Man may the sterner virtues know,
Determin'd Justice, Truth severe,
But female hearts with Pity glow,
And Woman holds affliction dear.
Crabbe.
The bells of Ribblesdale had hardly finished the merry peal which
announced the joy of the villagers, that their sweet rose-bud, Isabel de
Beaumont, was married to the strange gentleman, whom they had long
thought a prince in disguise, come to make their good Doctor a Bishop,
when an unexpected dispatch from London cast the deepest gloom on the
bridegroom's joy.
In this letter De Vallance conjured his friend to postpone his intended
return till his affairs took a brighter aspect.--The King at first bore
the sad tidings of his favourite's death with such apparent
tranquillity, that he proceeded unruffled to his devotions; yet
reflecting on the circumstances of the deed, and deeply affected by an
interview with the widowed Duchess, who with her orphan children had
thrown herself at his feet and implored justice, he now cherished such
an appetite for revenge that it was suspected many lives would scarce be
deemed a fit atonement. He discharged the Duke's debts out of his privy
purse, he promised to provide for his servants, and frowned on all who
had ever been his enemies. Thomas Felton had at first denied having any
accomplice, and enthusiastically called himself the champion of an
injured people; yet it was expected that the close interrogatories to
which he would be exposed would overawe his firmness, and perhaps
prevail on him to name some innocent persons as abettors of the crime.
At all events Evellin must remain in privacy during the storm of the
King's anger, which now agitated him so violently that he would attend
to no other business till the Duke's murder was thoroughly
investigated.--De Vallance concluded with describing the impatience
which both himself and Lady Eleanor felt to restore him to his honours;
and he trusted that the Queen's growing influence would be useful in
recalling to the recollection of the King a person he had once highly
favoured, while he saw in Buckingham an insolent minister rather than a
devoted friend.
Weary of delay, eager to vindicate his honour, yet at the same time
conscious of his own impetuosity, and confiding in the management of his
friends, Evellin fretted at his situation, and yielding his mind to
irritability, became incapable of cool discrimination or vigorous
action. He had borne a long banishment with melancholy patience,
disdaining to complain, and affecting resignation, but he was then an
unconnected man, and his fate was of small importance. A gleam of hope,
improved by his sanguine temper into confident expectation, had
encouraged him to unite himself to a most amiable woman, in whose breast
he had excited an expectation of the most exalted fortunes. He had given
an implicit promise, that he would add to Dr. Beaumont's power of doing
good; and after this, must he still continue a nameless exile, poorly
content to barter reputation for life!
Subsequent dispatches from De Vallance heightened his distress. In a
moment of extreme irritation, when, by long pondering on his own and the
nation's wrongs, passion gained the ascendancy of judgement, Evellin in
a confidential letter to Walter had anticipated with hope and exultation
the fate that afterwards befell the Duke of Buckingham. A sermon of Dr.
Beaumont's afterwards convinced him of the guiltiness of an expression,
which, though proceeding from a sudden unweighed suggestion rather than
a deliberate purpose, yet, certainly, as our church has well determined,
proves "the infection of our nature, and has in it the nature of sin."
Convinced that positive evil may not be committed to procure
problematical good, and that no uninspired person should presume to
think himself God's champion, unless placed in that station which
visibly arms him with his authority, Evellin had often lamented this
rash letter, as one of his secret faults. He now severely felt it also,
as an imprudence, in having given vent to his angry feelings, even in a
confidential communication. De Vallance informed him that, through a
fatal mistake of his secretary, this very letter had been laid with some
other papers, tending to prove him innocent of the death of Saville, and
was thus put along with them into the King's hands by the Queen, who had
graciously undertaken to plead for the brother of her favourite Lady
Eleanor. No expiatory apology could be urged to weaken the effect of
sentiments attested by his own writing, and they were obliged to yield
him to the storm, as the King now declared that mercy would be
compromising blood. Walter was in despair. Lady Eleanor still determined
to watch for a favourable moment; they both continued his firm friends,
and would punctually remit ample sums for his support, till some change
in the state of affairs should again admit of their active
interposition.
