Thaddeus of Warsaw

by Jane Porter

CHAPTER XXXII.

THE OBDURACY OF VICE—THE INHUMANITY OF FOLLY.

The Count Sobieski was prevented paying his customary visit next morning in Harley Street by a sudden dangerous increase of illness in the general, who had been struck at seven o'clock by a fit of palsy.

When Dr. Cavendish beheld the poor old man stretched on the bed, and hardly exhibiting signs of life, he pronounced it to be a death- stroke. At this remark, Thaddeus, turning fearfully pale, staggered to a seat, with his eyes fixed on the altered features of his friend. Dr. Cavendish took his hand.

"Recollect yourself, my dear sir! Happen when it may, his death must be a release to him. But he may yet linger a few days."

"Not in pain, I hope!" said Thaddeus.

"No," returned the doctor; "probably he will remain as you now see him, till he expires like the last glimmer of a dying taper."

The benevolent Cavendish gave proper directions to Thaddeus, also to Mrs. Robson, who promised to act carefully as nurse; and then with regret left the stunned count to the melancholy task of watching by the bedside of his last early friend.

Thaddeus now retained no thought that was not riveted to the emaciated form before him. Whilst the unconscious invalid struggled for respiration, he listened to his short and convulsed breathing with sensations which seemed to tear the strings of his own breast. Unable to bear it longer, he moved to the fireside, and seating himself, with his pallid face and aching head supported on his arm, which rested on a plain deal table, he remained; meeting no other suspension from deep and awestruck meditation than the occasional appearance of Mrs. Robson on tiptoes, peeping in and inquiring whether he wanted anything.

From this reverie, like unto the shadow of death, he was aroused next morning at nine o'clock by the entrance of Dr. Cavendish. Thaddeus seized his hand with the eagerness of his awakened suspense. "My dear sir, may I hope—"

Not suffering him to finish with what he hoped, the doctor shook his head in gentle sign of the vanity of that hope, and advanced to the bed of the general. He felt his pulse. No change of opinion was the consequence, only that he now saw no threatenings of immediate dissolution.

"Poor Butzou!" murmured Thaddeus, when the doctor withdrew, putting the general's motionless hand to his quivering lips; "I never will leave thee! I will watch by thee, thou last relic of my country! It may not be long ere we lie side by side."

With anguish at his heart, he wrote a few hasty lines to the countess; then addressing Miss Dundas, he mentioned as the reason for his late and continued absence the danger of his friend.

His note found Miss Dundas attended by her constant shadow, Mr. Lascelles, Lady Hilliars, and two or three more fine ladies and gentlemen, besides Euphemia and Miss Beaufort, who, with pensive countenances, were waiting the arrival of its writer.

When Miss Dundas took the billet off the silver salver on which her man presented it, and looked at the superscription, she threw it into the lap of Lacelles.

"There," cried she, "is an excuse, I suppose, from Mr. Constantine, for his impertinence in not coming hither yesterday. Read it, Lascelles."

"'Fore Gad, I wouldn't touch it for an earldom!" exclaimed the affected puppy, jerking it on the table. "It might affect me with the hypochondriacs. Pray, Phemy, do you peruse it."

Euphemia, in her earnestness to learn what detained Mr. Constantine, neglected the insolence of the request, and hastily breaking the seal, read as follows:—

"Mr. Constantine hopes that a sudden and dangerous disorder which has attacked the life of a very dear friend with whom he resides will be a sufficient appeal to the humanity of the Misses Dundas, and obtain their pardon for his relinquishing the honor of attending them yesterday and to-day."

"Dear me!" cried Euphemia, piteously; "how sorry I am. I dare say it is that white-haired old man we saw in the park, You remember, Mary, he was sick?"

"Probably," returned Miss Beaufort, with her eyes fixed on the agitated handwriting of Thaddeus.

"Throw the letter into the street, Phemy!" cried Miss Dundas, affecting sudden terror; "who knows but what it is a fever the man has got, and we may all catch our deaths."

"Heaven forbid!" exclaimed Mary, in a voice of real alarm; but it was for Thaddeus—not fear of any infection which the paper might bring to herself.

