The Children of the Abbey: A Tale. Regina Maria Roche
the old lady, she could not have seemed more shocked than she now did, at the unexpected and emaciated appearance of her young friend. With all the tenderness of a fond mother, she pressed his cold hands between her own, and seated him by the cheerful fire which blazed on her hearth, then procured him refreshments that, joined to her conversation, a little revived his spirits; yet, at this moment the recollection of the first interview he ever had with her, recurred with pain to his heart. “Our friends at Woodlawn, I hope,” cried he—he paused—but his eye expressed the inquiry his tongue was unable to make. “They are well and happy,” replied Mrs. Marlowe; “and you know, I suppose, of all that has lately happened there?” “No, I know nothing; I am as one awoke from the slumbers of the grave.” “Ere I inform you, then,” cried Mrs. Marlowe, “let me, my noble Oscar, express my approbation, my admiration of your conduct, of that disinterested nature which preferred the preservation of constancy to the splendid independency offered to your acceptance.” “What splendid independency did I refuse?” asked Oscar, wildly staring at her. “That which the general offered.” “The general!” “Yes, and appointed Colonel Belgrave to declare his intentions.” “Oh Heavens!” exclaimed Oscar, starting from his chair; “did the general indeed form such intentions, and has Belgrave then deceived me? He told me my attentions to Miss Honeywood were noticed and disliked! he filled my soul with unutterable anguish, and persuaded me to a false-hood which has plunged me into despair!” “He is a monster!” cried Mrs. Marlowe, “and you are a victim to his treachery.” “Oh no! I will fly to the general, and open my whole soul to him; at his feet I will declare the false ideas of honor which misled me; I shall obtain his forgiveness, and Adela will yet be mine.” “Alas! my child,” cried Mrs. Marlowe, stopping him as he was hurrying from the room, “it is now too late; Adela can never be yours; she is married, and married unto Belgrave.” Oscar staggered back a few paces, uttered a deep groan, and fell senseless at her feet. Mrs. Marlowe’s cries brought in his servant, as well as her own, to his assistance; he was laid upon a bed, but it was long ere he showed any signs of recovery; at length, opening his heavy eyes, he sighed deeply, and exclaimed, “she is lost to me forever!”
The servants were dismissed, and the tender-hearted Mrs. Marlowe knelt beside him. “Oh! my friend,” said she, “my heart sympathizes in your sorrow; but it is from your own fortitude, more than my sympathy, you must now derive resources of support.” “Oh, horrible! to know the cup of happiness was at my lips, and that it was my own hand dashed it from me.” “Such, alas!” said Mrs. Marlowe, sighing, as if touched at the moment with a similar pang of self-regret, “is the way-wardness of mortals; too often do they deprive themselves of the blessings of a bounteous Providence by their own folly and imprudence—oh! my friend, born as you were with a noble ingenuity of soul, never let that soul again be sullied by the smallest deviation from sincerity.” “Do not aggravate my sufferings,” said Oscar, “by dwelling on my error.” “No, I would sooner die than be guilty of such barbarity; but admonition never sinks so deeply on the heart as in the hour of trial. Young, amiable as you are, life teems, I doubt not, with various blessings to you—blessings which you will know how to value properly, for early disappointment is the nurse of wisdom.” “Alas!” exclaimed he, “what blessings?” “These, at least,” cried Mrs. Marlowe, “are in your own power—the peace, the happiness, which ever proceeds from a mind conscious of having discharged the incumbent duties of life, and patiently submitted to its trials.” “But do you think I will calmly submit to his baseness?” said Oscar, interrupting her. “No; Belgrave shall never triumph over me with impunity!” He started from the bed, and, rushing into the outer room, snatched his sword from the table on which he had flung it at his entrance. Mrs. Marlowe caught his arm. “Rash young man!” exclaimed she, “whither would you go—is it to scatter ruin and desolation around you? Suppose your vengeance was gratified, would that restore your happiness? Think you that Adela, the child of virtue and propriety, would ever notice the murderer of her husband, how unworthy, soever, that husband might be? Or that the old general, who so fondly planned your felicity, would forgive, if he could survive, the evils of his house, occasioned by you?” The sword dropped from the hand of the trembling Oscar. “I have been blameable,” cried he, “in allowing myself to be transported to such an effort of revenge; I forgot everything but that; and as to my own life, deprived of Adela, it appears so gloomy as to be scarcely worth preserving.”
