The letters from Morewick, which announced to Sir Anthony Athelstone,
the return of his nephew, found the Baronet at Cheltenham, just
recovering from a fit of the gout. He was seated in his great-arm
chair, and Cornelia reading by his footstool, when the tidings were
brought in. Under these circumstances, for either to set out on an
immediate journey northward, was impossible; but the raptures of both
were not less eloquent; and was expressed with boisterous joy, by the
one; and the mild transport of perfect happiness, from the lips of the
other.
Sir Anthony wrote to Morewick, that his physicians would allow him to
set forward in a very short time; when six horses should bring him
with all speed to the banks of the Coquet. But this permission was not
granted so soon as he expected; and, when it was accorded, the haste
he made in travelling was so hostile to his convalescent state, that,
within a stage of his own place of Athelstone-manor, he was seized with
a relapse. Cornelia got him to the house, but no farther; the gout had
now made prisoners of both feet; and he was laid upon his couch, for,
perhaps a month to come, when she wrote to her cousin to tell him of
this prevention to their progress.
The anticipated answer to this information was not disappointed. Louis
set out for Athelstone. His reception there, was like that of the lost
sheep being found; or the prodigal son, returned from his hopeless
wanderings. The fatted calf was killed; and all the costly apparel
brought forth, by the tenantry to honour the re-appearance of their
master's future heir. Sir Anthony fell on his neck; and the happy
Cornelia, standing bright in her beauty, like the palladian goddess
her form and character resembled, looked on him with a sister's love
beaming through her tears.
Time flew in this dear domestic circle. Louis and Cornelia successively
read, and conversed; and amused the good-humoured invalid, in every
possible way. And what was less agreeable to the cousins, the
neighbouring gentry were curious to renew their acquaintance with
the young and always animating de Montemar; but who was now returned
amongst them, a politician and a soldier. Some enjoyed his society,
with the zest of highly intelligent minds. Others gathered from his
observations, information and pleasure; while the rest (and some of
the older sort,) listened, and questioned; and marvelled with an
absurd wonder, at such extraordinary knowledge in a man not yet
four-and-twenty.
During his first visit to Athelstone, which was lengthened to more than
a month, he received letters from Spain, from Martini and Ferdinand.
The former told him, that he was still an unmolested occupier of the
castle on the Guadalquivir. There was but one sentiment along its
banks, with regard to him: lamentation for Ripperda, whom they still
designated under the title of the _Great Duke_, while they accused the
present ministry of Spain, of having forced him into rebellion. His
dying in the arms of the church was a sufficient propitiation, in their
eyes, for his short defection. But that was not enough for their love;
and masses were daily said throughout Andalusia for the repose of his
soul.
Martini's duty of charity proceeded in a manner equally grateful to
the son of Ripperda. General ****, in Gibraltar, and Ismail Cheriff
in Barbary, continued zealous coadjutors in the good work; and
many slaves were ransomed, who had since arrived in Spain, full of
thanksgiving to the hands which gave them freedom.
Ferdinand's letter was of a less agreeable complexion. An air of
restraint pervaded its communications; which induced Louis to believe
that his friend did not wish to let him see the whole hostility of the
Spanish court against his father's fame, and his own claims on the
country. He wrote of armaments by sea and land. This could no longer
excite its former interest in the mind of his correspondent. He added
there were great schisms in the _Sanctum Sanctorum_ of the Queen; but
there was one head acknowledged infallible by all parties, and that
was Duke Wharton. He rode the government, as Jupiter did his cloud;
and in the same invisible manner shot his thunderbolts; every body
knowing whence the shaft came, but nobody daring to mention the name
that launched it. However, he was lately gone to Paris, to meet the
Electress of Bavaria.
"I would, I might never read of him, or hear of him again!" exclaimed
Louis, as he turned to the pages, which spoke of the Marquis Santa
Cruz's journey into Italy, for the benefit of Marcella's health.
"She has never recovered her close attendance on the two wounded
cavaliers at Ceuta," continued Ferdinand, "The life of so worthless a
being as I am, may have been dearly purchased; but I will not say the
same of my friend! However, Marcella will not own to this cause of her
illness. She rather believes it to be a punishment laid on her, for her
long resistance to the wishes of my father, for her entire seclusion
from the world. This idea has fastened on her; and now all her
petitions are to be fixed with our aunt, the abbess of the Ursalines."
Louis closed the letter at this passage. The form of Marcella was
then before him. She whose bloom of health, he was too sensible had
in part been sacrificed for him! He recalled her as she used to sit,
evening after evening, by his apparently unobserving side, in that sad
chamber of suffering at Ceuta. In those hours, the bright moon of that
clear atmosphere, shining through the solitary window, fell direct on
her face. It was pale from watching; but her eyes were often fixed on
the orb; and the expression of her countenance, ever reminded him of
Milton's lines:
"So dear to Heaven is saintly charity!
That when a soul is found sincerely pure
A thousand liveried angels lacquey her;
Tell her of things, that no gross ear can hear;
Till oft converse with heavenly habitants,
Begin to cast a beam on th' outward shape,
The unpolluted temple of the mind,
And turn it by degrees to the soul's essence,
Till all be made immortal!"
When he used to repeat these lines to himself in her presence, and
gazing upon that form, which already appeared half angel; he did not
sigh when they closed with the remembrance of the vow, urged on her by
her father. Why then did separation make a change? Why did her image
haunt him? Why did his heart feel as if it had received another death
stroke, when he read it was now her own repeated wish, to retire into
the convent of the Ursalines?
