When that sun arose, which, he believed, was to set on him a completed
wretch, he turned from its beams with a loathing sense of what his vain
credulity and headlong passion had brought upon him; a joyless youth,
an old age of desolation! How different from his home of Lindisfarne!
But he could not bear the reflection, and with fevered impatience, he
hurried through the business of the morning.
At three o'clock, just as he had shut himself into his study, to
brood over his last hours of liberty; and to consecrate them to the
unburthening of his full soul to his venerable uncle, in a letter,
which, while he wrote, he thought it would be cruelty to send; a
billet was brought him from the Empress: it contained these lines:
"A circumstance, which shall be explained hereafter, delays your
nuptials. Otteline is gone for a few days to the Luxemburg to join
my daughter. Tomorrow, at noon, be in the boudoir, and you will meet
Elizabeth."
This was heaven's reprieve to Louis; suspension was life, and with
almost hope of some unlooked-for escape, he repaired in the evening
to the Chateau de Phaffenberg. His object in visiting that lonely
habitation, was to consult papers that remained there, on a dispatch he
was making up for Sweden.
While the gorgeous sun-set, by which he had extracted the memorandums,
dissolved into a bloomy twilight; and the soft moon was rising in
silvering glory over the hills, Louis felt the soothing aspect of
nature; and gliding through the garden door, which stood half open, he
stood for a moment viewing the scene before him.
"How beautiful is nature!" exclaimed he, "how unobtruse her loveliness,
how guileless all her charms!"
He gently descended the steps of the terrace. All was still. Not a
zephyr ruffled the leaf of a rose, and a soft breathing fragrance
bathed his reposing senses. He walked on, and thought of the rapt
liberty of the soul in the sweet serenities of beautiful solitude. No
rebellious feeling of any kind then agitated his placid bosom; every
passion was at rest,--his ambition slept in its thorny bed, and his
remembrances of Otteline were quenched in the gentle dews of a resigned
spirit. Such power has the divine hand of Nature on the son that loves
her! and thus did he glide along, with the ethereal temper of his soul
beaming in every feature, like the reflected face of heaven.
In this blessed calm, his meditations had ascended far above this
sublunary world, when he observed a man spring off the battlements
into the garden, from the very quarter where he had once clambered
himself. A second glance, recognised the figure of Duke Wharton,
who, immediately, hastened towards him. An exulting smile was on his
countenance, as he hailed him in his approach.
"This is safer ground than the _Horti Adonidis_, I fixed for our
conference!" cried he, "no envious demon would ever think of tracing
Philip Wharton to so desolate a region as this!"
"I have found it a garden of peace," replied Louis, putting out his
hand to Wharton with glad surprise; "and, were it not for fear of the
consequence of this rash seeking me, I should call it the garden of
happiness too!"
"De Montemar," cried his friend, "it does not become friendship like
ours, to be always fearing consequences, and skulking past each
other, as if our meetings had guilty errands. How different are you
in this detested court of finesse, from the free-hearted, independent
De Montemar, who won my soul on his unbondaged native mountains!
Louis, where is that open eye, that open heart? that fearless, brave,
uncuirassed bosom? All that you can gain in Vienna or at Madrid, is not
worth one of those proofs of manhood!"
Louis turned on him a countenance, in which all that Wharton had
conjured up in that noble soul, shone bright in the moon-light.
"If I have fear, it is to do wrong; and that is no change of my nature.
If I shroud my heart, it is from them who cannot understand it; if I
shroud my eye, it is from them who are not worthy to read my thoughts;
and for my shut bosom, Wharton, would it gratify you, to hear it was
unlocked to fools? You have the key of it, my friend! A triangle
encases my heart," continued he, with one of his wonted smiles; "and
you have one of its sides."
Wharton pressed his hand.
"Then Cæsar has quite forgiven Brutus?"
"What could I not forgive him?" replied Louis. All the trust of his
partial and enthusiastic heart, spoke in those words; and he thought
within himself,--"Oh, that I might give my whole life to filial love
and friendship!" As the hopeless wish passed through his soul, the
_iron entered_ with it, but did not pass away.
They walked together to a recess in the garden, where they sat down
under the full radiance of the unclouded moon.
"De Montemar," said Wharton, "this hour is portentous. Hear me to an
end; and you will then have an ample reply to your question, of why I
so named your father, when you broke from me in the avenue."
Louis was ready to listen; and his friend unfolded to him a scene in
the German court, which petrified him with astonishment, and made him
indeed maintain a breathless silence during the recital. He displayed
the insincere character of the Emperor, and explained his manoeuvres
in delaying the fulfilment of the great articles of the treaty, and
only executing the small, while he managed to draw every resignation
from the Spanish side. He imparted to Louis the secret arrangement
between Charles and the Prince of Lorraine; (though he withheld his own
share in the transaction) and shewed that the Arch-duchess was never
intended, by her father, to be the wife of Don Carlos. He also declared
that the Emperor derided the investiture he had sent to the Spanish
Prince, with the remark, when he signed it, that "swords would cut
through parchments." But the worst information was to come. He knew
that a plan was laid, to accomplish the political ruin of the Duke de
Ripperda, and by that achievement at once obliterate every engagement
that was made through him.