How dreadful was Evellin's situation! Ruined by his own rashness, and
restrained from a step, to which impatience of present suffering had
long impelled him, namely to throw himself on the King's mercy, and
either regain his birthright or forfeit his life! He was now a husband;
he expected to be a father. Isabel must not be deserted in the hour of
distress, and her life was bound up in his. She endured the change in
her prospects with a cheerful serenity, that seemed as if she felt only
the sorrows of her beloved. Nor did Dr. Beaumont betray any feeling
which tended to shew that the expectation of stalls and mitres ever
withdrew his thoughts from the celestial contemplations in which he
loved to expatiate.
"Why should I grieve for those who seem wrapped in measureless content?"
said Evellin. "Is this apathy the effect of ignorance of greater good,
or the result of a long indulged habit of contemning every exterior
advantage?--Isabel, while planning your baby-cloaths, or loitering among
your flowers, you seem to forget that life admits of more exalted
pleasures and ampler scenes of duty. Have you no desire beyond filling
your days with such a series of trivial occupations, which make our
years glide away with undistinguishable sameness? Have you no wish to
extend your views beyond Ribblesdale? Does the scene of life, exhibited
among your native villagers, satisfy your wish of being acquainted with
human nature? Do the mountains, which bound your horizon, limit your
desire of seeing the wonders of your Creator's hand? When you read the
history of the mighty and the good, your countenance expresses your
ardour to emulate their actions; yet here you seem to wish to set up
your rest, and slumber away your life, content with security, and
careless of renown."
"When I am summoned to another station," replied Isabel, "it will be
time enough to cherish the feeling which will beseem it. At present,
suffer me to think of the advantages of my own. In the hour of danger,
and the decline of life, the most courageous spirits long for a quiet
harbour. Does not this shew that safety is desirable, and repose a
blessing? The difference which even my inexperienced mind discovers,
between the inward feeling and the exterior advantages of greatness,
abates my wish to wear the gorgeous pall of splendid fortune. Yet,
dearest Allan, I am aware, that our present state cannot be permanent.
Two alternatives await us, either a restoration to your rank in society,
or removal to a plate of greater security. The King will soon visit
Scotland, to receive his hereditary crown. He will pass through
Ribblesdale, and my brothers duty will call him to attend him; is there
a hope that he can plead your cause successfully, after the eloquence of
your friend, and the address of your sister have failed?"
Evellin answered, there was no probability.
"Consider then," returned Isabel, "this place lies in a frequented road.
Some busy courtier will be eager to beat the covert and start the noble
quarry, which the King desires to hunt down. If indeed His Highness's
mind is so obscured by anger, as to combine a rash expression and a
deliberate plan of murder in the same degree of guilt; to condemn you
unheard for one crime, and by implication make you accessary to another,
can there be safety or honour in being his servant? Surely, my Allan's
loyalty once arrayed his Prince with visionary excellence; or Walter
acted like one of those unskilful surgeons, who convert a slight wound
into a deep gangrene."
The tone of displeasure, in which Evellin checked every suggestion
against the integrity or discretion of his friend, had no other effect
on Isabel's mind, than to convince her of her husband's unbounded
confidence. Walter's own letters furnished her with many reasons for
suspicion; there was in them a studied air of plausibility, a nice
arrangement of minutiae, and a wary shifting from important points, which
seemed to her strong but artless mind, more like the drapery of design,
than the frank simplicity of truth. They were seldom replies to
Evellin's statements or requests. The kindness they contained had the
flourish of sentiment; there was much ostentatious display of trivial
offices of goodwill, and of those every-day assistances, which affection
wants memory to record. If Evellin seemed determined to risk all, by a
bold appeal to the laws, better prospects were held out, which
precipitation would blast; and larger remittances were forwarded. If he
affected to be reconciled to obscurity, Walter, by gently censuring,
actually confirmed the wise moderation of his choice, describing
himself as tired of the court, and reluctantly chained to it by the
rooted attachment of Lady Eleanor, who sparkled in the Queen's train,
eclipsing all in splendor, and all but her royal mistress in beauty. He
subjoined to these complaints of the unsatisfactoriness of a life of
pleasure, lamentable statements of the misrule of the King, and the
oppression of his government, the arbitrary punishments of the
Star-chamber, the illegal fines, loans and projects, by which the royal
coffers were filled, and concluded with affirming, that they only were
safe and happy, whose contracted wants, and mortified desires, asked but
the primeval simplicity of nature. All this time, though the honours of
the house of Neville lay in abeyance, the rents were received by De
Vallance, and Isabel wondered that so mortified a spirit should encumber
itself with the dross which it affected to despise.
