^ THE OPERA: A NOVEL. BY THE AUTHOll OF "MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS." Ou les beaux vers, la danse, la musique, De cent plaisirs font un plaisir unique. VOLTAIRE. TN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. L LONDON: HENRY COLBURN AND RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. 1832. e. UHITJNG, BEAUFORT HOUSK RTRANO, THE OPERA, INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. Few scenes of frivolous recreation afford so brilliant an episode in the monotony of human existence as the Parisian Opera. Presenting a succession of the most complete dramatic illu- sions, it exhibits at all seasons a sparkling chain — a flowery garland — uniting the willing muses in a single group, whose incantations — TaVfi thp imprisoned soul. And lap it in Elysium. To the natives of Paris the Opera presents a strong hold of national pride ; to travellers of all nations, a rendezvous of the most varying and exhilarating description. VOL. I. B 543157 THE OPERA. It was one night early in the carnival of the present year, that the Duchesse de Montemar and her English friend, Lady Welwyn, took pos- session of their box to witness a representation of " Le Dieu et la Bayadere," with a premeditated intention of flying into ecstacies at the sight of Taglioni's attitudes, and melting into the neces- sary rapture of enthusiasm at the sound of Nour- rifs voice ; even though the attention of the one was riveted by the languid whispers of Count Ugo Pignatellij and the admiration of the other lavished on the flippant sallies of the Chevalier de Villevargues. The Duchess had no ears but for the thrice-told tale of the young Neapolitan's drowsy homage ; — Lady Welwyn no eyes, save for the aff'ectation of the Chevalier, a sort of half-English, half-Parisian exquisite, who was just then wrapped in a luxurious reverie on the taste and fancy displayed in the last of his three hundred and sixty-five waistcoats. He smiled and bowed, and prated as usual ; but a solitary idea had possessed itself of his empty brain. '' And why were you not at Madame de Cha- THE OrERA. 3 teauroche^s ball last night ?" inquired the Count, addressing himself to Lady AVelwyn. '' I was ill — or cross — or philosophical ; out of sorts, or out of health," sighed the fantastical beaut}^ *' Error of judgment I — You may believe me on my word of honour, dear Lady Welwyn, you were neither and none of these things. Your looks to-night contradict half your declaration : your amiabihty at all times refutes the rest." " What excuse then wiU serve me ? — Shall I say that Sir Robert refused me a new dress, — or that Alexandre disappointed me, — or that I had restive horses, or a perverse husband ?" " Bah — bah ! — Nothing, my dear, but your own vanity could prompt such suggestions," cried Madame de Montemar, somewhat indignant to find so much of Pignatelli's attention bestowed upon her fair friend. " You must be aware that the Count has nothing to reply to such equivoca- tions but that you require no aid of dress, new or old, to render you the pearl of the ball-room ; that Alexandre is only one of the thirteen hun- dred distinguished hair-dressers of the capital; b2 4 THE OPERA. and finally, that when Sir Robert Welwyn or your coachhorses choose to be sulky, you cannot do better than leave them all three at rack and manger — the spot best calculated for the restora- tion of their good humour.'" " Admirable !" cried Count Ugo, with a pro- longed yawn of applause. " You surpass your^r self to-night, my dear Duchess. How delightful it is to those who live in your society to find their own crude notions emanate from your lips refined and polished, and glittering with wit and gaiety ! With you one need only exist ; you think and talk for us better than we can for ourselves :" and sinking back in his chair with a second yawn, he re-assumed his wonted air of supercilious listless- ness. " The Duchess, like our first of modern diplo- mates, acknowledges no use in words except to disguise her thoughts,"" cried Lady Welwyn, bit- terly. '' She espies treason lurking in ambush where there can be no motive for ajeii de cache- cache. — Why should I frame false motives for absenting myself from the best ball of the car- nival r A / THE OPERA. '* Because you do not like to own your dis- inclination to be outshone by these EngUsh brides, who are just now creating so prodigious a sensa- tion in our gay circles. Even I, who am safe from the excitement of national competition with either, am somewhat jealous of the Duchess of Cardigan's diamonds, and of Lady Bruton's in- teresting cast of beauty." " I know nothing of either,'' cried Lady Wel- wyn ; '' and am therefore little interested by their attractions or proceedings." " And as little," observed her friend, Madame de Montemar, in a spiteful whisper, " by Sir Henry Bagot's devotion to Lady Georgina El- lerby ? — By the way, my dear, do you know that the marriage of the handsome attache is posi- tively announced, and it is said that the happy pair are to accompany the Duke and Duchess to Italy.?" ** It was quite amusing," cried the Chevaher, determined not to observe the air of pique with which this piece of information was received by Sir Robert Welwyn's giddy wife, " to observe the awkward air with which several of your Eng- 6 THE OPERA. lish beauties greeted the Duke of Cardigan last night at the Palais Royal. It must be very- embarrassing, very humihating, to see the bird for which they have all spread their nets so long and so vainly, perched familiarly on the shoulder of another." *' And of one who seems so careless of the distinction." '' They say he was considerate enough to order a grove of willows to be cut down on his wedding-day, which he bequeathed at parting to those numerous belles of Almack's, whose pre- tensions he has amused himself by tantalizing ever since he came of age." " Let him not triumph too loudly," said Ugo Pignatelli, raising himself from his lounging po- sition, and firing up from his apathetic mood, on learning that another man presumed to affect a tone of impertinence still loftier than his own. " For my part I see nothing very brilHant in his grace's hymeneal wreath ; — the cypress has scarcely a less dingy branch than the willow." " The cypress ?" — inquired Lady Welwyn. " Yes ! — the Duke of Cardigan has been the THE OPERA. y hero of more than one extraordinary adventure since you quitted England. But that the story is connected -with reminiscences most afflicting to my own feehngs, I would recount it to you my- self." <' Ah ! my dear Count Pignatelli !'' pleaded the Duchess, who dearly loved a sentimental tale, more especially when the aid of a little fashionable scandal was dashed into the sherbet, to render it less cloying. ''Ask Villevargues," said the Count, again relapsing into his dejected and disjointed atti- tude. '' He can tell you the whole affair if he likes ; and looks as if he would like to tell you." " What affair ? — You were talking just now of Bagot's marriage?" '' No — no ! — of the disasters connected with that of the Duke of Cardigan." " Ah ! la voila ! — See ! — the Duchess has just made her appearance in the box of the Ambas- sadress. How very lovely she is — how very graceful — what an intellectual expression in her eyes! Lady Bruton will not bear a comparison with her." 8 THE OPE 11 A. " Poor thing ! — how clifFerent was hei' air and tone when I first met her at Naples !" cried Ville- vargues ; " how followed she was, how flattered, how admired ! — She is not yet three-and-twenty — and a complete wreck.*" " Nay !'' said Madame de Montemar, quite willing to take Lady Bruton's part when she heard her attractions decried by the Chevalier. '^ She is, after all, a very lovely creature — a line of poetry among all Lady AVelwyn's cold, hard, rigid, matter-of-fact fellow-countrywomen. There is an abandon^ — an air of gentle languor so wholly free from affectation about her, that it grieves me to think her doom is sealed. Ma- jendie has pronounced her to be in a decline ; and from his award there is no appeal." " Were I Lord Bruton,'' cried Villevargues, " I should* however exert my skill to prevail on so charming a wife to discredit that of the expe- rimentalist. It is true that horrible discovery concerning her odious mother was enough to break her heart, and then the dreadful event which shocked us all so much at the opera last year, must have been to her doubly distressing. But in our THE OPERA. 9 time, broken hearts are as easily mended as broken limbs. Lady Bruton will put her's in a tourni- quet, and wear it in a sling for a year or two ; there is no possible occasion for her to go and die in Italy. — The days of enthusiasm are past ; no more crusading, — no more dying for love ! " " You forget that it is still easy to die of curiosity ,"'' cried the Duchess. " I shall certainly find my lungs affected before to-morrow, unless you unravel the mystery which envelopes this bridal Duchess of yours, and this beautiful friend of Sir Henry Bagot's — this pensive Lady Bruton.'' " Take me home with you then," said the Chevalier, " and oblige me with a glass of eau sucrte, and I will try to make the mystery as much more mysterious, — the explanation as ora- cular and incomprehensible as tellers of stories usually do. But prepare yourself for a lachry- mose tale ; — not unmingled with the flighty levi- ties of modern life, but almost too romantic for the age we live in." Reader! shall we follow the flij^pant Ville- vargues and Lady Welwyn to the luxurious b3 10 THE OPERA. boudoir of Madame de Montemar? — No! — let us rather attempt in sober sadness or sober cheerfulness our own exposition of the business. The narrative may serve to prove that even a spot, devoted like " The Opera," to idle amusement — open to the approach of every vulgar footstep — and incessantly haunted by those both of the vulgar and illustrious — may be rendered a scene of interest of the most intense and excit- ing description ; — that the passions have at times been more actively at work within the familiar walls of the King's Theatre, than in the cabin, the dungeon, or the palace: — that they have witnessed the choicest sighs of love, and even the parting breath of mortal nature.— Listen ! THE OPERA. 11 CHAPTER I. *• 'Tis neither a grave story nor a gay one," replied the corporal, '' but will suit your honour exactly." *' Then I'll thank thee for it with all my heart," cried my uncle Toby j " so prithee begin it, Trim." Sterxe. The most perverse or unobservant traveller, from Dan to Beersheba, will scarcely venture to deny that certain spots of earth convey a strong impression of local sanctity ; and that on others nature has affixed an indelible cha- racter of romance, not unfrequently heightened by the blunders of art, or the freaks of accident. It is not always the donjon or the fortaHce,— . " high towers or moss-grown steeples," which arrest the eye of the wanderer amid the wide landscape, and afford a theme to his evening 12 THE OPERA. cogitations or midnight visions at his inn. The country snuggery — the vine-covered manse — the chateau with its gabled roofs — the villa with its platformed terraces, — sometimes acquire a de- gree of adventitious interest, derived from trifles but far from trivial in effect. It is probable, for instance, that no traveller beside the banks of the Traun, — whether the French savant^ en diligence, or the English sentleman released from the durance of an ela- borately convenient London travelling-carriage ; the German student, with his knapsack on his back, or the fierce Bohemian hussar spurring on- wards to his garrison at Verona, — ever passed the village of Elzbach, cozily niched into the acclivitous shore of that beautiful stream, with- out experiencing a peculiar sensation of sym- pathy. One among the number might be at- tracted by the aspect of its neat white quad- rangular monastery, perched like a dove's nest among the fissures of the cliff, (its spires just rising above the summit) looking tranquillity, and exhibiting the ascetic but erudite seclusion characteristic of the ecclesiastical estate through- THE OPERA. 13 out Austria. A second might more partially incline towards the neat little village, gathered together beneath the very wings of the Kloster^ as if to derive shelter from its interposition with Heaven, and so compact in its economy, that the helmet of Otranto might have extinguished it, suburbs and all. While a third, particularly if a man of sentiment, would rather bend his predi- lections towards the Schloss, — the hard, stiff, un- gainly mansion of red granite — endowed with the privilege and dignity of its temporal protection ; and standing with an air of wild defiance, like a copper-coloured Indian, glaring from among en- tangled thickets of underwood. c This unostentatious abode, the house or as it was termed in the village, the Castle of Elzstein, possessed it is true among its attributes no air of jppandeur, antiquity, elegance, or even comfort. It was evidently a dwelling adapted to a family of moderate means and extent ; and disgracing by its inherent ugliness one of the most beautiful sites vouchsafed by the favour of nature. Yet many paused to gaze at leisure on the grotesque distribution of its gables with their sculptured 14 THE OPERA. keystones; on the wild exuberance of its ne- glected gardens ; on its terraces overlooking the river and ornamented with clumsy statues of the worthies of antiquity, as curiously marshalled as those which adorn the ruins of the electoral palace at Heidelberg ; and few, very few, could succeed in thereafter obliterating from their re- collections the quaint and anomalous character of Elzbach and its Herrenhaus. Sometimes, indeed, that laudable thirst for mis- cellaneous information so remarkable in the tourists of Great Britain, would induce some gaping John Bull to inquire of his postilion or courier the name of that " queer-looking place ;" and in such in- stances great was the astonishment felt and ex- pressed on learning that it was tenanted by a " Milor." But this designation being in pretty general use on the continent to distinguish all sorts and conditions of Englishmen not of an absolutely menial degree, such an announcement could only lead to a demand for more specific intelligence ; and all that courier, or postilion, or even postmaster had to tell of the lord of Elzstein, was the fact that he had served with THE OPERA. 15 distinction in the Imperial army, and the surmise that he was a widower. The prior of the adjoin- ing monastery of St. Florian would sometimes add that he was a good catholic, and therefore of necessity a worthy man; while the damsels or Elzbach, when interrogated on the subject, sel- dom omitted to record that the mysterious En- glishman was blest with an only son. But rarely had the investigation been prosecuted with suffi- cient zeal to ascertain that the name of the recluse was Count Maldyn, and that he was an Irish colonel, possessing only his wounds and a trifling pension in evidence of his services to the emperor ; — ^for after all it was Elzstein, and not its invisible master, which spoke so forcibly to the imagination. Now had Count Adrian, the son of this strange '' Milor," been personally introduced into the scene, his striking figure would probably have said more to the fancy of the traveller, if a female, and his accomplished address and intel- ligent countenance, if of his own gender, than could be discerned in the overgrown terraces and desolate courtyard of his paternal abode ; 16 THE OPERA. for Adrian had as completely the air of a hero of romance, as Elzstein of affording its appro- priate locale. But the young foreigner was only an occasional resident on the banks of the Traun ; and had now been so long absent from Elzstein, as to have become an object of as much curiosity as interest to its inhabitants at large. At large ! — when there were only thirty-seven tenements, and seventy-two inhabitants in the whole community ! — among whom more than half were vintagers, devoted to the culture of the estates belonging to St. Florian and his tonsured sons ; while the other consisted in the female moiety of their several households — a simple race of beings, devoted to their distaffs and knitting, needles. Over these broad- visaged and broad- skirted individuals, the world and its rumours exercised little influence. To their perceptions, Vienna existed rather as a name than as an inhabited metropolis ; and even Linz, the yet nearer capital of their little district, appeared a remote and unapproachable Babylon. For in de- fiance of the progress of civilization, with its rail-roads and post-roads, its steam- carriages and THE OrERA. 17 air-balloons, there still remain an oasis or two in the habitable desert, where conventional tram- mels have small authority ; where the alterna- tion of the seasons — of storm and sunshine, summer with its roses, and autumn with its vintage — afford the sole vicissitudes varying the monotony of existence : where the indulgence of simple appetites forms a paramount enjoyment ; where incessant occupation represses the growth of. luxurious vices or fruitless ambition ; where a life of privation is unimbittered by humiliating contrasts ; or is not unfrequently endured with triumphant patience, as a transitory passage to unlimited enjoyment. The Elzbacheners in question were especially contented with their picturesque village and abounding river — their Pumpernickel and Sauerkraut ; for they were neither harassed by the brutality of a feudal despot, nor insulted by the selfish luxuriousness of wealthy burghers. They were treated rather as brethren than inferiors by the saintly com- munity of St. Florian ; and had long appropriated Count Maldyn as a friend and father. If any anxiety disturbed the even tenour of 18 THE OPERA. this peaceful existence, it arose from the visible and increasing decrepitude of the master of Elzstein, and from the prophecies usually put forth in similar instances by the elders of the people, his contemporaries — that the young lord would never prove worthy to fill the old lord's shoes. One or two ancient beldames had legends to relate of the wild feats of Count Adrian's boyhood; while jnore than one or two of the fair spinstresses, their grandchildren, were compelled, in their own despite, to add testi- mony that the discretion of his demeanour was not amended by his recent sojourn at the university of Gottingen. In short, whenever the dispiriting anticipation of a flood of the waters of the Traun, or the still more positive depression arising from an early frost during the vintage, sat heavy on the souls of the Elzbacheners, — or whenever the sinister auguries of some croaking village orator, or theoretical political economist, caused the fre- quenters of the hostel of the Gold Forelle to shake their heads over their thin potations, it was generally on the absent Adrian they were tempted to vent their ill-humour. THE OPERA. 19 Yet such was the influence of his father's popularity, and such his inherited share in their allegiance and devotion, that whenever Hiob Armbrust — the major domo of the castle, — a sort of Corporal Trim, the faithful attendant on Count Maldyn's campaigns — dispensed from the Market-Cross of Elzbach intelligence that a letter had been received from Hanover, and that Count Adrian's arrival was expected at the castle, young and old renounced their enmities, and nothing was talked of during the remainder of the day, but the noble bearing, frank disposi- tion, and open countenance of the young English- man. Barbel and Gorgel, the fair Elzbacheners who had been involved in his frolic and its detec- tion, on occasion of the last vintage-feast, in- stead of being forced to bear further witness to his indiscretion, were now joked on his imputed partiality and reminded of the necessity of adding fresh ribands to their wide-winged coifs of the IAn%en7in fashion. Bl'aschel, the head fisher- man of the district, was advised to hold his nets and boats in readiness for an early expedition; and all the rumours of wonderful boar and 20 THE OPERA. roebuck prevalent in the village for six preced- ing months, were now collected into a species of sporting magazine, with a view of gratifying his well-known propensities. Even at the monastery, the event of his return was hailed as of high importance ; and making all due allowance for the value of an incident of any description in a community thus singularly estranged from the ordinary interests of life, it must be admitted that the old count's enthusiastic attachment to his son seemed to have communicated its infec- tion to half the fathers, and all the daughters of Elzbach. It was one of those brisk transparent afternoons in October, when the mountain-ash and hawthorn- berries, lying half stripped on the ground beneath the trees from whence they have been shaken by early frosts, betray the approach of a severer season. The wine-press had done its work, and was now laid aside as lumber, till some future vintage ; the housewives of the village were busy with their troughs and chopping-knivcs, prepar- ing the kraut for their winter stores ; the beechen groves on the opposite bank of the THE OPERA. 21 Traun had assumed their mellow livery of red and yellow; while the bright-eyed robin was seen familiarly perched on the leafless twigs of the tenderer shrubs. The river ran hoarser and fuller in its channel than when reflecting the soft skies of the harvest month ; flights of wild fowl from the Styrian and Carinthian marshes occasionally darkened its waters; and in the distance, the mountains of the Salzburg defile displayed their silver crests in the clear horizon. A sprinkling of snow had already fallen in the vicinity of these Alpine heights; and already the woodstack of the Prlorey of St. Florian was laid under nightly contribution for the use of the huge stove gracing the great hall and refectory. The bleaching-ground through which the little rivulet of the Elz pours its tributary stream into the Traun— baptizing the village as it passes- was white with many a web, bearing witness to the industry of its female population ; and old Michelchen, grand-aunt to the Gorgel already aspersed in these pages by imphcation in the pranks of the young lord of Elzstein, was jusl closing the wicket of the meadow with a bundle 22 THE OPERA. of half-bleached linen grasped beneath her arm, when the military step of Hiob Armbrust was heard ringing on the causeway. The military fumes of his meerschaum announced that the doughty corporal was on his evening march from the castle towards the village. '' A bright afternoon and the best of luck to you, corporal !" mumbled the ancient dame, quickening her pace with the view of reaching Elzbach in friendly companionship with the great man^s great man. The corporal nodded his head in acknow- ledgment, puffing forth a whifF of considerable volume, but uttered not a word in reply ; and though this species of dumb dignity might pass in any other man as a hint that he had nothing to communicate worthy a waste of breath, it was by no means the case with Hiob. He was never so loquacious as when he had nothing to say ; never so sparing of his speech as when he had a piece of important news in his keeping ; it was only with a treasure in the chest that he judged it expedient to apply a padlock for its security. On the present occasion, therefore, the THE OPERA. 