It was noon, when Louis again passed the marble gates of the Palacio
del Atayada, the deserted mansion of his father; and after journeying
over many a league of Arcadian landscape abundant in the olive and the
vine; and waving with harvests, which the paternal policy of Ripperda
had spread over hill and dale, the heights of Uzeda re-opened to him
the distant and transverse vallies of St. Ildefonso and the Escurial.
His carriage turned into a cleft of the hills, overhung with every
species of umbrageous trees; and out of whose verdant sides innumerable
rills poured themselves over the refreshened earth, from the urns of
sculptured nymphs and river-gods reposing in the shade. In the bosom
of this green recess stood the villa of Santa Cruz. All around spoke of
elegance and taste. The carriage drove under the light portico; and the
servants, who thronged round, gave earnest of the hospitable temper of
the owner.
Lorenzo questioned them, whether their lord were at the villa. They
replied in the negative, but that his lady was there.
"Then I must see the Marchioness," returned Louis; and he sprang from
the carriage, the door of which a servant had already opened. Lorenzo
remained below for further orders, while his master was conducted up
stairs into a splendid saloon, whose capacious sides were hung with the
finest pictures of the Italian and Flemish schools. But no object could
displace from the vision of Louis, the dungeon which had contained his
father.
He had written his name with pencil upon a leaf which he tore from his
pocket-book, and sent it to the Marchioness. It was some time before
a reply was returned to him, or, indeed, any person re-appeared. His
anxiety became insufferable. He paced the room with impatience, and
a sickening heart. For he knew not but the delay of first one ten
minutes, and then of another, before he could follow the track he
expected to find in the packet he sought, might, by leaving his father
undefended in all the personal dangers of a pursuit, be the very means
of allowing him to be retaken.
In the midst of these harassing fears, the door opened, and a young
lady entered, who, by her air, could not be mistaken for other than
one of the noble members of the family, though her dress was that of a
_religieuse_. It was all of spotless white, with a long black rosary
hanging from her breast. Her face was mild and pale; but it was the
transparent hue of the virgin flower of spring, clad in her veiling
leaves. It was Marcella.
Her mother had received the name of the Marquis de Montemar in her
chamber. She was an invalid; but remembering the reception his family
had given to her son in Lindisfarne, she sent her daughter to bid him
welcome.
When Marcella entered, she drew back a moment, on beholding so
different a person from the one she had expected to see in the son of
the Duke de Ripperda. He had been reported by the ladies of Vienna as
"the glass of fashion, and the mold of form!" Her brother had described
him as gay and volant; full of the rich glow of health, and animated
with a joyous life, that made the sense ache to follow it through all
its wild excursiveness. The Spaniards, on returning from Vienna, spoke
of him as vain or proud, a coxcomb or a cynic, just as their envy
or their prejudices prevailed. But Sinzendorff, her revered uncle,
had written of him as one whom all the women loved, while he loved
only honour. His letters had given the Marchioness an account of the
young minister's entanglement and release from the woman who had laid
similar snares for her son; and he dwelt with encomium on his unshaken
firmness through every change of fortune. As Marcella passed from her
mother's chamber, these recollections crowded upon her; and all were
calculated to increase the timidity of her approach. She was going to
present herself, and alone, to an admired young man, proud in conscious
dignity, whose lustre calamity could not dim, and whose spirit was
exasperated by oppression!
But instead of this lofty Marquis de Montemar, gallant in attire, and
resplendent in manly beauty; stern in resentful virtue; and upholding
in his own high port, all the threatened honours of his race; she
beheld a youthful, and a fine form indeed, but in a neglected dress
covered with dust. The jewels of his hat were broken away; and its
disordered plumage darkly shaded his colourless cheek and eyes, whence
every ray of joy had fled. Beauty was there; but it was the beauty of
sadness; it was the crushed ruin of what might once have been bright
and aspiring.
Marcella wondered, for a moment, at the change which grief must have
made; and with a very different sentiment from that with which she
entered, she approached the son of Ripperda. She held a packet in her
hand. Louis's heart bounded towards it, and he hastily advanced.
"From my father, Madam!"
"It was left with my mother two nights ago, by the Duke de Ripperda's
servant;" replied she; "and he informed her, that the envelope directed
to my father, contained a letter for the Marquis de Montemar. My mother
would not detain it from you till she could present it herself; being
only now preparing to leave her chamber, and therefore she confided its
delivery to me."
As she spoke, she put the packet into his hand. By these words he
found he was in the presence of the Marquis Santa Cruz's daughter;
and, expressing his thanks, he begged permission to peruse it before
he quitted the house. She answered politely in the affirmative, and
immediately withdrew.
