"Our sweet Constantia looks like a virgin-martyr, beautiful and
resigned. She bids me say she shall always love her kind friend Arthur.
Surely you might write to her, and mention what course you mean to
pursue."
--------------------
It would be difficult to say, whether this letter gave De Vallance more
pain or pleasure. Hope seldom deserts the lover who knows he is beloved.
But why did he feel delight at hearing Isabel acknowledge her heart
would ever be devoted to him? Could affection burst the cinctures of the
grave, and re-animate the corpse which his father had prematurely sent
to that dark mansion? Should he not rather have wished her to determine
to tear his image from her heart, and be happy in a second choice? I aim
to recommend practical and praise-worthy self-denial, not that romantic
strain of extravagant sentiment which enjoins impossibilities and
commends absurdities. Arthur's reflections told him that in treasuring
the remembrance of Isabel, even in his heart-of-heart, he invaded no
one's right, and broke no divine precept. He measured the feelings of
his mistress by his own. "Whatever," said he, "may betide me in life, of
good or ill fortune, the idea of this virtuous, this heroical maid,
shall restrain the arrogance of prosperity, or prevent my sinking under
the weight of calamity. I will bring her to my mind's eye, restraining
her tears for her murdered brother; supporting her wretched father,
imbecile alike in mind and body; consoling the friend of her youth,
widowed in her virgin love; and let me add, following her plighted
Arthur with pious prayers and devoted affection. If I have now no motive
to action in the hope of possessing virtue personified in my Isabel, I
still have the incentive of proving myself worthy of her constant
attachment."
Determined never more to return to his parents, the sight of whom would
have been almost as terrible to him as to the unhappy family with whom
he had so long sojourned, if the remorseless Countess and usurping Earl
had dared to invade the privacy of their sorrows, De Vallance resolved
to leave England, and engage in the service of his exiled King. Should
prudential motives cause the King to decline making use of his sword,
the war which had for twenty years subsisted between France and Spain
would furnish him with employment, and he resolved rather to end his
days as a mercenary soldier than to remain in England a rebel to his
Prince, and the acknowledged heir of usurped greatness.
Avoiding all expostulation, or indeed all chance of further intercourse
with his parents, he removed from Ribblesdale with the utmost privacy.
Changing his clothes and assuming a disguise which altered his
appearance, he shaped his course toward Liverpool, from whence he hoped
to procure a passage to France. He had not proceeded far before he
overtook Jobson, who, unable to support the sight of Colonel Evellin's
distress, had determined to go back to Pembroke, and gain from Dr. Lloyd
a more minute account of the death of Eustace. De Vallance agreed to
accompany him and take ship at Milford Haven. Jobson was proud of again
serving a loyal gentleman, and Arthur was resolved, for his late
master's sake, to assist and protect the brave trooper. "I'll do any
thing to serve your honour," said Jobson; "but I hope you will not be
offended. My tongue is a little unruly, and apt to slip out now and
then. So if, when I don't intend it, I should say harsh things of the
cursed rogue who murdered Mr. Eustace, forgetting that he passes for
your honour's father, I hope you will not think me less dutifully
disposed to you. For Mrs. Isabel long ago told me you was come over to
the right side, and would rather fight for a King without a coat to his
back, than such upstarts as Old Noll and the Parliament, though all over
gold fringe and black velvet. I tell you what, Master Sedley, My Lord
Sedley I believe I ought to say----"
"My name is Arthur de Vallance," replied he; "I have no right to any
title."
"Bless your honourable nature," said Jobson. "Poor Mr. Eustace, I find,
ought to have been My Lord, but as that traitor shot him to get him out
of the way, I don't see why you should not be Lord Sedley rather than
one of Old Noll's tinkers should, who are sure to catch up all the good
things they can lay hold of."
Arthur smote his breast, and with agony reflected, that however his soul
abhorred the foul crime, he must (as his father was created a peer by
the late King) reap the advantage of it. The horror of this
consideration was alleviated by considering that on the death of
Bellingham he should have power to rescue Evellin from the protracted
misery of a life of concealment, and Isabel from terror, poverty, and a
renunciation of even common comforts. While he was engrossed by
meditating plans for their immediate relief, Jobson went on, unobserved,
raving against the degradation of serving upstarts, and resolving to
stand by true gentlemen while he had a drop of blood in his veins.
The remittances which De Vallance had received from his tenants, enabled
him to purchase horses and other necessaries for himself and Jobson.
Assuming the name of Herbert, he gave himself out to be a gentleman
travelling with his servant on a tour of pleasure. They reached Pembroke
in safety, but the pious intentions of Jobson were frustrated; he could
neither pluck a tuft of grass from his master's grave, nor recover Fido
to console Constantia. Dr. Lloyd had left the town, and no one knew
where the remains of Eustace were deposited. The graves of his
fellow-victims were pointed out by the attentive piety of the young
maidens, who adorned them with garlands of flowers, which (according to
the custom of the country) were renewed every Sabbath. On that day they
duly knelt beside the spot, and with awful veneration kept alive their
own attachment to the cause for which these officers suffered, by
repeating the Lord's prayer.