23 silence of the worthy corporal did not fail to excite a correspondent degree of interest in the ap- prehensions of Michelchen, who had lived her seven ty-tvo years in this world of craft and cunning, with some profit ; and who, having long discovered that the arts of the weaker sex are far more than a match for the stiffest resolves and most prudential scruples of mankind, now deter- mined to win by stratagem the secrets withheld from her participation. "As I was pottering down to the brook/' said the old woman with a sidelong glance towards her companion, " there met me brother Kemigius returning from Elzstein to the Priorey. Sorely grieved was the good man in noting the mcreas- ing infirmities of the noble count. No less than three fits of the gout smce St. John's day \ and our brother misdoubts him that we may even hear of a fourth before Candlemas." Corporal Armbrust puffed with still fiercer impatience at this announcement ; for it unfortu- nately chanced that the venerable fraternity of St. Florian maintained a far less distinguished place in his estimation than in that of the sf THE OPERA. Maldyn family, or of the villagers of Elzbacli. In the chances of his military career, he had fought side by side with reformers of every deno- mination. A long course of good fellowship with Lutherans, Calvinists, Moravians, and all the subdi visional sects of Northern Germany, had greatly tended to relax the severity of his early orthodoxy; and it was suspected among the old women on the banks of the Traun, including Brother Ilemigius and others of the Florianites, that the taciturn Hiob secretly indulged in lati- tudes of faith peculiarly unbecoming a veteran servant of the House of Hapsburg, and an active servant in the house of the bigoted Maldyn. A scornful elevation of the bowl of his pipe, his nose and mustached chin, now indicated to Frau Michelchen that he regarded Brother Remigius as an oaf, and his evil auguries as importunate and contemptible ; and the artful dame accord- ingly shifted her manoeuvres to a new position. " Verily it rejoiceth me. Corporal Hiob,'' she resumed, in a wheedling tone, " to learn, from the reverend father that the dispute between our good prior and the lord of Elzstein, touching the THE OPERA. 25 toUage on the fish-boats going up to the city, is likely to be adjusted; and moreover, that his kingly and imperial majesty is about to — '''' It was useless to proceed ! — Even Michelchen, despite her three-score years and twelve, retained sufficient optical and mental perspicacity to read in the contemptuously deliberate puffs, emitted by Armbrust's meerschaum, that Remigius knew nothing of the matter of the tollage; or that the matter was one of perfect indifference to the corporal and his lord. "It must be something concerning Count Adrian," was her ultimate decision ; and she boldly plunged into the heart of the business. " And so our young lord is forbidden to pass his carnival at Elzstein this year ? — Well ! the season will be all the sadder for the old folks his goodness was wont to cherish with an extra cup of Kirschenwasser, that they might be better able to struggle with the January frosts ; but perhaps it may be all the better for those giddy hussies, whose flax is apt to grow stale upon the reel whenever Count Adrian deigns to amuse himself with their L'dndlers. I VOL. I. c 26 THE OPERA. warrant me, how, that my grand-niece Gorgel will make up twelve ells of cloth the more against the fair at Linz, since my young lord has determined to pass the winter in the north !" '^ Stockfisch ! " cried the corporal, involuntarily removing the amber mouthpiece from between his lips, " Count Adrian will sup at the castle this Tery evening." No sooner was this piece of intelligence wrenched out of his obstinate heart, than he began most grievously to repent his infirmity of purpose; readily perceiving that instead of permitting him to exercise his ordinary and exclusive privilege of proclaiming the important fact — either in the market-place of Elzstein, or the eating-chamber of the GoldForelle — the unprincipled Michelchen was determined on following up her advantage. She not only accosted every individual who chanced to cross their path, for the pleasure of announcing the young count's visit ; but actually intruded her leathern visage into sundry dwellings and tenements by the wayside, in order that no one might remain in ignorance of the fact. '« My young lord Adrian is on the road !'' THE OPERA. 27 cried she; '« Count Adrian will sleep to-night at Elzstein !'' Till at length the discomfited corporal, like a plenipotentiary despoiled of his credentials on the frontier of the country to which his mission is appointed, suddenly and sullenly turned upon his heel, and retraced his steps to the castle. c2 THE OPERA. CHAPTER II. A stalwart, active, soldier-looking stripling, Handsome as Hercules ere his first labour ; And with a brow of thought beyond his years In his repose. Byron's Werner. Adrian Maldyn had just entered his twenty- third year. He was tall, well-formed, and grace- ful in his person ; while his countenance united peculiar regularity and elegance of lineament, with an intelhgent and animated expression. In his disposition he was rash, proud, and head- strong, with a head full of prejudice, and a heart full of romance ; warmly attached to a parent who was disposed to make every sacrifice in his favour, but incapable of disguising his disgust towards Elzstein as a residence, or his distaste for the monotonous tone of his father''s habits and occupations. It was wonderful that the granite gables of the old Schloss had never been moved from their high estate to crush the THE OPERA. 29 arrogance of tlie fastidious boy, who presumed to utter his disparaging criticisms on that ancient structure, and on the antediluvian system of its sayings and doings. So long as the youthful days of the young count had worn away under the tutorage of Brother Remigius — whose lessons of divine phi- losophy and philosophical divinity were strangely intermingled with the military and equestrian exercises inculcated by Corporal Armbrust — Adrian was contented to pass his leisure hours in the forest with Hiob and his rifle, or on the river with Blaschel and his nets. But " there comes a time, a weary time," when fathers, as eccentric and independent of the prejudices of society as even Count INIaldyn himself, grow anxious that their heirs-apparent should add knowledge of the world to classical acquirements, the living to the dead languages, and the grace- ful arts to the useful sciences. Although, for reasons peculiarly his own, he had taken up his rest beside the waters of the Traun, and wasted his maturity in an obscure solitude, the count entertained far different views, and indulged in 30: THE OPERA. better hopes for his son. Whatever might be the disasters which induced his own expatriation, or the afflictions which determined his seckision, they were not hereditary in their influence. He felt that Adrian was untouched by the bUght which had sufficed to wither his own existence ; that Adrian had still a country — still a home — to excite his ambition and reward his exertions ; and no sooner did the young count attain his sixteenth year, and as much Latin, mathematics, and historical erudition, as could be gathered from the tuition of the learned librarian of St. Florian, than he was despatched to the university for the completion of his education. It was many years since Count Maldyn had been called upon for so vast an expenditure of cogitation as it cost him to decide whether the journey of his son, on quitting Elzstein for the prosecution of his studies, should take a north- ward or southward — an eastern or western direc- tion. His religious prejudices strongly inclined him towards the latter; inasmuch as the universities of Vienna and Munich still boast their pristine odour of Catholic sanctity. But it THE OPERA. 51' Bappened that the prior of St. Florian's had a brother — a brother in the flesh as 'well as the spirit — officiating in a high station at the Ambro- sian College in Milan, and willing to bestow the tediousness and officiousness of his vigilance on the tyro of Elzstein. But just when Adrian had begun to flatter himself with a prospect of ex- changing the blue-eyed and flaxen-haired charms of Barbel and Gorgel for the raven tresses and dark-eyed glances of the glowing IMilanese, and the motetes of the monastery of Elzenkreuz for the cantatas of La Scala, his father decided that a competent knowledge of the English language was mdispensable to the well-being of his future fortmies ; and that the schemes hereafter to be perfected in Great Britain, could not be more auspiciously commenced than in Hanover. It w^as in vain that the prior shook his sanctified head, while Brother Remigius recapitulated the varieties of damnable heresy prevalent in Northern Germany : — to Gottingen it was de- termined that Adrian should go, and to Gottin- gen he went. It may readily be imagined that the whole 32 THE OPERA. united PHorez/ of St. Florian could no longer afford a letter of recommendation to the young scholar. But Adrian was not destined to be launched on his new career without a pilot for its course. Even amid his desolate isolation at Elzstein, Count Maldyn had kept up an occasional correspond- ence with a certain Baron Adelberg ; a former companion in arms, who now filled an important office at the vice-regal court of Hanover, and maintained a connexion with the English world, such as assigned him somewhat of the interest of a fellow-countryman in the estimation of the re- cluse of Elzbach. An epistle, penned in all the fervour of paternal anxiety and addressed to this dignified friend, was accordingly appended to the letter of credit bestowed by Maldyn upon his son, preparatory to his departure in the " kingly and imperial Eilwageji''' in search after wisdom ; nor till the old man caught a last glimpse of that un- shapely vehicle, as it followed the windings of the river, along the post-road to Linz, had he ever .conjectured the degree of weariness and disgust which circumstances may lend to time and place, — aye ! even to the most favourite place. The first THE OPERA. 33 four-and-twenty hours passed in absence from his son, imparted a lesson of self-knowledge more accurate than any which young Adrian was likely to acquire from the professional high- mightinesses of Gottingen. For the first time, Elzstein became less than a paradise in the eye of Count Maldyn. Adrian, on the contrary, after some few " natural tears," and natural regrets, which lasted during the first stage or two of his journey, rejoiced in an opportunity of extending his limited knowledge of the world ; and no sooner was he inaugurated into his novel career, than he began to exult hke an eaglet in its first flight from the eyry. In addition to the valu- able credentials with which he was furnished by his father to the baron and the banker, he had been loaded with ghostly counsels by his um- quwhile preceptors of the monastery, for better security agamst those heretical perils, the mere apprehension of which was terrific to their narrow souls. Much had they fovmd to say, touching Luther and Melancthon, John Huss, and Jerome of Prague; much concerning the c3 34! THE OPERA. abominations of Wittenberg, and the absurdities of Herrnhut. They conceived no danger or temptation so Hkely to beset his path, as the solemn errors of heterodoxy ! The elder Maldyn, although better initiated into the mysteries of a university education, and fully aware of the nature of the snares likely to be spread for his youthful St. Anthony, uttered at parting only a few words by way of warning, and not a syllable by way of menace. He trusted that the precepts and example of six- teen years had not been thrown away upon his son, and wisely left the lesson to be completed by the schooling of experience ; satisfying his own mis- givings by a self-assurance that Adrian would not make the worse soldier, or gentleman, or man, for having occasionally heard the chimes at midnight ; and indulged in lapses of discretion such as must have condemned brother Remigius to the discipline, or the worthy superior of of St. Florian's to an expiatory pilgrimage to the shrines of Maria Zell or Alt Getting. Whether these lapses became more than occasional, rests in the bosom of the indulgent THE OPERA. 35 father ; but certain it is that, more than once, the return of Corporal Armbrust from the Post Ami bearing a letter with the Gottingen postmark, sufficed to plunge Count Maldyn into silence and depression for the remainder of the day. These momentous missives were not, however, inscribed in the handwriting of Adrian ; — for Adrian's letters, whether long or short — grave or gay, lively or severe — never failed to bring a glow of pleasure to his father's cheek, and a glance of animation to his eyes ; and were, moreover, apt to find their way, in spirit if not in substance, to the ear of Hiob, and thence through his lips to those of all the ruling elders of the village. The mysterious communications, on the con- trary, were endited, either with a cleanliness of caligraphy characteristic of the banker, the notary, or the college tutor, — or in the official scrawl of his friend the baron ; and it was remark- able that the advent of Hanoverian despatches of this description, was invariably followed by som.e trifling personal sacrifice on the part of the lord of Elzstein. A favourite colt was despatched to Linz on the ensuing market-day for peremptory 36 THE OPERA. sale ; — or an under-garden er was paid off and dismissed ; — or the bottle of Bisamberger placed on the count's dinner-table was so economized as to make its reappearance there for four succes- sive days. Nay I — upon one occasion — an occa- sion which brought to hand no less than three of these Gottingenian epistles (the last bearing testimony in its address to the tremulous condition of Adrian''s hand) — the epistolary Cerberus was matched in bvilk if not in multiplication, by a mysterious square parcel despatched in return by the recluse of the Traun, subscribed to '' His Excellency the Well-born Baron Adelberg :" — and it was considered by Hiob as a very remarkable coincidence, that from the day distinguished by this exuberance of foreign correspondence, he could never get sight of the great gold snuff- box set in brilKants, presented to Colonel Count Maldyn on the field of battle, by the Archduke Charles. It had certainly disappeared while the count was shut up in the solitude of his own apartments to grieve over those ill-boding Hanoverian letters ! — Misfortunes seldom come alone ! THE OPERA. 37 But after the first vacation passed by Adrian at the castle, his father's epistolary intercourse with Gottingen rested wholly with himself, and produced nothing but agreeable impressions at Elzstein. The inexperienced boy became a man sooner than was to be expected from the tenour of his youth ; and whatever might be the follies in which he still continued to indulge, he took care that they should never again implicate his beloved and lenient parent in their results. By his careful management, even the idle adventure of Gorgel and Barbel, so familiar to every other inhabitant of the village, was prevented from reaching the ears of Count Maldyn. In the course of the five years passed by Count Adrian at the university, there was, however, one " untoward event,'' which, thanks to the officious zeal of Brother Remigius, penetrated the granite walls of Elzstein, although unwhispered among the clay tenements of the village — on other occa- sions so much more pervious to rumours of mis- chief Perhaps, after all, the ex-preceptor might be justified in his interference ; for Stephanine Hashnger, the heroine of the adventure, was un- 38 THE OPERA. questionably a far more dangerous neighbour for the young student, than an uncivilized hoyden such as Barbel the pretty sister of Blaschel the fisherman. Stephanine was scarcely sixteen — ^brilliant with jiatural graces and talents — artful as she was in- telhgent, — and adding a syren^s voice to attractions of considerable personal beauty. On their first acqiiaintance, Adi-ian had been persuaded to give up the leisure hours of his vacation to her instruction in the science of music. But before she had wholly accomplished her purpose of entangling the young count, in return, in the perplexities of a secret marriage, Brother Remi- gius drew the attention of his astonished father towards the afiair ; when Count Maldyn, affect- ing to humour Adrian's project of accomplishing the lovely Elzbacliener as a professional singer, generously undertook the cost of her tuition in the conservatorio at Prague. In the course of a weekj the Fraulein Stephanine found herself placed as a boarder in the family of an eminent musical professor attached to that imperial esta- bhshment ; — an arrangement no less satisfactory THE OPERA. 39 to the infirm grandfather, who had been hitherto burdened with her maintenance, than it was vexatious to the syren of the Traun. Nothing further was heard of her at Elzbach than that her talents had placed her on the road to prefer- ment ; and we are at Hberty to hope that more exphcit intelHgence on the subject did not even reach Gottingen. It was nearly four years after this memorable exercise of benevolence on the part of Count Maldyn, and Adrian had attained all the distinc- tions of the university, and all the polite accom- plishments which a month or two passed in the family of Baron Adelberg at the court of Hanover was likely to confer, when he found himself very unexpectedly summoned home by his father ; a provision having been made for the comfort and convenience of his journey, very different from that which had hitherto attended his vacation expeditions. By the old count's, especial desire, he found himself in possession of a handsome travelling-carriage, and an expert courier, as well as of a pocket-book so hberally furnished, as to ensure the payment of every 40 THE OPERA. thaler of his debts — from his obligations to the learned Theban his college tutor, to his more occult engagements "with young Gustavus Adel- berg, the partner and companion of his boyish excesses. His entrance into Elzbach, therefore, as an- nounced on the present occasion, by Michel- chen's garrulity, afforded a far more imposing spectacle and ceremonial than any which, for years past, had graced the village ; and it is pos- sible, that had the Elzbacheners been led to anti- cipate the splendour of his new appointments, they might have been induced to welcome him under a triumphal arch. As it was, divers woollen nightcaps, and beaver-skin foraging-caps, were thrown up in honour of the occasion ; while a few ^' hurrahs" were wheezed and sputtered by the decrepit beings tottering to their doors to look upon the unusual magnificence of their patron's heir. But the labourers were in the fields, — Stephanine was still a resident in Bohemia, — Barbel, unwarned of his coming, had neglected to add fresh decorations to her butterfly-winged coif of gold ; and Adrian was of opinion that THE OPERA. 41 Elzbach had never looked more cheerless and uninviting than on this occasion. But if no admiring populace were gathered to- gether in honour of his entree, the utmost extent of admiration they could have bestowed on the splendour of his Offenbach calash, the gold lace lavished on the jacket of his showy courier, or the coxcombical airs of his valet, would have been far less gratifying to his vanity than the open- mouthed wonderment with which his personal endowments were hailed by Hiob Armbrust, and the silent pride of affection with which they were noticed by his father. Count Maldyn, whose knowledge of the world had been acquired no less in courts than camps, did not fail to appre- ciate the suavity of tone, and elegance of address, which now tempered the animation of the hand- some Adrian ; and on laying his head upon his pillow, after the first evening passed in his son''s society, began for the first time to rejoice that all these attractions and accomplishments were not destined to be hidden in the obscurity of Elzstein. Meanwhile the midnight reflections of his son were scarcely of a less exciting nature. The mo- 42 THE OPERA. tives of his mysterious recal to Austria, and the sources of his father's unwonted munificence, could not but occupy his conjectures ; more par- ticularly as no change or difference was percep- tible in the establishment of the castle, to justify his hopes that some wonderful event had swelled the revenues of his paternal estate. After being deprived of his night's rest by all the perplexity of guesses, misdoubtings, and visionary antici- pations of future prosperity, he made his appear- ance the following morning at the breakfast-table, overflowing with curiosity. A single glance at his father's face sufficed to dispel his uneasiness. The countenance of Count Maldyn was as annun- ciatory of family mysteries, and their elucida- tion, as any visage that ever wore the genuine and mournful pathos of romantic interest ; and Adrian had no patience with the unsympathizing voracity with which their visiter. Brother Remi- gius, fastened upon the Gratz capon he had been dissecting previous to the entrance of his quondam pupil, forbidding all immediate hopes of a tete-a-Ute between the father and son. The count found himself compelled to take THE OPERA. 43 refuge in Hanoverian politics from the tedium of a dead silence, interrupted only by the good brother's audible labours of mastication. But while Adrian sat desponding over his anticipa- tions that the demolition of the unctuous Styrian dainty would be followed by an attack on a dish of trouts (the celebrated Lachs Forelle of the neighbouring lake of Gmund), which according to the fashion of the country, were swimming before him in a wide dish of raspberry vinegar garnished with rings of onions, on which the reverend man cast ever and anon a longing eye — the distant croak of the great bell of Elzenkreuz suddenly startled him from his sensual indulgences, with the remembrance that an extraordinary service was about to be performed at the monaster^-, in honour of a certain Cardinal Colloredo, archbishop of Salzburg, who had been enrolled in the list of its benefactors two centuries before. But the moment of explanation did not so speedily follow the hasty exit of his ex-preceptor, as Adrian could have wished. He was compelled to endure the importunate routine of the break- fast-table, and the orderly regularity with which 44 THE OPE II A. Hiob Armbrust officiated in its accustomed duties, till he was sorely inclined to quarrel with the iron impenetrability of feature exhibited by the sober corporal in his leisurely proceedings ; nay, even when the military pantler and surveyor of the buttery had jingled the last tray out of the room, the young count's impatience was still to be ex- cited by the restlessness of the favourite wolf-dog lying at his father's feet. Draunzt, however, was insensible to the indignation wasted on those rustlings and shiftings with which he strove to render his snooze more comfortable, and the oc- casional snore which announced the perfect frui- tion of his endeavours ; till at length the younger Maldyn, perceiving that his father remained as silent and abstracted as though they had still been enciunbered with the presence of Remigius, Armbrust, the Gratz capon, and the savoury trout, strove to introduce some indifferent topic of conversation, by an inquiry respecting the quan- tity of wild boar destroyed in the Prince of Paar's last hattue. The attempt was eminently successful. Count Maldyn having nerved his fortitude to speak on THE OPERA. 45 the subject nearest his heart, gladly accepted any opportunity to break the ice. After entering with apparent interest into every branch of the business, and listening to Adrian^s account of the pleasures of landrail-shooting on the Hanoverian levels, he observed, " And you will soon have occasion to extend your experience in field-sports; you will soon be able to decide between the attractions of an Austrian boar-hunt, and a Melton fox- chase. It is my intention, my dear son, that you should immediately visit England."*"* " England ! " involuntarily responded the young count ; who seemed to consider that Mecca or Skalholt, were just as germane to the matter. " I thought, sir, you had wholly re- nounced your interest in the country of your an- cestors ? — You have more than once assured me, that you consider Germany your native land. "*"* " My views for the welfare of an only son may chance to differ widely from those I entertain on my own account."" <* But surely, sir, you will accompany me to England .?'' 46 THE OPERA. Count Maldyn replied only by glancing with a melancholy smile towards the crutches lying beside his easy chair. '' You will get on better, my dear son, unshackled by the decrepitude of such a companion. No ! Adrian ; my wounds, no less than my inclinations, have anchored me for the remainder of my days in the country in whose service they were acquired, and whose liberality has so honourably repaid the sacrifice. Ireland was pleased to bestow on me little beyond a birth-place ; from Austria I have received a tranquil home, a decent maintenance, an honour- able rank. If it pleases Heaven, I would also find in her bosom an obscure and peaceful grave.