“Sorrow seems pleased to dwell with so much sweetness;
And now and then a melancholy smile
Breaks loose like lightning on a winter's night
And shows a moment's day.”--_DRYDEN_
On the succeeding morning, when Lady Greville recovered sufficiently
from a succession of fainting fits to collect her remembrances of the
dreadful cause of her illness, she eagerly demanded of her attendants
in what manner, and by whom, she had been placed in her usual
sleeping-room. They replied, that Lord Greville had conveyed her there
insensible in his arms; and had summoned them in great agitation to her
assistance. He had since frequently sent to inquire after her health,
and had expressed great delight when the last message, announcing her
recovery, had reached him. But he came not himself to watch over her;
and though the shock she had received, had brought on an alarming degree
of fever, which confined her for several days to her room, he never
visited her chamber. Helen was the more surprised and pained by this
neglect, as she knew he made frequent visits to the sick bed of old
Alice, and she wept secretly and bitterly over this fresh proof of his
alienated love.
During the tedious hours of illness, the mental sufferings of the
neglected wife far exceeded those of her corporal frame. She could
reflect but on one subject--one idea, one pervading horrible idea had
taken possession of her soul. She felt that through every person to whom
she might impart her tale would listen with incredibility, and mockery,
that the truth of that awful visitation could not be questioned by her
own better judgment. She considered herself one
“To whom the world unknown
In all its shadowy shapes is shown.”
She shuddered over the remembrance of the past, she trembled from
apprehension of the future. The approach of night was beginning to
be terrible to her feelings; the very air appeared, to her disordered
imagination, instinct with being; low whisperings seemed to approach her
ears; and if the female attendant whom she had stationed by her bedside
disappeared for a moment, she instantly fancied she saw the noble figure
approach, that pale soft countenance once more gazing upon her, and
those cold lips about to address her; and in an agony of approaching
insanity, she prayed aloud to the God of all Grace, for deliverance
from the torture that assailed her. Her prayers were heard; for as
her constitution recovered from the shocks it had sustained, her mind
gradually returned to its wonted serenity; the impression of the event
became less vivid, and in less than a week she was enabled to resume her
accustomed habits.
Her return was more warmly greeted by Lord Greville than she had
expected. There was something of “long syne,” in his manner of welcoming
her to her sitting apartment, which rejoiced her warm and affectionate
heart. She did not, however, approach it without trembling; for it was
the lady's chamber. Her feelings were fortunately too much occupied by
the unusual kindness displayed by Lord Greville, and as she silently and
gratefully pressed the hand which led her to her seat, she was thankful
that he made no inquiries into the particular cause of her illness. She
knew that he treated all supernatural terrors with especial contempt,
and considered them as fit subjects for the discussion of the low-minded
and ignorant. She had formerly heard him reason soundly, and express
himself strongly, on the subject, and her own scepticism on the
possibility of spectral visitation, was principally owing to the
arguments she had heard from his lips. Frequently had he praised her in
former times, for her composure of mind in peril, and for her unfeminine
superiority to all ideal terrors; and she did not now dare provoke
his surprise and contempt by a revocation of her principles, or by a
relation of the mysterious event which had befallen her.
As soon as he left her, she descended into the court enclosed by the
quadrangle of the mansion; and as long as daylight lasted she continued
to walk there, in order to avoid the solitude of her own dreaded
apartment. As she traversed the pavement with hurried steps, she gazed
on the huge iron cross, and no longer regarded with indifference the
terrific legends attached to it. But at length the closing evening,
accompanied by tempestuous winds, compelled her to retire to the house.
Once more she found herself installed for the evening in the abhorred
chamber. All was as before--her husband was seated opposite to her in
the same chair, by the same lamp-light--the ticking of the time-piece
was again painfully audible from the wearisome stillness of the
apartment; and her own trembling hands were again lingering over the
embroidery-frame from which she dared not lift her eyes. Her heart beat
painfully, her breath became oppressed, and she ventured to steal a look
at her husband, who to her surprise was regarding her with an air
of affectionate interest. Relieved for a moment, she returned to her
occupation; but her former terrors soon overcame her. She would have
given worlds to escape from that room, from that dwelling, and wandered
she cared not how, she knew not wither, so she might be rescued from the
sight of that awful figure, from the sound of that dreaded voice.
