In the evening, when every breeze was calm, and "the bright-haired
sun was making a golden set;" the Marquis Santa Cruz sat alone with
his daughter, in her dressing room. Their conference had been long
and salutary to both their hearts, and even as it closed with a
communication to convince Marcella she entirely occupied that of Louis
de Montemar; Lorenzo entered to summon the Marquis below.
Mr. Athelstone feared to agitate her, by an abrupt enunciation of the
arrival of his nephew, but the appearance of Lorenzo, who had been
the companion of his perilous voyage, was enough; and in speechless
gratitude, she pressed her father's hand to her lips as he rose to
obey the call.
The Marchioness and Mrs. Coningsby, and all of the family, excepting
Cornelia and Marcella, were in the drawing-room with the Marquis. The
Duke still lay on the litter on which he had been brought on shore;
and he was looking around, with a melancholy smile, on the rapturous
greetings with which every body met his friend. They were the sacred
transports of dear, domestic kindred, where all was pure, and full of
innoxious pleasure.
"I never had a family!" said he to himself, "and yet I have seen, and
felt transports! and may their memory perish!" cried he, in the same
inward voice, "for nothing but selfish passions were there."
Mrs. Coningsby approached the Duke, and welcomed him with her
accustomed hospitable grace. Every one had now something of the same
import to say to him; all but Alice, and she still continued to
view from a distance this formidable Wharton, whom she had so often
designated under the alarming appellatives of hideous, wicked, and
detestable. Cornelia had, as frequently as herself, given him these
abhorring epithets; and that Cornelia should now be as much infatuated
with him, as had ever been their cousin Louis, Alice could not consider
as the least enormity of his art.
The Marquis was at that time observing on the happy circumstance of the
yacht standing for the mainland instead of the island. "In the latter
case, old Peter tells me, you must have been lost upon the southern
reef!"
"And it might have been our fate," rejoined Louis, "if Wharton's
resolution had not mastered mine. On an obvious argument, I wanted to
avoid the mainland, dreading the exposed condition in which he must
have gone on shore."
"Yes," returned the Duke, "that boy was always wiser in his own
conceit, than seven men that could give a reason! and so I even laid
him under hatches, till we hailed Queen Bebba's flambeau!"
"How wicked is that gaiety!" whispered Alice to Ferdinand, "when we
have all been so miserable!"
Wharton heard the whisper, and turning his head, met a smile from
Ferdinand. The Duke bowed to Alice, who blushed angrily, while he
requested Mrs. Coningsby to present him to her youngest daughter. Mrs.
Coningsby took her hand and drew her reluctant steps towards him.
"Sweet Lady," said he, with a gentle seriousness passing over his face;
"you are the sister of my best benefactress! and all of my heart I can
spare from her virtues, I lay at the feet of yours."
There was a melody and a charm in these tenderer tones of his voice,
the effect of which astonished her; for feeling as if she had heard
the voice of truth itself, she lingered to hear him speak again;
though she only answered him by a silent courtsey. Ferdinand observed
the sudden change, and repeating his smile more archly to the Duke,
whispered:--
"I shall be jealous, if you breathe that _vox amantis_ again--or, you
must teach me your note!"
"Apply to her sister!" replied Wharton, turning his brightening
countenance towards approaching steps in the adjoining room. The
careless hilarity of his features vanished at once, and gave place to
an agitated sensibility, that sufficiently shewed, if his voice were
the organ of tenderness, the power itself dwelt in his heart. He half
rose from the sofa, to which he had been removed from the litter; and
Louis with an emotion not less apparent, started towards the opening
door.
Marcella was led in by her mother, and she approached with a faultering
and conscious step.
Cornelia, who had taken her resolution, (whatever Wharton might be, and
however he might profess himself) to make that just sacrifice to public
opinion and to her own consistency, which should demand of him to make
a probation at least;--drew on her own strength, and entered the room
alone, and in an opposite direction.
She was advancing with a modest dignity, towards the happy group; but
her step was hasty, as her eye instantly fell on her beloved cousin,
and all the dangers he had just escaped, rushed at once upon her heart.
Marcella entered at that moment, and looked confusedly round. She also
saw the object dearest to her, but she durst not allow her eye to
rest there. The same glance shewed her Cornelia, and being near her,
unknowing what she did, she threw herself into her arms.
But the soul's unutterable language was not confined to the bosoms of
those two conscious friends. In the same moment, Cornelia's hand was
pressed to the lips of Wharton; and Marcella's to those of Louis. They
knew whose lips were there, and, for that moment, they did not recall
the hands so transiently blest.
