Credit me, friend, it hath been ever thus,
Since the ark rested on Mount Ararat.
False man hath sworn, and woman hath believed--
Repented and reproach'd, and then believed once more.
_The New World._
By the time that Margaret returned with Monna Paula, the Lady Hermione
was rising from the table at which she had been engaged in writing
something on a small slip of paper, which she gave to her attendant.
"Monna Paula," she said, "carry this paper to Roberts the cash-keeper;
let them give you the money mentioned in the note, and bring it hither
presently."
Monna Paula left the room, and her mistress proceeded.
"I do not know," she said, "Margaret, if I have done, and am doing,
well in this affair. My life has been one of strange seclusion, and I am
totally unacquainted with the practical ways of this world--an ignorance
which I know cannot be remedied by mere reading.--I fear I am doing
wrong to you, and perhaps to the laws of the country which affords me
refuge, by thus indulging you; and yet there is something in my heart
which cannot resist your entreaties."
"O, listen to it--listen to it, dear, generous lady!" said Margaret,
throwing herself on her knees and grasping those of her benefactress
and looking in that attitude like a beautiful mortal in the act
of supplicating her tutelary angel; "the laws of men are but the
injunctions of mortality, but what the heart prompts is the echo of the
voice from heaven within us."
"Rise, rise, maiden," said Hermione; "you affect me more than I thought
I could have been moved by aught that should approach me. Rise and tell
me whence it comes, that, in so short a time, your thoughts, your looks,
your speech, and even your slightest actions, are changed from those
of a capricious and fanciful girl, to all this energy and impassioned
eloquence of word and action?"
"I am sure I know not, dearest lady," said Margaret, looking down; "but
I suppose that, when I was a trifler, I was only thinking of trifles.
What I now reflect is deep and serious, and I am thankful if my speech
and manner bear reasonable proportion to my thoughts."
"It must be so," said the lady; "yet the change seems a rapid and
strange one. It seems to be as if a childish girl had at once shot up
into deep-thinking and impassioned woman, ready to make exertions alike,
and sacrifices, with all that vain devotion to a favourite object of
affection, which is often so basely rewarded."
The Lady Hermione sighed bitterly, and Monna Paula entered ere the
conversation proceeded farther. She spoke to her mistress in the foreign
language in which they frequently conversed, but which was unknown to
Margaret.
"We must have patience for a time," said the lady to her visitor; "the
cash-keeper is abroad on some business, but he is expected home in the
course of half an hour."
Margaret wrung her hands in vexation and impatience.
"Minutes are precious," continued the lady; "that I am well aware of;
and we will at least suffer none of them to escape us. Monna Paula shall
remain below and transact our business, the very instant that Roberts
returns home."
She spoke to her attendant accordingly, who again left the room.
"You are very kind, madam--very good," said the poor little Margaret,
while the anxious trembling of her lip and of her hand showed all that
sickening agitation of the heart which arises from hope deferred.
"Be patient, Margaret, and collect yourself," said the lady; "you
may, you must, have much to do to carry through this your bold
purpose--reserve your spirits, which you may need so much--be
patient--it is the only remedy against the evils of life."
"Yes, madam," said Margaret, wiping her eyes, and endeavouring in
vain to suppress the natural impatience of her temper,--"I have heard
so--very often indeed; and I dare say I have myself, heaven forgive me,
said so to people in perplexity and affliction; but it was before I
had suffered perplexity and vexation myself, and I am sure I will never
preach patience to any human being again, now that I know how much the
medicine goes against the stomach."
"You will think better of it, maiden," said the Lady Hermione; "I also,
when I first felt distress, thought they did me wrong who spoke to me
of patience; but my sorrows have been repeated and continued till I have
been taught to cling to it as the best, and--religious duties excepted,
of which, indeed, patience forms a part--the only alleviation which life
can afford them."
Margaret, who neither wanted sense nor feeling, wiped her tears hastily,
and asked her patroness's forgiveness for her petulance.
"I might have thought"--she said, "I ought to have reflected, that even
from the manner of your life, madam, it is plain you must have suffered
sorrow; and yet, God knows, the patience which I have ever seen you
display, well entitles you to recommend your own example to others."