His bosom's deepest grief whispered the solution to this mystery. While
his father lived in exile, he was conscious to no feeling that did not
point at him. That absorbing interest gone, the repressed sympathies
of his heart streamed towards their attraction; and he found that he
loved, and had most inexplicably dared to hope! But this letter of
Ferdinand's extinguished the vain chimera. He was made sensible that
the object of his tenderest thoughts, had never been more to him than a
_Sister of Mercy_; that her unconscious eyes had never looked a dearer
language; that she was now passing from him, by her own wish for ever!
"Then be it so!" said he, striking his breast; "I deserve this new
misery, for my most extravagant presumption."
A few weeks after the receipt of these letters, Sir Anthony Athelstone
was so completely recovered, as to meditate the transfer of himself and
family to Bamborough. Mr. Athelstone's little household had been some
time removed to Lindisfarne; and the prospect of the whole party being
reunited under the venerable roof, was impatiently anticipated by them
all. But the Baronet being one in the domestic circle of the Pastorage,
was to be yet further postponed. The King had died the beginning of
the month; and Sir Anthony was suddenly summoned to town, by order of
his successor George the Second, to receive His Majesty's commands
respecting the civil management of his northern counties. Other great
land-holders, north of the Humber, had received the same writ; and
without demur, the Baronet set forward with his nearest neighbour, to
obey the summons of their new King.
Louis and Cornelia had their uncle's permission to proceed immediately
to Bamborough; and either invite the family of the Pastorage to be
their guests till his return, or if they preferred it cross over and
take up their temporary abode at Lindisfarne.
It was a fine morning in the month of June, when they set off from
Athelstone manor. Lorenzo, who would never lose sight of his master,
rode by the side of the carriage. The usual out-riders kept their
stations before and behind.
The cousins being together alone for so many hours, various subjects
passed in review before them; and none of deeper interest, than the
mutual attachment of Ferdinand and Alice.
"I wish," continued Cornelia, "that my sister could have pitied,
without loving him." "But is it not natural to love what we pity?"
"Not always," replied she; "we must admire, to love."
"And may we not admire what we pity?" inquired Louis, the secret of
whose heart was prompting these questions.
"In some cases," returned Cornelia; "but surely not in Alice's, when
she first knew Don Ferdinand. She saw by his manner, that he was
a man whose conscience was ill at ease; and how she could fix her
pure affections on one his father acknowledged to have been very
blame-worthy, has ever been an inexplicable wonder to me."
"But his melancholy was contrition for his offences, Cornelia," replied
her cousin; "and Alice, admiring the principle, on your own argument,
loved him."
"It may be so!" replied she, with a smile. "But were I to chuse, it
should be an unsullied tablet!"
Louis shook his head. "Then, my sweet cousin, you must go to heaven
for it!"
Cornelia shook her head in return.
"You are an amiable sceptic, my Cornelia; and, Heaven grant that time
may not be the teacher to you, that it has been to me!"
"Louis," answered she, with a tender seriousness; "will you not be
offended if I make a candid reply to that invocation?"
"Nothing that you would say can offend me."
"Then," replied she, "had you not deserted your youthful standard of
female perfection--" She paused, and feared to go on. Louis completed
the sentence.
"You would say, I should not have been disappointed in the Countess
Altheim!"--A heightened colour was on his cheek as he spoke.
"Forgive me!" cried his cousin; "I was indelicate and cruel in making
the reference." "Not cruel," returned he; "for she is no more to me
than the recollection of a hideous dream. My imagination, not my heart,
was the victim of her delusions."
"Ah, Louis!" cried Cornelia, again forgetting herself in the
earnestness of her remarks; "It was something like your infatuation
for Duke Wharton. My uncle always called him a splendid mischief; and,
happily, the outlawry against him has banished him this country for
ever. But you have long been convinced of his worthlessness; and, I
thank Heaven for your second escape from similar delusions!"
Louis did not answer, but gratefully put his cousin's hand to his lips.
She resumed.
"Indeed, when you wrote of her to my uncle, and under your best
impressions too you dwelt so much on her beauty and accomplishments
only, and her preference for you, that we could no way make ourselves
esteem her, or believe her capable of making you finally happy. Dare I
venture to go on, Louis?"
"Yes; you are a gentle physician!" replied he, with a forced smile;
"and man's vanity needs a probe!"
"Now, the Lady Marcella!" continued Cornelia. Louis prevented himself
from starting. "You wrote little of her, and you have said less;
but it was always of her virtues; and in such few words, we saw her
fairer, than the proud beauty of Vienna." Again Cornelia paused, and
looked on her cousin, whose face was now bent on his hand. She rather
hesitatingly proceeded. "We wished and thought, that had it not been
for the vow anticipated by Ferdinand, you might have found her nearer
to your first ideas of female excellence, and repaid her goodness to
you with your love."
Louis did not speak, but still kept his head in its reclining position.
She saw the struggle of a suppressed sigh, which would have been a
sufficient response; and, grieved at the pain she had unconsciously
excited, she tenderly pressed his hand.
"Louis," said she, in a tremulous voice, "could I have conjectured
this--But I begin to think I have a very inhuman heart!" and the tears
sprung to her eyes as she spoke.
"Not so;" replied he, looking up with a serene, though sad,
countenance; "it has all of human softness, without its weakness. And,
that I may emulate you, my Cornelia, there are some subjects I would
rather avoid."
Cornelia did not answer this, nor ask another question: it declared
itself. And turning to the other side of the carriage, while she gently
pressed his hand, affected to gaze out of the window; but it was to
allow her tears to flow unnoticed down her cheeks. Though she had never
known the passion whose struggles she pitied, she loved the sufferer,
dear as a brother; and, at that moment, would have surrendered her
own blameless life, if, by that means, she could have purchased the
happiness of Louis with the angelic Marcella.