But Sobieski did not follow the attentive domestic of his maternal friend to the prepared apartment in the Abbey. He asked to be conducted back through the night shadowed grounds to the little hotel he had seen early in the evening on his approach to the mansion. It stood at the entrance of the adjoining village, and under its rustic porch he had immediately entered, to engage a lodging beneath its humble sign, "The Plough," for the few clays of his intended visit to Lady Tinemouth. A boy had been his guide, and bearer of his small travelling bag, from the famous old Commandery inn, the "Angel," at Grantham, where the Wold diligence had set him down in the afternoon at the top of the market-place of that memorable town of ancient chivalry, to find his way up to the occasional rural palace cells on Harrowby Hill, of the same doughty and luxurious knights who were now lying, individually forgotten, in their not only silent but unknown graves, there not being a trace of them amongst the chapel ruins of the Abbey, nor below the hill, on the sight of the old Commandery church at Grantham.
"Ah, transit mundi!" exclaimed Thaddeus to himself, with a calmed sigh, as he thought on those things, while resting under the modest little portal of the hotel, whose former magnificence, when a hermit cell, might still be discernible in a few remaining remnants of the rich Gothic lintel yet mingling with the matted straw and the clinging ivy of the thatch.
"What art thou, world, and thine ambitions?" again echoed in silence from the heart of Thaddeus. "Though yet so young, I have seen thee in all thy phases which might wean me from this earth. But there are still some beings dear to me in the dimmed aspect, that seem to hold my hopes to this transitory and yet too lovely world." He was then thinking of his restored friend Pembroke Somerset, and of her whose name had been so fondly uttered by him, as a possible bond of their still more intimate relationship. He tried to quell the wild hope this recollection waked in his bosom, and hurried from the little parlor of the inn, where Lady Tinemouth's old servant had left him, to seek repose in his humbly-prepared chamber.
At sight of its white-robed bed and simple furniture, and instantly conscious to the balmy effects of the sweet freshness that breathed around him, where no perfume but that of flowers ever entered, his agitated feelings soon became soothed into serenity, and within a quarter of an hour after he had laid his grateful head on that quiet pillow, he had sunk to a sleep of gentle peace with man and Heaven.
Next morning, when the countess met her gladly re-welcomed guest at the breakfast-table, she expressed surprise and pleasure at the scene of the preceding night, but intimated some mortification that he had withheld any part of his confidence from her. Sobieski soon obtained her pardon, by relating the manner of his first meeting with Mr. Somerset in Poland, and the consequent events of that momentous period.
Lady Tinemouth wept over the distressful fate that marked the residue of his narrative with a tenderness which yet more endeared her to his soul. But when, in compliance with his inquiries, she informed him how it happened that he had to seek her at Harrowby Abbey, when he supposed her to be on the Wolds, it was his turn to pity, and to shudder at his own consanguinity with Lord Harwold.
"Indeed," added the countess, wishing to turn from the painful subject, "you must have had a most tedious journey from Harwold Park to Harrowby, and nothing but my pleasure could exceed my astonishment when I met you last night on the hill."
Thaddeus sincerely declared that travelling a few miles further than he intended was no fatigue to him; yet, were it otherwise, the happiness which he then enjoyed would have acted as a panacea for worse ills, could he have seen her looking as well as when she left London.
Lady Tinemouth smiled. "You are right, Sobieski. I am worse than when I was in town. My solitary journey to Harwold oppressed me; and when my son sent me orders to leave it, because his father wanted the place for the autumnal months, his capricious cruelty seemed to augment the hectic of my distress. Nevertheless, I immediately obeyed, and in augmented disorder, arrived here last week. But how kind you were to follow me! Who informed you of the place of my destination?—hardly any of Lady Olivia's household?"
"No," returned Thaddeus; "I luckily had the precaution to inquire at the inn on the Wolds where the coach stopped, what part of Lord Tinemouth's family were at the Park; and when I heard that the earl himself was there, my next question was, "Where, then, was the countess?" The landlord very civilly told me of your having engaged a carriage from his house a day or two before, to carry you to one of his lordship's seats within a few miles of Somerset Castle. Hence, from what I heard you say of the situation of Harrowby, I concluded it must be the Abbey, and so I sought you at a venture."
"And I hope a happy issue," replied she, "will arise from your wanderings! This rencontre with so old a friend as Mr. Somerset is a pleasing omen. For my part, I was ignorant of the arrival of the family at the Castle until yesterday morning, and then I sent off a messenger to apprize my dear Miss Beaufort of my being in her neighborhood. To my great disappointment, Lady Shafto found me out immediately; and when, in compliance with her importunate invitation, I walked down to an early dinner with her yesterday, little did I expect to meet the amiable cousin of our sweet friend. So delightful an accident has amply repaid me for the pain I endured in seeing Miss Dundas at the Lodge; an insolent and reproachful letter which she wrote to me concerning you has rendered her an object of my aversion."
Thaddeus smiled and gently bent his head. "Since, my dear Lady Tinemouth, her groundless malice and Miss Euphemia's folly have failed in estranging either your confidence or the esteem of Miss Beaufort from me, I pardon them both. Perhaps I ought to pity them; for is it not difficult to pass through the brilliant snares of wealth and adulation and emerge pure as when we entered them? Unclouded fortune is, indeed, a trial of spirits; and how brightly does Miss Beaufort rise from the blaze! Surrounded by splendor, homage and indulgence, she is yet all nature, gentleness and virtue!"
The latter part of this burst of heart he uttered rapidly, the nerves of that heart beating full at every word.
The countess, who wished to appear cheerful, rallied him on the warmth of his expressions; and observing that "the day was fine," invited him to walk out with her through the romantic, though long- neglected, domains of the Abbey.
Meanwhile, the family at Somerset were just drawn round the breakfast-board, when they were agreeably surprised by the sudden entrance of Pembroke. During the repast Miss Beaufort repeated the contents of the note she had received the preceding day from Lady Tinemouth, and requested that her cousin would be kind enough to drive her in his curricle that morning to Harrowby.
"I will, with pleasure," answered he. "I have seen her ladyship, and even supped with her last night."
"How came that?" asked Miss Dorothy.
"I shall explain it to my father, whenever he will honor me with an audience," returned her happy nephew, addressing the baronet with all the joy of his heart looking out at his eyes. "Will you indulge me, dear sir, by half an hour's attention?"
"Certainly," replied Sir Robert; "at present I am going into my study to settle my steward's books, but the moment I have finished, I will send for you."
Miss Dorothy walked out after her brother, to attend her aviary, and Miss Beaufort, remaining alone with her cousin, made some inquiries about the countess's reasons for coming to the Abbey. "I know nothing about them," replied he, gayly, "for she went to bed almost the instant I entered the house. Too good to remain where her company was not wanted, she left me to enjoy a most delightfultete-à-tetewith a dear friend, from whom I parted nearly four years ago. In short, we sat up the whole night together, talking over past scenes— and present ones too, for, I assure you, you were not forgotten."
"I! what had I to do with it?" replied Mary, smiling. "I cannot recollect any dear friend of yours whom you have not seen these four years."
"Well, that is strange!" answered Pembroke; "he remembers you perfectly; but, true to your sex, you affirm what you please, though I know there is not a man in the world I prefer before him."
Miss Beaufort shook her head, laughed, and sighed; and withdrawing her hand from his, threatened to leave him if he would not be serious.
