CHAP. X
No sooner had Roseline reached her own apartment, and fastened the door, than she sunk on her knees, and having for some minutes given way to the severity of her feelings by tears and lamentations, she recovered sufficient resolution to supplicate her Maker to support and direct her in this trying hour of distress. By degrees she became more composed, and sat down to reflect on her situation with less agitation and terror. Her father had promised her, and she knew his promise would be held sacred, that she should indulged with one whole month to determine whether she would or would not accept the Baron: she was already determined, but she would avail herself of the few weeks allowed her to struggle with her feelings, and preserve the peace and tranquility of her family; besides, it was placing the dreaded evil at some distance, and that to one so wretched was obtaining a great deal. After the month was expired, (but to that dreadful moment she had not yet acquired fortitude to look,) she should still persist in her resolution; till then she would oblige her father all she could by quietly receiving the Baron's attentions; but she was resolved not to deceive him by appearing to receive them with pleasure.
Madeline came to spend the day as had been proposed. Edwin found many opportunities of renewing his vows, and of making some tender reproaches for her not seeing him so often as he wished by the subterranean passage, for which she assigned such prudent reasons, as served in some degree to quiet his apprehensions, which, however, were rather increased than abated by observing the marked and particular attention which was paid by De Willows, who, it was but too visible, cherished a growing passion in his bosom, which equally tortured Edeliza, Edwin, Madeline, and himself. Roseline generously determined not to interrupt the few hours of happiness and tranquillity which her friends seemed to enjoy, by giving them the most distant hint of her own internal misery.
They took an opportunity of visiting the prisoner. Madeline was received by him with the cordial affection of a brother, for she was the adopted sister of his beloved Roseline, – the chosen friend of her heart. With him they partook that soft intercourse of soul which gives to the human mind its highest and most perfect enjoyment. Without fear or restraint they addressed each other in the pure and unadulterated language of genuine tenderness, indulging in the innocent and fond endearments which the sincerity of virtuous love will claim, and with which its purest votaries might comply without a blush.
But how short and transitory appeared these fleeting moments (on which she thought old time had bestowed an additional pair of wings) to the agonized mind of the half-distracted Roseline! who, notwithstanding her father's prohibition, determined in the course of the month to inform her mother and brother of every circumstance that had occurred. She dreaded, more than she would to stroke of death, imparting to the unfortunate Walter (she had prevailed on Albert to tell her his Christian name) that he ad a rival, who, authorised by her father, would endeavour to separate them for ever; and more, much more than for herself, she trembled for that hapless, persecuted, unprotected lover, at whose bosom fate had already aimed some of its most pointed arrows, whose life would be endangered, should her partiality be discovered – that life on which her own seemed to depend: his happiness, which was dearer to her than her own, rested with her only to preserve; if they must be parted, the contest could not be extended beyond the confines of the grave, and in the friendly grave they should both find shelter.
The visible change, which appeared the next morning in the countenance and manners of Roseline, was such as those only who determined not to see could have avoided observing. Edwin, who met her as she was going to enter the breakfast-parlour, eagerly cried out, "For heaven's sake, my dear sister, what, in the name of ill-luck, has happened to you? – how long have you been ill?"
With tender earnestness she begged him not to mention her altered looks, promising to acquaint him with the cause the first convenient opportunity. He agreed to comply with her request, and neither Sir Philip nor Lady de Morney took any notice; and, when the Baron joined the breakfast-party, every thing passed as usual. He was very attentive to his fair enslaver, who, seeing her father's eye sternly fixed upon her from the moment the Baron entered the room, dared not to repel his odious gallantry with the coldness and contempt she knew not how to suppress; but she thought it better to yield submissively to the mortifications of the present hour, in order to secure to herself the short respite from certain misery, which upon such painful conditions had been allowed her.
As soon as breakfast was ended, the Baron and Sir Philip ordered their horses, and rode out to spend the day at some distance from the castle. Lady de Morney withdrew to give directions respecting some domestic arrangements, and the younger part of the family retired to go on with their usual employments. Edwin followed his sister to her own apartment, and eagerly requested her instantly to relieve his mind from the anxiety he could not help feeling on her account, as he was certain something unpleasant must have happened.
Gratified by this proof of his tenderness and attention to her happiness, Roseline, after a few painful struggles to suppress her agitation, and having obtained a solemn promise from her brother, that, however provoked, or whatever indignation he might feel when he became acquainted with her internal and hopeless misery, he would not betray by the most distant hint that she had disobeyed the positive injuctions of her father, informed him, with many tears, of the Baron's views in coming to the castle.