Louis had observed nothing of her face or figure, to distinguish her
again from the next stranger who might enter the room. The novelty of
her dress, however, could not escape even his possessed eye; and in
the moment he learnt who she was, he thought of Ferdinand and Alice,
and of their future union; of which her assumption of that garb seemed
a promise. But as soon as she disappeared, he forgot both, and every
accompanying circumstance, and even where he was, in his eagerness to
make himself master of the contents of the packet.
On breaking the seal, a letter at the top of a bundle of papers
presented itself. He seized it, and began to read it with avidity. It
was written by Ripperda under all the exasperation of his mind, when
he believed himself not merely the object of the world's ingratitude,
but abandoned by his own and only son. Yet he forebore to specify his
injuries; saying, that to name them, would be to stigmatize the whole
human race. He had hitherto lived for universal man:--his days should
terminate on a different principle. He would yet confound his enemies,
and astonish Europe. But it should not be by embracing revenge through
the treasons, whose arms were extended to receive and to avenge him.
He would maintain his integrity to the last; and from the heights of
Gibraltar assert the honour of a name, whose last glories might die
with him, but never should wane in his person till he set in the grave.
Louis would not think twice on the implied suspicions against himself,
which every sentence of the letter contained. They were bitterness to
his heart; but he knew his innocence. He now knew the point to which
his father was gone; and thither he determined to follow him.
The papers in the packet contained schedules of the vast properties of
the Duke, that were cast over the face of Spain, in landed estates,
immense manufactories, and countless avenues of merchandize.
"I bestow them all on my son;" was written by Ripperda on the envelope
which contained the catalogue; "they may give power and consequence
to the Marquis de Montemar, when he has forgotten that the Duke de
Ripperda was his father."
A memorandum of his territories in Spanish America was bound up with
the others; and brief directions added on each head, how his son was to
secure his rights in them all.
Louis ran over these lists and their explications, that he might not
leave a single word unnoted; but when he had finished, he closed up all
that related to pecuniary affairs, and laying them aside in the packet,
again turned to the letter. It alone would be his study and business,
till he should reach Gibraltar, and prove to his father, that by his
side, in poverty or disgrace, it was his determination to live or die.
He was yet leaning over the letter, perusing it a second time, when
he heard the door open behind him. He looked round, and saw the
daughter of Santa Cruz re-enter, supporting on her arm an elderly lady
of a noble air, who appeared an invalid. He guessed her to be the
Marchioness; and rising instantly, approached her. "Marquis," said
she, "I come, thus in my sick attire, to welcome the son of the Duke
de Ripperda, to the house of my husband. I know his respect for your
father; also his esteem of yourself; and whatever may have been the
misrepresentations of evil tongues, my brother the Count Sinzendorff
has not left the character of the Marquis de Montemar without an
advocate."
The Marchioness observed a brilliant flush shoot over the face of her
auditor, as he bowed his head to her last words. She added, in a still
more respectful tone, softened even to tenderness by the sentiment
of pity; "The machinations of these enemies have been too successful
against the Duke. Indeed, I doubt not, that packet has spared me the
pain of saying, you must seek your noble father in the Alcazar of
Segovia."
Louis briefly related the events of the last six hours; and presented
her the note to read, which his servant had found on the table in
the prison, and which had referred him to the Marquis Santa Cruz. The
Marchioness had seated herself, and placed her guest beside her. She
read the note; and looked with maternal sympathy upon the distressful
countenance of the duteous son to whom it addressed so cutting a
reproach. Her commiserating questions, and the knowledge she shewed
of all the virtues of his father; added to the information, that her
husband was hastening from Italy, to interest himself in his cause;
seemed to demand from Louis his fullest confidence. He revealed to
her the substance of what his father had written in the packet; and
declared his intention to follow him immediately to Gibraltar.
The Marchioness approved of his reunion with his father, but resisted
his quitting her house, till he had taken the repose she saw he so
much needed. Louis would have been unmoved in his resolve to commence
his journey that very night, had she not suggested, that, severely as
the Duke had been used before his flight, should he be retaken, his
treatment would be yet more rigorous; and, therefore, his son must
be careful not to be himself the guide to so fearful a catastrophe.
She assured Louis, that now ministers knew of his arrival, all his
movements would be watched; and that above all things, his pursuing the
direct route of his father, must be avoided. She urged, that a rash
step at this crisis, might be fatal; and, therefore, conjured him to
remain that night at least, under her roof; where he might consider
and reconder his future plans, and take the rest that was necessary to
support him through the trials he might yet have to sustain.