"I am serious," cried he. "Would you have meswearthat I have seen him whom you most wish to see?"
She regarded the expression of his countenance with a momentary emotion; taking her seat again, she said, "You can have seen no one that is of consequence to me; whoever your friend may be, I have only to congratulate you on a meeting which affords you so much delight."
Pembroke burst into a joyous laugh at her composure.
"So cold!" cried he—"so cautious! Yet I verily believe you would participate in my delights were I to tell you who he is. However, you are such a skeptic, that I wont hint even one of the many fine things he said of you."
She smiled incredulously.
"I could beat you, Mary," exclaimed he, "for this oblique way of saying I am telling lies! But I will have my revenge on your curiosity; for on my honor I declare," added he, emphatically, "that last night I met with a friend at Lady Tinemouth's who four years ago saved my life, who entertained me several weeks in his house, and who has seen and adores you! Tis true; true, on my existence! And what is more, I have promised that you will repay these weighty obligations by the free gift of this dear hand. What do you say to this, my sweet Mary?"
Miss Beaufort looked anxious at the serious and energetic manner in which he made those assertions; even the sportive kiss that ended the question did not dispel the gravity with which she prepared to reply.
Pembroke perceiving her intent, prevented her by exclaiming, "Cease, Mary, cease! I see you are going to make a false statement. Let truth prevail, and you will not deny that I am suing for a plighted faith? You will not deny who it was that softened and subdued your heart? You cannot conceal from me that the wanderer Constantine possesses your affections?"
Amazed at so extraordinary a charge from her hitherto always respectful as well as fraternally affectionate cousin, she reddened with pain and displeasure. Rising from her seat, and averting her tearful eyes, she said, "I did not expect this cruel, this ungenerous speech from you, Pembroke! What have I done to deserve so rude, so unfeeling a reproach?"
Pembroke threw his arm round her. "Come," said he, in a sportive voice; "don't be tragical. I never meant to reproach you, Mary. I dare say if you gave your heart, it was only in return for his. I know you are a grateful girl; and I verily believe you won't find much difference between my friend the young Count Sobieski and the forlorn Constantine."
A suspicion of the truth flashed across Miss Beaufort's mind. Unable to speak, she caught hold of her cousin's hands, and looking eagerly in his face, her eyes declared the question she would have asked.
Pembroke laughed triumphantly. A servant entering to tell him that Sir Robert was ready, he strained her to his breast and exclaimed, "Now I am revenged! Farewell! I leave you to all the pangs of doubt and curiosity!" He then flew out of the room with an arch glance at her agitated countenance, and hurried up stairs.
She clasped her trembling hands together as the door closed on him. "O, gracious Providence!" cried she, "what am I to understand by this mystery, this joy of my cousin's? Can it be possible that the illustrious Sobieski and my contemned Constantine are the same person?" A burning blush overspread her face at the expressionmywhich had escaped her lips.
Whilst the graces, the sweetness, the dignity of Thaddeus had captivated her notice, his sufferings, his virtues, and the mysterious interests which involved his history, in like manner had fixed her attention had awakened her esteem. From these grounds the step is short to love. "When the mind is conquered, the heart surrenders at discretion." But she knew not that she had advanced too far to retreat, until the last scene at Dundas House, by forcing her to defend Constantine against the charge of loving her, made her confess to herself how much she wished the charge were true.
Poor and lowly as he seemed, she found that her whole heart and life were wrapped in his remembrance; that his worshipped idea was her solace; her most precious property the dear treasure of her secret and sweetest felicity, It was the companion of her walks, the monitor of her actions. Whenever she planned, whenever she executed, she asked herself, how would Constantine consider this? and accordingly did she approve or condemn her conduct, for she had heard enough from Mrs. Robson to convince her that piety was the sure fountain of his virtues.
When she had left London, and so far separated from this idol of her memory, such was the impression he had stamped on her heart; he seemed ever present. The shade of Laura visited the solitude of Vaucluse; the image of Constantine haunted the walks of Somerset. The loveliness of nature, its leafy groves and verdant meadows, its blooming mornings and luxuriant sunsets, the romantic shadows of twilight or the soft glories of the moon and stars, as they pressed beauty and sentiment upon her heart, awoke it to the remembrance of Constantine; she saw his image, she felt his soul, in every object. Subtile and undefinable is that ethereal chord which unites our tenderest thought, with their chain of association!
Before this conversation, in which Pembroke mentioned the name of Constantine with so much badinage and apparent familiarity, he never heard him spoken of by Mary or his aunt without declaring a displeasure nearly amounting to anger. Hence when she considered his now so strangely altered tone, Miss Beaufort necessarily concluded that he had seen, in the person of him she most valued, the man whose public character she had often heard him admire, and who, she now doubted not, had at some former period given him some private reason for calling him his friend. Before this time, she more than once had suspected, from the opinions which Somerset occasionally repeated respecting the affairs of Poland, that he could only have acquired so accurate a knowledge of its events by having visited the country itself. She mentioned her suspicion to Mr. Loftus: he denied the fact; and she had thought no more on the subject until the present ambiguous hints of her cousin conjured up these doubts anew, and led her to suppose that if Pembroke had not disobeyed his father so far as to go to Warsaw, he must have met with the Count Sobieski in some other realm. The possibility that this young hero, of whom fame spoke so loudly, might be the mysterious Constantine, bewildered and delighted her. The more she compared what she had heard of the one with what she had witnessed in the other, the more was she reconciled to the probability of her ardent hope. Besides, she could not for a moment retain a belief that her cousin would so cruelly sport with her delicacy and peace as to excite expectations that he could not fulfil.
Agitated by a suspense which bordered on agony, with a beating heart she heard his quick step descending the stairs. The door opened, and Pembroke, flying into the room, caught up his hat. As he was darting away again, unable to restrain her impatience, Miss Beaufort with an imploring voice ejaculated his name. He turned, and displayed to her amazed sight a countenance in which no vestige of his former animation could be traced. His cheek was flushed, and his eyes shot a wild fire that struck to her heart. Unconscious what she did, she ran up to him; but Pembroke, pushing her back, exclaimed, "Don't ask me any questions, if you would not drive me to madness."
"O Heaven!" cried she, catching his arm, and clinging to him, while the eagerness of his motion dragged her into the hall. "Tell me! Has anything happened to my guardian—to your friend—to Constantine?"
"No," replied he, looking at her with a face full of desperation; "but my father commands me to treat him like a villain."
She could hardly credit her senses at this confirmation that Constantine and Sobieski were one. Turning giddy with the tumultuous delight that rushed over her soul, she staggered back a few paces, and leaning against the open door, tried to recover breath to regain the room she had left.
Pembroke, having escaped from her grasp, ran furiously down the hill, mounted his horse, and forbidding any groom to attend him, galloped towards the high road with the impetuosity of a madman. All the powers of his soul were in arms, Wounded, dishonored, stigmatized with ingratitude and baseness, he believed himself to be the most degraded of men.
It appeared that Sir Robert Somerset had long cherished a hatred to the Poles, in consequence of some injury he affirmed he had received in early youth from one of that nation. In this instance his dislike was implacable; and when his son set out for the continent, he positively forbade him to enter Poland. Notwithstanding his remembrance of this violated injunction, when Pembroke joined the baronet in his library, he did it with confidence. With a bounding heart and animated countenance, he recapitulated how he had been wrought upon by his young Russian friends to take up arms in their cause and march into Poland. At these last words his father turned pale, and though he did not speak, the denunciation was on his brow.
