_BY THE AUTHOR OF "MAY YOU LIKE IT."_
Have you not sometimes seen, upon the bosom of dark, stagnant waters,
a pure, white water-lily lift up its head, breathing there a fresh and
delicate fragrance, and deriving its existence thence--yet partaking
in nothing of the loathsome nature of the pool, nor ever sullied by
its close contact with the foul element beneath?
It is an honest simile to say that the gentle Anne Carr resembled
that sweet water-lily. Sprung from the guilty loves of the favourite
Somerset and his beautiful but infamous wife, she was herself pure and
untainted by the dark and criminal dispositions of her parents. Not
even a suspicion of their real character had ever crossed her mind;
she knew that they had met with some reverse of fortune,--for she
had heard her father regret, for her sake, his altered estate. She
knew this, but nothing more: her father's enemies, who would gladly
have added to his wretchedness, by making his child look upon him
with horror, could not find in their hearts, when they gazed on her
innocent face, to make one so unoffending wretched. It is a lovely
blindness in a child to have no discernment of a parent's faultiness;
and so it happened that the Lady Anne saw nothing in her father's mien
or manner, betokening a sinful, worthless character.
Of her mother she had but few and faint recollections. Memory pictured
her pale and drooping, nay gradually sinking under the cureless malady
which brought her to her grave at last. She remembered, however,
the soft and beautiful smiles which had beamed over that haggard
countenance, when it was turned upon her only child--smiles which she
delighted to recognise in the lovely portrait, from which her idea of
her mother was chiefly formed. This portrait adorned her own favourite
apartment. It had been painted when the original was as young and
happy as herself; and her filial love and fond imagination believed no
grace had been wanting to make all as beautiful and glorious within.
As the Lady Anne grew up to womanhood, the sweetness of her
disposition and manners began to be acknowledged by those, who had
seen without astonishment her extraordinary beauty; and many persons
of distinction, who would hold no kind of fellowship with the Lord
Somerset, sought the acquaintance of his innocent daughter for her
own sake.
The most beloved friend of the Lady Anne was the Lady Ellinor G----,
the eldest daughter of the Earl of G----: and with her, Lady Anne
often passed several months in the year. A large party of young ladies
were assembled at G---- Castle; and it happened that a continual
rain had confined the fair companions within doors the whole summer
afternoon. They sat together over their embroidery and various kinds
of needlework, telling old tales of fearful interest--the strange
mishaps of benighted travellers--stories of witchcraft, and of
mysterious murder.
The conversation turned at last to the legends belonging to a certain
family; and one circumstance was mentioned so nearly resembling, in
many particulars, the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, that the Lady
Ellinor, scarcely doubting that some slight suspicion of her parents'
crimes had reached the ears of the Lady Anne, determined to change
the subject at once. She proposed to her fair friends that they
should ramble together through the apartments of the castle; and she
called for the old housekeeper, who had lived in the family from her
childhood, to go along with them, and asked her to describe to them
the person and manners of Queen Elizabeth, when she had visited at the
castle, and slept in the state apartment; always since called, The
Queen's Bedchamber.
Led by their talkative guide, the careless, laughing party wandered
from one chamber to another, listening to her anecdotes, and the
descriptions she gave of persons and things in former days. She had
known many of the originals of the stately portraits in the picture
gallery; and she could tell the names, and the exploits of those
warriors in the family, whose coats of mail and glittering weapons
adorned the armoury. "And now," said the Lady Ellinor, "what else is
there to be seen? Not that I mean to trouble you any longer with our
questions, good Margaret, but give me this key, this key so seldom
used," pointing to a large, strangely shaped key, that hung among a
bunch at the old housekeeper's side. "There!" she added, disengaging
it herself from the ring, "I have taken it, and will return it very
safely. I assure you. This key," she said, turning to her young
companions, "unlocks a gallery at the end of the eastern wing, which
is always locked up, because the room is full of curious and rare
treasures, that were brought by my father's brother from many foreign
lands."
