Husband, husband, I’ve the ring
Thou gavest to-day to me;
And thou to me art ever wed,
As I am wed to thee!
LITTLE’S POEMS.
“The remainder of that dreadful night when Isidora disappeared, had been
passed almost in despair by Donna Clara, who, amid all her rigour and
chilling mediocrity, had still the feelings of a mother--and by Fra
Jose, who, with all his selfish luxury and love of domination, had a
heart where distress never knocked for admittance, that she did not find
pity ready to open the door.
“The distress of Donna Clara was aggravated by her fear of her husband,
of whom she stood in great awe, and who, she dreaded, might reproach her
with unpardonable negligence of her maternal authority.
“In this night of distress, she was often tempted to call on her son for
advice and assistance; but the recollection of his violent passions
deterred her, and she sat in passive despair till day. Then, with an
unaccountable impulse, she rose from her seat, and hurried to her
daughter’s apartment, as if she imagined that the events of the
preceding night were only a fearful and false illusion that would be
dispersed by the approach of day.
“It seemed, indeed, as if they were, for on the bed lay Isidora in a
profound sleep, with the same pure and placid smile as when she was
lulled into slumber by the melodies of nature, and the sound was
prolonged in her dream by the whispered songs of the spirits of the
Indian Ocean. Donna Clara uttered a shriek of surprise, that had the
singular effect of rousing Fra Jose from a deep sleep into which he had
fallen at the approach of day. Starting at the sound, the good-natured,
pampered priest, tottered into the room, and saw, with incredulity that
slowly yielded to frequent application to his obstinate and adhesive
eye-lids, the form of Isidora extended in profound slumber.
“Oh what an exquisite enjoyment!” said the yawning priest, as he looked
on the sleeping beauty without another emotion than that of the delight
of an uninterrupted repose.--“Pray, don’t disturb her,” he said, yawning
himself out of the room--“after such a night as we all have had, sleep
must be a very refreshing and laudable exercise; and so I commend you to
the protection of the holy saints!”--“Oh reverend Father!--Oh holy
Father!” cried Donna Clara clinging to him, “desert me not in this
extremity--this has been the work of magic--of infernal spirits. See how
profoundly she sleeps, though we are speaking, and it is now
day-light.”--“Daughter, you are much mistaken,” answered the drowsy
priest; “people can sleep soundly even in the day-time; and for proof
send me, as I am now retiring to rest, a bottle of Foncarral or
Valdepenas--not that I value the richest vintage of Spain from the
Chacoli of Biscay to the Mataro of Catalonia,(12) but I would never have
it said that I slept in the day-time, but for sufficient
reason.”----“Holy Father!” answered Donna Clara, “do you not think my
daughter’s disappearance and intense slumber are the result of
preternatural causes?”--“Daughter,” answered the priest, contracting his
brows, “let me have some wine to slake the intolerable thirst caused by
my anxiety for the welfare of your family, and let me meditate some
hours afterwards on the measures best to be adopted, and then--when I
awake, I will give you my opinion.”----“Holy Father, you shall judge for
me in every thing.”--“It were not amiss, daughter,” said the priest
retiring, “if a few slices of ham, or some poignant sausages,
accompanied the wine--it might, as it were, abate the deleterious
effects of that abominable liquor, which I never drink but on
emergencies like these.”--“Holy Father, they shall be ordered,” said the
anxious mother--“but do you not think my daughter’s sleep is
supernatural?”--“Follow me to mine apartment, daughter,” answered the
priest, exchanging his cowl for a night-cap, which one of the numerous
household obsequiously presented him, “and you will soon see that sleep
is a natural effect of a natural cause. Your daughter has doubtless
passed a very fatiguing night, and so have you, and so have I, though
perhaps from very different causes; but all those causes dispose us to a
profound repose.--I have no doubt of mine--fetch up the wine and
sausages--I am very weary--Oh I am weak and worn with fasts and
watching, and the labours of exhortation. My tongue cleaves to the roof
of my mouth, and my jaws cling together,--perhaps a draught or two might
dissolve their parching adhesion. But I do so hate wine----why the devil
don’t you fetch up the bottle?”
