Читать книгу Charlotte Brontë's Juvenilia: Tales of Angria (Mina Laury, Stancliffe's Hotel), The Story of Willie Ellin, Albion and Marina, Angria and the Angrians, Tales of the Islanders, The Green Dwarf - Charlotte Bronte - Страница 5

Late one fine still evening in January the moon arose over a blue summit of the Sydenham Hills and looked down on a quiet road winding from the hamlet of Rivaulx. The earth was bound in frost – hard, mute and glittering. The forest of Hawkscliffe was as still as a tomb, and its black leafless wilds stretched away in the distance and cut off with a harsh serrated line the sky from the country. That sky was all silver blue, pierced here and there with a star like a diamond. Only the moon softened it, large, full, and golden. The by-road I have spoken of received her ascending beam on a path of perfect solitude. Spectral pines and vast old beech trees guarded the way like sentinels from Hawkscliffe. Farther on the rude track wound deep into the shades of the forest, but here it was open and the worn causeway, bleached with frost, ran under an old wall grown over with moss and wild ivy.

Over this scene the sun of winter had gone down in cloudless calm, red as fire, and kindling with its last beams the windows of a mansion on the verge of Hawkescliffe. To that mansion the road in question was the shortest cut from Rivaulx. And here a moment let us wait, wrapped, it is to be hoped, in furs, for a keener frost never congealed the Olympia.

Almost before you are aware a figure strays up the causeway at a leisurely pace, musing amid the tranquillity of evening. Doubtless that figure must be an inmate of the before-mentioned mansion, for it is an elegant and pleasing object. Approaching gradually nearer, you can observe most accurately a lady of distinguished carriage, straight and slender, something inceding and princess-like in her walk, but unconsciously so. Her ankles are so perfect, and her feet – if she tried, she could scarcely tread otherwise than she does – lightly, firmly, erectly. The ermine muff, the silk pelisse, the graceful and ample hat of dark beaver, suit and set off her light youthful form. She is deeply veiled; you must guess at her features – but she passes on and a turn of the road conceals her.

Breaking up the silence, dashing in on the solitude, comes a horseman. Fire flashes from under his steed’s hoofs out of the flinty road. He rides desperately. Now and then he rises in his stirrups and eagerly looks along the track as if to catch a sight of some object that has eluded him. He sees it, and the spurs are struck mercilessly into his horse’s flanks. Horse and rider vanish in a whirlwind.

The lady passing through the iron gates had just entered upon the demesne of Hawkscliffe. She paused to gaze at the moon which, now full risen, looked upon her through the boughs of a superb elm. A green lawn lay between her and the house, and there its light slumbered in gold. Thundering behind her, came the sound of hoofs, and, bending low to his saddle to avoid the contact of oversweeping branches, that wild horseman we saw five minutes since rushed upon the scene. Harshly curbing the charger, he brought it almost upon its haunches close to the spot where she stood.

‘Miss Laury! Good evening!’ he said. The lady threw back her veil, surveyed him with one glance, and replied:

‘Lord Hartford! I am glad to see you, my lord. You have ridden fast. Your horse foams. Any bad news?’

‘No!’

‘Then you are on your way to Adrianopolis. I suppose you will pass the night here?’

‘If you ask me, I will.’

‘If I ask you! Yes; this is the proper half-way house between the capitals. The night is cold, let us go in’.

They were now at the door. Hartford flung himself from his saddle. A servant came to lead the over-ridden steed to the stables, and he followed Miss Laury in.

It was her own drawing room to which she led him, just such a scene as is most welcome after the contrast of a winter evening’s chill; not a large room, simply furnished, with curtains and couches of green silk, a single large mirrow, a Grecian lamp dependent from the centre softly burning now and mingling with the softer illumination of the fire, whose brilliant glow bore testimony to the keenness of the frost.

Hartford glanced round him. He had been in Miss Laury’s drawing room before, but never as her sole guest. He had, before the troubles broke out, more than once formed one of a high and important trio whose custom it was to make the lodge of Rivaulx their occasional rendezvous: Warner, Enara, and himself had often stood on that hearth in a ring round Miss Laury’s sofa, and he recalled how her face looking up to them with its serious, soft intelligence that blent no woman’s frivolity with the heartfelt interest of those subjects on which they conversed. He remembered those first kindlings of the flame that now devoured his life as he watched her beauty and saw the earnest enthusiasm with which she threw her soul into topics of the highest import. She had often done for these great men what they could get no man to do for them. She had kept their secrets and executed their wishes as far as in her lay, for it had never been her part to counse. With humble feminine devotedness she always looked up for her task to be set, and then not Warner himself could have bent his energies more resolutely to the fulfilment of that task than did Miss Laury. Had Mina’s lot in life been different, she never would have interfered in such matters. She did not interfere now: she only served. Nothing like intrigue had ever stained her course in politics. She told her directors what she had done, and she asked for more to do, grateful always that they would trust her so far as to employ her, grateful too for the enthusiasm of their loyalty; in short, devoted to them heart and mind because she believed in them to be devoted as unreservedly to the commom master of all.

The consequence of this species of deeply confidential intercourse between the statesmen and their beautiful lieutenant had been intense and chivalric admiration on the part of Mr Warner; strong fond attachment on that of General Enara; and on Lord Hartford’s the burning brand of passion. His Lordship had always been a man of strong and ill-regulated feelings, and in his youth (if report may be credited) of somewhat dissolute habits, but he had his own ideas of honour strongly implanted in his breast, and though he would not have scrupled if the wife of one of his equals, or the daughter of one of his tenants had been in the question, yet as it was he stood beset and nonplussed.

Miss Laury belonged to the Duke of Zamorna. She was indisputably his property, as much as the Lodge of Rivaulx or the stately wood of Hawkscliffe, and in that light she considered herself. All his dealings with her had been on matters connected with the Duke, and she had ever shown an habitual, rooted, solemn devotedness to his interest which seemed to leave her hardly a thought for anything else in the world beside. She had but one idea – Zamorna!Zamorna! It had grown up with her, become a part of her nature. Absence, coldness, total neglect for long periods together went for nothing. She could not more feel alienation from him than she could from herself. She did not even repine when he forgot her any more than the religious devotee does when his Deity seems to turn away his face for a time and leave him to the ordeal of temporal afflictions. It seemed as if she could have lived on the remembrance of what he had once been to her without asking for anything more.

