DEERHURST.
Next morning, when the seal was taken off the lips of the object of
their care, he expressed in grateful terms his deep sense of the
humanity which had actuated both the gentleman to take so generous an
interest in his fate.
"You owe no thanks to me," replied the one who had enjoined and
released him from silence, and who was now alone with him; "I am only
the agent of another. Yet I do not deny that, in obeying the
benevolent orders of Sir Robert Somerset, I have frequent
opportunities of gratifying my own heart."
Thaddeus was so confounded at this discovery that he could not speak,
and the gentleman proceeded.
"I am apothecary to Sir Robert's household, and as my excellent
employer has been long afflicted with an ill state of health, I live
in a small Lodge at the other end of the park. He is the boast of the
county: the best landlord and the kindest neighbor. All ranks of
people love him; and when he dies, (which his late apoplectic fits
make it too probable may be soon,) both poor and rich will lose their
friend. Ill as he was this morning, when I told him you were out of
danger, he expressed a pleasure which did him more good than all my
medicines."
Not considering the wildness of the question, Thaddeus hastily
demanded, "Does he know who I am?"
The honest apothecary stared at the look and tone with which these
words were delivered, and then replied, "No, sir; is there any reason
to make you wish that he should not?"
"Certainly none," replied Thaddeus, recollecting himself; "but I
shall be impatient until I have an opportunity of telling him how
grateful I am for the goodness he has shown to me as a stranger."
Surprised at these hints, (which the count, not considering their
tendency, allowed to escape him,) the apothecary gathered sufficient
from them, united with the speaker's superior mien, to make him
suppose that his patient was some emigrant of quality, whom Sir
Robert would rejoice in having served. These surmises and conclusions
having passed quickly through the worthy gentleman's brain, he bowed
his head with that respect which the generous mind is proud to pay to
nobility in ruins, and resumed:
"Whoever you may be, sir, a peasant or a prince, you will meet with
British hospitality from the noble owner of this mansion. The
magnificence of his spirit is equalled by the goodness of his heart;
and I am certain that Sir Robert will consider as fortunate the
severe attack which, bringing him from Somerset for change of air,
has afforded him an opportunity of serving you."
Thaddeus blushed at the strain of this speech. Readily understanding
what was passing in the mind of the apothecary, he hardly knew what
to reply. He paused for a moment, and then said, "All you have
declared, sir, in praise of Sir Robert Somerset I cannot doubt is
deserving. I have already felt the effects of his humanity, and shall
ever remember that my life was prolonged by his means; but I have no
pretensions to the honor of his acquaintance. I only wish to see him,
that I may thank him for what he has done; therefore, if you will
permit me to rise this evening, instead of to-morrow morning, you
will oblige me."
To this request the apothecary gave a respectful yet firm denial, and
went down stairs to communicate his observations to his patron. When
he returned, he brought back a request for his patient from the
baronet, even as a personal consideration for his host's solicitude
concerning him, to remain quietly in the perfect repose of his closed
chamber until next day; then it might be hoped Sir Robert would find
him sufficiently recovered to receive his visit without risk. To this
Sobieski could not but assent, in common courtesy, as well as in
grateful feeling; yet he passed in anything but repose the rest of
the day, and the anxiety which continued to agitate him while
reflecting that he was receiving these obligations from his
implacable enemy so occupied and disturbed him, that he spent a
sleepless night. The dawn found his fever much augmented; but no
corporeal sufferings could persuade him to defer seeing the baronet
and immediately leaving his house. Believing, as he did, that all
this kindness would have been withheld had his host known on whom he
was pouring such benefits, he thought that every minute which passed
over him while under Sir Robert's roof inflicted a new outrage on his
own respect and honor.
To this end, then, as soon as Mr. Middleton, the apothecary, retired
to breakfast, Thaddeus rose from his bed, and was completely dressed
before he returned. He had effected this without any assistance, for
he was in possession of his travelling-bag. One of the outriders
having discerned it amongst the herbage, while the others were busied
in carrying its helpless owner to the carriage, he had picked it up,
and on the arrival of the party at home, delivered it to the
baronet's valet to convey to the invalid gentleman's chamber, justly
considering that he would require its contents.
When Mr. Middleton re-entered the apartment, and saw his patient not
only risen from his bed, but so completely dressed, he expostulated
on the rashness of what he had done, and augured no less than a
dangerous relapse from the present increased state of his pulse.
Thaddeus, for once in his life, was obstinate, though civilly so; and
desiring a servant to request that Sir Robert would indulge him with
an audience for a few minutes alone in his library, he soon convinced
Mr. Middleton that his purpose was not to be shaken.