They enter.--"This may be a charming place," said one of the youngest
and liveliest of the party, "but see, the rain has passed away, and
the sun has at last burst out from the clouds. How brightly he shines,
even through these dull and dusty windows!" She gave but a passing
glance to the treasures around her, and hastened to a half open door
at the end of the gallery. Some of her companions followed her to a
broad landing place, at the top of a flight of marble stairs. They
were absent but a few minutes, and they returned with smiles of
delight, and glad, eager voices, declaring that they had unbolted a
door at the bottom of the staircase, and found themselves in the most
beautiful part of the gardens. "Come!" said the young and sprightly
girl, "do not loiter here; leave these rare and beautiful things until
it rains again, and come forth at once with me into the sweet, fresh
air."
The Lady Ellinor and her friend the Lady Anne were sitting side by
side, at the same table, and looking over the same volume--a folio of
Norman chronicles, embellished with many quaint and coloured pictures.
They both lifted up their faces from the book, as their merry
companions again addressed them. "Nay, do not _look_ up, but rise up!"
said the laughing maiden, and drawing away the volume from before
them, she shut it up instantly, and laid it on another table; throwing
down a branch of jessamine in its place.
"Yes, yes, you are right, my merry Barbara," replied the Lady Ellinor,
and she rose up as she spoke, "we have been prisoners all the day
against our will, why should we now be confined when the smile of
Nature bids us forth to share her joy. Come, come! my sweet Anne,
_you_ are not wont to be the last," turning to her friend, who
lingered behind. "Oh!" cried Lady Anne, "I am coming, I will soon be
the first amongst you, I only wait a moment to bind up my troublesome
hair." As she spoke, her eyes rested upon a little volume, which lay
upon the broad sill of the casement. The wind fluttered in the pages,
and blew them over and over; and half curiously, half carelessly,
she looked again, and yet again. The word _murder_ caught her eye;
her feelings were still in a state of excitement from the tales and
legends to which she had just been listening. Resting her head upon
her hand, she leaned over the volume; and stood motionless, absorbed
by the interest of the tale which she read, forgetful of her young
companions--of all but the appalling story then before her.
But these feelings were soon lost in astonishment, and horror so
confounding, that for awhile she lost all power of moving, or even of
thinking. Still her eyes were fixed upon the words which had pierced
her heart:--she could not force them away. Again and again, struck
with shame and horror, she shrunk away;--again and again, she found
herself forced by doubt, by positive disbelief, to search the terrible
pages. At last she had read enough--quite, quite enough to be assured,
not that her father--her mother, had been _suspected_, but that by the
law of the land they had been convicted, and condemned to death as
foul, adulterous murderers;--the murderers of Sir Thomas Overbury!
The Lady Ellinor returned alone into the gallery, "You little truant!"
she cried, "why so long? you said you would soon be with the foremost.
I thought you must have escaped me, and have sought you through half
the garden, and you are here all the while!"
No voice replied: not a sound was heard; and the Lady Ellinor had
already returned to the door of the gallery to seek her friend
elsewhere, when something fell heavily to the ground.
She flew back; and in one of the receding windows, she found the Lady
Anne lying senseless in a deep swoon. Throwing herself on the ground
beside her, she raised her tenderly in her arms, and not without some
difficulty, restored her to herself. Then laying her head upon her
bosom, she whispered kind words. "You are ill, I fear, my own Anne,
who has been here? What have you seen? How so changed in this short
time? I left you well and smiling, and now--nay, my dear, dear friend,
do not turn from me, and look so utterly wretched. Do not you see me!
What can be the matter!" The Lady Anne looked up in her friend's face
with so piteous and desolate a look, that she began to fear her reason
was affected.
"Have I lost your confidence? Am I no longer loved?" said the Lady
Ellinor. "Can you sit heart-broken there, and will not allow me to
comfort you? Still no answer! Shall I go? Shall I leave you, my love?
Do you wish me absent?" continued she in a trembling voice, the tears
flowing over her face, as she rose up. Her motion to depart aroused
the Lady Anne. "Ellinor! my Ellinor!" she cried, and throwing herself
forward, she stretched forth her arms. In another moment she was
weeping on the bosom of her friend. She wept for a long time without
restraint, for the Lady Ellinor said nothing, but drew her nearer and
nearer to her bosom, and tenderly pressed the hand that was clasped in
hers.
"I ought not to be weeping here," at length she said, "I ought to let
you leave me, but I have not the courage, I cannot bear to lose your
friendship,--your affection, my Ellinor! Can you love me? Have you
loved me, knowing all the while, as every one must? To-day--this very
hour, since you left me, I learned:--no I cannot tell you! Look on
that page, Ellinor, you will see why you find me thus. I am the most
wretched, wretched creature!"--here again she burst into an agony of
uncontrollable grief.
