III.
LADY ELEANORE'S MANTLE.
Mine excellent friend the landlord of the Province House was pleasedthe other evening to invite Mr. Tiffany and myself to anoyster-supper. This slight mark of respect and gratitude, as hehandsomely observed, was far less than the ingenious tale-teller, andI, the humble note-taker of his narratives, had fairly earned by thepublic notice which our joint lucubrations had attracted to hisestablishment. Many a cigar had been smoked within his premises, manya glass of wine or more potent _aqua vitae_ had been quaffed, manya dinner had been eaten, by curious strangers who, save for thefortunate conjunction of Mr. Tiffany and me, would never have venturedthrough that darksome avenue which gives access to the historicprecincts of the Province House. In short, if any credit be due to thecourteous assurances of Mr. Thomas Waite, we had brought his forgottenmansion almost as effectually into public view as if we had throwndown the vulgar range of shoe-shops and dry-good stores which hidesits aristocratic front from Washington street. It may be unadvisable,however, to speak too loudly of the increased custom of the house,lest Mr. Waite should find it difficult to renew the lease on sofavorable terms as heretofore.
Being thus welcomed as benefactors, neither Mr. Tiffany nor myselffelt any scruple in doing full justice to the good things that wereset before us. If the feast were less magnificent than those samepanelled walls had witnessed in a bygone century; if mine hostpresided with somewhat less of state than might have befitted asuccessor of the royal governors; if the guests made a less imposingshow than the bewigged and powdered and embroidered dignitaries whoerst banqueted at the gubernatorial table and now sleep within theirarmorial tombs on Copp's Hill or round King's Chapel,--yet never, Imay boldly say, did a more comfortable little party assemble in theprovince-house from Queen Anne's days to the Revolution. The occasionwas rendered more interesting by the presence of a venerable personagewhose own actual reminiscences went back to the epoch of Gage andHowe, and even supplied him with a doubtful anecdote or two ofHutchinson. He was one of that small, and now all but extinguished,class whose attachment to royalty, and to the colonial institutionsand customs that were connected with it, had never yielded to thedemocratic heresies of after-times. The young queen of Britain has nota more loyal subject in her realm--perhaps not one who would kneelbefore her throne with such reverential love--as this old grandsirewhose head has whitened beneath the mild sway of the republic whichstill in his mellower moments he terms a usurpation. Yet prejudices soobstinate have not made him an ungentle or impracticable companion. Ifthe truth must be told, the life of the aged loyalist has been of sucha scrambling and unsettled character--he has had so little choice offriends and been so often destitute of any--that I doubt whether hewould refuse a cup of kindness with either Oliver Cromwell or JohnHancock, to say nothing of any democrat now upon the stage. In anotherpaper of this series I may perhaps give the reader a closer glimpse ofhis portrait.
Our host in due season uncorked a bottle of Madeira of such exquisiteperfume and admirable flavor that he surely must have discovered it inan ancient bin down deep beneath the deepest cellar where some jollyold butler stored away the governor's choicest wine and forgot toreveal the secret on his death-bed. Peace to his red-nosed ghost and alibation to his memory! This precious liquor was imbibed by Mr.Tiffany with peculiar zest, and after sipping the third glass it washis pleasure to give us one of the oddest legends which he had yetraked from the storehouse where he keeps such matters. With somesuitable adornments from my own fancy, it ran pretty much as follows.
* * * * *
Not long after Colonel Shute had assumed the government ofMassachusetts Bay--now nearly a hundred and twenty years ago--a younglady of rank and fortune arrived from England to claim his protectionas her guardian. He was her distant relative, but the nearest who hadsurvived the gradual extinction of her family; so that no moreeligible shelter could be found for the rich and high-born LadyEleanore Rochcliffe than within the province-house of a Transatlanticcolony. The consort of Governor Shute, moreover, had been as a motherto her childhood, and was now anxious to receive her in the hope thata beautiful young woman would be exposed to infinitely less peril fromthe primitive society of New England than amid the artifices andcorruptions of a court. If either the governor or his lady hadespecially consulted their own comfort, they would probably havesought to devolve the responsibility on other hands, since with somenoble and splendid traits of character Lady Eleanore was remarkablefor a harsh, unyielding pride, a haughty consciousness of herhereditary and personal advantages, which made her almost incapable ofcontrol. Judging from many traditionary anecdotes, this peculiartemper was hardly less than a monomania; or if the acts which itinspired were those of a sane person, it seemed due from Providencethat pride so sinful should be followed by as severe a retribution.That tinge of the marvellous which is thrown over so many of thesehalf-forgotten legends has probably imparted an additional wildness tothe strange story of Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe.
