Ashcliffe Hall: A tale of the last century

by Emily Sarah Holt

They were gleaming like stars. Lady Ingram a words had lighted up a fire behind them, and every feeling of timidity was burnt up in the blaze of its indignation.

"My Lady Ingram!" said Celia, with a dignity in her voice and manner which her step-mother had never seen her assume, and believed to be quite foreign to her nature, "I did not come to Paris either to deny my religion or to outrage my God. In all matters which concern Him not, you have moulded me at your will. I thought that you took to me the place of my dead father and mother, and I have obeyed you as I would have obeyed them. But into the sanctuary of my soul you cannot penetrate; on the threshold of the temple even you must pause. God is more to me than father or mother, and at the risk of your displeasure—at the risk of my life if needs be—I must obey Him. 'The Lord sitteth upon the flood, yea, the Lord sitteth King forever;'[[7]] and 'He will not hold him guiltless that taketh His Name in vain!'"[[8]]

Notwithstanding all Lady Ingram's condemnation of feelings, she was just now overpowered by her own. In the foreground was amazement. Had her little pug Venus opened its mouth and emitted a moral axiom, she could hardly have been more astonished. Behind her surprise came annoyance, amusement, and respect for the strange, new bravery of Celia; but in the background, beyond all those, was a very unpleasant and unusual sensation, which she did not attempt to analyze. It was, really, the discovery of a character which she could not fathom, of a strength which she could not weaken, of a temple into which she could not enter. She had always prided herself upon her ability to read every person's character at a glance: and here was the especial character which she had set down as simple, and almost beneath notice, presenting itself in an aspect which it was beyond her skill to comprehend. She had not, indeed, forgotten Celia's confession at the outset of their acquaintance; but she had set it down to her English education, as a past phase of thought which she had succeeded in dispelling. A little more banter on the one hand, and firmness on the other, would, she thought, rid Celia of her absurd and obsolete notions. She had threaded all the mazes, and she meant her speech just uttered to be the last turn in the path, the last struggle between herself and her step-daughter. And lo! here, at that last turn, stood a guarded sanctuary, too strong for her weapons to attack, into which she knew not the way, of whose services she had never learned the language. A strange and sudden darkness fell over her spirit. There was a Power here in opposition to her stronger than her own. This simple, docile, untaught girl knew some strange thing which she did not know. And with this conviction came another and a disagreeable idea. Might it not be something which it immediately concerned her to know? What if Celia were right—if all things were not bounded by this life; if there were another, unknown world beyond this world, guided by different laws? What if God were real, and Heaven were real, and Hell were real? if there were a point beyond which prayers were mockery, and penances were vain? A veil was lifted up for a moment which had covered all this from her; a dark, thick, heavy veil, which all her life she had been at work to weave. A voice from Heaven whispered to her, and it said, "Thou fool!" When moments such as these do not soften and convict, they harden and deaden. The veil dropped, and Lady Ingram was herself again—her heart more rock than ever. It was in a particularly cold, hard voice that she spoke again.

"Celia, if you do not take care, I shall wash my hands of you. I will not be braved in this manner by a mere girl—a girl whose character is wholly unformed, and whose breeding is infinitely below her quality. Go to your chamber, and remain there until you are sufficiently humbled to request my pardon for treating me with so little respect."

"Madam," was the soft answer, "if I have shown you any disrespect, I will ask your pardon now. It was not my wish to do so."

Ah! the thing which Celia had shown Claude Ingram, and at which she could not bear to look, was her own heart.

"Will you then retract what you have said?"

"If I have said anything personally offensive to your Ladyship, I will retract it and ask your forgiveness. What I have said of my own relation to God I never can retract, Madam, for it is real and eternal."

Lady Ingram was silent for a moment. Then she said, in her hardest voice and coldest manner, "Go to your chamber." Celia, courtesying to her step-mother, retired without another word. Left alone in her own boudoir, again that cloud of dread darkness rolled over Claude Ingram. The presence of the accusing angel was withdrawn, but the accusations rankled yet. She sat for some time in silence, and at length rose with a sudden shiver and a heavy sigh. Opening with a little silver key a private closet, richly ornamented, a shrine was disclosed, where a silver lamp burned before an image of the Virgin. Here Lady Ingram knelt, and made an "Act of Contrition" and an "Act of Faith."[[9]] The repetition of vain words put no more contrition nor faith into her heart than before she uttered them. Only the soul was lulled to sleep: and she rose satisfied with herself and her interview.

"Do you think I did wrong, Patient?" asked Celia, sadly, of her sole confidante, at the moment when, at the other end of the house, Lady Ingram was finishing her devotions.