miss Laury, but straight the other way, she said:

‘To whom am I indebted for this kindness? Where am I?’

‘In a hospitable country, madam; the Angrians never turn their backs

on strangers.’

‘I know I am in Angria,’ she said quickly, ‘but where? What is the

name of the house? Who are you?’

Miss Laury coloured slightly; it seemed as if there was some undefined

reluctance to give her real name.

‘I am only the housekeeper,’ she said. ‘This is a shooting-lodge

belonging to a great Angrian proprietor.’

‘Who?’ asked the lady, who was not to be put off by indirect answers.

Again Miss Laury hesitated. She replied hastily:

‘A gentleman of Western extraction: a distant branch of the great

Pakenhams. So at least the family records say; but they have been

long naturalized in the Kast.’

‘I never heard of them,’ replied the lady. ‘Pakenham! That is not

an Angrian name?’

‘Perhaps, madam, you are not particularly acquainted with this part

of the country?’

‘I know Hawkscliffe,’ said the lady, ‘and your house is on the very

borders, within the Royal Liberties; is it not?’

‘Yes, madam. It stood there before the great duke bought up the forest

manor, and His Majesty allowed my master to retain this lodge and

the privilege of sporting in the chase.’

‘Well, and you are Mr. Pakenham’s housekeeper?’

‘Yes, madam.’

The lady surveyed Miss Laury with another furtive side-glance of

her large majestic eyes. Those eyes lingered upon the diamond earrings,

the bandeau of brilliants that flashed from between the clusters

of raven curls; then passed over the sweet face, the exquisite figure

of the young housekeeper, and finally were reverted to the wall with

an expression that spoke volumes. Miss Laury could have torn the

dazzling pendants from her ears. She was bitterly stung.

In her turn she gazed on her guest. The lady was but a young creature,

though so high and commanding in her demeanour. She had very small

and feminine features, handsome eyes, a neck of delicate curve, and

fair, long, and graceful little snowy aristocratic hands, and sandalled

feet to match. It would have been difficult to tell her rank by her

dress. None of those dazzling witnesses appeared which had betrayed

Miss Laury. Any gentleman’s wife might have worn the gown of dark-blue

silk, the tinted gloves of Parisian kid, and the fairy sandals of

black satin in which she was attired.

‘May I have a room to myself?’ she asked, again turning her eyes

with something of a smile toward Miss Laury.

‘Certainly, madam; I wish to make you comfortable. Can you walk upstairs?’

‘Oh, yes!’

She rose from her couch, and leaning on Miss Laury’s arm in a way

that showed she had been used to that sort of support, they both

glided from the room. Having seen her fair but haughty guest carefully

laid on a stately crimson bed in a quiet and spacious chamber; having

seen her head sink with all its curls into the pillow of down, her

large shy eyes close under their smooth eyelids, and her little slender

hands fold on her breast in an attitude of perfect repose, Miss Laury

prepared to leave her. She stirred.

‘Come back a moment,’ she said. She was obeyed; there was something

in her tone of voice which exacted obedience. ‘I don’t know who you

are;’ she said, ‘but I am very much obliged to you for your kindness.

If my manners are displeasing, forgive me; I mean no incivility.

I suppose you will wish to know my name: it is Mrs. Irving; my husband

is a minister in the northern kirk; I come from Sneachiesland. Now

you may go!’

Miss Laury did go. Mrs. Irving had testified incredulity respecting

her story, and now she reciprocated that incredulity. Both ladies

were lost in their own mystification.

Five o’clock now struck. It was nearly dark. A servant with a taper

was lighting up the chandeliers in the large dining-room where a

table spread for dinner received the kindling lamplight upon a starry

service of silver. It was likewise magnificently flashed back from

a splendid sideboard all arranged in readiness to receive the great,

the expected guest. Tolerably punctual in keeping an appointment

when he meant to keep it at all, Zamorna entered the house as the

fairy-like voice of a musical clock in the passage struck out its

symphony to the pendulum. The opening of the front door, a bitter

rush of the night-wind and then the sudden close, and the step advancing

forwards, were the signals of his arrival.

