Calantha’s jewels and costly attire—her equipages and attendants, were now
the constant topic of conversation. Every rich gift was ostentatiously
exhibited; while congratulations, were on all sides, poured forth, upon
the youthful bride. Lady Margaret, eagerly displaying the splendid store
to Calantha, asked her if she were not happy.—“Do not,” she replied
addressing her aunt, “do not fancy that I am weak enough to value these
baubles:—My heart at least is free from a folly like this:—I despise this
mockery of riches.” “You despise it!” repeated Lady Margaret, with an
incredulous smile:—“you despise grandeur and vanity! Child, believe one
who knows you well, you worship them; they are your idols; and while your
simple voice sings forth romantic praises of simplicity and retirement,
you have been cradled in luxury, and you cannot exist without it.”
Buchanan was now daily, nay even hourly expected:—Lady Margaret, awaited
him with anxious hope; Calantha with increasing fear. Having one morning
ridden out to divert her mind from the dreadful suspense under which she
laboured, and meeting with Sir Everard, she enquired of him respecting
her former favourite: “Miss Elinor,” said the doctor, “is still with
her aunt, the abbess of Glanaa; and, her noviciate being over, she will
soon, I fancy, take the veil. You cannot see her; but if your Ladyship
will step from your horse, and enter into my humble abode, I will shew
you a portrait of St. Clara, for so we now call her, she being indeed a
saint; and sure you will admire it.” Calantha accompanied the doctor, and
was struck with the singular beauty of the portrait. “Happy St. Clara,
she said, and sighed:—your heart, dedicated thus early to Heaven, will
escape the struggles and temptations to which mine is already exposed.
Oh! that I too, might follow your example; and, far from a world for
which I am not formed, pass my days in piety and peace.”
That evening, as the Duke of Altamonte led his daughter through the
crowded apartments, presenting her to every one previous to her marriage,
she was suddenly informed that Buchanan was arrived. Her forced spirits,
and assumed courage at once forsook her; she fled to her room; and
there giving vent to her real feelings, wept bitterly.—“Yet why should
I grieve thus?” she said:—“What though he be here to claim me? my hand
is yet free:—I will not give it against the feelings of my heart.”—Mrs.
Seymour had observed her precipitate flight, and following, insisted
upon being admitted. She endeavoured to calm her; but it was too late.
From that day, Calantha sickened:—the aid of the physician, and the
care of her friends were vain:—an alarming illness seized upon her mind,
and affected her whole frame. In the paroxysm of her fever, she called
repeatedly upon Lord Avondale’s name, which confirmed those around her
in the opinion they entertained, that her malady had been occasioned by
the violent effort she had made, and the continual dread under which
she had existed for some time past, of Buchanan’s return. Her father
bitterly reproached himself for his conduct; watched by her bed in anxious
suspense; and under the impression of the deepest alarm, wrote to his old
friend the admiral, informing him of his daughter’s danger, and imploring
him to urge Lord Avondale to forget what had passed and to hasten again
to Castle Delaval.—He stated that, to satisfy his sister’s ambition,
the greater part of his fortune should be settled upon Buchanan, to
whom his title descended; and if, after this arrangement, Lord Avondale
still continued the same as when he had parted from Calantha, he only
requested his forgiveness of his former apparent harshness, and earnestly
besought his return without a moment’s loss of time.
His sister, he strove in vain to appease:—Lady Margaret was in no temper
of mind to admit of his excuses. Her son had arrived and again left the
castle, without even seeing Calantha; and when the Duke attempted to
pacify Lady Margaret, she turned indignantly from him, declaring that
if he had the weakness to yield to the arts and stratagems of a spoiled
and wayward child, she would instantly depart from under his roof, and
never see him more. No one event could have grieved him so much, as this
open rupture with his sister. Yet his child’s continued danger turned
his thoughts from this, and every other consideration:—he yielded to her
wishes:—he could not endure the sight of her misery:—he had from infancy
never refused her slightest request:—and could he now, on so momentous
an occasion, could he now force her inclinations and constrain her choice.
The kind intentions of the Duke were however defeated. Stung to the soul,
Calantha would not hear of marriage with Lord Avondale:—pride, a far
stronger feeling than love, at that early period, disdained to receive
concessions even from a father:—and a certain moroseness began to mark
her character, as she slowly recovered from her illness, which never
had been observed in it before. She became austere and reserved; read
nothing but books of theology and controversy; seemed even to indulge
an inclination for a monastic life; was often with Miss St. Clare; and
estranged herself from all other society.
“Let her have her will,” said Lady Margaret, “it is the only means of
curing her of this new fancy.”—The Duke however thought otherwise: he
was greatly alarmed at the turn her disposition seemed to have taken,
and tried every means in his power to remedy and counteract it.—A year
passed thus away; and the names of Buchanan and Lord Avondale were
rarely or never mentioned at the castle; when one evening, suddenly and
unexpectedly, the latter appeared there to answer in person, a message
which the Duke had addressed to him, through the Admiral, during his
daughter’s illness.
Lord Avondale had been abroad since last he had parted from Calantha; he
had gained the approbation of the army in which he served; and what was
better, he knew that he deserved it. His uncle’s letter had reached him
when still upon service. He had acted upon the staff; he now returned
to join his own regiment which was quartered at Leitrim; and his first
care, before he proceeded upon the duties of his profession, was to seek
the Duke, and to claim, with diminished fortune and expectations, the
bride his early fancy had chosen.—“I will not marry him—I will not see
him:”—These were the only words Calantha pronounced, as they led her
into the room where he was conversing with her father.
When she saw him, however, her feelings changed. Every heart which has
ever known what it is to meet after a long estrangement, the object of
its first, of its sole, of its entire devotion, can picture to itself
the scene which followed. Neither pride, nor monastic vows, nor natural
bashfulness, repressed the full flow of her happiness at the moment,
when Lord Avondale rushed forward to embrace her, and calling her his
own Calantha, mingled his tears with hers.—The Duke, greatly affected,
looked upon them both. “Take her,” he said, addressing Lord Avondale, and
be assured, whatever her faults, she is my heart’s pride—my treasure. Be
kind to her:—that I know you will be, whilst the enthusiasm of passion
lasts: but ever be kind to her, even when it has subsided:—remember she
has yet to learn what it is to be controuled.” “She shall never learn
it,” said Lord Avondale, again embracing Calantha: “by day, by night, I
have lived but in this hope:—she shall never repent her choice.” “The God
of Heaven vouchsafe his blessing upon you,” said the Duke.—“My sister
may call this weakness; but the smile on my child’s countenance is a
sufficient reward.”