CHAPTER IV.
“Courteous Lord—one word—
Sir, you and I have lov'd—but that's not it—
Sir, you and I must part.”—ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA
“Hitherto I have had to dwell in my recitation on the vices and frailties of my brothers of the dust, and to describe myself as an innocent sufferer; but I now approach a period of my life, from the mention of which I shrink with well-grounded apprehensions. Yet judge me with candour; remember the strength of the temptation through which I erred; and divesting yourself, if possible, of the recollection of your own injuries, moderate your resentment against an unfortunate being, who for many long years of his existence has not enjoyed one easy hour.
“It was nearly three years after the period to which I have alluded that an accident of which I need not remind you, my beloved Helen, introduced me to the acquaintance of your family. You may remember the backwardness with which I first received their approaches; the very name of Percy had become ominously painful to me, and yet it inspired me with a strange and undefinable interest. A spell appeared to attract me towards you, and in spite of my first resolution to the contrary, in spite of the melancholy reserve that still dwelt upon my mind, I became an acquaintance, and at length the favoured inmate and friend, of your father. Could I imagine the dangers that lurked beneath his roof? could I believe that while I thus once more indulged in the social converse to which I had been long a stranger, I should gain the affections of his child? The playful girl towards whom my age enabled me to assume an almost parental authority, while I exercised, in turn, the parts of playmate and preceptor, beloved as she was in all the charms of her dawning beauty, and artless naiveté, inspired me with no deeper sentiment; not even when I saw her gradually expand into the maturer pride of womanhood, and acquire that feminine gentleness, that dignified simplicity of character, which had attracted me in Theresa Marchmont. Early in our intercourse, I had acquainted Lord Percy that the confinement of a beloved wife in a state of mental derangement, was the unhappy cause of my dejection and wandering habits of life; and I was rejoiced to perceive that his own seclusion from the world had prevented him from hearing my history related by others. He was also ignorant of the name and connexions of the lady to whom he knew his beloved and lamented son to have been attached; little indeed did he suspect his own share in producing my domestic calamity.
“The disparity of our years, and their knowledge of my own previous marriage, prevented them from regarding with suspicion the partiality displayed by their Helen for my society, and the influence which I had unconsciously acquired over her feelings. For a length of time I was myself equally blind, and the moment I ventured to fear the dangers of the attachment she was beginning to form. I took the resolution of tearing myself altogether from her society, and without the delay of an hour, I returned to Silsea.
“But what a scene did I select to reconcile me to the loss of the cheerful society I had abandoned! My deserted home seemed haunted by the shadows of the past, and tenanted only by remembrances of former affliction. In my hour of loneliness and sorrow, I had no kind friend to whom to turn for consolation; and for the first time the sterile and gloomy waste over which my future path of life was appointed, filled me with emotions of terror and regret. My very existence appeared blighted through the treachery of others; and all those holy ties which enrich the evening of our days with treasures far clearer than awaited us even into the morning of youth, appeared withheld from me, and me only. Helen, it was then, in that moment of disappointment and bitterness, that the remembrance of thy loveliness, and the suspicion of thine affection conspired to from that fatal passion which has been the bane of thy happiness, and the origin of my guilt.
“Avoiding as I scrupulously did the range of apartments inhabited by the unfortunate Lady Greville, several years had passed since I had beheld her; and sometimes when I had been bewildered in the reveries of my own desolate heart, began to doubt her very existence. Yet this unseen being who appeared to occupy no place in the scale of human nature, this unconscious creature who now dwelt in my remembrance like the unreal mockery of a dream, presented an insuperable obstacle to my happiness. I saw my inheritance destined to be wrenched from me
“'By an unlineal hand
No son of mine succeedingly,'
“and I felt myself doomed to resign every enjoyment and every hope for the sake of one to whom the sacrifice availed nothing; one, too, who had permitted me to fold her to my heart in the full confidence of undivided affection, while her own was occupied by a passion whose violence had deprived me of my child, and herself of intellect and health.