Pembroke, who expected some marks of displeasure, hastened to obliterate his disobedience by narrating the event which had introduced not only the young Count Sobieski to his succor, but the consequent friendship of the whole of that princely family.
Sir Robert still made no verbal reply, but his countenance deepened in gloom; and when Pembroke, with all the pathos of a deep regret, attempted to describe the death of the palatine, the horrors which attended the last hours of the countess, and the succeeding misery of Thaddeus, who was now in England, no language can paint the frenzy which burst at once from the baronet. He stamped on the ground, he covered his face with his clenched hands; then turning on his son with a countenance no longer recognizable, he exclaimed with fury, "Pembroke! you have outraged my commands! Never will I pardon you if that young man ever blasts me with his sight."
"Merciful Heaven!" cried Pembroke, thunderstruck at a violence which he almost wished might proceed from real madness: "surely something has agitated my father! What can this mean?"
Sir Robert shook his head, whilst his teeth ground against each other. "Don't mistake me," replied he, in a firm voice "I am perfectly in my senses. It depends onyouthat I continue so. You know my oath against all of that nation! and I repeat again, if you ever bring that young man into my presence, you shall never see me more."
A cold dew overspread the body of Pembroke. He would have caught his father's hand, but he held it back. "O sir," said he, "you surely cannot intend that I shall treat with ingratitude the man who saved my life?"
Sir Robert did not vouchsafe him an answer, but continued walking up and down the room, until, his hesitation increasing at every step, he opened the door of an interior apartment and retired, bidding his son remain where he left him.
The horror-struck Pembroke waited a quarter of an hour before his father re-entered. When he did appear, the deep gloom of his eye gave no encouragement to his son, who, hanging down his head, recoiled from speaking first. Sir Robert approached with a composed but severe countenance, and said, "I have been seeking every palliation that your conduct might admit, but I can find none. Before you quitted England, you knew well my abhorrence of Poland. One of that country many years ago wounded my happiness in a way I shall never recover. From that hour I took an oath never to enter its borders, and never to suffer one of its people to come within my doors. Rash, disobedient boy! You know my disposition, and you have seen the emotion with which this dilemma has shaken my soul! I But be it on your own head that you have incurred obligations which I cannot repay. I will not perjure myself to defray a debt contracted against my positive and declared principles. I never will see this Polander you speak of; and it is my express command, on pain of my eternal malediction, that you break with him entirely."
Pembroke fell into a seat. Sir Robert proceeded.
"I pity your distress, but my resolution cannot be shaken. Oaths are not to be broken with impunity. You must either resign him or resign me. We may compromise your debt of gratitude. I will give you deeds to put your friend in possession of five hundred pounds a-year for life forever; nay, I would even double it to give you satisfaction; but from the hour in which you tell him so, you must see him no more."
Sir Robert was quitting the room, when Pembroke, starting from his chair, threw himself in agony on his knees, and catching by the skirt of his father's coat, implored him for God's sake to recall his words; to remember that he was affixing everlasting dishonor on his son! "Remember, dear sir!" cried he, holding his struggling hand, "that the man to whom you offer money as a compensation for insult is of a nature too noble to receive it. He will reject it, and spurn me; and I shall know that I deserve his scorn. For mercy's sake, spare me the agony of harrowing up the heart of my preserver—of meeting reproach from his eyes!"
"Leave me!" cried the baronet, breaking from him; "I repeat, unless you wish to incur my curse, do as I have commanded."
Thus outraged, thus agonised, Pembroke had appeared before the eyes of his cousin Mary more like a distracted creature than a man possessed of his senses. Shortly after his abrupt departure, her apprehension was petrified to a dreadful certainty of some cruel ruin to her hopes, by an order she received in the handwriting of her uncle, commanding her not to attempt visiting Lady Tinemouth whilst the Count Sobieski continued to be her guest, and under peril of his displeasure never to allow that name to pass her lips.
Hardly knowing whither he went, Pembroke did not arrive at the ruined aisle which leads to the habitable part of the Abbey until near three o'clock. He inquired of the groom that took his horse whether the countess and Mr. Constantine were at home. The man replied in the affirmative, but added, with a sad countenance, he feared neither of them could be seen.
"For what reason?" demanded Somerset.
"Alas! sir," replied the servant, "about an hour ago my lady was seized with a violent fit of coughing, which ended in the rupture of a blood-vessel. It continued to flow so long, that Mr. Constantine told the apothecary, whom he had summoned, to send for a physician. The doctor is not yet arrived, and Mr. Constantine won't leave my lady,"
Though Mr. Somerset was truly concerned at the illness of the countess, the respite it afforded him from immediately declaring the ungrateful message of Sir Robert gave him no inconsiderable degree of ease. Somewhat relieved by the hope of being for one day spared the anguish of displaying his father in a disgraceful light, he entered the Abbey, and desired that a maid-servant might be sent to her ladyship's room to inform his friend that Mr. Somerset was below.
In a few minutes the girl returned with the following lines on a slip of paper:
"To Pembroke Somerset, Esq.
"I am grieved that I cannot see my dear Somerset to-day I fear my revered friend is on her death-bed. I have sent for Dr. Cavendish, who is now at Stanford; doubtless you know he is a man of the first abilities. If human skill can preserve her, I may yet have hopes; but her disorder is on the lung and in the heart, and I fear the stroke is sure. I am now sitting by her bedside, and writing what she dictates to her husband, her son, and her daughter. Painful, you may believe, is this task! I cannot, my dear Somerset, add more than my hope of seeing you soon, and that you will join in prayers to Heaven for the restoration of my inestimable friend, with your faithful and affectionate
"Sobieski."
"Alas! unhappy, persecuted Sobieski!" thought Pembroke, as he closed the paper; "to what art thou doomed! Some friends are torn from thee by death; others desert thee in the hour of trouble."
He took out his pencil to answer this distressing epistle, but he stopped at the first word; he durst not write that his father would fulfil any one of those engagements which he had so largely promised; and throwing away the pencil and the paper, he left a verbal declaration of his sorrow at what had happened, and an assurance of calling next day. Turning his back on a house which he had left on the preceding night with so many joyful hopes, he remounted his horse, and, melancholy and slow, rode about the country until evening,—so unwilling was he to return to that home which now threatened him with the frowns of his father, the tears of Mary Beaufort, and the miserable reflections of his own wretched heart.
Doctor Cavendish having been detained beyond his expected time with his invalid friend at Stanford, was happily still there, and set off for Harrowby the instant Mr. Constanine's messenger arrived, and before midnight alighted at the Abbey.
When he entered Lady Tinemouth's chamber he found her supported in the arms of Thaddeus, and struggling with a second rupture of her lungs. As he approached the bed, Thaddeus turned his eyes on him with an expression that powerfully told his fears. Dr. Cavendish silently pressed his hand; then taking from his pocket some styptic drops, he made the countess swallow them, and soon saw that they succeeded in stopping the hemorrhage.
Thaddeus and her physician remained by the side of the patient sufferer until ten in the morning, when she sunk into a gentle sleep. Complete stillness being necessary to continue this repose, the good doctor proposed leaving the maid to watch by her ladyship, and drawing the count out of the room, descended the stairs.
