Ferdinand had just left with his sister, a few hasty lines which had
preceded Louis from Morewick, when the writer himself entered, like
_Maia's son_ breathing hope and happiness, into the room where the
Marchioness was preparing breakfast.
"Whatever your secret may be, it is a pleasant one!" cried she, "your
countenance is a brilliant herald."
That of Marcella's (as she was dismissing her maids from the adjoining
apartment where she had just finished dressing) was blanched, pale as
the trembling hand which closed upon the unread letter.
"Oh," sighed she, to herself; "would to God, that I had never left
Spain--or never seen this land!" What were Louis's answers to her
mother, or her brother (who both spoke at once) she did not hear. The
pulses of her head beat almost audibly, and seemed to exclude all other
sounds from reaching her ears. She was separated from the room by a
slight door only, which, standing ajar, discovered his figure to her
as it animatedly moved to and fro, as with similar energy, but in a
lowered voice, he imparted his secret to her mother and brother.
Ferdinand came in; and finding her thrown back into her chair, he
gently touched her arm; and entreating her to allow him to lead her
into the breakfast room; added, if she still felt too fatigued to be
anxious to pursue her journey; he was sure she would think otherwise,
presently; for de Montemar was come back, and had much to tell her!
"He has told you, and my mother;" said she, "and that is enough. I
shall soon have no interests in this world!" but the last, was only
murmured to herself. However she rose; and leaning on her brother,
walked steadily and serenely into the next room.
Louis stood opposite to the door at which she entered.
"Were I a Catholic, sweet saint!" said he, inwardly; "how would I
worship thee!" and his head bent with the sentiment, upon his breast.
She bowed calmly to him.
"My child," said the Marchioness, "we are to pass this day at Morewick;
where you will meet Mr. Athelstone, and Miss Coningsby."
"And am I to witness their nuptials?" cried Marcella to herself; "but
even that I will endure!" And forcing a smile, which gleamed like a
moon-beam on a flowery grave, she answered,--"Just where you please,
madam." And took her seat.
The Marchioness turned from her to Louis; and observing the deep and
penetrating tenderness with which he regarded her; she drew near her
son, and while a tear started in her eye, whispered him. "Surely your
father may consider of his daughter's happiness too long; and withhold
the dove of promise, till there be no resting place for its foot."
Ferdinand saw his mother was affected; and making an excuse to attend
her, to consult with Don Garcia respecting their proceeding, he took
her from the room.
Marcella was now left alone with Louis. She sat like a cold statue.
His joyous heart was overclouded at once; and with a slow step he
approached her. Her eyes were cast down, and fixed on her clasped
hands, in which she still held the letter. At that moment all his
love, and all the agonies of her displeasure, were apparent in his
countenance. She looked up; and received its full import direct upon
her heart. The confusion in her's, the gasp with which she recalled
her eyes, and covered them with her hand, proclaimed her whole secret
to Louis; and wrested from him all his own; but not a word could find
utterance on either side. He was at her feet on his knees, and with the
hem of her garment pressed to his lips.
But how different was the sentiment which then rendered him speechless,
from the tumultuous emotion which arrested him in the same position
before Countess Altheim! There his spirit was divided against itself.
His reason doubted the admiration of his senses; and a racking
indecision checked his wishes and his lips. Here his whole soul
consented to the perfect love, with which the virtues of Marcella
had possessed his heart. The passion that she inspired was like
herself; a sacred flame, and lit for immortality: and Louis avowed its
imperishable nature to himself, even while he struggled for words, to
foreswear it at the feet of the future nun for ever.
Marcella's faculties, so lately possessed with the idea of his
devotion to Cornelia, were all amazement. Surprised out of herself,
by the look she had momentarily seen; and immediately feeling him at
her feet; she became so overwhelmed by her own consciousness, and his
irrepressible emotions, that she shook, almost to the parting of soul
and body.