“Such were the arguments by which I strove to blind myself to my rising passion for another, and to smother the self-reproaches which assailed me when I first conceived the fatal project of imposing upon the world by the supposed death of my wife, and of seeking your hand in marriage. How often did the better feelings of my nature recoil from such an act of villainy—how often was my project abandoned, how often resumed at the alternate bidding of passion and of virtue! I will not repeat the idle sophistry which served to complete my wilful blindness; nor dare I degrade myself in your eyes by a confession of the tissue of contemptible fraud and hypocrisy into which I was necessarily betrayed by the execution of my dark designs. Oh! Helen—this heart of mine was once honest, once good and true as thine own; but now there crawls not on this earth a wretch whose lying lips have uttered falsehoods more villainous than mine! and honour, the characteristic of the ancient house I have disgraced, the best attribute of the high calling I have polluted, is now a watchword of dismay to my ear.
“In Alice Wishart and her husband I found ready instruments for the completion of my purpose; and indeed the difficulties which awaited me were even fewer than I had first anticipated. The ravings of Lady Greville, and her distracted addresses to the name of her lover had inspired her attendants with a believe of her guiltiness, which in the beginning of her illness I had vainly attempted to combat. It was not therefore to be expected that these faithful adherents of my family, who loved me with an almost parental devotion, and whose regret for the extinction of the name of Greville was the ruling passion of their breasts, should consider her an object worthy the sacrifice of my entire happiness. The few scruples they exhibited were those rather of expediency than of conscience were easily overcome. By their own desire they removed to Greville Cross for the more ready furtherance of our guilty plan; under pretence that the health of the unfortunate Theresa required change of air. On their arrival they found it easy to impress the servants of the establishment with a belief of her precarious state, and the nature of her malady afforded them a plausible pretext for secluding her from their observation and attendance. Accustomed to receive from Alice a daily account of her declining condition, the announcement of her death excited no surprise. In a few weeks after her journey, a fictitious funeral completed our system of deception.
“The moment when, according to our concerted plan, the death and interment of Lady Greville were formally announced to me, I repented of the detestable scheme which had been successfully executed. My soul revolted from the part of 'excellent dissembling' I had yet to act; and refused to sloop to a public exhibition of feigned affliction. I shuddered, too, when I contemplated the shame which awaited me, should some future event, yet hidden in the lap of time, reveal to the world the secret villainy of the man who had borne himself so proudly among his fellows. Yet even these regrets, even the apprehension of fresh difficulties in the concealment of my crime, were insufficient to deter me from the prosecution of my original intention; and blinded by the intemperance of misguided affection, heedless of the shame and misery into which I was about to plunge the woman I adored, I sought and obtained your hand.
“Helen, from that moment I have not known one happy hour, and the first punishment dealt upon my sin was an incapability to enjoy that affection for which I have forfeited all claim to mercy, here and hereafter. The remembrance of Theresa, not in her present state of self-abstraction, but captivating as when she first received my vows before God, to 'love and honour her, in sickness and in health,' haunted me through every scene of domestic endearment, and pursued me even to the hearth whose household deities I had blasphemed. I trembled when I heard my Helen addressed as Lady Greville, when I saw her usurping the rights, and occupying the place of one, who now appeared a nameless 'link between the living and the dead.' I could not gaze upon the woman whose affections had been so partially, so disinterestedly bestowed upon me, and whose existence I had in return polluted by a pretended marriage.—I could not behold of my boy, the descendant of two of the noblest houses in Britain, yet upon whom the stain of illegitimacy might hereafter rest, without feelings of self-accusation which filled the cup of life with the waters of bitterness. Alas! its very springs were poisoned—and Helen, however strong, however just thine indignation against thy betrayer, believe, oh! believe that even in this life I have endured no trifling measure of punishment for my deep offences against thee and thine!
“But such is the frailty of human nature that it was upon these very victims I suffered the effects of my remorse and mental agony to all. The ill-suppressed violence of my temper, irritated by the dangers of my situation, has already caused you many a sorrowful moment; and the increase of gloom you must have lately perceived, has originated in the fresh difficulties arising to me from the death of the husband of Alice; and the dread of her own approaching dissolution. From these causes my present visit to this dreary abode was determined, and to them I am indebted for the premature disclosure which has made her life as wretched as my own. The sickness of her surviving attendant has latterly allowed more liberty to the unhappy Theresa than her condition renders safe either to her or me. I could not on my arrival here collect sufficient resolution to look upon her; and to adopt those measures of security which the weakness of Alice has left disregarded. To this infirmity of purpose on my part must be ascribed the dreadful shock you sustained by the sudden appearance of the unfortunate maniac, who I conclude was attracted to your apartment by the long-forgotten sound of music. On that fatal evening your fall awoke me from my sleep; and I then perceived my Helen lying insensible on the floor; and Theresa—yes—the altered and to me terrible figure of Theresa, bending over her. For one dreadful moment I believed that you had fallen a victim to her insanity.