The baronet returning his compliments, and saying that he should be
happy to see his guest, the still anxious apothecary offered him his
assistance down stairs. Thaddeus needed no help, and gratefully
declined it. The exertion necessary to be summoned for this interview
imparted as much momentary strength to his frame as to his mind, and
though his color was heightened, he entered the library with a firm
step.
Sir Robert met him at the door, and, shaking him by the hand with a
warm assurance of pleasure at so rapid a restoration, would have led
him to a seat; but Thaddeus only supported himself against the back
of it with his hand, whilst in a steady voice he expressed the most
earnest thanks for the benefits he had received; then pausing, and
casting the proud lustre of his eyes to the ground, lest their
language should tell all that he thought, he continued, "I have only
to regret, Sir Robert, that your benevolence has been lavished on a
man whom you regard with abhorrence. I am the Count Sobieski, that
Polander whom you commanded your son to see no more. Respecting even
the prejudices of my friend's parent, I was hastening to London,
meaning to set sail for America with the first ship, when I swooned
on the road. I believe I was expiring. Your humanity saved me; and I
now owe to gratitude, as well as to my own satisfaction, the
fulfilment of my determination. I shall leave Deerhurst immediately,
and England as soon as I am able to embark."
Thaddeus with a second bow, and not quite so firm a step, without
venturing a glance at what he supposed must be the abashed or the
enraged looks of Pembroke's father, was preparing to quit the room,
when Sir Robert, with a pale and ghastly countenance, exclaimed,
"Stop!"
Thaddeus looked round, and struck by the change in his preserver's
appearance, paused in his movement. The baronet, incapable of saying
more, pointed to a chair for him to sit down; then sinking into
another himself, took out his handkerchief, and wiping away the large
drops which stood on his forehead, panted for respiration. At last,
with a desperate kind of haste, he said.
"Was your mother indeed Therese Sobieski?"
Thaddeus, still more astonished, replied in the affirmative. Sir
Robert threw himself back on the chair with a deep groan. Hardly
knowing what he did, the count rose from his seat and advanced
towards him. On his approach, Sir Robert stretched out his hand, and,
with a look and tone of agony, said, "Who was your father?" He then,
without waiting for a reply, covered his convulsed features with his
handkerchief. The baronet's agitation, which now shook him like an
earthquake, became contagious. Thaddeus gazed at him with a palsying
uncertainty in his heart; laying his hand on his bewildered brain, he
answered, "I know not; yet I fear I must believe him to be the Earl
of Tinemouth. But here is his picture." With an almost disabling
tremor he unclasped it from his neck where his mother's last blessing
had placed it, and touching the spring which held it in its little
gold case in the manner of a watch, he gave it open to Sir Robert,
who had started from his seat at the name of the earl. The moment the
baronet's eyes rested on the miniature, he fell senseless upon the
chair.
Thaddeus, hardly more alive, sprinkled some water on his face, and
with throbbing temples and a bleeding heart stood in wordless
expectation over him. Such excessive emotion told him that something
more than Sir Robert's hatred of the Polanders had stimulated his
late conduct. Too earnest for an explanation to ring for assistance,
he rejoiced to see, by the convulsion of the baronet's features and
the heaving of his chest, that animation was returning. In a few
minutes he opened his eyes, but when he met the anxious gaze of
Thaddeus, he closed them as suddenly. Rising from his seat, he
staggered against the chimney-piece, exclaiming, "Oh God, direct me!"
Thaddeus, whose conjectures were now wrought almost to wildness,
followed him, and whilst his exhausted frame was ready to sink to the
earth, he implored him to speak.
"Sir Robert," cried he, "if you know anything of my family, if you
know anything of my father, I beseech you to answer me. Or only tell
me: am I so wretched as to be the son of Lord Tinemouth?"
The violence of the count's emotions during this agonizing address
totally overcame him; before he finished speaking, his limbs withdrew
their support, and he dropped breathless against the side of the
chair.
Sir Robert turned hastily round. He saw him sunk, like a beautiful
flower, bruised and trampled on by the foot of him who had given it
root. Unable to make any evasive reply to this last appeal of virtue
and of nature, he threw himself with a burst of tears upon his neck,
and exclaimed, "Wretch that I have been! Oh, Sobieski! I am thy
father. Dear, injured son of the too faithful Therese!"
The first words which carried this avowal to the heart of Thaddeus
deprived it of motion, and when Sir Robert expected to receive the
returning embrace of his son, he found him senseless in his arms.