The ship in which she came passenger had arrived at Newport, whenceLady Eleanore was conveyed to Boston in the governor's coach, attendedby a small escort of gentlemen on horseback. The ponderous equipage,with its four black horses, attracted much notice as it rumbledthrough Cornhill surrounded by the prancing steeds of half a dozencavaliers with swords dangling to their stirrups and pistols at theirholsters. Through the large glass windows of the coach, as it rolledalong, the people could discern the figure of Lady Eleanore, strangelycombining an almost queenly stateliness with the grace and beauty of amaiden in her teens. A singular tale had gone abroad among the ladiesof the province that their fair rival was indebted for much of theirresistible charm of her appearance to a certain article of dress--anembroidered mantle--which had been wrought by the most skilful artistin London, and possessed even magical properties of adornment. On thepresent occasion, however, she owed nothing to the witchery of dress,being clad in a riding-habit of velvet which would have appeared stiffand ungraceful on any other form.
The coachman reined in his four black steeds, and the whole cavalcadecame to a pause in front of the contorted iron balustrade that fencedthe province-house from the public street. It was an awkwardcoincidence that the bell of the Old South was just then tolling for afuneral; so that, instead of a gladsome peal with which it wascustomary to announce the arrival of distinguished strangers, LadyEleanore Rochcliffe was ushered by a doleful clang, as if calamity hadcome embodied in her beautiful person.
"A very great disrespect!" exclaimed Captain Langford, an Englishofficer who had recently brought despatches to Governor Shute. "Thefuneral should have been deferred lest Lady Eleanore's spirits beaffected by such a dismal welcome."
"With your pardon, sir," replied Dr. Clarke, a physician and a famouschampion of the popular party, "whatever the heralds may pretend, adead beggar must have precedence of a living queen. King Death confershigh privileges."
These remarks-were interchanged while the speakers waited a passagethrough the crowd which had gathered on each side of the gateway,leaving an open avenue to the portal of the province-house. A blackslave in livery now leaped from behind the coach and threw open thedoor, while at the same moment Governor Shute descended the flight ofsteps from his mansion to assist Lady Eleanore in alighting. But thegovernor's stately approach was anticipated in a manner that excitedgeneral astonishment. A pale young man with his black hair all indisorder rushed from the throng and prostrated himself beside thecoach, thus offering his person as a footstool for Lady EleanoreRochcliffe to tread upon. She held back an instant, yet with anexpression as if doubting whether the young man were worthy to bearthe weight of her footstep rather than dissatisfied to receive suchawful reverence from a fellow-mortal.
"Up, sir!" said the governor, sternly, at the same time lifting hiscane over the intruder. "What means the Bedlamite by this freak?"
"Nay," answered Lady Eleanore, playfully, but with more scorn thanpity in her tone; "Your Excellency shall not strike h
im. When men seekonly to be trampled upon, it were a pity to deny them a favor soeasily granted--and so well deserved!" Then, though as lightly as asunbeam on a cloud, she placed her foot upon the cowering form andextended her hand to meet that of the governor.
There was a brief interval during which Lady Eleanore retained thisattitude, and never, surely, was there an apter emblem of aristocracyand hereditary pride trampling on human sympathies and the kindred ofnature than these two figures presented at that moment. Yet thespectators were so smitten with her beauty, and so essential did prideseem to the existence of such a creature, that they gave asimultaneous acclamation of applause.
"Who is this insolent young fellow?" inquired Captain Langford, whostill remained beside Dr. Clarke. "If he be in his senses, hisimpertinence demands the bastinado; if mad, Lady Eleanore should besecured from further inconvenience by his confinement."