(12) Vide Dillon’s travels through Spain.
“The attendant domestic, terrified by the tone of wrath in which the
last words were uttered, hurried on with submissive expedition, and Fra
Jose sat down at length in his apartment to ruminate on the calamities
and perplexities of the family, till he was actually overcome by the
subject, and exclaimed in a tone of despair, “Both bottles empty! Then
it is useless to meditate further on this subject.” * * * * *
“He was roused at an earlier hour than he wished, by a message from
Donna Clara, who, in the distress of a weak mind, accustomed always to
factitious and external support, now felt as if every step she took
without it, must lead to actual and instant perdition. Her fear of her
husband, next to her superstitious fears, held the strongest power over
her mind, and that morning she called Fra Jose to an early consultation
of terror and inquietude.--Her great object was to conceal, if possible,
the absence of her daughter on that eventful night; and finding that
none of the domestics appeared conscious of it, and that amid the
numerous household, only _one aged servant was absent_, of whose absence
no one took notice amid the superfluous multitude of a Spanish
establishment, her courage began to revive. It was raised still higher
by a letter from Aliaga, announcing the necessity of his visiting a
distant part of Spain, and of the marriage of his daughter with Montilla
being deferred for some months----this sounded like reprieve in the ears
of Donna Clara--she consulted with the priest, who answered in words of
comfort, that if Donna Isidora’s short absence were known, it was but a
slight evil, and if it were not known, it was none at all,--and he
recommended to her, to ensure the secresy of the servants by means that
he swore by his habit were infallible, as he had known them operate
effectively among the servants of a far more powerful and extensive
establishment.--“Reverend Father,” said Donna Clara, “I know of no
establishment among the grandees of Spain more splendid than
ours.”--“But I do, daughter,” said the priest, “and the head of that
establishment is--the Pope;--but go now, and awake your daughter, who
deserves to sleep till dooms-day, as she seems totally to have forgotten
the hour of breakfast. It is not for myself I speak, daughter, but I
cannot bear to see the regularity of a magnificent household thus
interrupted; for myself, a basin of chocolate, and a cluster of grapes,
will be sufficient; and to allay the crudity of the grapes, a glass of
Malaga.--Your glasses, by the bye, are the shallowest I ever drank out
of--could you not find some means to get from Ildefonso(13) glasses of
the right make, with short shanks and ample bodies? Yours resemble those
of Quichotte, all limbs and no trunk. I like one that resembles his
squire, a spacious body and a shank that may be measured by my little
finger.”--“I will send to St Ildefonso this day,” answered Donna
Clara.--“Go and awake your daughter first,” said the priest.
(13) The celebrated manufactory for glass in Spain.
“As he spoke, Isidora entered the room--the mother and the priest both
stood amazed. Her countenance was as serene, her step as equal, and her
mein as composed, as if she were totally unconscious of the terror and
distress her disappearance the preceding night had caused. To the first
short silence of amazement, succeeded a storm of interrogations from
Donna Clara and Fra Jose in concert--why--where--wherefore--and what,
and with whom and how--that was all they could articulate. They might as
well have spared themselves the trouble, for neither that day nor many
following, could the remonstrances, intreaties, or menaces of her
mother, aided by the spiritual authority and more powerful anxiety of
the priest, extort from her a word of explanation on the cause of her
absence that awful night. When closely and sternly pressed, Isidora’s
mind seemed to assume something of the wild but potent spirit of
independence, which her early habits and feelings might have
communicated to her. She had been her own teacher and mistress for
seventeen years, and though naturally gentle and tractable, when
imperious mediocrity attempted to tyrannize over her, she felt a sense
of disdain which she expressed only by profound silence.
“Fra Jose, incensed at her obstinacy, and trembling for the loss of his
power over the family, threatened to exclude her from confession, unless
she disclosed to him the secret of that night--“Then I will confess to
God!” said Isidora. Her mother’s importunity she found it more difficult
to resist, for her feminine heart loved all that was feminine even in
its most unattractive shape, and the persecution from that quarter was
alike monotonous and unremitting.
