“And do you then, in a country like this,” I cried, “dare to think you can deprive me of my liberty?” “Yes,” replied he, with insulting coolness, “when it is known you are incapable of making a proper use of that liberty. You should thank me,” he continued, “for palliating your late conduct, by imputing it rather to an intellectual derangement than to total depravity. From what other source than the former could you have asserted that there was a will in Lady Malvina Fitzalan’s favor?”
These words at once developed the cause of his unjustifiable conduct, and proved that there is no real faith between the guilty. From my disposition the marquis was convinced that I would assume a haughty sway over him, in consequence of the secret of the will. He also dreaded that passion or caprice might one day induce me to betray that secret, and wrest from him his unlawful possessions. Thus pride and avarice tempted and determined him, by confining me, to rid himself of these fears. “Oh! would to Heaven,” cried I, replying to the last part of his speech, “I had proved my assertion; had I done justice to others, I should not have been entangled in the snare of treachery.” “Prove the assertion now,” said he, “by showing me the will, and you may, perhaps,” he continued, in a hesitating accent, “find your doing so attended with pleasing consequences.”
Rage and scorn flashed from my eyes at these words. “No,” cried I, “had you the power of torturing, you should not tear it from me. I will keep it to atone for my sins, and expose yours to view by restoring it to the right owner.” I demanded my liberty, I threatened, supplicated, but all in vain. The marquis told me I might as well compose myself, for my fate was decided. “You know,” cried he, with a malicious look, “you have no friends to inquire or interfere about you, and, even if you had, when I told them what I believe to be the case, that your senses were disordered, they would never desire to have you released from this confinement.” I called for my daughter. “You will see her no more;" he replied, “the passions she has so long blushed to behold she will no more witness.” “Rather say,” I exclaimed, “that she dare not behold her injured parent; but let not the wretch who has severed the ties of nature hope to escape unpunished. No, my sufferings will draw a dreadful weight upon her head, and may, when least expected, torture her heart with anguish.”
Convinced that I was entirely in the marquis’s power; convinced that I had nothing to hope from him or my daughter, rage, horror, and agony, at their unjust and audacious treatment, kindled in my breast a sudden frenzy, which strong convulsions only terminated. When I recovered from them I found myself on a bed in a room which, at the first glance, I knew to be the one the late Lady Dunreath had occupied, to whose honors I so unworthily succeeded. Mrs. Bruce, who had been housekeeper at the Abbey before my marriage, sat beside me; I hesitated a few minutes whether I should address her as a suppliant or a superior; the latter, however, being most agreeable to my inclinations, I bid her, with a haughty air, which I hoped would awe her into obedience, assist me in rising, and procure some conveyance from the Abbey without delay. The marquis entered the chamber as I spoke. “Compose yourself, madam,” said he, “your destiny, I repeat, is irrevocable; this Abbey is your future residence, and bless those who have afforded your follies such an asylum. It behooves both the marchioness and me indeed to seclude a woman who might cast imputations on our characters, which those unacquainted with them might believe.” I started from the bed, in the loose dress in which they had placed me on it, and stamping round the room, demanded my liberty. The marquis heard my demand with contemptuous silence, and quitted the room. I attempted to rush after him, but he pushed me back with violence, and closed the door. My feelings again brought on convulsions, which terminated in a delirium and fever. In this situation the marquis and marchioness abandoned me, hoping, no doubt, that my disorder would soon lay me in a prison even more secure than the one they had devoted me to. Many weeks elapsed ere I showed any symptom of recovery. On regaining my senses, I seemed as if awaking from a tedious sleep, in which I had been tortured with frightful visions. The first object my eyes beheld, now blessed with the powers of clear perception, was Mrs. Bruce bending over my pillow, with a look of anxiety and grief, which implied a wish, yet a doubt, of my recovery.
“Tell me,” said I faintly, “am I really in Dunreath Abbey—am I really confined within its walls by order of my child?”
Mrs. Bruce sighed. “Do not disturb yourself with questions now,” said she; “the reason Heaven has so mercifully restored would be ill employed in vain murmurs.” “Vain murmurs!” I repeated, and a deep, desponding sigh burst from my heart. I lay silent a long time after this. The gloom which encompassed me at length grew too dreary to be borne, and I desired Mrs. Bruce to draw back the curtains of the bed and windows. She obeyed, and the bright beams of the sun, darting into the room, displayed to my view an object I could not behold without shuddering—this was the portrait of Lady Dunreath, exactly opposite the bed. My mind was softened by illness, and I felt in that moment as if her sainted spirit stood before me to awaken my conscience to remorse and my heart to repentance. The benevolence which had irradiated the countenance of the original with a celestial expression was powerfully expressed upon the canvas, and recalled, oh! how affectingly to my memory, the period in which this most amiable of women gave me a refuge in her house, in her arms, from the storms of life; and yet her child, I groaned, her child, I was accessory in destroying. Oh! how excruciating were my feelings at this period of awakened conscience! I no longer inveighed against my sufferings; I considered them in the light of retribution, and felt an awful resignation take possession of my soul. Yes, groaned I to myself, it is fit that in the very spot in which I triumphed in deceit and cruelty I should meet the punishment due to my misdeeds.
