Thaddeus of Warsaw Part 31

"Struggling to break from her, I implored to be permitted to embrace my child; but she held me fast, and, regardless of my cries, ordered both the women to return into the house. Driven to despair, I dropped on my knees, conjuring her, by her feelings as a mother, to allow me for one moment to see my dying son, and that I would promise, by my hopes of everlasting happiness, to cherish her child as my own should it ever stand in need of a friend. The horrid woman only laughed at my prayers, and left me in a swoon. When I recovered, the first objects I beheld were my lord and Lady Olivia standing near me, and myself in the arms of a man-servant, whom they had commanded to carry me outside the gate. At the sight of my husband, I sprang to his feet, when with one dreadful blow of his hand he struck me to the ground. Merciful Providence! how did I retain my senses! I besought this cruel husband to give me a second blow, that I might suffer no more.

"'Take her out of my sight,' cried he; 'she is mad.'

"I was taken out of his sight, more dead than alive, and led by his pitying servants to an inn, where I was afterwards confined for three weeks with a brain fever. From that hour I have never had a day of health."

Thaddeus was shocked beyond utterance at this relation. The paleness of his countenance being the only reply he made, the anguished narrator resumed.

"I have gone out of order. I proposed to inform you clearly of my situation, but the princ.i.p.al outrage of my heart rose immediately to my lips. I will commence regularly, if I can methodize my recollection.

"The Earl of Tinemouth married me from pa.s.sion: I will not sanctify his emotions by the name of affection; though," added she, forcing a smile, "these faded features too plainly show that of all mankind, I loved but him alone. I was just fifteen when he came to visit my father, who lived in Berkshire. My father, Mr. c.u.mnor, and his father, Lord Harwold, had been friends at college. My lord, then Mr.

Stanhope, was young, handsome, and captivating. He remained the autumn with us, and at the end of that period declared an affection for me which my heart too readily answered. About this time he received a summons from his father, and we parted. Like most girls of my age, I cherished an unconquerable bashfulness against admitting any confidant to my attachment; hence my parents knew nothing of the affair until it burst upon them in the cruelest shape.

"About two months after Mr. Stanhope's departure, a letter arrived from him, urging me to fly with him to Scotland. He alleged as a reason for such a step that his grandfather, the Earl of Tinemouth, insisted on his forming a union with Lady Olivia Lovel, who was then a young widow, and the favorite niece of the most powerful n.o.bleman in the kingdom. Upon this demand, he confessed to the earl that his affections were engaged. His lordship, whose pa.s.sions were those of a madman, broke into such horrible execrations of myself and my family, that Mr. Stanhope, himself, alas! enraged, intemperately swore that no power on earth should compel him to marry so notorious a woman as Lady Olivia Lovel, nor to give me up. After communicating these particulars, he concluded with repeating his entreaties that I would consent to marry him in Scotland. The whole of this letter so alarmed me, that I showed it to my parents. My father answered it in a manner befitting his own character; but that only irritated the impetuous pa.s.sions of my lover. In the paroxysm of his rage, he flew to the earl his grandfather, upbraided him with the ruin of his happiness, and so exasperated the old man, that he drew his sword upon him; and had it not been for the interference of his father, Lord Harwold, who happened to enter at the moment, a most fatal catastrophe might have ensued. To end the affair at once, the latter, whose gentle nature embraced the mildest measures, obtained the earl's permission to send Mr. Stanhope abroad.

"Meanwhile I was upheld by my revered parent, who is now no more, in firmly rejecting my lover's entreaties for a private marriage. And as his grandfather continued resolutely deaf to his prayers or threats, he was at length persuaded by his excellent father to accompany some friends to France.

"At the end of a few weeks Mr. Stanhope began to regard them as spies on him; and after a violent quarrel, they parted, no one knowing to what quarter my lover directed his steps. I believe I was the first who heard any tidings of him. I remember well; it was in 1773, about four-and-twenty years ago, that I received a letter from him. Oh! how legibly are these circ.u.mstances written on my memory! It was dated from Italy, where, he told me, he resided in complete retirement, under the a.s.sumed name of Sackville."

At this name, with every feature fixed in dismay, Thaddeus fell back on the sofa.

The countess caught his hand.

"What is the matter? You are ill? What is the matter?"

The bolt of indelible disgrace had struck to his heart. It was some minutes before he could recover; but when he did speak, he said, "Pray go on, madam; I am subject to this. Pray forgive me, and go on; I shall become better as you proceed."

"No, my dear friend; I will quit my dismal story at present, and resume it some other time."

"Pray continue it now," rejoined Thaddeus; "I shall never be more fit to listen. Do, I entreat you."