The cries of the baronet brought Mr. Middleton and the servants into
the room. When the former saw the state of the count, and perceived
the agonized position of his patron, (who was supporting and leaning
over his son,) the honest man declared that he expected nothing less
from the gentleman's disobedience of his orders. The presence of the
servants having recalled Sir Robert's wandering faculties, he desired
them to remove the invalid with the greatest care back to his
chamber. Following them in silence, when they had laid their charge
on the bed, he watched in extreme but concealed suspense till Mr.
Middleton once more succeeded in restoring animation to his patient.
The moment the count unclosed his eyes, they fixed themselves on his
father. He drew the hand which held his to his lips. The tears of
paternal love again bathed the cheeks of Sir Robert; he felt how warm
at his heart was the affection of his deserted son. Making a sign for
Mr. Middleton to leave the room, who obeyed, he bent his streaming
eyes upon the other hand of Thaddeus, and, in a faltering voice, "Can
you pardon me?"
Thaddeus threw himself on his father's bosom, and wept profusely;
then raising Sir Robert's clasped hands to his, whilst his eloquent
eyes seemed to search the heavens, he said, "My dear, dear mother
loved you to her latest hour; and I have all my mother's heart.
Whatever may have been his errors, I love and honor my father."
Sir Robert strained him to his breast. After a pause, whilst he shook
the tears from his venerated cheeks, he resumed--"Certain, my dear
son, that you require repose, and assured that you will not find it
until I have offered some apology for my unnatural conduct, I will
now explain the circumstances which impelled my actions, and drew
distress upon that noble being, your mother."
Sir Robert hesitated a moment to recover breath, and then, with the
verity of a grateful penitence, commenced.
"Keep your situation," added he, putting down Thaddeus, who at this
opening was raising himself, "I shall tell my melancholy story with
less pain if your eyes be not upon me. I will begin from the first."
The baronet, with frequent agitated pauses, proceeded to relate what
may be more succinctly expressed as follows: Very early in life he
had attached himself to Miss Edith Beaufort, the only sister of the
late Admiral Beaufort, who at that time was pursuing his chosen brave
career as post-captain in the British navy. By the successive deaths
of their parents, they had been left young to the guardianship of Sir
Fulke Somerset and their maternal aunt, his then accomplished lady:
she and their deceased mother, the Lady Grace Beaufort, having been
sisters--the two celebrated beautiful daughters of Robert Earl
Studeley of Warwick.
Sir Fulke's family by the amiable twin of the Lady Grace were Robert
(who afterwards succeeded him) and Dorothy his only daughter. But he
had a son by a former marriage with the brilliantly-endowed widow of
a long-resident governor in the East, who having died on his voyage
home to England, on her landing she found herself the sole inheritrix
of his immense wealth. She possessed charms of person as well as
riches, and as soon as "her weeds" could be laid aside, she became
the admired wife of the "gay and gallant" Sir Fulke Somerset. Within
the twelve subsequent months she presented him with a son and heir,
soon to be her own too; for though she lived three or four years
after his birth, her health became so delicate that she never bore
another child, but gradually declined, and ultimately expired while
apparently in a gentle sleep.
Sir Fulke mourned his due time "in the customary suit of solemn
black;" but he was a man of a lofty and social spirit, by no means
inclined to be disconsolate, and held "a fair help-mate" to be an
indispensable appendage to his domestic state. In this temper, (just
before the election of a new parliament, when contending interests
were running very close,) he obtained the not less eagerly disputed
hand of Lady Arabella Studeley, whose elder sister (as has been
mentioned) had made a magnificent marriage, only a year or two
before, with John of Beaufort, the lord of the noble domain of
Beaufort in the Weald of Kent--a lineal endowment from his princely
ancestor, John of Gaunt. This illustrious pair dwelt on the land,
like its munificent owners in the olden times, revered and beloved;
and they were the parents of their two equally-honored representatives--
Guy, afterwards Admiral Beaufort, and Edith, who subsequently became
the adored wife of her also tenderly-beloved cousin, Robert Somerset.
But before that fondly-anticipated event took place, the young lover
had to pass through a path of thorns, some of which pierced him to
the end. From his childhood to manhood, he saw little of Algernon,
his elder brother, who always seemed to him more like an occasional
brilliant phantom, alighting amongst them, than a dear member of the
family coming delightedly to cheer and to share his paternal home.
Algernon was either at Eaton school, or at one of the universities,
or travelling somewhere on the continent; and at all these places, or
from them all, he became the enchanted theme of every tongue.