^' Adrian now placed himself on a seat nearer to his father, whose countenance bore witness to the excitement of his feelings. '' But your position," resumed Count Maldyn, " is widely different. No cankering wound has marred the vigour of your youthful frame; no disappointments have withered the sanguine impulses of your glowing heart. You have no enmities, no remembered injuries to alienate your destiny from that parent THE OrERA. 47 country with whose well-being your own fortunes are so closely connected ; — ^no agonizing reminis- cences to render its aspect hateful — no grievous experience to make its flatterers contemptible. Go ! therefore, my dear Adrian, to England. Judge with your own judgment the land of your forefathers. Your imcle is no more; and you must henceforward remember, that instead of an Austrian soldier, you have a British viscount for your father." Poor Adrian I — this startling announcement was his first occasion for learning that he had ever been possessed of an uncle ; or was hkely to become possessed of a peerage ! 48 THE OPEKA. CHAPTER III. Yet Syracusan, sav in brief the cause Why thou departedst from the native home. And for what cause thou cam'st to Ephesus. Comedy of Errors. " And this, then, my dear father," exclaimed the young man, after a few further inquiries into the nature and extent of his honours. " this was the origin of your anxiety to prevent my dis- honouring my family by a union with poor Stephanine .?" " No !" replied the count, " you mistake me ; had you been simply the son of Count Mai dyn, the Austrian veteran, instead of Lord Abbotscourt, — ^had you been merely heir to the savings of my pension, instead of to an estate of twenty thousand THE OPERA. 49 a year — I should have entertained the same re- pugnance, and testified the same opposition. Stephanine Haslinger had no claim to the sacri- fice meditated by your partiality. Even had she been amiable and virtuous, you would have done rashly in elevating her so immeasurably above her proper sphere ; but as it was — for the measure of your folly was better known to me than you imagine — you had no excuse for presenting such a person in the circle to which of birthright you belong.'' " And may I — dare I ask," continued Adrian, imboldened by the indulgence with which his first indiscreet interrogation had been received by his father, " what inducements determined you to resign your own position in that circle, and to desert those privileges of station to which you affix so high a value .^" '' Perhaps I should have forestalled these in- quiries," repHed Lord Abbotscourt gravely ; "for I feel that it is time you should know something of your father, and — ^" " Do I not know him," interrupted the impe- VOL.I. D 50 THE OPERA. tuous young man, " as the kindest and best of parents ?" " And of your mother ! " persisted his lord- ship ; and the tone of consciousness in which this word was pronounced, served to remind his auditor that the name had scarcely ever before been uttered in his hearing. " Your mother — to whom your lineaments bear so strong a resemblance ; to whose destinies, I pray that those of her child may afford no parallel ! The details by which I am about to make them known might appear prolix and tedious to other ears ; but remember, they have sacred claims upon the interest of her child !— " It is of myself, however, that I am first called upon to speak. I was born, Adrian, the third son of Lord Abbotscourt; — a nobleman deriving his dignity among his countrymen, less from the distinction of a Stuart viscounty, than from the Milesian descent boasted by the ancient house of Mauldwyne. He was a proud man, a bigoted Catholic, and a tenacious politician ; morbidly sensitive to the humihated condition of THE OPEKA. 51 his native land, and detesting even a Protestant the more for being an Englishman. My father fancied, that his unconcealed contempt for the constituted authorities of the land arose solely from disaffection towards the house of Hanover ; but such was his natural haughtiness of character, that I doubt whether he could have maintained a loyal degree of humility in presence of those faithful sons of the true church, the exiled princes of the Stuart family. '' My eldest brother, heir to all the frailties and animosities of his line, was educated in the sullen reserve of a home education; and his austere and selfish disposition promised no diminution to the defects of character of the Viscounts Abbots- court. My second, my dear Wrottesley, who was brought up with a view to the dignities of the Roman Catholic church, would have made as urbane and intelligent a representative of the family honours, as Mr. Maldyn his becoming substitute in the stole or the mitre. Wrottesley seemed destined by nature for an amiable man of the world; while the firstborn of our line affected all the frigid severity of an anchorite. D 2 52 THE OPERA. Of the third brother — of myself — it is needless to say more than that Randolph Maldyn, some five-and-twenty years ago, exhibited both in person and disposition a pretty exact resem- blance to the Adrian Maldyn of to-day. You do not know yourself, my boy ; or you would be aware that this definition supposes your father to have been rash, ungovernable, prejudiced, — in- temperate in the pursuit of pleasure, — obstinate in adherence to predilections idly conceived, and dignifying the defect by the name of constancy ; — frank even to indiscretion, in word and deed, and claiming merit for the folly under the titles of candour and independence; — endowed with many of the best qualities that adorn the soldier, and many of the worst which incapacitate a citizen." " Your portrait, my dear father, is not a flat- tering one." " Let me, therefore, smooth down the ruffled plumes of your vanity, by informing you that I was considered the best-looking of my family ; and that the partiality entertained by Lord Ab- botscourt for his youngest son, was supposed THE OPERA. 53 to arise from a foolish pride in the superiority of his external endowments. But whatever the cause of his unreasonable predilection, I was in no humour to be satisfied with the effect when, instead of permitting me to join my brothers in the European tour which was to complete their education, he announced his intention of retaining my society in Ireland during their absence. He did not choose, he said, to be left alone at Abbotscourt Castle ; and however unwiUingly, I was forced to concur in the decision. " My father had, however, no just grounds for his complaints touching the loneliness of his baronial residence; for although for many pre- vious years condemned to the desolation of a widower's condition, he possessed in my only sister a companion whose gentleness, cheerful- ness, and filial submission, might have afforded ample compensation for the departure of his sons. There exists not — there cannot exist — even among those favoured circles of your countrywomen to whose beauty, elegance, and intellectual endowments you will shortly devote 54 THE OPERA. your homage, a more pure and captivating ex- ample of feminine excellence than was afforded by Florentia Maldyn. She was the darling of all our hearts; and richly did she merit their partiality. " But although Lord Abbotscourt made no secret of his contempt for the powers of compa- nionship of his beautiful daughter, I took care that he should have ample opportunity to form a truer appreciation of her merits. Seizing every pretext, reasonable or unreasonable, to absent myself from home, and exchange the monotonous routine of Abbotscourt for the gaieties of Dubhn, I succeeded, partly by soothing and partly by defying my father's anger, in establishing a sort of residence in the capital; and Lord Abbots- court was pacified during my absence by an assurance that the chief object of my visits to Dublin was to cultivate the friendships and con- nexions pointed out by his Milesian prejudices to my adoption. Whether in regard to my brothers, my sister, or myself, he considered it impossible that a child of his should presume to exercise its own free will and personal choice; THE OPERA. 55 it was only by stealth or stratagem we ever ven- tured to indulge our natural inclinations. " For some time previous to the epoch to which I allude, the tone of Irish society had exhibited, in the most marked manner, the pernicious influ- ence of evil example in the high places of the land. A character of libertinism unblushingly estabUshed at the castle and in the vice-regal circle, afforded an apology for the vices of every rank of society; and the profligacy which held itself excused amid the refinement, brilliancy, fashion, and wit, of the English coterie collected round our luxurious lord lieutenant, exhibited only a coarser shade of licentiousness in its general adoption. Every moral obligation, every restric- tion of decency, was publicly outraged; and even my father's excess of disgust and detestation seemed justified by the insults offered to the Irish capital through the vices of the English rulers placed in authority over the land. But my father was by no means singular in his discontent. Mur- murs arose among husbands and fathers, who were not easily reconciled to those lessons of in- famy dispensed to their female relatives by the 56 THE OPERA. smiling mischiefs of the Castle ; and very shortly- after my first visit to Dublin, the appointment of the Earl of Templeton to the viceroyalty at once removed all cause of offence, and was said to proceed from certain indignant remonstrances of the higher, or rather, the bette?' order of Irish society, which had reached the Royal ear. "It would have been difficult to find, through- out the whole range of the British nobility, two persons better skilled to attempt the reformation of the frivolous and licentious tone pervading the Irish court, than Lord Templeton and his wife. Harsh, cold, and stately, — both were too com- pletely self-engrossed to suspect or heed the dis- content with which their arrival was noted by the recent frequenters of the Castle; as well as by the bigoted remnant of national nobility, who re- garded his lordship's modern coronet with undis- guised contempt. They were eager, indeed, to impute to himself the rapacity by which his grand- father had contrived, in the course of a long offi- cial career, to win his way to opulence and dis- tinction ; but in this they overstepped the truth. Whatever might be the new viceroy's faults as a THE OPERA. 5J statesman, he was an upright citizen, a man of unimpeachable rectitude. " Perhaps he presumed too far on this unswerv- ing purity of moral conduct. Spotless and com- manding as a rock of adamant, he was scarcely less hard and unsusceptible ; and his severity of de- meanour, which was more than rivalled by the cere- monious formality of Lady Templeton, tended not a httle to augment the attractions of his young and lovely daughters. Lady Katharine and Lady Cecil Darley appeared almost too joyous and warmhearted to have been born and fostered amid the frigid stateliness of the Enghsh aristocracy ; and although, previous to the arrival of Lord and Lady Templeton, it had been estabhshed as a rule by the courtiers and friends of their prede- cessors that the new court should be rigorously shunned by its recent adherents, many found it impossible to resist the captivating manners of these lovely girls.'' " I conjecture,"" interrupted Adrian, " that my father was not remiss in rendering his homage .?" " I fear I must pronounce myself to have been among the first deserters from my party ; D 3 58 THE OPERA. and though the gracious acceptance I met with from the first day of my presentation to the new lord heutenant, was evidently the result of policy (for the extent of my father'^s influence and of his opposition to the ruling powers, was duly under- stood and appreciated), the frankness with which I found my visits welcomed by his daughters, seemed to my boyish vanity a tribute to my own merit. Even Lady Templeton, their cold and self-sufficient mother-in-law, received my advances with an unusual degree of courtesy. Piqued by the neglect with which her debut in Ireland was greeted by the highest order of societ}', and finding it impossible to overawe the uncivilized inhabitants of Dublin by airs of hauteur unsup- ported by the presence and allegiance of her own order, she now strove to conciliate in my person the rebellious clan which still bade defiance to her supremacy. But with Lady Templeton and her policy, I had htlle sympathy ; or rather, encouraged by the distaste with which this recent mother-in-law was regarded by the daughters of her lord, I allowed my demeanour towards her to testify somewhat more than indifference." THE OPEEA. 59 '' And Lady Katharine, my dear father — Lady Cecil? — Surely I am right in antici- pating — " '' Lady Katharine," resumed Lord Abbots- court, without noticing his son's interruption, '' although the eider of the two sisters, was by no means the one to whom a stranger would have assigned that seniority. Volatile and apparently inconsiderate as a child ; eager for amusement, and only prevented by the high-breeding of her address from betraying the heartless egotism of the mere lover of pleasure, she appeared formed for a life of prosperity and sunshine — a butterfly irradiating the genial atmosphere of a summer's day ! Nor was her sister's a much graver dispo- sition ; but Cecil had more of cheerfulness than levity in her disposition, and a degree of kindhness in her heart which prevented her from indulging in the satirical sallies enlivening the conversation of Katharine. — But even the most eager votary of laughing eyes and sportive tones, although on a first acquaintance he might be attracted by the buoyancy of spirit so bewitching in Katharine, was sure to find himself in the end permanently 60 THE OPERA. attached by the docile and feminine character of her sister. " Such, unfortunately, was my own case. Dur- ing the early days of my intimacy at the Castle, I had not hesitated to distinguish Lady Katha- rine Darley by a preference so strongly marked, that the voice of society immediately hailed me as her lover — her suitor — her husband, — long before I dreamed of tendering more to her ac- ceptance than my hand in the dance, or the use of my favourite horse. But no sooner did I find myself congratulated on all sides as a successful pretendant to her hand, than I began to enter into a more careful investigation of my inclina- tions, and of the comparative merit of the two sisters ; — an investigation ending in the conviction that my fancy, and not my feelings, had been touched by Lady Katharine's charms ; and that, although she might claim a decided pre-emi- nence in point of beauty, she had no ulterior ex- cellence to oppose to the merit of the soft and gentle Cecil. Warned by my previous infir- mity of judgment, I refrained on this occasion from the rash impetuosity which had marked my THE OPERA. 61 original preference. I was not sufficiently in- experienced in the ways of the world to imagine, that the younger son of an Irish viscount affi)rded an object of much consideration to the daughter of the wealthy and distinguished Earl of Templeton; I even knew with certainty that his lordship, on learning the Dublin reports of my union with Lady Katharine, had replied as an unanswerable negative, that ' Mr. Maldyn was a Catholic ;' while Lady Templeton evinced her still more decided contempt of my pretensions by observing that the tale required no refutation, for that I was a younger son and a beggar. I was aware, therefore, that I ran no risk of finding my attentions eagerly appropriated by the parents of the object of my admiration ; it was the de- meanour of Lady Katharine herself which taught me to moderate the rashness of my homage. ''It was impossible to deny that however in- significant in her eyes my value as an adorer, she was prompt to notice and resent the change in my feelings. Few women have sufficient ge- nerosity of mind to despise a conquest — however despicable — awarded to them by the general opi- 62 THE OPERA. nion of the world ; and although to a girl fami- liar with the attractions and admiration of Lon- don society my pretensions as a lover probably appeared absurd, yet in the dearth of better suitors, and the absence of all but the super- annuated aid-de-camps selected by Lord Tem- pleton's prudence to become the partners and companions of his daughters, the spirited Lady Katharine decided that Mr. Maldyn, a popu- lar member of the coterie which frowned de- fiance at her mother-in-law, was the only man in the circle of the Castle worth flirting with, — or worthy to be entrusted with the secret of her contempt for the Hottentots, his fellow-country- men, — and her detestation of Lady Templeton, the precisian. If she did not encourage me as a suitor, at least she adopted me as a confederate ; and gladly would I have maintained myself on that footing in her favour. " Scarcely, however, did I become enlightened as to the degree of influence exercised by Cecil over my bosom, when I perceived that Lady Ka- tharine was equally discerning on the subject ; and that her resentment of the offence, instead THE OPERA. 63 of exhibiting itself in the ordinary airs of disdain reserved by women for such occasions, took a far more perilous shape. In becoming my enemy for life, she assumed a familiar tone of confidential regard ; while far from resuming the frankness of her criticisms on Lady Templeton, she affected to recognize a thousand new and amiable qualifi- cations hitherto overlooked in her mother-in-law ; and far from pursuing her raillery on the dul- ness and vulgarity of the viceregal court, be- came all courtesy to its guests — all submission to the etiquette exacted by her father. Without immediately perceiving the drift of these changes, I had a vague presentiment that their result would prove inauspicious to my views. " Cecil meanwhile, the lovely and gracious Cecil, deigned to encourage the idolatry of her acknowledged votary with a degree of frankness arising no less from the artlessness of her mind and manners, than from the slighting tone in which, in their sisterly intercourse. Lady Katha- rine had originally affected to speak of my pre- ference ; — making no secret of her intention to discard the romantic and presuming young Mile- sian should a more appropriate dangler present 64 THE OPERA. himself to her acceptance, and deriding my pre- tensions to her favour as troublesome and vexa- tious. Single-minded beyond the common sim- plicity of her sex, poor Cecil regarded these mur- murs as genuine, and fancied she was conferring a favour on her sister by accepting my rejected regard. Nay ! so little did she attempt to disguise the emotions of mutual affection with which she repaid the gift of my whole heart, that I soon lost sight of all my prudential resolves, and with a full consciousness of the impossibility of obtain- ing the sanction of our families to such a mea- sure, sought and obtained her promise to become mine for ever. " Madman that I was ! — While I placed on the finger of my dear Cecil a solemn pledge of our betrothment, I acknowledged and be- lieved myself the happiest of men ; overlooking at that moment my incapability to provide a maintenance for my wife ; and forgetting that the secret of our mutual tenderness — a secret com- prehending the happiness of our future life — was entrusted to the sister whose weakness we had laid bare — the woman whose pride we had piqued into the worst passions of her sex ! " THE OPERA. 65 CHAPTER IV. Oh ! rake not up tlie aghes of our fatliers, Implacable resentment was their crime. And grievous hath the expiation been. Joanna Baillie. '^ It was but a few days, my dear Adrian, after the formation of this rash engagement, that a manifest change occurred in Lady Templeton^s demeanour towards her daughter-in-law and my- self. Instead of restraining our intercourse, as formerly, by the prudish severity of her matronly decorum and viceregal dignity, Lady Cecil was thrown as if by preconcerted intention into my society ; and, had I not been rendered suspicious by the almost unnatural cordiality with which Lady Katharine affected to enter into our pro- 66 THE OPERA. jects, I should have readily fallen into the snare. Riding parties, and water parties, and excursions into the lovely scenery of the county of Wick- low, were arranged by Lady Templeton, as though for the sole purpose of favouring our in- terviews ; for it was always my arm to which Cecil was consigned for protection, my skill as a charioteer which was supposed to reassure her apprehensions. But fully aware of the danger of a premature discovery of our attachment, I was on my guard; and, instead of profiting by the facilities thus afforded, resumed in pub- lic my tone of intimacy with Lady Katharine, and thus still farther aggravated her resentment by rendering her the screen of my real passion. She did not remonstrate ; — ^but the silent indig- nation of a vindictive woman is like the deadly vapour haunting the flowery savannahs of a pes- tilential climate. I watched the scrutinizing glances of Lady Templeton, and fancied it suffi- cient if I could mislead their inquisition ; but it was Katharine — the slighted Katharine — ^from whom I had most to dread. " In the midst of these raptures and perplex- THE OPERA. 67 ities, I received a letter from my father, request- ing my immediate presence at Abbotscourt ; and, as it was not only couched in his usual terms of parental interest, but alluded to the infirmity of his own health as his motive for deshing to see me at the castle, I entertained no suspicion that any thmg was wrong. After a hasty farewell to Lady Cecil, and an entreaty to her sister that she would watch over the happiness of my beloved during my short absence, I flew to testify my obedience to my father's commands. " Unfortunately it was the dmner-hour at Abbotscourt when I made my appearance; so that I had no opportunity for a moment's inter- view with Florentia, or with Father John (Lord Abbotscourfs confidential chaplain), to warn me of the approaching storm. I was received with his lordship s accustomed abruptness of do- meanour ; — nothing unusual in the tone of his interrogations concerning Dublin, its politics, its diversions, and society, induced me to more than my usual caution in reply. I said little of the Castle, for it was never included in my father's line of inquuy ; but much— ^o much— of the 68 THE OPERA. antiquated dowagers and noble malcontents with whom I knew he was anxious I should associate. Unwilling to proclaim my neglect of his recom- mendation, I was so engrossed by my awkward endeavours to appear familiar with their habits, and versed in their opinions, that I did not even perceive the uneasiness of my sister, who repeat- edly interrupted my replies by allusions to my brothers — to their tour — and other topics likely to attract my attention. '' ' Y ou are probably in correspondence with Wrottesley?" inquired Lord Abbotscourt. ' Have you heard from him since his arrival at Rome ? ' " ' So often and satisfactorily,' I replied, ^ that I am more than ever tempted to regret your lordship's disapprobation of my anxious desire to bear him company in his continental tour.' '' ' Indeed!' exclaimed my father, incredulous- ly ; — so incredulously, that I was beginning to utter vehement affirmations of my sincerity, when again, and in the harshest manner, he in- terrupted me. " ' You are an infernal hypocrite, my precious THE OPERA. 69 Randolph !' he exclaimed, fixing his eyes fiercely upon my face. < By heavens ! I blush to find a son of mine so determined, and yet so inexpert a liar! — Here has been your sister Florence, grimacing at you for the last half hour, to put a stop to your romances respecting that circle of my friends, which you presume to call your own, although for weeks and months past you have been contemptuously rejected from their society.