Miss Laury was in the dining-room looking round and giving the last

touch to all things. She just met her master as he entered. His cold

lip pressed to her forehead and his colder hand clasping hers brought

the sensation which it was her custom of weeks and months to wait

for; and to consider when attained the ample recompense for all delay,

all toil, all suffering.

‘I am frozen, Mina,’ said he; ‘I came on horseback for the last four

miles; and the night is like Canada.’

Chafing his icy hand to animation between her own warm supple palms,

she answered by the speechless but expressive look of joy, satisfaction,

idolatry, which filled and overflowed her eyes.

‘What can I do for you, my lord?’ were her first words as he stood

by the fire rubbing his hands cheerily over the blaze. He laughed.

‘Put your arms round my neck, Mina, and kiss my cheeks as warm and

blooming as your own.’

It gave her a pang to resist the impulse that urged her to take him

at his word; but she put it by, and only diffidently drew near the

armchair into which he had now thrown himself, and began to smooth

and separate the curls which were matted on his temples. She noticed

as the first smile of salutation subsided a gloom succeeded on her

master’s brow, which, however he spoke or laughed, afterwards remained

a settled characteristic of his countenance.

‘What visitors are in the house?’ he asked; ‘I saw the groom rubbing

down four black horses before the stables as I came in. They are

not of the Hawkscliffe stud, I think?’

‘No, my lord. A carriage was overturned at the lawn gates about an

hour since, and as the lady who was in it was taken out insensible

I ordered her to be brought up here, and her servants accommodated

for the night.’

‘And do you know who the lady is?’ continued His Grace; ‘the horses

are good: first-rate.’

‘She says her name is Mrs. Irving, and that she is the wife of a

Presbyterian minister in the north, but—’

‘You hardly believe her?’ interrupted the duke.

‘No,’ returned Miss Laury; ‘I must say I took her for a lady of rank.

She has something highly aristocratic about her manners and aspect,

and she appeared to know a good deal about Angria.’

‘What is she like?’ asked Zamorna; ‘young or old, handsome or ugly?’

‘She is young, slender, not so tall as I am, and I should say rather

elegant than handsome; very pale, cold in her demeanour; she has

a small mouth and chin, and a long fair neck.’

‘Humph! A trifle like Lady Stuartville,’ replied His Majesty. ‘I

should not wonder if it is the countess; but I’ll know. Perhaps you

did not say to whom the house belonged, Mina?’

‘I said,’ replied Mina, smiling, ‘that the owner of the house was

a great Angrian proprietor, a lineal descendant of the Western Pakenhams,

and that I was his housekeeper.’

‘She would not believe you! Give me your hand, Mina. You are not

so old as I am.’

‘Yes, my lord; I was born on the same day, an hour after Your Grace.’

‘So I have heard, but it must be a mistake; you don’t look twenty,

and I am twenty-five. Look at me, Mina, straight, and don’t blush!’

Mina tried to look, but she could not do it without blushing. She

coloured to the temples.

‘Pshaw!’ said His Grace, pushing: her away, ‘my acquaintance of ten

years cannot meet my eye unshrinkingly! Have you lost that ring I

once gave you, Mina?’

‘Which ring, my lord? You have given me many.’

‘That which I said had the essence of your whole heart and mind engraven

in the stone as a motto.’

‘FIDELITY?’ asked Miss Laury; and she held out her hand with a graven

emerald on the forefinger.

‘Right!’ was the reply; ‘is it your motto still?’ And with one of

his jealous glances, he seemed trying to read her conscience. Miss

Laury at once saw that late transactions were not a secret confined

between herself and Lord Hartford. She saw His Grace was unhinged

and strongly inclined to be savage. She stood and watched him with

a sad, fearful gaze.

‘Well,’ she said, turning away after a long pause, ‘if Your Grace

is angry with me I’ve very little to care about in this world.’

The entrance of servants with the dinner prevented Zamorna’s answer.

