"And we have won a bower of refuge now
In this fresh waste."
MRS. HEMANS.
The Vale of Cedars, as described in our first chapter, had been
originally the work of a single individual, who had found there a
refuge and concealment from the secret power of the Inquisition, from
whose walls he had almost miraculously escaped: this individual was
Julien Henriquez, the grandfather of Marie. For five years he remained
concealed, working unaided, but successfully, in forming a comfortable
home and concealed retreat, not only for himself but for his family.
Nature herself appeared to have marked the spot as an impenetrable
retreat, and Julien's skill and energy increased and strengthened the
natural barriers. During these five years the secret search for his
person, at first carried on so vigilantly that his enemies supposed
nothing but death could have concealed him, gradually relaxed, and
then subsided altogether. Foes and friends alike believed him dead,
and when he did re-appear in the coarse robe, shrouding cowl, and
hempen belt, of a wandering friar, he traversed the most populous
towns in safety, unrecognized and unsuspected. It was with some
difficulty he found his family, and a matter of no little skill to
convey them, without exciting suspicion by their disappearance, to his
retreat; but all was accomplished at length, and years of domestic
felicity crowned every former effort, and inspired and encouraged
more.
Besides his own immediate family, consisting of his wife, a son,
and daughter, Henriquez had the charge of two nephews and a niece,
children of his sister, whose husband had perished by the arm of the
same secret power from which Henriquez had escaped; their mother had
died of a broken heart, from the fearful mystery of her husband's
fate, and the orphans were to Julien as his own.
As years passed, the Vale of Cedars became not only a safe, but a
luxurious home. Every visit to the world Julien turned to profit, by
the purchase first of necessaries, then of luxuries. The little temple
was erected by the active aid of the young men, and the solemn rites
of their peculiar faith adhered to in security. Small as the family
was, deaths, marriages, and births took place, and feelings and
sympathies were excited, and struggles secretly endured, making that
small spot of earth in very truth a world. The cousins intermarried.
Ferdinand and Josephine left the vale for a more stirring life;
Manuel, Henriquez's own son, and Miriam, his niece, preferred the
quiet of the vale. Julien, his nephew, too, had loved; but his
cousin's love was given to his brother, and he departed, unmurmuringly
indeed, but he dared not yet trust himself to associate calmly with
the object of his love: he had ever been a peculiarly sad and silent
boy; the fate of his father never for an instant seemed to leave his
mind, and he had secretly vowed to avenge him. Love, for a while, had
banished these thoughts; but when that returned in all the misery of
isolation to his own breast, former thoughts regained dominion, and he
tried to conquer the one feeling by the encouragement of the other.
His brother and his wife constantly visited the vale; if at no other
time, almost always at those solemn festivals which generally fell
about the period of the Catholic Easter and Michaelmas; often
accompanied by faithful friends, holding the same mysterious bond of
brotherhood, and to whom the secret of that vale was as precious and
secure as to its natural inmates. Its aged founder had frequently the
happiness of gathering around him from twenty to thirty of his secret
race, and of feeling that his work would benefit friends as well as
offspring. Julien alone never returned to the vale, and his family at
length mourned him as one amongst the dead.
The career of his brother was glorious but brief; he fell fighting
for his country, and his widow and young son returned to the parental
retreat. Though the cousins had married the same day, the son of
Ferdinand was ten years older than his cousin Marie; Manuel and Miriam
having lived twelve years together ere the longed-for treasure was
bestowed. At first, therefore, she had been to the youthful Ferdinand
but as a plaything, to pet and laugh with: he left the vale as page
to his father's companion in arms, Gonzalos de Lara, when Marie was
little more than five years old; but still his love for her and his
home was such that whenever it was possible, he would snatch if it
were but half a day to visit them. Gradually, and to him it seemed
almost strangely, the plaything child changed into the graceful girl,
and then again into the lovely woman; and dearer than ever became his
boyhood's home, though years had snatched away so many of its beloved
inmates, that, at the period of our story, its sole occupants were
Marie and her father.