The conflict in her mind became at length too strong for endurance;
and suddenly flinging down her work, she threw herself at her husband's
feet, and burying her face in his knees she sobbed aloud; “save me from
myself--save me, save me from _her_!” He raised her gently, and folded
her in his arms. “Save thee from whom, my beloved Helen?”
“Greville, believe me or not as thou wilt, but as the Almighty hears and
judges me, I have beheld the apparition of thy wife. I saw her freely,
distinctly, standing beside thee even where thou sittest; clearly
visible as the form of a living being; and she would have spoken, and
doubtless revealed some dreadful secret, had not the weakness of my
nature refused to support me. Oh! Greville, take me from this room--take
me from this house--I am not able to bear the horrible imaginings
which have filled my mind since that awful hour. My very brain is
maddened--oh! Greville, take me hence.”
Even in the agony of her fear, Helen started with delighted surprise to
feel the tears of her husband falling on her hand. Yes! he,--the stern
Greville, the estranged husband, moved by the deep distress manifested
in the appearance of his wife, acknowledged his sympathy by the first
tears shed in her presence.
“This is a mere phantasm of the brain,” said he at length, attempting to
regain his composure; “the coinage of a lively imagination which loves
to deceive itself by--but no,” continued he, observing her incredulous
and agonized expression of countenance, “no, my Helen, I will not longer
rack thy generous mind by these sufferings, however bitter the truth may
be to utter or to hear. Helen! it was no vision--no idle dream,--Helen,
it was a living form, a breathing curse to thee and me! Thou who hast
accused me of insensibility to thy charms, and to thine endearing
affection, judge of the strength of my love by the labyrinth of sin into
which it hath betrayed me. Helen, my wife still lives, and I am not thy
lawful husband.”
It was many hours before the unfortunate Lady Greville sufficiently
recovered her composure to understand and feel the full extent of the
fatal intelligence she had received, and the immediate bearing it must
have upon her happiness, her rights, and those of her child. As by
degrees the full measure of her misery unfolded to her comprehension,
she fell into no paroxysm of angry grief; she vented her despair in no
revilings against the guilty Greville. Sorrowfully indeed, but calmly,
she requested to be made acquainted with the whole extent of her
miserable destiny.
“Let me know the worst,” said she, “I have been long, too long deceived,
and the only mercy you can now bestow upon me is an unreserved and
unqualified confidence.”
But Lord Greville could not trust himself to make so painful a
communication in words, and after passing the night in writing, he
delivered to her the following relation:--
LORD GREVILLE'S HISTORY
“I need not dwell upon the occurrences of my childhood, I need
not relate the events which rendered my youth equally eventful and
distinguished. My early life was passed so entirely in the immediate
service of my sovereign, and in participation of the troubles and
dangers which disastrous times and a rebellious people heaped upon his
head, that the tenor of my life has been as public as his own.
“Yet Helen, forgive me for saying that I cannot even now, in this my
day of humiliation, but glory in the happy fortune which crowned with
success my efforts in the royal cause, both in the field and in the
cabinet, and won for me at once the affection of my king, and the
approbation of my fellow-countrymen, when I remember that to these
flattering testimonies I owe not only the friendship of your father, but
the first affections of his child. How frequently have you owned to me,
in our early days of joy and love, that long before we met, my public
reputation had excited the strongest interest in your mind--those days,
those happy days, when I was rich alike in the warmest devotion of
popular favour, and the approval of--but I must not permit myself to
indulge in fond retrospections; I must steel my heart, and calmly and
coldly relate the progress of my misery and guilt, and of its present
remorse and punishment.
