“A — well,” answered Vancouver, “I doubt you not — but had you been a father, Master Faynton, as I am — and of an only child — for such is mine; the fond, the only tie that hinds an old man to the earth, you would feel more bitterly the calamity, which he might think that some unblest chance might cast upon his own treasure.” The good old man paused, and was for some minutes engrossed by the thoughts that had risen within him.
For a short time, Chiverton vainly addressed his professions of kindness and affection to the unhappy girl, whom he held in his arms. Yet her fears at length subsided, and the spectators beheld her cast her arms around her brother’s neck, with all the eager confidence of a sister, while the sobs that burst from her were heard at that distance, as she poured forth her anguish in a flood of affectionate tears.
“You observe,” said the physician, addressing himself to Vancouver, “you observe in her that mutability, which is ever the attendant of the complaint under which she most unhappily labours. But now, trembling at her brother’s presence, and now again throwing her whole heart before him. So it is in this malady — the diseased mind, fraught with unnatural susceptibility, loses as quickly as it receives its impression; yielding, like the waters of the river, to the influence of the slightest object, and like them retaining no vestige of the cause that for a moment awakened their circling surface.”
“I perceive it — I perceive it,” returned the old Knight, “alas, that I should! But were it not better that she should be taken into the house — these night damps — I feel them myself — will little suit her weakened frame. Yet, I cry your mercy, Master Scymel, my memory played me the rogue, when I presumed to advise the lady’s physician.”
“It matters not — you say rightly — it will be better she go in. We will speak to Chiverton.”
The physician accordingly approached with Vancouver to Chiverton, and after a brief discourse, they entered the hall, bearing with them the unhappy Ellice.
“I know not,” thought Faynton, who remained, “what this may mean— ’tis strange I heard not before of this madness, if such there be, which in truth I do not overmuch credit. For my part, I will stir no further in it, without further information — an I do, nail me to a barn door to scare away the kites.”
CHAPTER VI.
THE VAULTS.
Bosola. — Other sins only speak — murder shrieks out.
The element of water moistens the earth,
But blood flies upwards and bedews the heavens.
Fer. — Cover her face; mine eyes dazzle; she died young.
WEBSTER.
IT was about an hour after Ellice had been conveyed to her chamber, when one of her attendants hastily entered the room. Ellice started from the bed on which she had thrown herself, in that heartless stupefaction, which so often succeeds violent sorrow, and which blunting for a while the edge of calamity, hangs a leaden weight on the heart, and throws a palsy over at once its hopes and its terrors.
“Who comes there?”
“Oh — madam,” the panting handmaiden stayed for breath.
“How now, Beatrice — what mean you?”
“Alas, madam — Master Prestwyche.”
“For heaven’s sake, speak quickly — what of him — he is dead — aye — thy voice — thy look —
“No, my lady, indeed, no — he is not dead, but—”
“Not dead, but — but what?”
“Those hideous — terrible vaults — they have confined him there.”
“Thank heaven, if that be all, a remedy may be found. Knowest thou in what vault they have placed him?”
“Yes, madam— ’tis Soy Higginson told me, and he was one that took him — and he made me promise to tell no—”
“Well — well — Beatrice, heed not what he said; what vault — what vault I ask thee, wench?”
“Dear my Lady, I don’t know, but that Soy says it’s under the great elm in the garden, and that it’s deep down — oh, such a frightful place, my Lady! — they took him by an opening in the rock that looks to the river.”
“To the river — ah! — Beatrice, what is’t o’clock?”
“’Tis past nine, my Lady.”
“Where is my brother? — cruel brother,” added Ellice, and she sighed a comment on the epithet—” and so soon to change from what he was — so kind he was wont to be.”
“He is with Sir Gamelyn and Master Scymel.”
“Well — well: raise the tapestry in that corner, Beatrice, and look an thou canst find a bunch of keys.”
Ellice advanced to the casement of her chamber. The moon was up, and beaming on the river.