Meantime Evellin, partially blinded by a fatal security, and in part
deprived of the use of his judgement by his acute feelings, at one time
scorned to impute treachery to the friend of his youth; at another fear
to trust even himself. One master stroke of policy still remained.
Walter wrote to him in great alarm; their correspondence was discovered
to the King, and reported to be of a factious tendency. He was in the
most imminent danger of being sacrificed to their mutual enemies. He
conjured Evellin to fly to some more remote retreat instantly, but first
to give up to the confidential agent, whom he named, all their
correspondence, that he might instantly destroy it, lest it should fall
into the hands of those who would construe it into a disclosure of the
King's counsels. The credulous Evellin fell into the snare. He returned
all Walter's letters, and retired with his family to a freehold of
Isabel's, situated among the mountainous parts of Lancashire, and in his
anxiety for Walter's safety, forgot for a time his own troubles. But
though their correspondence ceased, the voice of fame was not silent,
and its echoes reached even to the Fourness Fells, telling that Walter
De Vallance was created Earl of Bellingham, and that all the possessions
of the ancient house of Neville were bestowed on Lady Eleanor.
The ocean beats at the bottom of a cliff for ages, and imperceptibly
wears its rugged projections to smoothness; but an earthquake overthrows
it in an instant. The mind of Evellin, which for a period of seven years
had contended with hope and fear, sometimes almost suspecting, and at
other times rejecting distrust, was by this proof of his friend's
treachery, bereft of all fortitude and patience. Wounded by the neglect
of the world, his confidence in Walter had been his preservative from
misanthropy; and when vexed at the recollection of his own imprudent
frankness and folly, in provoking the resentment of powerful foes, he
soothed his galled spirit by considering, that the guileless simplicity
of his nature, which had raised those foes, had also secured him a
faithful friend. That bright creation of his fancy disappeared, a chaos
of duplicity, dark contrivance, and injustice remained: Walter proved
false, his sister unnatural, his King a tyrant. So different were these
objects from what he once believed them, that he doubted whether life
afforded any realities. Did his Isabel really choose him for his own
merit, or was latent ambition the spur to her affection? Did the
village-pastor seek out and console a stranger from motives of Christian
benevolence, or had he discovered his rank and hopes, and on them formed
expectation of advancement?
Whatever the most unalterable and entire affection, acting on a noble
mind and an active temper, could do, Isabel performed with cheerful
tenderness and never-wearied patience. To assist in supporting her
family, she took the farm into her own management, and endeavoured to
rouse the attention of her much-altered husband, by pointing out the
humble, but secure comforts, which husbandry afforded. She dwelt on
every example of unhappy greatness; she reminded him, that to be
deceived by specious characters, was the common error of superior
understandings, who, lightly valuing the goods of fortune, never suspect
that to others they will prove irresistible temptations. Her surprise,
she said, was not that the artful should impose upon the honourable, or
the mean ensnare the magnanimous; but that the former should have the
audacity to attempt to cozen those who were every way above them,
because, in so doing, they must depend upon the operation of qualities,
which their narrow hearts and warped principles could not allow them to
estimate. She once went so far as to say, that it was not superior
discernment, which enabled her to suspect the perfidiousness of Walter.
