And where was Agatha during these scenes of insult and endurance? Had she too forsaken the dungeon of her husband, and given up her soul to exultation in his captivity and anguish? She had once, and only once, demanded admittance to his prison; she had remained with him many hours, and retired, like himself, tranquillised from the interview. Soon after, she formally resigned the castle and its dependencies to him whom Eustace had named as the lawful heir: her own son and his claims, were now no longer remembered, since the crime of his father had deprived him of the succession, which had been awarded by the king to the son of the injured De Broke. After these arrangements, which were performed in silence and celerity, and with only the casual assistance of Courtenay, Agatha withdrew from her native town, and concealed her person and her sorrow for ever from the eyes of the world.
But her desertion of her husband at the tremendous juncture when he so much needed her help and consolation, was not regarded with indignation by the many who considered the circumstances under which she stood: that husband was a murderer, and of whom? The terrible question needed no reply, and Agatha was speedily acquitted! her absence too was a trivial circumstance compared with that of her husband’s situation. All eyes were turned to the prison at Winchester.
At length Eustace de la Pole was led out to die. It was a splendid day in the season of autumn, on which his mortal career was to terminate. Consideration for the princely blood which flowed in his veins, had forbidden, in his case, the strangulation by the degrading cord, and the axe and the block had been substituted in its room. The novelty of the circumstance drew many thousands round the scaffold, who awaited, in feverish and almost angry impatience, the arrival of him who was to furnish forth the spectacle of the day. He came,—not indeed as before, with an erect and unassisted step, for his limbs had been crushed, and his physical strength destroyed; but his pale countenance was composed, and his soft rich voice was steady and clear, as he conversed at intervals with Courtenay, the priest, and the executioner, who received him courteously, as, led by the two former, he ascended the steps of the scaffold. Of the crowd around he took no heed, but with calm and silent celerity prepared himself for the block. At sight of the noble young man, bare-headed and disrobed for the sad and ignominious death, there were many who could no longer restrain their tears; and hard-hearted grey-headed men who, hating his crime, believed they could find pleasure in his sorrow, and went thither to feast upon his suffering, now wept loudly for him whom, in their first feeling of horror, they had cursed. He appeared unconscious of this change of temper, and seemed rather disposed to hasten than to retard the preparations, for he laid his head down upon his last pillow before the executioner had entirely completed them. He had himself promised to give the signal for the fall of the axe; and while the multitude were anxiously awaiting this movement, they beheld him suddenly raise his head from the block, and gaze intently upon one particular spot upon the scaffold; all eyes were instantly directed towards it, but to them at least no object was visible. He gazed for a few moments with intense earnestness, then calmly replacing his head upon the block, exclaimed in solemn but eager accents, “Thou see’st!” and gave the signal for his death. The axe fell—heavily, rapidly—it was over—swifter than thought. The executioner held up the gory head to the people; the features were calm, the eyes closed; but before he could utter the customary sentence, they had once more opened and fixed themselves upon the same spot which had attracted the last of their living regards; they appeared slowly to follow the movement of some unseen object round the scaffold, till they reached the opposite side; then they withdrew their gaze, quivered for an instant, dropped, dark and immoveable, for ever.
This, as many strange scenes, was however doomed to be forgotten, like other things. Ten years passed away, and ten other wonders had, during that period, interested or frightened the people of Winchester and its surrounding country. John and Eustace de la Pole were no more remembered, or their story only casually mentioned as belonging to the odd things that were; Courtenay had glided into middle age, and the youth for whom Eustace had done so much, had long since written man.—Ten years! How many and how striking may be the changes of ten years! Courtenay had long pondered over the destiny of Agatha, and sighed to think whither her unhappy fate might have conducted her; but the long interval which passed had almost swept her from his mind, when a letter, in her unforgotten character, was one day put into his hand. It was couched in brief and anxious terms, and conveyed a request that he would immediately proceed to her dwelling. Courtenay was no laggard in the cause of humanity; he did not pause to speculate upon this address, or even to wonder at its abruptness, but he set forward instantly, and the morning of the following day saw him knock at a lonely cottage on the coast of Dorsetshire, in the neighbourhood of Corfe Castle. The door was opened by Agatha herself, who habited in the black robes which she had worn since the sad death of the last of her husbands, received him with courteous sadness. Years had not dimmed the beauty of her matchless face, but sorrow had been busy with its expression; the same lovely features were there, but their once bright character was gone.