"Are you sincere in your request? I fear I have already affected you too much."

"No; I am sincere: let me hear it all. Do not hold back anything which relates to that stain to the name of Englishman, who completed his crimes by rendering you wretched!"

"Alas! he did," resumed her ladyship; "for when he returned, which was in consequence of the Earl of Tinemouth's death, my father was also dead, who might have stood between me and my inclinations, and so preserved me from many succeeding sorrows. I sealed my fate, and became Stanhope's wife.

"The father of my husband was then Earl of Tinemouth; and as he had never been averse to our union, he presented me with a cottage on the banks of the Wye, where I pa.s.sed three delightful years, the happiest of womankind. My husband, my mother, and my infant son formed my felicity; and greatly I prize it--too greatly to be allowed a long continuance!

"At the end of this period, some gay friends paid us a visit. When they returned to town, they persuaded my lord to be of the party. He went; and from that fatal day all my sufferings arose.

"Lord Harwold, instead of being with me in a fortnight, as he had promised, procrastinated his absence under various excuses from week to week, during which interval my Albina was born. Day after day I antic.i.p.ated the delight of putting her into the arms of her father; but, what a chasm! she was three months old before he appeared; and ah! how changed. He was gloomy to me, uncivil to my mother, and hardly looked at the child."

Lady Tinemouth stopped at this part of her narrative to wipe away her tears. Thaddeus was sitting forward to the table, leaning on his arm, with his hand covering his face. The countess was grateful for an excess of sympathy she did not expect; and taking his other hand, as it lay motionless on his knee, "What a consolation would it be to me," exclaimed she, "durst I entertain a hope that I may one day behold but half such pity from my own son!"

Thaddeus pressed her hand. He did not venture to reply; he could not tell her that she deceived herself even here; that it was not her sorrows only which so affected him, but the remembered agonies of his own mother, whom he did not doubt the capricious villany of this very earl, under the name of Sackville (a name that had struck like a death-bolt to the heart of Thaddeus when he first heard his mother utter it), had devoted to a life of uncomplaining but ceaseless self- reproach. And had he derived his existence from such a man--the reprobate husband of Lady Tinemouth! The conviction humbled him, crushed him, and trod him to the earth. He did not look up, and the countess resumed:

"It would be impossible, my dear sir, to describe to you the gradual changes which a.s.sured me that I had lost the heart of my husband.

Before the end of the winter he left me again, and I saw him no more until that frightful hour in which he struck me to the ground.

"The good earl came into Monmouthshire about six weeks after I parted with my lord. I was surprised and rejoiced to see my kind father-in- law; but how soon were my emotions driven into a different course! He revealed to me that during Lord Harwold's first visit to town he had been in the habit of spending entire evenings with Lady Olivia Lovel."

'This woman,' added he, 'is the most artful of her s.e.x. In spite of her acknowledged dishonor, you well know my deceased father would gladly have married her to my son; and now it seems, actuated by revenge, she resents Lord Harwold's refusal of her hand by seducing him from his wife. Alas! I am too well convinced that the errors of my son bear too strict a resemblance to those of his grandfather.

Vain of his superior abilities, and impatient of contradiction, flattery can mould him to what it pleases. Lady Olivia had discovered these weak points in his character; and, I am informed, she soon persuaded him that you impose on his affection by detaining him from the world; and, seconded by other fascinations, my deluded son has accompanied her into Spain.'

"You may imagine, Mr. Constantine, my distraction at this intelligence. I was like one lost; and the venerable earl, fearing to trust me in such despair out of his sight, brought me and my children with him to London. In less than four months afterwards, I was deprived of this inestimable friend by a paralytic stroke. His death summoned the new earl to England. Whilst I lay on a sick bed, into which I had been thrown by the shock of my protector's death, my lord and his mistress arrived in London.

"They immediately a.s.sumed the command of my lamented father-in-law's house, and ordered my mother to clear it directly of me. My heart- broken parent obeyed, and I was carried in a senseless state to a lodging in the nearest street. But when this dear mother returned for my children, neither of them were permitted to see her. The malignant Lady Olivia, actuated by an insatiable hatred of me, easily wrought on my frantic husband (for I must believe him mad) to detain them entirely. A short time after this, that dreadful scene happened which I have before described.

"Year succeeded year, during which time I received many cruel insults from my husband, many horrible ones from my son; for I had been advised to inst.i.tute a suit against my lord, in which I only pleaded for the return of my children. I lost my cause, owing, I hope, to bad counsel, not the laws of my country. I was adjudged to be separated from the earl, with a maintenance of six hundred a-year, which he hardly pays. I was tied down never to speak to him, nor to his son nor his daughter. Though this sentence was pa.s.sed, I never acknowledged its justice, but wrote several times to my children.

