Mystery and Confidence.
vol. 3.
by Elizabeth Pinchard.
CHAP. I.
----Infected minds To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets.
----A great perturbation in nature, To receive at once the benefit of sleep, and do the effect of watching.
MACBETH.
Laura, St. Aubyn, O"Brien, and Mordaunt, were seated on one side the fire, with the sandwich tray before them; on the other side, thrown on a sofa, Ellen saw a tall thin young man, who, deeply absorbed in thought, noticed not her entrance. One pale, sickly looking hand hung motionless by his side, the other shaded his eyes, and over his brow his black hair fell in disordered curls; his dress, though that of a gentleman, was evidently neglected, and his whole appearance was
"Drooping, woeful, wan, like one forlorn; Or crazed by care, or cross"d by hopeless love!"
As Ellen entered, St. Aubyn rose, and with subdued emotion, said in a low tone:
"My love, we waited for you;" then somewhat louder;--"My Lord De Montfort, will you allow me to introduce you to...." he faltered, and looked as if he dreaded to p.r.o.nounce the name ... "to my wife ... to ...
Lady St. Aubyn?"
As he spoke, Lord De Montfort started from his reverie, shook back the curls which shaded his face, and shewed a fine, but pale and emaciated countenance. For an instant his bright black eyes flashed, and his cheeks crimsoned with a sudden emotion. He hastily took two or three steps forward, as if to greet some well-known friend; but seeing Ellen, who, half alarmed, leaned upon St. Aubyn, he gazed upon her for a moment with such an earnest yet melancholy expression as extremely affected her. She courtesied, and he bent his head with the air of a perfect gentleman, but spoke not, and then threw himself on his sofa again.
Ellen perceived that St. Aubyn"s frame shook with subdued emotion, and her own trembled with an indefinable sensation.
"Come, Lady St. Aubyn," said Laura, "sit here by the fire; you look pale and cold; you should not indeed expose yourself to the night air in crossing the hall and staircase."
Ellen gladly sat down, and while they were taking their little meal, she glanced her eyes towards the youth, whose mysterious manner impressed her with feelings of no very pleasing import: she saw that under the shade of his bent brows he was attentively gazing upon her. The portentous gloom of his countenance seemed to her troubled imagination to forebode some direful event, and she grew so pale, that Laura perceiving it, put a gla.s.s of wine into her hand, and begged her to drink it. Before she would comply, St. Aubyn said:--
"Ellen, neither my entreaties, nor those of his former friend, Miss Cecil, can prevail on Lord De Montfort to take the slightest refreshment; try, my love, if you can induce him to take a gla.s.s of wine with you."
Ellen with sudden effort conquering the agitation of her spirits, said: "Indeed, my Lord, I shall be very happy if Lord De Montfort will do me that honour. May I, my Lord," speaking to him, "make it my request that you will do so?"
The soft persuasive tones of her voice seemed to touch him; he rose, and with a voice deep, melancholy, and impressive, said:
"At _your_ request, Madam!"
He advanced, and took from Laura a gla.s.s of wine she offered to him; he bowed to Ellen, and lifted the gla.s.s to his lips, but instantly exclaimed, while his whole person shook with agitation:
"I _cannot_ drink it! In _this_ house! Oh, G.o.d!"
He let fall the gla.s.s, and covering his face with his hands, rushed out of the room.
O"Brien instantly followed him, while the little party which remained sat in silent dismay and astonishment. Yet St. Aubyn"s emotion partook more of vexation than surprize: he paced the room with hasty strides for a few minutes, and then approaching Ellen, said, clasping her hand in his, which trembled with agitation--"This scene has been too much for you, my love: could I have imagined De Montfort"s demeanor would have been so wild, I would not have brought him hither; yet let us make allowances for him--he doated on his sister." St. Aubyn"s voice seemed elevated with deep contending pa.s.sions: for a moment he paused, then added, "You had better go to your rest, my love, and you, Laura: I do not suppose this young man will return to-night."