"Lascelles, take away that filthy scrawl from Phemy. How can you be so headstrong, child?" cried Diana, snatching the letter from her sister and throwing it from the window. "I declare you are sufficient to provoke a saint."

"Then you may keep your temper, Di," returned Euphemia, with a sneer; "you are far enough from that title."

Miss Dundas made a very angry reply, which was retaliated by another; and a still more noisy and disagreeable altercation might have taken place had not a good-humored lad, a brother-in-law of Lady Hilliars, in hopes of calling off the attention of the sisters, exclaimed, "Bless me, Miss Dundas, your little dog has pulled a folded sheet of paper from under that stand of flowers! Perhaps it may be of consequence."

"Fly! Take it up, George!" cried Lady Hilliars; "Esop will tear it to atoms whilst you are asking questions."

After a chase round the room, over chairs and under tables, George Hilliars at length plucked the devoted piece of paper out of the dog's mouth; and as Miss Beaufort was gathering up her working materials to leave the room, he opened it and cried, in a voice of triumph, "By Jove, it is a copy of verses!"

"Verses!" demanded Euphemia, feeling in her pocket, and coloring; "let me see them."

"That you sha'n't," roared Lascelles, catching them out of the boy's hand; "if they are your writing, we will have them."

"Help me, Mary!" cried Euphemia, turning to Miss Beaufort; "I know that nobody is a poet in this house but myself. They must be mine, and I will have them."

"Surely, Mr. Lascelles," said Mary, compassionating the poor girl's anxiety, "you will not be so rude as to detain them from their right owner?"

"Oh! but I will," cried he, mounting on a table to get out of
Euphemia's reach, who, half crying, tried to snatch at the paper.
"Let me alone, Miss Phemy. I will read them; so here goes it."

Miss Dundas laughed at her sister's confused looks, whilst Lascelles prepared to read in a loud voice the following verses. They had been hastily written in pencil by Thaddeus a long time ago; and having put them, by mistake, with some other papers into his pocket, he had dropped them next day, in taking out his handkerchief at Lady Dundas's. Lascelles cleared his throat with three hems, then raising his right hand with a flourishing action, in a very pompous tone began—

"Like one whom Etna's torrent fires have sent
Far from the land where his first youth was spent;
Who, inly drooping on a foreign shore,
Broods over scenes which charm his eyes no more:
And while his country's ruin wakes the groan,
Yearns for the buried hut he called his own.
So driv'n, O Poland! from thy ravaged plains,
So mourning o'er thy sad and but loved remains,
A houseless wretch, I wander through the world,
From friends, from greatness, and from glory hurl'd!

"Oh! not that each long night my weary eyes
Sink into sleep, unlull'd by Pity's sighs;
Not that in bitter tears my bread is steep'd—
Tears drawn by insults on my sorrows heap'd;
Not that my thoughts recall a mother's grave—
Recall the sire I would have died to save,
Who fell before me, bleeding on the field,
Whilst I in vain opposed the useless shield.
Ah! not for these I grieve! Though mental woe,
More deadly still, scarce Fancy's self could know!
O'er want and private griefs the soul can climb,—
Virtue subdues the one, the other Time:
But at his country's fall, the patriot feels
A grief no time, no drug, no reason heals.

"Mem'ry! remorseless murderer, whose voice
Kills as it sounds; who never says, Rejoice!
To my deserted heart, by joy forgot;
Thou pale, thou midnight spectre, haunt me not!
Thou dost but point to where sublimely stands
A glorious temple, reared by Virtue's hands,
Circled with palms and laurels, crown'd with light,
Darting Truth's piercing sun on mortal sight:
Then rushing on, leagued fiends of hellish birth
Level the mighty fabric with the earth!
Slept the red bolt of Vengeance in that hour
When virtuous Freedom fell the slave of Power!
Slumber'd the God of Justice! that no brand
Blasted with blazing wing the impious band!
Dread God of Justice! to thy will I kneel,
Though still my filial heart must bleed and feel;
Though still the proud convulsive throb will rise,
When fools my country's wrongs and woes despise;