“There was a weak but harassing tenacity about Donna Clara, that is the
general adjunct to the female character when it combines intellectual
mediocrity with rigid principle. When she laid siege to a secret, the
garrison might as well capitulate at once.--What she wanted in vigour
and ability, she supplied by a minute and gnawing assiduity. She never
ventured to carry the fort by storm, but her obstinacy blockaded it till
it was forced to surrender. But here even _her_ importunity
failed.--Isidora remained respectfully, but resolutely silent; finding
matters thus desperate, Donna Clara, who had a fine talent for keeping
as well as discovering a secret, agreed with Fra Jose not to utter a
syllable of the business to her father and brother.--“We will show,”
said Donna Clara, with a sagacious and self-approving nod, “that we can
keep a secret as well as she.”--“Right, daughter,” said Fra Jose,
“imitate her in the only point in which you can flatter yourself with
the hope of resemblance. * * * * * * * *
“The secret was, however, soon disclosed. Some months had elapsed, and
the visits of her husband began to give an habitual calm and confidence
to the mind of Isidora. He imperceptibly was exchanging his ferocious
misanthropy for a kind of pensive gloom.--It was like the dark, cold,
but unterrific and comparatively soothing night, that succeeds to a day
of storm and earthquake. The sufferers remember the terrors of the day,
and the still darkness of the night feels to them like a shelter.
Isidora gazed on her espoused with delight, when she saw no longer his
withering frown, or more withering smile; and she felt the hope that the
calm purity of female hearts always suggests, that its influence will
one day float over the formless and the void, like the spirit that moved
upon the face of the waters; and that the unbelieving husband may yet be
saved by the believing wife.
“These thoughts were her comfort, and it was well she had thoughts to
comfort her, for facts are miserable allies when imagination fights its
battle with despair. On one of those nights that she expected Melmoth,
he found her employed in her usual hymn to the Virgin, which she
accompanied on her lute. “Is it not rather late to sing your vesper hymn
to the Virgin after midnight?” said Melmoth with a ghastly smile. “Her
ear is open at all times, I have been told,” answered Isidora.--“If it
is, then, love,” said Melmoth, vaulting as usual through the casement,
“add a stanza to your hymn in favour of me.”--“Alas!” said Isidora,
dropping her lute, “you do not believe, love, in what the Holy Church
requires.”--“Yes, I do believe, when I listen to you.”--“And only
then?”--“Sing again your hymn to the Virgin.”
“Isidora complied, and watched the effect on the listener. He seemed
affected--he motioned to her to repeat it. “My love,” said Isidora,
“is not this more like the repetition of a theatrical song called
for by an audience, than a hymn which he who listens to loves his
wife better for, because she loves her God.”--“It is a shrewd
question,” said Melmoth, “but why am I in your imagination excluded
from the love of God?”--“Do you ever visit the church,” answered the
anxious Isidora. A profound silence.--“Do you ever receive the Holy
Sacrament?”--Melmoth did not utter a word.--“Have you ever, at my
earnest solicitation, enabled me to announce to my anxious family the
tie that united us?”--No answer.--“And now--that--perhaps--I dare not
utter what I feel! Oh! how shall I appear before eyes that watch me
even now so closely?--what shall I say?--a wife without a husband--a
mother without a father for her child, or one whom a fearful oath has
bound her never to declare! Oh! Melmoth, pity me,--deliver me from this
life of constraint, falsehood, and dissimulation. Claim me as your
wedded wife in the face of my family, and in the face of ruin your
wedded wife will follow--will cling to--will perish with you!” Her
arms clung round him, her cold but heart-wrung tears fell fast on his
cheek, and the imploring arms of woman supplicating for deliverance
in her hour of shame and terror, seldom are twined round us in vain.
Melmoth felt the appeal--it was but for a moment. He caught the white
arms extended towards him--he fixed an eager and fearful look of
inquiry on his victim-consort, as he asked--“And is it so?” The pale
and shuddering wife shrunk from his arms at the question--her silence
answered him. The agonies of nature throbbed audibly in his heart. He
said to himself--it is mine--the fruit of affection--the first-born
of the heart and of nature--mine--mine,--and whatever becomes of me,
there shall yet be a human being on earth who traces me in its external
form, and who will be taught to pray for its father, even when its
prayer falls parched and hissing on the fires that burn for ever, like
a wandering drop of dew on the burning sands of the desert! * * * * * *
* * *
“From the period of this communication, Melmoth’s tenderness for his
wife visibly increased.
