Her father had prevailed upon the family with whom she lived to remove to Paris during his residence in England, which had been prolonged from day to day, in compliance with the desire of the Protector. He was anxious that his child should be instructed in such elegant arts as those in which the ladies of France and England excelled—not remembering that, in a young, forward, and ill-educated woman, the dangerous desire of display succeeds the acquirement of accomplishments as surely and as regularly as day follows night.
Thus, shut up in one of the most gloomy hotels in Paris—conveyed in a close carriage once or twice a week to the Bois de Boulogne, or the gardens of Versailles—fearing to express delight, lest she should be reproved for levity—or desire for any thing, lest it should be the very thing she would not be permitted to possess—the proud, warm, frank-hearted Jewess became gradually metamorphosed into the cunning, passionate, deceptive intriguante, only waiting for an opportunity to deceive her guardians, and obtain that which, from being so strictly forbidden, she concluded must be the greatest possible enjoyment—freedom of word and action. Alas! if we may use a homely phrase, many are the victims to strait-lacing, both of stays and conscience!
But if the old, grey-bearded Ichabod had been an object of dislike to the youthful and self-willed Jewess before she saw Sir Willmott Burrell, how did she regard him afterwards!
Manasseh Ben Israel had, as we have intimated, intrusted some packages for his daughter to the charge of the treacherous knight; and how he abused the trust has been already shown. But the poor Jewess found to her cost, that though she loved him with all the warmth and ardour of her own nature, he regarded her only as an object of pastime and pleasure; the idea of in reality marrying a Jewess never once entered into his calculation, though he was obliged to submit to something like the ceremony, before he could overcome scruples that are implanted with much care in the heart of every Jewish maiden. Although she deceived her guardians and her antiquated lover with great dexterity, it never occurred to her that Sir Willmott could be so base as to deceive her. She was new to the world and its ways; and the full torrent of her anger, jealousy, and disappointment burst upon him, when she found that the charms of a fair-haired lady had superseded her own, and that Burrell was already treating her with coldness. Of all the passions inherent in the heart of a woman, that of jealousy is the most dangerous to herself and others: it is fierce and restless in its nature; when infuriated, nothing can oppose its progress; and although most powerful in the most feeble-minded, it frequently assumes the semblance of intellectual strength. Zillah's jealousy kept pace with her headlong love, and in one of its most violent paroxysms she made the attempt on the life of Burrell, which, it is easy to believe, he never forgave. Subsequently, and during the remainder of his stay in Paris, he humoured her fancy, and led her to imagine that he had sufficient influence with Cromwell to prevail on him to interest her father on her behalf, and do what no Israelite of the time had ever done—recognise a Christian son-in-law. After Burrell's departure, however, she soon saw how little reliance was to be placed upon his promises, and therefore resolved to act for herself. Suspicion and jealousy divided her entire soul between them; and she determined not to trust Dalton to bring her over to England, because Burrell had recommended her to do so. Jeromio was known to the person at whose house she lodged at St. Vallery, and, hearing that she wanted to get to England, and would dispense much largess to secure a passage, he thought he could make something by secreting her on board, and then passing her off to his captain as a dumb boy. To this plan Zillah readily agreed, for her imagination was at all times far stronger than her reason. She had cast her life upon a die, and cared not by what means her object was to be secured.
It is one of the most extraordinary anomalies in the female character, that, having once outstepped the boundaries that are never even thought upon but with danger, it plunges deeper and deeper still into irretrievable ruin. Perhaps it is because women must feel most acutely that society never permits them to retrieve, or, what is much the same, takes no cognisance of their repentance, be it ever so sincere: their station once lost is never to be regained; it would seem as if Dante's inscription on the gates of Hell were to be for ever their motto—"All hope abandon." Man may err, and err, and be forgiven; but poor woman, with all his temptations and but half his strength, is placed beyond the pale of earthly salvation if she be but once tempted into crime! It is a hard, even though it may be a salutary law.
It must be borne in mind that Zillah had committed as great an iniquity in the eyes of her people by marrying as by intriguing; nor could she expect pardon for either one or the other, except by some wonderful and powerful interposition, such as Burrell held out. It was astonishing to witness the fortitude with which the fragile and delicate Jewess, who had been clothed in purple and fine linen, fed on the most costly viands, and slept on the most downy couch, encountered the illness, terrors, and miseries attendant on a sea voyage in the vessel of a Buccaneer. The Fire-fly certainly deserved every encomium bestowed upon her by her captain; yet was she not the most pleasing residence for a delicately-nurtured female. No murmur escaped her sealed lips, nor, in fact, did she perceive the inconveniences by which she was surrounded; her mind was wholly bent upon the prevention of Sir Willmott Burrell's marriage, of which she had heard from undoubted authority; and it would appear that she had no feelings, no ideas to bestow upon, or power to think of, other things.