The Marquis raised his daughter from the neck of her friend; and,
having embraced her himself, as she leaned on his bosom put her hand
again into that of Louis, and pressing them together: "There, my
children!" said he, "receive a father's blessing, as you continue to
love each other; and are worthy of this providence of God!"
Marcella fell on the breast of her lover, and Louis bore her in his
enraptured arms into the next room, to the extended ones of her mother.
Mr. Athelstone had not stood mutely by, during this blameless eloquence
of nature; but in the moment of the Marquis's separating his daughter
from Cornelia, he clasped the hands of Wharton and Cornelia's in
his;--and said, in a low and impressive voice:--"Though he has lain in
ashes, yet he shall have wings like a dove! And, against what the Lord
hath purified, who shall dare make an exception!"
Cornelia trembled every where, but in her stedfast heart. She could not
withdraw her hand, or speak; and Wharton softly whispered:--"Oh, my
Cornelia, what that sacred hand has joined together, let not thy voice
put asunder!" With the words, he gently glided a ring from his own
finger, upon hers; and firmly added--"We have met to part no more!"
She sighed convulsively, and her head fell upon the shoulder of her
Pastor-uncle. He had seen the ring; and pressing her to his breast,
tenderly rejoined: "Be to him, my Cornelia, as a lamp to his paths!
and, at the resurrection of the just, he will be to you as the sun at
noon-day; encreasing your glory, by the brightness of his light!"
She put the hand of her uncle, which again clasped her's and the
Duke's, to her lips; and her tears were left on Wharton's in the
action. "Oh, the bliss of virtue! and of virtuous love!" exclaimed he,
to himself as he dried them with a fervent kiss.
Those tears relieved her oppressed bosom, oppressed by the love she
bore him; oppressed by the boundless and precious disclosure of his;
and with her determination to inflict a penalty on each. She raised her
head from Mr. Athelstone's breast, and turning upon Wharton, with a
look which betrayed all the tenderness of her soul while she declared
her final sentiments, she gently, but steadily said:
"I do not return you, your ring:--It shall go with me to my grave. But,
I was weak; and you know it. I must redeem myself to you, and to the
world, by not giving you this hand, until a year's trial at least. When
you are far from me, and the precepts of my uncle, your conduct must
prove to all, that his niece gives herself to the virtuous, as well
as _charming_ Duke of Wharton!" She uttered the last epithet, with a
tearful smile; but she would hear of no change in her resolution; and
as it was dictated by the truest principles of love and honour, Wharton
was at last prevailed on by her approving uncle, to acquiesce.
This scene passed without any other auditor than themselves; for when
Mr. Athelstone first perceived the great agitation of his niece, he had
made a sign to her mother, to draw the rest of the party into another
apartment.
The next day saw the Marquis and Marchioness Santa Cruz, with the
elders of the Athelstone family, meet in the Pastor's library, to
arrange every plan for their children's future happiness.
Meanwhile Louis sat at the feet of the lady Marcella, in a little
summer-house in the garden, exchanging with her the long concealed
tendernesses of their united hearts. Theirs was already a union of
tried virtue with nobleness; and neither needed, nor admitted of any
disguise.
Cornelia would not listen to the earnest supplications of him, whose
voice, she tremblingly believed, might charm an angel from its orb;
till Mr. Athelstone himself prevailed on her, to beguile his yet
lengthened hours of confinement to his couch, by her society. There,
she heard him tell of all his plans for rendering her union with
an outlawed man, less like a banishment to herself. He spoke with
reverence of the Electress of Bavaria; with enthusiasm of James
Stuart.--"But there, _Othello's occupation's gone_!" exclaimed he; "the
character of the present George of Brunswick has made my commission a
sinecure."
"Your commission, my dear Wharton," rejoined the Pastor, "is a general
one.--From Heaven, and not from man.--And it consists in properly
applying your vast endowments of mind and fortune."
"To do that, can never be a sinecure. Whether you are to remain a
statesman, or to commence a private career; to cultivate in yourself a
disposition to befriend your fellow-creatures by every means in your
power; whether by your purse, your influence, or your talents; is my
acceptation of that difficult text in the Gospel, which says "Make
to yourselves _friends_ of the mammon of unrighteousness, that when
ye fail they may receive you into everlasting habitations!" We know
that the mammon of unrighteousness is riches; or, in other words,
worldly-power. We make these our _enemies_, when we use them to selfish
and unworthy purposes. But we turn their dross into real gold;--we
make them our _friends_, when, by their benevolent application, we lay
them up as treasures in Heaven;--and, they will receive us there, into
_everlasting habitations_!"