All this Hartford knew, and he knew, too, that she valued himself in proportion as she believed him to be royal to his sovereign. Her friendship for him turned on this hinge: ‘We have been fellow-labourers and fellow-sufferers together in the same good cause’ These were her own words which she had uttered one night as she took leave of her three noble collegues just befre the storm broke over Angria. Hartford had noticed the expression of her countenance as she spoke, and thought what a young and beautiful being thus appealed for sympathy with minds scarcely like her own in mould.

However, let us dwell no longer on these topics. Suffuce it to say that Lord Hartford, against reason and without hope, had finally delivered himself wholly up to the guidance of his vehement passions; and it was with the resolution to make one desperate effort in the attainment of their end that he now stood before the lady of Rivaulx.

Above two hours had elapsed since Lord Hartford had entered the house. Tea was over, and in the perfect quiet of evening he and Miss Laury were left together. He sat on one side of the hearth, and she on the other – her work-table only between them, and on that her little hand rested within his reach. It was embedded in a veil of lace, the embroidering of which she had just relinquished for a moment’s thought. Lord Hartford’s eye was fascinated by the white soft fingers. His own heart at the moment was in a tumult of bliss. To be so near, to be received so benignly, so kindly – he forgot himself. His own hand closed half involuntarily upon hers. Miss Laury looked at him …. Shocked for a moment, almost overwhelmed , she yet speedily mastered her emotions, took her hand away, resumed her work, and with head bent down, seemed endeavouring to conceal embarrassment under the appearance of occupation.

The dead silence that followed would not do, so she broke it in a very calm, self-possessed tone.

‘That ring, Lord Hartford, which you were admiring just now belonged once to the Duchess of Wellington’

‘ And was it given you by her son?’ asked the General bitterly.

‘No, my lord, the Duchess herself gave it me a few days before she died. It has her maiden name ‘’Catherine Pakenham’’, engraved within the stone’.

‘But’, pursued Hartford, ‘I was not admiring the ring when I touched your hand. No; the thought struck me, if ever I marry I should like my wife’s hand to be just as white and snowy and taper as that.’

‘I am the daughter of a common soldier, my lord, and it is said that ladies of high descent have fairer hands than peasant women.’

Hartford made no reply. He rose restlessly from his seat and stood against the mantelpiece.

‘Miss Laury, shall I tell you which was the happiest hour of my life?’

‘I will guess, my lord. Perhaps when the bill passed which made Angria an independent kingdom.’

‘No. ‘ replied Hartford with an expressive smile.

‘Perhaps, then, when Lord Northangerland resigned the seals - for I know you and the Earl were never on good terms’.

‘No. I hated his lordship, but there are moment of deeper felicity even than those which see the triumph of a fallen enemy’.

‘I will hope that it was at the Restoration.’

‘Wrong again! Why, madam, young as you are your mind is so used to the harness of politics that you can imagine no happiness or misery unconnected with them. You remind me of Warner.’

‘I believe I am like him’, returned Miss Laury. ‘He often tells me so himself, but I live so much with men and statesmen I almost lose the ideas of a woman’.

‘Do you?’ muttered Hartford with the dark sinister smile peculiar to him’.

Miss Laury passed over this equivocal remark and proceeded with the conversation.

‘I cannot guess your riddle, my lord, so I think you must explain it’.

‘Then, Miss Laury, prepare to be astonished. You are so patriotic, so loyal that you will scarcely credit me when I say that the happiest hour I have ever known fell on the darkest day in the deadliest crisis of Angria’s calamities’.

‘How, Lord Hartford?’

‘Moreover, miss Laury, it was at no bright period of your own life. It was to you an hour of the most acute agony; to me one of ecstasy’.

Miss Laury turned aside her head with a disturbed air and trembled. She seemed to know to what he alluded.

‘You remember the first of July, ’36?’ continued Hartford.

She bowed.

‘You remember that the evening of that day closed in a tremendous storm?’

‘Yes, my lord.’

‘You recollect how you sat in this very room by this fireside, fearful of retiring for the night lest you should awake in another world in the morning. The country was not then as quiet as it is now. You have not forgotten that deep explosion which roared up at midnight and told you that your life and liberty hung on a thread, that the enemy had come suddenly upon Rivaulx, and that we who lay thre to defend the forlon hope were surprised and routed by a night attack. Then madam, perhaps you recollect the warning which I brought you at one o’clock in the morning, to fly instantly, unless you chose the alternative of infamous captivity in the hands of Jordan. I found you here, sitting by a black hearth without fire, and Ernest Fitz-Arthur lay on your knee asleep. You told me you had heard the firing, and that you were waiting for some communication from me, determined not to stir without orders lest a precipitate step on your part should embarass me. I had a carriage already in waiting for you. I put you in, and with the remains of my defeated followers escorted you as far as Zamorna. What followed after that, Miss Laury?’

Miss Laury covered her eyes with her hand. She seemed as if she could not answer.

‘Well’, continued Hartford. ‘In the midst of darkness and tempest, and while the whole city of Zamorna seemed changed into a hell peopled with fiends and inspired with madness, my lads were hewed down about you, and your carriage was stopped. I very well remember what you did – how frantically you struggled to save Fitz-Arthur, and how you looked at me when he was snatched from you. As to your own preservation – that, I need not repeat – only my arm did it. You acknowledge that, Miss Laury?’

‘Hartford, I do, but why do you dwell on that terrible scene?’

‘Because I am now approaching the happiest hour of my life. I took you to the house of one of my tenants whom I could depend upon, and just as morning dawned you and I sat together and alone in the little chamber of a farmhouse, and you were in my arms, your head upon my shoulder, and weeping out all your anguish on a breast that longed to bleed for you’.

Miss Laury agitatedly rose. She approached Hartford.

‘My lord, you have been very kind to me and I feel very grateful for that kindness. Perhaps sometime I may be able to repay it. We know not how the chances of fortune may turn. The weak have aided the strong, and I will watch vigilantly for the slightest opportunity to serve you, but d not talk in this way. I scarcely know whither your words tend’.