"His name is Jervase Helwyse," answered the doctor--"a youth of nobirth or fortune, or other advantages save the mind and soul thatnature gave him; and, being secretary to our colonial agent in London,it was his misfortune to meet this Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe. He lovedher, and her scorn has driven him mad."
"He was mad so to aspire," observed the English officer.
"It may be so," said Dr. Clarke, frowning as he spoke; "but I tellyou, sir, I could wellnigh doubt the justice of the Heaven above us ifno signal humiliation overtake this lady who now treads so haughtilyinto yonder mansion. She seeks to place herself above the sympathiesof our common nature, which envelops all human souls; see if thatnature do not assert its claim over her in some mode that shall bringher level with the lowest."
"Never!" cried Captain Langford, indignantly--"neither in life norwhen they lay her with her ancestors."
Not many days afterward the governor gave a ball in honor of LadyEleanore Rochcliffe. The principal gentry of the colony receivedinvitations, which were distributed to their residences far and nearby messengers on horseback bearing missives sealed with all theformality of official despatches. In obedience to the summons, therewas a general gathering of rank, wealth and beauty, and the wide doorof the province-house had seldom given admittance to more numerous andhonorable guests than on the evening of Lady Eleanore's ball. Withoutmuch extravagance of eulogy, the spectacle might even be termedsplendid, for, according to the fashion of the times, the ladies shonein rich silks and satins outspread over wide-projecting hoops, and thegentlemen glittered in gold embroidery laid unsparingly upon thepurple or scarlet or sky-blue velvet which was the material of theircoats and waistcoats. The latter article of dress was of greatimportance, since it enveloped the wearer's body nearly to the kneesand was perhaps bedizened with the amount of his whole year's incomein golden flowers and foliage. The altered taste of the present day--ataste symbolic of a deep change in the whole system of society--wouldlook upon almost any of those gorgeous figures as ridiculous, althoughthat evening the guests sought their reflections in the pier-glassesand rejoiced to catch their own glitter amid the glittering crowd.What a pity that one of the stately mirrors has not preserved apicture of the scene which by the very traits that were so transitorymight have taught us much that would be worth knowing and remembering!
Would, at least, that either painter or mirror could convey to us somefaint idea of a garment already noticed in this legend--the LadyEleanore's embroidered mantle, which the gossips whispered wasinvested with magic properties, so as to lend a new and untried graceto her figure each time that she put it on! Idle fancy as it is, thismysterious mantle has thrown an awe around my image of her, partlyfrom its fabled virtues and partly because it was the handiwork of adying woman, and perchance owed the fantastic grace of its conceptionto the delirium of approaching death.
After the ceremonial greetings had been paid, Lady Eleanore Rochcliffestood apart from the mob of guests, insulating herself within a smalland distinguished circle to whom she accorded a more cordial favorthan to the general throng. The waxen torches threw their radiancevividly over the scene, bringing out its brilliant points in strongrelief, but she gazed carelessly, and with now and then an expressionof weariness or scorn tempered with such feminine grace that herauditors scarcely perceived the moral deformity of which it was theutterance. She beheld the spectacle not with vulgar ridicule, asdisdaining to be pleased with the provincial mockery of acourt-festival, but with the deeper scorn of one whose spirit helditself too high to participate in the enjoyment of other human souls.Whether or no the recollections of those who saw her that evening wereinfluenced by the strange events with which she was subsequentlyconnected, so it was that her figure ever after recurred to them asmarked by something wild and unnatural, although at the time thegeneral whisper was of her exceeding beauty and of the indescribablecharm which her mantle threw around her. Some close observers, indeed,detected a feverish flush and alternate paleness of countenance, witha corresponding flow and revulsion of spirits, and once or twice apainful and helpless betrayal of lassitude, as if she were on thepoint of sinking to the ground. Then, with a nervous shudder, sheseemed to arouse her energies, and threw some bright and playful yethalf-wicked sarcasm into the conversation. There was so strange acharacteristic in her manners and sentiments that it astonished everyright-minded listener, till, looking in her face, a lurking andincomprehensible glance and smile perplexed them with doubts both asto her seriousness and sanity. Gradually, Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe'scircle grew smaller, till only four gentlemen remained in it. Thesewere Captain Langford, the English officer before mentioned; aVirginian planter who had come to Massachusetts on some politicalerrand; a young Episcopal clergyman, the grandson of a British earl;and, lastly, the private secretary of Governor Shute, whoseobsequiousness had won a sort of tolerance from Lady Eleanore.