Wharton bowed his head, with the ingenuous docility that was in his
heart; and the benign teacher left his pupil to the dearer, though no
less serious converse of his niece.
With less profundity of feeling, but not less vivacity of happiness,
Alice walked by the side of Ferdinand in the garden, and artlessly
expressed to him her wonder, how any body could help admiring, and even
loving Duke Wharton, who had ever passed an evening in his company.
"He is so very handsome;" said she, "and so very gay! and so very
commanding in all he does, and says, and looks, that, at first sight
one is quite frightened at the power all this threatens. But when we
know him, he is so exhilarating, so amiable, that--that I do not wonder
Cornelia should love as she does!"
"But you must not!" rejoined Ferdinand, putting her hand to his lips,
"else I shall wish the storm had sunk him fifty fathoms below this
island." "Don't be afraid of that!" returned she, blushing while
she laughed; "Louis is fifty fathoms handsomer, and so much more
joy-inspiring, that, in days of yore, I used to call him the angel
Gabriel, always coming on some blessed salutation; if I escaped falling
in love with him, I am sure you ought not to fear the Duke."
"Then, I am to suppose you love me, because I am the reverse of these
two worthies?" returned Ferdinand, archly glancing in her face.
"There is so much of the coxcomb in the question," answered she,
sportively shaking her head, "that I will gratify your vanity by the
expected compliment."
A fortnight's tranquil residence at the pastorage drew the whole
circle into that "sober certainty of waking bliss," which no language
can describe, but happy are they who understand it by the knowledge
of experience. Cornelia was, however, still steady to her virtuous
resolution; and the Duke arranged with the Marquis Santa Cruz to
relieve his English friends of his dangerous presence a few days
before the celebration of their nuptials. He meant to sail direct from
Lindisfarne to the nearest foreign port; thence proceed to Spain, and
there enter on the probation which, he trusted, would end with the
year, by the re-union of the whole party at Paris; where Santa Cruz was
appointed ambassador, and his children had promised to rejoin him.
The Duke's wounds were healed, and a pause stood in every happy
heart at the near prospect of his departure. He was trying his last
entreaties, for a shorter term of separation, when a stranger was
unguardedly introduced by one of the under-servants, and it proved to
be a messenger from the Secretary of State. He was a younger brother
of General Stanhope's, and brought communications of the utmost
importance. Wharton was sitting in a distant recess with Cornelia,
when he entered; and the instant bustle in the room, with some words
that dropped from Mr. Athelstone, respecting the Duke, so alarmed her,
that turning in agony towards him, she fainted on his breast.
The Duke was under the same impression with herself; and, relinquishing
her in some agitation to her mother, walked calmly towards the group in
the room, while the other ladies assisted Mrs. Coningsby to bear her
insensible daughter from the expected trying scene.
But such was not the import of Mr. Stanhope's dispatches. Some were
dictated by the King himself, and others by his ministers. Part
informed the Marquis de Montemar, that His Majesty had received from
the Empress of Germany, an exoneration of all that had been alleged
against him at her court. A favourite mistress of Count Routemberg, in
her dying moments, had declared the whole conspiracy of the Count and
others against Ripperda and his son; and the Empress now made the only
atonement in her power, to the memory of the one, and the honour of
the other, by thus clearing the Marquis de Montemar in the eyes of his
present Sovereign.
Her royal kinsman noticed also the accounts he had received from
Gibraltar, of Louis's disinterested conduct as a son, and a Protestant,
and a free born descendant of one of the most ancient families in
England. These virtues, the gracious Monarch added, should have an
adequate reward. Extraordinary disinterestedness could only be repaid
by something of the same character!
By such a disinterestedness did this noble representative of the
long line of British Kings, uniting the royal blood of Scotland and
of England in the bosom of George of Brunswick, rivet the loyalty of
Louis de Montemar to the country of his maternal ancestors! Certain
wellinformed agents of the crown, had lodged private information
with the Secretary of State, that Philip Duke of Wharton was secreted
at Lindisfarne. But the same agents had also reported the calamitous
circumstances which had thrown him under that protection; and the
King, knowing the friendship which had subsisted between the Marquis
de Montemar and the outlawed Duke; for the sake of de Montemar's
virtues and approved loyalty, transmitted to him a free pardon to his
friend,--an amnesty that re-invested him with his former rights, as a
British Peer and Landholder!
"'Tis well!" answered the Duke, with a kindling cheek, when this part
of the dispatch was read to him; "I accept the amnesty, that I may
now witness the nuptials of my friend in the face of day; and, that
hereafter, my Cornelia need not shrink from giving her hand to a man
under sentence of the scaffold! But, for my rights as a British
Peer, I derive them from the House of Stuart, and will not hold their
possession by the sale of my honour. George of Brunswick may be the
people's King;--James Stuart is mine! I give what I claim. And,
while your Sovereign reigns in their hearts, I shall not dispute his
possession. Meanwhile, Saint-Germains is my country;--though my sword
may sleep in its scabbard!"