Had her mother lived, perchance Marie had never been exposed to the
dangers of an introduction to the world. Betrothed, in the secret
hearts of not only her own parents, but of Ferdinand's mother, to her
cousin, if she lived to attain sufficient age, Miriam would not have
thought it so impossible as Manuel did, that the affections of his
child might be sought for by, and given to another, if she mingled
with the world; she would at least have waited till she was
Ferdinand's wedded wife, and then sent her forth secure. But such
subtle fears and feelings are peculiarly _woman's_; not the tenderest,
most devoted father, could of himself have either thought of, or
understood them. He might perhaps have owned their justice had they
been presented to him by the affectionate warnings of an almost
idolized wife; but that voice was hushed, her sweet counsels buried
in the grave; and the fond, proud father, only thought of his child's
brilliant beauty, and how she would be admired and beloved, could she
be but generally known. And so, for her sake, he actually did violence
to his own love for the quiet retirement of the vale, and bore her to
the care of Donna Emilie de Castro; seeing nothing, feeling nothing,
but the admiration she excited, and that she was indeed the loveliest
there. One wish he had, and that was, that his nephew could have been
there likewise; but being engaged at that time on some important
private business for the Queen, Ferdinand did not even know that his
cousin had ever left the vale.
That his child's affections could be excited towards any but those of
her own race was a circumstance so impossible, and moreover a sin so
fearful, that it never entered Manuel's mind: he knew not woman's
nature, dreamed not of its quick impulses, its passionate yearnings,
its susceptibility towards all gentle emotions, or he could not have
so trustingly believed in the power of her peculiar faith and creed
to guard her from the danger. Even his dearest desire that she should
become the wife of her cousin she knew not; for the father shrunk from
revealing it to either his child or nephew, unless Ferdinand loved
and sought her himself. What therefore had she to warn her from the
precipice on which she stood, when new, strange, yet most exquisitely
sweet emotions gradually obtained possession of her heart in her daily
intercourse with Arthur Stanley? What they were indeed she knew not;
the word love was never uttered by either; she only knew that his
presence, his voice, the pressure of his hand, brought with it a
thrilling sensation of intense happiness, such as she had never known,
never imagined before. It was indeed but a brief dream, for when
he spoke, when he besought her to be his, then indeed she woke to
consciousness, not only that she loved, but of the dark and fatal
barrier between them, which no human effort could o'erleap. The
sacrifice of race, of faith, of family, indeed might be made; but to
do this never entered the mind and heart of Marie, so utterly was it
impossible. To her peculiar feelings it was sin enough thus to have
loved.
Manuel Henriquez bore his child back to the vale, little dreaming of
the anguish to which his unguarded love had exposed her. She had ever
been rather a pensive and gentle girl, and therefore that she should
be still serious was no matter of surprise. For fifteen months she
had sought to banish every dream of Arthur, every thought but that in
loving him she had sinned against her God. Time and prayer had in some
measure softened the first acute agony of her feelings; she thought
she was conquering them altogether, when his unexpected appearance
excited every feeling anew. Yet in that harrowing interview still she
had been firm. She had even told him a secret, which it was almost
death to reveal, that he might forget her; for how could he wed with
her? And yet even that barrier he would have passed, and his generous,
his determined love, would linger on her memory spite of every effort
to think of him no more.
It was a fearful struggle, and often and often she yearned to confess
all to her father, whom she loved with no common love; but she knew
too well, not only the grief such tidings would be to him, but what
his judgment must be, and she shrunk in agony from the condemnation
of her feelings by another, constantly as she was condemning them
herself.
Henriquez had been absent from the vale during Stanley's unexpected
visit, and he tarried long enough to excite the alarm, not only of his
child but of their domestics; nor was its cause when explained likely
to ease Marie's anxiety. He had been attacked on the day of his
intended return by a strange sensation of giddiness, followed by
insensibility, which appeared to have weakened him more than he had
thought compatible with so brief an illness. He made light of it, but
still he was uneasy, not that he feared death himself, but that it
might take him from his Marie ere his wishes were accomplished, and
her earthly happiness, as he thought, secured. The first attack was
but the forerunner of others, sometimes very slight and brief, at
others longer and more alarming, rendering Marie more and more
determined to keep her fatal secret from him; for it appeared to her
that any stronger emotion than customary would be followed by those
attacks; and as her love for him seemed to increase in intensity with
the anxiety his precarious health occasioned, so did her dread of
occasioning him aught of grief. But how fruitless are our best and
wisest resolutions! One little hour, and every thought was changed.