“Heaven only knows the source of that wild fondness with which he
contemplated her, and in which was still mingled something of ferocity.
His warm look seemed like the glow of a sultry summer day, whose heat
announces a storm, and compels us by its burning oppression, to look to
the storm almost for relief.
“It is not impossible that he looked to some future object of his
fearful experiment--and a being so perfectly in his power as his own
child, might have appeared to him fatally fitted for his purpose--the
quantum of misery, too, necessary to qualify the probationer, it was
always in his own power to inflict. Whatever was his motive, he assumed
as much tenderness as it was possible for him to assume, and spoke of
the approaching event with the anxious interest of a human father.
“Soothed by his altered manner, Isidora bore with silent sufferance the
burden of her situation, with all its painful accompaniments of
indisposition and dejection, aggravated by hourly fear and mysterious
secresy. She hoped he would at length reward her by an open and
honourable declaration, but this hope was expressed only in her patient
smiles. The hour approached fast, and fearful and indefinite
apprehensions began to overshadow her mind, relative to the fate of the
infant about to be born under circumstances so mysterious.
“At his next nightly visit, Melmoth found her in tears.
“Alas!” said she in answer to his abrupt inquiry, and brief attempt at
consolation, “How many causes have I for tears--and how few have I shed?
If you would have them wiped away, be assured it is only your hand can
do it. I feel,” she added, “that this event will be fatal to me--I know
I shall not live to see my child--I demand from you the only promise
that can support me even under this conviction”--Melmoth interrupted her
by the assurance, that these apprehensions were the inseparable
concomitants of her situation, and that many mothers, surrounded by a
numerous offspring, smiled as they recollected their fears that the
birth of each would be fatal to them.
“Isidora shook her head. “The presages,” said she, “that visit me, are
such as never visited mortality in vain. I have always believed, that as
we approach the invisible world, its voice becomes more audible to us,
and grief and pain are very eloquent interpreters between us and
eternity--quite distinct from all corporeal suffering, even from all
mental terror, is that deep and unutterable impression which is alike
incommunicable and ineffaceable--it is as if heaven spoke to us alone,
and told us to keep its secret, or divulge it on the condition of never
being believed. Oh! Melmoth, do not give that fearful smile when I speak
of heaven--soon I may be your only intercessor there.” “My dear saint,”
said Melmoth, laughing and kneeling to her in mockery, “let me make
early interest for your mediation--how many ducats will it cost me to
get you canonized?--you will furnish me, I hope, with an authentic
account of legitimate miracles--one is ashamed of the nonsense that is
sent monthly to the Vatican.” “_Let your conversion be the first miracle
on the list_,” said Isidora, with an energy that made Melmoth
tremble--it was dark--but she felt that he trembled--she pursued her
imagined triumph--“Melmoth,” she exclaimed, “I have a right to demand
one promise from you--for you I have sacrificed every thing--never was
woman more devoted--never did woman give proofs of devotion like mine. I
might have been the noble, honoured wife of one who would have laid his
wealth and titles at my feet. In this my hour of danger and suffering,
the first families in Spain would have been waiting round my door.
Alone, unaided, unsustained, unconsoled, I must undergo the terrible
struggle of nature--terrible to those whose beds are smoothed by the
hands of affection, whose agonies are soothed by the presence of a
mother--who hears the first feeble cry of her infant echoed by the joy
of exulting noble relatives. Oh Melmoth! what must be mine! I must
suffer in secresy and in silence! I must see my babe torn from me before
I have even kissed it,--and the chrism-mantle will be one of that
mysterious darkness which your fingers have woven! Yet grant me one
thing--one thing!” continued the suppliant, growing earnest in her
prayer even to agony; “swear to me that my child shall be baptised
according to the forms of the Catholic church,--that it shall be a
Christian as far as those forms can make it,--and I shall feel that, if
all my fearful presages are fulfilled, I shall leave behind me one who
will pray for his father, and whose prayer may be accepted. Promise
me,--swear to me,” she added, in intenser agony, “that my child shall be
a Christian! Alas! if my voice be not worthy to be heard in heaven, that
of a cherub may! Christ himself suffered children to come unto him while
on earth, and will he repel them in heaven?--Oh! no,--no! he will not
repel _yours_!”