He rung, and inquired of the servant in waiting where the two gentlemen then were. "They have been in the study, my Lord," said the man; "but are now gone to their chambers, which Mrs. Bayfield sent to say were ready for them."
The ladies rose to retire, just as Mr. O"Brien returned: he brought apologies from his pupil to Lady St. Aubyn, saying that Lord de Montfort regretted extremely his distress should have shewed itself so visibly, and doubtless alarmed her. "Forgive him, Madam," said O"Brien: "this is the first time he has been in this house, or even in England, since the death of Lady St. Aubyn: and recollections of the sister he lost so young, the sister he adored, have been too much for him."
"Surely," said Laura, "he must have been uncommonly attached to her, since six years have not effaced her from his memory." She sighed--the tear stood in her eye; for she thought--"It is scarcely as many months since I lost the sweetest sister in the world, yet she is comparatively forgotten."
"He cherishes every recollection of her," said O"Brien, "with officious care: he constantly wears her portrait next his heart. Before we left Spain, he insisted on visiting her grave, and was so deeply affected, I feared for his reason. To you, my Lord St. Aubyn, I ought to apologize for details which I see distress you, but I thought it was necessary to account for my pupil"s strange deportment."
St. Aubyn bowed; but traces of vexation were legible in his expressive face. Mr. Mordaunt made some inquiries after the present state of Lord de Montfort, to which Mr. O"Brien replied he had left him in bed, and tolerably composed; that he had consented to breakfast with the family the next morning, when he hoped personally to apologize to the Countess for the alarm he had given her.
The ladles now retired, and each went to her respective apartment. Lady St. Aubyn pa.s.sed through her own room into that where the infant lay: both the child and his nurse slept quietly. She knelt a moment by the bed-side, and offered a fervent prayer to heaven for the health and happiness of her infant, and for its father, who seemed menaced by some mysterious disturbance. The contrast presented by the soft sleep, the placid innocence of the baby"s face, to the scene of anxiety and confusion she had left, deeply affected her. Tears stole down her cheeks, and wetted the little hands she held pressed to her lips. At length, rousing herself, she returned to her bed-chamber, where Jane waited to undress her: "Make haste, Jane," she said, "I am weary." Jane obeyed in silence; for her Lady"s pensive looks had power to quiet even her loquacious propensities.
In a few minutes Ellen was laid on her pillow, and the tumultuous throbbing of her heart began to subside. In about half an hour she heard St. Aubyn go to the room he occupied at present, and fancied, after his valet left him, she could distinctly hear him pacing the apartment, and sighing heavily: but this perhaps was chiefly fancy; for the wind still howled and sobbed round the Castle, and through its large hall and long galleries. Sometimes it sounded like the low moans of one in grief or pain: then in shriller gusts it shook the lofty battlements, or swept over the tops of the high trees, which bent and rustled beneath its power.
Ellen, restless, uneasy, impressed with the melancholy countenance and strange conduct of their mysterious guest, vainly endeavoured to sleep, and turned from side to side, soothed only in the intervals of the storm by hearing the soft breathings of her infant, whose couch (the door being open between the rooms) was so near her, that she could accurately distinguish every breath he drew. Two or three times she was inclined to rise, and steal him from his nurse"s side to partake her bed; for she felt how glad she should be in that unquiet hour to feel his little cheek pressing against hers, and hold him to her anxious heart; but fearing to disturb, or give him cold, she relinquished her purpose, and endeavoured to compose herself to rest.
At length, just after the Castle clock had struck two, she felt as if sleep were stealing over her fatigued senses; but starting from a momentary forgetfulness, she heard a light footstep, yet sounding as if the person walking wore no shoes, approaching her bed-room door. It was she knew unfastened; for lest the child should be ill, or want additional a.s.sistance, it was always left so. Starting, she listened: her breath grew short, and her heart beat audibly, as the steps approached nearer and nearer; yet not losing her presence of mind she drew aside her curtain, and fixing her eyes on the door, prepared to fly into the inner room, should, as she now began to expect, a midnight robber meet her view.