Lord Hartford paused a moment before he replied. Gazing at her with bended brows and folded arms he said:

‘Miss Laury, what do you think of me?’

‘That you are one of the noblest hearts in the world!’ she replied unhesitatingly. She was standing just before Hartford, looking up at him, her hair in that attitude falling back from her brow, shading with exquisite curls her temples and slender neck; her small, sweet features, with that high seriousness deepening their beauty, lit up by her eyes so large, so dark, so swimming, so full of pleading benignity, of an expression of alarmed regard, as if she at once feared for and pitied the sinful abstraction of a great mind. Hartford couldn’t stand it. He could have borne female anger or terror, but the look of enthusiastic gratitude softened by compassion nearly unmanned him. He turned his head for a moment aside but then passion prevailed. Her beauty when he looked again struck through him – maddening sensation whetted to acuter power by a feeling like despair.

‘You shall love me!’ he exclaimed desperately; ‘Do I not adore you? Would I not die for you? And must I in return receive only the cold regard of friendship? I am not a Platonist, Miss Laury – I am not your friend. I am, hear me, madam, your declasred lover! Nay, you shall not leave me; by heaven -–I am stronger than you are’.

She had stepped a pace or two back, appalled by his vehemence. He thought she meant to withdraw, and, determined not to be so baulked, he clasped her at once in both his arms and kissed her furiously rather than fondly. Miss Laury did not struggle.

‘Hartford’, said she steadying her voice, though it faletered in spite of her effort, ‘ this must be our parting scene. I will never see you again if you do not restrain yourself.’

Hartford saw that she turned pale, and he felt her tremble violently. His arms relaxed their hold. He allowed her to leave him.

She sat down on a chair opposite and hurriedly wiped her brow which was damp and marble-pale.

‘Now, Miss Laury’, said his lordship, ‘no man in the world loves you as I do. Will you accept my title and my coronet? I fling them at your feet’.

‘My lord, do you know whose I am?’ she replied in a hollow and very suppressed tone. ‘Do you know with what a sound those proposals fall on my ear – how impious and blasphemous they seem to be? Do you at all conceive how utterly impossible it is that I should ever love you? The scene I have just witnessed has given a strange wrench to all my accustomed habits of thought. I thought you a true-hearted, faithful man: I find that you are a traitor’.

‘And do you despise me?’ asked Hartford.

‘No, my lord, I do not’.

She paused and looked down. The colour rose rapidly into her pale face. She sobbed, not in tears, but in the overmastering approach of an impulse born of a warm and Western heart. Again she looked up. Her eyes had changed, their aspect beaming with a wild, bright inspiration, truly, divinely Irish.

‘Hartford’, said she, ‘had I met you long since, before I left Ellibank and forgot St. Cyprian and dishonoured my father, I would have loved you. O my lord, you know not how truly! I would have married you and made it the glory of my life to cheer and brighten your hearth, but I cannot do so now – never. I saw my present master when he had scarcely attained manhood. Do you think, Hartford, I will tell you what feelings I had for him? No tongue could express them; they were so fervid, so glowing in their colour that they effaced everything else. I lost the power of properly appreciating the value of the world’s opinion, of discerning the difference between right and wrong. I have never in my life contradicted Zamorna, never delayed obedience to his commands. I could not. He was something more to me than a human being. He superseded all things - all affections, all interests, all fears or hopes or principles. Unconnected with him my mind would be a blank, cold, dead, susceptible only of a sense of despair. How should I sicken if were torn from him and thrown to you! Ado not ask it; I would die first. No woman that ever loved my master could consent to leave him. There is nothing like him elsewhere. Hartford, if I were to be your wife, if Zamorna only looked at me, I should creep back like a slave to my former service. I should disgrace you as I have long since disgraced all my kindred. Think of that, my lord, and never say you love me again’.

‘You do not frighten me’, replied Lord Hartford hardily; ‘I would stand that chance, aye, and every other, if I only might see at the head of my table in that old dining room at Hartford Hall yourself as my wife and lady. I am called proud as it is, but then I would show Angria to what pitch of pride a man might attain, if I could, coming home at night, find Mina Laury waiting to receive me; if I could sit down and look at you with the consciousness that your exquisite beauty was all my own, that cheek, those lips, that lovely hand, might be claimed arbitrarily, and you dare not refuse me, I should then feel happy’.

‘Hartford, you would be more likely when you came home to find your house vacant and your hearth deserted. I know the extent of my own infatuation. I should go back to Zamorna and entreat him on my knees to let me be his slave again!’

‘Madam’, said Hartford frowning, ‘you dared not if you were my wife; I would guard you!’

‘Then I should die under your guardianshp. But the experiment will never be tried!’

Hartford came near, sat down by her side, and leaned over her. She did not shirk away.

‘Oh!’ he said, ‘I am happy. There was a time when I dared not have come so near you. One summer evening two years ago I was walking in the twilight amongst those trees on the lawn, and at a turn I saw you sitting at the root of one of them by yourself’.

‘You were looking up at a starwhich was twinkling above the Sydenhams. You were in white; your hands were folded on your knee, and your hair was resting in still, shining curls on your neck. I stood and watched. The thought struck me: if that image sat now in my own woods, if she were something in which I had an interest, if I could go and press my lips to her brow and expect a smile in answer to the caress, if I could take her in my arms and turn her thought from that sky with its single star, and from the distant country to which it points (for it hung in the west and I know you were thinking about Senegambia), if I could attract those thoughts and centre them all in myself, how like heaven would the world become to me. I heard a window open, and Zamorna’s voice called through the silence, ‘’Mina!’’ The next moment I had the pleasure of seeing you standing on the lawn, close under the very casement where the Duke sat leaning out, and you were allowing his hand to stray through your hair, and his lips -’

‘Lord Hartford!’ exclaimed Miss Laury, colouring to the eyes, ‘this is more than I can bear, I have not been angry yet. I thought it folly to rage at you, because you said you loved me, but what you have just said is like touching a nerve; it overpowers all reason; it is like a stinging taunt which I am under no obligation to endure from you. Every one knows what I am, but where is the woman in Africa who would have acted more wisely than I did if under the same circumstances she had been subject to the same temptations?’