As he took his place at the head of the table, he said to the man

who stood behind him:

‘Give Mr. Pakenham’s compliments to Mrs. Irving, and say that he

will be happy to see her at his table if she will honour him so far

as to be present there.’

The footman vanished. He returned in five minutes.

‘Mrs. Irving is too much tired to avail herself of Mr. Pakenham’s

kind invitation at present, but she will be happy to join him at

tea.’

‘Very well,’ said Zamorna. Then looking round: ‘Where is Miss Laury?’

Mina was in the act of gliding from the room, but she stopped mechanically

at his call.

‘Am I to dine alone?’ he asked.

‘Does Your Grace wish me to attend you?’

He answered by rising and leading her to her seat. He then resumed

his own, and dinner commenced. It was not until after the cloth was

withdrawn and the servants had retired that the duke, whilst he sipped

his single glass of champagne, recommenced the conversation he had

before unpleasantly entered upon.

‘Come here,’ he said, drawing a chair close to his side.

Mina never hesitated, never delayed through bashfulness or any other

feeling to comply with his orders.

‘Now,’ he continued, leaning his head towards hers and placing his

hand on her shoulder, ‘are you happy, Mina? Do you want anything?’

‘Nothing, my lord.’ She spoke truly; all that was capable of yielding

her happiness on this side of eternity was at that moment within

her reach. The room was full of calm. The lamps burnt as if they

were listening. The fire sent up no flickering flame, but diffused

a broad, still, glowing light over all the room. Zamorna touched

her; his form and features filled her eye; his voice her ear; his

presence her whole heart; she was soothed to perfect happiness.

‘My Fidelity!’ pursued that musical voice, ‘if thou hast any favour

to ask, now is the time. I’m all concession: as yielding as a lady’s

glove. Come, Mina, what is thy petition? and thy request even to

the half of my kingdom shall be granted!’

‘Nothing,’ again murmured Miss Laury. ‘Oh, my lord, nothing! What

can I want?’

‘Nothing?’ he repeated. ‘What! No reward for ten years of faith and

love and devotion; no reward for the companionship in six-months’

exile; no recompense to the little hand that has so often smoothed

my pillow in sickness, to the sweet lips that have many a time in

cool and dewy health been pressed to a brow of fever; none to the

dark Milesian eyes that ‘once grew dim with watching through endless

nights by my bed of delirium? Need I speak of the sweetness and fortitude

that cheered sufferings known only to thee and me? of the devotion

that gave me bread when thou wert dying of hunger? and that scarcely

more than a year since! For all this and much more, must there be

no reward?’

‘I have had it,’ said Miss Laury. ‘I have it now.’

‘But,’ continued the duke, ‘what if I have devised something worthy

of your acceptance? Look up now and listen to me.’

She did look up, but she speedily looked down again. Her master’s

eye was insupportable; it burned absolutely with infernal fire! ‘What

is he going to say?’ murmured Miss Laury to herself. She trembled.

‘I say, love,’ pursued the individual, drawing her a little closer

to him, ‘I will give you as a reward a husband. Don’t start, now!

And that husband shall be a nobleman; and that nobleman is called

Lord Hartford! Now, stand up and let me look at you.’

He opened his arms and Miss Laury sprang erect like a loosened bow.

‘Your Grace is anticipated,’ she said. ‘That offer has been made

me before. Lord Hartford did it himself three days ago.’

‘And what did you say? Speak the truth now: subterfuge won’t avail

you.’

‘What did I say? I don’t know; it little signifies; you have rewarded

me, my lord, but I cannot bear this: I feel sick.’

With a deep, short sob, she turned white, and fell close by the duke,

her head against his foot.

This was the first time in her life that Mina Laury had fainted,

but strong health availed nothing against the deadly struggle which

convulsed every feeling in her nature when she heard her master’s

announcement. She believed him to be perfectly sincere. She thought

he was tired of her and she could not endure it.