Edwin had long suspected something would arise from the frequent conferences of the Baron and his father, and the unusual reserve of his mother. He had likewise observed, with some degree of surprise, the very flattering and uncommon attentions paid to their noble visitor; he therefore was not so much astonished as his sister expected he would have been. He carefully avoided filling her mind with unnecessary alarms at the moment he felt a thousand fears on her account, and could not restrain his indignation at hearing a tale confirmed which appeared too absurd almost to be believed. He tenderly embraced, and vowed to protect her from such cruelty and oppression, should his father continue obstinately to insist on her giving her hand to a man she disliked.
He had long known her extreme partiality for the prisoner, which, though he could not approve, his own clandestine engagements with Madeline prevented his attempting to condemn. They had innocently and mutually assisted in bringing each other into situations which threatened them with many sorrows; they must now in this trying moment as resolutely determine to extricate themselves, and those they loved, from distresses which otherwise would in all probability overwhelm and destroy them.
Edwin, at Roseline's earnest request, was to inform Walter of the dangers which encompassed them, and of the formidable rival who had appeared to interrupt their happiness; but she insisted on his concealing from him the name of that rival, begging him not to give a hint of his fortune or consequence. Eager to save her lover from feeling such pangs as she herself had endured, she entreated he would soften the sad tidings he conveyed, by assuring him he had nothing to fear from herself, as her affection was equally tender and sincere.
When Edwin had imparted the unwelcome news to the prisoner, though he observed the strictest caution, and worded the heart-wounding communication in language best calculated to sooth and quiet those tormenting apprehensions, to which it would unavoidably give birth, the effect it had on the unhappy sufferer was dreadful. His agonies disclosed to the astonished Edwin the strength of an affection which, while it alarmed him, demanded the utmost pity; and, at that moment, had he possessed the power of disposing of the hand of his sister, he would sooner have presented it to his unfortunate friend than to the greatest monarch upon earth.
Roseline dared not venture to see him for several succeeding hours, and no sooner were his watchful and inpatient eyes gratified by her entrance into his solitary apartment, than he hastily arose; and, throwing himself at her feet, almost inarticulately entreated her to pronounce his doom.
"Tell me, (cried he,) if you, my only earthly treasure, must be wrested from me for ever? – if I must not longer hear the soft sound of that gentle voice, sweeter and more melodious than celestial music? I can die without reproaching, but I cannot exist without seeing you; and I will never, never live one hour after you have given your hand to another. – Madness and torture are united in that thought! – Let us fly, – let us leave this horrid castle! – The world is all before us: love shall be our guide. Surely we can find one little sacred spot that will shelter us from persecution and tyranny; if not, we can wander, beg, and at last die, together."
"Have patience, my generous, my beloved Walter, (cried the weeping Roseline;) – I yet trust we shall not be reduced to the hard, the degrading necessity of taking such desperate and improper steps to preserve our faith unbroken. Be assured of this, and endeavour to rest satisfied with a promise I will ever hold sacred, – that, while our continue the unrivalled possessor of my heart, only actual force shall compel me to give my had to your rival; and I think I may venture to say, if I know any thing of my father's disposition, unkind as it appears at present, he will never go to such unwarrantable and unnatural lengths to gratify an ambition I never suspected had found place in his mind."
"Ah! (said the prisoner) you little know, you cannot suspect to what lengths pride and ambition will carry unfeeling people. I am their victim, and if I thought you were to suffer as I have done – "
"Attempt not to think about it," interrupted Roseline.
"Consent then to escape this very night. If we stop to deliberate we are lost, – we are separated for ever! You know not what such love as mine, when called into action, and blest with liberty, would enable me to do, to preserve a treasure so dear and estimable. Albert would go with us: with his direction and assistance, surely we could procure sufficient from the bowels of the earth to support you in ease and plenty, if not in affluence."
The entrance of Albert luckily put an end to a conversation which was become too tender and painful for Roseline any longer to have kept up that appearance of composure which was absolutely necessary to quiet the tormenting apprehensions of her lover; she therefore immediately availed herself of the opportunity to quit his apartment, and retired to her own.
Within rather less than a week after Roseline's interview with her father, the alteration which took place in her was such as could not pass unobserved, but it was wholly imputed to indisposition. She became much thinner; the rose of health was fled from a countenance no longer marked with animation. She had no spirits, and was seldom seen to smile; even the playful fondness of her sister Bertha ceased to interest or entertain her.