Their meeting was tenderly sorrowful: Agatha said little in explanation until she had conducted her guest into an adjoining chamber, and pointed out one object for his observation. Stretched upon a couch, grown to boyhood, covered with wounds, and unchanged in person, save that his deformities had now grown more manifest, lay extended the ghastly boy, the only child of Agatha and the helpless Eustace. Courtenay trembled as he gazed; but the mother’s looks were calm. “He is dead,” she said, on observing the emotion of her guest; “what Heaven and Nature with so much difficulty spared, the brutality of man has destroyed; he was my joy and sorrow, and many a weary hour have I watched to snatch him from the yawning grave: for ten years he has been my sole care; and for the insults and scorn heaped upon his deformed and idiotic existence, he found compensation in the tenderness of his mother. The small pittance which I derived from my father was sufficient for our wants; and never should I have called upon any former friend, but for the cruel deed of yesterday; robbers from the waters broke into my dwelling, and pillaged thence my property. I knew not how it was; I had gone to a distance to buy food, and on my return found the poor idiot thus. My only attendant, an old woman, had been wounded in his defence; and from her I with difficulty learned, that the convulsive movements of the boy, and his pointing hand, as his menacing eye followed their actions, had drawn upon him their wrath and its brutal consequences. I am averse from again appearing in the scenes which I have once and for ever abandoned, and therefore I sent for thee, Courtenay, to spare myself the sad task of interring the pale corpse of my boy, and drawing wondering and inquisitive eyes upon my person and history.”
Courtenay was pleased with the confidence reposed in his friendship. A brother’s love might have done less for Agatha; it could not have effected more. Her wishes were immediately performed; and he was preparing, with unintrusive delicacy, to return to his home, when Agatha for a few moments detained him; “You have deserved unlimited confidence at my hands,” said she, “and you shall obtain it: he who is now numbered with the ignominious dead desired it should be so, and I withhold it no longer. You, in common with all the world, were ignorant of the motives which impelled the unhappy Eustace to the deed which he perpetrated; but you did not, in common with all the world, forsake him in his utmost need: for you he drew up the story of his sorrows, and placed it in my hands to be given to you only when I saw the fitting time; that time hath arrived. The child of sorrow is dead, and I shall still more completely retire from a world where insignificance and poverty are no protection from cruelty and avarice; a convent will shortly receive me, and, if I continue to live, a newer and better existence will be mine: if not, I shall have done wisely in thus obeying the last command of Eustace.”
Courtenay received the packet and retired; he lingered not a moment to relieve the recluse of his presence, but returned to Winchester, after receiving her commands to see her again in three days: he then hastened to his apartment, and, with trembling avidity, read, in the confessions of Eustace, the secret story of the fortunes of De la Pole.
“I know that thou despisest me, Courtenay; I know that thou deemest me no less a fool than a coward; thou didst bring me the means of an honourable death, gavest into mine hands the dagger and the drug, and I have rejected both: we disputed, differed, parted, met again, and again renewed the subject; thou didst even deign to persuade the coward (so thou thoughtest him) to act like a man; but thy entreaties were unheeded and thy counsel rejected: he will die like a thief and a criminal—he will be hooted out of life; and curses will be the torches to give light to his memory, that it sink not into darkness and oblivion.
“Said I not that I was a sacrifice? that my punishment was a propitiatory offering? Now again I say to thee the same thing. Death would have few horrors for me (for it is a thing I covet) without the ignominy of a public execution; to offer my life for my wrong would be nothing, but to offer it up thus!—This alone can satisfy immortal justice; this alone can satisfy the spirit of the murdered man. Read and behold the meaning.
“Thou knowest how fondly, contrary to his father’s hope, John de la Pole loved the beautiful daughter of Philip Forester, thy kinsman; but thou knowest not how much more fervently she was adored by the wretched Eustace, and how tenderly the gentle Agatha returned that love. Hope there was none; for what had I to bribe the greedy father of my love, when John de la Pole could hereafter lay the fortunes of his house at her feet? Philip suspected the state of his daughter’s heart, and had looked deeper than I imagined into mine: he determined that a younger brother was not deserving of his Agatha’s beauty, and, by cold civilities and hints of my father’s and brother’s disapprobation, banished me from his house. One thing alone gave consolation to my blighted heart, the steadiness with which my father resolved against the marriage of John with the object of our mutual passion. In one of the sad conferences which I occasionally, though now but seldom, held with my beloved Agatha, it occurred to my imagination, that though my father had resolved to dispose differently of the heir of his house, he might not object to my union with the object of my choice; and I received permission of my beloved to make the attempt upon his feelings. I did so immediately, and, with a rapture which I dare not now dwell upon, received his permission, and his solemn promise to purchase the approbation of the selfish Forester, by bestowing upon me one-fourth of his more than princely fortune. He arranged to see Forester upon the following day: the same evening I flew to Agatha. O Courtenay! didst thou ever love? Those few blessed hours were the most happy of my life, and the last that were so. We parted; Agatha radiant with happiness; I, to think, to hope, to anticipate, to wish all things could share my transports, to love creation, to love God. In the morning my father was found dead on his couch; and the following month Agatha became the wife of my brother! Courtenay! didst thou ever love?