THE ABBESS' STORY.
"'Not the Duke of Hereward!'" echoed Salome, astonishment now overcoming
every other emotion in her bosom.
The abbess bowed her head in grave assent.
"'One whom you thought numbered with the dead, full twenty years ago?'"
continued Salome, quoting the lady's own words, and gazing on her face.
"Full twenty-five years ago, my daughter, or longer still," murmured the
abbess.
"This man is young. He could not have been grown up to manhood
twenty-five years ago."
"He is well preserved, as the selfish and heartless are too apt to be;
but he is not young."
"And he is not the Duke of Hereward?"
"Most certainly not the Duke of Hereward."
"Then in the name of all the holy saints, madam, _who_ is he?"
demanded Salome, in ever increasing amazement.
"He is the Count Waldemar de Volaski, once my betrothed husband, but who
forsook me, as I have told you, for another and a fairer woman," gravely
replied the abbess.
"Once your betrothed husband, madam! Great Heaven! are you sure of this?"
exclaimed Salome, in consternation.
"Yes, sure of it," answered the abbess, slowly bending her head.
"But--pardon me--I thought that _he_ had been killed in a duel by
the lover of the woman whom he had won."
"Even so thought I. The news of his falsehood and of his death at the
hands of the wronged lover, came to me in my convent retreat at the same
time, and I heard no more of him from that day to this, when I have again
seen him in the flesh. The saints defend us!"
"And you are absolutely certain that he was Count Waldemar?"
"I am absolutely certain."
"Mother Genevieve, did you know the woman who was with him?"
"No, not at all. I never saw or heard of her before. She seems to belong
to the _demi-monde_, for she dresses like a princess, and talks like
a peasant. Let us not speak of her," said the lady, coldly.
"We _must_ speak of her, for I think I know who she is."
"You recognize her, then?"
"I cannot say that I do; at least, not by her person. I never saw her
face before; but I have heard her voice under circumstances that rendered
it impossible for me ever to forget its tones; and from her voice I
believe her to be Rose Cameron, a Highland peasant girl of Ben Lone."
"Stop!" exclaimed the mother-superior, suddenly raising her hand. "You do
not mean to intimate that _she_ is the girl whom you overheard
talking with the young Duke of Hereward at midnight, under your balcony,
on the night before the murder of Sir Lemuel Levison?"
"She is the very same woman, as he is the very same man, who _planned_,
if they did not perpetrate the robbery--who _caused_, if they did not
commit, the murder; and their names are John Scott, Duke of Hereward, and
Rose Cameron."
"My daughter, in regard to the girl you may be quite right; but in
respect to the man you are utterly wrong."
"Should I not know my own betrothed husband?" demanded Salome,
impatiently.
"Should _I_ not know _mine_?" inquired the abbess, very
patiently.
Salome made a gesture of desperate perplexity, and then there was a
silent pause, during which the two women sat gazing in each other's faces
in silent wonder.
Suddenly Salome started up in wild excitement and began pacing the narrow
cell with rapid steps, exclaiming:
"There have been strange cases of counterparts in persons of this world
so exact as to have deceived the eyes of their most intimate friends. If
this should be a case in point! Great Heaven, if it should! If this
Count Waldemar de Volaski should be such a perfect counterpart of the
Duke of Hereward as to have deceived even my eyes and ears! Oh, what joy!
Oh, what rapture! What ecstacy to find 'the princely Hereward' as
stainless in honor as he is noble in name; and this most unprincipled
Volaski the real guilty party! But--the marriage certificate in
Hereward's own name! The letters to his so-called 'wife,' Rose Cameron,
in Hereward's own handwriting! Ah, no! there is no hope! not the faintest
beam of hope! And yet--"
She suddenly paused in her wild walk, and looked toward the abbess.
That lady was still sitting on the stool, at the foot of the cot, with
her hands folded on her lap, and her eyes cast down upon them as in deep
thought or prayer.
Salome sat down beside her, and inquired in a low tone:
"Mother Genevieve, was the Count Waldemar de Volaski ever in Scotland?
Has he been there within the last twelve months?"
The lady lifted her eyes to the face of the inquirer, and slowly replied:
"My daughter, how should I know? Have I not said that, until this day,
when I have seen him in the flesh standing in this room, I had believed
him to have been in purgatory for twenty-five years or more?"
"True! true!" sighed Salome.
The abbess folded her hands, cast down her eyes, and resumed her
meditations or prayers.
"You heard that he was killed in a duel, you say?" persevered Salome.
"Yes; the news of his treachery, and the news of his death at the hands
of the Duke of Hereward reached me at the same moment in this convent,
where I was then passing the first year of mourning for my parents. It
was that news which decided me to take the vail and devote my life and
fortune to the service of the Lord," said the lady, reverently bending
her head.