^ '' ' It is true, my lord,' I replied — swelling with the conviction of having somewhat exceeded the measure of fact in my allusions to the courtesies of his favourites — ' it is true that I may have lately testified some degree of neglect towards persons whom your advice has made it my duty to conciliate, but — "* " True r ' interrupted Lord Abbotscourt — ' true ! — and asserted by you-^-hj Mr. Randolph Maldyn ? — by the minion of my right honourable Lord Grizzle, of Dublin Castle — the esquire of these still more honourable dames, who conde- scend to initiate the honest women of Ireland into the filthy vices of ancient Rome and modern Lon- 70 THE OPERA. don! — True! — ^are you sure that you remember the meaning of the word ? ' "• For a single moment I fancied my father's violence must proceed either from insanity or in- toxication ; but a deliberate survey of his coun- tenance having sufficed to convince me that his fury was perfectly methodical, I rose to leave the room. I felt that I was not sufficiently master of myself to listen with patience to similar up- braidings. " ' Stay ! young man,' said Father John, laying his hand detainingly on my arm. ' A father has an unlimited claim on the forbearance and sub- mission of his child. The time may come when his lordship will listen to your vindication.' " ' It must come — it shall come ;' I faltered with quivering Ups. ' In my own behalf I have nothing to urge : — I have but one reply for the man who stigmatizes my honour ; and that reply is not for a parent. But for those others — those women — those Englishwomen whom Lord Ab- botscourt has thought proper to asperse — ' <««Fooir exclaimed my father, stamping im- / THE OPERA. 71 patiently on the floor, while Florentia vainly in- terposed to moderate his vehemence, ' will you attempt to deny a proposition echoed from one end of the island to the other ? — will you affect to disclaim a charge, the objects of which glory in i'.s notoriety ? — Go, go ! Randolph ! — these Lady C — s and Lady R — s of your's will re- nounce your friendship when they hear that you have been presuming to bleach the stains of their infamy ! ' «' ' I am completely puzzled by your allusions,' said I, secretly delighted to find that his angry retort referred to the circle of the former court instead of to the Darley family. ' The ladies, my lord, of whom you speak have so long been strangers to the Castle, that I had almost forgotten their existence, nor have I the shghtest motive for advocating their cause.' " ' I was sure of it !' exclaimed my sister, dry- ing her tears. ' My dearest father ! deign to listen to Randolph's exculpation. I am per- suaded you will find him innocent in every other particular.' " « Innocent !' cried Lord Abbotscourt, tremb- 72 THE OPERA. ling with rage, and striking on the table a letter he drew from his pocket — ' Can he prove himself innocent of having exposed me to the insult of this? — to the shame of being cajoled by the con- descensions of an English ' " ' My dear father !' again expostulated poor Florence, dreading from experience the sound of those coarse invectives suggested by his intempe- rate fury. ' Lady Templeton is recognized as a woman of the highest honour and virtue, even by those who abhor the politics of her lord and his party.' " ' A woman of honour and virtue ! — the super- annuated maiden-daughter of an upstart law-lord, purchased by the high and mighty Lord — Templeman — Templetown — whafs the fellow''s name ? — as a duenna for his scapegrace daugh- ters ! — She, to presume to address her glozing condescensions to the son of '' " ' Twenty generations of pure Milesian blood!' I rashly ventured to observe. ' It is indeed a strange presumption on the part of the represen- tative of majesty.' " « Young sir !' remonstrated Father John, THE OPERA. 73 ' must I again remind you of the filial du- ties ' " ' Silence !' cried my father : — ^ I have no longer a claim on his filial duty — I disown him as a son.' '' ' Then is it time for me to quit this place !' said I, moving towards the door. ' I came hither, my lord, in obedience to your com- mands ; and, at the same suggestion, shall wil- lingly quit Abbotscourt for ever. I should in- deed be unworthy the name of Maldyn, did I remain in your presence to provoke you into fur- ther forgetfulness of what is due to me and to yourself.*" " On quitting the chamber, I could not close my ears to the burst of vituperation with which this intemperate sally was received by Lord Ab- botscourt ; and as the horses which conveyed me from Dublin had not yet left the castle, I was about to fulfil my announcement of immediate departure, when Florence, who had wisely left my father to the consolations and spiritual counsels of his chaplain, joined me in the hall and drew me towards her own apartments. At VOL. I. E 74 THE OPETJA. the soothing of my sister's gentle voice, my anger subsided. Florentia was several years older than ii^yself-— old enough, indeed, to have blended in my early years somewhat of the tender authority of a mother with her sisterly caresses. But a short time since, and I had been " little Ran- dolph" in her chidings and endearments ; and I became again, as it were, a child — while I lis- tened to the remonstrances, half inaudible through her tears, with which she strove to tranquillize my ungovernable temper. " The mystery of Lord Abbotscourt's excite- ment was soon explained. He had received, on the preceding day, a letter which the viceregal seal of office on the envelope might perhaps have condemned unopened to the flames, had it not been addressed by a female hand. The cun- ning Lady Temple ton, ignorant I presume of the implacable nature of my father''s political and national animosities, had seized on what she con- sidered a favourable opportunity to conciliate the gratitude of one of the staunchest opponents of her lord and his government, by acquainting him in a tone of affected candoiu: and interest, that his THE OPERA. 75 son — " a young man for whom Lord Templeton and herself entertained the warmest regard, and whom they had received into their family on the most affectionate footing, had recently betrayed sentiments of a strong attachment to one of its members; and that, without referring to their own disapprobation, she considered it her duty to forestal that of his lordship by apprizing him of the fact. ' She was satisfied,"" she said, ' that the well-known opinions of Lord Abbotscourt would suggest the propriety of immediately recalling Mr. Maldyn from a circle to which henceforward his society must be unaccept- able.' " This last uncourteous phrase was, in fact, the true source of my father''s displeasure. He was indignant, it is true, to find himself addressed in a tone of patronage by one whom he regarded as an upstart ; but he could sooner have forgiven me my passion for the daughter of an English Tory, the upholder of the Orange faction, than for having exposed myself and him to the con- tumely of this tacit rejection. To find his favou- rite son disdained in the paltry circle of Lord e2 ^6 THE OPERA. Templeton^s Birmingham courts was to him as the bitterness of death. '^ Alternately cursing the importunate and ill- bred officiousness of Lady Templeton, and the indiscretion of Lady Katharine, who I doubted not had betrayed our secret to her mother-in- law, I now applied to Florence for her opinion as to my chance of hereafter obtaining my father''s sanction to my union with Lord Templeton^s daughter. " ' Perhaps,'' she replied, ' I should show more wisdom in discouraging your hopes by an asser- tion that the thing is impossible. But I know my father. Like all persons at the mercy and impulse of strong passions, he is easily influenced by those he loves ; and were he once convinced that the happiness of his favourite is dependent on this connexion, I am far more inclined to be- lieve that you might win his consent than that of Lord Templeton's worldly and mercenary family.' " ' If / know any thing of his lordship''s tem- per,' said I, ' their opposition would tend to soften his own.' THE OPERA. 77 " ' Perhaps so ; but you have other obstacles to contend with — other adversaries to overcome."* " ' Indeed ! To whom, excepting my dear Florence, can the affairs of so unimportant a person afford a subject of interest ?"* " Florentia hesitated. ' I am unwilling," said she at length, '• to give utterance to what you may estimate only as an ungenerous suspi- cion ' " * " ' Speak out, my dear — dear sister," cried I, apprehending an interruption to our interview. " ' You must have noticed," she replied, ' the asperity with which my father alluded to the female inmates of the castle. You are aware, that every day — every hour — serves to diminish his intercourse with society. Of the few guests of our own creed and degree formerly admitted at Abbotscourt, scarcely one now finds admit- tance into its gates.' '^ < So I might have concluded from his lord- ship's strange misconception of the nature of Lady Templeton's coterie. The schism between the party of the present lord lieutenant and the libertine associates of his predecessor, is an affair 78 THE OPERA. familiar to every haberdasher in Dublin, although totally unsuspected by my father.' " ' He is more than ignorant — he is deceived,"* said Florentia, mildly. ' The infirmity of his health renders him chiefly dependent for amuse- ment on the companionship of Father John, who abuses his confidence by distorted representations of all that is passing in the world.' " ' Maldyn,' I observed, ' entertains the highest opinion of my father's chaplain.' '' Florentia shock her head. ' As the tool of his own purposes ! Do you remember my brother's vehement opposition to Lord Abbots - court's proposal that Father John should accom- pany him on his continental tour? — No! no! — he was left here, my dear Randolph, only to cir- cumvent your influence over my father's mind. Attached to Maldyn by ties of interest, as well as by a persuasion of his zeal in the cause of the true church such as he has little reason to attri- bute to yourself. Lord Abbotscourt's chaplain be- lieves he is serving the family of his patron, while he favours his own views, by exciting a prejudice against you in my father's mind. Not content THE OPERA. 79 with narrating every offensive anecdote current respecting the late lord heutenant and his set and transferring its odium to the Templeton fa- mily, he has taken care that a hundred vile pam- phlets and lampoons should reach the castle, such as could not fail to irritate my father against the society to which you have attached yourself " 'I will see Father John — these nefarious practices must be explained.' '' ' No ! my dear brother,' resumed Miss Mal- dyn, ' you must do nothing to expose our con- federacy. Confide your interests to my hands, and obey Lord Abbotscourt's injunctions by quit- ting us for a time ; but do not aggravate his dis- pleasure by a renewal of your offence.' " « How can I do otherwise.^' I exclaimed. ' My dear Cecil expects me, and — ' " ' Loving you with only half the tenderness you ascribe to her, and adorned with only half the virtues your letters have taught me to believe her own, Lady Cecil will readily forgive your ne- glect. Go, go, my dear Randolph ! my father approaches.' " I submitted myself, however unwillingly, to 80 THE OPERA. Florentia's guidance. I quitted my father's house, and prudently absented myself from that of Lord Templeton ; nay, for some days after my return to Dublin, forbore attempting even a clandestine interview with his daughter, although I beheved, and not without reason, that the feelings of my poor Cecil would be severely wounded by this apparent ahenation. No sooner, however, did she learn that I was present in every scene of fashionable amusement, than she surmounted her reluctance and accompanied her sister and Lady Templeton to various places of public resort. This was too much for me. To behold Lady Cecil's pale face, and suppress the inquiries urged by my throbbing heart, — to encounter her melan- choly smile without presuming to whisper a single word of tenderness or sympathy, was an effort beyond my strength. Was she not mine — ^my own — ^my betrothed.'^ — In the irritation of my mind, after witnessing one night at the theatre the change that a few short weeks had wrought in her appearance, I addressed a few rash incon- siderate lines to my future wife ; which, as I might have anticipated, were intercepted, placed THE OPERA. 81 in the hands of her mother-in-law, and by Lady Templeton's malicious intervention, in those of her lord. Following her previous line of policy, she even persuaded him to address to my father a dignified rebuke for his neglect of her counsels ; while to myself he forwarded a remonstrance which was any thing but dignified, accusing me of a base breach of hospitahty, and forbidding me all further intercourse with his family. ''But although thus excluded from the pri- vate circle of the Castle, I maintained suffi- cient communication with divers of its mem- bers to discover that Lady Cecil Darley, al- though in a declining state of health, was about to be removed from her family, and placed in the household of some distant relative in Scotland ; and that she was subjected in the mean time to the harshest usage. The consequences of this injudicious severity were only too favourable to my wishes. She consented to elope with me, — she became my wife in all the shame and con- fusion of a clandestine marriao^e ; — and on awakinsr from the madness of my dream of triumphant passion, I found myself the husband of a lovely E 3 82 THE OPERA. and helpless woman, reared in all the delicacy of splendour and refinement, to whom I was inca- pable of affording the common necessaries of life ! Lord Templeton's rage at the public in- sult thus offered to his family and the dig- nity of his office, expended itself in coarse in- vectives which rendered it impossible for me to humiliate myself by seeking his forgiveness ; and as to my father, I knew him too well to believe he would do otherwise than exult in the disastrous consequences of my disobedience. It was even with some difficulty that my kind Florentia found means to evade the espionage of Father John, and supply me from her private allowance with the means of present subsistence. '' But time passed on ; weeks and months came and went ; and at length even these were exhausted. We were too proud to seek pecuniary assistance from those who, obsequious to the will of the man in power, affected to emulate Lord Templeton's re- sentment; and the remote cottage in which imme- diately on our marriage we buried ourselves from the observation of society, soon became degraded by the galling humiliations of abject poverty. My THE OPERA. 83 father publicly proclaimed my disinheritance ; my sister was placed in a provincial convent of pecu- liar strictness, to prevent all further communi- cation between us ; and through the interference of Father John with their tutor, my letters to my brothers were returned unopened. I had no longer a friend from whom I could hope for suc- cour in my distress. '' Adrian ! you have been educated in habits of frugality ; you have seen your father restrict him- self to homely food and simple raiment ; you have often grieved over his abstinence from the ordinary indulgences of his station in life. — But you have never felt the chilling grasp of actual privation ; you have never submitted to the taunts of an insulting creditor ; you have never seen the wife of your heart struggling with the mortifi- cations of penury ; you have never watched the features you love sharpening beneath the touch of want, Adrian ! while you were yet an unborn and expected treasure, your mother laboured for you, laboured for her own subsistence, laboured for the fever-struck and feeble husband, who lay like a crushed snake, cursing his own infirmity 84 THE OPERA. and the triumph of his enemies. I then thought no human suffering could exceed the anguish with which, from my humble bed, I watched the frail and delicate form of the highborn Cecil, en- gaged in menial offices for my sake ; but I have since recognised my error, and learned to sigh for a renewal of that season of ruin and affliction. " Unable to endure the spectacle of her wretch- edness, the first voluntary act of my recovery was to address a letter to Lord Templeton, acquaint- ing him with his daughter's actual condition. I cared not in what opprobious terms he might upbraid me in return ; I cared not for Lady Templeton's sneers, nor even for the gratified malice of Lady Katharine, who had long since overtly enlisted in the ranks of our enemies. A remittance of money, sufficient to afford to my wife those luxuries, those necessaries, now so painfully needful — yes ! a paltry and reluctant pecuniary dole — would have reconciled me to the most injurious accusations heaped on myself. But, alas ! a still severer penalty was to be at- tached to the concession. " In the letter addressed to me by Lady Cecil's / THE OPERA. 85 father, no tone of harshness or of contempt was discernible. It was cold and formal, but cere- moniously courteous ; and after pointing out to me, that in consequence of my father's renouncement it became my duty to assist by my personal exer- tions in the maintenance of my expected family, he tendered to my acceptance a commission in a dragoon regiment commanded by a distant connexion of the Darley family, then on the point of embarkation for India. In the event, and only in the event of my concurrence with his lordship's views, Cecil was to be received into his house, pardoned her former trespasses, and che- rished during my absence with parental and sisterly tenderness. " My heart misgave me ! — I foreboded some la- tent mischief from this extraordinary change of tone ; nor did I dare confide to Lady Cecil a propo- sal which her tenderness for the originator of all her sufferings might induce her to reject. But after gazing through my tears at her altered counte- nance, and at the squalid abode to which she would be confined by opposition to Lord Tem- pleton's will, I addressed him a few hasty words 86 THE OPERA. of acceptance, trusting that necessity would eventually reconcile her to the measure. " Adrian, I dare not dwell on the scenes which followed our arrival in Dublin. Your poor mo- ther ! — 'So ! — I dare not dwell on the subject. Suffice it that I was held by the Templeton family to the very letter of my agreement ; and that they continued to deceive Lady Cecil into ignorance of the motive and moment of my de- parture.'' THE OrERA. 87 CHAPTER V. Is there a cause in nature For these hard hearts 1 Lear. It was not till evening that Count Maldyn was enabled to resume the narrative which proved so exciting to his own feelings, and to those of his son. But Adrian had little leisure for the in- dulgence of his anxieties. All the thrones and do- minions of Elzbach — from the venerable superior of Elzenkreuz, down to the young and vivacious Bl'aschel — made it their duty to intrude upon him with their congratulations on his return, — their regrets at his approaching departure; besides divers inquiries tending to draw forth the nature THE OPERA. of his business in England, and the origin of the changes in the establishment at Elzstein. The curiosity of the fisherman was most unsatisfactorily- appeased by the intelligence that the young count had fixed on too early a day for the com- mencement of his journey, to admit of a previous expedition to the Traunsee; while that of vhe dignitary of the church was forced to content it- self with an assurance, that Adrian would pass a social evening at the Prior ey^ previous to his de- parture for the land of heresy. Had either Barbel or Gorgel been despatched by the elders of the village on a similar errand of diplomacy, it is possible that their discoveries might have been of a more comprehensive nature ; jut ever since the notice bestowed by the young count on the fair Stephanine became matter of public scandal. Barbel had transferred her smiles to the gardener of Elzstein; and Gorgel, half sulky — ^half jealous — was supposed to be bent upon the conquest of the surly Hiob. At length the importunate ceremonies of greet- THE OPERA. 89 ing and well-wishing were at an end ; but when dinner-time arrived. Count Maldyn and his son found themselves too much engrossed by the train of domestic images roused by their morn- ing's conversation, to indulge in their usual socia- bihty. Both eagerly hailed the arrival of that tY'ihght hour, when the disturbances of the f^^ day subside into confidential tranquillity. The ^^mbers were glowing in the stove, and Draunzt had settled himself close beside it for his evening doze, when Adrian, after a meditative pause, ab- ruptly exclaimed, '' And did you attempt no communication with Abbotscourt Castle, my dear father, previous to your departu-: for India .^" " To what avail ?" replied Count Maldyn. " No sooner did I arrive in Dublin, than I learned that during the year of our provincial seclusion, and from the very period of my marriage, my petulant father had seized every opportunity to harass and molest Lord Templeton in his offi- cial career ; and that, on more than one occasion, 90 THE OPEHA. he had been at the trouble of petitioning parlia- ment, in order to expose certain petty abuses and errors of judgment by which the lord lieutenant had laid himself open to rebuke. Unfortunately, his lordship's chief vanity lay in his impeccability of office. Priding himself, Hke many of his spe- cies, on his very weakest point, Lord Templeton fancied himself endowed with legislative talents of the first order ; and of all the oifences that could have been levelled at his character, that of displaying to the world the inefficiency of his administration was by far the most unpardon- able. He was one of those persons who prefer the reputation of being a knave to that of being a fool. " Perhaps no greater misfortune can befal an official man, than that an enemy should detect a similar foible. Lord Abbotscourt having ascer- tained the extent of his own powers of persecu- tion, employed his time, his agents, and his money, in seeking occasions for their exercise ; and the irritated Templeton found himself un- THE OPERA. 91 remittingly and unsparingly shown up for the diversion of the Irish and English public, till the very name of Maldyn became loathsome to his ears. " This intelligence was doubly grievous to me. It served to prove at once the Uttleness of my father's character, and the implacabihty of his anger against myself; and to assure me that I had less chance than ever of pacifying the resent- ment of the Darleys. Our feuds had become as notorious as the rivalship of the Capulets and Montagues ; and as Ireland was at that period roused to the highest pitch of political excite- ment, it was apprehended that blood would yet be spilt ere the fierceness of their hatred was appeased. As in every other private quarrel of that kingdom at that epoch, politics were made a mask to screen its true motive ; and the names of Whig and Tory, — tyrant and slave, — Catholic and Protestant, — were bandied between the Orange party and the Abbotscourtfaction,simply because an elopement had disgraced the Temple- 92 THE OPERA. ton family, and because my father chose to resent the silly officious letter of a busy woman. '^ Previous to quitting Ireland, I consulted a young friend or two whom I still ventured to call my own, on the eligibility of attempting a recon- ciliation between these irritated adversaries ; but I was advised that it would be better to try the influence of a short absence on my father's feel- ings. Reassured by the certainty that Lady Cecil was once more safely and prosperously set- tled in the bosom of her family, I resolved to trust to time for the event ; and leaving with my agent a letter of explanation and submission to be delivered to Lord Abbotscourt, in case of my death, tore myself from DubHn, embarked at Cork, and " " And my poor mother — ^poor Lady Cecil ?'''* exclaimed Adrian. " Do not mention her — do not mention her ! " faltered the count in a low voice. " The want of judgment which had marked my previous con- duct, was as nothing compared with the folly of THE OPERA. 