The lady was silent for a moment, and then replied--
"Margaret, I am about to repose a high confidence in you. You are no
longer a child, but a thinking and a feeling woman. You have told me as
much of your secret as you dared--I will let you know as much of mine as
I may venture to tell. You will ask me, perhaps, why, at a moment when
your own mind is agitated, I should force upon you the consideration of
my sorrows? and I answer, that I cannot withstand the impulse which now
induces me to do so. Perhaps from having witnessed, for the first time
these three years, the natural effects of human passion, my own
sorrows have been awakened, and are for the moment too big for my own
bosom--perhaps I may hope that you, who seem driving full sail on the
very rock on which I was wrecked for ever, will take warning by the tale
I have to tell. Enough, if you are willing to listen, I am willing to
tell you who the melancholy inhabitant of the Foljambe apartments really
is, and why she resides here. It will serve, at least, to while away the
time until Monna Paula shall bring us the reply from Roberts."
At any other moment of her life, Margaret Ramsay would have heard
with undivided interest a communication so flattering in itself, and
referring to a subject upon which the general curiosity had been so
strongly excited. And even at this agitating moment, although she ceased
not to listen with an anxious ear and throbbing heart for the sound of
Monna Paula's returning footsteps, she nevertheless, as gratitude and
policy, as well as a portion of curiosity dictated, composed herself,
in appearance at least, to the strictest attention to the Lady Hermione,
and thanked her with humility for the high confidence she was pleased
to repose in her. The Lady Hermione, with the same calmness which always
attended her speech and actions, thus recounted her story to her young
friend:
"My father," she said, "was a merchant, but he was of a city whose
merchants are princes. I am the daughter of a noble house in Genoa,
whose name stood as high in honour and in antiquity, as any inscribed in
the Golden Register of that famous aristocracy.
"My mother was a noble Scottish woman. She was descended--do not
start--and not remotely descended, of the house of Glenvarloch--no
wonder that I was easily led to take concern in the misfortunes of this
young lord. He is my near relation, and my mother, who was more than
sufficiently proud of her descent, early taught me to take an interest
in the name. My maternal grandfather, a cadet of that house of
Glenvarloch, had followed the fortunes of an unhappy fugitive, Francis
Earl of Bothwell, who, after showing his miseries in many a foreign
court, at length settled in Spain upon a miserable pension, which
he earned by conforming to the Catholic faith. Ralph Olifaunt, my
grandfather, separated from him in disgust, and settled at Barcelona,
where, by the friendship of the governor, his heresy, as it was termed,
was connived at. My father, in the course of his commerce, resided more
at Barcelona than in his native country, though at times he visited
Genoa.
"It was at Barcelona that he became acquainted with my mother, loved
her, and married her; they differed in faith, but they agreed in
affection. I was their only child. In public I conformed to the
docterins and ceremonial of the Church of Rome; but my mother, by whom
these were regarded with horror, privately trained me up in those of the
reformed religion; and my father, either indifferent in the matter, or
unwilling to distress the woman whom he loved, overlooked or connived at
my secretly joining in her devotions.
"But when, unhappily, my father was attacked, while yet in the prime
of life, by a slow wasting disease, which he felt to be incurable, he
foresaw the hazard to which his widow and orphan might be exposed, after
he was no more, in a country so bigoted to Catholicism as Spain. He made
it his business, during the two last years of his life, to realize and
remit to England a large part of his fortune, which, by the faith and
honour of his correspondent, the excellent man under whose roof I now
reside, was employed to great advantage. Had my father lived to complete
his purpose, by withdrawing his whole fortune from commerce, he himself
would have accompanied us to England, and would have beheld us settled
in peace and honour before his death. But heaven had ordained it
otherwise. He died, leaving several sums engaged in the hands of his
Spanish debtors; and, in particular, he had made a large and extensive
consignment to a certain wealthy society of merchants at Madrid, who
showed no willingness after his death to account for the proceeds. Would
to God we had left these covetous and wicked men in possession of their
booty, for such they seemed to hold the property of their deceased
correspondent and friend! We had enough for comfort, and even splendour,
already secured in England; but friends exclaimed upon the folly
of permitting these unprincipled men to plunder us of our rightful
property. The sum itself was large, and the claim having been made,
my mother thought that my father's memory was interested in its being
enforced, especially as the defences set up for the mercantile society
went, in some degree, to impeach the fairness of his transactions.