“And now Helen—my injured, but fondly beloved Helen, now that my tale of evil is fully disclosed, resolve at once the doom of my future being. Yet in mercy be prompt in your decision; and whether you determine to unfold to the whole world the measure of my guilt, or, since nothing can now extricate us from the web of sin and shame in which we are involved, to assist in shielding me from a discovery which would be fatal to the interests of our innocent child, let me briefly hear the result of your judgment. Of this alone it remains for me to assure you—that I will not one single hour survive the publication of my dishonour.”
For several hours succeeding the perusal of the forgoing history, Lady Greville remained chained as it were to her seat by the bewildering perplexities of her mind. The blow, in itself so sudden, so fraught with mischiefs, involving a thousand interests, and affording no hope to lessen its infliction, appeared to stupify her faculties. Lost in the contemplation of evils from which no worldly resource availed to save herself or her child, indignation, compassion, and despair, by turns obtained possession of her bosom. Her first impulse, worthy of her gentle nature, was to rush to the bed-side of her sleeping boy, and there, on her knees, to implore divine aid to shelter his unoffending innocence, and grace to enlighten her mind in the choice of her future destiny. And He, who in dealing the wound of affliction, refuseth not, to those who seek it, the balm that softens its endurance, imparted to her soul a fortitude to bear, and a wisdom to extricate herself from the perils by which she was assailed. The following letter acquainted Lord Greville with her final determination:
“Greville,—I was about, in the inadvertence of my bewildered mind, to address you once more by the title of husband; but that holy name must hereafter perish on my lips, and be banished like a withering curse from my heart. Yet it was that alone which, holding a sacred charter over my bosom, bound me to the cheerful endurance of many a bitter hour, ere I knew that through him who bore it, a descendant of the house of Percy would be banded as an adulteress; and her child as the nameless offspring of shame. Rich as I was in worldly gifts, my birth, my character, the fair fortunes which you have blighted, and the parental care from which you have withdrawn me, alike appeared to shelter me from the evils which have befallen me—but wo is me! Even these were an insufficient protection against the craftiness of mine enemy!
“But reproaches avail me not. Henceforth I will shut up my sorrow and my complaining within the solitude of my own wounded heart—and thou, 'my companion, my counsellor, mine own familiar friend,' the beloved of my early youth, the father of my child, must be from this hour be as nothing unto me!
“Hear my decision. Since one who has already trampled upon every tie, divine and human, at the instigation of his won evil passions, would scarcely be deterred from further wickedness by any argument of mine, I dare not tempt the mischief contemplated by your ungovernable feelings against your life. I will, therefore, solemnly engage to assist you by every means in my power in the preservation of the secret on which your very existence appears to depend. As the first measure towards this object, I will myself undertake that attendance of Lady Greville, which cannot be otherwise procured without peril of disclosure. Towards this unfortunate being, my noble brother's betrothed wife, whose interests have been sacrificed to mine, no sisterly care, no affectionate watchfulness shall be wanting on my part, to lessen the measure of her afflictions. I will remain with her at Greville Cross; sharing the duties of Alice so long as she shall live, and supplying her place when she shall be no more. I feel that God has doomed my proud spirit to the humiliation of this trial; and I trust in his goodness that I may have strength cheerfully and worthily to fulfil my part. From you I have one condition to exact in return.
“Henceforward we must meet no more in this world. I can pity you—I can even forgive you,—but I cannot yet school my heart to that forgetfulness of the past, that indifference, with which I ought to regard the husband of another. Greville! we must not meet no more!