‘That is’, returned Hartford, whose eye was now glittering with a desperate, reckless expression, ‘where is the woman in Africa who would have said no to young douro when amongst the romantic hills of Ellibank he has pressed his suit on some fine moonlight summer night, and the girl and boy have found themselves alone in a green dell, with here and there a tree to be their shade, far above the stars for their sentinels, and around, the night for their wide curtain’.

The wild bounding throb of Miss Laury’s heart was visible through her satin bodice – it was even audible as for a moment Hartford ceased his scoffing to note its effect. He was still close by her, and she did not move from him. She did not speak. The pallid lamplight shewed her lips white, her cheek bloodless.

He continued unrelentingly and bitterly: ‘In after times, doubtless, the woods of Hawkscliffe have witnessed many a tender scene, with the king of Angria has retired from the turmoil of business and the teasing of matrimony to love and leisure with his gentle mistress’.

‘Now, Hartford, we must part’, interrupted Miss Laury, ‘I see what opinion of me is, and it is very just, but not one which I willingly hear expressed. You have cut me to the heart. Good bye. I shall try to avoid seeing you for the future.’

She rose. Hartford did not attempt to detain her. She went out. As she closed the door, he heard the bursting convulsive gush of feelings which his taunts had brought up to agony.

Her absence left a blank. Suddenly a wish to recall, to soothe, to propitiate her rose in his mind. He strode to the door and opened it. There was a little hall or rather a wide passage without in which one large lamp was quietly burning. Nothing appeared here, nor on the staircase of low broad steps in which it terminated. She seemed to have vanished.

Lord Hartford’s hat and horseman’s cloak lay on the side slab. There remained no further attraction for him at the Lodge of Rivaulx. The delirious dream of rapture which had intoxicated his sense broke up and disappeared. His passionate, stern nature maddened under disappointment. He strode out into the black and frozen night burning in flames no ice could quench. He ordered and mounted his steed, and, dashing his spurs with harsh cruelty up to the rowels into the flanks of the noble warhorse which had borne him victoriously through the carnage of Westwood and Leyden, he dashed in furious gallop down the road to Rivaulx.

Miss Laury was sitting after breakfast in a small library. Her desk lay before her and two large ruled quartos filled with items and figures which she seemed to be comparing. Behind her chair stood a tall, well-made, soldierly young man with light hair. His dress was plain and gentlemanly; the epaulette on one shoulder alone indicated an official capacity. He watched with fixed look of attention the movements of the small finger which ascended in rapid calculation the long columns of accounts. It was strange to see the absorption of mind expressed in Miss Laury’s face, the gravity of her smooth white brw shaded with drooping curls, the scarcely perceptible and unsmiling movement of her lips, though those lips in their rosy sweetness seemed formed only for smiles. Edward Percy at his ledger could not have appeared more completely wrapt in the mysteries of practice and fractions. An hour or more elapsed in this employement, the room, meantime, continuing in profound silence broken only by an occasional observation addressed by Miss Laury to the gentlemen behind her cncerning the legitimacy of some item or the absence of some stray farthing wanted to complete the accuracy of the sum total. In this balancing of the books she displayed a most businesslike sharpness and strictness. The slightest fault was detected and remarked on in few words but with a quick searching glance. However, the accountant had evidently been accustomed to her surveillance, for on the whole his books were a specimen of arithmetical correctness.

‘Very well’, said Miss Laury, as she closd the volumes. ‘Your accounts do you credit, Mr. O’Neill. You may tell his Grace that all is quite right. Your memoranda tally with my own exactly.’

Mr. O’Neill bowed. ‘Thank you, madam. This will bear me out against Lord Hartford. His lordship lectured me severely last time he came to inspect Fort Adrian’.

‘What about?’ asked Miss Laury turning aside her face to hide the deepening of colour which overspread it at the mention of Lord Hartford’s name.

‘I can hardly tell you, madam, but his lordship was in a savage temper. Nothing would please him. He found fault with everything and everybody. I thought he scarcely appeared himself, and that has been the opinion of many lately’.

Miss Laury gently shook her head. ‘You should not say so, Ryan’, she replied in a soft tone of reproof. ‘Lord Hartford has a great many things to think about, and he is naturally rather stern. You ought to bear with his tempers’.

‘Necessity has no law, madam’, replied Mr. O’Neill with a smile, ‘and I must bear with them, but his lordship is not a popular man in the army. He orders the lash so unsparingly. We like the Earl of Arundel ten times better’.

‘Ah’, said Miss Laury smiling, ‘you and I are Westerns, Mr. O’Neill – Irish – and we favour our countrymen. But Hartford is a gallant commander. His men can always trust him. Do not let us be partial’.

Mr O’Neill bowed in deference to her opinion, but smiled at the same time, as if he doubted its justice. Taking up his books, he seemed about to leave the room. Before he did so, however, he turned and said: ‘The Duke wished me to inform you, madam, that he would probably be here about four or five o’clock in the afternoon’.

‘Today?’ asked Miss Laury in an accent of surprise.

‘Yes, madam’.

She mused a moment, then said quickly, ‘Very well, sir.’

Mr. O’Neill now took his leave with another low and respectful obeisance. Miss Laury returned it with a slight abstracted bow. Her thoughts were all caught up and hurried away by that last communication. For a long time after the door had closed she sat with her head on her hand, lost in a tumultuous flush of ideas - anticipations awakened by that simple sentence, ‘The Duke will be here today’.

The striking of a timepiece roused her. She remembered that twenty tasks awaited her direction. Always active, always employed, it was not her custom to waste many hours in dreaming. She rose, closed her desk, and left the quiet library for busier scenes.

Four o’clock came, and Miss Laury’s foot was heard on the stair case descending from her chamber. She crossed the large light passagew – such an apparition of feminine elegance and beauty! She had dressed herself splendidly. The robe of black satin became at once her slender form, which it enveloped in full and shining folds, and her bright blooming complexion, which it set off by the contrast of colour. Glittering through her curls, there was a band of fine diamonds, and drops of the same pure gems trembled from her small, delicate ears. These ornaments, so regal in their nature, had been the gift of royalty, and were worn now chiefly for the associations of soft and happy moments which their gleam might be supposed to convey.