"We went therefore to Madrid. I was then, my Margaret, about your age,
young and thoughtless, as you have hitherto been--We went, I say, to
Madrid, to solicit the protection of the Court and of the king, without
which we were told it would be in vain to expect justice against an
opulent and powerful association.
"Our residence at the Spanish metropolis drew on from weeks to months.
For my part, my natural sorrow for a kind, though not a fond father,
having abated, I cared not if the lawsuit had detained us at Madrid for
ever. My mother permitted herself and me rather more liberty than we
had been accustomed to. She found relations among the Scottish and Irish
officers, many of whom held a high rank in the Spanish armies; their
wives and daughters became our friends and companions, and I had
perpetual occasion to exercise my mother's native language, which I had
learned from my infancy. By degrees, as my mother's spirits were low,
and her health indifferent, she was induced, by her partial fondness for
me, to suffer me to mingle occasionally in society which she herself did
not frequent, under the guardianship of such ladies as she imagined she
could trust, and particularly under the care of the lady of a general
officer, whose weakness or falsehood was the original cause of my
misfortunes. I was as gay, Margaret, and thoughtless--I again repeat
it--as you were but lately, and my attention, like yours, became
suddenly riveted to one object, and to one set of feelings.
"The person by whom they were excited was young, noble, handsome,
accomplished, a soldier, and a Briton. So far our cases are nearly
parallel; but, may heaven forbid that the parallel should become
complete! This man, so noble, so fairly formed, so gifted, and so
brave--this villain, for that, Margaret, was his fittest name, spoke of
love to me, and I listened---Could I suspect his sincerity? If he was
wealthy, noble, and long-descended, I also was a noble and an opulent
heiress. It is true, that he neither knew the extent of my father's
wealth, nor did I communicate to him (I do not even remember if I myself
knew it at the time) the important circumstance, that the greater part
of that wealth was beyond the grasp of arbitrary power, and not subject
to the precarious award of arbitrary judges. My lover might think,
perhaps, as my mother was desirous the world at large should believe,
that almost our whole fortune depended on the precarious suit which we
had come to Madrid to prosecute--a belief which she had countenanced
out of policy, being well aware that a knowledge of my father's having
remitted such a large part of his fortune to England, would in no shape
aid the recovery of further sums in the Spanish courts. Yet, with no
more extensive views of my fortune than were possessed by the public,
I believe that he, of whom I am speaking, was at first sincere in his
pretensions. He had himself interest sufficient to have obtained a
decision in our favour in the courts, and my fortune, reckoning only
what was in Spain, would then have been no inconsiderable sum. To be
brief, whatever might be his motives or temptation for so far committing
himself, he applied to my mother for my hand, with my consent and
approval. My mother's judgment had become weaker, but her passions had
become more irritable, during her increasing illness.
"You have heard of the bitterness of the ancient Scottish feuds, of
which it may be said, in the language of Scripture, that the fathers eat
sour grapes, and the teeth of the children are set on edge. Unhappily--I
should say _happily_, considering what this man has now shown himself
to be--some such strain of bitterness had divided his house from my
mother's, and she had succeeded to the inheritance of hatred. When
he asked her for my hand, she was no longer able to command her
passions--she raked up every injury which the rival families had
inflicted upon each other during a bloody feud of two centuries--heaped
him with epithets of scorn, and rejected his proposal of alliance, as if
it had come from the basest of mankind.
"My lover retired in passion; and I remained to weep and murmur against
fortune, and--I will confess my fault--against my affectionate parent.
I had been educated with different feelings, and the traditions of the
feuds and quarrels of my mother's family in Scotland, which we're to her
monuments and chronicles, seemed to me as insignificant and unmeaning
as the actions and fantasies of Don Quixote; and I blamed my mother
bitterly for sacrificing my happiness to an empty dream of family
dignity.