Meanwhile, Robert--though, perhaps, equally endowed by nature yet
certainly of a milder radiance--was the object of so apprehensive a
solicitude in his gentle mother's breast for the puritas well as the
intellectual accomplishments of her son, that she obtained Sir
Fulke's reluctant consent to his being brought up in what is called
"a home education;" that is, under the especial personal care of the
best private tutors, and which were found to the great credit of her
judgment. He showed an ardent devotedness to his studies; and though,
like his mother, he was one of the mildest of human beings in his
dealings with those around him, yet his aspirations towards high
attainments were as energetic as they were noiseless, and ever on
steady wind soaring upward. Robert Somerset was then unconsciously
forming himself for what he afterwards became--the boast of the
country of his birth, the glory of England, to whose prosperity he
dedicated all his noble talents, showing what it is to be a true
English country gentleman. Being alike "the oak or laurel" of "Old
England's fields and groves."
"With sickle or with sword,
Or bardic minstrelsy!"
he was permitted to pass a term or two at Oxford, where he acquitted
himself with honor, particularly in the classics, to the repeated
admiration of their then celebrated professor, the late Thomas
Warton. But the young student was also fond of rural pursuits and
domestic occupations. He lived mostly at home, enjoying the gentle
solace of elegant modern literature and the graces of music, with the
ever blameless delights of an accomplished female society, at the
head of which his revered mother had presided, accompanied by his
lively sister Dorothy and the sweet Edith Beaufort, whom he had
gradually learned to love like his own soul. His heart became yet
more closely knit to her when his beloved parent died, which sad
event occurred about a year after the death of Edith's own mother,
who on her widowhood had continued to live more with her sister, Lady
Arabella Somerset, than at her bereaved home. Edith's filial sorrow
was renewed in the loss of her maternal aunt, and her tenderest
sympathy reciprocated the tears of her son. Their hearts blended
together in those tears, and both felt that "they were comforted."
Time did not long pass on before the happy Robert communicated their
mutual attachment to his father, petitioning for his consent to woo
for the hand of her whose heart he had already gained. But the
baronet, in some surprise at what he heard, refused to give his
sanction to any such premature engagement, first, on account of the
applicant's "extreme youth;" and second, being a younger scion of his
house, it might not be deemed well of in the world should he, the
guardian of his niece and her splendid fortune, show so much haste to
bestow her on his comparatively portionless son. The baronet, with
some of his parliamentary acumen, drew another comparison, which
touched the disappointed lover with a feeling almost of despair. He
compared what he denominated his romantic fancies for "woods and
wilds," and book-worm pursuits in the old crypts of the castle or the
college, with the distinguished consideration held by his travelled
brother in courts and councils, whether abroad or at home, closing
the parallel by telling him "to follow Algernon's example, and become
more like a man of some account amongst men before he dared pretend
to a hand of so much importance as that of the heiress of Beaufort."
Robert was standing silent and dismayed, as one struck by a thunder-
flash, when his brother (who had been only a month arrived from a
long revisit to the two Sicilies) suddenly entered his father's
library, as Sir Fulke had again resumed his discourse with even more
severity. At sight of the animated object of his contrasting eulogy,
he instantly described to his new auditor what had been mutually
said, and referred the subject to him.
"Romance, indeed! whether in merry Sherwood, with hound and horn, or
with gentle dames in bower and hall, you have had enough of, my
brother," replied the gay-spirited traveller. "Neither men nor women
like philandering after deer or doe, or a lady's slipper, beyond the
greenwood season. So I say, for the glory of your manhood up and
away! Abroad, abroad! My father is right. That is the only ground for
such a race and guerdon as you aspire to. I admire your taste, and
not less your ambition, my brave boy. Do not thwart him, Sir Fulke,"
added he, to the baronet, who began to frown: "let him enter the
lists with the boldest of us; faint heart never won fair lady! So,
forward, Robert! and give me another sweet sister to love and to
cherish as I do our blithe little Dora."
At this far from unwelcome advice, Robert smiled and sighed; but the
smile swallowed up the sigh, for his soul kindled with hope. His
father smiled also; the cloud of a stern authority had passed from
his brow, and before that now perfectly reconciled party rose, it was
decided that Robert should make immediate preparations for commencing
a regulated course of continental travels, the route to be drawn out
by his brother and his expenses in the tour to be liberally supplied
by his father. The length of the probation was not then thought on,
at least not mentioned. Shortly afterwards, when Robert hastened from
the library to communicate what had passed to the beloved object of
the discussion, he left his father and his brother together to think
and to plan all the rest for him.