Jeromio's plotting but weak mind, never satisfied with the present, eager for the future, and anxious to make it better by foul means, had contrived to bring into use an abandoned excavation under the old tower we have so frequently mentioned, which had been forsaken by Hugh Dalton's party from its extreme dampness. They had filled the entrance with fragments of rock and large stones; but it was known to Jeromio, who, thinking that during his occasional visits to Gull's Nest he might manage to smuggle a little on his own account, assisted by two other Italians as evil-minded as himself, arranged the stones so as to permit one person at a time to creep into the wretched hole, where he stowed away such parts of the cargo of the Fire-fly as he could purloin from his too-confiding commander. He admitted Zillah to a knowledge of this cave, as a place in which she might shelter. He knew her to be a female of wealth and consequence; yet had no idea of her connection with the Master of Burrell, whom he had rarely seen; and though of necessity she occasionally mixed with the people of the Gull's Nest, yet she expressed so strong a desire for some place of privacy in the neighbourhood of Cecil Place, and paid so liberally for it withal, that he confided to her the secret of this cave—the entrance to which was nearly under the window of the tower in which Barbara Iverk had been concealed on the night when, by her lady's direction, she sought to communicate to Robin Hays the perilous situation of the young Cavalier. At that time, also, the Jewess saw Sir Willmott for the first time in England. She had been on the watch ever since her landing, but terror for her own wretched life had prevented her addressing him openly. The tones of his well-known voice had reached her miserable cavern, and roused her from a troubled slumber. She understood too little of his language to comprehend the nature of his communication to Roupall, and her first impulse was to strike a dagger to his heart; but this, her womanly affection prevented, and she suddenly withdrew. Subsequently, she wrote to Mrs. Constantia, and trusted much to her generosity and truth of character, of which she had heard in France; but poor Constance, through the cowardice of Jeromio, never received her packet, and, enraged and maddened by the reports of his immediate marriage, she resolved on seeing Mistress Cecil, and accomplished her purpose, as she thought, when in fact she only saw Barbara. Her jealousy and violence defeated her purpose at that time; but still her determination remained fixed to prevent the union, if her life were to be the forfeit. After meeting with the knight, she retreated into the earth, from which she had so suddenly appeared, much to the Master of Burrell's astonishment, who had no knowledge whatever of the cave, though he doubted not it was of Dalton's preparing. After securing the preacher, he examined every portion of the ruins most attentively, but without success, for she had learned to be as wily as a fox, and had carefully secured the aperture, through which even her delicate form passed with difficulty.
It would have touched a heart, retaining any degree of feeling, to see that young and beautiful woman within that damp and noisome excavation—so damp that cold and slimy reptiles clung to, and crept over, its floor and walls, while the blind worm nestled in the old apertures formed to admit a little air; and the foul toad, and still more disgusting eft, looked upon her, as they would say, "Thou art our sister."
"And here," thought she, "must the only child of Manasseh Ben Israel array herself, to meet the gaze of the proud beauty who would not deign to notice the letter or the supplication of the despised Jewess; to meet the gaze of the cold stern English, and of the cruel man who points the finger of scorn against her he has destroyed. Yet I seek but justice, but to be acknowledged as his wife, in the open day and before an assembled people, and then he shall hear and see no more of the Rabbi's daughter! I will hide myself from the world, and look upon all mankind as I do upon him—with a bitter hatred!—Yet I was not always thus," she continued, as she clasped a jewel on her arm: "The bracelet is too wide for the shrunk flesh! Out, out upon thee, bauble! O that I could thus—and thus—and thus—trample into this black and slimy earth, every vestige of what I was, and have no more the power to think of what I am! Is this the happiness I looked for? Are these the feelings of my girlhood? My heart seems cold within me, cold to every thought but vengeance! Even the burden I carry—it is part of him, and with the groans that come in woman's travail I will mingle curses, deep and blasting, on its head. O that I could cast it from me! And yet—and yet it will be my own child!" And the feelings of the mother triumphed; for, at that thought, the Jewess wept, and tears are as balm to an overwrought mind, at once a relief and a consolation. Zillah wept, and was humanised. After a little time, she arrayed herself in befitting garments, but placed pistols within her bosom. Long before the appointed hour, and despite the watchfulness of Sir Willmott's spies, she was secreted near the ruined chapel adjoining Cecil Place.