Mr. Somerset had been arrived half an hour, and met them in the breakfast parlor. After a few kind words exchanged between the parties, they sat down with dejected countenances to their melancholy meal. Thaddeus was too much absorbed in the scene he had left to take anything but a dish of coffee.
"Do you think Lady Tinemouth is in imminent danger?" inquiredPembroke of the doctor.
Dr. Cavendish sighed, and turning to Thaddeus, directed to him the answer which his friend's question demanded. "I am afraid, my dear Mr. Constantine," said he, in a reluctant voice, "that you are to sustain a new trial! I fear she cannot live eight-and-forty hours."
Thaddeus cast down his eyes and shuddered, but made no reply. Further remarks were prevented by a messenger from the countess, who desired Mr. Constantine's immediate attendance at her bedside. He obeyed. In half an hour he returned, with the mark of tears upon his cheek.
"Dearest Thaddeus!" cried Pembroke, "I trust the countess is not worse? This threatened new bereavement is too much: it afflicts my very heart." Indeed it rent it; for Pembroke could not help internally acknowledging that when Sobieski should close the eyes of Lady Tinemouth, he would be paying the last sad office to his last friend. That dear distinction he durst no longer arrogate to himself. Denied the fulfilment of its duties, he thought that to retain the title would be an assumption without a right.
Thaddeus drew his hand over his again filling eyes. "The countess herself," said he, "feels the truth of what Dr. Cavendish told us. She sent for me, and begged me, as I loved her or would wish to see her die in peace, to devise some means for bringing her daughter to the Abbey to-night. As for Lord Harwold, she says his behavior since he arrived at manhood has been of a nature so cruel and unnatural, that she would not draw on herself the misery, nor on him the added guilt, of a refusal; but with regard to Lady Albina, who has been no sharer in those barbarities, she trusts a daughter's heart might be prevailed on to seek a last embrace from a dying parent. It is this request," continued he, "that agitates me. When she pictured to me, with all the fervor of a mother, her doating fondness for this daughter, (on whom, whenever she did venture to hope, all those hopes rested;) when she wrung my hand, and besought me, as if I had been the sole disposer of her fate, to let her see her child before she died, I could only promise every exertion to effect it, and with an aching heart I came to consult you."
Dr. Cavendish was opening his lips to speak, but Somerset, in his eagerness to relieve his friend, did not perceive it, and immediately answered, "This very hour I will undertake what you have promised. I know Lord Tinemouth's family are now at the Wolds. It is only thirty miles distant; I will send a servant to have relays of horses ready. My curricle, which is now at the door, will be more convenient than a chaise; and I will engage to be back before to-morrow morning. Write a letter, Thaddeus," added he, "to Lady Albina; tell her of her mother's situation; and though I have never seen the young lady, I will give it into her own hand, and then bring her off, even were it in the face of her villanous father."
The pale cheeks of Sobieski flushed with a conscious scarlet. Turning to Dr. Cavendish, he requested him, as the most proper person, to write to Lady Albina, whilst he would walk out with his friend to order the carriage. Pembroke was thanked for his zeal, but it was not by words; they are too weak vehicles to convey strong impressions. Thaddeus pressed his hand, and accompanied the action with a look which spoke volumes. The withered heart of Pembroke expanded under the animated gratitude of his friend. Receiving the letter, he sprang into his seat, and, until he lost sight of Harrowby Hill, forgot how soon he must appear to that friend the most ungrateful of men.
It was near six in the evening before Mr. Somerset left his curricle at the little inn which skirts the village of Harthorpe. He affected to make some inquiries respecting the families in the neighborhood; and his host informed him that the ladies of the earl's family were great walkers, passing almost the whole of the day in the grounds. The measures to be adopted were now obvious. The paling belonging to Lord Tinemouth's park was only a few yards distant; but fearful of being observed, Pembroke sought a more obscure part. Scaling a wall which was covered by the branches of high trees, he found his way to the house through an almost impassable thicket.
He watched nearly an hour in vain for the appearance of Lady Albina, whose youth and elegance, he thought, would unequivocally distinguish her from the rest of the earl's household. Despairing of success, he was preparing to change his station, when he heard a sound among the dry leaves, and the next moment a beautiful young creature passed the bush behind which he was concealed. The fine symmetry of her profile assured him that she must be the daughter of Lady Tinemouth. She stooped to gather a china-aster. Knowing that no time should be lost, Pembroke gently emerged from his recess, but not in so quiet a manner as to escape the ear of Lady Albina, who instantly looking round, screamed, and would have fled, had he not thrown himself before her, and exclaimed, "Stay, Lady Albina! For heaven's sake, stay! I come from your mother!"
She gazed fearfully in his face, and tried to release her hand, which he had seized to prevent her flight.
"Do not be alarmed," continued he; "no harm is intended you. I am the son of Sir Robert Somerset, and the friend of your mother, who is now at the point of death. She implores to see you this night (for she has hardly an hour to live) to hear from your own lips that you do not hate her."
Lady Albina trembled dreadfully, and with faded cheeks and quivering lips replied, "Hate my mother! Oh, no! I have ever dearly loved her!"
A flood of tears prevented her speaking further; and Pembroke, perceiving that he had gained her confidence, put the doctor's letter into her hand. The gentle heart of Lady Albina bled at every word which her almost blinded eyes perused. Turning to Pembroke, who stood contemplating her lovely countenance with the deepest interest, she said, "Pray, Mr. Somerset, take me now to my mother. Were she to die before I arrive, I should be miserable for life. Alas! alas! I have never been allowed to behold her!—never been allowed to visit London, because my father knew that I believed my poor mother innocent, and would have seen her, had it been possible."
Lady Albina wept violently while she spoke, and giving her hand to Pembroke, timidly looked towards the house, and added, "You must take me this instant. We must haste away, in case we should be surprised. If Lady Olivia were to know that I have been speaking with anybody out of the family I should be locked up for months."
Pembroke did not require a second command from his beautiful charge. Conducting her through the unfrequented paths by which he had entered, he seated her in his curricle and whipping his horses, set off, full speed, towards the melancholy goal of his enterprise.
Whilst the two anxious travellers were pursuing their sad journey, the inhabitants of the Abbey were distracted with apprehension lest the countess might expire before their arrival. Ever since Lady Tinemouth received information that Mr. Somerset was gone to the Wolds, hope and fear agitated her by turns, till, wearied out with solicitude and expectation, she turned her dim eyes upon Thaddeus, and said, in a languid voice, "My dear friend, it must be near midnight. I shall never see the morning; I shall never in this world see my child. I pray you, thank Mr. Somerset for all the trouble I have occasioned; and my daughter—my Albina! O father of mercies!" cried she, holding up her clasped hands, "pour all thy blessings upon her head! She never wilfully gave this broken heart a pang!"
The countess had hardly ended speaking when Thaddeus heard a bustle on the stairs. Suspecting that it might be the arrival of his friend, he made a sign to Dr. Cavendish to go and inquire. His heart beat violently whilst he kept his eye fixed on the door, and held the feeble pulse of Lady Tinemouth in his hand. The doctor re-entered, and in a low voice whispered, "Lady Albina is here."