* * * * *
Who can describe the feelings of the Lady Anne--alone, in her chamber,
looking up at the portrait of her mother, upon which she had so often
gazed with delight and reverence! "Is it possible?" said she to
herself, "can this be she, of whom I have read such dreadful things?
Have all my young and happy days been but a dream, from which I wake
at last? Is not this dreadful certainty still as a hideous dream to
me?"
She had another cause of bitter grief. She loved the young and
noble-minded Lord Russell, the Earl of Bedford's eldest son; and she
had heard him vow affection and faithfulness to her. She now perceived
at once the reasons why the Earl of Bedford had objected to their
marriage: she almost wondered within herself that the Lord Russel
should have chosen her; and though she loved him more for avowing his
attachment, though her heart pleaded warmly for him, she determined to
renounce his plighted love. "It must be done," she said, "and better
now;--delay will but bring weakness. _Now_ I can write--I feel that I
have strength." And the Lady Anne wrote, and folded with a trembling
hand the letter which should give up her life's happiness; and fearing
her resolution might not hold, she despatched it by a messenger, as
the Lord Russel was then in the neighbourhood; and returned mournfully
to her own chamber. She opened an old volume which lay upon her
toilette--a volume to which she turned in time of trouble, to seek
that peace which the world cannot give.
Lady Ellinor soon aroused her by the tidings that a messenger had
arrived with a letter from her father, and she descended in search
of him.
"Oh, why is this? why am I here?" exclaimed the Lady Anne, as
trembling and almost sinking to the ground--her face alternately pale
and covered with crimson blushes, she found herself alone with the
Lord Russell. "You have received my letter, might not this trial have
been spared? my cup was already sufficiently bitter--but I had drunk
it. No!" she continued gently withdrawing her hand which he had taken,
"Do not make me despise myself--the voice of duty separates us.
Farewell! I seek a messenger from my father." "I am the messenger you
seek," replied he, "I have seen the Lord Somerset, and bring this
letter to his daughter."
The letter from the Earl of Somerset informed his daughter that he had
seen the Earl of Bedford, and had obviated all obstacle to her union
with the Lord Russell; that he was going himself to travel in foreign
parts; and that he wished her to be married during a visit to the Earl
and Countess of Bedford, whose invitation he had accepted for her.
"Does not your father say, that in this marriage his happiness is at
stake?" said the Lord Russell, gently pressing her hand. The Lady Anne
hung down her head, and wept in silence. "Are you still silent, my
dearest?" continued he, "then will I summon another advocate to plead
for me."
He quitted the apartment for a moment, but soon returned with the
Countess of Bedford, who had accompanied him to claim her future
daughter-in-law. The Lady Anne had made many resolutions, but they
yielded before the sweet and eloquent entreaties that urged her to
do what, in fact, she was all too willing to consent to.
They were married, the Lord Russell and the Lady Anne Carr; and they
lived long and happily together. It was always thought that the Lord
Russell had loved not only well, but wisely; for the Lady Anne was
ever a faithful wife, and a loving, tender mother. It was not until
some years after her marriage, that the Lady Russell discovered how
the consent of the earl of Bedford had been obtained. Till then,
she knew not that this consent had been withheld, until the Earl
of Somerset should give his daughter a large sum as her marriage
portion:--the Earl of Bedford calculating upon the difficulty, nay
almost impossibility, of his ever raising this sum.
But he had not calculated upon the devotion of the wretched father's
love to his fair and innocent child: and he was astounded when his
terms were complied with, and the money paid at once into his hands.
He could no longer withhold his consent; nor could he refuse some
admiration of this proof of a father's love for his child. The Lord
Somerset had, in fact, sold his whole possessions, and reduced himself
to an estate not far removed from beggary, to give his daughter the
husband of her choice.
It was the Lady Anne Carr, of whom Vandyke painted an exquisite and
well-known portrait, when Countess of Bedford. She was the mother of
William Lord Russell; and died heart-broken in her old age, when she
heard of the execution of her noble and first-born son.
This is, perhaps, one of Mr. Tayler's most successful pieces; it has
more breadth (if we may use such a term) than he is wont to employ,
the absence of which from his writing, we have more than once had
occasion to regret.
* * * * *