At different periods of the evening the liveried servants of theprovince-house passed among the guests bearing huge trays ofrefreshments and French and Spanish wines. Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe,who refused to wet her beautiful lips even with a bubble of champagne,had sunk back into a large damask chair, apparently overwearied eitherwith the excitement of the scene or its tedium; and while, for aninstant, she was unconscious of voices, laughter and music, a youngman stole forward and knelt down at her feet. He bore a salver in hishand on which was a chased silver goblet filled to the brim with wine,which he offered as reverentially as to a crowned queen--or, rather,with the awful devotion of a priest doing sacrifice to his idol.Conscious that some one touched her robe, Lady Eleanore started, andunclosed her eyes upon the pale, wild features and dishevelled hair ofJervase Helwyse.
"Why do you haunt me thus?" said she, in a languid tone, but with akindlier feeling than she ordinarily permitted herself to express."They tell me that I have done you harm."
"Heaven knows if that be so," replied the young man, solemnly. "But,Lady Eleanore, in requital of that harm, if such there be, and foryour own earthly and heavenly welfare, I pray you to take one sip ofthis holy wine and then to pass the goblet round among the guests. Andthis shall be a symbol that you have not sought to withdraw yourselffrom the chain of human sympathies, which whoso would shake off mustkeep company with fallen angels."
"Where has this mad fellow stolen that sacramental vessel?" exclaimedthe Episcopal clergyman.
This question drew the notice of the guests to the silver cup, whichwas recognized as appertaining to the communion-plate of the Old SouthChurch, and, for aught that could be known, it was brimming over withthe consecrated wine.
"Perhaps it is poisoned," half whispered the governor's secretary.
"Pour it down the villain's throat!" cried the Virginian, fiercely.
"Turn him out of the house!" cried Captain Langford, seizing JervaseHelwyse so roughly by the shoulder that the sacramental cup wasoverturned and its contents sprinkled upon Lady Eleanore's mantle."Whether knave, fool or Bedlamite, it is intolerable that the fellowshould go at large."
"Pray, gentlemen, do my poor admirer no harm," said Lady Eleanore,with a faint and weary smile. "Take him out of my
sight, if such beyour pleasure, for I can find in my heart to do nothing but laugh athim, whereas, in all decency and conscience, it would become me toweep for the mischief I have wrought."
But while the bystanders were attempting to lead away the unfortunateyoung man he broke from them and with a wild, impassioned earnestnessoffered a new and equally strange petition to Lady Eleanore. It was noother than that she should throw off the mantle, which while hepressed the silver cup of wine upon her she had drawn more closelyaround her form, so as almost to shroud herself within it.
"Cast it from you," exclaimed Jervase Helwyse, clasping his hands inan agony of entreaty. "It may not yet be too late. Give the accursedgarment to the flames."
But Lady Eleanore, with a laugh of scorn, drew the rich folds of theembroidered mantle over her head in such a fashion as to give acompletely new aspect to her beautiful face, which, half hidden, halfrevealed, seemed to belong to some being of mysterious character andpurposes.
"Farewell, Jervase Helwyse!" said she. "Keep my image in yourremembrance as you behold it now."
"Alas, lady!" he replied, in a tone no longer wild, but sad as afuneral-bell; "we must meet shortly when your face may wear anotheraspect, and that shall be the image that must abide within me." Hemade no more resistance to the violent efforts of the gentlemen andservants who almost dragged him out of the apartment and dismissed himroughly from the iron gate of the province-house.
