We, poor anxious females, trembled in our solitary Castle, while we listened to this account of the proceedings of one, whose very name made us already look upon him as our enemy. Yet I could by no means understand, how he should be the son of Ethelbert, never having heard, that my husband had been married, till I gave him my hand, nor that he had any natural children, whose existence (I had no cause to flatter myself) he would have concealed out of respect for me!—Edith sighed, when I stated to her my reasons for disbelieving, that Ethelbert had a son; and my uncle, who just at that moment happened to return from one of his daily skirmishes with his enemy, explained to me the cause of her sighing.
—“Alas, my child,” said he, “it is not without reason, that you look with terror on this newly-arrived Count of Carlsheim. It is but too probable, that he is Ethelbert’s son, and is come to strengthen his father’s party. Before your union with him a report had reached me, that Count Ethelbert was already the husband of another, though his passion for you induced him to conceal his marriage. This story, making me look upon him as a seducer, was the motive of my unexplained antipathy towards him, and of the displeasure with which I observed your growing attachment. I therefore took an opportunity of questioning him seriously respecting the report; but no sooner had the first hint escaped my lips, than his pride took the alarm.
—“To justify myself from such an accusation,” said he haughtily, “is beneath me; thus much I will answer, and no more. Yes; some years ago I married a noble Italian lady (alas! now she will never claim her rights!) rich and beautiful. Before I was deprived of her, she bore to me a son, whom I left to the guardianship of his mother’s relations; they were anxious to retain him with them, as being all that remained of a person so justly dear to them. The partiality of his mother has made this boy already master of very large possessions; nor would his birth at all interfere with the rights of any future children, should ever a second wife.... But why do I thus condescend to explain the circumstances of my private life to one, who looks on me as a seducer?—You have suspected me of artfully endeavouring to ensnare your niece’s affections for the basest purposes; here then I solemnly swear in the face of Heaven that nothing shall ever tempt me to offer her my hand, or condescend to seek a connexion with a man, who has exprest an opinion of me so degrading! I love Urania, love her passionately; but never will I become her husband, unless you solicit me with your own lips to accept her hand, and thus wipe off the injurious aspersion, which you have cast upon the character of one, whose sentiments are as elevated, and whose honour is as strict as your own.”—
—“At hearing this declaration,” continued my uncle, “I could not restrain a smile; so impossible did it appear to me at that time, that a situation should ever occur, which could induce me to force the heiress of all my possessions on the noblest and most powerful man on earth.—But from that moment Ethelbert never missed an opportunity or working himself into my heart. The services, which he rendered me, increased in number so rapidly, and were of such material consequence; and his countenance bore so plainly the melancholy impression of hopeless love, that I could not avoid wishing to gratify him with your hand. I now began to make all possible enquiries respecting his former marriage. Proof upon proof met me at every step, that he had acted by me with candour; I daily received fresh assurances, that he had indeed been married to an Italian heiress; but that his wife was dead, and his son richly provided for. The last and most essential service which he rendered me, the delivering me from the chains of the Abbot of St. Gall, put the finishing-hand to my resolution in his favour. I solicited him to become your husband; cursed be the hour, in which I did so! Ah! what did it avail, that Ethelbert’s wife was no more, since her death only left him at liberty to contract an union with one, who has with every hour had fresh cause to lament the moment, in which that union was formed?”—
—“And are you then quite certain,” interrupted his wife (for Edith was now the Countess Venosta) “that when Ethelbert became Urania’s husband, his hand was really free?—Oh! Leopold, how much have we all reason to lament, that your own guileless nature should have made you so unwilling to suspect, that others were deceivers! that even when your suspicions were so justly excited, your inclination to find them groundless should have so lightly made you abandon them, and resume your good opinion of a man, whose only talent consisted in concealing his vices with dexterity!—Alas! alas! even from the grave thy voice, unfortunate Lucretia, calls Ethelbert a murderer! Soon may the curse, which you breathed against him in your last moments, fall on the tyrant’s head; but far be its accomplishment from her, whom your unjust fury joined with him in the malediction. Urania is guiltless of your sufferings; surely had not frenzy and despair made you deaf to all conviction, you could not have resisted the arguments, which I advanced in proof of her unconscious innocence!”—
Struck dumb with astonishment stood my uncle and myself, and gazed in silence on Edith. Her arms were crossed upon her bosom; her eyes were raised towards Heaven; the tears streamed down her cheeks. She replied not to the anxious enquiries, which her extraordinary agitation and incoherent exclamations at length compelled us to make.
—“Be patient with me for a few moments!” said she after some time; “the dreadful scene, which I witnessed at Ravenstein Castle, stands before me exprest in such strong and lively colours, that horror almost robs me of my senses! Allow me time to recover myself, in pity!”—
We now remained in anxious expectation of the moment, when Edith should be sufficiently herself to clear up this mystery. My uncle was totally in the dark as to her meaning; but certain obscure suspicions flitted before my recollection, which Edith’s narrative soon confirmed. That unfortunate captive, who had endeavoured to destroy by fire the gloomy prison, in which she had groaned away so many wretched years; she, in whom the bare mention of my name had produced so violent an emotion, that it threw her into the delirium, in which she ended her life; she, that unhappy one, had a claim to Ethelbert’s hand prior to that of the betrayed Urania! In her last moments she called me the cause of her misfortunes! In her last moments she cursed me ... and I was innocent!
Edith’s tenderness had induced her to conceal from me the dreadful scene which she had witnessed, and in which Lucretia had made known to her this important secret. She was well acquainted with the weakness of my nature; she thought, that for an heart so tender and so fond as mine, to remain ignorant of the whole extent of the misfortunes, which had been the consequence of my so earnestly desired marriage would be more supportable, than to know that I had been the cause (however innocent) of Lucretia’s sufferings, and had been myself so grossly deceived by a man, whom I had once loved so passionately, and whom in spite of all his cruelty I could not yet bring myself to hate.
The veil was now withdrawn! I now found, that I had for many years been the unlawful consort of one, who only deserved my love so long, as I remained ignorant of his real character. I now found, that I who would not willingly have crushed a worm, who would gladly have banished from the earth every trace of sorrow, had for many years caused the sufferings of an unknown, who perhaps was good and amiable!—But no! that was not Lucretia’s character. Of this you will be convinced, my children, on reading her story traced by the hand of Edith, and entitled “Lucretia Malaspina.” You will there see, that she had obtained Ethelbert’s hand by a series of the vilest artifices; that her conduct afterwards had been such, as almost justified his treatment of her; that the son (whose arrival she so eagerly expected, though in vain) had been abandoned by her to early licentiousness, and bred up in hatred of his father; and her miserable death was exactly such an end, as was best adapted to a life so destitute of virtue.