But Edith Beaufort wept when she heard of the separation; her heart
failed within her. For since her first coming under the roof of her
guardian uncle, she had never been without seeing her brother-like
cousin beyond a few days or weeks at most. He was now going to be
banished (and, it was asserted, for her sake too) into far distant
countries, and for an indefinite period--months, perhaps years. And
these saddening thoughts made her weep afresh, though silently; for
her full-flowing tears were soft and noiseless, like the heart from
whence they sprung. Robert, with all his now sanguine expectations,
sought to cheer her, but in vain. She felt an impression, that should
he go, they would never meet again. But she did not betray that
feeling to him; yet the infection of her despondency, by its
continuance, so wrought on his own consequent depressed spirits, that
when his father announced to him that his absence must be for two or
three years at least, he ventured to remonstrate, beseeching that it
might be limited to the shorter term of two years. The baronet
derided the proposal, with many words of contempt towards the urgent
pleader. Robert withheld from disclosing to the too often hard mind
of his father that the proposition he so scorned had originated in
the tender bosom of Edith Beaufort, and Sir Fulke's sarcasm fell so
thick on the bending head of his son, that at last the insulted
feelings of the generous lover became so indignant at the little
confidence placed in the real manliness of his character, which had
hitherto been found ever present when actually called for, that his
heart began to swell to an almost uncontrollable exasperation, and
while struggling to master himself from uttering the disrespectful
retort risen to his lips, his brother again accidentally entered the
room, and by giving Robert the moment to pause, happily rescued his
tottering duty from that regretful offence.
As soon as Algernon appeared, the baronet resumed his sarcastic tone,
in a rapid recapitulation of Robert's retrograde request. Algernon
again took up the cause of his brother, and, with his usual tact,
gained the victory, by the dexterous gayety with which he pleaded for
the young noviciate in all the matters for which he was to be sent so
far afield to learn. At last the conference ended by Sir Fulke
agreeing to a proposition from his eldest son,--that the time for
this foreign tutelage might possibly expire within the second year,
should the results evoked by the ambitious passion of his youngest
born be in any fair progress to fulfilment.
In little more than a week after this final arrangement, every
preparation was finished for the wildly-contemplated tour. Robert had
taken a heart-plighting adieu from his beloved Edith. But by his
father's positive injunction, there was no engagement for a hereafter
actual plighting of hands made between them. Yet their eloquent eyes,
transparent through their mutual tears, vowed it to each other, and
with silent prayers for his indeed early return, they parted.
When taking leave of his father, and receiving his directions
relative to a correspondence with his family, permission was
peremptorily denied him to hold any with his cousin Edith. He had
learned enough lately to avoid all supplications to the paternal
quarter, if he would not invite scorn as well as to receive
disappointment. But Algernon whispered to him "that nobody should
remain wholly _incognita_ to him in that house while he dipped
pen in any one of the three hundred and sixty-five inkhorns under its
awful towers!" Robert then bowed his farewell with a flushed cheek
and grave respect to his father, but gratefully separated from his
brother with a warm pressure of the hand. The old household servants
blessed him as he passed through the hall, and in a few minutes he
found himself seated in the family post-chaise and four that was to
convey him from the home of his youth and happy innocence, and, alas!
to return to it "an altered man."
When he reached Dover to embark, he fell in with the present Earl of
Tinemouth, then Mr. Stanhope, sent abroad on a similar errand with
himself. But Stanhope's was to forget a mistress--Somerset's to merit
the one he sought. The two young men were kinsfolk by birth, and they
now felt themselves so in severing from their parents. Stanhope was
in high wrath against his, and he soon rekindled the already excited
mind of Somerset to a responsive demonstration of resentment. They
determined to show that "they were not such boys as to submit any
further in passive obedience to the stern authority dominating over
them." Sir Fulke's particular charge against his son was a "womanish
softness, unworthy his loftier sex!" "Show him," cried Stanhope, that
"you have the hardihood of a true man by an immediate act of
independence. Let us travel together, kinsmen as we are, change our
names, and let no one in England know anything about us during our
tour except the two dear women on whose accounts we are thus
transported!"
With these views they landed in France, gave themselves out to be
brothers (which a certain resemblance in their persons corroborated),
and called themselves Sackville. Agreeably amused with the novelties
presented to them at almost every step of their tour from gay Paris
to sentimental Italy, they proceeded pretty amicably until they
reached Naples. There Mr. Stanhope involved himself in an intrigue
with the only daughter of an old British officer, who had retired to
that climate for his health. Somerset remonstrated on the villany of
seducing an innocent girl, when he knew his heart and hand were
pledged to another. Stanhope, enraged at finding a censor in a
companion whom he had considered to be as headstrong as himself,
ended the argument by drawing his sword, and if the servants of the
hotel had not interfered, the affray would probably have terminated
with one of their lives. Since that hour they never met. Mr. Stanhope
fled from his shame and his bleeding friend, and, fearful of
consequences, took temporary refuge in one of the Aonian Isles, not
daring to proceed any further against the innocence of the poor
officer's daughter, who had been thus rescued from becoming his
victim!