There was so much good sense and precaution in this counsel, that Louis
no longer found an argument to oppose it; and adopting her advice
of turning in a direction from Gibraltar, rather than towards it,
proposed going to Cadiz, and thence hiring a vessel to take him by sea
to the British fortress. This being sanctioned by her approbation, he
no longer hesitated to pass the remainder of the day, and the night,
under her friendly shelter; and while she retired with her daughter, he
followed a page to an apartment, where every comfort was provided, that
could refresh the weary traveller.
After she had withdrawn, the Marchioness would not permit her
daughter to quit the side of the couch on which she reclined; but
continued discoursing of the interesting son of the fugitive Duke, and
recapitulating all the kindnesses which his English relatives had shewn
to her darling Ferdinand in Lindisfarne.
"Marcella," said she, "we must repay part of that vast debt, to this
inestimable young man. Your brother has not exaggerated his merits.
For, never did I see exquisite beauty so unconsciously possessed; nor
heroic indifference to the world's idols, expressed with such noble
simplicity."
When Louis rejoined the kind hostess, his misfortunes and his manners
had so happily propitiated, she was seated with her meditative daughter
in the evening saloon; which opened to a small lake, surrounded by
aromatic groves. She rose to receive him.
Relieved from immediate alarm for his father's personal safety, by
knowing that his projected asylum was the one least likely to occur
to his pursuers, Louis's agitated mind had sunk into a kind of
torpid repose. He took the seat offered to him, by the Marchioness;
and listened to her conversation with soothed attention. There
was something in her figure and air, which so reminded him of the
cherishing mother of his youth, Mrs. Coningsby, that his harassed soul
seemed to have regained its home, while he drank in her sweet maternal
comfortings. She appeared to know by intuition the fittest medicine
for his spirit; but she only spoke from her own noble nature, and it
mingled direct with his. She expatiated on his father's character; on
the envy of his rivals; and dated his fall to their ambition alone. She
dwelt on the high reverence in which he was held by the King and Queen;
and affirmed, that justice must be done him, both by Sovereign and
people, when experience should have taught them how they had cast away
their benefactor.--
"Meanwhile," said she, "how glorious he is in suffering magnanimously
for his virtues!"
"So to suffer, is the Cross that makes our virtues Christian!" observed
Marcella in a low voice, hardly aware that she had uttered what was
passing in her thoughts.
The remark was so like what he would have expected from the lips of
his first christian teacher, that Louis turned towards the speaker.
He turned to look on her; recollecting that she was not merely the
daughter of the amiable woman who was so maternally solicitous about
him; but the disinterested sister, whose self-sacrifice was to empower
her brother to complete the happiness of Alice Coningsby. Though
she had been the first to welcome him to this hospitable refuge, in
most inhospitable Spain, he had noticed her so little, he could not
have recognised her in any other garb. He now perused her pensive
countenance. It was fair and meek, and touched with the tenderest
sensibility. Her eyes were hidden with their downward lashes; and the
shadow of her veil tempered the dazzling whiteness of her forehead,
while the dark and glossy tresses that braided its arching brows, gave
her the air of a youthful Madonna. Her soft white hand at that moment
pressing the cross to her bosom, completed the picture. Unconscious of
observation, she was then breathing an internal prayer for the Duke and
his son; and continuing her meditations on their fate, did not raise
her eyes from the floor.
Louis looked on her, but it was as he would have looked on a lovely
image of the consecrated being she resembled; and again he turned to
the voice of her mother.
The Marchioness finding him so composed, entered fully into all she
knew of the rise and progress of the conspiracy which had ruined his
father. She recounted the various perfidies of the inmates of the
Palais d'Espagne; which had been confided to her, in the exultation of
triumph, by Donna Laura. She narrated particulars in the correspondence
between de Patinos and his father, the Marquis de Castellor; and
gave instances of even deeper double-dealing in Baptista Orendayn,
the nephew of the Count de Paz. Indeed, she hoped, the Marquis,
her husband, would be able to prove, by what she could impart, that
Orendayn was concerned with a subborned band of ruffians who attacked
the Duke de Ripperda in the Appenines; and would certainly have
destroyed him there, but for the fortunate intervention of a stranger.
This assassination was the device of his Spanish rivals. And it was as
well known by the Marchioness's informants, that the attempt which was
made on the Duke in the porch of the Jesuits' college, was the work of
certain Austrians at the court of Vienna; and not at all arising from
the partizans of the Electress. The Bavarians had never gone farther
than to way-lay for the state papers; and under the leading of Count
Stalhberg, they had taken the dispatches from Castanos; which, being
examined by the party, were afterwards returned.
In recapitulating this host of jealous adversaries, she asserted that
none were so actively hostile to Ripperda as the Austrian junto; at the
head of which was Count Routemberg, whose darling policy was to place
eternal barriers between any future junction of the empire and Spain.