“And since my son will shortly attain an age when seclusion in this remote spot would be prejudicial to his interests and to the formation of his character, I pray you to take him from me at once, that I may have no further sacrifice to contemplate. Let him reside with you at Silsea, under the tuition of proper instructors—breed him up in nobleness and truth—and let not his early nurture, and the care with which I have sought to instil into his mind principles of honour and virtue, be utterly lost. Let his happiness be the pledge of my dutiful fulfilment of the task I have undertaken; and may God desert me and him, when I fail through negligence or hardness of heart.
“And if at times the stigma of his birth should present itself to irritate your mind against his helpless innocence, as alas! I have latterly witnessed, smite him not, Greville, in your guilty wrath—remember he is come of gentle blood, even on his mother's side—and ask yourself to whom we owe our degradation, and from whose quiver the arrow was launched against us? And now farewell—may the Almighty enlighten and forgive you—and if in this address there appears a trace of bitterness, do not ascribe it to any uncharitable feelings, but look back upon the past, and think on what I was—on what I am. Consider whether ever woman loved or trusted as I have done, or was ever more cruelly betrayed? Oh! Greville, Greville!—did I not regard you with an affection too intense for my happiness! did I not confide in you with a reverence, a veneration unmeet to be lavished on a creature of clay? But you have broken the fragile idol of my worship before my eyes—and the after-path of my life is dark with fear and loneliness. But be it so; my soul was proud of its good gifts—and now that I am stricken to the dust, its vanity is laid bare to my sight—haply, 'it is good for me that I have been afflicted.'—Farewell for ever.”
The conditions of this letter were mutually and strictly fulfilled; but the mental struggle sustained by Lord Greville, his humiliation on witnessing the saintlike self-devotion of Helen Percy, combined with the necessity which rendered it expedient to accept her proffered sacrifice, were too much for his frame. In less than a year after his return to Silsea, he died—a prey to remorse.
Previous to his decease, in contemplation of the nobleness of mind which would probably induce the nominal Lady Greville to renounce his succession, he framed two testamentary acts. By one of these, he acknowledged the nullity of his second marriage, but bequeathed to Helen and her child all that the law of the land enabled him to bestow; by the other he referred to Helen only as his lawful wife, and to her son as his representative and successor; adding to their legal inheritance all his unentailed property. Both were enclosed in a letter to Lady Greville, written on his death-bed, which left it entirely at her own disposal, which to publish, which to destroy.
It is not to be supposed that the selection cost her one moment's hesitation. Having resigned into the hands of the lawful inheritor all that the strictest probity could require, and much that his admiration of her magnanimity would have prevailed on her to retain, she retired peaceably to a mansion in the South bequeathed by Lord Greville to her son, and occupied herself solely with his education. In the commencement of the ensuring reign he obtained the royal sanction to use the name and arms of Percy; and in his grateful affection and the virtuous distinctions he early attained, his mother met with her reward.
Theresa, the helpless Theresa, the guardian-ship of whose person had been bequeathed to Helen, as a mournful legacy, by Lord Greville, was removed with her from her dreary imprisonment at the Cross, and to the latest moment of her existence partook of her affectionate and watchful attention.
It was a touching sight to behold these two unfortunate beings, linked together by ties of so painful a nature, and dwelling together In companionship. The one, richly gifted with youthful loveliness, clad in a deep mourning habit, and bearing on her countenance an air of fixed dejection. The other, though far her elder in years, still beautiful,—with her long silver hair, blanched by sorrow, not by time, hanging over her shoulders; and wearing, as if in mockery of her unconscious widowhood, the gaudy and embroidered raiment to which a glimmering remembrance of happier times appeared to attach her—that vacant smile and wandering glance of insanity lending at times a terrible brilliancy to her features. But for the most part her malady assumed a cast of settled melancholy, and patient as
“The female dove ere yet her golden couplets are disclosed,
Her silence would sit drooping.”
Her gentleness and submission would have endeared her to a guardian even less tenderly interested in her fate than Helen Percy; towards whom, from her first interview, she had evinced the most gratifying partiality. “I know you,” she said on beholding her. “You have the look and voice of Percy; you are a ministering angel whom he has sent to defend his poor Theresa from the King; now that she is sad and friendless. You will never abandon me, will you?” continued she, taking her hand and pressing it to her bosom.
“Never—never—so help me heaven!” answered the agitated Helen; and that sacred promise remained unbroken.