“I have loved thee, thou fair moon: — yet, I would thou hadst slept to-night. It may be I shall not see thee again — thou wilt shine on the flowers that shall bloom on my grave — Alas! she may well claim flowers when dead, for whom no garland blooms whilst living. Hast thou found the keys, Beatrice?”
“I have them here, madam — they are terribly rusty.”
“Dost thou think, Beatrice, thou darest go through the vaults?”
“The vaults, my lady! St. Mary bless me! — go into the vaults, where nobody dare go, even in the day, except that Mahmood Bali, and some of those ruffian fellows that can meet nought as bad as themselves — at night, and alone — and—”
“No, Beatrice, no,” replied Ellice with a faint smile, “not alone, but yet with no better companionship than I can afford.”
“Worse and worse, my lady! — you go there! you must not, indeed you must not; why, they say the place is haunted, and I don’t know what, and — but, indeed, my lady, pardon me, but you shall not go.”
“Well, well, Beatrice, be quiet — we will not go — and now leave me, my good girl, and if thou hearest more let me know.”
“Surely, my lady.”
“Stay — knowest thou where Janet is?”
“Old Misseltoe, the steward, said even now, that she was employed on some errand for the lady — Sir Gamelyn’s daughter.”
“Enough: thou may’st go— ’tis a strange time too for her to be absent — I must then perform my purpose alone. Heaven grant me aid!”
Ellice bolted the door of her chamber, cast an anxious glance around, and took up the ponderous keys. Her hand trembled, and a faint shudder for a moment passed over her frame.
“How is this,” thought she, “that my boasted resolution should thus fail me in the hour of trial, when I have most need of support — thus trifling — thus weak beyond a woman’s weakness. Beyond a woman’s weakness! oh, how many of my sex have endured, without a sigh or a tear, the worst realities of evil; have suffered and died for those they loved; and shall Ellice Chiverton start from encountering a dark cellar, for him who has risked — good heaven, it may be, has lost his life for her sake — ungrateful girl! even now the last blood of life — now heaven protect me!”
She took from an open cabinet a small box, and snatching up the keys and a lamp, pushed aside a part of the arras, the removal of which disclosed a narrow door. It yielded to her hand, and she passed rapidly down a long and steep flight of stairs. They terminated in a narrow quadrangle, from which external light was wholly excluded. There was a door in one of the walls, and Ellice was examining the keys, when she perceived the passage was open. The door had decayed and dropped from its hinges, and leaned against the wall obliquely, leaving a sufficient space for her passing. She glided through the opening, and entered the adjoining vault.
It was lofty and spacious. A massive pillar, rising in the centre of the place, met and supported the arched and groined roof, the nitrous exudations from which hung in dripping and glittering stalactites. To the pillar were affixed iron staples, from some of which hung chains, and the stone itself, carved with many initials, presented a melancholy record of the lingering occupations of suffering wretches. Subsequently, the place seemed to have been destined to kindlier purposes, for along one side were ranged huge barrels, once full with liquid hoards, hut now broken and decayed. No
trace could be detected, from which it might be inferred, that human footsteps had there interrupted the solitude of long years.
Ellice paused and listened. The strength and closeness of the masonry seemed impervious to sounds from the mansion above, and in the dismal chamber itself the ear met no noise, save the monotony of the condensed damp that streamed down the walls, and splashed in heavy drops from the roof. She sought an outlet and was not long in discovering a door, the lock of which yielded with difficulty to one of the keys she bore. She passed to the next chamber, the next, and the next. They differed little from the first. The same massive and gloomy architecture, the same appearance of desolation, and the same cold and dripping dews were found in each. On leaving the last of these, Ellice found herself in a low passage. It was hewn in the rock, and she was aware that she had passed from under the limits of the hall, and that the place of her destination was near. Through a crevice of the rock she heard the sullen noise of the waters as the river rolled by. She hastened on till her progress was interrupted by another door. She stopped, her heart throbbed violently — her wearied limbs trembled beneath her, and the doubting anxiety that filled her breast, nigh deprived her of the power of motion.