93 this precipitate departure. It was an act of posi- tive frenzy to leave my wife surrounded by my bitterest enemies." " But surely," cried the young count, with rising colour and throbbing temples, " surely her own nearest relatives — persons of high station and character in the world — could never be tempted by family dissensions to behave with barbarity towards a helpless woman solemnly be- queathed to their protection ? " '^^ Adrian, Adrian ! " replied his father, " va- rious are the disguises under which cruelty dis- sembles its purposes. Stripes and blows, priva- tion or insult, do not fulfil its worst intentions. It was with a smiling countenance and affable demeanour that Lady Katharine Darley under- took the task of blighting her sister's peace of mind." " My poor mother ! " " At the time of my embarkation, Cecil was, as I have already mentioned, on the eve of her confinement; and naturally of a nervous and 94 THE OPERA. susceptible temperament, her constitution had been so fatally impaired by twelve months of pri- vation and anxiety, that her mind and body were now equally enfeebled. Apprehensions were en- tertained for her safety ; and it was at this criti- cal season that Lady Templeton and her daughter- in-law, outraging every better impulse of woman''s nature, began to practise upon her weakness by hints of my desertion — assurances that I had eagerly solicited the appointment which ensured our separation — and declarations that I had passed my last few days in Dublin in riot and intemperance. By Lord Templeton's advice I had bidden her farewell, in a slight and cheerful manner, on pretence of proceeding to Abbots- court and seeking an interview with my father. He promised me that the truth should be ex- plained to her by slow and careful degrees ; and eventually confirmed by a letter of which Lady Xatharine Darley undertook the delivery, in which, at his suggestion, I acquainted her in the tenderest manner with the sacrifice I found my- THE OPERA. 95 self compelled to make to her welfare. — Adrian ! — that letter never reached the hands of my poor Cecil I— ^« The levity of my demeanour in our last inter- view, was again and again pointed out to her recol- lection ; and thus, finding herself abandoned and beheving herself forgotten by one for whose sake she had endured and sacrificed so much., it was not wonderful that she should fall into the most afflict- ing state of despondency, and eagerly welcome the hour which she trusted would put an end to her blighted existence. Under these circumstances, my dear son — these miserable circumstances — your eyes first opened to the light .' — Yet even in the depth of her despair, the appeal of nature wrought its accustomed miracle in your mother's heart. Cecil had prepared herself to die — had prayed for death ; but scarcely did the first feeble wailing of her infant reach her ear, when the soul within her was changed. A new light of joy and tenderness was kindled in her desolate bosom- life itself became irradiated with the promise of 96 THE OPERA. pleasures hitherto untasted ; nay, iii the fulness of her happiness, even the imputed treachery of her husband was forgotten. She did not — she could not think evil of the father of her child ! '^ For this change of sentiment on the part of Lady Cecil, Lady Templeton^s natural hardness of heart had left her unprepared. But Katharine, like a minister of mischief, was at hand to suggest a remedy ; and it was agreed between them that after a few days — a few days which they judged requisite to secure the feeble sufferer from the perils of any trying emotion — the little nursling which promised to become so sweet a pledge of domestic peace should be withdrawn from her for ever ! They knew that the numberless disorders of infancy would suggest a ready excuse for its disappearance ; and it was arranged that a confi- dential nurse named Wallace, already enlisted in their plans, should undertake the announcement of its decease, and its conveyance to England. ' Be assured,' was Lady Katharine's convincmg argument, ' be assured that my sister will never THE OPERA. 97 be wrought upon to coincide in our views, so long as the existence of their child forms a bond of union between herself and Randolph Maldyn.' " And what were these views — ^you are about to inquire ? Black, my son, black and iniquitous as the bosom in which they were framed ! But let me not indulge in invective ; let me rather strive to moderate my indignation while I ac- quaint you that Lady Katharine's pretended sus- picions induced Lord Templeton to acquaint him- self minutely with the mode and ceremonial of my marriage with his unfortunate daughter ; that an important formality connected with our differ- ence of religious profession was said to have been neglected in our precipitate union; and finally, that the contract proved null and void — and our son, illegitimate ! " This discovery was effected by Lady Katha- rine, my dear Adrian, many months previous to your birth ; so that had Lord Templeton con- ducted himself on the occasion with the liberality of a man of honour, the last and worst VOL. I. F 98 THE OPERA. evil might have been prevented by a second cere- mony, anticipatory of the event. But my father's vexatious animosity so roused the demon within his heart, that instead of attempting to forestal the injury inadvertently offered to his house, by legalizing my m^arriage with Lady Cecil, he lent a ready ear to the suggestions of his worldly- minded wife and her daughter-in-law, that an effort should be made by the family to separate my poor girl from the needy papist with whom she had rashly connected herself In pursuance of this villanous scheme, the overtures necessi- tated by our destitute condition were warmly welcomed by the Darley family ; — my commission was procured — my wife received back with gra- ciousness into her paternal home — her heart estranged by the basest misrepresentations — her mind poisoned by the vilest calumnies ; — her in- fant surreptitiously withdrawn from her arms, conveyed to a strange country, reared in a de- graded home ! Such, Adrian, such is the mea- sure of cruelty and wickedness for which the THE OPERA. 99 pride of the Templetons has rendered them accountable ! " ' I can think of nothing but my mother^s sufferings, my father's injuries !' replied the young man in a broken voice. ' And yet I can scarcely believe that even the false witness borne by her parents and sister, would suffice to alienate Lady CeciFs affections ?'' *' Fortunately for the triumph of their machi- nations, a new and unexpected ally was afforded them by the arrival in Dubhn of Lady Temple- ton''s sister ; the wife of a highly respectable, but weak and prejudiced man, deeply imbued with the doctrines of the evangelical church, and as eager in the task of conversion as Father John, or any other devotee of the Roman communion. " His influence in the private circle of the castle, enabled him to commune with the bereaved mother, the deserted wife ; and in offering such consolations as the peculiar character of his reli* gious opinions would permit, he did not scruple to attribute my worthlessness to the creed in which I f2 100 THE OPERA. was nurtured, and to ascribe the death of her child to the shame of its birth. It was a judgment of the Almighty, he said, in visitation upon her pre- sumptuous secession from the church of her fore- fathers ; and without regard for the wounded deli- cacy of the gentle and feminine Cecil, he cited the untimely end which befel of old the unlawful offspring of the wife of Uriah the Hittite. " In the season of affliction, the threats and pro- mises of scripture assume a double importance in our ears. The mind of Cecil enfeebled by disease and sorrow, became deeply impressed by superstitious terrors ; and readily adopting the misinterpretations suggested by Mr. Percevars peculiar views, she learned to tremble at the re- collection of her union with a member of the pol- luted church of Rome, and no longer marvelled at my enormities, or at the heavy judgments which had befallen herself. Within six months after the arriva. of Lady Templeton's evangelical relatives, a packet was despatched to me by his lordships man of business, under the written THE OPERA. 101 sanction of Lady Cecil, containing a legal de- cision on the informality of our marriage, and a renunciation on her part of all further intercourse between us. Lady Templeton had taken precau- tions that this should be the first communication from my wife which reached my hands ; her own had been hmited to a formal announcement of the birth and death of my child : and, as to my letters, be assured that not a line of my writing was permitted to appear in her presence. " « My mother imagined herself then to be ful- filling your own wishes, and justifying your own desertion by this formal disavowal of her claims? — Believing that you had wilfully and dehberately rejected her from your heart, surely she may be forgiven for having fallen into the pit dug for her by the deceiver .^' " Forgiven ! — Alas ! she was herself the most mjured of victims ! — Forgiven ! — my son ! I have long learned to look upon her memory as upon that of a saint and a martyr ! But when I first received that horrible missive, without ex- 102 THE OPERA. planation or a single soothing word to lessen my anguish, judge how different were my views of her conduct. From the period of my quitting Ireland, not one line had I been allowed to re- ceive of all the tender upbraidings and wife-like remonstrances addressed to me by my poor Cecil I till at length, in the desolation of my exile, I ac- cused her of levity, indifference, inconstancy, — ^infidelity ! In the madness of my despair, I fancied her heart had become corrupted by prosperity; that the brilliant profusion of her father's court had taught her to despise her beg- gared husband ! — But I disdained remonstrance — I scorned the idea of pleading for a renewal of the connexion she had voluntarily resigned. " Still, had it been in my power, had the chances of war permitted me to absent myself with honour from my regiment, I should have flown back to Dublin to assure myself of the legal validity of her opposition to my rights, and to meet with be- coming dignity the overtures of Lord Templeton. For the present, however, such a measure was in- THE OPERA. 103 compatible with my professional responsibility; and in the mean time, instead of giving up my whole heart and soul, as I could have wished, to the honourable duties which though thrust upon jne fulfilled every desire of my earlier life, I grew daily more incapable of exertion. Existence be- came a biurden to me ; and willingly — how will- ingly — would I have laid it down amid the struggle of the first action in which it was m/ fortune to engage ! " It has been said that this is precisely the state of mind most propitious to the vocation of a soldier I And such might be indeed the case in the desperate service assigned to me at that cri- tical period ; for my advancement in my profession outstripped not only my own hopes, but all former precedent. " But it is unnecessary, my dear son, to inter- rupt the details of my narrative by further allu- sions to my military career: — a subject, from your boyhood till now, so frequently discussed between us without reference to the calamities in 104) THE OPERA. which it originated. You will probably recollect that my patron, Colonel Darley, fell gloriously in the storming of Asulipatam, a few months follow- ing my arrival in India ; and that, on a cessation of hostilities nearly three years afterwards, I ob- tained leave of absence for the restoration of my health ; an indulgence due no less to the severity of my wounds than to my increase of military rank. "Alas ! alas ! how joyful would have been this triumphant return to the land of my forefathers, could I have flattered myself that the prize-money arising from the plunder of Asulipatam, the un- anticipated product of my professional exertions, would secure the comfort and prosperity of a be- loved wife ; — or that in Cecil's smiles, I should obtain a reward for my sufferings. A thousand times rather would I have remained the obscure and pennyless cornet I quitted Ireland, blest as I then believed myself in the affection of a faithful companion, than return to find the weight of my unexpected honours and unsought opulence, un- THE OPERA. 105 shared by a single individual to whom my pros- perity was likely to prove a source of gratification. In defiance of the allotted ties of nature, I was now worse than alone in the world! — ^The only friends I could boast, were a few military comrades endeared to me by the perils we had shared toge- ther ; one of whom, an officer of my own regi- ment, named IManningfield, having been sum- moned to England by family business, chanced to be the companion of my voyage.'' F 3 106 THE OPERA. CHAPTER VI. Scarce able to believe my journey o'er, And that these eyes behold thee safe once more, This — this alone is wortli an age of toil ! Hail, lovely Sirraio ! — Hail, paternal soil ! — Joy, my bright waters, joy! your master's come. Laugh every dimple on the cheek of home ! Trans, from Catullus. "Even under the happiest auspices," continued the count, after a pause arising from profound emotion, " it is a terrible ordeal to approach our native land, after a long cessation of intercourse with those whose ties upon our hearts form the true bond uniting us with our country and its in- terests. The ordinary casualties of human des- tiny, and the fatal progress of time, acquire a THE OPEKA. 107 iiew and ominous importance when thus connected with the beloved beings, the light of whose coun- tenance has been denied to our eyes ; and never shall I forget the vague but oppressive apprehen- sions that assailed my mind on hailing the coast of Ireland, lest some horrible mischance should have befallen the woman — beloved in spite of all her treachery — who had spurned me from her bosom ; — the brother who had renounced me; — or the sister — the dear kind sister — whose pre- sence it was forbidden me to approach. For eighteen months, no intelhgence, either public or domestic, had reached me from Ireland; and having once more set foot upon its shore, as an unrecognised and nameless individual, I attempt- ed with fear and trembling an inquiry concern- ing the families of Temple ton and Abootscourt — both of which I knew must afford a familiar subject of public discussion. " Even previous to my departure for India, I was aware that the political as well as personal temper of the lord lieutenant, had attached an JOS THE OPERA. unusual degree of unpopularity to his office, and rendered his name a byword among the people. He was regarded as a personification of the selfish and defying hauteur of his country, and as a pri- vileged enemy of that over which his authority was ajjpointed. It was therefore no matter of surprise to me to learn that the excitement of the public mind had necessitated his lordship's pre- mature removal ; and that the name of Darley was pronounced with avowed detestation, with curses as loud as they were deep. The prejudices of an ignorant and misguided populace aggravated, as you may suppose, their opinions and details of the ruin wrought in the kingdom by the obstinacy of the late lord lieutenant ; but it was with a sigh I remembered how much of that very obstinacy owed its existence to my father's fractious opposi- tion ; and how much of that very opposition, to the disobedience of his son. ^' On venturing, however, to mention the name of Lord Abbotscourt, in the expectation of find- ing it hailed with the plaudits usually lavished THE OPERA.* 100 by the lower orders on those whose injudicious in- terference in their behalf is the source of their worst grievances, I was answered with indifference that, ' they had heard nothing lately of my lord ;' and finding that no further intelligence was to be obtained in Dublin respecting the family of Lord Templeton, than that he was resident at his family- seat in the county of Derby, I set off immediately for my paternal estate. I was satisfied that the miser- able alteration in my appearance would secure me from recognition in the adjoining village, where I determined on taking up my temporary abode, in thehope of finding some favourable opportunity to attempt a reconciliation with my father. " Absence, and that impartial self-examination inseparable from the approach of death, had, dur- ing my residence in India, considerably diminished my resentment, and softened my feelings towards him. I had been taught to know that the faults and frailties of a parent should have no existence in the recognition of a son. I remembered his early partiality, his fond confidence in my boy- 110 THE OPEEAi hood, his predilection for my society ; and esti- mating with better judgment the extent of his dis- appointment at my subsequent disobedience, for- gave all his harshness, and resolved to humble my proud spirit at his feet. Now that fortune had placed me beyond the necessity of ap- proaching him as a needy petitioner, I felt it unnecessary to place any limit on my sub* mission. *' I cannot suppose, my dear Adrian, that this homely residence of Elzstein, an adopted home, without any of the intense claims of nationahty on your heart, has inspired you with a just esti- mate of that fond and partial weakness which attaches the exile to his birthplace. In the petu- lance of boyhood, I had been apt to inveigh against Abbotscourt as a dreary prison, shut out from intercourse with even such society as an obscure provincial residence might have afforded to a man less affected by Milesian and Cathohq prejudices than its hereditary lord ; and had often pointed out a mixture of Gothic pride and Gothic THE OPERA. Ill barbarism in its aspect and customs, as a suffi- cient motive for my ill-omened residence in the capital. But the desolate n of my sea voyage, and the still more painftd estrangement from civilized society attendant on a military career in India, soon caused me to renounce this unnatural affectation of refinement; and the solemn gloom of Abbotscourt, with its ancient quadrangles and turrets, its lofty woods and princely domain, had long assumed a sort of reli- gious sanctity in my remembrance. Often during the breathless stillness of an Oriental night, had I summoned these images around me, till the arid sands whereon our tents were pitched be- came green with the verdure of a happier climate ; often, amid the cheerless and objectless dreariness of the waste of waters, had I enlivened the dul- ness of a calm, by picturing my return to the house of my forefathers, — the blessing wrung from my reluctant father'*s heart by the humble appeal of a son no less repentant than the pro- digal of Scripture commemoration ;~often, — often 112 THE OPERA. — ^had I woke from my dream in the agitation of believing myself locked in his arms ! — " Remembrances such as these, and new emo- tions still more touching, arose in my bosom while I traversed the well-known road conducting me towards him ; and I even forgot to notice and welcome its familiar sounds and sights, in the in- tensity of delight with which I anticipated the forgiveness of a parent and the renewal of a sis- ter^s friendship. On reaching the confines of the park, I despatched my carriage by a circuitous route to the village, that I might approach the castle without the possibility of recognition. '' How readily do I recal to mind every trivial incident connected with that visit ! — I felt and feel it to be one of the most important events of my life ! — On passing the footgate connected with the great entrance of the domain, I noticed that the lodge which, during Florentia's residence at Abbotscourt, had been kept by a protege of hers, and rendered a model of rustic neatness, now afforded a genuine specimen of national disorder. THE OPEEA. 113 Its garden was uprooted by the swine that revelled in the filth of the half-ruined tenement; and the bare-legged urchins who stared out upon me as I passed, were as completely strangers to me as I could wish. "For a moment, I was startled by this extra- ordinary change ; apprehending that my father's singular indifference to the aspect of a place which he once prided himself on maintaining with baronial splendour, must proceed from domestic, or mental affliction. But it was one of those bright and balmy days in June, which seem to deny the existence of evil ; as if the brilliant array of nature were incompatible with the livery of human affliction. The foliage of the woods displayed all the freshness of its early verdure ; save here and there an oak whose tardy russet shoots scarcely yet sufficed to disguise its sturdy outline. The hawthorns were white as with sprinkled snow; and their spicy fragrance per- vaded the glowing atmosphere, breathing upon 114 THE OPERA. the earth as if to draw new treasures from its swelling bosom. The grass, instead of being cropped into turfen smoothness by the deer which it was my father'*s pleasure to leave in undisturbed possession of the place, had grown up, and withered in seedy exuberance un- der the hot sunshine — untouched either by human or animal intrusion; while the whirring wings of a thousand insects flitting among the tall weeds and wild flowers, seemed like the hum of distant habitation, and formed a singular con- trast with the manifest loneliness of the place. The sweetness of summer, in short, was around me with all its beautiful renovations and exhila- rating sounds ; and my heart bounded within me when at length, as I emerged from a shrubbery of larches and acacias skirting the flower-gardens, the mansion, in all its stern and solemn antiquity stood before me. But I shuddered and reeled on the path, when, having glanced towards the massive portal, I perceived it to be surmounted THE OPEBA. 115 by a funeral escutcheon bearing the family em- blazonments. — I had come too late, Adrian ! — my father was no more ! — " I scarcely recollect how I endured my first consciousness of the event ; my first remembrance is of rising from a bank by the wayside on which I had thrown myself, and advancing towards the house, with a desperate determination to see and hear every circumstance calculated to augment the anguish of my feelings. The day must have passed away during the suspension of my facul- ties of heart and mind, for the sun was setting gorgeously on the windows as I approached the stately courtyard ; and I now welcomed the wild and disorderly aspect of the place, as consonant with the events with which it was connected, and with the emotions arising from them within my own bosom. At first, indeed, the hoarse echo of my summons upon the barred and pon- derous door which had been wont to stand hospi- tably open during the lifetime of its lord, grated in my ears like a voice of accusation from the 116 THE OPERA. grave ; but when, after many a renewal of the sound, I found myself compelled to seek a more humble mode of entrance through the offices, and encountered only a strange Enghsh domestic to whom the care of the premises was exclusively committed, I experienced an inexphcable gratifi- cation in the wretched isolation of my position. Regarding me with an eye of suspicion, the man hastened to inform me that Lord Abbotscourt's orders expressly forbade the intrusion o^ strangers during his absence; that although himself and his wife were the sole inhabitants of the castle, the denuded state of the place since the sale, rendered even their guardianship superfluous ; for nothing now remained but bare walls to attract the evil-disposed or inquisitive. "Without inquiring to which class I was assigned by his misgivings, or even explaining the peculiar nature of my interest in the scene, I found means to propitiate the man by a degree of liberality which might well have served to augment his suspicions ; and he not only permitted me to enter the home THE OPERA. 117 of my childhood, but soon proved to me, by ocu- lar demonstration, that the dismantled condition he had described was not a fable invented to serve as his defence against knavery and pillage. Ren- dered communicative by my retaining fee, he in^ formed me, that since the decease of the late lord, the present representative of the family had only once visited the estate ; when, by giving orders for the peremptory sale of the personalty, includ- ing the furniture of the castle, and such of the family plate and pictures as were not strictly in- cluded in the deed of entail, he tacitly avowed his intention of quitting Abbotscourt for ever. In reply to my further inquiries, the man stated him- self to have been appointed to his office by an English solicitor to whom the absentee lord had recently assigned the agency of his estates ; a personage whose growing unpopularity with the tenants was likely to prove ruinous to the Maldyn family, and perhaps fatal to himself. " It was neither the present proprietor of the castle, nor his delegates, who engrossed my 118 THE OPERA. interest ; but it grieved me to discover that the ill-blood existing between the English bailiff and his Irish neighbours, was not only the motive of his churlishness of demeanour towards myself and every other stranger seeking admittance to the castle, but that it must ensure his ignorance touching the late lord and his family. He knew, indeed, from the report of his patron — the agent of Lord Abbotscourt — that the old man had died broken-hearted, on account of the marriage of his son with an Enghsh lady ; — but he knew no more. " This, however, was enough ! — I asked no fur- ther questions ; and declined the offer I had pre- viously sought, of visiting in detail the desolate abode I had approached with such different anticipations. It would have seemed like sacrilege to intrude into the lonely chamber of the parent I had has- tened to the grave — of the sister whom I had rendered an orphan. The very atmosphere of the cold dismantled mansion became oppressive to me ; nor could I endure the thought of passing the'night in the village, with the risk of hearing THE OPERA. 