Mrs. Marlowe seized this moment of yielding softness to advise and reason with him; her tears mingled with his, as she listened to his relation of Belgrave’s perfidy; tears augmented by reflecting that Adela, the darling of her care and affections, was also a victim to it. She convinced Oscar, however, that it would be prudent to confine the fatal secret to their own breasts; the agitation of his mind was too much for the weak state of his health; the fever returned, and he felt unable to quit the cottage; Mrs. Marlowe prepared a bed for him, trusting he would soon be able to remove, but she was disappointed; it was long ere Oscar could quit the bed of sickness; she watched over him with maternal tenderness, while he, like a blasted flower, seemed hastening to decay.
The general was stung to the soul by the rejection of his offer, which he thought would have inspired the soul of Oscar with rapture and gratitude; never had his pride been so severely wounded—never before had he felt humbled in his own eyes: his mortifying reflections the colonel soon found means to remove, by the most delicate flattery, and the most assiduous attention, assuring the general that his conduct merited not the censure, but the applause of the world. The sophistry which can reconcile us to ourselves is truly pleasing; the colonel gradually became a favorite, and when he insinuated his attachment for Adela, was assured he should have all the general’s interest with her. He was now more anxious than ever to have her advantageously settled; there was something so humiliating in the idea of her being rejected, that it drove him at times almost to madness: the colonel possessed all the advantages of fortune; but these weighed little in his favor with the general (whose notions we have already proved very disinterested), and much less with his daughter; on the first overture about him she requested the subject might be entirely dropped; the mention of love was extremely painful to her. Wounded by her disappointment in the severest manner, her heart required time to heal it; her feelings delicacy confined to her own bosom; but her languid eyes, and faded cheeks, denoted their poignancy. She avoided company, and was perpetually wandering through the romantic and solitary paths which she and Oscar had trod together; here more than ever she thought of him, and feared she had treated her poor companion unkindly; she saw him oppressed with sadness, and yet she had driven him from her by the repulsive coldness of her manner—a manner, too, which, from its being so suddenly assumed, could not fail of conveying an idea of her disappointment; this hurt her delicacy as much as her tenderness, and she would have given worlds, had she possessed them, to recall the time when she could have afforded consolation to Oscar, and convinced him that solely as a friend she regarded him. The colonel was not discouraged by her coldness; he was in the habit of conquering difficulties, and doubted not that he should overcome any she threw in his way; he sometimes, as if by chance, contrived to meet her in her rambles; his conversation was always amusing, and confined within the limits she had prescribed; but his eyes, by the tenderest expression, declared the pain he suffered from this proscription, and secretly pleased Adela, as it convinced her of the implicit deference he paid to her will.
Some weeks had elapsed since Oscar’s voluntary exile from Woodlawn, and sanguine as were the colonel’s hopes, he found without a stratagem they would not be realized, at least as soon as he expected: fertile in invention, he was not long in concerting one. He followed Adela one morning into the garden, and found her reading in the arbor; she laid aside the book at his entrance, and they chatted for some time on indifferent subjects. The colonel’s servant at last appeared with a large packet of letters, which he presented to his master, who, with a hesitating air, was about putting them into his pocket, when Adela prevented him:—"Make no ceremony, colonel,” said she, “with me; I shall resume my book till you have perused your letters.” The colonel bowed for her permission and began; her attention was soon drawn from her book by the sudden emotion he betrayed; he started, and exclaimed, “Oh heavens! what a wretch!” then, as if suddenly recollecting his situation, looked at Adela, appeared confused, stammered out a few inarticulate words, and resumed his letter; when finished, he seemed to put it into his pocket, but in reality dropped it at his feet for the basest purpose. He