The words acted like magic on the fading senses of the countess. With preternatural strength she started from her pillow, and catching hold of Sobieski's arm with both hers, cried, "O give her to me whilst I have life."
Lady Albina appeared, led in by Pembroke, but instantly quitting his hand, with an agonizing shriek she rushed towards the bed, and flung herself into the extended arms of her mother, whose arms closed on her, and the head of the countess rested on her bosom.
Dr. Cavendish perceived by the struggles of the young lady that she was in convulsions; and taking her off the bed, he consigned her to Pembroke and his friend, who, between them, carried her into another apartment. He remained to assist the countess.
Albina was removed; but the eyes of her amiable and injured mother were never again unclosed: she had breathed her last sigh, in grateful ecstasy, on the bosom of her daughter; and Heaven had taken her spotless soul to Himself.
Being convinced that the countess was indeed no more, the good doctor left her remains in charge of the women; and repairing to the adjoining room, found Lady Albina yet senseless in the arms of his two friends. She was laid on a sofa, and Cavendish was pouring some drops into her mouth, when he descried Thaddeus gliding out of the room. Desirous to spare him the shock of suddenly seeing the corpse of one whom he loved so truly, he said, "Stop, Mr. Constantine! I conjure you, do not go into the countess's room!"
The eyes of Thaddeus turned with emotion on the distressed face of the physician; one glance explained what the doctor durst not speak. Faintly answering, "I will obey you," he hurried from the apartment.
In the count's silent descent from Lady Albina's room to the breakfast-parlor, he too plainly perceived by the tears of the servants that he had now another sorrow to add to his mournful list. He hastened from participation in their clamorous laments, almost unseen, into the parlor, and shutting the door, threw himself into a chair; but rest induced thought, and thought subdued his soul. He started from his position; he paced the room in a paroxysm of anguish; he would have given worlds for one tear to relieve his oppressed heart. Ready to suffocate, he threw open a window and leaned out. Not a star was visible to light the darkness. The wind blew freshly, and with parched lips he inhaled it as the reviving breath of Heaven.
He was sitting on the window-seat, with his head leaning against the casement, when Pembroke entered unobserved; walking up to him, he laid his hand upon his arm, and ejaculated in a tremulous voice, "Thaddeus, dear Thaddeus!"
Thaddeus rose at the well-known sounds: they reminded him that he was not yet alone in the world for his soul had been full of the dying image of his own mother. Clasping Somerset in his arms, he exclaimed, "Heaven has still reserved thee, faithful and beloved, to be my comforter! In thy friendship and fond memories," he added, with a yet heaving breast, "I shall find tender bonds of the past still to endear me to the world."
Pembroke received the embrace of his friend; he felt his tears upon his cheek; but he could neither return the one nor sympathize with the other. The conviction that he was soon to sever that cord, that he was to deprive the man who had preserved his life of the only stay of his existence, and abandon him to despair, struck to his soul. Grasping the hand of his friend, he gazed on his averted and dejected features with a look of desperate horror. "Sobieski," cried he, "whatever may happen, never forget that I swear I love you dearer than my life! And when I am forced to abandon my friend, I shall not be long of abandoning what will then be worthless to me."
Not perceiving the frenzied look which accompanied this energetic declaration, Thaddeus gave no other meaning to the words than a renewed assurance of his friend's affection.
The entrance of Dr. Cavendish disturbed the two young men, to whom he communicated the increased indisposition of Lady Albina.
"The shock she has received," said he, "has so materially shaken her frame, I have ordered her to bed and administered an opiate, which I hope will procure her repose; and you, my dear sir," added he, addressing the count, "you had better seek rest! The stoutest constitution might sink under what you have lately endured. Pray allow Mr. Somerset and myself to prevail with you, on our accounts, if not on your own, to retire for half an hour!"
Thaddeus, in disregard of his personal comfort, never infringed on that of others; he felt that he could not sleep, but he knew it would gratify his benevolent friends to suppose that he did; and accordingly he went to a room, and throwing himself on a bed, lay for an hour, ruminating on all that had passed.
There is an omnipresence in thought, or a celerity producing nearly the same effect, which brings within the short space of a few minutes the images of many foregoing years. In almost the same moment, Thaddeus reflected on his strange meeting with the countess; the melancholy story; her forlorn death-bed; the fatal secret that her vile husband and son were his father and brother; and that her daughter, whom his warm heart acknowledged as a sister, was with him under the same roof, and, like him, the innocent inheritor of her father's shame.
Whilst these multifarious and painful meditations were agitating his perturbed mind, Dr. Cavendish found repose on a couch; and Pembroke Somerset, resolving once more to try the influence of entreaty on the hitherto generous spirit of his father, with mingled hope and despondence commenced a last attempt to shake his fatal resolution, in the following letter:
"I have not ventured into the presence of my dear father since he uttered the dreadful words which I would give my existence to believe I had never heard. You denounced a curse upon me if I opposed your will to have me break all connection with the man who preserved my life! When I think on this, when I remember that it was fromyouI received a command so inexplicable from one of your character, so disgraceful to mine, I am almost mad; and what I shall be should you, by repeating your injunctions, force me to obey them, Heaven only knows! but I am certain that I cannot survive the loss of my honor; I cannot survive the sacrifice of all my principles of virtue which such conduct must forever destroy.
"Oh, my father! I conjure you, reflect, before, in compliance with an oath it was almost guilt to make, you decree your only son to everlasting shame and remorse. Act how I will, I shall never be happy more. I cannot live under your malediction; and should I give up my friend, my conscience will reproach me every instant of my existence. Can I draw the breath which he prolonged and cease to remember that I have abandoned him to want and misery? It were vain to flatter myself that he will condescend to escape either by the munificence which you offer as a compensation for my friendship. No; I cannot believe that his sensible and independent nature is so changed; circumstances never had any power over the nobility of his soul.
"Misfortune, which threw the Count Sobieski on the bounty of England, cannot make him appear otherwise in my eyes than as the idol of Warsaw, whose smile was honor and whose friendship conferred distinction.
"Though deprived of the splendor of command; though the eager circle of friends no longer cluster round him; though a stranger in this country, and without a home; though, in place of an equipage and retinue, he is followed by calamit and neglect, yet, in my mind, I still see him in a car of triumph I see not only the opposer of his nation's enemies, but the vanquisher of his own desires. I see the heir of a princely house, who, when mankind have deserted him, is yet encompassed by his virtues. I see him, though cast out from a hardened and unjust society, still surrounded by the lingering spirits of those who were called to better worlds!
"And this is the man, my dear father, (whom I am sure, had he been of any other country than Poland, you would have selected from all other men to be the friend and example of your son),—this is he whom you command me to thrust away.
"I beseech you to examine this injunction! I am now writing under the same roof with him; it depends on you, my ever-revered father, whether I am doing so for the last time; whether this is the last day in which your son is to consider himself a man of honor, or whether he is henceforth to be a wretch overwhelmed with shame and sorrow!
"I have not yet dared to utter one word of your cruel orders to my unhappy friend. He is now retired to seek some rest, after the new anguish of having witnessed the almost sudden death of Lady Tinemouth. Should I have to tell him that he is to lose me too-but I cannot add more. Your own heart, my father, must tell you that my soul is on the rack until I have an answer to this letter."