119 my family affairs discussed by vulgar lips. By the intervention of my astonished companion, my carriage was summoned to meet me at the lodge ; and in the dusk of twilight I recommenced my journey, cheered only by the vague hope of re- ceiving from Mr. Butler, Lord Abbotscourfs agent, who had been driven by the ill-usage of the tenantry to reside in Dubhn, a clue to the residence of my sister, and a less dispiriting pic- ture of the family affairs. Of my father, I dared not even think ! I felt myself incapable of pro- nouncmg his very name. The guilt of the parri- cide was heavy on my soul ! "" " ' Do not distress yourself by reverting to these agonizing details ! ^ exclaimed Adrian, per- ceiving that the lips of the count were quivering with emotion. ' Tell me, in one word, whether your interview with my uncle's man of business was satisfactory ; and — ' " One word, my son, will scarcely suffice to unravel the numerous interests connected with my visit to Mr. Butler ;— in whom I instantly re- 120 THE OPERA. cognised, with amazement, a person employed in a very menial capacity by Lord Temple- ton, during his viceroyalty. Astonished to find the patronage of my brother bestowed upon any man connected with the family from whom I had received such bitter insults — such cruel injuries— my inquiries concerning the welfare of the present Lord Abbotscourt were sufficiently slight and cold, while my reception of his agenf s obsequious familiarities, probably tended to betray the mo- tive of my reserve. But, without noticing the fellow's air of pique, I hastened to speak of Flo- rentia, and even incoherently jittered the name of Wrottesley. " It was now his turn to assume a tone of coldness and reserve. I must excuse him, he said, from entering into any particulars concern- ing persons, whose conduct towards his lord had been the cause of so much scandal and dissension. He knew nothing more of them than that they had recently set off for Italy, where the state of Mr. Maldyn's health required them to pass the THE OPERA. 121 winter; for further details, he referred me to Lord Abbotscourt, and tendered me the address of his London abode. '' I had very little inclination to loiter in Dublin — a residence to which a thousand painful asso- ciations were attached by the conduct of the Tem- pleton family ; and though I would have given worlds to obtain information respecting the being who — to my shame do I own it — was still dearest to my heart, I had not courage to articulate her name in Butler's presence. Immediately on quitting him, I made arrangements for my de- parture from Ireland ; and, within a few days from this unsatisfactory interview, installed myself in a fashionable hotel of the British metropolis. '^ In London, my acquaintance was of course even less extensive than in my native city; but having been compelled immediately on my arrival to accept a visit from my friend, Colonel jManningfield, for the discussion of important professional business in which we were mutually interested, wc agreed to dine together ; and I re- VOL. I. G 122 THE OPERA. solved to defer till the morrow, my visit to Lord Abbotscourt. Notliing indeed resembling brotherly cordiality, had ever subsisted between, us ; and the recollection of Florentia's warnings touching the enmity of Father John had so long rankled in my heart, that I could not but invo- luntarily refer to the same origin the misunder- standing described by Mr. Butler, as existing be- tween his lordship, my brother and sister. I knew that the latter was my friend, and had reason to suspect that the former was my enemy ; and my only object m seeking an interview was to obtain the desired intelligence respecting Florentia, and some insight into the general state of our family aftairs. Although my poor father had publicly announced my disinheritance, I had claims on the Maldyn property, which though slight were inalienable. " Meanwhile my friend Colonel Manningfield, having noticed during dinner the depression of my spirits, renounced his intention of passing the evening at the Opera, in order to bear me com- THE OPERA. 123 pany ; while I, finding it doubly irksome to en- dure his restless flow of spirits, proposed in my turn that we should visit the King's Theatre together ; — the noise and animation of a place of public resort are at all times less oppressive to the feehngs than the vivacity of a single companion. On our way to the Opera^ IVIanningfield casually announced that he was in possession, for that even- ing, of the box of his sister, Mrs. Fitzgerald ; and as we were making our way leisurely along the passages of the theatre, his eyes became directed towards the names of their female proprietors which, according to the English custom, are affixed above each several door. ' Lady Abbots- court ?' he exclauned — reading aloud, and point- ing out one of these superscriptions to my notice ; ' Maldyn I you never told me that your brother had married during your absence ? — I suspect you have this morning been introduced to the bride ; and that your imusual melancholy arises from the loss of your prospects of inheritance — eh ! my dear fellow ? Must you subside for G 2 124 THE OPERA. the remainder of your days into the beggarly obscurity of a younger brother's destiny ? — Come come ! After all, you may as well return with me to Bengal, and pursue your way towards a yard of red ribbon, and a liver-complaint. A quelque chose malheur est ho7i ; you have lost your estate and the king has gained a soldier. But tell me, is your new sister-in-law pretty, agreeable^ fascinating ; and if so, cannot we pre- sent ourselves in Lady Abbotscourt's box, in- stead of climbing up into my less fashionable sister's attic altitudes ?' " However reluctant to acknowledge my total and almost suspicious ignorance of the domestic position of my nearest relatives, I was now obliged to confess that till that moment I was wholly unaware of my brother's marriage. *' ' Come then,' cried the volatile Mamiingfield, *■ since we are not privileged to obtain a sight of this fair unknown by the commonplace method of turning the handle of a door, let us hasten to acquaint ourselves at a respectful distance, whether THE OPERA, the house of Maldyn derives any accession of beauty from this mysterious alliance, VoyoJis I her ladyshij^s box is situated next to that of my beautiful friend the Duchess of Cardigan. Come with me into the pit ; and I will point out your sister-in-law to you in a moment.' " Mechanically I followed his directions ; and in a few moments found myself standing in the lobby beneath; while IManningfield, directing his glass from tier to tier, at length discovered the object of our curiosity. " ' There !' whispered he, fixing his eyes as he spoke on a lovely woman, magnificently but fan- tastically arrayed. ' The lady in the purple dress with her hair drawn back from her ivory forehead, is the Duchess of Cardigan ; and the beautiful creature in the box to her left must consequently be the new Lady Abbotscourt.'' " * Percy,' he continued, addressing a fashion- able young man who stood near, ' you who are the court calendar of this breathing world, reveal to us the name of yonder charmer in the diamond tiara T 126 THE OPERA. " « Talking to Russell of the Guards ? Is it possible that you do not know Lady Abbots- court ? — the ascendant star of fashion — the ' " I heard no more ! — Judge, Adrian,— judge of my feelings on recognising in my brother'^s wife the features of — Katharine Darley ! "" THE OPERA. 127 CHAPTER VII. The sweetest things turn sourest hy their deeds. Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds, i Shakspeare. '' My first emotion on recovering from the shock of this discovery, was gratitude for the chance which had prevented me from visiting my bro- ther's residence, and finding myself unexpectedly in the presence of his wife : my second arose from the possibility — the remote chance — that this new connexion between the Darley and Maldyn fa- milies might reveal to me some favourable change of feeling on the part of Lady Cecil, or even some explanation of her antecedent conduct. But the 128 THE OPERA. last, and best, and only pleasing certainty sug- gested by the marriage of Lord Abbotscourt, was a persuasion of its fatal influence on my father's mind. I felt assured that it was my brother's un- accountable renouncement of his family princi- ples, and not my own, which had hurried our mortified parent into the grave. " But how to account for that renouncement — that sudden change ? My brother, the most bigoted member of the church of Rome, — opposed almost unto treason, to the representatives of English sovereignty in his native land — my bro- ther, to espouse the offspring of a man of the high church, and high Tory school, such as Lord Templeton ! — It was incomprehensible ! — Far bet- ter could I understand the motives of the Darley family in sanctioning this strange alliance, and marking a due distinction between the Catholic Lord Abbotscourt, with an estate of twenty thou- sand a-year, and the Catholic Randolph Maldyn, his younger and disinherited brother ; and with respect to Lady Katharine herself, I doubted not THE OPERA. 129 that her own inclination to the match, had been in no small degree excited by the triumphant su- premacy it must afford over myself. '•At first I was puzzled to decide whether my brother would affect to maintain his resentment towards me, on the original grounds of my having sought an alliance with the abhorred family of Templeton ; and whether the offences imputed by his agent to AVrottesley and Florentia, had any reference to myself. In this uncertainty of the state of his disposition, I felt reluctant to address him in a tone of brotherly affection ; and by way of ascertaining the character of his in- tentions, contented myself with leaving my card at his residence on the following dav. " The formal announcement of my arrival in England produced, however, no result; and even when repeated, to prevent the possibility of mistake, Lord Abbotscourt deigned not to take the slightest notice of my visit. I had unfortu- nately no family connexions in London, whose interposition could prociu'c me the information I g2 130 THE OPEKA. sought, without the humiliation of a further appeal to my ungracious relative ; and it there- fore became necessary to address myself to him by letter. But to my inquiries respecting Florentia's present abode, no answer was vouch- safed. " I had already placed my friend, Manning- field, in my confidence ; and now besought his advice respecting the further measures to be taken. " ' I have little doubt,' was his reply, ' that Lord Abbotscourf s amiable wife is the origin of the mischief, and that she has been the evil ge- nius of yoiu: destiny throughout its changes. But what is to be done ? I cannot carry a hostile message between brother and sister, any more than between brother and brother; and pacific overtures seem out of the question. What say you to addressing the lady yourself, and on neu- tral ground ? — Let us retiu^n to-night to the Opera, and if you have courage to enter her box, she cannot refuse to answer your questions. Or, shall THE OPERA. 131 I accept the introduction proffered me by my friend, Sir Henry Percy, and act as your ambas- sador extraordinary ? '' '- ' Perhaps,' said I, ' it will be better to trust to my own eloquence in an affair of so much deli- cacy. This artful woman would never forgive me for having confided to a third person, a family feud of so peculiar and complicated a nature. But the Opera is too public a spot to provoke the scene which may ensue between us.^ '''No, no!' cried Manningfield. ' Artful women are never provoked into scenes. This sister-in-law of yours has too much self-posses- sion to be betrayed into hysterics; nor have you the least chance of exciting so much as a paltry fainting-fit, unless with a view to rouse your brother's indignation against you. But fear no- thing on that score : I have already ascertained that Lord Abbotscourt never makes his appear- ance at the Opera."* " I still demurred; but the irritation pro- duced by my anxiety respecting Florentia, even- 132 THE OPERA. tually determined me to hazard the attempt. On the following Saturday, having secured for my use an opposite box, from which I could inspect that of Lady A., and ascertain the propitious moment for intrusion, I took my seat at an early hour ; and had soon the satisfaction of noting her ladyship's entrance, accompanied only by a beautiful boy, of about three years old. Seating him on her knee, she caressed him with such an air of maternal tenderness, and exerted herself so earnestly for his amusement, that but for the certainty that her union with my brother was scarcely of a year's standing, I should have be- lieved him her own. Such a witness was at least no obstacle to my purpose ; and summoning all my courage, I prepared myself to meet unmoved her utmost scorn and indignation ; and, accord- ingly, desired the box-keeper to admit me to her presence. '' Mistaking me for one of the intimates she was accustomed to welcome on such occasions. Lady Abbotscourt turned courteously towards the door, THE OPERA. 133 as I stepped beyond the crimson curtain ; when, perceiving that the darkness of the box prevented her from recognising the intruder, I strove that my voice should announce me, by uttering a few cold words of salutation. But there was neither indignation nor scorn — neither artifice nor dissi- mulation — in the start of terror and suppressed shriek with which she marked her consciousness of my presence, or in the rigid immobility into which she subsided on my proceeding to address her. In the agony of her trepidation, she even strained the child by which she was accompanied closely to her bosom, as if in the belief that its innocence would protect her from some actual danger. " ' Do not imagine. Lady Abbotscourt,' said I, with the view of reassuring her, ' that I am here to upbraid or molest you. My brother de- clines all intercourse with me; and I have no means of acquainting myself with the welfare of a brother and sister, who I trust are more kindly 134 THE OPERA. disposed towards me, unless through your inter- position.' " Instead of uttering a word in reply to this address. Lady Abbotscourt grew paler and paler, and was so evidently on the verge of insensibility, that pity took place of disgust in my bosom. Her respiration was impeded, and the tears began to steal through her half-closed eyelids ; yet she attempted not to withdraw herself from public observation — a proof that her emotion was un- feigned and all-absorbing. " ' Katharine ! ' said I, compassionating her distress, ' we were once friends. Speak to me, I conjure you. Forget, for a moment, how deeply you have plotted against my peace — forget my widowed pillow — forget your sister's injuries and my own — forget every evil thought you have cherished against me — forget my sentence of ba- nishment — my alienation from my father's death- bed ; — and tell me where I may find the friends whose arms are yet open to embrace me. Where is Florentia Maldyn ? ' THE OPERA. 135 ^' Still she replied not ! — Gasping for breath, and bewildered beyond all recovery of her self-pos- session, she seized my hand, and by her inco- herent expressions of tenderness, betrayed at once that she was guiltless of all participation in my brother's unkindness, and that she had been kept in ignorance of my arrival in England. '' ' You do well to hate me,' cried she, among a thousand other exclamations equally inexplicable, ' for I have injured you beyond your worst sus- picions. You first excited my tenderness, Ran- dolph, by the rash warmth of your professions, — you deserted me, — scorned me, — transferred be- fore my eyes your affections to another. Could I bear this, — could I witness your mutual hap- piness without attempting to avenge my own cause ? Randolph ! while my heart bled for every pang inflicted on yourself, I ceased not from my task of vengeance ! I deprived you of your wife, your child, your country, your birth- right. I drove you into exile, — 1 rendered you hateful to her who loved you, — I provoked your 136 THE OPERA. father's curse, — I wedded with one who was loath- some to me, only to obtain a mastery over your destiny. I have it, — I hold it, — I have loved, and I can now abhor, as never earthly woman loved or hated. But do not accuse me. It is you who have done this ; it is you who have in- stigated all my errors, all my crimes ; you alone are accountable, — and upon your own head, and the heads of all who are dear to you, has the measure of retribution fallen. Amid the flush of my worldly prosperity, dearest Randolph, my heart is broken, and my soul accursed ; and you alone must bear the penalty of both."* '•Awed by the concentration of voice and almost maniacal vehemence v,ith which Lady Abbots- court gave utterance to these terrible confessions, I sank into a chair ; while the child — the boy — whom she had now removed from her bosom, in- voluntarily betrayed his alarm by burying his little face in the folds of her dress. But no sooner was she sensible of his terrors, than she snatched him into her arms, and covering him with kisses, THE OPERA. 137 wept aloud ; till at length the reality of her emo- tions so far wrought upon my commiseration, that I advanced towards her, and would have taken her hand. Deride my weakness, Adrian, if you will; but I own that the sight of Lady Abbotscourt's tears obliterated from my mind all remembrance of my own injuries. Yes ! I ad- vanced towards her, and would even have taken her hand. " ' Go — go !"" she faltered incoherently, repel- ling the attempt ; * the time is past for recon- ciliation ; a gulph, an eternal gulph is placed be- tween us ! The hatred of the betrayer for the betrayed, no less than the horrible relationship in which we stand, condemns uc to perpetual estrange- ment. Go ! Randolph Maldyn, go ! it will not lessen the measure of your brother's detestation to know that we have exchanged even these sen- tences of mutual upbraiding ; Lord Abbotscourt has betrayed some discernment in seeking to pre- vent all further intercourse between us ; although 138 THE OPERA. Others might have scrupled to expose the detected weakness of a wife.' *' A new light broke in upon my mind as she uttered these words. My brother^s want of com- mon courtesy towards me might, indeed, proceed from his detection of Lady Abbotscourf s fatal partiahty ; and I could almost forgive the abhor- rence, which a man of his intemperate passions must necessarily conceive under such circum- stances. His jealousy was far more excusable to my feelings than the unbrotherly coldness I had ascribed to him. " Hastily rising from the seat I had usurped, as this new view of his conduct presented itself, I obeyed the injunctions of the unhappy woman before me, and bade her a hurried farewell ; re- solving to seek some other mode of acquainting myself with the situation of my family. I own I was touched when, as I quitted the box, the child by whom Lady Abbotscourt was accom- panied, raising its innocent face from her shoulder. THE OPERA. 139 as she bowed haughtily at parting, greeted me "with a smile of the gentlest interest, and uttered a few infantine words of adieu. But when I had quitted the presence of his patroness, I forgot even his ingratiating countenance and courtesy, in my regret that I had not found courage to utter the name of Cecil, and inform myself of her wel- fare. Although it was her pleasure to reject the hallowed bonds by which we were once united, and to become towards me as a stranger, / could not forget that for twelve happy months she had pillowed her head on my bosom, — had loved me, had laboured for me with more than the tender- ness of a wife. She had ceased to be mine, in- deed, but I felt that I was still hers, and hers for ever. " On the following day I was still more inchned to lament my false delicacy on this point, when rallied by Colonel Manningfield on the ill-success of my mission. « I do not wonder,' he observed, ' that the Darley family should glory in loading you with acts of injury and oppression, since you 140 THE OPERA. choose to repay them with such acquiescent pa- tience. A fevr ready tears have disarmed your best resolves ; and I have learned more of your family concerns frorn vulgar rumour, than you have been able to force — either by menaces or concessions — from the lips of your perverse sister- in-law/ '• I implored him to explain himself; hoping that these allusions might refer to Wrottesley and my sister. '^ ' Nay!' replied Colonel Manningfield, ' I have discovered only what all the world besides yourself appears to know ; that your brother's connexion with Lady Katharine Darley com- menced in his advocacy of your own cause. On arriving in Ireland, it appears that Mr. Maldyn and his younger brother were pleased to resent the conduct held towards you by Lord Temple- ton on occasion of your union with his daughter ; and that in the course of certain interviews of explanation which arose between them, his lord- ship had not only the art to persuade them he THE OPERA. 141 had acted towards you with ahnost paternal in- dulgence, and had reluctantly profited by the informality of your marriage in compliance with the religious scruples recently conceived by Lady Cecil, but to engage Mr. Maldyn's attentions for her sister. Many persons believe that Temple- ton was prompted to this measure by a desire to thwart and harass your father; but the heir of Abbotscourt was also an object worthy the solici- tude of the flighty Lady Katharine Darley ; who, moved either by your brother's personal attractions, or by some other latent motive, spared no pains to subjugate the haughty young Catholic' '* Nor can I wonder at the success of the at- tempt. Katharine in her happier moods, is as captivating in her address as she is beautful in her person; while my brother's natural reserve places him at the mercy of any woman, who will be at the pains to exert herself for his attrac- tion. His vain self-confidence, too, must have tended to throw him off his guard. 142 THE OPERA. ^' * His vain self-confidence sufficed to persuade him that Lord Templeton's daughter was dying for love of him, and that it was his duty as a preuoG chevalier to sacrifice himself in her favour. But after having actually committed the rash act — after renouncing his indignation on your be- half — driving his old father to distraction — and perpetuating a breach with your brother and sister, I fancy, he has found occasion to recog- nize his error. Lord and Lady Abbotscourt are supposed to live on the most unhappy terms ; and since the birth of her little girl, he has been heard to reproach the mother with a degree of bitterness, which promises little for the future harmony of their menage. Were it not for the splendid fortune Lady Abbotscourt will inherit from her father, he has httle reason to exult in his inconsistent choice ; but while she is able to increase his rent-roll by estates to the amount of thirty thousand per annum, even the Papists of his party forgive him that base desertion of his principles^ which tends to augment the import- ance of their tribe.' THE OPERA. 