When recovered from his wound, Robert Somerset (by some strange
infatuation still retaining the name of Sackville) proceeded to
Florence, in which interesting city, for works of art, ancient and
modern, and the graces of classic society, determining to stay some
time, he rather sought than repelled the civilities of the
inhabitants. Here he became acquainted with the palatine, and the
lovely Countess Therese, his daughter. Her beauty pleased his taste;
her gentle virtues and exquisite accomplishments affected both his
heart and mind; and he often gazed on her with tenderness, when his
fidelity to Edith Beaufort only meant him to convey a look of
grateful admiration. The palatine honored England, and was prepared
to esteem her sons wherever he might meet them; and very soon he
became so attached to this apparently lonely young traveller, that he
invited him to all the excursions he and his daughter made into the
adjoining states, whether visiting them by the romantic scenery of
the land-roads, or coasting the beautiful bays of the sublime shores
on either side of those parts of the Mediterranean.
In the midst of this intimacy, as if she were aware of a friendship
so hostile to his cousin's love, he suddenly ceased to receive any
remembrance-messages from her to him, in the two last letters from
his brother,--for he had never allowed himself to so brave his
father's parting commands as to write to her himself. Desperate with
jealousy of some unknown object supplanting him, he was on the point
of setting off for home, to judge with his own eyes, when a large
packet from England was put into his hands. On opening it he found a
letter from Edith, on which his surprised and eager gaze had
immediately fixed. Without looking on any of the rest, he broke the
seal, and read, astounded by the contents, "that having for some time
been led to consider the probable consequences to him, both from his
father's better judgment and the ultimate opinion of the world,
should he and she continue their pertinacious adherence to their
childish attachment, she had tried to wean both him and herself from
so rebellious a folly towards her revered guardian, his honored
father; and trusting that the gradual shortening of her cousin-like
messages to him, through his brother's letters, must have had the
effect intended, she now had permission to write one herself to him,
to convince him at once of the unreasonableness and danger of all
such premature entanglements. For," she added, "soon after his
departure, a journey to town had taught her to know her own heart.
She learned to feel that it was still at her disposal; and time did
not long pass after she returned to the country before, having
compared the object of her awakened taste with that of her former
delusion, she persuaded her own better judgment to set a generous
example to her ever-dear cousin Robert, by marrying where that
judgment now pointed. And so, with the full consent of Sir Fulke (who
she well knew had been totally averse to her marriage with his
youngest son), she had yielded to the long love of his brother, which
had been struggling in his manly bosom many agonizing months against
his persistent fidelity to Robert, but whose sister she hoped to
shortly become, as his affectionate Edith--then Somerset."
Having read this extraordinary epistle to the end, so monstrous in
the character of its sentiments and its language, when compared with
all he had hitherto known of the pure and simple mind from which it
came, a terrible revulsion seized on his own, and, almost maddened
with horror at every name in that letter, he foreswore his family
forever! Hastening, as for one drop of heaven's dew upon his burning
brain, to seek Therese Sobieski, he found her alone, and though
without such aim when he rushed so frenzied into her presence, he
besought her "to heal a miserable and broken heart, which could only
be saved to endure any continuance of life by an acknowledgment that
she loved him!" Alas! the avowal was too soon wrung from that tender
and noble spirit! and yielding to a paroxysm of a rash and blinding
revenge, he hurried her to a neighboring convent and secretly married
her.
This most unrighteous act perpetrated, he in vain sought
tranquillity. He was now stung within by a constant sense of
increasing guilt. Before this act he was the injured party--injured
by those in whom he had confided his dearest earthly happiness; and
he could raise his head in conscious truth, though all his fondest
hopes had been wrecked by their falsehood. But now he was the
betrayer of a young and innocent heart, which had implicitly trusted
in him. And he had insulted with a base and treacherous ingratitude,
by that act of deceit, without excuse, the honor of her father, whose
generous confidence had also been implicitly placed in him. But the
effects of these scorpion reproaches in his bosom were not less
destructive of her peace than of his own. He saw that his wedded
Therese was unweariedly anxious to soothe the mysterious wanderings
of his mind with her softest tenderness. But his thoughts were,
indeed, far from her, ever hovering over the changed image of his so
lately adored Edith--ever agonizing over the lightness of a conduct
so unlike her former virgin delicacy, so unlike the clinging vows she
breathed to him in their hour of boding separation!--ever execrating
the perfidy of his brother, which had brought on him this distracting
load of guilt and woe!