She entered her drawing room and stood by the window. From thence appeared one glimpse of the highroad visible through the thickening shades of Rivaulx. Even that was now almost concealed by the frozen mist in which the approach of twilight was wrapped. All was very quiet both in the house and in the woods. A carriage drew near. She heard the sound. She saw it shoot through the fog; but it was not Zamorna. No; the driving was neither the driving of Jehu the son of Nimshi, nor that of Jehu’s postillions. She had not gazed a minute before her experienced eye discerned that there was something wrong with the horses. The harness had got entangled or they were frightened. The coachman had lost command over them: they were plunging violently.

She rang the bell. A servant entered. She ordered immediate assistance to be despatched to that carriage on the road. Two grooms presently hurried down the drive to execute her command, but before they could reach the spot, one of the horses , in its gambols, had slipped on the icy road and fallen. The others grew more unmanageable, and presently the carriage lay overturned on the radside. One of Miss Laury’s messengers came back. She threw up the window that she might communicate with him more readily.

‘Any accident?’ she asked. ‘Anybody hurt?’

‘I hope not much, madam’.

‘Who is in the carriage?’

‘Only one lady, and she seems to have fainted. She looked very white when I opened the door. What is to be done, madam?’

Miss Laury, with Irish frankness, answered directly, ‘Bring them all into the house. Let the horses be taken into the stables. And the servants – how many are there?’

‘Three, Madam. Postillions grey and white; footman in plain clothes. Horses frightened at a drove of Sydenham oxen, they say: very spirited nags.’

‘Well, you have my orders: bring the lady in directly, and make the others comfortable.’

‘Yes, madam’.

The groom touched his hat and departed. Miss Laury shut her window. It was very cold. Not many minutes elapsed before the lady in the arms of her own servants was slowly brought up the lawn and ushered into the drawing room.

‘Lay her on the sofa’, said Miss Laury.

She was obeyed. The lady’s travelling cloak was carefully removed, and a thin figure became apparent in a dark silk dress. The cushions of down scarcely sank under the pressure, it was so light.

Her swoon was now passing off. The genial warmth of the fire which shone full on her revived her. Opening her eyes, she looked up at Miss Laury’’ face who was bending close over her and wetting her lips with some cordial. Recognising a stranger, she shyly turned her glance aside and asked for her servants.

‘They are in the house, madam, and perfectly safe.But you cannot pursue your journey at present; the carriage is much broken.’

The lady lay silent. She looked keenly round the room and seeing the perfect elegance of its arrangement, the cheerful and tranquil glow of its hearthlight, she appeared to grow more composed. Turning a little on the cushions which supported her, and by no means looking at Miss Laury, but straight the other way, she said, ‘To whom am I indebted for this kindness? Where am I?’

‘In a hospitable country, madam. The Angrians never turn their backs on strangers.’

‘I know I am in Angria’ she said quickly, ‘but where? What is the name of the house? Who are you?’

‘Miss Laury coloured slightly. Iat seemed as if there was some undefined reluctance to give her real name that she knew was widely celebrated - too widely. Most likely the lady would turn from her in contempt if she heard it, and Miss Laury felt she could not bear that.

‘I am only the housekeeper’, she said. ‘This is a shooting-lodge belonging to a great Angrian proprietor’.

‘Who?’asked the lady, who was not to be put off by indirect answers.

Again Miss Laury hesitated. For her life she could not have said ‘His Grace the Duke of Zamorna’. She replied hastily, ‘A gentleman of Western extraction, a distant branch of the freat Pakenhams, so at least the family records say, but they have been long naturalised in the East’.

‘I never heard of them’, replied the lady. ‘Pakenham!that is not an Angrian name?’

‘Perhaps, madam, you are not particularly acquainted with this part of the country?’

‘I know Hawkscliffe’, said the lady, ‘and your house is on the very borders, within the royal liberties, is it not?’

‘Yes, madam, it stood there before the Great Duke bought up the forest-manor, and his Majesty allowed my master to retain this lodge and the privilege of sporting in the chase’’

‘Well, and you are Mr. Pakenham’s housekeeper?’

‘Yes, madam.’

The lady surveyed Miss Laury with another furtive side-glance of her large majestic eyes. Those eyes lingered upon diamond earrings, the bandeau of brilliants that flashed from between the clusters of raven curls, then passed over the sweet face, the exquisite figure of the young housekeeper, and finally were reverted to the wall with an expression that spoke volumes.

Miss Laury could have torn the dazzling pendants from her ears. She was bitterly stung. ‘Everybody knows me’, she said to herself. ‘ ‘’Mistress’’, I suppose, is branded on my brow’.

In her turn she gazed on her guest. The lady was but a young creature, though so high and commanding in her demeanour. She had very small and feminine features, handsome eyes, a neck of delicate curve, and fair, graceful little snowy aristocratic hands, and sandalled feet to match. It would have been difficoult to tell her rank by her dress. None of those dazzling witnesses appeared which had betrayed Miss Laury. Any gentleman’s wife might have worn the grown of dark-blue silk, the tinted gloves of Parisian kid, and the fairy sandals of black satin in which she was attired.

‘May I have a room to myself?’ she asked, again turning her eyes with something like a smile toward Miss Laury.

‘Certainly, madam, I wish to make you comfortable. Can you walk upstairs?’

‘Oh, yes!’

She rose from the couch, and, leaning on Miss Laury’s offered arm in a way that showed she had been used to that sort of support, they both glided from the room. Having seen her fair but somewhat haughty guest carefully laid on a stately crimson bed in a quiet and spacious chamber, having seen her head sink (with all her curls) onto the pillow of down, her larfe shy eyes close under their smooth eyelids, and her little slender hands fold on her breast in an attitude of perfect repose, Miss Laury prepared to leave her.

‘Come back a moment’, she said. She was obeyed – there was something in the tone of her voice which exacted obedience. ‘I don’t know who you are’, she said, ‘but I am very much obliged to you for your kindness. If my manners are displeasing, forgive me. I mean no incivility. I suppose you will wish to know my name: it is Mrs. Irving. My husband is a minister in the northern kirk; I come from Sneachiesland. Now you may go!’