"Before I shut my paper, let me implore you on my knees, whatever you may decide, do not hate me; do not load my breaking heart with a parent's curse! Whatever I may be, however low and degraded in my own eyes, still, that I sacrificed what is most precious to me, to my father, will impart the only consolation which will then have power to reach your dutiful and afflicted son.
Dr. Cavendish remained in a profound sleep, whilst Pembroke, with an aching heart having written the above letter, and dispatched it by a man and horse, tried to compose himself to half an hour's forgetfulness of life and its turmoils; but he found his attempts as ineffectual as those of his friend.
Thaddeus had found no repose on his restless pillow. Reluctant to disturb the doctor and Somerset, who, he hoped, having less cause for regret, were sleeping tranquilly, he remained in bed; but he longed for morning. To his fevered nerves, any change of position, with movement, seemed better than where he was, and with some gleams of pleasure he watched the dawn, and the rising of the son behind the opposite hill. He got up, opened the window to inhale the air, and looking out, saw a man throw himself off a horse, which was all in foam, and enter the house.
Surprised at this circumstance, he descended to the parlor to make inquiry, and met the man in the hall, who, being Pembroke's messenger, had returned express from the Castle, bearing an order from Sir Robert (who was taken alarmingly ill) that his son must come back immediately.
Dismayed with this new distress, Mr. Somerset, on its instant information, pressed the count so closely to his breast when he bade him farewell, that a more suspicious person might have apprehended it was a final parting; but Thaddeus discerned nothing more in the anguish of his friend's countenance than fear for the safety of Sir Robert; and fervently wishing his recovery, he bade Pembroke remember that should more assistance be necessary, Dr. Cavendish would remain at the Abbey until Lady Albina's return to the Wolds.
Mr. Somerset being gone, towards noon, when the count was anxiously awaiting the appearance of the physician from the room of the new invalid, he was disappointed by the abrupt entrance of two gentlemen. He rose, and with his usual courtesy to strangers, inquired their business? The elder of the men, with a fierce countenance and a voice of thunder, announced himself to be the Earl of Tinemouth, and the other his son.
"We are come," said he, standing at a haughty distance—"we are come to carry from this nest of infamy Lady Albina Stanhope, whom some one of her mother's paramours—perhaps you, sir—dared to steal from her father's home yesterday evening. And I am come to give you, sir, who I guess to be some fugitive vagabond! the chastisement your audacity deserves."
With difficulty the Count Sobieski suppressed the passions which were rising in his breast. He turned a scornful glance on the person of Lord Harwold (who, with an air of insufferable derision, was coolly measuring his figure through an eyeglass); and then, replying to the earl, said, in a firm voice, "My lord, whoever you suppose me to be, it matters not; I now stand in the place of Lady Tinemouth's confidential friend, and to my last gasp I will prove myself the defender of he injured name."
"Her lover!" interrupted Lord Harwold, turning on his heel.
"Her defender, sir!" repeated Thaddeus, with a tremendous frown; "and shame and sorrow will pursue that son who requires a stranger to supply his duty."
"Wretch!" cried the earl, forgetting his assumed loftiness, and advancing passionately towards Thaddeus, with his stick held up; "how dare you address such language to an English nobleman?"
"By the right of nature, which holds her laws over all mankind," returned Thaddeus, calmly looking on the raised stick. "When an English nobleman forgets that he is a son, he deserves reproach from his meanest vassal."
"You see, my lord," cried Harwold, sliding behind his father, "what we bring on ourselves by harboring these democratic foreigners! Sir," added he, addressing himself to Thaddeus, "your dangerous principles shall be communicated to Government. Such traitors ought to hanged."
Sobieski eyed the enraged little lord with contempt; and turning to the earl, who was again going to speak, he said, in an unaltered tone, "I cannot guess, Lord Tinemouth, what is the reason of this attack on me. I came hither by accident; I found the countess ill; and, from respect to her excellent qualities, I remained with her until her eyes were closed forever. She desired to see her daughter before she died,—what human heart could deny a mother such a request?—and Pembroke Somerset, her kinsman, undertook to bring Lady Albina to the Abbey.
"Pembroke Somerset!" echoed the earl. "A pretty guard for my daughter, truly! I have no doubt that he is just such a fellow as his father—just such a person as yourself! I am not to be imposed upon. I know Lady Tinemouth to have been a disgrace to me, and you to be that German adventurer on whose account I sent her from London."
Shocked at this calumny on the memory of a woman whose fame from any other mouth came as unsullied as purity itself, Thaddeus gazed with horror at the furious countenance of the man whom he believed to be his father. His heart swelled; but not deigning to reply to a charge as unmanly as it was false, he calmly took out of his pocket two letters which the countess had dictated to her husband and her son.
Lord Harwold tore his open, cast his eyes over the first words, then crumpling it in his hand, threw it from him, exclaiming, "I am not to be frightened either by her arts or the falsehoods of the fellows with whom she dishonored her name."
Thaddeus, no longer master of himself, sprang towards his unnatural son, and seized his arm with an iron grasp. "Lord Harwold!" cried he, in a dreadful voice, "were it not that I have some mercy on you for that parent's sake, to whom, like a parricide, you are giving a second death by such murderous slander, I would resent her wrongs at the hazard of your worthless life!"
"My lord! my lord!" cried the trembling Harwold, quaking under the gripe of Thaddeus, and shrinking from the terrible brightness of his eye,—"my lord! my lord, rescue me!"
The earl, almost suffocated with rage, called out, "Ruffian! let go my son!" and again raising his arm, aimed a blow at the head of Thaddeus, who, wrenching the stick out of the foaming lord's hand, snapped it in two, and threw the pieces out of the open window.
Lord Harwold took this opportunity to ring the bell violently, on which summons two of his servants entered the room.
"Now, you low-born, insolent scoundrel," cried the disarmed earl, stamping with his feet, and pointing to the men who stood at the door; "you shall be turned by the neck and heels out of this house. Richard, James, collar that fellow instantly."
Thaddeus only extended his arm to the men (who were looking confusedly on each other), and calmly said, "If either of you attempt to obey this command of your lord, you shall have cause to repent it."
The men retreated. The earl repeated his orders.
"Rascals! do as I command you, or instantly quit my service. I will teach you," added he, clenching his fist at the count, who stood resolutely and serenely before him, "I will teach you how to behave to a man of high birth."
The footmen were again deterred from approaching by a glance from the intimidating eyes of Thaddeus, who, turning with stern dignity to the storming earl, said, "You can teach me nothing about high birth that I do not already know. Could it be of any independent benefit to a man, then had I not received the taunts and insults which you have dared to cast upon me."
At that moment Dr. Cavendish, having heard a bustle, made his appearance. Amazed at the sight of two strangers, who from their enraged countenances and the proud elevation with which Thaddeus was standing between them, he rightly judged to be the earl and his son, he advanced towards his friend, intending to support him in the attack which he saw was menaced by the violent gestures of these visitors.
"Dr. Cavendish," said Thaddeus, speaking to him as he approached, "your name must be a passport to the confidence of any man; I therefore shall gratify the husband of my ever lamented friend by quitting this house; but I delegate to you the office with which she entrusted me. I leave you in charge of her sacred remains, and of the jewels which you will find in her apartment. She desired that half of them might be given with her blessing, to her daughter, and the other half, with her pardon, to her son."
"Tell me. Dr. Cavendish," cried the earl, as Thaddeus was passing him to leave the room, "who is that insolent fellow? By heaven, he shall smart for this!"