She did not view him with the partiality of youthful affections; she was
ignorant of the many ties which bound him to a brave and grateful heart.
Her anxiety for her Allan kept her attention fixed on one object, the
progress which his agent made; and when she saw that the cause did not
prosper in his hand, she searched for instances of mismanagement, and
combined circumstances to his prejudice, which were not likely to strike
an affectionate friend, who was too confident in the actor to scrutinize
the action. How could she, who loved a brother with the same
unquestioning fidelity as Allan did Walter, condemn the errors of
overflowing affection? Evellin listened in gloomy silence. Too deeply
wounded to endure even this mild censure of his own folly, in the shape
of an apology for his weakness, he sternly enjoined her to avoid that
theme.
Undismayed by such rebuffs, Isabel attempted other topics. She often
assured him she was now more at her ease, than if seated at the head of
the Earl's table, in Castle Bellingham. "I should have been
embarrassed," said she, "and might, perhaps, have acted wrong through my
solicitude to be very right. Our little household is easily catered for;
hence we can devote the more time to our darling babes. Was not the
husbandman's life preferred by the wisest, the most favoured of mankind?
Does it not afford health and peace? Are not our cares innocent, our
enjoyments unenvied? We do not anticipate, with aching hearts, the fall
or the death of a rival; neither do we, after having distorted our faces
with the hilarity of forced merriment in public, meet, in our privacies,
with anger and fear; reproaching each other for some neglect, and
commenting on the frowns of royalty. We need not study to be expert in
ceremony, or adroit in flattery. When nature calls, we take our simple
food, we rest when she requires relaxation, and when rest is satiety,
innocent and useful labour improves our mental and corporeal functions.
How pitiable are they, whom necessity drags to the banquet of
ostentation, who secretly yawn through the lengthened vigil of unenjoyed
dissipation; who rise from feverish slumbers to tasteless delights; who
feel that their present course of life is a captivity; and yet look on
that which would bring them freedom as disgrace. Unmolested by
creditors, unvexed by the reproachful glances of those who would
attribute their undoing to our extravagance, with no open enemies to
insult us, no secret sorrows to afflict us, our desires subdued rather
than gratified, our domestic union perfect, our minds informed, and our
souls expatiating in a still happier world, O my Allan, let us forget
the past, and call our lot rare felicity. These mountains, which shut
from your view a deceitful treacherous world are now your towers of
defence. These clear lakes which reflect the blue skies, dispose us to
serene contemplation. When all my household toils are finished, and
suspended care sleeps till the morning, I lead my children to their
evening sports; I point to the sublime scenes around us, and remind them
that the Almighty mind, that formed these wonders, dictated the book
which is their daily study. He piled the grey cliffs on each other, some
awfully barren, others cloathed with verdure, to shew that fertility and
desolation, like joy and grief, are at his disposal. He, through fringed
rocks, hollowed a cavern, whence burst the majestic cataract, whose
course no mortal hand shall divert or restrain. So should man submit to
the dispensations of Omniscient wisdom. While thus meditating, I despise
the insignificance of worldly cares, I become almost spiritualized, and
am in danger of losing social affections, as well as earthly desires,
till my children, fancifully decked with wild flowers, call aloud to
point you out, descending from the cliff, loaded with game, and
accompanied by your spaniels and falcon. They rush into your embraces.
You return safe, uninjured by your exhilarating sports. If, at such a
moment, I can fancy that parental transport predominates over sorrow in
your aspect, I lift my hands in transport to Heaven, and ask if a mighty
Princess ever was so blessed."
The dejected Evellin sometimes listened in silence to these fond
breathings of chaste affection, wrung her hand, and pronounced her
worthy of a happier lot, calling her a pledge of divine favour and
reconciliation to a much-offending man. He never spoke of his wrongs,
and she sometimes entertained a hope that they were fading from his
remembrance. At least she knew it was the wisest course to avoid
dwelling on sorrows, for which patience was the only cure, and being
thoroughly practised in the duty of resignation, she wished to impart
its comforts to him, whom she so strongly loved.