At this intimation Louis was all ear: For, during the varied
disclosure, he could connect its details with circumstances which had
embarrassed his diplomatic proceedings; and internal evidence stamped
the veracity of every assertion of his friend.
Wharton then explained the Empress's change towards Ripperda; in the
first instance, from her womanly jealousies respecting the Queen of
Spain, and now rendered complete, by her giving belief to the calumnies
of his rivals. She secretly abetted the Emperor's duplicity; and only
waited the completion of Louis's marriage with her heartless favourite,
to dare her former friend in the face of Europe. Louis's brain was in
a whirl. He could not doubt the proofs Wharton gave him of the facts;
but in the midst of a son's bitter anathemas against the faithless
Elizabeth and her deceitful husband, he yet found comfort in asserting
the adherence of his own sovereigns, to their chosen minister.
"You cannot judge of his security there," replied Wharton, "till you
know the machinery his enemies mean to move in that quarter."
And then he urged Louis to the necessity of obtaining this information;
and taking the sort of glorious revenge on the whole of the proud
conspirators, as would confound them, and excite the admiration of all
honest men. The information lay in the power of one who could furnish
him with the names of persons in Austria and Spain, who were sworn to
compass the ruin of Ripperda. But could the conspiracy be declared,
with its train of signatures, before it took effect, the eyes of the
public would be opened, and the Spanish Minister secured.
Louis declared his eagerness to seek such information at any hazard.
"But how is it to be obtained?" cried he.
"A bribe!" answered Wharton.
"The means are base as our enemies!"
"When a besieged city suspects a mine, do not the inhabitants dig
underground, and meet their enemy at his work?"
"Poniards to poniards!" returned Louis with a cheerless smile.
"Even so," answered Wharton, "shall I give your invisible friend _carte
blanche_?"
"Grant him every thing in my name," replied Louis, "which can be done
with honour. This conspiracy must be in my possession, before another
sun sets over my head."
"Then in this spot to-morrow evening, at the same hour," returned
Wharton, "you shall see me again; and with a document, that may free
you from another thraldom. I have my hand on many springs; and one has
started a true image of your Otteline, sculptured by herself; she dare
not forswear her work, and when it confronts her, if you will, you are
free."
"Nothing can free me there," replied Louis.
"Why, you would not hug your chains?"
"No; but they will clasp me until death. I am bound to her by every tie
of honour."
"Shew her, what I will bring you to-morrow night, and your honour will
release you."
"There is but one thing, that could release me!" cried Louis, the
ingenuous suffusion of virtue mantling his face; "Is it any charge, any
proof, of her dishonour?" Wharton laughed.
"If you mean by _dishonour_, a breach of truth, of honesty, of
delicacy, of every principle respectable to man, and graceful in woman;
you know, she is dishonoured below contempt. But if you restrict it,
to the sense in which it is commonly applied to the angelic sex, I am
not prepared to answer. She may be as chaste as unsunned snow, she is
certainly as cold: but for warm, inspiring virtue! she knows it not,
and she will wither it in every bosom to which she clings."
Louis's hand was now pressed on his aching forehead. The Duke continued.
"See, what she has done with the noble hearted Empress! And did you
know the effects of her example on the innocent Maria Theresa; how that
young creature conceals her love for the Prince of Lorraine, under the
appearance of a passion for you--."
"Impossible!" interrupted Louis. "It is the fact," replied Wharton,
"and on this argument, Elizabeth accuses you of aspiring to her
daughter, and urges your marriage with the favourite against every
opposition."
A strange emotion shook the frame of Louis: he saw the net which the
villainy of man and woman had coiled around his father and himself, and
starting from his seat, he exclaimed:
"Wharton, my only friend! Bring me the double documents; and I
will save my father and myself, or fall with him at once, into the
interminable ruin!"
"To-morrow night, then," cried Wharton, "you shall be master of your
fate."
Louis clasped the Duke in his arms; who, as he felt the full heart
of this anxious son throbbing against his side, said in a cheering
voice--"Courage, de Montemar! These conspiring fiends have not yet
found Jove's thunderbolt. Pay his ransom, and not a point of thy
father's glory shall suffer by their shears."
"Nothing, under heaven, can rob him of the glory of his virtues,"
replied Louis; "but by your aid, my tried, my faithful Wharton, he
shall not lose even an earthly ray. May the Providence which brought me
such a friend, and fastened my soul to him; may it bless your exertions
in this crisis of our fate!"
A burning crimson flushed over the cheek of Wharton, as Louis uttered
this ardent appeal to friendship and to Heaven.
"Hero-fashion?" cried the Duke, "mingle prayer with warfare! But thy
orison is for a graceless,--and half at least will be dispersed in
empty air."
"I will stand the hazard!"
Again they embraced, and separated.