When low-soul'd Pomp, vain Wealth, that Pity gives,
Which Virtue ne'er bestows and ne'er receives,—
That Pity, stabbing where it vaunts to cure,
Which barbs the dart of Want, and makes it sure.
How far removed from what the feeling breast
Yields boastless, breathed in sighs to the distress'd!
Which whispers sympathy, with tender fear,
And almost dreads to pour its balmy tear.
But such I know not now! Unseen, alone,
I heave the heavy sigh, I draw the groan;
And, madd'ning, turn to days of liveliest joy,
When o'er my native hills I cast mine eyes,
And said, exulting—"Freemen here shall sow
The seed that soon in tossing gold shall glow!
While Plenty, led by Liberty, shall rove,
Gay and rejoicing, through the land they love;
And 'mid the loaded vines, the peasant see
His wife, his children, breathing out,—'We're free!'
But now, O wretched land! above thy plains,
Half viewless through the gloom, vast Horror reigns,
No happy peasant, o'er his blazing hearth,
Devotes the supper hour to love and mirth;
No flowers on Piety's pure altar bloom;
Alas! they wither now, and strew her tomb!
From the Great Book of Nations fiercely rent,
My country's page to Lethe's stream is sent—
But sent in vain! The historic Muse shall raise
O'er wronged Sarmatia's cause the voice of praise,—
Shall sing her dauntless on the field of death,
And blast her royal robbers' bloody wrath!"

"It must be Constantine's!" cried Euphemia, in a voice of surprised delight, while springing up to take the paper out of the deriding reader's hand when he finished.

"I dare say it is," answered the ill-natured Lascelles, holding it above his head. "You shall have it; only first let us hear it again, it is so mighty pretty, so very lackadaisical!"

"Give it to me!" cried Euphemia, quite angry.

"Don't, Lascelles," exclaimed Miss Dundas, "the man must be a perfect idiot to write such rhodomontade."

"O! it is delectable!" returned her lover, opening the paper again; "it would make a charming ditty! Come, I will sing it. Shall it be to the tune of 'The Babes in the Wood,' or 'Chevy Chase,' or 'The Beggar of Bethnal Green?"

"Pitiless, senseless man!" exclaimed Mary, rising from her chair, where she had been striving to subdue the emotions with which every line in the poem filled her heart.

"Monster!" cried the enraged Euphemia, taking courage at Miss
Beaufort's unusual warmth; "I will have the paper."

"You sha'n't," answered the malicious coxcomb; and raising his arm higher than her reach, he tore it in a hundred pieces. "I'll teach pretty ladies to call names!"

At this sight, no longer able to contain herself, Mary rushed out of the room, and hurrying to her chamber, threw herself upon the bed, where she gave way to a paroxysm of tears which shook her almost to suffocation.

During the first burst of her indignation, her agitated spirit breathed every appellation of abhorrence and reproach on Lascelles and his malignant mistress. Then wiping her flowing eyes, she exclaimed, "Yet can I wonder, when I compare Constantine with what they are? The man who dares to be virtuous beyond others, and to appear so, arms the self-love of all common characters against him."

Such being her meditations, she excused herself from joining the family at dinner, and it was not until evening that she felt herself at all able to treat the ill-natured group with decent civility.

To avoid spending more hours than were absolutely necessary in the company of a woman she now loathed, next morning Miss Beaufort borrowed Lady Dundas's sedan-chair, and ordering it to Lady Tinemouth's, found her at home alone, but evidently much discomposed.

"I intrude on you, Lady Tinemouth!" said Mary, observing her looks, and withdrawing from the offered seat.

"No, my dear Miss Beaufort," replied she, "I am glad you are come. I assure you I have few pleasures in solitude. Read that letter," added she, putting one into her hand: "it has just conveyed one of the cruelest stabs ever offered by a son to the heart of his mother. Read it, and you will not be surprised at finding me in the state you see."

The countess looked on her almost paralyzed hands as she spoke; and Miss Beaufort taking the paper, sat down and read to herself the following letter:

TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE THE COUNTESS OF TINEMOUTH.

"Madam,

"I am commissioned by the earl, my father, to inform you that if you have lost all regard for your own character, he considers that some respect is due to the mother of his children; therefore he watches your conduct.

"He has been apprized of your frequent meetings, during these many months past, in Grosvenor Place, and at other people's houses, with an obscure foreigner, your declared lover. The earl wished to suppose this false, until your shameless behavior became so flagrant, that he esteems it worthy neither of doubt nor indulgence.