"While I was in this humour, my lover sought a renewal of our
intercourse. We met repeatedly in the house of the lady whom I
have mentioned, and who, in levity, or in the spirit of intrigue,
countenanced our secret correspondence. At length we were secretly
married--so far did my blinded passion hurry me. My lover had secured
the assistance of a clergyman of the English church. Monna Paula, who
had been my attendant from infancy, was one witness of our union. Let me
do the faithful creature justice--She conjured me to suspend my purpose
till my mother's death should permit us to celebrate our marriage
openly; but the entreaties of my lover, and my own wayward passion,
prevailed over her remonstrances. The lady I have spoken of was another
witness, but whether she was in full possession of my bridegroom's
secret, I had never the means to learn. But the shelter of her name and
roof afforded us the means of frequently meeting, and the love of my
husband seemed as sincere and as unbounded as my own.
"He was eager, he said, to gratify his pride, by introducing me to one
or two of his noble English friends. This could not be done at Lady
D---'s; but by his command, which I was now entitled to consider as my
law, I contrived twice to visit him at his own hotel, accompanied only
by Monna Paula. There was a very small party, of two ladies and two
gentlemen. There was music, mirth, and dancing. I had heard of the
frankness of the English nation, but I could not help thinking it
bordered on license during these entertainments, and in the course
of the collation which followed; but I imputed my scruples to my
inexperience, and would not doubt the propriety of what was approved by
my husband.
"I was soon summoned to other scenes: My poor mother's disease drew to
a conclusion--Happy I am that it took place before she discovered what
would have cut her to the soul.
"In Spain you may have heard how the Catholic priests, and particularly
the monks, besiege the beds of the dying, to obtain bequests for the
good of the church. I have said that my mother's temper was irritated by
disease, and her judgment impaired in proportion. She gathered spirits
and force from the resentment which the priests around her bed excited
by their importunity, and the boldness of the stern sect of reformers,
to which she had secretly adhered, seemed to animate her dying tongue.
She avowed the religion she had so long concealed; renounced all hope
and aid which did not come by and through its dictates; rejected with
contempt the ceremonial of the Romish church; loaded the astonished
priests with reproaches for their greediness and hypocrisy, and
commanded them to leave her house. They went in bitterness and rage,
but it was to return with the inquisitorial power, its warrants, and its
officers; and they found only the cold corpse left of her, on whom they
had hoped to work their vengeance. As I was soon discovered to have
shared my mother's heresy, I was dragged from her dead body, imprisoned
in a solitary cloister, and treated with severity, which the Abbess
assured me was due to the looseness of my life, as well as my spiritual
errors. I avowed my marriage, to justify the situation in which I found
myself--I implored the assistance of the Superior to communicate my
situation to my husband. She smiled coldly at the proposal, and told
me the church had provided a better spouse for me; advised me to secure
myself of divine grace hereafter, and deserve milder treatment here, by
presently taking the veil. In order to convince me that I had no other
resource, she showed me a royal decree, by which all my estate was
hypothecated to the convent of Saint Magdalen, and became their complete
property upon my death, or my taking the vows. As I was, both from
religious principle, and affectionate attachment to my husband,
absolutely immovable in my rejection of the veil, I believe--may heaven
forgive me if I wrong her--that the Abbess was desirous to make sure of
my spoils, by hastening the former event.
"It was a small and a poor convent, and situated among the mountains
of Guadarrama. Some of the sisters were the daughters of neighbouring
Hidalgoes, as poor as they were proud and ignorant; others were women
immured there on account of their vicious conduct. The Superior herself
was of a high family, to which she owed her situation; but she was said
to have disgraced her connexions by her conduct during youth, and now,
in advanced age, covetousness and the love of power, a spirit too of
severity and cruelty, had succeeded to the thirst after licentious
pleasure. I suffered much under this woman--and still her dark, glassy
eye, her tall, shrouded form, and her rigid features, haunt my slumbers.