I suppose Zamorna’s first feeling when she fell was horror; and his

next I am tolerably certain was intense gratification. People say

I am not in earnest when I abuse him, or else I would here insert

half a page of deserved vituperation—deserved and heartfelt as it

is, I will merely relate his conduct without note or comment.

He took a wax taper from the table and held it over Miss Laury. Here

could be no dissimulation. She was white as marble and still as stone.

In truth then she did intensely love him, with a devotion that left

no room in her thoughts for one shadow of an alien image. Do not

think, reader, that Zamorna meant to be so generous as to bestow

Miss Laury on Lord Hartford. No; he was but testing the attachment

which a thousand proofs daily given ought long ago to have convinced

him was undying.

While he yet gazed she began to recover. Her eyelids stirred and

then slowly dawned from beneath the large black orbs that scarcely

met his before they filled to overflowing with sorrow. Not a gleam

of anger, not a whisper of reproach. Her lips and eyes spoke together

no other language than the simple words: ‘I cannot leave you!’:

She rose feebly and with effort. The duke stretched out his hand

to assist her. He held to her lips the scarcely tasted wine.

‘Mina,’ he said, ‘are you collected enough to hear me?’

‘Yes, my lord.’

‘Then listen. I would much sooner give half, aye, the whole of my

estates to Lord Hartford, than yourself! What I said just now was

only to try you.’

Miss Laury raised her eyes and sighed like one awakening from some

hideous dream, but she could not speak.

‘Would I,’ continued the duke, ‘would I resign the possession of

my first love to any hands but my own? I would far rather see her

in her coffin; and I would lay you there as still, as white, and

much more lifeless than you were stretched just now at my feet before

I would for threat, for entreaty, for purchase, give to another a

glance of your eyes or a smile from your lips. I know you adore me

now, Mina; for you could not feign that agitation, and therefore

I will tell you what proof I gave yesterday of my regard for you.

Hartford mentioned your name in my presence, and I avenged the profanation

by a shot which sent him to his bed little better than a corpse.’

Miss Laury shuddered, but so dark and profound are the mysteries

of human nature, ever allying vice with virtue, that I fear this

bloody proof of her master’s love brought to her heart more rapture

than horror. She said not a word, for now Zamorna’s arms were again

folded round her, and again he was soothing her to tranquillity by

endearments and caresses that far away removed all thought of the

world, all past pangs of shame, all cold doubts, all weariness, all

heart-sickness resulting from hope long deferred. He had told her

that she was his first love, and now she seemed tempted to believe

that she was his only love. Strong-minded beyond her sex; active,

energetic, and accomplished in all other points of view, here she

was as weak as a child. She lost her identity; her very life was

swallowed up in that of another.

There came a knock to the door. Zamorna rose and opened it. His valet

stood without.

‘Might I speak with Your Grace in the anteroom?’ asked Monsieur Rosier

in somewhat of a hurried tone. The duke followed him out.

‘What do you want with me, sir? Anything the matter?’

‘I was walking through the passage two minutes since when I heard

a step on the stairs: a light step as if of a very small foot. I

turned, and there was a lady coming down.’

‘Well, did you know her?’

‘I did. I stood in the shade, screened by a pillar, and she passed

very near without observing me. I saw her distinctly, and it was—’

‘Who, sir?’

‘The duchess!’

There was a pause which was closed by a clear and remarkably prolonged

whistle from the duke. He took a leisurely turn through the room.

‘Mrs. Irving, the wife of a minister in the north! A satirical hit

at myself! What can have brought her? Anxiety about her invaluable

husband! Could not bear any longer without him: obliged to set off

to see what he was doing. It’s as well Rosier told me, however. What

shall I do? I must not be angry; she can’t do with that sort of thing

just now.’

Ceasing his soliloquy, the duke turned again to his valet:

‘Which room did Her Grace go into?’

‘The drawing-room, my lord. She’s there now.’

Zamorna left the room.

Softly unclosing the drawing-room door he perceived the lady by the

hearth. Her back was towards him, but there could be no mistake.

