Theresa Marchmont, or, the Maid of Honour Part 3

"The moment when, according to our concerted plan, the death and interment of Lady Greville were formally announced to me, I repented of the detestable scheme which had been successfully executed. My soul revolted from the part of 'excellent dissembling' I had yet to act; and refused to sloop to a public exhibition of feigned affliction. I shuddered, too, when I contemplated the shame which awaited me, should some future event, yet hidden in the lap of time, reveal to the world the secret villainy of the man who had borne himself so proudly among his fellows. Yet even these regrets, even the apprehension of fresh difficulties in the concealment of my crime, were insufficient to deter me from the prosecution of my original intention; and blinded by the intemperance of misguided affection, heedless of the shame and misery into which I was about to plunge the woman I adored, I sought and obtained your hand.

"Helen, from that moment I have not known one happy hour, and the first punishment dealt upon my sin was an incapability to enjoy that affection for which I have forfeited all claim to mercy, here and hereafter. The remembrance of Theresa, not in her present state of self-abstraction, but captivating as when she first received my vows before G.o.d, to 'love and honour her, in sickness and in health,' haunted me through every scene of domestic endearment, and pursued me even to the hearth whose household deities I had blasphemed. I trembled when I heard my Helen addressed as Lady Greville, when I saw her usurping the rights, and occupying the place of one, who now appeared a nameless 'link between the living and the dead.' I could not gaze upon the woman whose affections had been so partially, so disinterestedly bestowed upon me, and whose existence I had in return polluted by a pretended marriage.--I could not behold of my boy, the descendant of two of the n.o.blest houses in Britain, yet upon whom the stain of illegitimacy might hereafter rest, without feelings of self-accusation which filled the cup of life with the waters of bitterness. Alas! its very springs were poisoned--and Helen, however strong, however just thine indignation against thy betrayer, believe, oh! believe that even in this life I have endured no trifling measure of punishment for my deep offences against thee and thine!

"But such is the frailty of human nature that it was upon these very victims I suffered the effects of my remorse and mental agony to all.

The ill-suppressed violence of my temper, irritated by the dangers of my situation, has already caused you many a sorrowful moment; and the increase of gloom you must have lately perceived, has originated in the fresh difficulties arising to me from the death of the husband of Alice; and the dread of her own approaching dissolution. From these causes my present visit to this dreary abode was determined, and to them I am indebted for the premature disclosure which has made her life as wretched as my own. The sickness of her surviving attendant has latterly allowed more liberty to the unhappy Theresa than her condition renders safe either to her or me. I could not on my arrival here collect sufficient resolution to look upon her; and to adopt those measures of security which the weakness of Alice has left disregarded. To this infirmity of purpose on my part must be ascribed the dreadful shock you sustained by the sudden appearance of the unfortunate maniac, who I conclude was attracted to your apartment by the long-forgotten sound of music. On that fatal evening your fall awoke me from my sleep; and I then perceived my Helen lying insensible on the floor; and Theresa--yes--the altered and to me terrible figure of Theresa, bending over her. For one dreadful moment I believed that you had fallen a victim to her insanity.

"And now Helen--my injured, but fondly beloved Helen, now that my tale of evil is fully disclosed, resolve at once the doom of my future being.

Yet in mercy be prompt in your decision; and whether you determine to unfold to the whole world the measure of my guilt, or, since nothing can now extricate us from the web of sin and shame in which we are involved, to a.s.sist in s.h.i.+elding me from a discovery which would be fatal to the interests of our innocent child, let me briefly hear the result of your judgment. Of this alone it remains for me to a.s.sure you--that I will not one single hour survive the publication of my dishonour."

For several hours succeeding the perusal of the forgoing history, Lady Greville remained chained as it were to her seat by the bewildering perplexities of her mind. The blow, in itself so sudden, so fraught with mischiefs, involving a thousand interests, and affording no hope to lessen its infliction, appeared to stupify her faculties. Lost in the contemplation of evils from which no worldly resource availed to save herself or her child, indignation, compa.s.sion, and despair, by turns obtained possession of her bosom. Her first impulse, worthy of her gentle nature, was to rush to the bed-side of her sleeping boy, and there, on her knees, to implore divine aid to shelter his unoffending innocence, and grace to enlighten her mind in the choice of her future destiny. And He, who in dealing the wound of affliction, refuseth not, to those who seek it, the balm that softens its endurance, imparted to her soul a fort.i.tude to bear, and a wisdom to extricate herself from the perils by which she was a.s.sailed. The following letter acquainted Lord Greville with her final determination:

"Greville,--I was about, in the inadvertence of my bewildered mind, to address you once more by the t.i.tle of husband; but that holy name must hereafter perish on my lips, and be banished like a withering curse from my heart. Yet it was that alone which, holding a sacred charter over my bosom, bound me to the cheerful endurance of many a bitter hour, ere I knew that through him who bore it, a descendant of the house of Percy would be banded as an adulteress; and her child as the nameless offspring of shame. Rich as I was in worldly gifts, my birth, my character, the fair fortunes which you have blighted, and the parental care from which you have withdrawn me, alike appeared to shelter me from the evils which have befallen me--but wo is me! Even these were an insufficient protection against the craftiness of mine enemy!

"But reproaches avail me not. Henceforth I will shut up my sorrow and my complaining within the solitude of my own wounded heart--and thou, 'my companion, my counsellor, mine own familiar friend,' the beloved of my early youth, the father of my child, must be from this hour be as nothing unto me!

