It was not long after Lady Margaret’s arrival at the castle that Count
Gondimar, who had accompanied her to Ireland, prepared to return to Italy.
A few evenings before he quitted her, he sought the secret habitation of
his friend Viviani who had likewise followed Lady Margaret to Ireland,
but in order to facilitate his designs, had never openly appeared at the
castle. “How strong must be the love,” said Gondimar, addressing him,
“which can thus lead you to endure concealment, straits and difficulty!
return with me: there are others as fair: your youthful heart pictures
to yourself strange fancies; but in reality this woman is little worth
you. I love her not, and it is but imagination, which thus deceives
you.” “I will not leave her—I cannot go,” said Viviani impatiently:
“one burning passion annihilates in my heart every other consideration.
Ah! can it merit the name of passion, the phrenzy which rages within
me! Gondimar, if I worshipped the splendid star, that flashed along my
course, and dazzled me with its meteor blaze, even in Italian climes,
imagine what she now appears to me, in these cold northern regions. I
too can sometimes pause to think whether the sacrifice I have made is
not too great. But I have drained the poisoned cup to the dregs. I have
prest the burning firebrand to my heart, till it has consumed me—and
come what may, now, I am resolved she shall be mine, though the price
exacted were blood.” Gondimar shuddered.
It was soon after this, that he returned to Italy. Before he departed,
he once more in secret affectionately embraced his friend. “She has
deceived me,” cried Viviani; “months have glided by in vain attempts to
realize her depraved wish. She evades my suit. But the hour of success
approaches:—to-morrow:——nay, perhaps, to-night.... If thou, Gondimar—oh!
if thou couldst believe: yet wherefore should I betray myself, or shew,
to living man, one thought belonging to the darkest of human hearts.
This alone know—I dare do every thing; and I will possess her. See,
she appears—that form of majesty—that brow of refulgent brightness. The
very air I breathe speaks to me of her charms. What matters it to me,
whilst I gaze entranced upon her, if the earth shake to its foundation,
and rivers of blood were streaming around me!—Pity me, Gondimar.—Pardon
me.—Farewell!”
Hurried on by mad passion, Viviani, who constantly visited Lady Margaret,
was now upon the eve of fulfilling her wishes. Yet once, in the hope of
dissuading his savage mistress from her bloody purpose, he placed the
infant in her arms, and bade her take pity on its helpless innocence.
“See thy own—thy brother’s image in those eyes—that smile,” he whispered;
“ah! can you have the heart?” But Lady Margaret turned from the child in
haughty displeasure, thrusting it from her as if afraid to look on it;
and, for many days, would not vouchsafe to speak to the weak instrument
of her criminal ambition. Yet he, even he, whose life had been one
continued course of profligacy, who had misused his superior talents to
the perversion of the innocence of others, and the gratification of his
own ungoverned passions, shuddered at the thought of the fearful crime
which he had engaged himself to commit!
His knowledge of human nature, and particularly of the worst part of
it, was too profound to depend upon any personal or immediate aid from
Lady Margaret: he, therefore, conceived a project which, by any one but
himself, would, in every view of it, have been considered as altogether
desperate and impracticable. It was, however, a maxim with Viviani, which
his practice and experience had justified, that nothing is impossible to
a firmly united league of time, money and resolution. Alone, he could
have accomplished nothing; but he had a satellite long trained in his
service, who possessed every quality which fitted him to assist the
designs of such a master. The name of this man was La Crusca. In spite
of a seeming wish to conceal himself, in conformity, perhaps, with his
master’s designs, this man was known at the castle to be a servant to
the count, and by his flattery and the versatility of his genius, had
become familiar with a few of its inhabitants; but shortly after his
arrival, he had been dismissed, and it was now three months and more
since his departure.
One evening, according to custom, Viviani having secretly entered the
castle, sought Lady Margaret in her own apartment; his face was fearfully
pale; his hand trembled. He found her in company with her son, Buchanan,
and Calantha. Alarmed at his manner and appearance, the latter concealed
her face on the white bosom of her aunt, nor guessed by what storms of
fierce passion that bosom was disturbed. Viviani mistook the brilliant
hue which heightened Lady Margaret’s complexion for a softer feeling; he
approached her, and, gently removing the child, whispered vows of ardour
and tenderness in the ears of his mistress, and urged his suit with every
argument he could devise to overcome any remaining scruple. But when
he looked, in expectation of a favorable answer, he sprung back with
terror from her; for it seemed as if the fiends of hell were struggling
in her eyes and lips for looks and words with which to express their
horrid desire, already without the aid of words, but too sufficiently
manifest! At length, breaking silence, and rising in scorn from her
seat: “Have I not promised myself to you?” she whispered indignantly,
“that you thus persecute me for the performance of a voluntary vow? Do
you think your protestations can move, and your arguments persuade? Am
I a timid girl, who turns from your suit bashful or alarmed? Or am I one
grown old in crime, and utterly insensible to its consequence?—Nothing,
you well know, can make me yours but my own free will; and never shall
that will consign me to such fate, till the sickly weed is destroyed,
and the fair and flourishing plant restored to its wonted vigour and
due honors. See there, there is the image of my brother, of all that is
glorious and lovely.” As she spoke, she pointed to Buchanan.... “Lady,
the deed is already done! This night,” said the Italian, trembling in
every limb, “yes, on this fearful night, I claim the performance of thy
vow!” He spoke with an emotion she could not mistake.—“Is it possible?”
said she, “my beautiful, my beloved friend:” and his hand trembled as
he gave it her, in token of his assent.—Fearing to utter another word,
dreading even the sound of their own voices, after such a disclosure,
she soon retired.
