Three months after they reached Hamburgh, the innocent, lovely Rose expired a few hours after giving birth to a daughter, whom almost in her last moments she presented, with smiles of anxious pity, to her unfortunate husband, saying, "Be consoled; my child will love you as I do. You are dearer to me now than ever. You have been but too indulgent;—I have lately repented of many trifling offences—forgive them when I am gone." Here exhausted, she paused for a few minutes; then once again addressed him: "Don't weep, Reginald; 'tis fitting I should die; my erring fondness would have injured this dear babe.—Comfort my poor father!" She feebly pressed his hand, and her dying accents murmured a half audible "Bless you!"
She was lovely in death! The clay-cold hand he with unutterable anguish pressed to his lips, mocked the statuary's art. The ministering angel who received her parting spirit, seemed to have shed celestial light on her countenance, whilst the bloom of earthly beauty yet lingered on her soft cheek and smiling lip. One dark lock lay on her alabaster bosom. Alas! motionless it lay—the warm heart had ceased to beat. Gaze, wretched Reginald, on thy heart's treasure! Soon shall the grave close for ever on all her charms! The despair of his soul, as he looked on her seraphic smile, and vainly watched to see her eye once more open with love's beam, was for a time lost in insensibility. When again, conscious that she was indeed no more, his agonized feelings led his mind to the very verge of frenzy.
In his first distraction, he wrote a letter of penitence and grief to his father-in-law, deploring his heart-rending loss, but omitting to state precisely, that this infant had survived her mother; and from the ambiguous expressions of this incoherent communication, the afflicted parent concluded, that Rose and her child had perished together. Irritated by the misery her loss occasioned him, Mr. O'Sullivan made no reply, sending only a notification by Father Dermoody, that it had been received, with a request that his feelings might not again be wounded by further correspondence with the man, whom he not unjustly accused of having shortened his daughter's days by his unworthy conduct.
Reginald had in this letter humbled himself as much as it was in his nature to do to mortal man; and indignant at the asperity of such a reply, he made no second attempt to move O'Sullivan to forgiveness. The ill success of this endeavour to soften the heart of the most benevolent of human beings discouraging him from any further efforts, either of atonement or conciliation, he adopted the resolution of withdrawing himself from the knowledge of all his connections. To his brother, Lord Osselstone, of all mankind he could least brook making any overtures, now that he was "fallen, fallen from his high estate." When he pictured to himself how he had disappointed that brother's exalted hopes and anxious cares, his pride and his better feelings alike prevented his submitting to receive either reproof from the austerity of his virtues, or that compassion from his affection, "which stabs as it forgives."
As a preparatory step to avoiding any future intercourse with his native land, he entreated his friend Mr. Austin to meet him, without delay, at Meurs, on the Belgic frontiers of Westphalia, near which his estates were situated, that by disposing of some of them, he might finally arrange his affairs, and discharge all his English debts. Mr. Austin immediately obeyed the summons, and found Reginald in a state of the utmost wretchedness, occupied with the wildest schemes for carrying his ideas into execution; proposing, with feverish restlessness, to fly for ever from civilized society, in order to join some tribe of Bedouin Arabs, Mamelucks, Tartars, or North American Indians. The counsels of this wise and judicious friend did much to bring back his erring mind, to submit to the calm dictates of reason. Mr. Austin combated, in turn, all these chimeras; opened his eyes to his duties as a father; and finally finding him unalterable as to his determination of concealment, suggested the most advisable means of carrying it into effect, which were, to avail himself of the facilities circumstances afforded for adopting the name and character of a German subject. From his mother, Reginald had learned to speak the language with the fluency of a native; and his friend now reminded him of a circumstance he had informed him of a week before his fatal elopement from London, which at that time he slighted, namely, that one of his estates, being part of an ancient feudal tenure, entitled him to the rank of Baron by its own appellation; the adopting which would not only procure him station amongst a people of all others the most tenacious on the subject of birth, but effectually conceal him, as the circumstance was yet unknown to all his English friends.
On hearing this proposition, Reginald with vehement joy, exclaimed, "Thank you, thank you, Austin; I shall know something like peace when my ears are not tortured by the detested name I now bear. Though I am outlawed because Osselstone was not in England to interfere with his powerful interest, though that damned Gazette has declared me for ever incapable of serving in the British armies, though it has stamped my name with indelible disgrace, yet will I cover this new appellation with fame in the field of glory."
Reginald accordingly availed himself of this expedient; and all legal forms prescribed by German jurisprudence being gone through, his daughter at the Chateau of Wildenheim was enrolled on the family records by the name of Adelaide, which was that borne by the last heiress of that house; her mother's finding too sad an echo in her father's bosom, to be heard or pronounced by him without the most afflicting feelings. All his estates, except the Barony of Wildenheim, were sold; and the surplus, which remained after discharging his various debts, was remitted to Vienna, where he repaired with his infant daughter, on parting with Mr. Austin. Here he felt himself completely alone in the world; and his feelings being too agonizing to render a life of inaction supportable, he entered the Austrian armies. His rank, his fortune, and his talents, soon procured him a command, which he filled with honour, and redeemed the promise he had made to cover his new appellation "with fame in the field of glory." Amongst the officers placed under his orders were Maurice O'Sullivan, the uncle of his wife, and Edward Desmond; he took a melancholy pleasure in serving the former with his purse and his interest, for the sake of his beloved Rose, and the virtues of the latter made Reginald no less zealously his friend; but from both he most carefully concealed his country and his parentage. They fought side by side at the battles of Hohenlinden, Rastadt, and other desperate engagements, that fatally signalized the disastrous campaign, which was concluded by the peace of Luneville. Reginald's remaining estate was unfortunately situated in the territory ceded by that treaty to France, and was by its new masters bestowed on a soldier of fortune. He was by this event reduced from affluence to mediocrity, and broken in fortune, health, and spirits, he proceeded to Vienna to visit his daughter, then in her sixth year. He found her as beautiful as a cherub, and the image of her mother. When she twined her arms round his neck, calling him by the endearing appellations infancy bestows, he felt that the world yet contained a being that would fondly cherish him; and remembered, with sad delight, what now seemed the prophetic words of his dying Rose, "Be consoled; my child will love you as I do."
CHAPTER XIV.
When I am forgotten, as I shall be,
And sleep in dull cold marble, where no mention
Of me must be heard—say then I taught thee.