"Hear my decision. Since one who has already trampled upon every tie, divine and human, at the instigation of his won evil pa.s.sions, would scarcely be deterred from further wickedness by any argument of mine, I dare not tempt the mischief contemplated by your ungovernable feelings against your life. I will, therefore, solemnly engage to a.s.sist you by every means in my power in the preservation of the secret on which your very existence appears to depend. As the first measure towards this object, I will myself undertake that attendance of Lady Greville, which cannot be otherwise procured without peril of disclosure. Towards this unfortunate being, my n.o.ble brother's betrothed wife, whose interests have been sacrificed to mine, no sisterly care, no affectionate watchfulness shall be wanting on my part, to lessen the measure of her afflictions. I will remain with her at Greville Cross; sharing the duties of Alice so long as she shall live, and supplying her place when she shall be no more. I feel that G.o.d has doomed my proud spirit to the humiliation of this trial; and I trust in his goodness that I may have strength cheerfully and worthily to fulfil my part. From you I have one condition to exact in return.

"Henceforward we must meet no more in this world. I can pity you--I can even forgive you,--but I cannot yet school my heart to that forgetfulness of the past, that indifference, with which I ought to regard the husband of another. Greville! we must not meet no more!

"And since my son will shortly attain an age when seclusion in this remote spot would be prejudicial to his interests and to the formation of his character, I pray you to take him from me at once, that I may have no further sacrifice to contemplate. Let him reside with you at Silsea, under the tuition of proper instructors--breed him up in n.o.bleness and truth--and let not his early nurture, and the care with which I have sought to instil into his mind principles of honour and virtue, be utterly lost. Let his happiness be the pledge of my dutiful fulfilment of the task I have undertaken; and may G.o.d desert me and him, when I fail through negligence or hardness of heart.

"And if at times the stigma of his birth should present itself to irritate your mind against his helpless innocence, as alas! I have latterly witnessed, smite him not, Greville, in your guilty wrath--remember he is come of gentle blood, even on his mother's side--and ask yourself to _whom_ we owe our degradation, and from whose quiver the arrow was launched against us? And now farewell--may the Almighty enlighten and forgive you--and if in this address there appears a trace of bitterness, do not ascribe it to any uncharitable feelings, but look back upon the past, and think on what I was--on what I am.

Consider whether ever woman loved or trusted as I have done, or was ever more cruelly betrayed? Oh! Greville, Greville!--did I not regard you with an affection too intense for my happiness! did I not confide in you with a reverence, a veneration unmeet to be lavished on a creature of clay? But you have broken the fragile idol of my wors.h.i.+p before my eyes--and the after-path of my life is dark with fear and loneliness.

But be it so; my soul was proud of its good gifts--and now that I am stricken to the dust, its vanity is laid bare to my sight--haply, 'it is good for me that I have been afflicted.'--Farewell for ever."

The conditions of this letter were mutually and strictly fulfilled; but the mental struggle sustained by Lord Greville, his humiliation on witnessing the saintlike self-devotion of Helen Percy, combined with the necessity which rendered it expedient to accept her proffered sacrifice, were too much for his frame. In less than a year after his return to Silsea, he died--a prey to remorse.

Previous to his decease, in contemplation of the n.o.bleness of mind which would probably induce the nominal Lady Greville to renounce his succession, he framed two testamentary acts. By one of these, he acknowledged the nullity of his second marriage, but bequeathed to Helen and her child all that the law of the land enabled him to bestow; by the other he referred to Helen only as his lawful wife, and to her son as his representative and successor; adding to their legal inheritance all his unentailed property. Both were enclosed in a letter to Lady Greville, written on his death-bed, which left it entirely at her own disposal, _which_ to publish, _which_ to destroy.

It is not to be supposed that the selection cost her one moment's hesitation. Having resigned into the hands of the lawful inheritor all that the strictest probity could require, and much that his admiration of her magnanimity would have prevailed on her to retain, she retired peaceably to a mansion in the South bequeathed by Lord Greville to her son, and occupied herself solely with his education. In the commencement of the ensuring reign he obtained the royal sanction to use the name and arms of Percy; and in his grateful affection and the virtuous distinctions he early attained, his mother met with her reward.

Theresa, the helpless Theresa, the guardian-s.h.i.+p of whose person had been bequeathed to Helen, as a mournful legacy, by Lord Greville, was removed with her from her dreary imprisonment at the Cross, and to the latest moment of her existence partook of her affectionate and watchful attention.

It was a touching sight to behold these two unfortunate beings, linked together by ties of so painful a nature, and dwelling together In companions.h.i.+p. The one, richly gifted with youthful loveliness, clad in a deep mourning habit, and bearing on her countenance an air of fixed dejection. The other, though far her elder in years, still beautiful,--with her long silver hair, blanched by sorrow, not by time, hanging over her shoulders; and wearing, as if in mockery of her unconscious widowhood, the gaudy and embroidered raiment to which a glimmering remembrance of happier times appeared to attach her--that vacant smile and wandering glance of insanity lending at times a terrible brilliancy to her features. But for the most part her malady a.s.sumed a cast of settled melancholy, and patient as

"The female dove ere yet her golden couplets are disclosed, Her silence would sit drooping."

Her gentleness and submission would have endeared her to a guardian even less tenderly interested in her fate than Helen Percy; towards whom, from her first interview, she had evinced the most gratifying partiality. "I know you," she said on beholding her. "You have the look and voice of Percy; you are a ministering angel whom he has sent to defend his poor Theresa from the King; now that she is sad and friendless. You will never abandon me, will you?" continued she, taking her hand and pressing it to her bosom.

"Never--never--so help me heaven!" answered the agitated Helen; and that sacred promise remained unbroken.