Ida was not long without hearing from her friend: this letter, (the last which she ever received from Elizabeth,) induced her to take a step, which filled up the measure of her mischances, and not only deprived her of the favour of her deceived uncle, but totally ruined her in the general opinion.
—“Ida! dear Ida! authoress of all my present happiness! How wise was your advice! How perfectly has it succeeded! Yet a few days, and I shall become the wife of Henry. Still I shall feel my pleasure incomplete, unless I can thank you for it with an embrace on my bridal-day. Come then, my friend! come to place the garland on my brow[[5]], and rejoice in the work of your prudence! You will find your sister with me: it was easy for her to obtain a dispensation from her Abbess. I rejoice, that your uncle is now in a distant part of the country, as in the present moment you would certainly have been refused permission to come to me. As it is, resolve to brave the hazard of a few frowns at his return; he will soon forget his displeasure at your witnessing my nuptials, being totally ignorant of every thing which might seriously make him offended with you, and which (you may be assured) shall never come to his knowledge.—But though concealed from all others, the friendly part which you have acted in this business, shall never be forgotten by the grateful heart of your Elizabeth.
[5]. This alludes to a custom still preserved in many parts of Germany: the bride wears a myrtle-wreath during the nuptial-ceremony, and it is usual for her on the day after her marriage to present this wreath to that female friend, to whom she is most attached.
“Then haste to me, my friend! I burn with impatience to make my Henry known to you: he too is impatient to see the friend of his Betrothed, the kind adviser, to whom the Happy-ones owe their happiness. I have resolved, that this wished-for introduction shall take place at the altar, before which I am to pronounce the nuptial vow. I confess, this decision is in some degree dictated by selfish motives: were Henry to see the lovely Ida of Werdenberg, before it is too late for him to retract with honour, who knows but her charms might make him faithless to the less fair Elizabeth?—Ah! dearest Ida, you are conscious, that I do but jest; I know well the heart of my friend, and the honour of my lover! Forgive then the fantastic humours of a girl already half wild with her happiness, and refuse not to make by your presence that happiness still greater.”—
A great part of this letter was as little understood by Ida as the former one; however, she took good care not to employ the Chaplain to explain the meaning. She doubted not his opposing her departure for the Castle of March, since her uncle (though for what reason she could not imagine) would disapprove of her visit; and in the Count’s absence she was totally under the direction of Father Hilarius. Ida therefore contented herself with understanding from the letter, that she was invited to a wedding, at which the successful counsels which she had given (together with other friendly services which she had rendered the happy pair) would make her an important personage; at which she should meet her sister Constantia, and doubtless many other of her youthful friends; and where she should exhibit her beauty to the best advantage, and should dress, dance, sing, and laugh, as she had frequently done on similar occasions on the blooming lawn of Rutelis. This was enough for her to know, and to determine her proceedings. On the appointed day Elizabeth sent a small body of attendants to wait for her friend in a wood at no great distance from the Castle of Torrenburg. Ida failed not to join them there; and without bidding adieu to Father Hilarius, she very quietly set forward for the Castle of March.
She reached it in safety, and soon found herself clasped in the arms of her delighted friend. There too she had the happiness of once more embracing Constantia. The two Sisters past the intervening time between their arrival and the wedding-day with Elizabeth in her apartment; where (according to the custom of our times) on such occasions no man was permitted to show himself, not even the bridegroom.
The important day arrived. Followed by her lovely companions, herself the most lovely, Elizabeth with trembling steps and a fluttering heart approached the altar, where Henry of Montfort waited her arrival. Ida now stepped forward; she threw back her veil, and prepared to fasten the wreath of Innocence among the golden ringlets of her friend: a similar garland hung on her arm, with which she was afterwards to present the bridegroom. Occupied entirely with the task of decorating Elizabeth, she had not yet cast her eyes on young Montfort; she had not observed, that he started on beholding her; she had not heard the name of “Rosanna,” which escaped from his trembling lips. She now turned to him for the purpose of offering him the other wreath; she already extended her hand; when fixing her eyes on his countenance, she uttered a cry expressive at once of the utmost surprise and terror, attempted but in vain to pronounce the name of Erwin Melthal, and would have sank upon the ground, had not Constantia rushed forward and received her in her supporting arms.
Constantia still wore the habit of a Nun; the altar was adorned exactly in the same manner, and the blazing lamps shed the same mysterious light along the fretted roots and gloomy arches, as on that day when Erwin and Rosanna knelt at the shrine of St. Engeltruda, poured forth the most solemn vows of eternal fidelity, and heard Constantia devote the breaker of those vows to unceasing shame and sorrow.—Erwin Melthal (or rather Henry of Montfort, for alas! they formed but one) had long believed the lovely Sisters to be no more the inhabitants of earth: Constantia on the other hand was in the same error respecting Erwin. The sudden appearance of one, whom she had long since numbered with the dead, imprest upon her countenance something of that serious, that strangely awful expression, which struck him so forcibly, when she united his hand with Rosanna’s in the Chapel of Engelberg. He recollected her words—“Should either of you rend asunder the bonds, with which I now unite your fates for ever, that instant shall my form (be I living, or be I dead) stand before you threatening and awful, to reproach you with your crimes.”—These recollections, and the unexpected appearance of the Sisters, at the very moment when he was on the point of giving his hand to another, made him consider the whole scene as a supernatural vision! He believed, that the forms which stood before him, were creatures of another world; his brain was unable to support the shock; the surrounding objects floated before his eyes, his senses forsook him, and he sank without animation at the feet of his astonished bride.
END OF THE THIRD VOLUME.
PRINTED BY D. N. SHURY, BERWICK-STREET, SOHO.