143 '^ ' Forty thousand per annum !" I exclaimed. ' You forget, my dear Manningfield, that Cecil Darley's renunciation of her husband has sufficed to restore her to her father's favour ; and that wliile my disinheritance was the consequence of our transient connexion, it has wrought no evil in her destiny.' '•' ' Such, however, is not the opinion of her nearest relatives. Lord Templeton, it seems, had fully persuaded himself that after his suc- cess in invalidating her marriage, Lady Cecil would at some future period consent to reappear in society, and lend herself to the aggrandize- ment of her family, by forming some more pro- pitious connexion.' '• And may she not still fulfil these disinterested expectations "H " '^ Unfortunately for Lord Templeton's views, ho consented to employ Perceval's intervention, m order to disunite his favourite child and the son of his enemy ; and — ' " Perceval! who is Perceval ? 144 THE OPERA. " ' How ? — during your domestication in Lady Templeton's family, had you the good fortune to escape your share of her brother-in-law's pious documentations ? — Perceval, my dear Maldyn, is the high-priest of the ultra-godly in the Dublin world ; and was precisely the person who drove your father to distraction by announcing (prema- turely as it now appears) your brother's conver- sion to the evangelical church. But with respect to his influence over Lady Cecil Darley, I can scarcely satisfy you. Nothing seems known in the London world, except that she has secluded her- self from all society since your departure for India, and is now residing in the strictest retire- ment at Havresbury, her father"'s mansion, in Derbyshire ; declining to join even its family cir- cle, and studiously shunning the observation of visitors.' "And Lord Templeton himself? " ' Is said to have received a severe shock on hearing that the dying words of Lord Abbots- court denounced a solemn curse on himself and THE OPERA. 145 his children. Already stung to the quick by the circumstances of his removal from the lord- lieutenancy, it is probable that he would never have attempted a re-appearance on the stage of public life : but since the period of Lady Ka- tharine's marriage, and its fatal influence on the mind of his ancient adversary, he has not even visited the metropolis. Instead of pursuing his schemes for the establishment of his favourite daughter. Lady Templeton and himself appear to have renounced the aspirings of their worldly- vrise ambition; and to limit their pleasures within the park paling of Havresbury. " I did not venture to acknowledge to Colonel Manningfield the extent of my interest in these details ; nor the wild and visionary hopes they excited in my bosom. To know that Lord Tern- pleton's character had undergone so singular a revolution, that his political violence had been quelled by the decease of the opponent by whom it had been chiefly stunulated, while his views for Lady Cecil's aggrandizement were frustrated by VOL. I. H 146 THE OPERA. her obstinate self-seclusion, was sufficient to inspire me with a chimerical idea, that he might eventu- ally reconcile himself to our connexion. The family which had withdrawn its religious scruples in sanctioning the union of Lord Abbotscourt with Lady Katharine Darley, could no longer affect to regard with horror the difference of pro- fession existing between myself and Cecil ; and even the original obstacle, my poverty, although magnified by subsequent disinheritance, was in some degree removed by the lucrative successes of my military career. " With respect to her own disavowal of our union, I had ever flattered myself that an undue influence must have been exerted over her mind to produce such a miraculous change of feeling; and satisfied by the mode of life she had adopted, that she was guiltless of all intention, such as in the bitterness of my disappointment I had been tempted to impute to her, I trusted, — I hoped, — I even believed — that her feelings might secretly in- cline towards me. She was now relieved from THE OPERA. 147 the mischievous influence of Lady Katharine's society, of Mr. PercevaFs arguments ; even Lord and Lady Templeton had experienced a change of position highly favourable to my views ; and at length I persuaded myself that I should only fulfil a duty towards all parties concerned, by taking some measure to ascertain the nature of Lady Cecil's sentiments. Recalling to mind the thousand precious instances of her former attach- ment, and connecting them with her present re- nouncement of the world and its pleasures, I pre- sumed to indulge the hope that she might have repented her concurrence in the hostile measures of her family, — that she might have learned to regret the man whose devotion had been so fondly her own, — that in her widowed solitude she might still regard me with interest, — with affection. " No sooner did this flattering delusion obtain possession of my mind, than I resolved to visit Havresbury, demand an interview of Lord Tem- pleton, and with the frankness of a soldier lay before him the state of my own feelings and my h2 148 THE OPERA. own fortunes. I felt that he could not refuse me access to the presence of his daughter ; nor pursue a system of persecution towards one so closely connected with the son-in-law he had courted into his family. My father's death, and my brother's marriage, could not fail to secure me against all further injury from the house of Darley." THE OPERA. 149 CHAPTER VIII. Hadst thou thy wits and didst persuade revenge. It could not move thus 1 Hamlet. There was one inconsistency connected with Count Maldyn's personal revelations which, as it may be imagined, produced the most painful per- plexities in the mind of his son. The invalidity of his marriage, and the consequent illegitimacy of the child born to Lady Cecil Darley during his campaign in India, appeared incompatible with the tone in which he affected to treat the claim, s of Adrian ; and burning with anxiety to 15a THE OPERA. reach that point of explanation in his father''s history which he still trusted would suffice to remove the stigma from his birth, and the strug- gling sense of shame from his soul, the young count had need of all his self command to ab- stain from those inquiries which must still further aggravate his father's distress. For some time, indeed, Count Maldyn appeared unequal to a renewal of his narration ; but at length the anxiety visible in the countenance of his son urged him to a desperate effort, and in a subdued voice, he resumed the course of his explanation. " It was not till I approached the confines of Havresbury Park,'' said he, " that I became fully sensible of the trying nature of the task I had undertaken. In the first happy season of my admittance into Lord Templeton's domestic circle, while I was sunning myself in the smiles of his beautiful daughters without a suspicion of the influence that both were likely to obtain over my future destiny, one of our favourite topics of discussion was the spot I was now about to visit. THE OPERA. 151 Whenever I ventured to cite in their presence the beauties of my native country, the scenery of Avoca or Killarney, Cecil would smilingly stand forth as the champion of her own Derby- shire, and Katharme half angrily assert the un- rivalled charms of their English birth-place. Havresbury had been their residence during the life -time of their mother ; and the cold and repellent disposition of the present Lady Templeton soon gave them ample reason to lament their happy childhood and its home. But in the course of my still more intimate association with my dearest Cecil, — of my wedded year of mingled pain and rapture, — how familiar did I become with Havres- bury and its scenery ! How often, in the wretched- ness of our narrow home, did she cheer her spirits by affecting to initiate her half-savage Irish hus- band into the pohshed and peculiar habits of an English country residence ; how often, during the continuance of her father's harsh estrangement, and amid the heaviest privations of our penury, did she recur with regret to the condition of his poorest 152 THE OPEPvA. tenants, and wish, with a melancholy smile, that Lord Templeton would vouchsafe us some humble tenement among the picturesque vallies of her native county ! — So familiar had her descriptions rendered me with all its scenery, that on ap- proaching Havresbury, I fancied my self returning to some long-lost home. As I recognised the various haunts her eloquence had formerly brought before my eyes, I felt as if gazing upon her face, or listening to her voice. It was like the re-perusal of a favourite page of poetry once known by heart ! " Yet every pleasing emotion, every sanguine anticipation, deserted me when I found myself on the threshold of the library in which, under the formal announcement of ' a gentleman on busi- ness," I was about to enter the presence of my father-in-law. I had prepared myself to en- counter with patience and forbearance any want of courtesy in his mode of reception ; and to in- vite, by my facility in overlooking his former misdoings, a gradual progression towards mutual THE OPEHA. 153 reconciliation. I was almost willing to acknow- ledge mrjself the offender, rather than irritate him anew by compelling him to appear in the wrong. Summoning to my remembrance the lofty bearmg and supercilious countenance worn by Lord Templeton during our last interview, I advanced towards the table beside which he was seated. " His jfirst glance was one of mere indifference ; but the exclamation of surprise and sympathy which burst from my lips as I noted the altera- tion in his own person, revealed me to him in a moment. " ' Randolph Maldyn !' he exclaimed, clasping his withered hands together, and gazing piteously in my face, ' alive, in England ! — alas, what evil destiny has brought you hither "t ' " For many minutes I found it impossible to reply to this apostrophe. There was something in the tone of Lord Templeton's voice, and the change in his appearance, which touched me to the soul. It seemed as if the influence of my h3 154 THE OPERA. father''s dying curse were already operating upon him ; as if the blight of a premature old age had dried up the current of his blood. On my de^ parture for India, I left him in all the vigour of manhood; stern, erect, florid, and portly. But his hair was now silvery white — his figure bowed by feebleness — ^his brow careworn and sallow — his voice tremulous, his eye dim ; an age of sor- row appeared to have rolled over his head ! As I said beforcj there was something irresistibly touching in his appearance ; and I could scarcely refrain from tears while, having seated myself unbidden beside him, I entered into a hurried explanation of my errand. '' It was some time before he attempted to utter a syllable, but sat concealing his face with his hands, as if unwilling to betray, in my presence, the extent of his embarrassment. At length he inquired, but with a countenance still averted, whether I was aware of Lord Abbotscourt's^junion with his daughter ; and in reply to the question, I acknowledged that it was from the sanction be- THE OPERA. 155 Stowed by him on that very alliance I derived my chief encouragement to visit Havres- bury. " ' Would — would to Heaven !' he exclaimed, in a broken voice, ' that you had previously sought an interview with Katharine or her husband/ '* ' Lady Abbotscourt's demeanour towards me, during the short period I ventured to intrude upon her presence,' said I, ' was little calcu- lated to encourage my confidence. I know her to have been grievously my enemy durmg my ill-omened connexion with your lordship's fa- mily ; and have now learned from her own lips that she glories in the fact.' '' Lord Templeton seemed startled by this as- sertion ; and a thoughtful expression tempered the previous anguish of his countenance. ' But surely, IMr. Maldyn,' said he, attempting to recover his self-possession, — ' surely you did not announce to her the motives of your journey hither. Surely Katharine had not the cruelty 156 THE OPERA. towards both yourself and me — to promote your ^isit to this house of mournmg ?' " ' Agam too late!' I exclamied, claspmg my liands together, m sudden despair. ' My lord !— it is you who have done this ! — yoti, who condemned me to that banishment from my na- tive country, which alienated me from my fa- ther's death-bed and has admitted my return only to weep over the grave of my beloved Cecil. My lord ! my lord ! it is you who have done this.' " ' Mr. Maldyn,' rephed Lord Templeton, wearing in the venerable dignity of his grief a far more imposing air than had ever invested his person among the trappings of his viceroyalty, ' I can forgive your violence — ay ! — and even your injustice; for I know that you loved my child— my dear child— my afflicted child. But spare me the fruitless misery of Hstening to the recapitulation of your wrongs. They have been bitterly repented — heavily atoned ; and nothing now remains for us but to bow with humble sub- THE OPERA. 157 mission to the dispensation of the Ahnighty. "\Mien I was persuaded to insist on the illegality of your contract with my daughter, I knew not the motives of those who were so eager to prove its invalidity, nor the fervour of the attachment by which you were united. I was taught to be- lieve that the levity of your own character and the submissive docility of hers, would soon re- concile you to the separation, and incline you to seek elsewhere a more proportionate alliance ; I dreamed not — I guessed not that the curse of a broken heart was about to cleave to my house. Yet I ought to have been spared my present trial. It was the duty of Lord or Lady Abbots- court to acquaint you that liady Cecil Darley''s present state of mind is such as to forbid all pos- sibihty of your reunion.** '• Believing the afflicted father to refer to the religious scruples which had been described to me as originating in the influence of Mr. Per- cival's peculiar opinions, I assured him that I was fully aware I had difficulties to contend with. 1 58 THE OPERA. and was prepared to wait with patience some fa- vourable turn in the mind of his daughter, ere I profited by his sanction to renew my claims upon her hand. Lord Templeton, still more surprised and distressed by this declaration, persisted in assuring me that the case was hopeless. ' You cannot,' said he, ' have been made acquainted with the full extent of the evil.' " Again I represented that time might do much in such a case ; that time and my own assiduous attentions might counteract the effect of her early vexations. ' Have I, my lord,' I inquired with increasing eagerness, ' have I your permission to make the attempt ?' " Lord Templeton shook his head mournfully. " ' If you have courage to see her,' was his re- ply, ' I will myself conduct you to her presence. One moment's interview will suffice to satisfy you of the groundlessness of your expectations.' " Rising from the library table beside which we were sitting, but with an air of reluctance and mortification visible in his countenance which I THE OPERA. 159 .attributed to his secret opposition to my views, the old man motioned me to follow him, and led me through a splendid suite of apartments and a succession of intricate passages, towards a narrow staircase. " ' Would it not be better,' I whispered, my whole frame trembling with emotion at the idea of finding myself in Lady CeciFs presence, ' to announce our visit ? — Shall we not startle her by this intrusion ? ' '' But instead of replying to my interrogation, Lord Templeton took a key from his pocket, and carefully unlocked a door in the corridor we were traversing. — I started ! — Was I about to visit a prisoner ? — or did his lordship entertain a design against my own hberty ? " ' Wallis ! ' said he, in a low subdued tone, to an elderly woman employed in some household occupation in the chamber we now entered, ' Is she asleep — can we be admitted ? ' " The woman moved on tiptoe towards an inner room, and having opened the door and surveyed 160 THE OPERA the interior with an air of anxiety, nodded an affirmative ; when Lord Templeton, taking me by the arm as if to support his own feeble frame, led me into the chamber of his unfortunate daughter. — Adrian ! an ominous chill palsied my heart as I approached that fatal spot. '•It was a large airy chamber, destitute of all furniture but a bed and a few chairs ; and for a moment I was unable to discern the person of its inmate. But the gratings affixed to its lofty windows, and the presence of a man of harsh and peculiar aspect, immediately revealed to me the origin of its desolate nakedness: — I was standing in the retreat of a maniac ! " ' Let us leave this place !' I faltered, stag- gering towards the wall ; while Lord Templeton, with clasped hands and rigid features, stood by like a person who has inured himself to some ha- bitual penance. But at that moment the sound of my voice penetrated the ears, the heart, the mind, of the wretched sufferer ; and rising from the obscure corner into which she was cowering THE OPERA. 161 in the attitude of some irrational being coiled up for repose, she crept stealthily towards us, and gradually assumed something of a human atti- tude : — as she raised herself to confront us, her long hair, unbraided and uncurled, fell like a veil round her person till its tresses swept the floor. Involuntarily I recoiled as she advanced, for it seemed as if the grave were giving up its dead ; the fixed glare of her glassy blue eyes, and the inexpressive immobility of her features, were corselike and terrific. But her attendant attri- buting my retreat to personal fear, now lifted up his hand forbiddingly to arrest her approach; assuring me in the harsh, callous tone of his call- ing, that ' she was quite harmless."' Judge of my anguish, Adrian, on hearing such words uttered in her unconscious presence, without a chance that her feelings should be wounded by the announcement. ''Unaccustomed, however, to the afflicting spec- tacle. I could not forbear commanding the fellow to silence ; and once more the sound of my voice 162 THE OPERA. produced a startling effect upon the unhappy being before me. She drew herself up as if to listen; a gradual hectic overspread her face, which had previously worn the paleness and opa- city of death ; and at length a smile, a wild and unnatural smile, broke over her features. " ' Do you hear him, Katherine ?' — said she, in a hollow voice. ' I told you he would come again ; I always said he would come again, and bring me food and clothes. He was half famished when we parted ; — and there was scarcely straw for our bed ; — and my father refused us bread. What could he do, poor fellow ? — He went out to beg, Katherine — to beg for his wife and child; but I always said he would come again.' '' Compassionating Lord Templeton's emotion, the attendant — the /ceepe?' —approached Lady Cecil with the view of terrifying her into silence. " ' Molest her at your peril !' I exclaimed, while a burst of tears relieved my overcharged feelings. *' ' There again !' cried the maniac, with an incoherent laugh ; ' said I not that my true THE OPERA. 163 champion would one day appear, and relieve me from my house of bondage, and bring my father and his cruelties to shame?' " ' Maldyn !' faltered the agonized Templeton, * you have satisfied yourself of her condition ; let us quit this dreadful spot!' " ' I cannot leave her ! ' I exclaimed, half frantic with the excitement of the moment. * You once compelled us to part, and leaving her prosperous and at ease, I was quiescent. But I will not abandon her in this hour of affliction. Resign her to my care ; I will watch over her, tend her, soothe her — ay ! and love her with all the tenderness I once vowed to her in the pre- sence of God. Give her to me again, Lord Templeton, — and all her former sacrifices shall be repaid by my devotion to her now in the day of her humiliation.' '« ' The gentleman does not know what he un- dertakes,' interrupted the keeper, with a con- temptuous laugh ; and he began to enter into a thousand disgusting details respecting his un- 164 THE OPERA. fortunate charge. At that moment Lady Cecil herself invokmtarily justified his accusations of her occasional violence by rushing upon him in order to silence his statement; hut just as her uplifted arm was about to fall on his head, a single glance of his eye sufficed to awe her into tranquiUity: — again she stood pale and trembling before him. '' ' Fear nothing,' said I, addressing her in a soothing voice ; ' no one shall touch you — no one annoy you." " A sort of hissing, gibbering laugh mingled with her reply. " ' You do not know that man ; you do not know the ways of this place. See !' she whis- pered, disentangling her arm, still fair and lovely, from the long tresses in which it was enveloped ; ' look at these bruises — these stripes. They care not how they beat me, so they can prevent my crossing the sea to tell Randolph I am still his wife. First came Katherine with her malignant slanders against him, piercing my heart while she THE OPERA. 165 smiled in my face; — then came Perceval, the priest of Baal, with his menaces of hell and judg- ment ; — and my father with his scornful pride, and Lady Templeton with her cold austerity ; — and they took my babe from my bosom, and put a fiend into its place ; and I nourished the imp on my Hfe's blood till it grew into yonder mon- ster. — They tell me it was Randolph sent it hither to punish me for having listened to his enemies ! — But Randolph was never stern and cruel like the rest of them ; and just now I seemed to hear his voice, and I hoped he was coming to set me free.' '^ ' I am — I am come to set you free !' I ex- claimed, clasping the unhappy creature in my arms. ' Do you not know me, Cecil ! Do you not recognize your husband ?' '' ' I have no husband !' she answered, trying to disengage herself from my embrace. ' Once I was married to Randolph Maldyn ; but Pro- phet Perceval said that such marriages were sin- ful in the sight of Heaven — and so they brought 166 THE OPERA. me to this prison for the remainder of my days ; and now they beat me and starve me as a punish- ment for — but you are weeping ! — Why should you weep for poor Cecil ? — Katharine will mur- der you when she discovers that you pity me. Come closer, that I may hide you with my hair, and she will not find you/ " ' My beloved — my own — my only Cecil !' I exclaimed, again folding her to my bosom ; ' Randolph is indeed come home to alleviate your sufferings ! Randolph is by your side — at your feet ! Look upon him — recognise him, dearest ! — and all will yet be well." '^ The unwonted tone of tenderness in which these words were pronounced appeared to touch anew that invisible chord which my voice had already caused to vibrate. She dragged me towards the window, and putting back her hair from her face, perused my features with the most searching earnestness. She uttered not a word ; — scarcely breathed ; — while, as she gazed upon my well-known lineaments, reminiscences of the past THE OPERA. 167 gradually dawned upon her mind. At length tears came into her eyes, and rolled slowly over her wasted cheeks ; and placing her deathlike hand upon my forehead, she appeared to pro- nounce an inward benediction. Still she spoke not ; — and the vivid flush which for a moment had overspread her countenance subsided into a livid paleness doubly appalling. *' ' Place her on this chair ! lay her on the bed!' suddenly exclaimed her attendant, rush- ing towards her, as she was on the point of fall- ing to the ground. ^ Open the doors — the win- dow — give her air, or it will be too late ! — she is dying !^ cried he, applying his fingers to her pulse. But instead of obeying his commands, I hung over her recumbent figure, chafed her hands within my own, and imprinted on her quivering lips a thousand kisses of hallowed and agonized affection. The breath of life was de- parting from them ; but in that last tremendous struggle of nature, I saw that I was fully recog- nized. Her closing eyes were turned in tender- > -^v 168 THE OPERA. ness upon me, and with a perfect restoration of every faculty. There needed no words to tell me that she knew me — that she loved me — that she would willingly live for my sake. — But it was not to be ! — A fatal spasm impeded the powers of life — the heart ceased to beat — a horrible sound sobbed from her throat. Why do I speak of this ? — She died, Adrian ! she died ! — Just when new hopes were dawning around us, the overwrought sensibilities of that delicate frame were snapt asunder. In a few minutes my arms encircled the breathless remains of my wife!"— THE OPERA. 