"Ay, that he shall," rejoined Lord Harwold, "if I have any interest with the Alien-office."
Dr. Cavendish was preparing to speak, when Thaddeus, turning round at this last threat of the viscount, said, "If I did not know myself to be above Lord Harwold's power, perhaps he might provoke me to treat him according to his deserts; but I abjure resentment, while I pity his delusions. For you, my lord," added he, addressing the earl with a less calm countenance, "there is an angel in heaven who pleads against the insults you have uninquiringly and unjustly heaped upon an innocent man!"
Thaddeus disappeared from the apartment while uttering the last word; hastening from the house and park, he stopped near the brow of the hill, at the porch of his lately peaceful little hotel. The landlady was a sister of John Jacobs, the faithful servant of his lamented friend, and who was then watching the door of the neglected chamber in which the sacred remains of his dear mistress lay, as he would have guarded her life, had the foes who had now destroyed it been still menacing its flickering flame. The worthy couple were also attached to that benevolent lady; and with sad looks, but respectful welcoming, they saw Mr. Constantine re-enter their humble home, and assured him of its retirement as long as he might wish to abide in the neighborhood of the Abbey. Any prospect of repose promised elysium to him; and with harassed and torn nerves he took possession of his apartment, which looked down the road that led from the old monastic structure to the town of Grantham. The rapidity of the recent events bewildered his senses, like the illusions of a dream. He had seen his father, his sister, his brother; and most probably he had parted from them forever!—at least, he hoped he should never again be tortured with the sight of Lord Tinemouth or his son.
"How," thought he, whilst walking up and down his solitary parlor, "could the noble nature of my mother love such a man? and how could he have held so long an empire over the pure heart he has just now broken."
He could nowhere discern, in the bloated visage and rageful gestures of the earl, any of that beauty of countenance or grace of manners which had alike charmed Therese Sobieski and the tender Acleliza.
Like those hideous chasms which are dug deep in the land by the impetuous sweep of a torrent, the course of violent passions leaves vast and irreparable traces on the features and in the soul. So it was with Lord Tinemouth.
"How legibly does vice or virtue," ejaculated Thaddeus, "write itself on the human face! The earl's might once have been fine, but the lineaments of selfishness and sin have degraded every part of him. Mysterious Providence! Can he be my father—can it be his blood that is now running in my veins? Can it be his blood that rises at this moment with detestation against him?"
Before the sun set, Sobieski was aroused from these painful soliloquies by still more painful feelings. He saw from his window a hearse driving at full speed up the road that ascended to the Abbey, and presently return at a slower pace, followed by a single black coach.
"Inhuman men!" exclaimed he, while pursuing with his eyes the tips of the sable plumes as the meagre cavalcade of mourners wound down the hill; "could you not allow this poor corse a little rest? Must her persecution be extended to the grave? Must her cold relics be insulted, be hurried to the tomb without reverence—without decency?"
The filial heart that uttered this thought also of his own injured mother, and shrunk with horror at this climax of the earl's barbarity. Dr. Cavendish entered with a flushed countenance. He spoke indignantly of the act he still saw from the window, which he denounced as a sacrilege against the dead. "Not four-and-twenty hours since," cried he, "she expired! and she is hurried into the cold bosom of the earth, like a criminal, or a creature whose ashes a moment above ground might spread a pestilence. Oh, how can that sweet victim, Lady Albin, share such peccant blood?"
Thaddeus, whose soul had just writhed under a similar question with regard to himself, could little bear the repetition and interrupted the good physician by tenderly inquiring how she had borne that so abrupt removal of her mother's remains.
"With mute anguish," returned Dr. Cavendish, in a responding, calmer voice of pity; "and though I had warned her father that the shock of so suddenly tearing his daughter from such beloved relics might peril her own life, he continued obdarate; and putting her into his travelling chariot in a state of insensibility, along with her maid, in a few minutes afterwards I saw him set off in a hired post-chaise, accompanied by his detestable son, loaded with more than one curse, muttered by the honest rustics. Only servants followed in that mourning coach."
In the midst of this depressing conversation a courier arrived from Stamford to Dr. Cavendish, recalling him immediately to return thither, the invalid there having sustained an alarming relapse. The good doctor, sincerely reluctant to quit Thaddeus (whom he still knew by no other name than Constantine), ordered the dispatch-chaise to the hotel door. When it was announced, he shook hands with the now lonely survivor of his departed friend in this stranger land, requested that he might hear from him before he left that part of the country for London again, and bidding him many cordial adieus, continued to look out of the back window of the carriage, until the faint light of the moon and the receding glimmer of the village candles finally hid the little spot that yet contained this young and sadly-stricken exile from his lingering eyes.
For the first time during many nights, Thaddeus slept soundly; but his dreams were disturbed, and he awoke from them at an early hour, unrefreshed and in much fever.
The simple breakfast which his attentive host and hostess set before him was scarcely touched. Their nicely-dressed dinner met with the same fate. He was ill, and possessed neither appetite nor spirits to eat. The good people being too civil to intrude upon him, he sat alone in his window from eight o'clock (at which hour he had arisen) until the cawing of the rooks, as they returned to the Abbey-woods, reminded him of the approach of evening. He was uneasy at the absence of Somerset, not so much on his own account, as on that of Sir Robert, whose increased danger might have occasioned this delay; however, he hoped otherwise. Longing earnestly for a temporary sanctuary under his friend's paternal roof, in the quiet of its peace and virtues, he trusted that the sympathy of Pembroke, the only confidant of his past sorrows, would tend to heal his recent wounds (though the nature of the most galling, he felt, must ever remain unrevealed even to him!) and so fit him, should it be required, to yet further brave the buffets of an adverse fate. Nor was Miss Beaufort forgotten. If ever one idea more than another sweetened the bitterness of his reflections, it was the remembrance of Mary Beaufort. Whenever her image rose before him—whether he were standing in the lonely clay with folded arms, in vacant gaze on the valley beneath, or when lying on his watchful pillow he opened his aching eyes to the morning light-still, as her angel figure presented itself to his mind, he did indeed sigh, but it was a sigh laden with balm; it did not tear his breast like those which had been wrung from him by the hard hand of calamity and insult. It was the soft breath of a hallowed love, which makes man dream of heaven, while he feels sinking to an early grave. Thaddeus felt it delightful to recollect how she had looked on him that day in Hyde Park, when she "bade him take care of his own life, while so devoted to that of his dying friend!" and how she "blessed him in his task," with a voice of tenderness so startlingly sacred to his soul in its accents, that in remembering her words now, when so near the moment of his again seeing and hearing her, his soul expanded towards her, agitated, indeed, but soothed and comforted.
"Sweet Mary!" murmured he, "I shall behold thee once more; I shall again revive under thy kind smile! Oh, it is happiness to know that I owe my liberty to thee, though I may not dare to tell thee so! Yet my swelling heart may cherish the clear consciousness, and, bereaved though I am of all I formerly loved, be indeed blessed while on earth with the heaven-bestowed privilege of loving thee, even in silence and forever! Alas! alas! a man without kindred or a country dare not even wish thee to be his!" A sigh from the depths of his soul closed this soliloquy.