She recovered from the agitation that possessed her, and knocked at the door. No answer was returned. A dull reverberation along the passage, the voice of the awakened echoes, alone replied. She repeated the knock again and again, and heard again the hollow answer of the echo. Other sound there was none.
“He speaks not,” said Ellice inwardly, “he will speak no more. His heart is cold, and mine, I feel, will not long survive. Yet, the last tribute of affection, Ellice Chiverton may yet pay. I will visit his cold corse, and take a last look of him, who has loved but too well for himself and me. And then — I would that the same fate might reach me too: that stretched by his, my lifeless form might attest the depth of a woman’s suffering, of a woman’s love.”
It was long ere the lock of the prison door yielded to the key which Ellice applied to it. At length it opened; she stepped on firmly, for in the belief of his death, calamity had done its worst. There is a degree of sorrow, when it ceases to indicate itself by the outward and visible sign, and such was hers. No shudder, no tear, not the shaking of the hand, or the light quiver of the lip had betrayed, had there been any to watch, the inward working of the spirit.
The gloomy chamber into which Ellice entered, bore a near resemblance to those she had already traversed. The damp exhalations with which it was filled, obscured the light of the lamp, whose glimmering fight hardly sufficed to direct her to a corner of the dungeon, where, stretched on a heap of straw, she discerned a figure, apparently lifeless. Her breathing stayed — her feet seemed rooted to the ground. With a violent effort she sprung forward — propped on her knees by the side of the motionless form. “It is he, he fives — holy Virgin, he lives!”
The object of her hasty exclamations, aroused by them from the faint slumber in which he had been wrapped, started from his wretched couch, and cast his awakened eyes on the form of pale beauty that knelt by him.
“My dream, yet here! and am I not awake— ’tis even more distinct — speak, I adjure thee? what art thou, that hauntest thus my sleeping and waking hours in that semblance?”
“And dost thou ask, who I am, Reginald? — am I so far forgotten in one brief hour? — for surely ’tis not more since we parted. But thou wert wounded, and —— —”
“Speak to me not of wounds — of hurts — I know none — I feel none, while thou art here. But say, how earnest thou hither? — has cruelty dared — but no, it could not — thou art not imprisoned in these dreary vaults?”
“Think not so harshly, Reginald; — but thy wounds — thy wounds? I must e’en, for want of a better, be thy leech; and wilt thou dispute with thy physician?”
She prevented his reply, and opening the box she had brought with her, took thence the materials of her simple surgery. She bound up her lover’s hurts, none of which were of much import, for Ellice, like many of the ladies of her time, whose residence was solitary and remote from the conveniences of a populous town, had acquired a practical skill in an art, in which few females of this day would desire to be versed; and though the arrival of Scymel at the hall had abridged her sphere of practice in the art chirurgical, she had continued to minister aid to the sufferings of the females of the mansion, and the few and humble tenants of the soil who dwelt in the vicinity of Chiverton Hall, and who found in her gentle and winning kindness, that balm, which all the contents of the physician’s laboratory had failed to furnish.
She sprung from her kneeling posture as she completed her labours. Prestwyche, too, arose from the wretched couch on which he lay.
“Your hurts,” said she “will not now prevent your gaining a hamlet, that lies west of this place — some two miles hence. Clinage they call the place.”
“I know it well, but—”
“Stay a moment; you will there find an old man, Bennet Walters. Shew him this ring, he will furnish you with a horse, and whatever you need.”
“But whereunto, my Ellice, tends your kindness? To what purpose were it to me to have at command a king’s stud, unless this gem had magic powers, and could bid the iron bolts fly back, and leave open my passage from this dungeon?”
“The ring cannot do this, but I can.” She raised the keys from the ground where she had laid them. “Here are the means of liberty — in a moment you shall be free.”
She moved, as she spoke, towards the farther door of the apartment, but the hand of Prestwyche arrested her progress.