“You have heard that soon after the restoration of Charles Stuart to the
throne of his ancestors, I was sent on a mission of great public
moment to the Hague, where I remained for nearly two years, and having
succeeded in the object of government, I returned home shortly after the
union of the king with the princess of Portugal. I was warmly received
by his majesty, and presented by him to the young queen, as one whom
he regarded equally as an affectionate friend, and as one of the most
faithful servants of the crown. Thus introduced to her notice, it is not
wonderful that my homage was most graciously received, and that I was
frequently invited to renew it by admission into the evening circle at
Whitehall. The very night after my arrival in London, I was called upon
to assist at a masque given on the anniversary of the royal nuptials,
at which their majesties alone, and their immediate attendants, were
unmasqued. The latter, indeed, were habited in character; but among
the splendidly-attired group of the maids of honour, I was surprised at
perceiving one, in a costume of deep mourning. Her extreme beauty and
the grace of her demeanour excited an immediate interest in her favour;
and her sable suit only served to render yet more brilliant, the
exquisite fairness and purity of her complexion.
“It was not so much the regular cast of her features as their sweet and
pensive expression which produced so strong an effect on the feelings.
At the moment I was first struck by her appearance, I happened to be
conversing with His Majesty who was making the tour of the apartment,
graciously leaning on my arm; and my attention was so completely
captivated by her surpassing loveliness, that the king could not fail
to perceive my absence of mind. 'How now, Charles, how now,' said he
kindly, 'twenty-four hours in the capital, and beauty-struck already?
which among our simple English maidens hath the merit of thus gaining
the approval of thy travelled eyes?--what Venus hath bribed the purer
taste of our new Paris? Ha! let me see--Lady Joscelyn? Lady--No! by
heaven,' said he following my looks, 'it is as I could wish, Theresa
Marchmont herself. How, man--knowest thou not the daughter of our old
comrade, who fell at my side in the unfortunate affair at Worcester?'
“The king took on an early opportunity of making my admiration known
to Her Majesty; and of requesting her permission for my introduction to
Miss Marchmont; who, although born of a family distinguished only by
its loyalty to the house of Stuart, having been recommended to the royal
attention from the loss of her only surviving parent in its cause, had
sufficiently won the good will of the monarch, by her beauty and elegant
accomplishments, to obtain a distinguished post about the person of the
new Queen.
“From this period, admitted as I was into the domestic circle of the
Royal household, I had frequent opportunities afforded me of improving
my acquaintance with Theresa; whose gentle and interesting manners more
than completed the conquest which her beauty had begun. Helen, I had
visited many foreign courts, and had been familiarized with the reigning
beauties of our own, at that time eminently distinguished by the
brilliancy of female beauty, but never in any station of life did
I behold a being so lovely in the expressive sadness of her fine
countenance, so graceful in every movement of her person. But this was
not all. Theresa possessed beyond other women that retiring modesty
of demeanour, that unsullied purity of look and speech, which made her
sufficiently remarkable in the midst of a licentious court, and among
companions whose levity at least equalled their loveliness. On making
more particular inquiries respecting her family connexions, I found that
they were strictly respectable, but of the middle class of life; and
that she had passed the period intervening between the death of her
father, General Marchmont, and her appointment at court, in the family
of an aged relative in the county of Devon, by whom indeed she had been
principally educated. It was at the dying instigation of this, her last
surviving friend and protector, that her destitute situation had been
represented to the king by the Lady Wriothesly, to whose good offices
she was indebted for her present honourable station. Being however, as
it were, friendless as well as dowerless, and backed in my suit by the
powerful assistance of the king's approbation, I did not anticipate much
opposition to my pretensions to the hand of Miss Marchmont, which
had now become the object of my dearest ambition. I knew myself to be
naturally formed for domestic life; and while the disastrous position
of public affairs had obliged me to waste the days of my early youth
in camps or courts, and in exile from my own hereditary possessions,
I resolved to pass the evening of my life in the repose of a happy and
well-ordered home in my native country.