Captain Langford, who had been very active in this affair, wasreturning to the presence of Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe, when heencountered the physician, Dr. Clarke, with whom he had held somecasual talk on the day of her arrival. The doctor stood apart,separated from Lady Eleanore by the width of the room, but eying herwith such keen sagacity that Captain Langford involuntarily gave himcredit for the discovery of some deep secret.
"You appear to be smitten, after all, with the charms of this queenlymaiden," said he, hoping thus to draw forth the physician's hiddenknowledge.
"God forbid!" answered Dr. Clarke, with a grave smile; "and if you bewise, you will put up the same prayer for yourself. Woe to those whoshall be smitten by this beautiful Lady Eleanore! But yonder standsthe governor, and I have a word or two for his private ear.Good-night!" He accordingly advanced to Governor Shute and addressedhim in so low a tone that none of the bystanders could catch a word ofwhat he said, although the sudden change of His Excellency's hithertocheerful visage betokened that the communication could be of noagreeable import. A very few moments afterward it was announced to theguests that an unforeseen circumstance rendered it necessary to put apremature close to the festival.
The ball at the province-house supplied a topic of conversation forthe colonial metropolis for some days after its occurrence, and mightstill longer have been the general theme, only that a subject ofall-engrossing interest thrust it for a time from the publicrecollection. This was the appearance of a dreadful epidemic which inthat age, and long before and afterward, was wont to slay its hundredsand thousands on both sides of the Atlantic. On the occasion of whichwe speak it was distinguished by a peculiar virulence, insomuch thatit has left its traces--its pitmarks, to use an appropriate figure--onthe history of the country, the affairs of which were thrown intoconfusion by its ravages. At first, unlike its ordinary course, thedisease seemed to confine itself to the higher circles of society,selecting its victims from among the proud, the well-born and thewealthy, entering unabashed into stately chambers and lying down withthe slumberers in silken beds. Some of the most distinguished guestsof the province-house--even those whom the haughty Lady EleanoreRochcliffe had deemed not unworthy of her favor--were stricken by thisfatal scourge. It was noticed with an ungenerous bitterness of feelingthat the four gentlemen--the Virginian, the British officer, the youngclergyman and the governor's secretary--who had been her most devotedattendants on the evening of the ball were the foremost on whom theplague-stroke fell. But the disease, pursuing its onward progress,soon ceased to be exclusively a prerogative of aristocracy. Its redbrand was no longer conferred like a noble's star or an order ofknighthood. It threaded its way through the narrow and crookedstreets, and entered the low, mean, darksome dwellings and laid itshand of death upon the artisans and laboring classes of the town. Itcompelled rich and poor to feel themselves brethren then, and stalkingto and fro across the Three Hills with a fierceness which made italmost a new pestilence, there was that mighty conqueror--that scourgeand horror of our forefathers--the small-pox.
We cannot estimate the affright which this plague inspired of yore bycontemplating it as the fangless monster of the present day. We mustremember, rather, with what awe we watched the gigantic footsteps ofthe Asiatic cholera striding from shore to shore of the Atlantic andmarching like Destiny upon cities far remote which flight had alreadyhalf depopulated. There is no other fear so horrible and unhumanizingas that which makes man dread to breathe heaven's vital air lest it bepoison, or to grasp the hand of a brother or friend lest the grip ofthe pestilence should clutch him. Such was the dismay that nowfollowed in the track of the disease or ran before it throughout thetown. Graves were hastily dug and the pestilential relics as hastilycovered, because the dead were enemies of the living and strove todraw them headlong, as it were, into their own dismal pit. The publiccouncils were suspended, as if mortal wisdom might relinquish itsdevices now that an unearthly usurper had found his way into theruler's mansion. Had an enemy's fleet been hovering on the coast orhis armies trampling on our soil, the people would probably havecommitted their defence to that same direful conqueror who had wroughttheir own calamity and would permit no interference with his sway.This conqueror had a symbol of his triumphs: it was a blood-red flagthat fluttered in the tainted air over the door of every dwelling intowhich the small-pox had entered.
