The letters from her father, Lady Avondale refused to read. Many
remonstrances passed between herself and the duke’s servant. The result
was a slow journey in the dark night, over a part of the country
which was said to be infested by the marauders. No terror alarmed
Lady Avondale, save that of losing a last, an only opportunity of
once more seeing her husband—of throwing herself upon his mercy—of
imploring him to return to his family, even though she were exiled
from it. “Yet, I will not kneel to him, or ask it. If when he sees
me, he has the heart to refuse me,” she cried, “I will only shew him
my child; and if he can look upon it, and kill its mother, let him do
it. I think in that case—yes, I do feel certain that I can encounter
death, without a fear, or a murmur.”
The carriage was at this time turning down a steep descent, when some
horsemen gallopping past, bade them make way for Sir Richard Mowbrey.
Calantha recognized the voice of the servant: it was the same who
had occasioned her so much alarm at the inn near Baron Moor. But the
nurse exclaimed in terror that it was one of the rebels: she knew
him, she said, by his white uniform; and the presence alone of the
admiral, in the duke’s carriage, convinced her of her mistake. “Thanks
be to heaven,” cried she the moment she beheld him, “it is in rail
earnest the old gentleman.” “Thanks be to heaven,” said Calantha,
“he either did not recognize me, or cares not to prevent my journey.”
“We’ll, if it isn’t himself,” said the nurse, “and the saints above
only know why he rides for pleasure, this dismal night, over these
murderous mountains; but at all events he is well guarded. Alack! we
are friendless.”
Lady Avondale sighed as the nurse in a tremulous voice ejaculated these
observations; for the truth of the last remark gave it much weight.
But little did she know at the moment, when the admiral passed, how
entirely her fate depended on him.
It was not till morning they arrived at Kelly Cross. “Bless my heart,
how terrible you look. What’s the matter, sweet heart?” said the
nurse as they alighted from the carriage.—“Look up, dear.—What is the
matter?”—“Nurse, there is a pressure upon my brain, like an iron hand;
and my eyes see nothing but dimness. Oh God! where am I! Send, oh
nurse, send my aunt Seymour—Call my—my husband—tell Lord Avondale to
come—is he still here?—There’s death on me: I feel it here—here.”—“Look
up, sweet dear:—cheer yourself:—you’ll be better presently.” “Never
more, nurse—never more. There is death on me, even as it came straight
upon my mother. Oh God!”—“Where is the pain?” “It came like ice upon
my heart, and my limbs feel chilled and numbed.—Avondale—Avondale.”
Calantha was carried to a small room, and laid upon a bed. The waiter
said that Lord Avondale was still at the inn. The nurse hastened to
call him. He was surprised; but not displeased when he heard that Lady
Avondale was arrived. He rushed towards her apartment. Sir Richard
was with him. “By G—d, Avondale, if you forgive her, I will never
see you more. Whilst I live, she shall never dwell in my house.”
“Then mine shall shelter her,” said Lord Avondale, breaking from Sir
Richard’s grasp: “this is too much;” and with an air of kindness,
with a manner gentle and affectionate, Lord Avondale now entered, and
approached his wife. “Calantha,” he said, “do not thus give way to
the violence of your feelings. I wish not to appear stern.—My God!
what is the matter?” “Your poor lady is dying,” said the nurse. “For
the love of mercy, speak one gracious word to her.” “I will, I do,”
said Lord Avondale, alarmed. “Calantha,” he whispered, without one
reproach, “whatever have been your errors, turn here for shelter to
a husband’s bosom. I will never leave you. Come here, thou lost one.
Thou hast strayed from thy guide and friend. But were it to seal
my ruin, I must, I do pardon thee. Oh! come again, unhappy, lost
Calantha. Heaven forgive you, as I do, from my soul.—What means this
silence—this agonizing suspense?”
“She faints,” cried the nurse. “May God have mercy!” said Lady
Avondale. “There is something on my mind. I wish to speak—to tell—your
kindness kills me. I repent all.—Oh, is it too late?”—It was.—For
amendment, for return from error, for repentance it was too late.
Death struck her at that moment. One piercing shriek proclaimed his
power, as casting up her eyes with bitterness and horror, she fixed
them upon Lord Avondale.
That piercing shriek had escaped from a broken heart. It was the
last chord of nature, stretched to the utmost till it broke. A cold
chill spread itself over her limbs. In the struggle of death, she
had thrown her arms around her husband’s neck; and when her tongue
cleaved to her mouth, and her lips were cold and powerless, her eyes
yet bright with departing life had fixed themselves earnestly upon
him, as if imploring pardon for the past.
Oh, resist not that look, Avondale! it is the last. Forgive her—pity
her: and if they call it weakness in thee thus to weep, tell them
that man is weak, and death dissolves the keenest enmities. Oh! tell
them, that there is something in a last look from those whom we have
once loved, to which the human soul can never be insensible. But
when that look is such as was Calantha’s, and when the last prayer
her dying lips expressed was for mercy, who shall dare to refuse and
to resist it? It might have rent a harder bosom than thine. It may
ascend and plead before the throne of mercy. It was the prayer of a
dying penitent:—it was the agonizing look of a breaking heart.
Weep then, too generous Avondale, for that frail being who lies so
pale so cold in death before thee. Weep; for thou wilt never find
again another like her. She was the sole mistress of thy affections,
and could wind and turn thee at her will. She knew and felt her power,
and trifled with it to a dangerous excess. Others may be fairer, and
more accomplished in the arts which mortals prize, and more cunning
in devices and concealment of their thoughts; but none can ever be
so dear to Avondale’s heart as was Calantha.