Salome sat staring stonily as one petrified. She was absolutely
speechless and motionless from amazement for the space of a minute
or more. Then suddenly recovering her powers, she exclaimed:
"Mother! Mother Genevieve! For Heaven's sake! Did I understand you? From
_whose_ hand did you hear Count Waldemar received his death in a
duel?"
"From the hand of the deeply injured husband, of course."
"But--who was he? Who? You mentioned a name!" wildly exclaimed Salome.
"Did I mention a name? Ah! what inadvertence! I never intended to let
that name slip out. I am very sorry to have done so. _Mea Culpa! Mea
Culpa! Mea maxima culpa!_" muttered the abbess, bending her head and
smiting her bosom.
"Mother Genevieve! Oh, do not trifle with me! _do_ not torture me!
I heard a name! Did I hear aright? Oh, I hope I did not! What name did
you murmur? Tell me! tell me! WHO met Count Waldemar in a
duel?" demanded Salome.
"I have no choice but to tell you now, though I would willingly have kept
the fact from you. It _was_ the Duke of Hereward, the late duke of
course, the deeply-wronged lover of that fair woman, who met, and, as I
heard, killed Count Waldemar de Volaski. But there were wrongs on both
sides, deep, deadly wrongs on every side!" moaned the lady, clasping her
hands convulsively and lowering her eyes.
"The Duke of Hereward! Heaven of heavens! the Duke of Hereward! Yes!
I heard aright the first time; but I could not believe my own ears! The
father of my betrothed!" murmured Salome, sinking back in her seat.
The abbess gravely bent her head.
"What of the frail woman? She was not--oh! no, she _could not_ have
been the mother of the present duke?"
"No," murmured the abbess, in a low voice.
"Mother Genevieve!" exclaimed Salome, suddenly, "will you tell me all you
know of this terrible story?"
"My daughter, my past is dead and buried these many years; so I would
leave it until the last great day of the Resurrection. Nevertheless, as
the story of my life is interwoven with that of the princely line in whom
you feel so deep an interest, I will relate it."
"Thanks, good mother," said Salome, nestling to her side and preparing
to listen.
"Not here, and not now, my child, can I enter upon the long, sorrowful,
shameful story--a story of pride, despotism and cruelty on one side; of
passion, wilfulness and recklessness on the other; of selfishness, sin
and ruin on all sides! Daughter, in almost every tale of sin and
suffering you will find that there has always been sin on _one_ side
and suffering on the _other_; but in this story _all_ sinned
deeply, all suffered fearfully!"
"Except yourself, sweet mother. You never sinned," said Salome, taking
the thin, pale hand of the lady and pressing it to her lips.
"_Mea culpa!_ I sin every hour of my life!" cried the abbess,
crossing herself.
"We all do; but you did not sin _there_," said the girl.
"I had no part--no active part, I mean--in that tale of guilt and woe.
I was a pupil here in this convent then, waiting to be brought out and
married to my betrothed. No, I had no part in that tragedy."
"Except the passive part of suffering."
"Ay, except the passive part of suffering; but hark, my child! the vesper
bell is ringing; it calls us to our evening worship: let us go to the
choir, and there forget all our earthly cares and seek the peace of
Heaven," said the pale lady, slowly rising from her seat.
"When will you tell me the story, good mother?" pleaded Salome, in a low
and deprecating tone.
"The vesper bell is ringing. The rules of the house must not be disturbed
by your individual necessities. After the evening service comes the
evening meal. Then, for me, my hour of rest in my cell; and for you, the
duty of seeing your infant charge put to bed. When all these matters have
been properly attended to, come to me in my cell. You will find me there.
We shall be uninterrupted until the midnight mass; and in the interim I
will tell you the story of a life that 'was lost, but is found, was dead,
but is alive'--_Benedicite_, my daughter!" said the abbess,
spreading her hands upon the bowed head of the girl, and solemnly
blessing her.
Then she glided away.
Salome soon followed her, and joined the procession of nuns to the
chapel.
As soon as she took her seat in the choir, she looked through the screen
over the congregation below, to see if the strangers were in the chapel;
but she saw them not.
When the vesper service was over, she took her tea with the nuns in their
refectory; and then returned to the play-room in the Infants' Asylum.
The nurses were engaged in giving the little ones their supper, and
putting them to bed.
Salome took up her own little Marie Perdue, to undress her.
As she divested the child of her little slip, something rolled out of its
bosom and dropped upon the floor.
One of the nurses picked it up and handed it to Salome.
It was a small, hard substance, wrapped in tissue paper.
Salome unrolled it and found a ring, set with a large solitaire diamond.
With a cry of surprise and pain, she recognized the jewel. It was her
late father's ring! While she gazed upon it in a trance of wonder, the
paper in which it had been wrapped, caught by a breeze from the open
window, fluttered under her eyes. She saw that there was writing on the
paper, and she took it up and read it.
