Ormebar Castle presented a gay and festive scene--such as had not been
beheld within its walls since the time of the first Charles. A number
of the neighboring nobility and gentry had been invited to pass a few
days there, in a sport already beginning to fall into disuse, although
it had been revived for a short time by the favor of Charles the
Second. A mew had long been attached to the castle; and the hawks of
Ormebar were famous throughout the country. The merry monarch himself
had even considered the present of a couple of pair of well-reclaimed
birds of that breed as a great gift; and a grand hawking party at
Ormebar was sure to attract all that was gay and graceful in the
county. Two facts were remarked as strange by the guests: that the
young Lord Coldenham was not present at the castle, for which various
unsatisfactory reasons were assigned; and that Margaret Woodhall,
publicly announced as the affianced bride of her cousin Robert--though
in the castle with her father, and appearing occasionally at meal-time
in the hall--shared not in any of the sports or amusements which were
going on, and when seen, came with a pale cheek and sorrowful brow,
self-involved in her own thoughts, and smiling not at the gayest jests
or most pleasant amusements. She seemed to take no interest in any
thing. She hardly appeared to notice aught around her. She looked like
a person walking in a dream, and that a sad one; and vain was every
effort to call her attention, or to awaken her interest. Lady
Coldenham for several days seemed to take no heed of this conduct--let
it pass as if it were undeserving a thought; but at length, one day,
as Margaret sat alone in her room, the imperious woman entered, and
seated herself with an air of proud disdain.
"I come," she said, "to inquire what you mean, my pretty cousin, by
your treatment of my son."
"Me, madam," said Margaret, gazing at her with a look of abhorrence;
"I have no particular meaning in my conduct."
"Then I wish you would have," replied Lady Coldenham, bitterly; "and a
very different meaning from that which every one puts upon your
demeanor. I wish you would mean to please your promised husband--to
show him some sort of courtesy, if not respect."
Margaret was roused. "Respect!" she said; "what should I respect in
Robert Woodhall?"
"You should respect him whom you have promised to marry," said Lady
Coldenham; "you should respect the house from which he springs."
"My promise to marry him," replied Margaret, with cold calmness, "was
cruelly wrung from me in a moment of the greatest agony. It is
sufficient that I keep it, without exacting more. He can not make me
more than his slave. Knowing that I abhorred him, he persisted in a
suit which he ought to have felt could only make me abhor him
more--obtained from my poor father, by what means I know not, a solemn
promise that I should be his--instigated my father to take advantage
of the most terrible circumstances to obtain a pledge from me. And
now, Lady Coldenham, my father will redeem his vow. I will redeem my
pledge. My hand shall be his; the estates, which he covets more than
my hand, will be his likewise; but ask nothing further. My heart never
can be his--my esteem, my respect, my love, he can never obtain."
"Impudent girl!" exclaimed Lady Coldenham; "this to his mother?"
"Ay, to any one, to every one, to all who question me on the subject,"
answered Margaret. "I am no longer the timid child whom you once knew,
to quail at your presence, and to shrink from your proud eye. You and
yours have taken from me all hope and all fear. You have strengthened
me by misery. You have made life valueless--death a blessing to be
coveted, and not far off, I trust. My father has brought me here, Lady
Coldenham, against my will; but I trust at least that the privacy of
my own chamber will be allowed to me."
"Good! mighty good!" cried Lady Coldenham, with a scornful laugh. "Now
mark me, Mistress Margaret Woodhall, we will tame you a little. You
seek, I know, to put off this marriage till the latest possible hour;
but as we find that kindness has no effect upon you, we will try
sterner measures. We will not allow you to trifle with us; the
marriage shall take place soon--immediately."
"That will be as my father shall decide," replied Margaret, in as calm
a tone as before. "I have always held that a man, doomed to die, shows
himself a coward if he attempts to put off his execution for a moment.
You have made me brave, Lady Coldenham; you can not frighten me."
"Ha, ha!" said the old lady, rising with an air of triumph; "lucky
that no compulsion will be needed;" and she passed majestically out of
the room.
Well might she triumph, for the object of her visit to Margaret was
attained with less difficulty than she had expected. No opposition had
been shown to a speedy marriage, and she hastened to Lord Woodhall to
tell him that his daughter consented.