“Forgive my interruption, but say before you give liberty to the captive, will you accompany the gift with that, without which it were worthless and unpalatable?”
“I understand you not — our time is brief — my absence may be discovered, and—”
“In a word — do you propose to me to fly alone?”
“Alone, Reginald? how else? — but haste.”
“Then my habitation is here — I stir not hence. The dungeon your presence has brightened, shall be sweeter than the air of freedom unshared by you.”
“Why, now thou ravest — or thou, or I am sadly changed. Ellice Chiverton did think she was loved by one, who was worthy alike to give and to receive affection; one whose manly resolution could arm him with the armour of endurance, and the unstained heraldry of whose shield should be like his heart, free from aught of waverings or hesitation. I have mistaken — I took you for another.”
“I have not deserved this, Ellice. I ask no witness but your own heart, to tell you that could danger, could suffering win you, they were in my regard but a feather’s weight. But fate hath so — or seems so to conspire to blast my hopes, and dash from my grasp the guerdon that seems just yielded to me, that by heaven, now that I see you thus beside me, and hear that voice once more, I dare not, will not part from you.”
“Forgive me, if I spoke harshly. I doubt not your disinterested and generous affection. But how wouldst thou serve thyself or me, by lingering in this dungeon? Thy flight, too, must be speedy — more speedy than could be were I thy companion. But hasten, my Reginald, the lamp’s flame trembles already — should it expire ere I accomplish my return, ‘twere ill for me — thou must away.”
The lamp, indeed, stood in need of trimming, and cast such a dubious and unstable light around, as added greatly to the gloom of the place. To an unacquainted eye, it would have been a fund of strange astonishment, to have gazed into the vault, whose extent seemed augmented by the dim glare that was insufficient to display the extremities of the chamber. And there, like a thing of a better sphere, descended to cheer and support exhausted mortality in its struggles with the ills of the earth, stood Ellice Chiverton by her fainting lover. Her features were placid, and lit with the sad sweet smile that was peculiar to them, and fraught with the mingled expression of a woman’s fondness, and a spirit’s purity, and all tempered and strengthened with the noble and unchanging fortitude, that lik
e the lofty elm, clothed in the tendrils and blossoms of the woodbine, lent dignity to the softer beauties of her nature. Her long dark hair streaming in waving clusters down her shoulders, seemed lost in the darkness, as if she had, indeed, been one of the “light creatures of the element,” who, her task of mercy fulfilled, was about to fade into the air, and float back to the fairy dwellings of her nativity.
Nor was there wanting in the demeanour of Prestwyche, something of the deep, ardent devotion, with which a sufferer might be supposed to regard the being we have imagined. As in spite of her words he yet lingered, he gazed on her with those looks of deep, though sad affection, that the heart never mistakes or doubts. They were not unreturned — it was the exchange, the wedding of the spirit, in an hour of suffering, but an hour, which they who have so known, would not barter for a world of less disturbed enjoyment.
She again urged his flight — he repeated his solicitations that it might not be alone. She replied to him gently, but firmly; he felt, but would not even to himself acknowledge, a conviction of the truth of her words.
“And now,” added Ellice, “thou hast oft in happier days, seemed to reproach me — nay — interrupt me not — thou hast done so, if not in words, yet in tones and looks as easy to be understood — that I have been, as thou deemed’st, too backward in acknowledging the feelings I have felt for thee. Thou didst wrong, Reginald — it is not in professions that a woman’s love is shewn. But I will tell thee now, for in a moment like this words may have free course — that never woman loved man better than Ellice Chiverton has loved thee. And by that love — by thine own — by all our mutual hopes — I do again conjure thee to fly; ’tis but madness to stay. Dost thou still linger? I have conjured thee by all that is dearest to me, and should be so to thee — wilt thou deny me?”
The blushes which on her avowal of her love had rushed into her cheeks, still mantled there as she ceased; there was a glowing earnestness in her tone, and manner, that would not be resisted. Prestwyche yielded to it.
The Works of William Harrison Ainsworth Page 13