According to the established custom of all knight errants, he had commenced his expedition, not merely without forming a plan or consulting common sense, but without furnishing himself with a necessary supply of cash. He had left all his attendants far behind him; and as several days had elapsed since his separation from them, and as he had not thought proper to inform them of the object of his journey, they were totally unable to form even a guess as to the place, where it would be most likely for them to rejoin their master. Luckily for Henry, in the paroxysms of his fever he frequently pronounced the name of Montfort. From this the good simple people of the village (who in truth had rendered him all the assistance, which their sorry means could allow) concluded, that the invalid must certainly belong to the old Count of Montfort. A messenger was dispatched to verify the fact: and Count Egbert lost no time in sending able physicians to his nephew’s aid, by whose care the fever was at length vanquished. As soon as the step could be taken without endangering his life, the Convalescent was removed to his paternal mansion, where he saw nothing but frowning countenances, and heard nothing from morning till night, except reproaches for his extraordinary conduct on his bridal day with Elizabeth. It seems, that Count Egbert now thought himself entitled to assume a higher tone of authority with his nephew, since the news was just arrived, that Henry’s firm friend and powerful patron, the Emperor, was no more. He perished, in consequence of a malady which he contracted during an expedition against the Turks, and was no longer able to vindicate and enforce the claims of his favourite.
—“You cannot but acknowledge,” said the old Count one day to his pale and still emaciated nephew, “that I have done every thing in my power to establish your happiness on a firm basis. Elizabeth of March, young, lovely, wise, powerful, and (above all!) enormously rich, would have been your own at this moment, if you had not thought proper to abandon her for the laudable purpose of scampering away after a will-o’-the-wisp!—But now the business is over! No regrets can now put matters to rights again! Elizabeth is Countess of Torrenburg, is lost to you for ever, and what counsel to give you now, I protest, I know not!—Truly, your affairs are in a wretched condition: your claims on my succession cannot avail you till after my decease; and even then, they stand a fair chance of being worth but little, since I am now seriously thinking of contracting a matrimonial engagement: though you thought proper to break off my former match by running away with my intended bride, the light and wanton Ida!”—
Here Henry assured him for the twentieth time, that he had not beheld Ida since the bridal day at the Castle of March; and his uncle for the twentieth time replied, by assuring Henry, that in that case it was very extraordinary, that nobody else should know any thing at all about her. However, whether she had gone off with Henry or with any other person, for his own part he was determined, that anxiety about her should never turn one more hair of his head grey; but that he would marry the first woman of a decent family, whom luck or accident should throw into his way.
In the course of his reproaches the old Count had mentioned Elizabeth’s marriage: this was a fact. Within a few days after Ida’s disappearance, Elizabeth became Countess of Torrenburg. It has already been mentioned, that Count Frederick set forward for the Castle of March, in all the pomp of a bridegroom, to renew his addresses, fortified by an encouraging vision of his patron-saint, and assisted by the prayers of the worthy Father Hilarius. On the other hand, the house-priest of March had managed to screw the indignation of Elizabeth and her relations to the highest pitch against the fugitive Montfort and the Heiresses of Sargans; and the lady’s parents were proportionably penitent for the ill-judged rejection of Count Frederick’s addresses. Finding his mistress and her friends in a temper of mind so favourable to his wishes, the superannuated lover needed only to make his proposals, in order to have them accepted. But little discussion was necessary; all parties were soon of the same mind, and Elizabeth in a few days entered the Castle of Torrenburg as its mistress. From that hour her every word, her every action was such, as proved her to be worthy of the high station, in which she was placed by the choice of this excellent nobleman; against whom no possible objection could be suggested, except that he was old enough to be the grand-father of his blooming wife. But to Elizabeth’s disappointed heart his age was rather a recommendation than an objection. After Montfort’s perfidy she felt it impossible for her ever to love another man as her husband; but she loved Count Frederick as her father; she esteemed and reverenced him, nor from her conduct towards him would any one have supposed, that her happy husband was not still in possession of all the advantages and charms of youth. All affection for the ungrateful Henry seemed extinguished in her bosom, and the good old Count enjoyed with her a much greater share of happiness, than he had any reason to expect would have been the case. Nor was her behaviour towards her husband alone praiseworthy: she conducted herself on all occasions with so much discretion, and displayed throughout such winning graces and enlarged benevolence, that she became the object of universal respect, and was proposed as a model to be admired and imitated by all the daughters of Helvetia.
In one point alone her prudence was in default. There was an individual in the Castle of Torrenburg, whose influence with her husband was omnipotent; but for whom she felt an aversion so insurmountable, that scarcely could she endure him in her presence; and whom she was rash enough to endeavour at removing, before she had examined whether her strength was equal to the undertaking, and whether this offence offered to the antient household gods, might not draw down some heavy punishment upon her own unsuspecting head.
This detested and persecuted object of Elizabeth’s efforts was no other, than the keeper of all the consciences in the Castle of Torrenburg, was no other than the devout Father Hilarius! She was not aware, that it was to him and his saints, that she was chiefly indebted for the illustrious title which she bore, and the splendid station which she occupied. Perhaps, even had she been conscious of her obligation, she would have but little approved of the crooked paths, by which the Friar had contrived to conduct her to her elevated situation.
In fulfilment of his vow, Count Frederick had recompensed the patron-saints of his two clerical allies most liberally for the possession of his adored Elizabeth. The chaplain of Castle-March (whose only capital fault was avarice) was well contented with the reward of his exertions: not so was Hilarius! He had formed far greater plans, and indulged more glorious expectations. He had made no sort of doubt, that he should gain no less a share of the wife’s confidence, than he already possest of the husband’s. Instead of this, he obtained from her nothing but aversion and contempt; and from the moment of his being convinced, that such were her sentiments towards him, fury took entire possession of his misanthropic heart, and he brooded day and night over plans of swift-coming vengeance.
His disappointment in the present was greatly embittered by his foreseeing the failure of all those hopes, which he had long grounded upon the future. Much time had not elapsed since his marriage, when the superannuated Frederick communicated to the chaplain in confidence certain dispositions of his estates after his death, which could not fail to be highly disagreeable to the avaricious Monk. Every day more fascinated by the perfections of his beautiful wife, the Count tortured himself to discover some means, by which he might express in the most striking manner his gratitude to her, whose attentions shed a gleam of such bright sunshine over the evening of his closing life. He secretly bequeathed to her every thing, which it was possible for him to give, without entirely laying aside all justice to the young Countesses of Werdenberg: since much as he held himself insulted by their late conduct, still he was too generous to deprive them of any thing, to which the name which they bore could enable them to advance the claims of justice.
His confessor was initiated into all these mysteries. Scarcely while he listened to them, could Hilarius restrain his rage within the bounds of decency. He saw all the fond hopes, which he had built upon Frederick’s want of heirs and attachment to the church and its servants, destroyed at one blow; and he gnashed his teeth for spite to think, that it was out of his power to prevent the Count’s benevolent intentions towards his wife from being carried into immediate and complete effect.
As for Elizabeth, she was entirely ignorant of those weighty proofs of his affection, which Count Frederick designed for her after his decease. She was equally ignorant of the spite and envy, which this large bequest had excited against her in one of the most malignant of human hearts. She continued to proceed in her straight-forward benevolent course without turning to the right or to the left: she treated her decrepit husband with unabated kindness and attention unwearied; and she denied herself no opportunity of convincing Hilarius, that he was the object of her fixed aversion, and that she was decidedly bent on procuring sooner or later his expulsion from the Castle of Torrenburg.