"The ring must be sold for the benefit of the child and of the house that
has protected her. She must be educated to become a nun."
There was no signature to this paper.
Salome rolled it around the ring again, and put it in her bosom, then she
sent one of the nurses to call Sister Francoise.
When the old nun came into her presence, she inquired:
"Sister Francoise, you showed a lady and gentleman through the asylum,
this afternoon; they came into this room; they stopped and noticed little
Marie Perdue particularly. Did they ask any questions or make any remarks
concerning her? I have an especial reason for asking."
"Oh, yes, sister! they did ask many questions--when she came, how long
she had been, who took care of her, what was her name, and many more; and
as I answered them to the best of my knowledge, I could not help seeing
that they knew more about the child than I did," answered the nun,
nodding her head.
"Did the gentleman or lady give anything to the child?"
"Not that _I_ saw, which I thought unkind of them, considering all
the interest they showed in _words_; for, as I say of all the fine
ladies who come here and fondle the infants, what's the use of all the
fondling if they never put a sou out, or a stitch in?"
"That will do, sister; I only wanted to know," answered the young lady,
as she determined to keep her own counsel, and confide the news of the
surreptitiously offered ring to the abbess only.
When she had rocked her child to sleep, laid it on its little cot, and
placed two novices on duty to watch over the slumbers of the children,
she left the dormitory by the rectangular passage that led to the nuns'
house, and repaired at once to the cell occupied by the abbess.
It was a plain little den, in no respect better than those tenanted by
her humble nuns, twelve feet long, by nine broad, with bare walls, and
bare floor, and a small grated window at the farther end, opposite the
narrow, grated door by which the cell was entered. It was furnished
poorly with a narrow cot bed, a wooden stool, and a small stand, upon
which lay the office-book of the abbess, and above which hung the
crucifix.
As Salome entered the cell, the abbess arose from her knees and signed
for her visitor to be seated.
Salome sat down on the foot of the cot, and the abbess drew the stool and
placed herself near.
Then Salome saw the lady-superior was even paler and graver than usual;
and anxious as the young lady felt to hear the abbess' story, she thought
she would give her more time to recover, and even assist her in doing
so, by diverting her thoughts to the new incident of the ring, which she
produced and laid upon the mother's lap, saying:
"That was found by me in the bosom of little Marie Perdue's dress. It was
donated to the house, for the benefit of the child. Here is the scrap of
writing in which it was rolled."
The abbess silently took up the ring and the paper, and examined the
first and read the last, saying:
"Such mysterious donations to the children are not uncommon, and are
generally supposed to be offered by the unknown parents. This, however,
is by far the most valuable present that has ever been made by any one to
the institution, and must be worth at least a thousand Napoleons. It was
made by the visitors of this morning, I suppose?"
"Yes, madam, it was."
"I see, I understand. Take charge of it, my daughter, until we can
deliver it to the sister-treasurer," directed the lady-superior, as she
replaced the ring in its wrapper and returned both to Salome.
"But, mother, I wish myself to become the purchaser of this ring. I have
a thousand pounds with me. I will give them for the ring."
"My daughter!" exclaimed the abbess in surprise. "Why should you wish to
possess this bauble? It can be of no use to you in the life you are about
to enter, even if the rules of our order would permit you to retain it,
which you know they would not."
"Mother! it was my father's ring! It was a part of the property stolen
from him on the night of his murder," solemnly answered Salome.
"Holy saints! can that be true?" exclaimed the abbess.
"As true as truth. I know the ring well. He always wore it on his finger.
Inside the setting is his monogram, 'L.L.,' and his crest, a falcon,"
answered Salome, once more unwrapping the ring and offering it to the
inspection of the lady-superior.
"I see! I see! It is so. Ah, Holy Virgin! that it should have been
offered by Count Waldemar, or by him whom you overheard conspiring with
his female companion under the windows on the night of your father's
murder!" cried the abbess, covering her face with a fold of her black
vail.
"Count Waldemar, or the duke of Hereward, I know not which, I know not
whom. Oh! mother, this mystery grows deeper, this confusion more
confounded."
"Take back your ring, my child, and keep it without price. It was your
father's, and it is yours. We cannot receive stolen goods even as alms
offered to our orphans," said the abbess, dropping her vail and returning
the jewel.
"I will take it and keep it because it was my dear father's; but I will
give a full equivalent for its value. No one could object to that," said
Salome, as she replaced the ring in her bosom. "And now, Mother
Genevieve, will you tell me the promised story? It may possibly throw
some light even upon this dark mystery."
The pale abbess bowed assent, and immediately began the narrative, which,
for the Sake of convenience, we prefer to render in our own words.