Was it to rest that Lady Margaret retired?—No—to the tortures of
suspense, of dread, of agony unutterable. A thousand times she started
from her bed:—she fancied that voices approached the door—that shrieks
rent the air; and, if she closed her eyes, visions of murder floated
before her distracted mind, and pictured dreams too horrible for words
half suffocated by the fever and delirium of her troubled imagination.
She threw up the sash of her window, and listened attentively to every
distant sound. The moon had risen in silvery brightness above the dark
elm trees; it lighted, with its beams, the deep clear waters of Elle. The
wind blew loud at times, and sounded mournfully, as it swept through the
whispering leaves of the trees, over the dark forest and distant moors.
A light appeared, for one moment, near the wood, and then was lost, Lady
Margaret, as if palsied by terror, remained fixed and breathless on the
spot;—a step approached the door;—it was the step of one stealing along,
as if anxious no one should hear it pass. Again, all was silent:—so silent
that the grave itself had not been more tranquil, and the dead could
not have looked more pale, more calm, more still, than Lady Margaret!
But how was that silence broken? and how that calm disturbed?—By the
shrieks of an agonized parent—by the burning tears of a heart-broken
father—by the loud unrestrained clamours of the menial train; and that
proud mansion, so lately the seat of gaiety, whose lighted porticos
and festive halls had echoed to the song of joy and revelry, presented
now a scene of lamentation, terror and despair.—The heir of Altamonte
was dead—the hope so fondly cherished was cut off—the idol, upon whose
existence so many hearts were fixed, lay in his gilded cradle and costly
attire, affording a lesson impressive although every day repeated, yet
unheeded although impressive,—that it is the nature of man to rest his
most sanguine expectations upon the most frail and uncertain of all his
possessions.
The women who had been employed to attend upon him were weeping around
him. His nurse alone appeared utterly insensible to his fate,—her eyes
were fixed,—her lips motionless,—she obeyed every command that was given;
but, when left to herself, she continued in the same sullen mood. Some
called her hard and unfeeling, as in loud accents they bewailed the dire
calamity that had fallen on their master’s house; but there were others
who knew that this apparent insensibility was the effect of a deeper
feeling—of a heart that could not recover its loss—of a mind totally
overthrown.
She had arisen that morning at her accustomed hour, to take to her breast
the little infant who slept in the cradle beside her;—but lifeless was
that form which, a few hours before, she had laid on its pillow, in the
full enjoyment of health. Spasms, it was supposed, had seized the child in
his sleep; for his face was black and dreadfully disfigured. All efforts
to recover him were fruitless. Physician nor medicine could avail,—the
hand of death had struck the flower,—the vital spark was extinguished.
It was in vain that the distracted mother, pressing his cold lips to
hers, declared, in the agony of hope, that they still retained a living
warmth.—It was in vain that she watched him till her eyes deceived,
fancied that they saw a change imperceptible to others—a breath of life
restored to that lifeless breathless form. It was in vain:—and floods
of grief, with the sad rites of a pompous funeral, were all which the
afflicted Duke and his sorrowing family had to bestow.
The tenants and peasantry were, according to an ancient custom, admitted
to sing the song of sorrow over the body of the child: but no hired
mourners were required on this occasion; for the hearts of all deeply
shared in the affliction of their master’s house, and wept, in bitter
woe, the untimely loss of their infant Lord.—It was thus they sung, ever
repeating the same monotonous and melancholy strain.
Oh loudly sing the Pillalu,
And many a tear of sorrow shed;
_Och orro, orro, Olalu_;
Mourn, for the master’s child is dead.
At morn, along the eastern sky,
We marked an owl, with heavy wing;
At eve, we heard the benshees cry;
And now the song of death we sing;
_Och orro, orro, Olalu_.
Ah! wherefore, wherefore would ye die;
Why would ye leave your parents dear;
Why leave your sorrowing kinsmen here,
Nor listen to your people’s cry!
How wilt thy mother bear to part
With one so tender, fair and sweet!
Thou wast the jewel of her heart,
The pulse, the life, that made it beat.
How sad it is to leave her boy,
That tender flowret all alone;
To see no more his face of joy,
And soothe no more his infant moan!
But see along the mountains side,
And by the pleasant banks of Larney,
Straight o’er the plains, and woodlands wide,
By Castle Brae, and Lock Macharney:
See how the sorrowing neighbours throng.
With haggard looks and faultering breath;
And as they slowly wind along,
They sing the mournful song of death!
O loudly sing the Pillalu,
And many a tear of sorrow shed;
_Och orro, orro, Olalu_;
Mourn, for the master’s child is dead.
Thus singing they approached the castle, and thus amidst cries and
lamentations, was Sidney Albert, Marquis of Delaval, borne for ever
from its gates, and entombed with his ancestors in the vault of the
ancient church, which, for many hundred years, had received beneath its
pavement the successive generations of the family of Altamonte. Heartfelt
tears, more honourable to the dead than all the grandeur which his rank
demanded, were shed over his untimely grave; while a long mourning and
entire seclusion from the world, proved that the sorrow thus felt was
not momentary, but lasting as the cause which had occasioned it was great.