The whole turn of form, the style of dress, the curled auburn head:

all were attributes but of one person. He closed the door as noiselessly

as he had opened it and stole forwards. Her attention was absorbed

in a book she had picked up. As he stood unobserved behind her he

could see that her eyes rested on the flyleaf, where was written

in his own hand:

Holy St. Cyprian! thy waters stray

With still and solemn tone;

And fast my bright hours pass away

And somewhat throws a shadow grey,

Even as twilight closes day,

Upon thy waters lone.

Farewell! If I might come again,

Young as I was and free,

And feel once more in every vein

The fire of that first passion reign

Which sorrow could not quench nor pain,

I’d soon return to thee;

But while thy billows seek the main.

That never more may be!

This was dated ‘Mornington, 1829.’

The duchess felt a hand press her shoulder and she looked up. The

force of attraction had its natural results and she clung to what

she saw.

‘Adrian! Adrian!’ was all her lips would utter.

‘Mary! Mary!’ replied the duke, allowing her to hang about him; ‘what

brought you here? Are you running away: eloping in my absence?’

‘Adrian, why did you leave me? You said you would come back in a

week, and it is eight days since you left me; do come home!’

‘So you actually have set off in search of a husband,’ said Zamorna,

laughing heartily; ‘and been overturned and obliged to take shelter

in Pakenham’s shooting-box!’

‘Why are you here, Adrian?’ enquired the duchess, who was far too

much in earnest to join in his laugh. ‘Who is Pakenham? and who is

that person who calls herself his housekeeper? And why do you let

any one live so near Hawkscliffe without ever telling me?’

‘I forgot to tell you,’ said His Grace; ‘I’ve other things to think

about when those bright eyes are looking up to me! As to Pakenham,

to tell you the truth he is a sort of left-hand cousin of your own,

being son to the old admiral, my uncle, in the south. And his housekeeper

is his sister. _Voilà tout_. Kiss me now.’

The duchess did kiss him, but it was with a heavy sigh. The cloud

of jealous anxiety hung on her brow undissipated.

‘Adrian, my heart aches still. Why have you been staying so long

in Angria? Oh, you don’t care for me! You have never thought how

miserably I have been longing for your return, Adrian!’ She stopped

and cried.

‘Mary, recollect yourself,’ said His Grace. ‘I cannot be always at

your feet. You were not so weak when we were first married. You let

me leave you often then without any jealous remonstrance.’

‘I did not know you so well at that time,’ said Mary; ‘and if my

mind is weakened, all its strength has gone away in tears and terrors

for you. I am neither so handsome nor so cheerful as I once was.

But you ought to forgive my decay, because you have caused it.’

‘Low spirits,’ returned Zamorna; ‘looking on the dark side of matters.

God bless me! the wicked is caught in his own net! Mary, never again

reproach yourself with loss of beauty till I give the hint first.

Believe me now, in that and every other respect you are just what

I wish you to be. You cannot fade any more than marble can, at least

not in my eyes. And as for your devotion and tenderness, though I

chide its excess sometimes, because it wastes and bleaches you almost

to a shadow, yet it forms the very firmest chain that binds me to

you. Now, cheer up! To-night you shall go to Hawkscliffe: it is only

five miles off. To-morrow I will be at the castle before dawn; the

carriage shall be ready; I will put you in, myself beside you; off

we go straight to Verdopolis; and there for the next three months

I will tire you of my company, morning, noon, and night! Now what

can I promise more?’

By dint of subterfuge and laughter the individual at last succeeded

in getting all things settled to his mind.

The duchess went to Hawkscliffe that night, and keeping his promise

for once Zamorna accompanied her to Verdopolis next morning.

• • • • • • •

For a long space of time, ‘Good-bye, reader!’ I have done my best

to please you; and though I know that through feebleness, dulness,

and iteration my work terminates rather in failure than in triumph,

yet you are sure to forgive, for I have done my best!

C. BRONTË,

_Haworth_,

_January 17th_, 1838.

THE END

ERRATA.

The following obvious typographical errors have been corrected:

On page 126: Added missing closing quote after _Scotland.’