In this temper of alienation from all the world, a second packet from
England was put into his hand. Again he saw Edith's writing; but he
dropped it unopened, in horror of the signature he anticipated would
be appended to it. Roused by resentment towards him whose name he
believed she then bore, he tore asunder the wax of a letter from his
father, which was sealed with black. His eyes were speedily riveted
to it. Sir Fulke, in the language of deep contrition, confessed a
train of deception that petrified his son. He declared, with bitter
invectives against himself, that all which had been communicated to
that unhappy son relating to Edith and her intended marriage with
Algernon had been devised by that unkind brother, and his no less
unnatural father, for the treacherous purpose of that marriage.
Devoted to ambition for his own sake, as well as for that of his
favorite son, Sir Fulke owned that he had from the first of Edith
Beaufort's becoming his ward resolved on her union in due time with
Algernon, in order to endow him, in addition to his own rich
inheritance, with all the political influence attendant on the vast
estate to which she was heiress, and so build up the family, in the
consideration of government, to any pitch of coroneted rank their
high-reaching parent might choose to reclaim.
With many prayers for pardon from Heaven and the cruelly-injured
Robert, the wretched father acknowledged that this confession was
wrung from him by the sudden death of his eldest son, who having been
thrown off his horse on a heap of stones in the high-road, after
three days of severe bodily and mental suffering, now lay a sadly-
disfigured corpse, under the vainly mourning blazonry of his house,
in the darkened hall of his ancestors. The disconsolate narrator then
added, "that in contrite repentance his son had conjured him, with
his dying breath, to confess the falsehood of all that had passed to
the grossly-abused Robert;" amongst which, was Algernon turning to
the account of his own designs every confidence imparted to him by
his brother, in his _incognito_ movements, and awakened intimacy
with the noble Sarmatian family at Florence. And from these
unsuspected sources, this false friend and kinsman had contrived to
throw out hints of his brother's reported sliding heart to the
shrinking object of his own base and perfidious passion. At last,
believing Robert to be unfaithful, she sunk into a depression of
spirits which Sir Fulke thought would be easy to work to an assent,
in mere reckless melancholy, to the union he sought. With that
object, and to break the knot at once by a trenchant blow on Robert's
side, Algernon forged that letter in Edith Beaufort's handwriting
which had announced so unblushingly her preparations for an immediate
marriage with the eldest son.
"But," continued Sir Fulke, "death has put an end to this unnatural
rivalry. And my poor girl, undeceived in her opinion of you, longs to
see you, and to give you that hand which your ill-fated brother and
infatuated father so unjustly detained from you. You are now my only
son, the only prop of my house, the only comfort of my old age! My
son, do not abandon to his remorse and sorrow your only parent."
On receipt of this packet, in a consternation of amazement, and a
soul divided between rekindled love in all its fires and pity and
honor towards her he had betrayed before the altar of heaven, Robert
Somerset sacrificed both to his imperious passion. He adored the
woman on whose account he had left the country, and though every tie,
sacred and just, bound him to the tender and faithful wife he must
forsake to regain that idol, he at once consigned her to the full
horrors of desertion and hastened to England.
"Disgraceful to relate!" ejaculated Sir Robert, putting his hand over
his face, "I married Edith Beaufort, while in our deepest mourning,
but at Somerset, as the place farthest from general notice. My
father, eager to efface as fast as possible from my mind and hers all
recollection of his past conduct towards us, had prepared everything
splendid, though private, for our union; and in her blissful,
restored possession, I forgot for a while Therese and her agonies.
But when my dear Pembroke first saw the light, when I pressed him to
my heart, it seemed as if in the same instant a dagger pierced it.
When I would have breathed a blessing over him, the conviction struck
me that I durst not--that I had deluded the mother who gave him
birth, and that at some future period he might have cause to curse
the author of his existence.