Lord Harwold, who is too deeply infected with his father's cruelty, has either returned my letters unopened or with insulting replies.

For my daughter, she keeps an undeviating silence; and I have not even seen her since the moment in which she was hurried from my eyes in Tinemouth Park.

"In vain her brother tries to convince me that she detests me. I will not believe it; and the hope that, should I survive her father, I may yet embrace my child, has been, and will be, my source of maternal comfort until it be fulfilled, or I bury my disappointment in the grave."

Lady Tinemouth put her handkerchief to her eyes, which were again flowing with tears. Thaddeus thought he must speak, if he would not betray an interest in her narrative, which he determined no circ.u.mstance should ever humble him to reveal. Raising his head from his hand, he unconsciously discovered to the countess his agonized countenance.

"Kind, affectionate Constantine! surely such a heart as thine never would bring sorrow to the breast of a virtuous husband! You could never betray the self-deluded Lady Sara to any fatal error!"

Lady Tinemouth did not utter these thoughts. Thaddeus rose from his seat. "Farewell, my honored friend!" said he; "may Heaven bless you and pardon your husband!"

Then grasping her hand, with what he intended should be a pressure of friendship, but which his internal tortures rendered almost intolerable, he hastened down stairs, opened the outward door, and got into the street.

Unknowing and heedless whither he went, with the steps of a man driven by the furies, he traversed one street and then another. As he went along, in vain the watchmen reminded him by their cries that it was past three o'clock: he still wandered on, forgetting that it was night, that he had any home, any destination.

His father was discovered!--that father of whom he had entertained a latent hope, should they ever meet, that he might produce some excuse for having been betrayed into an act disgraceful to a man of honor.

But when all these filial dreams were blasted by the conviction that he owed his being to the husband of Lady Tinemouth, that his mother was the victim of a profligate, that he had sprung from a man who was not merely a villain, but the most wanton, the most despicable of villains, he saw himself bereft of hope and overwhelmed with shame and horror.

Full of reflections which none other than a son in such circ.u.mstances can conceive, he was lost amidst the obscure alleys of Tottenham Court Yard, when loud and frequent cries recalled his attention. A quant.i.ty of smoke, with flashes of light, led him to suppose that they were occasioned by a fire; and a few steps further the awful spectacle burst upon his sight.

It was a house from the windows of which the flames were breaking out in every direction, whilst a gathering concourse of people were either standing in stupefied astonishment or uselessly shouting for engines and a.s.sistance.

At the moment in which he arrived, two or three naked wretches just escaped from their beds, were flying from side to side, making the air echo with their shrieks.

"Will n.o.body save my children?" cried one of them, approaching Thaddeus, and wringing her hands in agony; "will n.o.body take them from the fire?"

"Where shall I seek them?" replied he.

"Oh! in that room," exclaimed she, pointing; "the flames are already there; they will be burnt! they will be burnt!"

The poor woman was hurrying madly forward, when the count stopped her, and giving her in charge of a bystander, cried: "Take care of this woman, if possible, I will save her children." Darting through the open door, in defiance of the smoke and danger, he made his way to the children's room, where, almost suffocated by the sulphurous cloud that surrounded him, he at last found the bed; but it contained one child only. This he instantly caught up in his arms, and was hastening down the stairs, when the cries of the other from a distant part of the building made him hesitate; but thinking it better to secure one than to hazard both by lingering, he rushed into the street just as a post-chaise had stopped to inquire the particulars of the accident. The carriage-door being open, Thaddeus, seeing ladies in it, without saying a word, threw the sleeping infant into their laps, and hastened back into the house, where he hoped to rescue the other child before the fire could increase to warrant despair. The flames having now made dreadful progress, his face, hands, and clothes were scorched by their fury as he flew from the room, following the shrieks of the child, who seemed to change its situation with every exertion that he made to reach it. At length, when every moment he expected the house would sink under his feet, as a last attempt he directed his steps along a pa.s.sage he had not before observed, and to his great joy beheld the object of his search flying down a back staircase. The boy sprung into his arms; and Thaddeus, turning round, leaped from one landing-place to another, until he found himself again in the street, surrounded by a crowd of people.

He saw the poor mother clasp this second rescued child to her breast; and whilst the spectators were loading her with congratulations, he slipped away unseen, and proceeded homewards, with a warmth at his heart which made him forget, in the joy of a benevolent action, that petrifying shock which had been occasioned by the vices of one too nearly allied to his being to be hated without horror.

CHAPTER XXVI.