“What!” said the Lady Peveril, “could they forget what was due to the widow of their benefactor—she who had shared with the generous Derby the task of bettering their condition?”
“Do not blame them,” said the Countess; “the rude herd acted but according to their kind—in present distress they forgot former benefits, and, nursed in their earthen hovels, with spirits suited to their dwellings, they were incapable of feeling the glory which is attached to constancy in suffering. But that Christian should have headed their revolt—that he, born a gentleman, and bred under my murdered Derby’s own care in all that was chivalrous and noble—that he should have forgot a hundred benefits—why do I talk of benefits?—that he should have forgotten that kindly intercourse which binds man to man far more than the reciprocity of obligation—that he should have headed the ruffians who broke suddenly into my apartment—immured me with my infants in one of my own castles, and assumed or usurped the tyranny of the island—that this should have been done by William Christian, my vassal, my servant, my friend, was a deed of ungrateful treachery, which even this age of treason will scarcely parallel!”
“And you were then imprisoned,” said the Lady Peveril, “and in your own sovereignty?”
“For more than seven years I have endured strict captivity,” said the Countess. “I was indeed offered my liberty, and even some means of support, if I would have consented to leave the island, and pledge my word that I would not endeavour to repossess my son in his father’s rights. But they little knew the princely house from which I spring—and as little the royal house of Stanley which I uphold, who hoped to humble Charlotte of Tremouille into so base a composition. I would rather have starved in the darkest and lowest vault of Rushin Castle, than have consented to aught which might diminish in one hair’s-breadth the right of my son over his father’s sovereignty!”
“And could not your firmness, in a case where hope seemed lost, induce them to be generous and dismiss you without conditions?”
“They knew me better than thou dost, wench,” answered the Countess; “once at liberty, I had not been long without the means of disturbing their usurpation, and Christian would have as soon encaged a lioness to combat with, as have given me the slightest power of returning to the struggle with him. But time had liberty and revenge in store—I had still friends and partisans in the island, though they were compelled to give way to the storm. Even among the islanders at large, most had been disappointed in the effects which they expected from the change of power. They were loaded with exactions by their new masters, their privileges were abridged, and their immunities abolished, under the pretext of reducing them to the same condition with the other subjects of the pretended republic. When the news arrived of the changes which were current in Britain, these sentiments were privately communicated to me. Calcott and others acted with great zeal and fidelity; and a rising, effected as suddenly and effectually as that which had made me a captive, placed me at liberty and in possession of the sovereignty of Man, as Regent for my son, the youthful Earl of Derby. Do you think I enjoyed that sovereignty long without doing justice on that traitor Christian?”
“How, madam,” said Lady Peveril, who, though she knew the high and ambitious spirit of the Countess, scarce anticipated the extremities to which it was capable of hurrying her—“have you imprisoned Christian?”
“Ay, wench—in that sure prison which felon never breaks from,” answered the Countess.
Bridgenorth, who had insensibly approached them, and was listening with an agony of interest which he was unable any longer to suppress, broke in with the stern exclamation—
“Lady, I trust you have not dared——”