Miss Laury did go. Mrs Irving had testified incredulity respecting her story, and now she reciprocated that incredulity. Both ladies were lost in their own mystification.

Five o’clock now struck. It was nearly dark. A servant with a taper was lighting up the chandeliers in the large dining room, where a table spread for dinner received the kindling lamplight upon a starry from a splendid sideboard, all arranged in readiness to receive the great, the expected guest.

Tolerably punctual in keeping an appointment when he means to keep it at all, Zamorna entered the house as the fairylike voice of a musical clock in the passage struck out its symphony to the pendulum. The opening of the front door, a bitter rush of the nightwind, and then the sudden close and the step advancing forwards were the signals of his arrival.

Miss Laury was in the dining room looking round and giving the last touch to all things. She just met her master as she entered. His cold lip pressed to her forehead and his colder hand clasping hers brought the sensation which it was her custom of weeks and months to wait for, and to consider, when attained, as the ample recompense for all delay, all toil, all suffering.

‘I am frozen, Mina’, said he. ‘I came on horseback for the last four miles, and the night is like Canada’.

Chafing his icy hand to animation between her own own warm, supple palms, she answered by the speechless but expressive look of joy, satisfaction, idolatry, which filled and overflowed her eyes.

‘What can I do for you, my lord?’ were her first words as he stood by the fire rubbing his hands cheerily over the blaze. He laughed.

‘Put your arms round my neck, Mina, and kiss my cheek as warm and blooming as your own.’

If Mina Laury had been Mina Wellesley she would have done so, and it gave her a pang to resist the impulse that urged her to take him at his word, but she put it by and only diffidently drew near the armchair into which he had now thrown himself and began to smooth and separate the curls which matted on his temples. She noticed as the first smile of salutation subsided a gloom succeded on her master’s brow, which, however he spoke or laughed, afterwards, remained a settled characteristic of his countenance.

‘What visitors are in the house?’ he asked; ‘I saw the groom rubbing down four black horses before the stables as I came in. They are not of the Hawkscliffe stud, I think?’

‘No, my lord. A carriage was overturned at the lawn gates about an hour since, and, as the lady who was in it was taken out insensible, I ordered her to be brought up here and her servants accomodated for the night’.

‘And do you know who the lady is?’ continued his Grace, ‘The horses are good – first rate’.

‘She says her name is Mrs Irving, and that she is the wife of a Presbyterian minister in the north, but –‘

‘You hardly believe her?’ interrupted the Duke.

‘No’, returned Miss Laury, ‘I must say I took her for a lady of rank. She has something highly aristocratic about her manners and aspect, and she appeared to know a good deal about Angria’.

‘What is she like?’ asked Zamorna. ‘Young or old, handsome or ugly?’

‘She is young, slender, not so tall as I am, and, I should say, rather elegant than handsome, very pale, cold in her demeanour. She has a small mouth and chin, and a fair neck.’

‘Humph! A trifle like Lady Stuatville’, replied his Majesty. ‘I should not wonder if it is the Countess, but I’ll know. Perhaps you did not say to whom the house belonged, Mina?’

‘I said’, replied Mina, smiling, ‘that the owner of the house was a great Angrian proprietor, a lineal descendant of the Western Pakenhams, and that I was his housekeeper’.

‘Very good! She would not believe you. You look like an Angrian country gentleman’s Dolly! Give me your hand, my girl. You are not as old as I am.’

‘Yes, my lord Duke, I was born on the same day, an hour after your Grace’.

‘So I have heard, but it must be a mistake. You don’t look twenty, and I am twenty-five. My beautiful Western – what eyes! Look at me, Mina, straight, and don’t blush’.

Mina tried to look but she could not do it without blushing. She coloured to the temples.

‘Pshaw’ said his Grace, pushing her away. ‘Pretending to be modest! My acquaintance of ten years cannot meet my eyes unshrinkingly. Have you lost that ring I once gave you, Mina?’

‘Whar ring, my lord? You have given me many’

‘That which I said had the essence of your whole heart and mind engraven in the stone as a motto’.

‘Fidelity?’ asked Miss Laury, and she held out her hand with a graven emerald on the forefinger.

‘Right’ was the reply; ‘It is your motto still?’ And with one of his hungry jealous glances, he seemed trying to read conscience. Miss Laury at once saw the late transactions were not a secret confined between herself and Lord Hartford. She saw His Grace was unhinged and strongly inclined to be savage. She stood and watched him with a sad fearful gaze.

‘Well’, she said, turning away after a long pause, ‘if your Grace is angry with me I’ve very little to care about in this world.’

The entrance of the servants with the dinner prevented Zamorna’s answer. As he took his place at the head of the table, he said to the man who stood behind him: ‘Give Mr Pakenham’s compliments to Mrs Irving and say that he will be happy to see her at his table if she will honour him so far as to be present there’.

The footman vanished. He returned in five minutes.

‘Mrs Irving is too much tired to avail herself of Mr Pakenham’s kind invitation at present, but she will be happy to join him at tea’.

‘Very well’, said Zamorna, then looking round, ‘where is Miss Laury?’

Mina was in the act of gliding from the room, but she stopped mechanically at his call.

‘Am i to dine alone?’ he asked.

‘Does your Grace wish me to attend you?’

He answered by rising and leading her to her seat. He then resumed his own and dinner commenced. It was not till after the cloth was withdrawn and the servants had retired that the Duke, whilst he sipped his single glass of champagne, recommenced the conversation he had before so unpleasantly entered upon.

‘Come here, my girl’, he said, drawing a chair close to his side.

Mina never delayed, never hesitated, through bashfulness or any other feeling, to comply with his orders.

‘Now’, he continued, leaning his head towards her and placing his hand on her shoulder, ‘are you happy, Mina? Do you want anything?’

‘Nothing, my lord’.

She spoke truly; all that was capable of yielding her happiness on this side of Eternity was at that moment within her reach. The room was full of calm. The lamps burnt as if they were listening. The fire sent up no flickering flame, but diffused a broad, still, glowing light over all the spacious saloon. Zamorna touched her. His form and features filled her eye, his voice her ear, his presence her whole heart. She was soothed to perfect happiness.