The sight of Pembroke riding through the field towards the little inn, recalled the thoughts of Sobieski to that dear friend alone. He went out to meet him. Mr. Somerset saw him, and putting his horse to a brisk canter, was at his side in a few minutes. Thaddeus asked anxiously about the baronet's health. Pembroke answered with an incoherency devoid of all meaning. Thaddeus looked at him with surprise, but from increased anxiety forbore to repeat the question. They walked towards the inn; still Pembroke did not appear to recover himself, and his evident absence of mind and the wild rambling of his eyes were so striking, that Thaddeus could have no doubt of some dreadful accident.
As soon as they had entered the little parlor, his friend cast himself into a chair, and throwing off his hat, wiped away the perspiration which, though a cold October evening, was streaming down his forehead. Thaddeus endured a suspense which was almost insupportable.
"What is the direful matter, dear Pembroke? Is any we honor, and love, ill unto death?" His pale face showed that he apprehended it, and he thought it might be Mary.
"No, no," returned Pembroke; "everybody is well, excepting myself and my father, who, I verily believe, has lost his senses; at any rate he will drive me mad."
The manner in which this reply was uttered astonished Thaddeus so much, that he could only gaze with wonder on the convulsed feature of his friend. Pembroke observed his amazement, and laying his hand on his arm, said, "My dear, dear Sobieski! what do I not owe to you? Good Heaven! how humbled am I in your sight! But there is a Power above who knows how intimately you are woven with every artery of this heart."
"I believe it, my kind Pembroke," cried Thaddeus, yet more alarmed than before; "tell me what it is that distresses you? If my counsel or my sympathy can offer anything to comfort or assist you, you know I am your own."
Pembroke burst into tears, and covering his streaming eyes with his handkerchief, exclaimed, "I am indeed distressed—distressed even beyond your comfort. Oh! how can I speak it! You will despise my father! You will spurn me!"
"Impossible!" cried Thaddeus with energy, though his flushed cheek and fainting heart immediately declared that he had anticipated what he must hear.
"I see," cried Pembroke, regarding the altered features of his friend with a glance of agony—"I see that you think it is possible that my father can sink me below my own contempt."
The benumbing touch of ingratitude ran through the veins of Thaddeus; his frame was chilled—was petrified; but his just affection and calmed countenance proclaimed how true a judgment he had passed on the whole. He took the burning hand of Mr. Somerset in his own, and, with a steady and consoling voice, said, "Assure yourself, dear Pembroke, whatever be the commands of your father, I shall adhere to them. I cannot understand by these generous emotions that he objects to receive me as your friend. Perhaps," added he,—a flash of suspicion gleaming through his mind,—"perhaps Miss Beaufort may have perceived the devotedness of my heart, and disdaining my—"
"Hush, for Heaven's sake!" cried Pembroke, starting from his chair; "do not implicate my poor cousin! Do not add to her disappointment the misery that you suspect her! No, Thaddeus," continued he, in a calmer tone; "Mary Beaufort loves you: she confessed it in an agony of grief on my bosom, just before I came away; and only through her I dare ever expect to meet forgiveness fromyou. In spite of my father, you may marry her. She has no curse to dread; she need not sacrifice all that is most precious in her sight to the obstinate caprice of criminal resentment."
"A curse!" reiterated Thaddeus. "How is this!—what have I done, to deserve such hatred from your father?"
"Oh! nothing," cried Pembroke—"nothing. My father never saw you. My father thanks you for all that you have done for me; but it is your country that he hates. Some Polander, years back, injured him; and my father took a fatal oath against the whole nation. He declares that he cannot, he will not, break it, were he by so doing to save his own life, or even mine; for, (Heaven forgive me!) I was this morning wrought up to such frenzy, that I threatened to destroy myself rather than sacrifice my gratitude and honor to his cruel commands! Nay, to convince you that his is no personal enmity to yourself, he ordered me to give you writings which will put you in possession of an independence forever. I have them with me."
All the pride of his princely house rose at once in the breast of Thaddeus. Though full of indignation at this insult of Sir Robert's, he regarded the averted face of his friend with compassion, whilst in a firm voice he rejected the degrading compromise.
"Tell your father," added he, addressing Pembroke, in a tone which even his affection could not soften from a command, "that my absence is not to be bought with money, nor my friendship so rewarded."
Pembroke covered his burning face with his hands. This sight at once brought down the haughty spirit of Sobieski, who continued in gentler accents, "Whatever be the sentiments of Sir Robert Somerset, they shall meet with clue attention from me. He is your father, therefore I respect him; but he has put it out of his power to oblige me; I cannot accept his bounty. Though your heart, my dearest Pembroke, is above all price, yet I will make it a sacrifice to your duty." And by so doing put the last seal on my misfortunes, was the meaning of the heavy sigh which accompanied his last words.
Pembroke traversed the room in an agony. "Merciful Providence!" cried he, wringing his clasped hands, "direct me! Oh, Thaddeus, if you could read my tortured heart, you would pity me; you would see that this affair is tearing my soul from my body. What am I to do? I cannot, I will not, part with you forever."
Thaddeus, with a calm sadness, drew him to a seat. "Be satisfied," said he, "that I am convinced of your affection. Whatever may happen, this assurance will be sufficient to give me comfort; therefore, by that affection, I entreat you, dear Pembroke, not to bring regret to me, and reproach on yourself, by disobeying in any way the will of your father in this matter! If we separate for life, remember, my beloved friend, that the span of our existence here is short; we shall meet again in a happier world—perhaps more blest, for having immolated our wishes to hard duty in this."
"Cease, Sobieski, cease!" cried Pembroke; "I can draw no consolation from this reasoning. It is not duty to obey a hatred little short of distraction; and if we now separate, I feel that I never shall know peace again. Good Heaven! what comfort can I find when you are exposed to all the indignities which the world levels against the unfortunate? Can I indulge in the luxuries of my father's house when I know that you have neither a home nor subsistence? No, Thaddeus, I am not such a villain. I will not give you up, though my father should load me with curses. I trust there is a just Power above who would avert them."
Perceiving that argument would not only be fruitless, but might probably incense his friend's irritated nature to the commission of some rash action, Thaddeus pretended to overlook the frantic gesture and voice which terminated this speech, and assuming a serene air, replied: "Let this be the subject of a future conversation. At present, I must conjure you, by the happiness of us both, to return to the Castle. You know my message to Sir Robert. Present my respects to your aunt; and," added he, after an agitated pause, "assure Miss Beaufort that whilst I have life, her goodness, her sometimes remembrance, will be—"
Pembroke interrupted him. "Why these messages, dear Thaddeus? Do not suppose, though I fulfil my father's orders to return to Somerset to- night, that it is our separation. Gracious Heaven! Is it so easy to part forever?"
"Not forever! Oh, no," replied Thaddeus, grasping his hand; "we shall see each other again; only, meanwhile, repeat those, alas! inadequate messages to your aunt and cousin. Go, my dear Pembroke, to your father; and may the Lord of Heaven bless you!"
The last words were spoken in almost a stifled voice, as he opened his arms and strained his friend to his breast.
"I shall see you to-morrow," cried Pembroke; "on no other condition will I leave you now."
Thaddeus made no further answer to this demand (which he determined should never be granted) than a second embrace. Pembroke went out of the room to order his horse; then, returning, he stood at the door, and holding out his hand to the count, repeated, "Farewell till to- morrow." Thaddeus pressed it warmly, and he disappeared.