“To the vitiated taste of the gallants of the court, many of whom might
have proved powerful rivals, had they been so inclined, marriage had
no attractions. The acknowledged distaste of Charles for a matrimonial
life, and his avowed infidelities, sanctioned the disdain of his
dissolute companions for all the more holy and endearing ties of
existence. I had therefore little to fear from competition; indeed among
the maids of honour of the Queen, whose situation threw them into
hourly scenes of revelry and dissipation, Theresa Marchmont, who was
universally acknowledged to be the loveliest of the train, excited less
than any those attentions of idle gallantry, which however, sought and
prized by her livelier companions, are offensive to true modesty. I
attributed this flattering distinction to the respect ensured by the
extreme _reténue_ and propriety of her manners, but I have had reason
since to ascribe the reserve of the courtiers to a less commendable
motive. On occasion of a masqued festival given by Her Majesty on her
birth-day at Kew, the king, in distributing the characters, allotted
to Miss Marchmont that of Diana. 'Your Majesty' said the Duchess of
Grafton, 'has judiciously assigned the part of the frigid goddess, to
the only statue of snow visible among us. _Mademoiselle se renchérit sur
son petit air de province, si glacial et si arrangé_,' continued
she, turning to the Comt de Gramont. 'Madam,' said the king, bowing
respectfully to Theresa, with all that captivating grace of address for
which he was distinguished, 'if every frozen statue were as lovely and
attractive as this, I should forget to wish for their animation; and
become myself a votary of the
“'Queen and huntress, chaste and fair!'
“'Ay,' whispered the Duke of Buckingham, 'even at the perilous risk of
being termed Charles, king and Lunatic.'
“This sobriquet of Diana had passed into a proverb; and such was
Theresa's character for coldness and reserve, that I attributed to her
temper of mind, the evident indifference with which she received my
attentions. Meeting her as I did, either in public assemblies, or in
the antechamber of the Queen among the other ladies in waiting, I had
no opportunity of making myself more particularly acquainted with her
sentiments and character. When I addressed her in the evening circle,
although she readily entered into conversation on general subjects,
and displayed powers of mind of no common order, yet, if I attempted
to introduce any topic, which might lead to a discussion of our mutual
situation, she relapsed into silence. At times her countenance became so
pensive, so touchingly sorrowful, that I could not help suspecting she
nourished some secret and hidden cause of grief; and once on hinting
this opinion to the king, who frequently in our familiar intercourse
rallied me on my passion for Theresa, and questioned me as to the
progress of my suit, he told me that Miss Marchmont's dejection was
generally attributed to her regret, for the loss of Lady Wriothesly, the
kind patroness who had first recommended her to his protection, and by
whose death, immediately before my return from Holland, she had lost her
only surviving friend. 'It remains to be proved,' added he, 'whether her
lingering affection for the memory of an old woman will yield readily to
her dawning attachment for her future husband.'
“Another suspicion sometimes crossed my mind, but in so uncertain a
form, that I could scarcely myself resolve the nature of the evil I
apprehended. I observed that Theresa constantly and anxiously watched
the eye of the king, whenever she formed a part of the royal suite; and
if she perceived his attention fixed on herself, or if he chanced to
approach the spot where she stood, she would turn abruptly to me, and
enter into conversation with an air of _empressement_, as though to
confirm his opinion of our mutual good understanding. Upon one occasion
as I passed through the gallery leading to the Queen's apartments, I
found His Majesty standing in the embrasure of a window, in earnest
conversation with Miss Marchmont. They did not at first perceive me; and
I had leisure to observe that Theresa was agitated even to tears. She
turned round at the sound of approaching footsteps, but betrayed no
distress at my surprising her in this unusual situation. In reply
to some observation of the King's, she answered with a respectful
inclination, 'Sir, I will not forget;' and left the gallery; while
Charles, gaily taking my arm, led me into the adjoining saloon, and
informed me that he had been pleading my cause with my fair tormentor,
as he was pleased to term her.
“'The worst torment I can be called to endure, Sire,' said I haughtily,
'is longer suspense; and I must earnestly request your Majesty's
gracious intercession of Miss Marchmont's early reply to my application
for the honour of her hand. Should it be refused, I must further entreat
your Majesty's permission to resign the post I so unworthily hold, in
order that I may be enabled to pass some years on the continent.'