Such a banner was long since waving over the portal of theprovince-house, for thence, as was proved by tracking its footstepsback, had all this dreadful mischief issued. It had been traced backto a lady's luxurious chamber, to the proudest of the proud, to herthat was so delicate and hardly owned herself of earthly mould, to thehaughty one who took her stand above human sympathies--to LadyEleanore. There remained no room for doubt that the contagion hadlurked in that gorgeous mantle which threw so strange a grace aroundher at the festival. Its fantastic splendor had been conceived in thedelirious brain of a woman on her death-bed and was the last toil ofher stiffening fingers, which had interwoven fate and misery with itsgolden threads. This dark tale, whispered at first, was now bruitedfar and wide. The people raved against the Lady Eleanore and cried outthat her pride and scorn had evoked a fiend, and that between themboth this monstrous evil had been born. At times their rage anddespair took the semblance of grinning mirth; and whenever the redflag of the pestilence was hoisted over another and yet another door,they clapped their hands and shouted through the streets in bittermockery: "Behold a new triumph for the Lady Eleanore!"
One day in the midst of these dismal times a wild figure approachedthe portal of the province-house, and, folding his arms, stoodcontemplating the scarlet banner, which a passing breeze shookfitfully, as if to fling abroad the contagion that it typified. Atlength, climbing one of the pillars by means of the iron balustrade,he took down the flag, and entered the mansion waving it above hishead. At the foot of the staircase he met the governor, booted andspurred, with his cloak drawn around him, evidently on the point ofsetting forth upon a journey.
"Wretched lunatic, what do you seek here?" exclaimed Shute, extendinghis cane to guard himself from contact. "There is nothing here butDeath; back, or you will meet him."
"Death will not touch me, the banner-bearer of the pestilence," criedJervase Helwyse, shaking the red flag aloft. "Death and thepestilence, who wears the aspect of the Lady Eleanore, will walkthrough the streets to-night, and I must march before them with thisbanner."
"Why do I waste words on the fellow?" muttered the governor, drawinghis cloak across his mouth. "What matters his miserable life, whennone of us are sure of twelve hours'
breath?--On, fool, to your owndestruction!"
He made way for Jervase Helwyse, who immediately ascended thestaircase, but on the first landing-place was arrested by the firmgrasp of a hand upon his shoulder. Looking fiercely up with a madman'simpulse to struggle with and rend asunder his opponent, he foundhimself powerless beneath a calm, stern eye which possessed themysterious property of quelling frenzy at its height. The person whomhe had now encountered was the physician, Dr. Clarke, the duties ofwhose sad profession had led him to the province-house, where he wasan infrequent guest in more prosperous times.
"Young man, what is your purpose?" demanded he.
"I seek the Lady Eleanore," answered Jervase Helwyse, submissively.
"All have fled from her," said the physician. "Why do you seek hernow? I tell you, youth, her nurse fell death-stricken on the thresholdof that fatal chamber. Know ye not that never came such a curse to ourshores as this lovely Lady Eleanore, that her breath has filled theair with poison, that she has shaken pestilence and death upon theland from the folds of her accursed mantle?"
"Let me look upon her," rejoined the mad youth, more wildly. "Let mebehold her in her awful beauty, clad in the regal garments of thepestilence. She and Death sit on a throne together; let me kneel downbefore them."
"Poor youth!" said Dr. Clarke, and, moved by a deep sense of humanweakness, a smile of caustic humor curled his lip even then. "Wiltthou still worship the destroyer and surround her image with fantasiesthe more magnificent the more evil she has wrought? Thus man doth everto his tyrants. Approach, then. Madness, as I have noted, has thatgood efficacy that it will guard you from contagion, and perhaps itsown cure may be found in yonder chamber." Ascending another flight ofstairs, he threw open a door and signed to Jervase Helwyse that heshould enter.
The poor lunatic, it seems probable, had cherished a delusion that hishaughty mistress sat in state, unharmed herself by the pestilentialinfluence which as by enchantment she scattered round about her. Hedreamed, no doubt, that her beauty was not dimmed, but brightened intosuperhuman splendor. With such anticipations he stole reverentially tothe door at which the physician stood, but paused upon the threshold,gazing fearfully into the gloom of the darkened chamber.
"Where is the Lady Eleanore?" whispered he.