"Pardon me, lady Marcella!" cried he, "pardon my first and my last
disclosure of a sentiment, which as it has no hope, I trust, has no
sacrilege! But to love all that is pure and noble in idea; and not
to love its living image was impossible to me. You confirmed me in
the virtue I might have deserted! You consoled me when the world had
abandoned me! You have even now, exerted yourself beyond your strength,
in compassion to a desperate haste for which I durst not assign a
cause. This last goodness leaves me no longer master of myself. It
has precipitated me to the avowal of a sentiment, which in my breast,
shall never know a second object. The hour that consigns you to a
cloister, seals my heart for ever."
This was spoken with agitated rapidity; but no answer was returned.
Marcella felt her own tenderness for him was no longer a secret to
him:--She had betrayed it herself! and her horror at this conviction,
overwhelmed all other considerations. She attempted to rise, he did not
venture to withold her.
"Have I offended you, Lady Marcella," cried he, "past all pardon?"
She had arrived at the door of the inner room, when he repeated the
demand, with an anguish of expression she could not mistake. Turning
round, she faulteringly replied.--
"I have offended, past all hope of my own pardon!"
Louis was springing forward. She saw the movement, though with still
down-cast eyes; and putting out her hand, with an air of vestal
reserve, decisively, but gently pronounced,--
"No more." And disappeared into the room.
The emotions in his breast were inexplicable to himself. He was
awe-struck, by her manner. His sentence of perpetual silence was in
those words!--And yet the flood of happiness which burst over his whole
heart, at the conviction her first moments of confusion inspired, would
not be driven back.
He was standing in this agitated state, when the Marchioness entered,
followed by Ferdinand and Don Garcia. On perceiving that Marcella was
not in the room, she expressed some alarm at her disappearance; and
accompanied by the physician, hastened to seek her in the adjoining
apartment.
Ferdinand glanced in the kindling face of his friend, and conjectured
better than his mother. He drew near him. "De Montemar," said he, in a
lowered voice, "shall I guess your meditations?"
"No, Ferdinand, I would not extend my offence; and yet you have read me
ill, if I have been able to hide it from you!"
"And who have you offended, my brother?" asked Ferdinand, drawing close
to him, and in a tone so peculiar, that Louis's bounding heart beat
against the side of his friend as he rapidly answered,
"Say not that word again, or you will undo me!"
"De Montemar," returned Ferdinand, "hope, as I have done, against
possibilities!"
Louis's eyes demanded what he meant.
Ferdinand continued; "I dare not say more: my father's return will tell
you the rest!"
"Your brother?" repeated Louis.
"My brother!" answered Ferdinand, and strained him to his breast.
Louis was now in air, in the dawning light of paradise; nor were the
interchanges produced by suspense, more than passing shadows, to the
luminous hope that shone upon his soul.
He and Ferdinand took horse for the short ride to Morewick; and
during their drive the Marchioness communicated to her daughter, all
that Louis had confided to her, respecting the cause of his late
eagerness to return thither. As Marcella listened to the history of
his friendship for Duke Wharton; its trials, its sufferings; and now
its triumph, in the reformation of his friend from all his errors, and
final restoration as from the grave; her tears bore too true a witness
to the interest with which she hearkened to every circumstance that
related to him. She hardly allowed herself to breathe, during that part
of the narrative where her mother particularly enlarged on Cornelia's
cares of the Duke; and repeated the observation of Louis, that such
cares seemed his friend's best sanative; for that he believed, if any
two persons were fitted by Providence for each other, it was the nobly
eccentric mind of Wharton, to the celestial harmony of his cousin's.
"She is my ruling planet, that I have found at last," said the Duke to
his friend, "and her attraction will keep me in its orbit."
Marcella was too confounded by the last scene between her and Louis, to
confess a word of what had passed; she had been even more ashamed to
communicate her apprehensions to her anxious parent, concerning this
boasted cousin of the Marquis de Montemar. Therefore she now looked
down, believing the fulness of her secret yet unknown to all but to its
object, and gladly would she have died, rather than be conscious to the
degradation of that hour.