In his house the confederation was formed, that was to accomplish the
destruction of Ripperda and his plans; and by a secret management it
was supported and impelled by the Emperor himself.
While Louis listened to this information, which agreed so fatally with
Wharton's last conference in the garden of the chateau, he became more
and more bewildered on the motives of his false friend.
At last the Marchioness mentioned that name, which never could be heard
by him with indifference; his confidence, or his detestation must rest
upon it. He was thinking of the accumulated treachery of Wharton, when
she pronounced his name. He started as if it took him by surprise.
In her eagerness she did not observe his emotion, but dwelt on the
English Duke's clandestine interviews with Grimaldo, de Paz, and the
Queen; shewing their results in the King's inflexibility to Ripperda's
demands to be heard; and his subsequent warrant, to silence the injured
minister's appeal in the sealed dungeons of the Inquisition.
In the height of her representations, Louis, with a tremendous fire
in his before faded eye, grasped the arm of the Marchioness, and
desperately exclaimed,
"Cease that theme--or it will make me a murderer!"
His manner alarmed the Marchioness, and terrified Marcella. The former,
however, restrained herself, and mildly pressing down the hand that
clasped her's, detained him on his seat; while Marcella started from
her chair, and gazed upon his flashing countenance with dismay. His
terrific guilty words yet rung in her ears. For a moment his eye caught
the expression of her's; and he answered the horror in her face by the
exclamation,
"I loved, and trusted him--and he has betrayed my father!"
He turned away as he spoke, and walked to the other end of the room.
The eyes of the Marchioness and her daughter met with an anguish of
commiseration in each, neither of them could utter. Marcella looked
again at his agitated movements, as his back was towards her. His
words, "I loved, and trusted him--and he betrayed my father!" had smote
upon her filial heart; and tears gushing into her eyes, she glided from
his presence, to pray and weep in secret.
When Louis recovered himself, he scarcely remarked that Marcella had
withdrawn.
In hopes to sooth him, the Marchioness asked two or three questions
respecting Wharton. Twice he attempted to speak, before he could give
any voice to what he wished to say; at last he hastily articulated.
"Spare me on this subject. I would forget him, if God will grant me
that gracious oblivion; for that is the only way by which I can remain
guiltless of his blood!"
"Rash de Montemar!" cried the Marchioness, pitying while she reproved;
"were my holy daughter here, she would tell you, that if you have hope
of heaven's pardon for your own errors, you must forgive your enemies!"
An agonized smile gleamed on his convulsed lip.
"My own enemies, I could forgive, and load with benefits. There are
some, were they my enemies alone, I could love in spite of every
injury; and pray for them, as for the peace of my own soul. But when
they extend their malice to my father; when they betray his trusting
faith, and give him to the murderous gripe of them who lurk for his
honour and his life: they are his enemies, and I cannot forgive them."
"Yet, do not risk your life, which is now his sole comfort," cried she,
"Appeal to Heaven, and it will avenge you."
Again Louis walked from her. He felt that, inexorably as he now
believed he hated Wharton, and horrible as was the idea of meeting
him arm to arm; yet, even that would be more tolerable to him than to
invoke Almighty power for vengeance.
A sad confusion of right and wrong, struggled in his breast; but
the better principle prevailed; and, even while the pressure of new
convictions against Wharton, crowded upon him, he felt that the
bitterest pang of all, would be an assurance that by such guilt on
guilt, his false friend had forfeited the mercy of his God. In his
fiercest throes of resentment, he could yet say with the Divine Spirit,
"I have no pleasure in the death of a sinner; but rather that he should
turn from his wickedness and live!"
The Marchioness marked his unuttered emotion, and with self-blame at
the amplitude of her communications, apologised for her indiscretion,
and proposed his seeking composure in rest. He gladly acquiesced; while
he begged her, not to distress herself by regretting what she had said;
for it was necessary to his father's preservation and to his own, that
he should know all his enemies, and the extent of their malice.
It was now within an hour of midnight. On Louis entering his chamber,
he sent away Lorenzo; that he, at least, might enjoy the sleep that
fled his master's eyes. In a few minutes he was alone, in a magnificent
apartment, where every tranquillizing luxury invited to repose.
But the downy couch would then have been a bed of thorns to him. He
continued to walk the room from hour to hour, in perturbed meditation
on all that he had seen and heard through the day.
His spirit was on the wing to rush through every obstacle to his
father's feet; to labour day and night, to redeem the reputation
sacrificed by his flight; and to avenge himself on the slanderous
world, by some glorious assertion of the names of de Montemar and
Ripperda.
At last, his exhausted taper went out suddenly; and, being without the
means of replenishing its light, he threw himself on the bed to muse
till morning.