"With his own eyes he saw you four nights ago alone with this man in Hyde Park. Such demonstration is dreadful. Your proceedings are abominable; and if you do not, without further parley, set off either to Craighall, in Cornwall, or to the Wolds, you shall receive a letter from my sister as well as myself, to tell the dishonored Lady Tinemouth how much she merits her daughter's contempt, added to that of her brother.

"HARWOLD."

Mary was indeed heart-struck at the contents of this letter, but most especially at the accusation which so distinctly pointed out the innocent object of her already doubly-excited pity. "Oh! why these persecutions," cried her inward soul to heaven, "against an apparently obscure but noble, friendless stranger?" Unable to collect her thoughts to make any proper remarks whatever on the letter to Lady Tinemouth, she hastily exclaimed, "It is indeed horrible; and what do you mean to do, my honored friend?"

"I will obey my lord!" returned the countess, with a meek but firm emphasis. "My last action will be in obedience to his will. I cannot live long; and when I am dead, perhaps the earl's vigilance may be satisfied; perhaps some kind friend may then plead my cause to my daughter's heart. One cruel line from her would kill me. I will at least avoid the completion of that threat, by leaving town to-morrow night."

"What! so soon? But I hope not so far as Cornwall?"

"No," replied her ladyship; "Craighall is too near Plymouth; I determine on the Wolds. Yet why should I have a choice? It is almost a matter of indifference to what spot I am banished—in what place I am to die; anywhere to which my earthly lord would send me, I shall be equally remote from the sympathy of a friend."

Miss Beaufort's heart was oppressed when she entered the room! Lady Tinemouth's sorrows seemed to give her a license to weep. She took her ladyship's hand, and with difficulty sobbed out this inarticulate proposal:—"Take me with you, dear Lady Tinemouth! I am sure my guardian will be happy to permit me to be with you, where and how long you please."

"My dear young friend," replied the countess, kissing her tearful cheek, "I thank you from my heart; but I cannot take so ungenerous an advantage of your goodness as to consign your tender nature to the harassing task of attending on sorrow and sickness. How strangely different may even amiable dispositions be tempered! Sophia Egerton is better framed for such an office. Kind as she is, the hilarity of her disposition does nor allow the sympathy she bestows on others to injure either her mind or her body."

Mary interrupted her. "Ah! I should be grieved to believe that my very aptitude to serve my friends will prove the first reason why I should be denied the duty. It is only in scenes of affliction that friendship can be tried, and declare its truth. If Miss Egerton were not going with you, I should certainly insist on putting my affection to the ordeal.'

"You mistake, my sweet friend." returned her ladyship; "Sophia is forbidden to remain any longer with me. You have overlooked the postscript to Lord Harwold's letter, else you must have seen the whole of my cruel situation. Turn over the leaf."

Miss Beaufort re-opened the sheet, and read the following few lines, which, being written on the interior part of the paper, had before escaped her sight:—

"Go where you will, it is our special injunction that you leave Miss Egerton behind you. She, we hear, has been the ambassadress in this intrigue. If we learn that you disobey, it shall be worse for you in every respect, as it will convince us, beyond a possibility of doubt, how uniform is the turpitude of your conduct."

Lady Tinemouth grasped Miss Beaufort's hand when she laid the matricidal letter back upon the table. "And that is from the son for whom I felt all a mother's throes—all a mother's love!—Had he died the first hour in which he saw the light, what a mass of guilt might he not have escaped! It is he," added she, in a lower voice, and looking wildly round, "that breaks my heart. I could have borne his father's perfidy; but insult, oppression, from my child! Oh, Mary, may you never know its bitterness!"

Miss Beaufort could only answer with her tears.

After a pause of many minutes, in which the countess strove to tranquillize her spirits, she resumed in a more composed voice.

"Excuse me for an instant, my dear Miss Beaufort; I must write to Mr. Constantine. I have yet to inform him that my absence is to be added to his other misfortunes."