"I was not destined to be a mother. I was very ill, and my recovery was
long doubtful. The most violent remedies were applied, if remedies
they indeed were. My health was restored at length, against my own
expectation and that of all around me. But, when I first again beheld
the reflection of my own face, I thought it was the visage of a ghost. I
was wont to be flattered by all, but particularly by my husband, for the
fineness of my complexion--it was now totally gone, and, what is more
extraordinary, it has never returned. I have observed that the few
who now see me, look upon me as a bloodless phantom--Such has been
the abiding effect of the treatment to which I was subjected. May God
forgive those who were the agents of it!--I thank Heaven I can say so
with as sincere a wish, as that with which I pray for forgiveness of
my own sins. They now relented somewhat towards me--moved perhaps
to compassion by my singular appearance, which bore witness to my
sufferings; or afraid that the matter might attract attention during
a visitation of the bishop, which was approaching. One day, as I was
walking in the convent-garden, to which I had been lately admitted, a
miserable old Moorish slave, who was kept to cultivate the little
spot, muttered as I passed him, but still keeping his wrinkled face and
decrepit form in the same angle with the earth--'There is Heart's Ease
near the postern.'
"I knew something of the symbolical language of flowers, once carried to
such perfection among the Moriscoes of Spain; but if I had been ignorant
of it, the captive would soon have caught at any hint which seemed
to promise liberty. With all the haste consistent with the utmost
circumspection--for I might be observed by the Abbess or some of the
sisters from the window--I hastened to the postern. It was closely
barred as usual, but when I coughed slightly, I was answered from the
other side--and, O heaven! it was my husband's voice which said, 'Lose
not a minute here at present, but be on this spot when the vesper bell
has tolled.'
"I retired in an ecstasy of joy. I was not entitled or permitted to
assist at vespers, but was accustomed to be confined to my cell while
the nuns were in the choir. Since my recovery, they had discontinued
locking the door; though the utmost severity was denounced against me
if I left these precincts. But, let the penalty be what it would, I
hastened to dare it.--No sooner had the last toll of the vesper bell
ceased to sound, than I stole from my chamber, reached the garden
unobserved, hurried to the postern, beheld it open with rapture, and
in the next moment was in my husband's arms. He had with him another
cavalier of noble mien--both were masked and armed. Their horses, with
one saddled for my use, stood in a thicket hard by, with two other
masked horsemen, who seemed to be servants. In less than two minutes we
were mounted, and rode off as fast as we could through rough and devious
roads, in which one of the domestics appeared to act as guide.
"The hurried pace at which we rode, and the anxiety of the moment, kept
me silent, and prevented my expressing my surprise or my joy save in a
few broken words. It also served as an apology for my husband's silence.
At length we stopped at a solitary hut--the cavaliers dismounted, and I
was assisted from my saddle, not by M----M----my husband, I would say,
who seemed busied about his horse, but by the stranger.
"'Go into the hut,' said my husband, 'change your dress with the
speed of lightning--you will find one to _assist_ you--we must forward
instantly when you have shifted your apparel.'
"I entered the hut, and was received in the arms of the faithful Monna
Paula, who had waited my arrival for many hours, half distracted with
fear and anxiety. With her assistance I speedily tore off the detested
garments of the convent, and exchanged them for a travelling suit, made
after the English fashion. I observed that Monna Paula was in a similar
dress. I had but just huddled on my change of attire, when we were
hastily summoned to mount. A horse, I found, was provided for Monna
Paula, and we resumed our route. On the way, my convent-garb, which had
been wrapped hastily together around a stone, was thrown into a lake,
along the verge of which we were then passing. The two cavaliers rode
together in front, my attendant and I followed, and the servants brought
up the rear. Monna Paula, as we rode on, repeatedly entreated me to
be silent upon the road, as our lives depended on it. I was easily
reconciled to be passive, for, the first fever of spirits which attended
the sense of liberation and of gratified affection having passed away, I
felt as it were dizzy with the rapid motion; and my utmost exertion was
necessary to keep my place on the saddle, until we suddenly (it was now
very dark) saw a strong light before us.