‘My Fidelity!’ pursued that musical voice. ‘If thou hast any favour to ask, now is the time. I’m all concession, as sweet as honey, as yielding as a lady’s glove. Come, Esther, what is thy petition? And thy request, even to the half of my kingdom, it shall be granted!’

‘Nothing’, again murmured Miss Laury. ‘oh, my lord, nothing. What can I want?’

‘Nothing’, he repeated. ‘What? No reward for ten years of faith and love and devotion; no reward for the companionship in six months’ exile; no recompense to the little hand that has so often smoothed my pillow in sickness, to the sweet lips that have many a time in cool and dewy health been pressed to a brow of fever, none to the dark Milesian eyes that once grew dim with watching through endless nights by my couch of delirium? Need I speak of the sweetness and fortitude that cheered sufferings known only to thee and me, Mina? Of the devotion that gave me bread when you wert dying with hunger – and scarcely more than a year since? For all this, and much more, must there be no reward?’

‘I have had it’, said Miss Laury. ‘I have it now’.

‘But’, continued the Duke, ‘what if I have devised something worthy of your acceptance? Look up now and listen to me’.

She did look up, but she speedily looked down again, Her master’s eye was insupportable. It burnt absolutely with infernal fire. ‘What is he going to say?’ murmured Miss Laury to herself. She trembled.

‘I say, love’, pursued the individual, drawing her a little closer to him, ‘I will give you as a reward a husband, don’t start now! – and that husband shall be a nobleman, and that nobleman is called Lord Hartford! Now, madam, stand up and let me look at you!’

He opened his arms, and Miss Laury sprang erect like a loosened bow.

‘Your Grace is anticipated’, she said. ‘That offer has been made me before. Lord Hartford did it himself three days ago’.

‘And what did you say, madam?’ Speak the truth now; subterfuge won’t avail you’.

‘What did I say, Zamorna? I don’t know; it little signifies; you have rewarded me, my lord Duke! But I cannt bear this - I feel sick’.

With a deep, short sob, she turned white and fell close by the Duke, her head against his foot.

This was the first time in her life that Mina Laury had fainted, but strong health availed nothing against the deadly struggle which convulsed every feeling of her nature when she heard her master’s announcement. She believed him to be perfectly sincere. She thought he was tired of her and she could not stand it.

I suppose Zamorna’s first feeling when she fell was horror, and his next, I am tolerably certain, was intense gratification. People say I am not in earnest when I abuse him, or else I would here insert half a page of deserved vituperation, deserved and heartfelt. As it is I will merely relate his conduct without note or comment.

He took a wax taper from the table and held it over Miss Laury. Here could be no dissimulation. She was white as marble and still as stone. In truth, then, she did intensely love him with a devotion that left no room in her thoughts for one shadow of an alien image. Do not think, reader, that Zamorna meant to be so generous as to bestow Miss Laury on Lord Hartford. No; trust him! He was but testing in his usual way the attachment which a thousand proofs daily given ought long ago to have convinced him was undying.

While he yet gazed she began to recover. Her eyelids stirred, and then slowly dawned from beneath, the large dark orbs that scarcely met his before they filled to overflowing with sorrow. Not a gleam of anger! Not a whisper of reproach! Her lips and eyes spoke together no other language than the simple words,

‘I cannot leave you!’

She rose feebly and with effort. The Duke streched out his hand to assist her. He held to her lips the scarcely tasted wineglass.

‘Mina’, he said. ‘are you collected enough to hear me?’

‘Yes, my lord’.

‘Then listen. I would much sooner give half – aye, the whole of my estate to Lord Hartfield, than yourself! What I said just now was only to try you’.

Miss Laury raised her eyes, sighed like one awaking from some hideous dream, but she could not speak.

‘Would I’, continued the Duke, ‘would I resign the possession of my first love to any hands but my own? I would far rather see her in her coffin; and I would lay you there as still, as white, and much more lifeless than you were stretched just now at my feet before I would, for threat, for entreaty, for purchase, give to another a glance of your eye or a smile from your lip. I know you adore me now, Mina, for you could not feign that agitation, and therefore I will tell you what proof I gave yesterday of my regard for you: Hartford mentioned your name in my presence, and I revenged the profanation by a shot which sent him to his bed little better than a corpse’.

Miss Laury shuddered, but so dark and profound are the mysteries of human nature ever allying vice with virtue, that I fear this bloody proof of her master’s love brought to her heart more rapture than horror. She said not a word, for now Zamorna’s arms were again folded around her, and again he was soothing her to tranquillity by endearments and caresses that far away removed all thought of the world, all past pangs of shame, all cold doubts , all weariness, all heartsickness resulting from hope long deferred. He had told her that she was his first love, and now she felt tempted to believe that she was likewise his only love. Strong-minded beyond her sex, active, energetic, and accomplished in all other points of view, here she was as weak as a child. She lost her identity; her life was swallowed up in that of another.

There came a knock at the door. Zamorna rose and opened it. His valet stood without.

‘Might I speak with your Grace in the anteroom?’ asked Monsieur Rosier in somewhat of a hurried tone. The Duke followed him out.

‘What do you want with me, sir? Anything the matter?’

‘Ahem!’ began Eugene, whose countenance expressed much more embarassment than is the usual characteristic of his dark, sharp physiognomy. ‘Ahem! My lord Duke, rather a curious spot of work, a complete conjuror’s trick if your Grace will allow me to say so’.

‘What do you mean, sir?’

‘Sacré! I hardly know. I must confess I felt a trifle stupefied when I saw it.’

‘Saw what? Speak plainly, Rosier!’

‘How your Grace is to act I can’t imagine’, replied the valet, ‘though indeed I have seen your Majesty double wonderfully well when the case appeared to me extremely embarassing, but this I really thought extra – I could not have dreamt!’

‘Speak to the point, Rosier, or – ’ Zamorna lifted his hand.

‘Mort de ma vie’ exclaimed Eugene, ‘I will tell your Grace all I know. I was walking carelessly through the passage about ten minutes since when I heard a step on the stairs, a light step as if of a very small foot. I turned, and there was a lady coming down. My lord, she was a lady!’

‘Well, sir, did you know her?’