The old man could hardly believe his ears; but the assurance of Lady
Coldenham was strong, and she told him, with a slight gloss, what had
passed between her and Margaret.
Robert Woodhall came to her aid, seeming to understand his mother's
schemes almost by intuition. Between them both, they soon obtained
Lord Woodhall's consent that a very early day should be fixed, and
preparations were immediately begun.
Margaret bore up well when the public eye was upon her. She quailed
not, she wavered not; no tear was seen to dim her eyelids; not a word
of opposition did she utter. Her character seemed to be entirely
changed. The frank, simple, timid girl, blooming in rich health, and
agitated by manifold emotions, was now the cold, grave, firm, decided
woman--pale as monumental marble, and unmoved by any of the passing
things of life. A petrifying hand had touched her--that of despair,
and she was indeed no longer the same.
Robert Woodhall saw it all--understood it all. But he had no pity: he
rejoiced.
Margaret was more alone than ever. She seldom, when she could avoid
it, quitted her own room. She left to others all preparations, and
only stipulated that the marriage should be performed by the good
Irish clergyman who had been for so many years her father's
chaplain--who had known her mother, and been the friend of her
childhood. She knew that he had many faults; but she knew that he had
many virtues too, and she thought that his familiar face would be a
comfort and a support to her.
She was sitting alone one day in a little chamber communicating with
her bed-room, while all the family and guests were absent on some gay
occasion at Dorchester, when her maid announced to her that Doctor
M'Feely had come to visit her.
"Bring him hither--bring him hither," cried Margaret, with the first
appearance of eagerness she had displayed for many a day. "Here we
shall not be interrupted, and I want much to speak with him."
In two minutes more, Doctor M'Feely, with his portly person and
buoyant step, swung into the room, and, taking her hands in his,
exclaimed, "Ah, my dear child--my dear young lady, that is--I am glad
to see you again, but not to see you looking so. Bother it, Mistress
Margaret, they have worried all the color out of your cheeks. They
used to bloom like a couple of roses in a summer's day, but now they
are like lilies in the shade. Well, man's a curious beast! I would not
have had a hand in withering those roses to be Archbishop of
Canterbury."
"The stem on which they grew will soon wither too," said Margaret,
sadly. "The tree is dead at the heart, doctor, and can never bloom
again."
"Don't say that, Mistress Margaret--don't say that, my dear child,"
cried the good parson; "that's just what I came to see you about, with
just the least possible hope that one way or another--what between
representations and denunciations--oh, that I were but a Roman
Catholic, and believed in transubstantiation; wouldn't I curse them
from the altar, and put a great seal upon them!--but, as I was saying,
I do think something might be done; though what the foul fiend, the
man intends to do, I don't know; for your father seems to me like a
rock; and as to Robert Woodhall, he is mischief itself, and the more
he thinks he vexes you, the more he'll do it. Couldn't you get up
early one moonlight morning, my darling, and just make a run of it?
There's a young man on the other side of the water who would be glad
enough to hold you to his heart, and I'd go over and marry you to
prevent mischief."
"Hush, hush, hush!" cried Margaret, clasping her hands wildly. "Oh
forbear, forbear, my good friend! No," she continued, "my father has
called down the curse of God upon his head if he does not give me to
Robert Woodhall. I have consented, in order to save poor Ralph's life;
and I will be honest. I will keep my word, though it kill me."
"Ay, but wasn't that word cheated out of you, my darling?" asked the
parson, earnestly. "Did they not persuade you that poor Ralph had
killed your brother Harry? If they did, I can show you in this paper
here that it was one of the biggest lies that ever was told. I may
show you the paper, dear Mistress Margaret; for, though it was given
to me in confidence--sub sigillo confessionis, as I should say if I
were a Romanist--God help the benighted people, and the king at the
back of them--I was permitted by the letter to bring it forward, if
they tried Ralph for the murder, and to show it to you if need be. Now
I say I can prove from this--"
"No need--no need," replied Margaret, laying her hand upon his arm.
"There is only one thing you can do for me, and that I wish you much
to do. I have never been deceived in regard to Ralph's innocence of my
brother's death--I have always done him justice; but I want you to
tell him, Doctor M'Feely--I want you to tell him hereafter" (and the
tears rolled plentifully down her face) "that Margaret loved him to
the last hour she was permitted to love any one on earth. At the altar
I renounce all earthly love. The ceremony might as well be my funeral
as my marriage, for it consigns my heart to the tomb, and leaves my
spirit only to seek its Maker. Thank God, I have wept again! I believe
these tears will save my reason."