“Charles appeared both startled and displeased by the firm tone of
resolution I had assumed. 'Were I inclined for idle altercation,'
answered he coldly, 'I might argue something for the dignity of the
fair sex, who have ever claimed their prescriptive right of holding us
lingering in their chains; and Lord Greville would do well to remember
that his services are too important to his country to be held on the
caprices of a silly girl's affected coyness. But be it so--since you
are so petulant a lover, be prepared when you join her Majesty's circle
to-night, to expect Miss Marchmont's answer.'
“It happened that there was a splendid fête given at the palace that
evening in honour of the arrival of a French ambassador. When I entered
the ball-room I caught the eye of the king, who was standing apart, with
his hand resting negligently on the shoulder of the Duke of Buckingham,
and indulging in an immoderate gaiety apparently caused by some
'foolborn jest,' of the favourite's; in which, I know not why, I
immediately suspected myself to be concerned. On perceiving my arrival
however, Charles forsook his station, and approaching me with the
graceful ease which rendered him at all times the most finished
gentlemen of his court, he took me affectionately by the hand, and
congratulating me on my good fortune, he led me to Theresa who was
seated behind her companions. Occupied as I was with my own happiness,
and with the necessity of immediately expressing my gratitude both to
Theresa and the King, I could not avoid being struck by the dreadful
paleness of her agitated countenance which contrasted frightfully
with her brilliant attire; for I now saw her for the first time out of
mourning for Lady Wriothesly. When I entreated her to confirm by words
the happy tidings I had learned from his Majesty, who had again returned
to the enlivening society of his noble buffoon, she spoke with an
unfaltering voice, but in a tone of such deep dejection, and with a
fixed look of such sorrowful resolution that I could scarcely refrain,
even in that splendid assemblage, from throwing myself at her feet, and
imploring her to tell me whether her consent had not been obtained by an
undue exertion of the royal authority. But there was always in Theresa
an apparent dread of every cause of emotion and excitement, which
made me feel that a wilful disturbance of her calm serenity would be
sacrilege.
“During the short period intervening between her consent and our
marriage, which by the command of the king, was unnecessarily and even
indecorously hastened, these doubts, these fears, constantly recurred to
my mind whenever I found myself in the presence of Theresa, but during
my absence I listened to nothing but the flattering insinuations of my
own heart, and I succeeded in persuading myself that her coldness arose
solely from maidenly reserve, and from the annoyance of being too
much the object of public attention. I remembered the sweetness of her
manner, when one day in reply to some fond anticipation of my future
happiness, she assured me, although she could not promise me at once
that ardour of affection which my present enthusiasm seemed to require,
that if a grateful and submissive wife could satisfy my wishes, I should
be possessed of her entire devotion. But although thus reassured, I
could scarcely divest myself of apprehension, and on the morning of our
nuptials, which took place in the Royal Chapel, in presence of the whole
court, her countenance wore a look of such deadly, such fixed despair,
that the joy even of that happy moment when I was about to receive the
hand of the woman I adored, before the altar of God, was completely
obliterated.
“She had been adorned by the hand of the Queen, by whom she was fondly
beloved, with all the splendour and elegance which could enrich her
lovely figure; and in the foldings of her bridal veil, her countenance
assumed a cast of such angelic beauty, that even Charles, as he
presented me with her hand, paused for a moment in delighted emotion
to gaze upon her. But even thus late as it was, and embarrassed by the
royal presence, I was so pained by her tears that I could keep silence
no longer. 'Theresa,' I whispered to her as we approached the altar, 'if
this marriage be not the result of your own free will, speak--it is
not yet too late. Heed not these preparations--fear not the King's
displeasure, I will take all upon myself. Speak to me dearest, deal with
me sincerely.--Theresa, are you willing to be mine?' She only replied by
bending her knee upon the gorgeous cushion before her. 'Hush!' said she
in a suppressed tone, 'hush! my lord--let us pray to the Almighty for
support,' and the service instantly began.”