Part 58 (1/2)
”Oh, no!” cried she, with contemptuous haughtiness; ”he is a man, and he knows how to pardon the excesses of love! Look around you, foolish boy, and see how many of our proudest lords have united their fates with women who not only loved them while their husbands lived, but left their homes and children to join their lovers! And what is there in me, a princess of the crowns of Scotland and of Norway--a woman who has had the n.o.bles of both kingdoms at her feet, and frowned upon them all-that I should now be contemned? Is the ingrate for whom alone I ever felt a wish of love--is he to despise me for my pa.s.sion? You mistake, Edwin; you know not the heart of man.”
”Not of the common race of men, perhaps,” replied he; ”but certainly that of Sir William Wallace. Purity and he are too sincerely one for personal vanity to blind his eyes to the deformity of the pa.s.sion you describe. And mean as I am when compared with him, I must aver that, were a married woman to love me, and seek to excuse her frailty, I should see alone her contempt of the principles which are the only impregnable bulwarks of innocence, and shrink from her as I would from pollution.”
”Then you declare yourself my enemy, Edwin?”
”No,” replied he; ”I speak to you as a son; but if you are determined to avow to Sir William Wallace what you have revealed to me, I shall not even observe on what has pa.s.sed, but leave you, unhappy lady, to the pangs I would have spared you.”
He rose. Lady Mar wrung her hands in a paroxysm of conviction that what he said was true.
”Then, Edwin, I must despair?”
He looked at her with pity.
”Could you abhor the dereliction that your soul has thus made from duty, and leave him, whom your unwidowed wishes now pursue, to seek you; then I should say that you might be happy; for penitence appeases G.o.d, and shall it not find grace with man?”
”Blessed Edwin,” cried she, falling on his neck, and kissing him; ”whisper but my penitence to Wallace; teach him to think I hate myself.
Oh, make me that in his eyes which you would wish, and I will adore you on my knees?”
The door opened at this moment, and Lord Ruthven entered. The tears she was profusely shedding on the bosom of his son, he attributed to some conversation she might be holding respecting her deceased lord, and taking her hand, he told her he came to propose her immediate removal from the scene of so many horrors.
”My dear sister,” said he, ”I will attend you as far as Perth. After that, Edwin shall be your guard to Braemar, and my Janet will stay with you there till time has softened your griefs.”
Lady Mar looked at him.
”And where will be Sir William Wallace?”
”Here,” answered Ruthven. ”Some considerations, consequent to his receiving the French dispatches, will hold him some time longer south of the Forth.”
Lady Mar shook her head doubtfully, and reminded him that the chiefs in the citadel had withheld the dispatches.
Lord Ruthven then informed her that, unknown to Wallace, Lord Loch-awe had summoned the most powerful of his friends then near Stirling, and attended by them, was carried on a littler into the citadel. It entered the council-hall, and from that bed of honorable wounds, he threatened the a.s.sembly with instant vengeance from his troops without, unless they would immediately swear fealty to Wallace, and compel Badenoch to give up the French dispatches. Violent tumults were the consequence; but Loch-awe's litter being guarded by a double rank of armed chieftains, and the keep being hemmed round by his men prepared to put to the sword every Scot hostile to the proposition of their lord, the insurgents at last complied, and forced Badenoch to relinquish the royal packet. This effected, Loch-awe and his train returned to the monastery. Wallace refused to resume the dignity he had resigned, the reinvestment of which had been extorted from the lords in the citadel.
”No,” said he to Loch-awe; ”it is indeed time that I should sink into shades where I cannot be found, since I am become a word of contention amongst my countrymen.”
”He was not to be shaken,” continued Ruthven; ”but seeing matter in the French dispatches that ought to be answered without delay, he yet remains a few days at Falkirk.”
”Then we will await him here,” cried the countess.
”That cannot be,” answered Ruthven, ”it would be against ecclesiastical law to detain the sacred dead so long from the grave. Wallace will doubtless visit Braemar, therefore I advise that to-morrow you leave Falkirk.”
Edwin seconded this counsel; and fearing to make further opposition, she silently acquiesced. But her spirit was not so quiescent. At night when she went to her cell, her ever wakeful fancy aroused a thousand images of alarm. She remembered the vow that Wallace had made to seek Helen. He had already given up the regency--an office which might have detained him from such a pursuit; and might not a pa.s.sion softer than indignation against the ungrateful chieftains have dictated this act? ”Should he love Helen, what is there not to fear?” cried she; ”and should he meet her, I am undone?” Racked by jealousy, and goaded by contradicting expectations, she rose from her bed and paced the room in wild disorder. One moment she strained her mind to recollect every gracious look or word from him, and then her imagination glowed with antic.i.p.ated delight. Again she thought of his address to Helen, of his vow in her favor, and she was driven to despair. All Edwin's kind admonitions were forgotten; pa.s.sion alone was awake; and forgetful of her rank and s.e.x, and of her situation, she determined to see Wallace, and appeal to his heart for the last time.
She knew that he slept in an apartment at the other end of the monastery; and that she might pa.s.s thither un.o.bserved, she glided into an opposite cell belonging to a sick monk, and stealing away his cloak, threw it over her, and hurried along the cloisters.
The chapel doors were open. In pa.s.sing, she saw the bier of her lord awaiting the hour of its removal, surrounded by priests, singing anthems for the repose of his soul. No tender recollections, no remorse, knocked at the heart of Lady mar as she sped along. Abandoned all to thoughts of Wallace, she felt not that she had a soul; she acknowledged not that she had a hope, but what centered in the smiles of the man she was hastening to seek.
His door was fastened with a latch; she gently opened it, and found herself in his chamber. She trembled--she scarcely breathed; she looked around; she approached his bed--but he was not there.
Disappointment palsied her heart, and she sunk upon a chair. ”Am I betrayed?” said she to herself: ”Has that youthful hypocrite warned him hence?” And then again she thought, ”But how should Edwin guess that I should venture here? Oh, no, my cruel stars alone are against me!”
She now determined to await his return, and nearly three hours she had pa.s.sed there, enduring all the torments of guilt and misery; but he appeared not. At last, hearing the matinbell, she started up, fearful that her maids might discover her absence. Compelled by some regard to reputation, with an unwilling mind she left the shrine of her idolatry, and once more crossed the cloisters. While again drawing toward the chapel, she saw Wallace himself issue from the door, supporting on his bosom the fainting head of Lady Ruthven. Edwin followed them. Lady Mar pulled the monk's cowl over her face and withdrew behind a pillar.