The change in my disposition produced a similar one in my temper, so that Mrs. Bruce found the task of attending me easier than she had imagined it would be; yet I did not submit to confinement without many efforts to liberate myself through her means; but her fidelity to her unnatural employers was not to be shaken. Blushing, however, at my past enormities, I should rather have shrunk from than solicited admission again into the world, had not my ardent desire of making reparation to the descendants of Lady Dunreath, influenced me to desire my freedom. Oh! never did that desire cease—never did a morning dawn, an evening close, without entreating Heaven to allow me means of restoring to the injured their inheritance. Mrs. Bruce, though steady, was not cruel, and nursed me with the tenderest attention till my health was re-established. She then ceased to see me, except at night, but took care I should always be amply stocked with necessaries. She supplied me with religious and moral books; also, materials for writing, if I chose to amuse myself with making comments on them. To those books am I indebted for being able to endure, with some degree of calmness, my long and dreadful captivity. They enlarged my heart, they enlightened its ideas concerning the Supreme Being, they impressed it with awful submission to His will, they convinced me more forcibly of my transgressions, yet without exciting despair; for, while they showed the horrors of vice, they proved the efficacy of repentance. Debarred of the common enjoyments of life, air, exercise, and society, in vain my heart assured me my punishment was inadequate to my crimes; nature repined, and a total languor seized me. Mrs. Bruce at last told me I should be allowed the range of that part of the building in which I was confined (for I had hitherto been limited to one room), and consequently air from the windows, if I promised to make no attempt for recovering my freedom,—an attempt, she assured me, which would prove abortive, as none but people attached to the marquis lived in or about the Abbey, who would immediately betray me to him; and if he ever detected such a step, it was his determination to hurry me to France.
Certain that he would be capable of such baseness, touched by the smallest indulgence, and eager to procure any recreation, I gave her the most solemn assurances of never attempting to make known my situation. She accordingly unlocked the several doors that had hitherto impeded my progress from one apartment to another, and removed the iron bolts which secured the shutters of the windows. Oh! with what mingled pain and pleasure did I contemplate the rich prospect stretched before them, now that I was debarred from enjoying it. At liberty, I wondered how I could ever have contemplated it with a careless eye; and my spirits, which the air had revived, suddenly sunk into despondence, when I reflected I enjoyed this common blessing but by stealth; yet who (cried I, with agony) can I blame but myself? The choicest gifts of Heaven were mine, and I lost them by my own means. Wretch as I was, the first temptation that assailed warped me from integrity, and my error is marked by the deprivation of every good. With eager, with enthusiastic delight, I gazed on scenes which I had so often before regarded with a careless eye; it seemed as if I had only now perception to distinguish their beauties: the season’s difference made a material change to me, as all the windows were shut up in winter, except those of the apartment I occupied, which only looked into a gloomy court. Ah! how welcome to me, then, was the return of spring, which again restored to me the indulgence of visiting the windows. How delightful to my eyes the green of the valley, and the glowing bloom of the mountain shrubs just bursting into verdure! Ah! how soothing to my ear the lulling sound of waterfalls, and the lively carol of the birds; how refreshing the sweetness of the air, the fragrance of the plants, which friendly zephyrs, as if pitying my confinement, wafted through the windows. The twilight hour was also hailed by me with delight; it was then I turned my eyes from earth to heaven, and, regarding its blue and spangled vault but as a thin covering between me and myriads of angels, felt a sweet sensation of mingled piety and pleasure, which for the time had power to steep my sorrows in forgetfulness! But, in relating my feelings, I wander from the real purpose of my narrative, and forget that I am describing those feelings to a person who, from my injurious actions, can take but little interest in them.
The will I shall deliver to you to-night. I advise you, if your brother cannot immediately be found, to put it into the hands of some man on whose abilities and integrity you can rely; but till you meet with such a person, beware of discovering you have it in your possession, lest the marquis, who, I am sorry to say, I believe capable of almost any baseness, should remove from your knowledge the penitent, whose testimony to the validity of the deed will be so cheerfully given, and is so materially essential. Be secret, then, I again conjure you, till everything is properly arranged for the avowal of your rights; and, oh! may the restoration of all those rights you shall claim, be to you and to your brother productive of every felicity. From your hands may the wealth it puts into them bestow relief and comfort on the children of adversity; thus yielding to your hearts a pure and permanent satisfaction, which the mere possession of riches, or the expenditure on idle vanities, never can bestow. As much as possible I wish to have my daughter saved from public disgrace. From me you will say she merits not this lenient wish; but, alas! I hold myself accountable for her misconduct. Intrusted to my care by Providence, I neglected the sacred charge, nor ever curbed a passion or laid the foundation of a virtue. Ah! may her wretched parent’s prayers be yet availing; may penitence, ere too late, visit her heart, and teach her to regret and expiate her errors! Had she been united to a better man, I think she never would have swerved so widely from nature and from duty; but the selfish soul of the marquis taught her to regard self as the first consideration in life.
Mrs. Bruce informed me that the marquis had written to Melross, informing him that I had changed my mind, and would think no more about him, and she supposed he had procured some pleasant establishment in France, as no one had ever heard of his returning from it. She made several attempts to prevail on me to give up the will to her, but I resisted all her arts, and was rejoiced to think I had concealed it in a place which would never be suspected. My narrative now concluded, I wait with even trembling impatience for your expected visit—for that moment in which I shall make some reparation for my injuries to your mother. I am also anxious for the moment in which I shall receive the promised narrative of your life. From your tears, your words, your manner, I may expect a tale of sorrow; ah! may it be only that gentle sorrow which yields to the influence of time, and the sweets of friendship and conscious innocence.