"My husband reined up his horse, and gave a signal by a low whistle
twice repeated, which was answered from a distance. The whole party then
halted under the boughs of a large cork-tree, and my husband, drawing
himself close to my side, said, in a voice which I then thought was only
embarrassed by fear for my safety,--'We must now part. Those to whom I
commit you are contrabandists, who only know you as English-women, but
who, for a high bribe, have undertaken to escort you through the passes
of the Pyrenees as far as Saint Jean de Luz.'
"'And do you not go with us?' I exclaimed with emphasis, though in a
whisper.
"'It is impossible,' he said, 'and would ruin all--See that you speak
in English in these people's hearing, and give not the least sign of
understanding what they say in Spanish--your life depends on it; for,
though they live in opposition to, and evasion of, the laws of Spain,
they would tremble at the idea of violating those of the church--I see
them coming--farewell--farewell.'
"The last words were hastily uttered-I endeavoured to detain him yet a
moment by my feeble grasp on his cloak.
"'You will meet me, then, I trust, at Saint Jean de Luz?'
"'Yes, yes,' he answered hastily, 'at Saint Jean de Luz you will meet
your protector.'
"He then extricated his cloak from my grasp, and was lost in the
darkness. His companion approached--kissed my hand, which in the
agony of the moment I was scarce sensible of, and followed my husband,
attended by one of the domestics."
The tears of Hermione here flowed so fast as to threaten the
interruption of her narrative. When she resumed it, it was with a kind
of apology to Margaret.
"Every circumstance," she said, "occurring in those moments, when I
still enjoyed a delusive idea of happiness, is deeply imprinted in my
remembrance, which, respecting all that has since happened, is waste and
unvaried as an Arabian desert. But I have no right to inflict on you,
Margaret, agitated as you are with your own anxieties, the unavailing
details of my useless recollections."
Margaret's eyes were full of tears--it was impossible it could
be otherwise, considering that the tale was told by her suffering
benefactress, and resembled, in some respects, her own situation; and
yet she must not be severely blamed, if, while eagerly pressing her
patroness to continue her narrative, her eye involuntarily sought the
door, as if to chide the delay of Monna Paula.
The Lady Hermione saw and forgave these conflicting emotions; and
she, too, must be pardoned, if, in her turn, the minute detail of her
narrative showed, that, in the discharge of feelings so long locked
in her own bosom, she rather forgot those which were personal to
her auditor, and by which it must be supposed Margaret's mind was
principally occupied, if not entirely engrossed.
"I told you, I think, that one domestic followed the gentlemen," thus
the lady continued her story, "the other remained with us for the
purpose, as it seemed, of introducing us to two persons whom M--, I
say, whom my husband's signal had brought to the spot. A word or two of
explanation passed between them and the servant, in a sort of _patois_,
which I did not understand; and one of the strangers taking hold of my
bridle, the other of Monna Paula's, they led us towards the light,
which I have already said was the signal of our halting. I touched Monna
Paula, and was sensible that she trembled very much, which surprised me,
because I knew her character to be so strong and bold as to border upon
the masculine.
"When we reached the fire, the gipsy figures of those who surrounded it,
with their swarthy features, large Sombrero hats, girdles stuck full
of pistols and poniards, and all the other apparatus of a roving and
perilous life, would have terrified me at another moment. But then I
only felt the agony of having parted from my husband almost in the very
moment of my rescue. The females of the gang--for there were four or
five women amongst these contraband traders--received us with a sort of
rude courtesy. They were, in dress and manners, not extremely different
from the men with whom they associated--were almost as hardy and
adventurous, carried arms like them, and were, as we learned from
passing circumstances, scarce less experienced in the use of them.
"It was impossible not to fear these wild people; yet they gave us no
reason to complain of them, but used us on all occasions with a kind of
clumsy courtesy, accommodating themselves to our wants and our weakness
during the journey, even while we heard them grumbling to each other
against our effeminacy,--like some rude carrier, who, in charge of a
package of valuable and fragile ware, takes every precaution for its
preservation, while he curses the unwonted trouble which it occasions
him. Once or twice, when they were disappointed in their contraband
traffic, lost some goods in a rencontre with the Spanish officers of
the revenue, and were finally pursued by a military force, their murmurs
assumed a more alarming tone, in the terrified ears of my attendant and
myself, when, without daring to seem to understand them, we heard them
curse the insular heretics, on whose account God, Saint James, and
Our Lady of the Pillar, had blighted their hopes of profit. These are
dreadful recollections, Margaret."
