Part 25 (1/2)

Sir Maurice Beevor informed her ladys.h.i.+p. How should she get rid of him?

In this wise. He was in love with Violet, let him marry her and be off; for Lord Ashdale was in love with his cousin too; and, of course, could not marry a young woman in her station of life. ”You have a chaplain on board,” says her ladys.h.i.+p to Captain Norman; ”let him attend to-night in the ruined chapel, marry Violet, and away with you to sea.” By this means she hoped to be quit of him forever.

But unfortunately the conversation had been overheard by Beevor, and reported to Ashdale. Ashdale determined to be at the chapel and carry off Violet; as for Beevor, he sent Gaussen to the chapel to kill both Ashdale and Norman; thus there would only be Lady Arundel between him and the t.i.tle.

Norman, in the meanwhile, who had been walking near the chapel, had just seen his worthy old friend, the priest, most barbarously murdered there.

Sir Maurice Beevor had set Gaussen upon him; his reverence was coming with the papers concerning Norman's birth, which Beevor wanted in order to extort money from the countess. Gaussen was, however, obliged to run before he got the papers; and the clergyman had time, before he died, to tell Norman the story, and give him the doc.u.ments, with which Norman sped off to the castle to have an interview with his mother.

He lays his white cloak and hat on the table, and begs to be left alone with her ladys.h.i.+p. Lord Ashdale, who is in the room, surlily quits it; but, going out, cunningly puts on Norman's cloak. ”It will be dark,”

says he, ”down at the chapel; Violet won't know me; and, egad! I'll run off with her!”

Norman has his interview. Her ladys.h.i.+p acknowledges him, for she cannot help it; but will not embrace him, love him, or have anything to do with him.

Away he goes to the chapel. His chaplain was there waiting to marry him to Violet, his boat was there to carry him on board his s.h.i.+p, and Violet was there, too.

”Norman,” says she, in the dark, ”dear Norman, I knew you by your white cloak; here I am.” And she and the man in a cloak go off to the inner chapel to be married.

There waits Master Gaussen; he has seized the chaplain and the boat's crew, and is just about to murder the man in the cloak, when--

NORMAN rushes in and cuts him down, much to the surprise of Miss, for she never suspected it was sly Ashdale who had come, as we have seen, disguised, and very nearly paid for his masquerading.

Ashdale is very grateful; but, when Norman persists in marrying Violet, he says--no, he shan't. He shall fight; he is a coward if he doesn't fight. Norman flings down his sword, and says he WON'T fight; and--

Lady Arundel, who has been at prayers all this time, rus.h.i.+ng in, says, ”Hold! this is your brother, Percy--your elder brother!” Here is some restiveness on Ashdale's part, but he finishes by embracing his brother.

Norman burns all the papers; vows he will never peach; reconciles himself with his mother; says he will go loser; but, having ordered his s.h.i.+p to ”veer” round to the chapel, orders it to veer back again, for he will pa.s.s the honeymoon at Arundel Castle.

As you have been pleased to ask my opinion, it strikes me that there are one or two very good notions in this plot. But the author does not fail, as he would modestly have us believe, from ignorance of stage-business; he seems to know too much, rather than too little, about the stage; to be too anxious to cram in effects, incidents, perplexities. There is the perplexity concerning Ashdale's murder, and Norman's murder, and the priest's murder, and the page's murder, and Gaussen's murder. There is the perplexity about the papers, and that about the hat and cloak, (a silly, foolish obstacle,) which only tantalize the spectator, and r.e.t.a.r.d the march of the drama's action: it is as if the author had said, ”I must have a new incident in every act, I must keep tickling the spectator perpetually, and never let him off until the fall of the curtain.”

The same disagreeable bustle and petty complication of intrigue you may remark in the author's drama of ”Richelieu.” ”The Lady of Lyons” was a much simpler and better wrought plot; the incidents following each other either not too swiftly or startlingly. In ”Richelieu,” it always seemed to me as if one heard doors perpetually clapping and banging; one was puzzled to follow the train of conversation, in the midst of the perpetual small noises that distracted one right and left.