It was a matter of the deepest concern to Jobson that the grave of
Eustace was not pointed out and adorned with similar honours. He began
to conceive an implacable aversion to Dr. Lloyd for not having given him
a public interment. "Is it not enough," said he to De Vallance, "to make
poor Mr. Eustace walk? One of these gentlemen, to be sure, was a fine
corny-faced cavalier, who paid for many a jug of Welsh ale that I drank
to His Majesty's health, and the other was a stout desperate lieutenant,
that would fight and swear with any body; but not one of them was half
so handsome, sweet-speaking, well-born a gentleman as Mr. Eustace."
De Vallance did not apprehend that posthumous honours soothed the
separated spirit; and had he not been standing on the awful spot which
consummated his father's crimes, he would have smiled at the retention
of these old pagan ideas respecting the state of the departed. He
questioned the by-standers whether any thing was known respecting the
interment of young Evellin. Some said there was a private funeral
huddled up in a strange way; but an old woman whispered that it was
suspected the Doctor had made him into a skeleton, and being troubled in
conscience afterwards for the wicked act had fled the country. Absurd as
this suggestion was, it suited the pre-conceived prejudices of Jobson,
and in future afforded De Vallance some relief, by diverting part of his
companion's curses to another object than Lord Bellingham; for in
Jobson's estimation there was little difference between the General who
condemned, and the surgeon who dissected his master. Nor was he
satisfied about Fido's safety, when he found Dr. Lloyd had been
particularly careful to take the spaniel with him. "Ah, the bloody
knave," said he, "I know he will cut the poor dog up in his experiments,
as he calls them, and then sell his skin. That Doctor is a Jew to the
back-bone. If I had gone to him with my lame knee, he would have had my
leg off directly to put in pickle, and have made me wear a wooden one
instead of it. But sweet Isabel fomented it till it was well, and now I
can ride on horseback as well as ever. Bless her kind heart! I do hope
she and Your Honour will come together at last. Aye, and I know she
wishes so too. 'Jobson,' said she, as she bade me farewel, 'if ever you
can serve the worthy son of a wicked father, do it for my sake.'"
The reflections of De Vallance on the mysterious circumstances of
Eustace's interment took a different train from those of Jobson; but as
his thoughts never could pursue any other subject when the magic name of
Isabel spell-bound them to the secret chamber, where filial piety tended
its uncomplaining captive, we will follow their course, and return to
the Beaumont family.
The pious Isabel with unwearied magnanimity persevered in the duties
which her painful situation required. Her nights were uniformly spent in
the chamber where her father was concealed, and her days were divided
between him and the sad Constantia, who, ever pining for her Eustace,
seemed to have no wish but to share his grave. Isabel tried to divert
her thoughts to the consoling reflection that his honour was restored,
his reputation cleared from the foul charge of treason and the
accusations of Monthault; his name inscribed on the roll of England's
loyal worthies, and the consecrating seal of death fixed on his memory.
Dr. Beaumont endeavoured to make her wishes aspire to that happier world
where she would rejoin him. He talked of the "order, nature, number, and
obedience of angels[1];" and of her dear Eustace as now joined to their
blessed society. He told her, that her lover and herself were still
members of the same family, she suffering, he glorified. He pointed out
to her those texts of Scripture which imply recognition in Heaven, and
in particular mentioned the hope expressed by St. Paul, of presenting
his Colossian converts to his Lord, and the Apostles sitting on thrones
to judge the tribes of Israel, who therefore must be respectively known
as disciples and countrymen. Sometimes he would try to excite emulation,
by pointing out the conduct of Isabel, who endured a similar affliction
in the destruction of her fondest hopes, but whose spirits were
supported by constant bodily exertion, while her mental faculties were
no less exercised by fresh contrivances, at once to amuse her father,
and to add to the security of his retreat. These efforts, he said, gave
such an energy to her mind, that she was able to give instead of
requiring consolation. Dr. Beaumont attempted to revive his daughter's
taste for the beauties of nature; shewed her the rich variety of
mountains, dales, woods, lakes, and rivers, which embellished the
vicinity of her native village, and especially that most exhilarating of
terrestrial objects, the sun rising to enlighten a world which bursts at
his approach into splendid beauty.
Constantia listened, reproved her own weakness, and wept. Yet the pious
admonitions of her father, and the example of her cousin, assisted by
the meliorating influence of time, had a gradual though slow effect, in
changing grief into meek resignation. Her lute, long endeared by the
remembrance of Eustace, was now attuned to deplore the death of him who
had restored her the treasure. When sorrow can flow in poesy, it becomes
more plaintive than agonizing; and possibly the reader will be pleased
to see that the long-protracted years of Constantia's anguish were
soothed by those alleviations, which, in mercy to man, are permitted
imperceptibly to soften the ravages of death.
It is thus that afflicted survivors, in talking and meditating on those
who are gone before them to the unseen world, derive an enjoyment from
musing on the past, and from anticipating in the future what the present
is not able to afford.