Lady de Morney, who was a tender mother, became alarmed, and imparted her fears to Sir Philip, who endeavoured to laugh her out of them.
"The poor child (said he) is only a little mother-sick. She is pining, I suppose, at the thoughts of leaving mamma: you must therefore take no notice, for I so well know that softness of your disposition, that a few tears will mould you to her own wayward purposes, and deprive you of all your resolution. The unfortunate girl will, to be sure, be sadly hurt at becoming a baroness, and being placed in a situation to which even the proudest ambition of her parents could not have aspired. We, therefore, have only to remain silent spectators for a time, and leave the natural vanity of her sex, united with the sanguine wishes of youth, to operate for themselves. We will invite company to the castle; I mean to give a ball in compliment to the Baron: – Roseline will reign queen of the ceremony; assailed by flattery, softened by music, exhilirated by exercise, she will forget to sigh in the midst of gaiety, and cease to disapprove the Baron, when she begins to feel that consequence which the being noticed by a man of his rank will give to her."
"Let us then try the experiment as soon as possible, (replied Lady de Morney;) for I cannot help thinking, unless some change takes place for the better, our sweet Roseline, instead of bridal finery, will want only a winding sheet, and that she will be removed from the castle to her grave."
Sir Philip was displeased; he instantly left the room in order to avoid returning an answer which he well knew would have been succeeded by an altercation with his wife. – She saw he was angry, and therefore, though she was extremely anxious on her daughter's account, she determined for some time to remain a passive observer, let what would be the consequence; but she did not experience that serenity of mind at forming this resolution which she had done on some former occasions, when she had sacrificed her own will to that of her husband; for, aspiring as she was by nature, and much as she was always attached to the gaudy trappings of grandeur and the alluring sounds of title, she felt the life of her daughter, when put in competition with them, or even the throne itself, was of infinitely more importance.
De Huntingfield was at this time absent from the castle. Elwyn very seldom mixed with his brother officers; Elwyn very seldom mixed with his brother officers; therefore De Clavering, De Willows, and Hugh Camelford, were ofter left to mess by themselves, the Baron not appearing to like being much in their society. They were too young and too pleasing in his opinion, and, as he could not help sometimes making comparisons not much to his own advantage, it was natural for him to think the young ladies might do the same. As the three gentlemen were returning from a walk, they saw the Baron, Sir Philip, his son, and daughters, going out for one. Observing the apparent reluctant step and pale countenance of Roseline, as she walked by the side of her stately and venerable over, and having picked up some hints which had been dropped at different times of the projected alliance, De Clavering, with some little indignation, exclaimed, "It will never do; – I see it will never do: – the girl's spirits are too low, her uncorrupted mind too pure, and her stomach too weak, to digest so much pride and acid as that old fellow had in his composition. His love seems to have operated on her feelings as being so nearly allied to misery, that she has already caught the infection, and I wish in the end it may not prove an incurable disease. Upon my soul I do not wonder at it, for he acts upon my nerves like a torpedo, or rather as the Greek fire did upon our armies, exciting both fear and indignation."
"By heaven! (said De Willows,) the folly and ambition of parents, in respect to their children, are, in my opinion, the most unaccountable of human absurdities. They form plans from their own passions and feelings, and then expect that young people can adopt them at their command, without making any allowance for the material difference between the sentiments, opinions, and inclinations, of nineteen and sixty."
"Suppose we all talk to the covernor, and toss the Paron into the rifer. A coot tucking might trive all the flames and darts of luf out of his pody, and restore the poor cirl from the crave, to which the toctor is for sending her like a tog, without giving time for Christian burial!"
"To argue, or contend with such characters (said De Clavering) would be like opposing a fiddle against thunder, or a squirt against a cataract in Switzerland."
"Then, on my soul, (replied Camelford,) you must take the Paron's pody under your own tirection. With your regimen, and a few of tevilish experiments, you will, Cot willing, soon dispatch him and his luf into another world."
"That, indeed, Hugh, would prove an effectual cure; but, in respect to the Baron, it would not be quite so easily accomplished; for I look upon him still to possess a constitution that would set physic and even the doctor himself at defiance. – He seems formed to wrestle sturdily with death before he will be vanquished, or yield the contest."
"If you can once lay hold of him, and kif him some of your pills and potions, he would soon be clad to gif up the coast."
"What, then, (said De Clavering) you think me more dangerous than love? – That little, subtle, and revengeful god will one day bring you upon your knees before his shrine for the affront put upon his all subduing influence."