There was no voice in that room to expostulate against principle;
and the messenger himself, who was a soldier and a man of honour,
venerating the same, though it pointed differently from his own, merely
answered:
"Permit me, Duke, to explain the mistake of those who suppose that
the throne of Great Britain came to the House of Brunswick, not by
the right of blood, but by virtue of an act of Parliament. George the
First was descended from a daughter of James the First; and the act of
settlement neither creates nor confers any new right, but only confirms
that which was inherent in the House of Brunswick upon the exclusion
of the Papist branch of the royal line. To assert the contrary, is to
subvert the ancient constitution; and from an hereditary, to turn this
into an elective monarchy."
The Duke smiled and bowed.
"This is an intricate question; but I am the last man to dispute
its consequence. However, happy is the prince whose throne is so
well founded, that it may be disputed whether it rests most on his
birth-right, or his people's will!"
With this remark he quitted the room; and, leaving all other thoughts
but those of love and gratitude behind him, hastened to the suite of
chambers, where he hoped to find her whose arms had never closed on
him, till she thought he could receive no other comforter.
Louis had left the room in the midst of Mr. Stanhope's conversation
with his friend, to relieve the suffering groupe above stairs, of the
alarm which he guessed had caused the insensibility of his cousin.
Wharton met him at the door of Cornelia's chamber, where she was
resting from the awful interchanges of her feelings, on the breast of
her mother. Louis pressed the hand of his friend as he passed him.
"You will find her," said he, "all your own!"
But in this, even her cousin, who best knew the movements of her soul,
was mistaken.
Cornelia suffered the grateful, the happy Wharton, to fold her to his
heart, in the sacred emotion of a meeting, redeemed as from the grave;
for, when they parted a few minutes before, the scaffold appeared
to each, the scene of their next separation; and the world to come,
where they could only meet again! But Cornelia remained firm to her
first resolution. "In Heaven's eye," cried she, "I believe you are
as pure as in mine. But the World must be convinced of the same.
Your happiness, as well as mine, compels the sacrifice; and, dearest
Wharton, it shall be made! Another year, and instead of my going to
seek my affianced husband in a foreign land, he will come to claim me
in the hall of my fathers!"
Mr. Stanhope did not pass that day only, with the Pastor and his
interesting household; he remained to witness the most heart-felt
ceremony that ever took place in the little humble church that
succeeded the once magnificent abbey of Lindisfarne.
The double marriages of their beloved Louis and Alice were to be
solemnized there; and every fisherman's hut sent forth its inmates to
honour the holy ceremony.
The stars of many orders might have glared on the noble breast of
Wharton, as he followed the happy groupe under the rustic archway; but
he chose only the badge of the garter. It was bestowed on him by James
Stuart, when three of the greatest kings in Europe, signed the league
for his support; and it was the Duke's pride, doubly to acknowledge the
hand that bestowed it, by wearing it now, in the utter despair of his
fortunes.
Louis, looked so like his former self, in the brightness of unclouded
happiness, that every lip moved in rapturous blessings as he passed;
and so great was the acclaim of the honest fishermen, around this their
often venturous companion, and ever darling master; that no sense was
left unoccupied, to bestow a glance on the waving plumes of Ferdinand,
though many a benizon followed the down-cast looks of his blushing
Alice.
Mr. Athelstone stood on the steps of the altar. He began--and he
finished the holy ceremony, which was to bind so many faithful
hearts into one interest, in this world, and in the next. And when he
consigned the married pairs to the benediction of their parents, (in
the light of one of whom stood Sir Anthony Athelstone,) he raised his
devout hands, and solemnly pronounced his general blessing.
Cornelia wept in sisterly congratulation on Alice's bosom; and when
she relinquished her to the enraptured Ferdinand, her sweetest tears
dropped on the shoulder of the no less happy Louis. Wharton's arm
supported the agitated frame of his future bride, while he clasped his
friend's hand in his with a felicitation that knew no utterance. Mr.
Athelstone looked on the kindred group with the feelings of a parent;
and piously exclaimed,
"O! how amiable are thy dwellings, thou Lord of Hosts! For here, mercy
and truth are met together. Righteousness and peace have kissed each
other!" "And may such, dearest sir," said the Duke, turning his bright
countenance towards him; "be ever the Guests of the Pastor's Fire-side!"