"Well," continued the baronet, wiping his forehead, "though the birth
of this boy conjured up the image of your mother, to haunt me day and
night, I never could summon moral courage to inquire of her destiny
after I had left her. When the troubles of Poland commenced, what a
dreadful terror seized me! The successes of their allied enemies, and
the consequent distress and persecution of the chief nobility,
overwhelmed me with apprehension. I knew not but that many, like the
_noblesse_ of France, might be forced to abandon their country;
and the bare idea of meeting your grandfather, or the injured
Therese, in England, precipitated me into a nervous state that
menaced my life. I became abstracted and seriously ill, was forbidden
all excitements; hence easily avoided the sight of newspapers; and,
on the plea you have heard, my family were withheld from speaking on
any public subjects that manifestly gave me pain. But I could not
prevent the tongues of our visitors from discoursing on a theme which
at that period interested every thinking mind. I heard of the valiant
Kosciusko, the good Stanislaus, and the palatine Sobieski, with his
brave grandson, spoken of in the same breath. I durst not surmise who
this grandson was; I dared not ask--I dreaded to know.
"At length," added the agitated father, quickening his voice, "the
idol of my heart--she for whom I had sacrificed my all of human
probity, perhaps my soul's eternal peace--died in my arms. Where
could a wretch like me turn for consolation? I had forfeited all
right to it from Heaven or earth. But at last a benignant spirit
seemed to breathe on me, and I bent beneath the stroke with humility;
for I embraced it as the just chastisement of a crime which till
then, even in the midst of my married felicity, had often pressed on
my dearest feelings like the hand of death. I repeat, I bore this
chastening trial with the resignation I have described. But when, two
years afterwards, my eye fell by accident upon the name of Sobieski
in one of the public papers, I could not withdraw it; my sight was
fascinated as if by a rattle-snake. In one column I read how bravely
the palatine fell, and in the next the dreadful fate of his daughter.
She was revenged!" cried Sir Robert, eagerly grasping the hand of
Thaddeus, who could not restrain the groan that burst from his
breast. "For nearly three months I was deprived of that reason which
had abused her noble nature.
"When I recovered my senes," continued he, in a calmer tone, "and
found I had so fatally suffered the time of any restitution to her to
go by, I began to torture my remorseful heart because that I had not,
immediately on the death of my too much loved Edith, hastened to
Poland, and besought Therese's pardon from her ever-generous heart.
But this vivid approach to a sincere repentance was soon obliterated
by the consideration that, the Countess Sobieski having had a prior
claim to my name, such restitution on my part must have
illegitimatized my darling Pembroke, his dying mother's fondest
bequeathment to a father's arms.
"It was this fearful conviction," exclaimed Sir Robert, a sudden
horror, indeed, distracting his before affectionate eye, "that caused
all my barbarian cruelty. When my dear and long-believed only son
described the danger from which you had rescued him, when he told me
that Therese had fostered him with a parent's tenderness, I was
probed to the heart. But when he added that the young Count Sobieski
was now an alien from his country, and relying on my friendship for a
home, my terror was too truly manifested. Horror drove all natural
remorse from my soul. I thought an avenging power had sent my
deserted child to discover his father, to claim his rights, and to
publish me as a disgrace to the name I had stolen from him. And when
I saw my innocent Pembroke, even to his knees, petitioning for the
man who I believed had come to undo him, I became almost deranged.
May the Lord of mercy pardon the fury of that derangement! For under
that temper," added he, putting the trembling hand of Thaddeus to his
streaming eyes, "I drove my first-born to be a wanderer on the face
of the earth, not for his own crimes, but for those of his father;
and Heaven justly punished in the crime the sin of my injustice. When
I thought that evidence of my shame was divided from me by an
insuperable barrier, when I believed that the ocean would soon
separate me from my fears, a righteous Providence brought thee before
me, forlorn and expiring. It was the son of Therese Sobieski I had
exposed to such wretchedness. It was the cherished of her heart I had
delivered to the raging elements! Oh, Thaddeus, my son," cried he,
"can I be forgiven for all this, in this world or in the next?"
"Oh, my father!" returned Thaddeus, with a modest, but a pathetic
energy, "I am thy son! thy happy son, in such acknowledgment!
Therefore no longer upbraid yourself. Did you not act, as by a sacred
impulse, a father's part to me when you knew me not? You raised my
dying head from the earth and laid it on your bosom. O, my father! He
who brought us so together in his own appointed time, chasteneth
every son whom he receiveth, and has thus proved his love and pardon
to your contrite heart, both on earth and in heaven, by the nature of
your chastisement and the healing balm at its close!"
At the end of this interview, so interesting and vital to the
happiness of both these newly-united parties, father and son, Sir
Robert motioned his blessing to that son by laying his hand gently on
his head, while the parental tears flowed on that now dear forehead--
for he could not then speak. He immediately withdrew, to leave
Thaddeus to repose, and himself to retire to pour out his grateful
spirit in private.
* * * * * * *