"He had petter let me alone, (replied the Cambrian,) I am not so plind as his tivine highness, and will nefer worship any cot put the crate Cot of heaven. Eteliza has taught you petter, De Willows: That girl's tell-tale eyes petray that luf has been pusy with more than one person."
De Clavering laughed at this unexpected attack upon his friend, who felt a painful consciousness that Camelford had more reason for his observation that he wished, the partiality of the artless Edeliza being too visible to be longer mistaken. On his own part, he had, from the first seeing Madeline, cherished an increasing affection for her, while her uniform and unaffected coldness, with the preference she had shewn to another, too well convinced him he had nothing to hope; neither could he any longer affect to be blind to the mutual attachment which subsisted between her and his friend Edwin, the latter having made no attempt to deny it; but, being satisfied of the honour of De Willows, had in part entrusted him with the wishes he determined to encourage, notwithstanding the insurmountable, obstacles that appeared to preclude the most distant ray of hope.
"That same love, of which you are thinking and talking, (said De Clavering,) has so many devilifications in its train, I am determined to have nothing to do with it, till it becomes more rational, and can be reduced into a regular system, by which we poor short-sighted mortals may find directions how to act, without exposing ourselves to ridicule or disappointment. I am inclined to think I shall one day or other be tempted to marry, but it shall be to a woman who will take care to keep such ear-wig sort of fellows as you at a proper distance. – You tell fine tales, are all smoothness and deceit, – like a snail can give a gloss to the path you crawl over, and then leave such traces of your deceptive and invidious progress as cannot be concealed. Let the subject of your next satire, De Willows, be the male flirt, – an animal more dangerous than a tyger."
"Why so?" asked De Willows, determined not to apply the hint which he well knew was designed for him.
"Can there (said De Clavering) be found a character more deserving satire? – a thing that borrows the form of man to disgrace the name, – an adept in mean stratagems and mischievous deceives. – insensible to the admonitions of conscience, – well versed in all the practices of refined cruelty, – working like a mole in the dark, in order more effectually to ensnare the youthful heart of unsuspecting innocence, and that merely to gratify the vicious vanity of the moment; and, after he had sacrificed the health, happiness, and perhaps the life, of a young woman, who, by her tender nature, he has beguiled of peace, he laughs at her credulous folly, and boldly declares he had never any thought of making her his wife. That there are such men, who, under the sacred semblance of honour, can act thus despicably, I have, in the form of one once dear to me as life, unhappily experienced, and from that moment I became the friend and champion of the sex, and in bold defiance to all such deceivers, I throw down my gauntlet."
"How, in the name of Cot, came you to be so valiant, (cried Camelford,) as to think of fighting tuels for other people's pranks?"
"Because many of the fair sex are too gentle to vindicate themselves, too artless for suspicion, and too lovely to fall a sacrifice, without arming the hand of courage to avenge their injuries; for I think the man, who can trifle with the peace of a fellow-creature, may be justly compared to one of the exhalations of hell, sent to destroy and lay waste the small portion of happiness allotted to our mortal pilgrimage."
"You are warm, (said De Willows, confusedly;) perhaps I have undesignedly given you pain, without knowing I interfered with the wishes or pretensions of any one. On my honour, I never had any; but, on a subject so important, I cannot speak coolly, or canvass it with indifference. I will be frank, and own I admire Edeliza; and, were her heart as much in my power as I fear it is in your's, no man with impunity should wrest it from me."
"Well said, my prave toctor, (cried Camelford;) little tan Cupit must next take care of himself, or your will be after tissecting his cotship; and, though the poor cot is as plind as a peetle, you will be for couching his eyes, till he can see as clear as yourself."
A servant came to invite them to sup with the governor and his party, which luckily put an end to a conversation that was become unpleasant. It made De Willows rather uncomfortable and small in his own opinion, and compelled him to reflect more seriously on the subject than he had ever done before. Of Madeline it was folly to think any longer. If Edwin, who was beloved, dared not hope being blest with her hand, without the interference of a miracle, what chance could there be of his succeeding, for whom she felt only the coldest indifference? He determined to take his heart severely to talk, and to – but it was impossible for him at that moment to tell how he should dispose of a heart which had received so many wounds, that it scarcely retained any of its native mutilated form; but, on a more serious examination, he found a something lurking in it that made him feel very reluctant to give up his pleasant and interesting intercourse with the tender and artless Edeliza, which long habit had rendered more necessary to his happiness than he was aware of.