The good clergyman wept too--wept like a child; but in the midst of
his tears, he kept feeling in his pocket till he brought forth an
unsealed letter, from the midst of which he took out another paper.
"But what answer do you mean to give to this man?" he asked, totally
forgetting that poor Margaret knew not who the man was. "He's a
strange creature, and deals with the devil, I've little doubt. I spent
a couple of hours with him one day, and he told me all manner of
things--a learned man, too. I was his match in Latin, but he beat me
to mud in Greek; and as to Hebrew and Arabic, Lord ha' mercy upon us!"
"Who--who?" cried Margaret; "do you mean Moraber?"
"Oh, ay, just Moraber," answered the parson; "Moraber's his surname,
and Devil, I suppose, is his Christian name, though not a very
Christian name either. But here--see what he writes to you here; for I
take it for granted it's intended for you, because he told me to give
it you;" and he spread out the inner paper before Margaret's eyes.
"Misguided girl!" the paper ran, "you have nearly destroyed your own
happiness forever, for want of truth and confidence. Did I not tell
you to be true and faithful to the last, and your happiness would be
secure? Write me down an answer to these questions:
"Do you still love him whom you loved first?
"Has your heart never swerved from him through vanity, lightness, or
caprice?
"Was it solely to save his life that you consented to wed a man whom,
if there be any honesty in the heart of woman, you are bound to hate?
"Answer at once, and answer truly."
"Here's a pen and ink, darling," said Doctor M'Feely, bringing the
implements for writing from a distant table. "I'll take it upon me
that you can answer all the questions handsomely enough; and the man
says something about a hope, in his letter to me--though how the devil
he found me out, or his little spalpeen of a boy in blue and silver
either, I can't tell. He can't have an optic glass that will look all
the way from Lincolnshire to Cerne Abbas--to say nothing of the
corners it would have to look round."
"I will answer truly at all events," replied Margaret, "be there hope
or no hope;" and, taking the pen, she wrote rapidly, "I love him ever.
No feeling of my heart has ever swerved from him. It was solely to
save his life that I consented to wed a man whom I do hate. This is
all true, so help me Heaven at my utmost need."
"There, Doctor M'Feely," she said, "give him that. But it is all in
vain. You know the marriage is appointed for Friday next."
"Friday!" said the doctor; "that's an unlucky day, my dear; I never
knew any one married on Friday in all my life."
"There never before was such a bridal," said Margaret. "Unlucky! Oh,
Doctor M'Feely, if they chose the most unlucky day in all the
calendar, they had hardly found one black enough to fit my wedding. I
will not be married in mourning," she said, "for it would grieve my
father; but I will have no bridal finery; I will not affect to rejoice
while my heart is dying."
"Well, I think it would have been but civil," said the doctor, "to
have let me know about the Friday."
"Doubtless you will hear of it to-day," replied Margaret. "Originally
the day was fixed for the Monday after, but something seems to have
affected Lady Coldenham strangely, and she has urged my father to
curtail even the short space allowed. To me it is indifferent what is
the day of execution. Doubtless Jane Grey shrunk from the block and
ax, as I shrink from the altar and the ring; but she met her fate
firmly, and so will I. Hark! there is a halloo in the fields; they are
coming back. Take the paper, but say I have no hope; that my fate is
sealed. Remember to tell Ralph what I have said; and bid him think of
me as one dead; for to every thing that makes existence life, I must
be dead from the moment the ring is upon my finger."
After a few words more, Doctor M'Feely left her; and in less than a
quarter of an hour, the house, so lately silent and solitary, was full
of gay sounds and heedless laughter, jarring painfully with the
thoughts of the melancholy tenant of that solitary room. Indeed, it
seemed as if the whole party, with the exception of Lord Woodhall, had
determined to leave the poor girl to her own imaginations. No one came
to console or support her; no one even attempted to cheer her by
conversation, or to withdraw her from her sad and lonely state. Her
father did come to see her, and strove to speak cheerfully; but there
was a silent reproach in his daughter's deep gloom which sent him ever
away with a heart depressed, and a consciousness that he had destroyed
the peace of his only remaining child.