With her eyes now raining down upon the paper, she took up a pen and hastily writing a few lines, was sealing them when Mary, looking up, hardly conscious of the words which escaped her, said, with inarticulate anxiety, "Lady Tinemouth, you know much of that noble and unhappy young man?" Her eyes irresolute and her cheek glowing, she awaited the answer of the countess, who continued to gaze on the letter she held in her hand, as if in profound thought; then all at once raising her head, and regarding the now downcast face of her lovely friend with tenderness, she replied, in a tone which conveyed the deep interest of her thoughts:—

"I do, Miss Beaufort; but he has reposed his griefs in my friendship and honor, therefore I must hold them sacred."

"I will not ask you to betray them," returned Mary, in a faltering voice; "yet I cannot help lamenting his sufferings, and I esteeming the fortitude with which he supports his fall."

The countess looked steadfastly on her fluctuating countenance. "Has Constantine, my dear girl, hinted to you that he ever was otherwise than as he now appears?"

Miss Beaufort could not reply. She would not trust her lips with words, but shook her head in sign that he had not. Lady Tinemouth was too well read in the human heart to doubt for an instant the cause of her question, and consequent emotion. Feeling that something was due to an anxiety so disinterested, she took her passive hand, and said, "Mary, you have guessed rightly. Though I am not authorized to tell you the real name of Mr. Constantine, nor the particulars of his history, yet let this satisfy your generous heart, that it can never be more honorably employed than in compassionating calamities which ought to wreath his young brows with glory."

Miss Beaufort's eyes streamed afresh, whilst her exulting soul seemed ready to rush from her bosom.

"Mary!" continued the countess, wanned by the recollection of his excellence, "you have no need to blush at the interest which you take in this amiable stranger! Every trial of spirit which could have tortured youth or manhood has been endured by him with the firmness of a hero. Ah, my sweet friend," added the countess, pressing the hand of the confused Miss Beaufort, who, ashamed, and conscious that her behavior betrayed how dearly she considered him, had covered her face with her handkerchief, "when you are disposed to believe that a man is as great as his titles and personal demands seem to assert, examine with a nice observance whether his pretensions be real or artificial. Imagine him disrobed of splendor and struggling with the world's inclemencies. If his character cannot stand this ordeal, he is only a vain pageant, inflated and garnished; and it is reasonable to punish such arrogance with contempt. But on the contrary, when, like Constantine, he rises from the ashes of his fortunes in a brighter blaze of virtue, then, dearest girl," cried the countess, encircling her with her arms, "it is the sweetest privilege of loveliness to console and bless so rare a being."

Mary raised her weeping face from the bosom of her friend, and clasping her hands together with trepidation and anguish, implored her to be as faithful to her secret as she had proved herself to Constantine's. "I would sooner die," added she, "than have him know my rashness, perhaps my indelicacy! Let me possess his esteem, Lady Tinemouth! Let him suppose that I only esteem him! More I should shrink from. I have seen him beset by some of my sex; and to be classed with them—to have him imagine that my affection is like theirs!—I could not bear it. I entreat you, let him respect me!"

The impetuosity, and almost despair, with which Miss Beaufort uttered these incoherent sentences penetrated the soul of Lady Tinemouth with admiration. How different was the spirit of this pure and dignified love to the wild passion she had seen shake the frame of Lady Sara Ross.

They remained silent for some time.

"May I see your ladyship to-morrow?" asked Mary, drawing her cloak about her.

"I fear not," replied the countess; "I leave this house tomorrow morning."

Miss Beaufort rose; her lips, hands, and feet trembled so that she could hardly stand. Lady Tinemouth put her arm round her waist, and kissing her forehead, added, "Heaven bless you, my sweet friend! May all the wishes of your innocent heart be gratified!"

The countess supported her to the door. Mary hesitated an instant; then flinging her snowy arms over her ladyship's neck, in a voice scarcely audible, articulated, "Only tell me, does he love Euphemia?"

Lady Tinemouth strained her to her breast. "No, my dearest girl; I am certain, both from what I have heard him say and observed in his eyes, that did he dare to love any one, you would be the object of his choice."

How Miss Beaufort got into Lady Dundas's sedan-chair she had no recollection, so completely was she absorbed in the recent scene. Her mind was perplexed, her heart ached; and she arrived in Harley Street so much disordered and unwell as to oblige her to retire immediately to her room, with the excuse of a violent pain in her head.