"Call her," replied the physician.
"Lady Eleanore! princess! queen of Death!" cried Jervase Helwyse,advancing three steps into the chamber. "She is not here. There, onyonder table, I behold the sparkle of a diamond which once she woreupon her bosom. There"--and he shuddered--"there hangs her mantle, onwhich a dead woman embroidered a spell of dreadful potency. But whereis the Lady Eleanore?"
Something stirred within the silken curtains of a canopied bed and alow moan was uttered, which, listening intently, Jervase Helwyse beganto distinguish as a woman's voice complaining dolefully of thirst. Hefancied, even, that he recognized its tones.
"My throat! My throat is scorched," murmured the voice. "A drop ofwater!"
"What thing art thou?" said the brain-stricken youth, drawing near thebed and tearing asunder its curtains. "Whose voice hast thou stolenfor thy murmurs and miserable petitions, as if Lady Eleanore could beconscious of mortal infirmity? Fie! Heap of diseased mortality, whylurkest thou in my lady's chamber?"
"Oh, Jervase Helwyse," said the voice--and as it spoke the figurecontorted itself, struggling to hide its blasted face--"look not nowon the woman you once loved. The curse of Heaven hath stricken mebecause I would not call man my brother nor woman sister. I wrappedmyself in pride as in a mantle and scorned the sympathies of nature,and therefore has Nature made this wretched body the medium of adreadful sympathy. You are avenged, they are all avenged, Nature isavenged; for I am Eleanore Rochcliffe."
The malice of his mental disease, the bitterness lurking at the bottomof his heart, mad as he was, for a blighted and ruined life and lovethat had been paid with cruel scorn, awoke within the breast ofJervase Helwyse. He shook his finger at the wretched girl, and thechamber echoed, the curtains of the bed were shaken, with his outburstof insane merriment.
"Another triumph for the Lady Eleanore!" he cried. "All have been hervictims; who so worthy to be the final victim as herself?" Impelled bysome new fantasy of his crazed intellect, he snatched the fatal mantleand rushed from the chamber and the house.
That night a procession passed by torchlight through the streets,bearing in the midst the figure of a woman enveloped with arichly-embroidered mantle, while in advance stalked Jervase Helwysewaving the red flag of the pestilence. Arriving opposite theprovince-house, the mob burned the effigy, and a strong wind came andswept away the ashes. It was said that from that very hour thepestilence abated, as if its sway had some mysterious connection, fromthe first plague-stroke to the last, with Lady Elcanore's mantle. Aremarkable uncertainty broods over that unhappy lady's fate. There isa belief, however, that in a certain chamber of this mansion a femaleform may sometimes be duskily discerned shrinking into the darkestcorner and muffling her face within an embroidered mantle. Supposingthe legend true, can this be other than the once proud Lady Eleanore?
* * * * *
Mine host and the old loyalist and I bestowed no little Warmth ofapplause upon this narrative, in which we had all been deeplyinterested; for the reader can scarcely conceive how unspeakably theeffect of such a tale is heightened when, as in the present case, wemay repose perfect confidence in the veracity of him who tells it. Formy own part, knowing how scrupulous is Mr. Tiffany to settle thefoundation of his facts, I could not have believed him one whit themore faithfully had he professed himself an eyewitness of the doingsand sufferings of poor Lady Eleanore. Some sceptics, it is true, mightdemand documentary evidence, or even require him to produce theembroidered mantle, forgetting that--Heaven be praised!--it wasconsumed to ashes.
But now the old loyalist, whose blood was warmed by the good cheer,began to talk, in his turn, about the traditions of the ProvinceHouse, and hinted that he, if it were agreeable, might add a fewreminiscences to our legendary stock. Mr. Tiffany, having no cause todread a rival, immediately besought him to favor us with a specimen;my own entreaties, of course, were urged to the same effect; and ourvenerable guest, well pleased to find willing auditors, awaited onlythe return of Mr. Thomas Waite, who had been summoned forth to provideaccommodations for several new arrivals. Perchance the public--but bethis as its own caprice and ours shall settle the matter--may read theresult in another tale of the Province House.