Slowly, slowly, opened the door, and a tall thin figure, wrapped in a loose night-gown, just appeared within it. "Sister! sister!" said a voice, low, tremulous, and impressive: "sister, are you awake? You bade me call you early."
The figure! the voice!--Oh, what became of Ellen, when in both she recognized the wild, the mysterious, De Montfort! In his pale hand he bore a lamp, the flashing light of which fell at intervals on his gloomy countenance: while his bright black eyes were indeed open, but, oh!
"their sense was shut."
Again, as he advanced into the room, he repeated in the same low mournful tone, "Sister _Rosolia_! What, sleeping still? You said you would rise early, and walk with me." Then pausing, he seemed to stand as if listening for an answer; but suddenly, with a start of recollection and a heavy sigh, he exclaimed, "Oh yes, I remember! too well I remember! You cannot rise: you will never rise again!--_You are dead!
you are dead! you are dead!_"
Again a solemn pause ensued, and sighs, which seemed to rend his bosom, alone broke the terrific silence of the moment.
Again he spoke with an energy of action, as if his sleeping agitations were breaking into frenzy, addressing himself as in answer to one who had spoken to him.
"But did he murder you? Was it St. Aubyn? Tell me, I conjure you, and answer _truly_. Condemn not your own soul, and O, Rosolia, involve not mine in condemnation by a lie!--A lie!--_Can the dead lie?_--And you are come to me _here_--aye, _here_, in this very chamber, where in our innocent school-days you used to sleep--to tell me the truth--the _truth_, Rosolia."
And now with quicker steps he paced the chamber, as if pursuing one who fled before him, yet, with that wonderful instinctive power which often attends the sleep-walker, avoiding every obstacle.
"Nay, fly me not!" he exclaimed: "deceive me not; for I have seen an angel in _thy place_ to-night; and if thou art not a false and lying spirit, thou wilt not lead me to injure her." Then pausing again, as if listening to some one who spoke, he said, with quickness--
"I know it! I know it! That _pistol_--that _ring_! Yes, yes, yes, yes!
Those indeed were direful evidences of his guilt!--Years, years, I have pa.s.sed in thinking of them!--Yet he says, he swears, he is innocent--that it was _De Sylva_--that _thou_ wert guilty! Oh, tell me, Rosolia, was it--was it so?--But I will pray for thy soul."
He knelt, and placing the lamp before him on the floor, its dismal light fell on his sad countenance, and shewed his eyes upturned, and his lips moving as in fervent prayer, while at intervals he crossed himself, and bowed his forehead to the earth. Then rising with a sudden start, he exclaimed--
"Hark, O"Brien calls! He will hear me--he shall not know my thoughts. It might not be St. Aubyn who shed thy blood: yet, oh, Rosolia--oh, my sister, it _was_ thy blood I saw! And here is some of it on my hand."
He shook his hand violently, and appearing to look at it earnestly, he uttered a low, mournful, and distracted cry of terror, and rushed out of the room.
Alarm and horror had kept Ellen silent--she fainted not; yet scarcely could she be said to live. But as soon as his receding footsteps convinced her he was really gone, she hastily threw on some of her clothes, and flew, scarcely in her senses, to St. Aubyn"s room. His door was fast, but with repeated knockings she aroused him, and great indeed was his consternation to see her so pale, so almost convulsed with fear and agitation.
"My dearest life!" he exclaimed: "what, for heaven"s sake, is the matter with the child?"
"Oh! I have left him! I have forsaken him!" said she in terror, "all the doors open too, and that poor distracted youth may perhaps return, and who knows what injury he may do him! Oh! let us fly to the child," and she made some hasty steps towards the door.
"Recollect yourself, my Ellen," said the astonished St. Aubyn: "you are dreaming--sit down in this chair by the fire, and compose your spirits."