“I am content to die,” he said calmly, “since at least, I have retained strength enough to prefer doing homage to the devil, than to that perfidious tyrant, the king of Spain.”
“He has signed his own death warrant, as you are all witnesses, Señores,” the marquis cried, scarce restraining his anger to words. “Let him be put in chains until a day is appointed for the traitor’s execution.”
Thus, within the walls of Angra, were gathered, in partial ignorance of such propinquity, the chief personages of this history; and there leaving them, the narrative transfers itself from the Azores to Spain, to a castle opposite a keep, in brief, where the fancy of faithful Sir Pedro was wont to stray nightly.
It may be assumed a rule in authorship, that no reader is to be introduced into a heroine’s sick room; that obliging personage should always be met at the street-door as a lover might, by the physician, who good-naturedly preserves his romance by disclosing none of the disagreeables up stairs.—But much may be made of a convalescent. The open windows inhale the blessed air of heaven, to replace the nauseous smell of drugs, and where the tumbler with a spoon in it, flanked by a labelled phial or two, stood on the table, somebody has set a bouquet of rosebuds and verbena, and a glass plate of cool grapes: moreover every one smiles now, the doctor ceases to shake that solemn head of his, and fears no longer, waylaying and cross questioning on the stair, and you, yourself, lie still in a state of placid pleasure, and watch the preparations for your comfort, with the sole member of your physical system inclined to be active.
So, it was Doña Viola lay after the subjugation of the fever which had begun to show its delirious power in Don Pedro’s presence, and before the knight reached Lisbon, was extorting from the girl’s innocent lips, exclamations, equally of denunciation and passionate love for the graceless Hilo.
What would become of us in sickness, ladies, deprived of your attendance?—what would become of yourselves, if it did not come natural to you all from the finest lady downward, termagant and gentle alike, to smooth pillows, decant medicine, and perform numberless offices in no respect agreeable, but with the most exquisite gentleness and devotion.
Doña Hermosa, (may her memory be kept green!) suffered no one to overhear poor Viola’s ravings, but the solemn parish physician, (notwithstanding whom, she recovered,) and a trusty maid-servant; and when the crisis had passed, prepared with her own hands, delicacies of every kind found in her recipe book. Viola showed her sense of such unaccustomed petting, poor child, by tasting every thing and smiling feebly, and Doña Hermosa, woman-like, felt her charge every day, growing more into her heart, by reason of her very helplessness and docility. After a little, the elder lady laid herself out to rival Scheherazade, and told the invalid all sorts of pleasant stories to while away the time, varied with readings from the half dozen books constituting the knight’s library: she left nothing undone, which might remove the indefinably sad expression about her young guest’s mouth, and coax her thoughts into some other channel than that in which they seemed commonly to run. And I am of opinion if any diversion of the sort had been practicable at the time, the occupation to which these ladies devoted part of one week, rummaging the stores of curiosities, first in the castle and afterward in Don Pedro’s lesser keep, would have served the desired purpose. During this period, Señora Padilh showed Señorita Inique her wedding dress, (of course,) and afterward the very doublet in which Don Pedro had adorned himself with unusual finery, at the same auspicious era. She drew the arras aside and exhibited it, hanging a little apart from its more homely fellows, with much pride, thinking all the time what the dear old knight was that moment doing, and whether he had looked at it often, and with the same happy associations she now did, when he was at home: and when Viola walked on, her interest in the knight’s wardrobe being naturally limited, she stroked the velvet softly with one white hand, and looking quickly around, raised the sleeve to her lips twice at least.
It was a silly action, of course, for a lady of her time of life—she was nearly thirty now—but who of us has not done more foolish things with less cause?—and there is something, so altogether winning and admirable in the untutored fealty of the sex for ours, when allowed to appear, that I can’t help despising the man who makes the pretty weaknesses of a wife or sweetheart, a target for his shallow wit.
The wife of our knight was so occupied with her thoughts, that she did not at first observe Viola, who had retired to the embrasure of a window, and by the position of her head—she stood with her face directed to a landscape without, but cognizant of nothing out of her own brain—was quietly weeping.
A milk-and-water heroine, always melancholy, and shedding a profusion of tears to evince sensibility, is the reasonable abhorrence of every sensible reader. But Doña Viola was not of this kind, as the countess well knew. That kind soul reproached herself secretly for broaching a subject likely to recall unhappy recollections in the breast of her charge, and said something to that effect, while drawing an arm caressingly around her.