Part 1 (2/2)
The tears which rose in her eyes were her only remonstrance, and her husband stood regarding her for some minutes in silence, but with the most apparent signs of mental agitation on his countenance.
”Helen,” said he at length, in a low, earnest tone, ”Helen, thou wert worthy of a better fate than to be linked to the endurance of my waywardness; but G.o.d who sees thine unmurmuring patience, will give thee strength to meet thy destiny. Thou hast scarcely enough of womanly weakness in thee to shrink from idle terrors, or I might strive to appall thee,” he added faintly smiling, ”with a description of the gloom and discomfort of thine unknown northern mansion; but if thou art willing to bear with its scanty means of accommodation, as well as with thy husband's variable temper, come with him to the Cross.”
Helen longed to throw herself into his arms as in happier days, when he granted her pet.i.tion, but she had been more than once repulsed from his bosom, and she therefore contented herself with thanking him respectfully; and in another week, they became inmates of Greville Cross.
The evening whose stormy and endless commencement I have before described, was the fourth after her arrival in the North; and notwithstanding the anxiety she had felt for a change of habitation, she could not disguise from herself that there was an air of desolation, a general aspect of dreariness about her new abode which justified the description afforded by her husband. As she crossed the portal, a sensation of terror ill-defined, but painful and overwhelming, smote upon her heart, such as we feel in the presence of a secret enemy, and Lord Greville's increasing uneasiness and abstraction since he had returned to the mansion of his forefathers, did not tend to enliven its gloomy precincts. The wind beat wildly against the cas.e.m.e.nt of the apartment in which they sat, and which although named ”the lady's chamber,” afforded none of those feminine luxuries, which are now to be found in the most remote parts of England, in the dwellings of the n.o.ble and wealthy. By the side of a huge hearth, where the crackling and blazing logs imparted the only cheerful sound or sight in the apartment, in a richly-carved oaken chair emblazoned with the armorial bearings of his house, sat Lord Greville, lost in silent contemplation. A chased goblet of wine with which he occasionally moistened his lips, stood on a table beside him, on which an elegantly-fretted silver lamp was burning; and while it only emitted sufficient light to render the gloom of the s.p.a.cious chamber still more apparent, it threw a strong glare upon his expressive countenance and n.o.ble figure, and rendered conspicuous that richness of attire which the fas.h.i.+on of those stately days demanded from ”the magnates of the land;” and which we now only admire amid the mummeries of theatrical pageant, or on the glowing canvas of Vandyck.
His head rested on his hand, and while Lady Greville who was seated on an opposite couch, was apparently engrossed by the embroidery-frame over which she leant, his attention was equally occupied by his son, who stood at her knee, interrupting her progress by twining his little hands in the slender ringlets which profusely overhung her work, and by questions which betrayed the unsuspicious sportiveness of his age.
”Mother,” said the boy, ”are we to remain all winter in this ruinous den? Do you know Margaret says, that some of these northern sea winds will shake it down over our heads one stormy night; and that she would as soon lie under the ruins, as be buried alive in its walls. Now I must own I would rather return to Silsea, and visit my hawks, and Caesar, and--”
”Hus.h.!.+ sir, you prate something too wildly; nor do I wish to hear you repeat Margaret's idle observations.”
”But mother, I know you long yourself to walk once again in your own dear suns.h.i.+ny orangery?”
”My Hugh,” said Lady Greville without attending to his question, ”has Margaret shewn you the descent to the walk below the cliffs, and have you brought me the sh.e.l.ls you promised to gather?”
”How? with the spring tide beating the foot of the rocks, and the sea raging so furiously that the very gulls dared not take their delicious perch upon the waves. Tomorrow perhaps--”
”What now, my Hugh, afraid to venture? When I walked on the sands at noon, there was a bowshot spare.”
”No! mother, no, not afraid, not afraid to venture a fall, or meet a sprinkling of sea spray, and good truth I have enough to do with fears in doors, here in this grim old mansion, without--”
”Fears?”--
”Yes, fears, dear mother,” said the boy, looking archly round at his attendant, who waited in the back ground, and who vainly sought by signs to silence her unruly charge.
”Do you know that the figure of King Herod, cruel Herod, the murderer of his wife, and the slayer of the innocents, stalks down every night from the tapestry in my sleeping room and wanders through the galleries at midnight; and than the cross, where the three Jews were executed a long, long time ago, in the reign of King John I think; they say that it drops blood on the morning of the Holy Friday;--and then mother, and this is really true,” continued the child, changing from his playful manner to a tone of great earnestness, ”there is the figure of a lady in rich attire, but pale, very pale, who glides through the apartments--yes; Herbert and Richard and several of the serving men have seen it; and mistress Alice, poor old soul once was seen to address it, but she would allow no one to question her on the subject; and they say it was her doom, and that she must therefore die of her present sickness. Ay: 'twas in this very room too--the lady's chamber.”
”Boy,” interrupted Lord Greville sternly, ”if thou canst find no better subject for thy prate, than these unbecoming fooleries, be silent--Helen! why should you encourage his forwardness, and girlish love of babbling? Go hence, sirrah! take thyself to rest; and you, Margaret,” added he, turning angrily to the woman, ”remember that from this hour I hear no more insolent remarks, on any dwelling it may suit your betters to inhabit, nor of this imp's cowardly apprehensions.”
Margaret led her young charge from the room; who, however sad his heart at being thus abruptly dismissed, walked proud and erect with all the welling consciousness of wounded pride. Helen followed him to the door with her eyes; and when they fell again upon her work, they were too dim with tears to distinguish the colours of the flowers she was weaving.
Lord Greville had again relapsed into silent musing; and as she occasionally stole a glance towards him, she perceived traces of a severe mental struggle on his countenance; the muscles of his fine throat worked convulsively, his lips quivered, yet still he spoke not.
At length his eyes closed, and he seemed as if seeking to lose his own reflections in sleep.
”I will try the spell which drove the evil spirit from the mind of the King of Israel,” thought the sad and terrified wife; ”music hath often power to soothe the darkness of the soul;” and she tuned her lute, and brought forth the softest of its tones. At length her charm was successful; Lord Greville slept; and while she watched with all the intense anxiety of alarmed affection, the unquiet slumbers which distorted one of the finest countenances that sculptor or painter ever conceived, she affected to occupy herself with her instrument lest he should awake, and be displeased to find her attention fixed on himself.
With the sweetest notes of a ”voice ever soft and low, an excelling thing in woman,” she murmured the following song, which was recorded in her family to have been composed by her elder brother, on parting from a lady to whom he was attached, previous to embarkment on the expedition in which he fell, and to which it alludes:
Parte la nave Spiegan le vele Vento crudele Mi fa partir.
Addio Teresa, Teresa, addio!
Piacendo a Dio Ti rivedr.
Non pianger bella, Non pianger, No!-- Che al mio ritorno Ti sposer.
Il Capitano Mi chiama a bordo; Io faccio il sordo Per non partir!
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