“Melmoth listened to her with feelings that it is better to suppress
than explain or expatiate on. Thus solemnly adjured, however, he
promised that the child should be baptised; and added, with an
expression which Isidora’s delight at this concession did not give her
time to understand, that it should be a Christian as far as the rites
and ceremonies of the Catholic church could make it one. While he added
many a bitter hint of the inefficacy of any external rites--and the
impotentiality of any hierarchy--and of the deadly and desperate
impositions of priests under every dispensation--and exposed them with a
spirit at once ludicrous and Satanic,--a spirit that mingled ridicule
with horror, and seemed like a Harlequin in the infernal regions,
flirting with the furies, Isidora still repeated her solemn request that
her child, if it survived her, should be baptised. To this he assented;
and added, with a sarcastic and appalling levity,--“And a Mahometan, if
you should change your mind,--or any other mythology you please to
adopt;--only send me word,--priests are easily obtained, and ceremonies
cheaply purchased! Only let me know your future intentions,--when you
know them yourself.”--“I shall not be here to tell you,” said Isidora,
replying with profound conviction to this withering levity, like a cold
winter day to the glow of a capricious summer one, that blends the
sunshine and the lightning;--“Melmoth, I shall not be here then!” And
this energy of despair in a creature so young, so inexperienced, except
in the vicissitudes of the heart, formed a strong contrast to the stony
apathy of one who had traversed life from Dan to Beersheba, and found
all barren, or--made it so.
“At this moment, while Isidora wept the cold tears of despair, without
daring to ask the hand of him she loved to dry them, the bells of a
neighbouring convent, where they were performing a mass for the soul of
a departed brother, suddenly rung out. Isidora seized that moment, when
the very air was eloquent with the voice of religion, to impress its
power on that mysterious being whose presence inspired her equally with
terror and with love. “Listen,--listen!” she cried. The sounds came
slowly and stilly on, as if it was an involuntary expression of that
profound sentiment that night always inspires,--the reverberating
watch-word from sentinel to sentinel, when wakeful and reflecting minds
have become the “watchers of the night(14).” The effect of these sounds
was increased, by their catching from time to time the deep and
thrilling chorus of the voices,--these voices more than harmonized, they
were coincident with the toll of the bell, and seemed like them set in
involuntary motion,--music played by invisible hands.
(14) He called unto me out of Seir, Watchman, what of the
night?--Watchman, what of the night?----ISAIAH.
“Listen,” repeated Isidora, “is there no truth in the voice that speaks
to you in tones like these? Alas! if there be no truth in religion,
there is none on earth! Passion itself evanishes into an illusion,
unless it is hallowed by the consciousness of a God and of futurity.
That sterility of the heart that forbids the growth of divine feeling,
must be hostile also to every tender and generous sentiment. _He who is
without a God must be without a heart!_ Oh, my love, will you not, as
you bend over my grave, wish my last slumbers to have been soothed by
sounds like these,--wish that they may whisper peace to your own?
Promise me, at least, that you will lead your child to my
tomb-stone,--that you will suffer it to read the inscription that tells
I died in the faith of Christ, and the hope of immortality. Its tears
will be powerful pleaders to you not to deny it the consolation that
faith has given me in hours of suffering, and the hopes with which it
will illuminate my parting hour. Oh promise me this at least, that you
will suffer your child to visit my grave--that is all. Do not interrupt
or distract the impression by sophistry or levity, or by that wild and
withering eloquence that flashes from your lips, not to enlighten but to
blast. You will not weep, but you will be silent,--leave Heaven and
nature free to their work. The voice of God will speak to its heart, and
my spirit, as it witnesses the conflict, will tremble though in
paradise,--and, even in heaven, will feel an added joy, when it beholds
the victory won. Promise me, then,--swear to me!” she added, with
agonizing energy of tone and gesture. “Your child shall be a Christian!”
said Melmoth.