‘I think if my eyes were not bewitched I did. I stood in the shade screened by a pillar and she passed very near without observing me. I saw her distinctly, and may I be d — d this very moment if it was not – ’

‘Who, sir?’

‘The Duchess!’

There was a pause which was closed by a clear and remarkable prolonged whistle from the Duke. He put both his hands into his pockets and took a leisurely turn through the rom.

‘You are sure, Eugene?’ he asked. ‘I know you dare not tell me a lie in such a matter because you have a laudable and natural regard to your proper carcass! Aye, it’s true enough, I’ll be sworn. Mrs Irving, the wife of a minister of the North! A satirical hit at my royal self! By G — d ! pale fair neck, little mouth and chin! Very good! I wish that same little mouth and chin were about a hundred miles off. What can have brought her? Anxiety about her invaluable husband – could not bear any longer without him – obliged to set off to see what he was doing. It’s as well that turnspit Rosier told me, however. If she had entered the room unexpectedly above five minutes since – God! I should have had no resource but to tie her hand and foot. It would have killed her! What the d — l shall I do?Must not be angry; she can’t do with that sort of thing just now. Talk softly, reprove her gently, swear black and white to my having no connection with MR Pakenham’s housekeeper’.

Ceasing his soliloquy, the duke turned again to his valet.

‘What room did Her aGrace go into?’

‘The drawing room, my lord, she is in there now’.

‘Well, say nothing about it, Rosier – on pain of sudden death! Do you hear me, sir?’

Rosier laid his hand on his heart, and Zamorna left the room to commence the operations.

Softly unclosing the drawing room door, he perceived a lady by the hearth. Her back was towards him, but there could be no mistake. The whole turn of form, the style of dress, the curled auburn head: all were attributes but of one person – of his own unique, haughty, jealous little Duchess. He closed the door as noiselessly as he had opened it and stole forwards. Her attention was absorbed in something, a book she had picked up. As he stood unobserved behind her he could see that her eye rested on the flyleaf, where was written in his own hand:

Holy St. Cyprian! Thy waters stray

With still and solemn tone:

And fast my bright hours pass away

And somewhat throws a shadow grey,

Even as twilight closes day,

Upon thy waters lone.

Farewell! If I might come again,

Young as I was and free,

And feel once more in every vein

The fire of that first passion reign

Which sorrow could not quench or pain,

I’d soon return to thee;

But while thy billows seek the main

That never more may be!

This was dated ‘Mornington, 1829’.

The Duchess felt a hand press her shoulder and she looked up. The force of attraction had its usual results and sh clung to what she saw.

‘Adrian! Adrian!’ was all her lips could utter.

‘Mary! Mary!’ replied the Duke, allowing her to hang about him: ‘Pretty doings! What brought you here? Are you running away, eloping in my absence?’

‘Adrian, why did you leave me? You said you would come back in a week, and it’s eight days since. I could not bear any longer. I have never slept nor rested since you left me. Do come home!’

‘So you actually have set off in search of a husband!’’said Zamorna, laughing heartily, ‘‘nd been overturned and obliged to take shelter in Pakenham’’ shooting-box!’

‘Why are you here, Adrian?’ inquired the Duchess who was far too much in earnest to join in his laugh. ‘Who is Pakenham?And who is that person who calls herself his housekeeper? And why do you let anybody live so near Hawskliffe without ever telling me?’

‘I forgot to tell you’ said his Grace. ‘I’ve other things to think about when those bright hazel eyes are looking up at me! As to Pakenham, to tell you the truth he’s a sort of left-hand cousin of your own, being natural son to the old Admiral, my uncle, in the South, and his housekeeper is his sister. Voilà tout. Kiss me now’.

The Duchess did kiss him, but it was with a heavy sigh; the cloud of jealous anxiety hung on her brow undissipated.

‘Adrian, my heart aches still. Why have you been staying so long in Angria? O, you don’t care for me! You have never thought how miserable I have been longing for your return, Adrian!’ She stopped and cried.

‘Mary, recollect yourself!’ said His Grace. ‘I cannot be always at your feet. You were not so weak when we were first married. You let me leave you often then without any jealous remonstrance’’

‘I did not know you as well at that time’, said Mary, ‘and if my mind is weakened, all its strength has gone away in tears and terrors for you. I am neither so handsome nor so chherful as I once was, but you ought to forgive my decay because you have caused it.’

‘Low spirits’, returned Zamorna,’looking on the dark side of matters! God bless me, the wicked is caught in his own net. I wish I could add ‘yet shall I withal escape’. Mary, never again reproach yourself with loss of beauty till I give the hint first. Believe me now; in that and every other respect you are just what I wish you to be. You cannot fade any more than marble can – at least not in my eyes. And as for your devotion and tenderness, though I chide its excess sometimes, because it wastes and bleaches you almost to a shadow, yet it formsthe very finest chain that binds me to you. Now cheer up! Tonight you shall go to Hawkscliffe; it is only five miles off. I cannot accompany you because I have some important business to transact with Pakenham which must not be deferred. Tomorrow, I will be at the castle before dawn. The carriage will be ready. I will put you in, myself beside you; off we go straight to Verdopolis, and there for the next three months I will tire you of my company, morning, noon, and night! Now what can I promise more? If you choose to be jealous of Henri Fernando, Baron of Etrei; or John, Duke of Fidena; or the fair Earl of Richton, who, as God is my witness, has been the only companion of my present peregrinations, why, I can’t help it. I must then take to soda-water and despair, or have myself petrified and carved into an Apollo for your dressing room. Lord! I get no credit with my virtue!’

By dint of lies and laughter the individual at last succeded in getting all things settled to his mind.

The Duchess went to Hawkscliffe that night; and, keeping his promise for once, he accompanied her to Verdopolis next morning.

Lord Hartford still lies between life and death. His passion is neither weakened by pain, piqued by rejection, nor cooled by absence. On the iron nerves of the man are graved an impression which nothing can efface. Warner curses him; Richton deplores.

For a long space of time, good bye, reader! I have done my best to please you; and though I know that through feebleness, dullness, and iteration my work terminates rather in failure than triumph, yet you are sure to forgive, for I have done my best.

C. Brontë

Haworth, January 17th, 1838