"Why, then, dearest lady," answered Margaret, "will you thus dwell on
them?"
"It is only," said the Lady Hermione, "because I linger like a criminal
on the scaffold, and would fain protract the time that must inevitably
bring on the final catastrophe. Yes, dearest Margaret, I rest and dwell
on the events of that journey, marked as it was by fatigue and danger,
though the road lay through the wildest and most desolate deserts and
mountains, and though our companions, both men and women, were fierce
and lawless themselves, and exposed to the most merciless retaliation
from those with whom they were constantly engaged--yet would I rather
dwell on these hazardous events than tell that which awaited me at Saint
Jean de Luz."
"But you arrived there in safety?" said Margaret.
"Yes, maiden," replied the Lady Hermione; "and were guided by the chief
of our outlawed band to the house which had been assigned for reception,
with the same punctilious accuracy with which he would have delivered a
bale of uncustomed goods to a correspondent. I was told a gentleman
had expected me for two days--I rushed into the apartment, and, when
I expected to embrace my husband--I found myself in the arms of his
friend!"
"The villain!" exclaimed Margaret, whose anxiety had, in spite of
herself, been a moment suspended by the narrative of the lady.
"Yes," replied Hermione, calmly, though her voice somewhat faltered, "it
is the name that best--that well befits him. He, Margaret, for whom I
had sacrificed all--whose love and whose memory were dearer to me than
my freedom, when I was in the convent--than my life, when I was on my
perilous journey--had taken his measures to shake me off, and transfer
me, as a privileged wanton, to the protection of his libertine
friend. At first the stranger laughed at my tears and my agony, as the
hysterical passion of a deluded and overreached wanton, or the wily
affection of a courtezan. My claim of marriage he laughed at, assuring
me he knew it was a mere farce required by me, and submitted to by his
friend, to save some reserve of delicacy; and expressed his surprise
that I should consider in any other light a ceremony which could be
valid neither in Spain nor England, and insultingly offered to remove
my scruples, by renewing such a union with me himself. My exclamations
brought Monna Paula to my aid--she was not, indeed, far distant, for she
had expected some such scene."
"Good heaven!" said Margaret, "was she a confidant of your base
husband?"
"No," answered Hermione, "do her not that injustice. It was her
persevering inquiries that discovered the place of my confinement--it
was she who gave the information to my husband, and who remarked even
then that the news was so much more interesting to his friend than to
him, that she suspected, from an early period, it was the purpose of the
villain to shake me off. On the journey, her suspicions were confirmed.
She had heard him remark to his companion, with a cold sarcastic
sneer, the total change which my prison and my illness had made on my
complexion; and she had heard the other reply, that the defect might be
cured by a touch of Spanish red. This, and other circumstances, having
prepared her for such treachery, Monna Paula now entered, completely
possessed of herself, and prepared to support me. Her calm
representations went farther with the stranger than the expressions of
my despair. If he did not entirely believe our tale, he at least
acted the part of a man of honour, who would not intrude himself
on defenceless females, whatever was their character; desisted from
persecuting us with his presence; and not only directed Monna Paula how
we should journey to Paris, but furnished her with money for the purpose
of our journey. From the capital I wrote to Master Heriot, my father's
most trusted correspondent; he came instantly to Paris on receiving
the letter; and--But here comes Monna Paula, with more than the sum you
desired. Take it, my dearest maiden--serve this youth if you will. But,
O Margaret, look for no gratitude in return!"
The Lady Hermione took the bag of gold from her attendant, and gave it
to her young friend, who threw herself into her arms, kissed her on
both the pale cheeks, over which the sorrows so newly awakened by
her narrative had drawn many tears, then sprung up, wiped her own
overflowing eyes, and left the Foljambe apartments with a hasty and
resolved step.