She knew that her father had obtained from the Pope, a dispensation
from his vow, relative to immuring her in a convent; and she did not
doubt that Louis had been told the same in their first meeting at
Harwich.
Though she had pined in thought, from the hour of her losing sight
of him; and felt how hard it was to do, what she most inconsistently
wished to accomplish, to make monastic vows, when her heart lingered
after an earthly image!--yet, though the canker preyed inwardly, she
knew not the extent of her love, till she found its fangs of jealousy,
when she first heard him speak of Cornelia being at Morewick, and that
he must hasten to rejoin her. His conduct during their last day's
journey to Alnwick, filled her with all the tortures of passion; for
not until then, had she known, by the reverse and the disappointment,
the incipient hope which had lurked at the bottom of her heart,--that
she was not indifferent to him!
Louis in the last interview at the inn in Alnwick, had avowed something
of this sentiment, but the circumstances overwhelmed her; and wishing
to forget the whole for ever, she did not even make a remark to her
mother on what she imparted.
Louis and Ferdinand having preceded the carriage half an hour, they
stood with Mr. Athelstone under the porch of the hall, to receive the
travellers.
Marcella's eye instantly fell on the silver-headed Pastor of
Lindisfarne. He seemed to stand, like the benignant saint of Patmos,
venerable in years, and reverend in the spirit of holiness. He saluted
the cheek of the animated Marchioness; but when he put out his hand to
support the advancing steps of Marcella, her knees obeyed the impulse
of her heart, and she bent before him, kissing his sacred hand.
"Bless you! bless you, my child!" said he, laying his other hand upon
her head. Louis's ready heart could not bear the sight of such a
recognition, without a sensibility he feared to shew; and he vanished
into the recesses of the hall. The Pastor raised her in his arms, and
bearing her gently into a room, put her into those of Cornelia, who had
just embraced the Marchioness.
Cornelia dared hardly venture to clasp the beautiful phantom to her
bosom; but tenderly supported her tremulous frame to a sofa, where she
gently seated her; and, pressing her soft hand in her's, gazed at her
through her crowding tears. Was this fragile being, just hanging like
a broken lilly, between the next breeze and the cold earth; was it she
who had stood the fearful thunders of Ceuta? who had raised her head
amidst the storm of war, to staunch the bleeding wounds of Louis de
Montemar? to cherish his life at the expence of her own?
"It was!" cried the full heart of Cornelia to herself; and, in
inarticulate, but ardent, language, she uttered her welcome.
The kindness of her voice drew the last sting of jealousy from the
bosom of Marcella. She looked up, and thanked her with her eyes. There
was something which passed from them, so powerful to the heart of
Cornelia, that she gave way to the impulse of the impression; and,
clasping the interesting Spaniard to her bosom, imprinted on her cheek
a sister's kiss. That glance of Cornelia's noble countenance had struck
Marcella with its general resemblance to that of her cousin; and
she seemed to feel a pledge of something more than the welcome of a
stranger, in this repeated embrace of Louis's most beloved relative.
The Marchioness was soon at home with the benign Pastor of Lindisfarne;
and both she and Ferdinand were inquiring of him various particulars
respecting their suit with Alice and Mrs. Coningsby, when Louis entered
the room, after having introduced Don Garcia to the Duke.
Cornelia stretched out her hand to him. "Louis," said she, "you must
make an interest for me, in the heart of Lady Marcella before she
sees Alice, whom she will doubly love, for her own sake, and for Don
Ferdinand's."
"Miss Coningsby," replied Marcella, "needs no interest but her own."
Louis approached with happy trepidation. What he said was as little
to the purpose, as it was unheard by Marcella; and would have been
marvelled at by Cornelia, had she not lately found a key in her own
bosom, to explain language that had no visible meaning, and certain
inconsistencies in demeanour, which betrayed all they meant to conceal.