169 CHAPTER IX. Che lo spirito lasso Non poria mai 'n piu riposato porto, Ne 'n piu tranquilla fossa Fuggir la came travagliata, e I'ossa. Petrarca. " Were I to seek throughout the world a spot sanctified as if by the especial favour of Heaven, wherein to deposit those precious reliques," re- sumed Count Maldyn, after a pause, during which he appeared absorbed in a mental recapi- tulation of every circumstance connected with the fatal event, although too deeply abstracted to give utterance to the detail, " it would have been that very church of Havresbury, to which it was VOL. I. I 170 THE OPERA. the pleasure of Lord Templeton that they shouli be consigned. Unwilling to draw the attention of the neighbourhood towards the unhappy des- tinies of his daughter, it was decided that her in- terment should be immediately solemnized in the most private and unostentatious manner, without even the attendance of his household or tenantry. For myself, I was too much overpowered in mind and body by the agitating scene in which I had recently borne a part, to be consulted on the sub- ject. In spite of Lord Templeton's remonstrances I persisted in occupying the chamber adjoining my Cecil's desolate retreat, till her remains should be removed to a last and more peaceful home ; and in the stillness of the night, when those who watched by her coffin were overtaken by the heaviness of sleep, I hung over it, — I communed with her, and breathed a vow I have held sacred, that no other wife, no other woman, should ever replace her in my bosom. V But on the evening preceding the ceremony, when the hirelings connected with its details be- THE OPERA. 171 gan to pollute my solitude by investing it with the trappings of funereal array, I quitted the chamber — the house; and bending my steps across the park towards the valley where a spire rising above a grove of beautiful beeches revealed the position of the church of Havresbury, I attempted to render my eyes famihar with the fiiture resting-place of my beloved. " Situated within the confines of the park, upon a rocky knoll, at the foot of which a shallow brook ran murmuring towards the channel of the Derwent, the venerable structure was sheltered on the northern side by a grove of lofty trees, now enriched by their utmost luxuriance of sum- mer foliage. The paths leading to its boundaries, which were unfrequented as an ordinary village haunt, gave it the appearance of standing in a grassy field ; and all was softness and tranquillity around. At the extremity of the valley, the entrance towards a narrow defile through which the waters of the brook seemed to have forced a way, was marked by a barrier of cliffs half clothed with stunted i2 172 THE OPERA. pines ; and beyond these, nothing was visible but the clear atmosphere and its floating summer clouds. There was not a sound nor a breath to interrupt the holy harmony of the scene. " With every thought and every feeling ab- sorbed by its auspicious loveliness, I stood beside the low stone wall separating the church-yard from the domain, contemplating the solemn an- tiquity of the little church, which stood an en- during and unbroken seal of the covenant between God and his people — an unviolated pledge of the stability of the Christian faith. To such a temple, even though devoted to the ritual of Pro- testant worship, I felt willing to bequeath the ashes of one who had imparted to a few short steps of my earthly pilgrimage the foretaste of a better land ; when, perceiving that its portal was still unclosed, I nerved my courage to enter and gaze on the gloomy cavern about to receive so precious a deposit. I conceived that some per- son connected with Lord Templeton's establish- ment had been stationed in the church to prevent THE OPERA. 173 unprivileged intrusion ; but on reaching the chancel, above which a variety of monumental trophies, bearing the emblazonments of the Par- leys, proclaimed the vicinity of their mouldering remains, I was struck by the venerable figure of Lord Templeton himself, — kneeling beside the rails of the altar, — and praying aloud with un- controlled fervour, — that the cup of bitterness might pass away from him and from his race. " Unwilling to intrude on his devotions, I re- mained motionless till he rose and advanced towards the mouth of the family vault, already laid open for the ceremony of the morrow ; then slowly and reverently followed. 'My son!' said he, instantly recognizing his partner in affliction, and extending his hands affectionately towards me, ' we are well met here, in the pre- sence of the dead — in the house of God — in the mansion wherein I shall soon set up my rest. The worst sins of my mortal pilgrimage have been connected with you and yours; and me- thinks I could sleep more peacefully in yonder 174 THE OPERA. desolate grave, were I to hear my forgiveness pronounced by the lips of a Maldyn. Randolph, your father breathed a solemn ciu-se on me and on my race ; — you have witnessed in part its con- summation ; — you have seen my young and inno- cent child bowed down to the dust — you will soon hear of my own departing struggle. Vouch- safe me the consolation, Randolph, of knowing that your enmity will not outlast that hour : pro- mise me that you will retvu-n hither and lay my grey head in the grave beside that of Cecil.' j " ' You have still a daughter. Lord Temple- ton,'' said I, sternly. '* ' I have still a son, if you do not spurn the title ; had Cecil been restored to me, she should have rendered it a distinction precious in your eyes. But her hour has struck — my own is ap- proaching; and fervently have I prayed, and earnestly do I trust, that in our destinies the judgment may be accomplished. Henceforward may the enmities of the houses of Maldyn and Darley subside into the holy charities of family union.' THE OrERA. 175 " My heart and lips could not refuse to sanctify this prayer of peace and goodwill at such an hour — in such a spot ; — but an involuntary impulse whispered to me that an atonement might yet be demanded of a future generation. " As we returned together in mournful compa- nionship towards the house, Lord Templeton de- clared himself unequal to attend the ceremony of the morrow, and expressed his regret at my obstinate determination to be present. He even reminded me that the rites of the Protestant church could be but as a mockery in my sight. '' ' My lord !"* said I, with firmness, ' you have been pleased to declare that it was your intention to sanction my re-union with your daughter. Grievous has it been to me to restrain the ex- pression of my indignation against those by whom she was hastened to the grave ; do you, in turn, abstain from opposing my wishes, and permit me to supply your place in the funeral proces- sion.' " ' Be it as you will !' was his reply ; and in 176 THE OPERA. the grey morning twilight I once more entered the little church of Havresbury, and beheld the stone of the sepulchre rolled back to receive the dead. But notwithstanding the precautions taken by Lord Templeton to render the solemnity pri- vate, the day and the hour were noted by many to whom the childhood of Cecil Darley had been endeared by her beauty and gracious disposition, and her maturity by a thousand acts of mercy and beneficence. Unbidden and undesired, the tenants had gathered together to follow her to the grave ; and many an honest tear was shed, and many a grey head uncovered, when one who had been dead to them for years was brought forth once more into the light of day on her passage to the tomb. " But there was one among the mourners assem- bled by that solemn rite, whose presence I as little anticipated as desired. Lady Abbotscourt, warned by express of the dissolution of her un- happy victim, had hastened down to Havresbury: and it was perhaps the expectation of her arrival THE OPERA. 177 which. had instigated Lord Templeton''s anxiety that I should absent myself from the funeral service. I did not note her, indeed, among the muffled mourners by whom the aisle was crowded ; but on turning from the vault, Adrian, into which your mother's coffin had been lowered, my seared and dilated eyes encountered those of Katharine. Scarcely did I attempt to control the emotions of abhorrence with which her presence inspired me ; and I saw her shudder and conceal her face in her mother-in-law''s bosom, as she marked the ferocity of my glance ! " But with her and hers I had nothing now in common ; and hastening from the church door at the conclusion of the ceremony, was soon on my way to London. — Alas ! what new lessons of an- guish had been inflicted upon me during my short absence ! — Even the gay and thoughtless ]\Ian- ningfield was startled into sympathy on beholding my care-«'orn countenance, and listening to the tremulous tones of my voice ; and finding me bent upon an immediate departure for Naples, where, I 3 178 THE OPERA. according to Lord Templeton's intelligence, I found that my brother and sister were settled for the winter, he would not suffer me to undertake the journey alone. His leave of absence extend- ing till the following spring, he had still several idle months at command ; and now kindly affected a sudden eagerness to make the tour of Italy, in order to become my companion. My health was indeed in a precarious condition ; and I had soon occasion to recognize the truth of Manningfleld's assertion, that I was not fit to travel without a companion. Never did I close my eyes for the night, but the afflicting scene at Havresbury rose before them in all the intensity of reality ; — again the incoherent laugh of Cecil rang in my ears — again her ghastly smile thrilled through my soul — again she seemed to point out to my commiseration the wounds and bruises by which she was disfigured. And in the paroxysm of dis- tress which followed these horrible visitations, I had often reason to acknowledge the value of the soothing counsel of a friend. Colonel Manning- THE OPERA. 179 field, roused from his rest by my frantic exclama- tions, would listen patiently to the outpouring of my despair, and attempt to restore my reason by gentleness and expostulation. He was a kind comforter to me, Adrian, in all my affliction; but I had still a kinder and a better — even that Almighty Father whose hand is over all his children ! " It was no matter of surprise to me to learn, on arriving at Naples, that my brother and sister had quitted it ; for I had begun to beheve my- self environed by a spell of fatality ensuring the frustration of all my wishes, the disappointment of all my hopes. Manningfield had many friends among the English visitants ; and a near con- nexion attached to the mission, from whom I as- certained without difficulty that Mr. and Miss Maldyn had been many months resident in the city, where they associated chiefly with its ItaHan circles ; but that they were gone to pass the autumn and winter on the coast of La PugHa with the family of Prince Bagnagliori. It ap- 180 THE OPERA. peared that Wrottesley had been scarcely visible to his countrymen, excepting in the public drives and walks ; for his sacred calling, and the infir- mity of his health, alike prohibited his participa- tion in scenes of ordinary dissipation : but Miss Maldyn had occasionally attracted public admira- tion by her appearance at St. Carlo with the Bagnaglioris. The intelligence I gained respect- ing them, though far from unsatisfactory, was not sufficiently detailed to allay the eagerness of my anxiety ; and being unwilling to deprive my friend of the gratification he had promised him- self in reviewing the city and its monuments, I succeeded in persuading Manningfleld, after a few days' sojourn at Naples, that my strength was sufficiently restored to admit of a solitary excursion. After obtaining his promise to rejoin me in the course of the autumn, I set off for Bajabella. " The chances of my eastern campaign had somewhat famiharized me with the wild and won- derful, — whether in scenery or its human popula- THE OPERA. 181 tion ; yet I own I was strangely impressed by the savage simplicity of Calabria and La Puglia. Austere devotion, or rather the superstitious bigotry which usurps its place in ignorant minds, seemed to have affixed an iron limit to the perceptions of the people ; the humanized inha- bitants of our provinces in the east were incom- parably more advanced in civilization than these denizens of one of the loveliest kingdoms in Europe. But I forgot all my astonishment at their brutality in the surprise with which I gazed on the beauty of the land, on approaching its southern coast. My mind was scarcely susceptible of agreeable impressions. I looked upon the earth, and saw that it was good ; but what were to me its loveliness and fertility ? I hastened onward through its picturesque scenery, to re- fresh my eyes with the sight of those dear familiar faces, whose aspect, although it could not renew in me the love of life — might render the last stage of my pilgrimage less painful and less desolate. 182 THE OPEKA. *^ The evening which brought me to Bajabella, Adrian, was bright with that unruffled and cloud- less serenity which imparts to Southern Italy a character of almost poetical fascination; and a climate justifying those pictures of pastoral exist- ence, which are estimated by the inhabitants of our less genial country as the exquisite creations of a Theocritus or a Virgil. The rude mountain roads by which I had penetrated to the coast were now exchanged for woodlands of the most romantic beauty ; where the dark and glossy evergreens of the south, the bay, arbutus, and ilex, were contrasted with the lighter verdure of the chestnut, and variegated masses of underwood; and it was on emerging from these shadowy groves, which seemed to lend reality to the idealisms of mythological fiction, that the Palazzo Bagnagliori, planted on a rocky eminence over- looking the waves of the Mediterranean, stood before me. Thrown out into prominent relief by the calm blue waters and calm blue sky against which its lofty outline was defined, I was THE OPERA. 183 strongly impressed by the dignity of its Palladian architecture, and the magnificent style of the approach leading landward to the platform of rock on which it was erected. " Quincunxes of lofty trees were planted at regular intervals on either side the paved cause- way ; and within a mile of the grand entrance, these were interspersed, at corresponding inter- vals, with magnificent pedestals of marble, bearing colossal statues. " In this and other specimens of aristocratic residences in Italy, there exists a character of nobleness accordant no less with the beauty of the land, than with the mightiness of its ancient name ; but afibrding an almost ludicrous contrast to the humiliation of its present con- dition, and the debased nature of its population. Such palaces as those of Florence, such gardens as those of the Roman vDlas, although uncharac- teristic of a free and manly people, are at least worthy of the refined, the opulent, and the luxu- rious, the restorers and fosterers of ancient art ; 184 THE OPERA. and only serve to exaggerate the tone of little- ness and the habits of meanness peculiar to the degraded nobles of modem Italy ; — those pigmies encaged in mockery among the temples of the Titans. The Palazzo Bagnagliori, for instance, was a structure worthy the throne of the Caesars ; but wholly unfitted to the revenues of an obscure Calabrian baron, incapable of maintaining among the squalid and impoverished vassalry of his do- mains, that feudal pomp and privilege, originally won by his ancestry in the fierce struggle of the Angevine wars. On a nearer inspection of its lofty facade and magnificent quadrangle, the de- features of time, and a general disregard to the decencies of civilized life, soon dispelled the illusion of its coup cTceil. An air of loneliness and dilapidation about its courts and corri- dors was almost as dispiriting as that of the dismantled castle of Abbotscourt ; while the little fishing town of Bajabella, sloping on terraces of the cliff towards the shore beneath, might have vied in its disorderly wretchedness with any village on the Maldyn estates. THE OPERA. 185 '* But all this was far more in unison with the state of my own feelings, than the splen- dour I had at first anticipated. Having re- ceived no answer to the letter announcing to my brother and sister a visit from their long estranged and perhaps forgotten Randolph, and grown experienced in the lessons of adversity, I checked the warm emotions of my bosom lest they should be met with the coldness of worldly formalities, or perhaps be crushed at once by the still severer shock of mortal bereavement. — Every human thing seemed gradually deserting me ! — Had I yet a brother ? did Florentia still survive ? *' As we paused beneath the lofty portico wait- ing the arrival of the domestics so scantily pro- vided in the niggardly households of the Italian nobles, I succeeded in repressing the palpitation of my heart sufficiently to frame my inquiries touching the English family resident with the prince ; and contrived to follow the aged menial who presented himself, across a gigantic marble hall emulating the vestibule of some enchanted 186 THE OPEKA. castle. But when I found myself ascending a lofty staircase towards the suite of apartments described by the old porter as occupied by the * noble foreigners/ a sudden recollection flashed across my mind of my visit to Havresbury, — and my presentiments on the threshold of its fatal cell. — My heart grew sick ; — and as I clung to the gilded balustrade, my vague apprehensions were tranquillized by total insensibility." THE OPEEA. 187 CHAPTER X. I have no home, no kin, Xo kind — not made like other creatures, or To share their sports or pleasures. The Deformed transformed. *' It was only from the tears shed upon my hand by the lovely woman who held it clasped in her own, that I knew myself— on recovering my be- wildered senses — to be in the presence of my sister. I was lying on the sofa of a lofty saloon ; where the uncertain light dispensed through the closed jalousies served to disguise the mouldering antiquity of its hangings, and the faded ghastli- ness of its frescoes. By my side knelt the gentle Florentia, — in silence and in tears, — and my 188 THE OPERA. brother? I strained my dazzled eyes round the vast apartment in search of Wrottesley. Again my heart sunk within me as I dreaded to find myself alone with the sister I loved. " But no ! — he was there! — My brother was there ; and although I knew not how to interpret the emotion which kept him aloof from my couch, I felt that my own blood was throbbing in his veins, my oivn name attached to his destinies, and was satisfied that the call of nature would soon summon him to my arms. '' But was it indeed the companion of my child- hood who turned his cadaverous face from the wall against which he had been leaning, when I faltered out the name of Wrottesley, and ex- tended my hands imploringly towards him ? — Pale, attenuated, bowed by the feebleness of pre- mature decay, the wasted figure which obeyed my call was clothed in an ecclesiastical robe ; and had acquired a foreign air which I could not im- mediately reconcile with those impulses of con- sanguinity so warm within my own bosom. THE OPERA. 189 " ' Speak, dearest Wrottesley !' I exclaimed ; '^ speakj that I may know my brother's voice.' But alas ! the hoarse and hollow tones which re- plied to my eager invocation, were scarcely less changed than his outward aspect. " ' Till this day,** interrupted Florentia, com- passionating our mutual distress, ^ we knew not of your coming ; or I should have gone forward to meet you by the way. But the communication with this secluded place is uncertain ; — so uncer- tain, that it is only a few days since we first heard of your arrival in Ireland.' " ' We believed you — we hoped you to be still in India,"* said my brother, striving to recover his composure ; * for alas ! there was ample reason to suppose you might have already ceased to exist. Three years have elapsed since we were comforted by the sight of your hand-writing ; and the disastrous chances of the late war, though known to us only through the newspapers, were such as to justify a gloomy view of the case. But it is now many months since even these reached 190 THE OPERA. our hands ; and I had begun to renounce all ex- pectation of meeting my brother on this side the grave.'' " ' Do not sadden our re-union by painful retrospects/ said Florentia. ' Let us remem- ber only that it is five years since we parted ; but that we have met, and I trust to part no more. We may yet live for each other and be happy.' ''The word ' happy' sounded gratingly on my ear ; — even with the hands of my dear Flo- rentia and Wrottesley united in my own. ^ My first steps on the path of life,"" was my involun- tary reply, ' have been appointed in a rugged career. Many are the scars and heavy the weari- ness it has left ; 1 may live to become resigned, Florentia, but I cannot again be happy? ^' ' My brother,' said Wrottesley, in the same low sepulchral voice, and devoutly crossing him- self, ' in resignation to the will of Heaven, hes our best happiness, our best virtue. Amid the crowd of cities, we acquire other aspirations and wider THE OPERA. 191 ambition ; — ^but their result is emptiness and strife." " There was something in the solemnity of Wrottesley's 'manner, which — although myself labouring under depression of spirit — seemed un- natural and oppressive. His youth — the buoyancy of disposition, for which he had been formerly so remarkable, seemed blighted by some preterna- tural operation ; — and the feebleness of his frame to have arisen less from disease than from the withering influence of mental anguish, /had suffered more than falls to the lot of most men ;— had braved the hard life of a soldier, the perils of an unwholesome climate; had endured the pangs of absence, of exile, the galling sense of injury, — the loss of all I loved, — the triumph of my enemies. My hair was grizzled, and my cheek furrowed by the iron which had entered into my soul ! But Wrottesley's locks, where they had escaped the tonsure of his sacred calling, "were still black as jet, and clung closely to the clammy brow whose sallow and hollow tern- 192 THE OPERA. pies they overhung; — and his lips, though parched with fever, retained even in their mourn- ful rigidity a character of extreme yoiithfulness. His countenance was that which we attribute to the fallen father of mankind; — still young, still beautiful, but withering beneath the conscious- ness of sin. It was a relief to me when he quitted the room, that I might converse with my sister unrestrained by his presence. "Much indeed had I to relate, and much to inquire : — my father^s death-bed — Lord Abbots- court^s marriage — my own most bitter fortunes ; — what themes for sorrow, for interest, for accusa- tion ! And yet it seemed unfair to repress the impulses of delight which beamed on my sister'*s countenance at this unexpected meeting with her favourite brother, by reverting to our common sources of affliction. I even forbore to question her concerning Wrottesley^s prospects and condi- tion ; and gave my whole attention to her ani- mated expressions of joy, and anticipations of future comfort in my society. THE OPERA. 193 " ' Why should we not settle in Italy ? We are not rich, but wq have enough for happiness, my dear Randolph,' she exclaimed. ' This land is a land of plenteousness ; and surely Bajabella and ils enchanting landscapes are preferable to the dreariness of Abbotscourt. The peculiarities of my father's opinions fortunately prevented my forming connexions in my native country, such as might cause me to regret Ireland ; and as to my poor brother, I am persuaded he has renounced all interest in his birth-place. It is long since he has permitted me to name either his home or family in his presence.' " ' But the Bagnagliori ; — / cannot intrude into the household of your Italian friends ?"" " ' You do not know the habits of this country,' said Florentia, smiling at my scruple. ' We are only visiters a la mode cC Italic. These apartments are our own for the time being ; and although I doubt not you will find in Princess Bagnagliori and her daughter Dorothea agreeable VOL. I. K 194 THE OPERA. friends and acquaintance, you are to consider yourself as Wrottesley's guest and inmate.'' " These terms did but increase my satisfaction at finding my family settled in seclusion, instead of amid the tumult and dissipation of Naples ; and I soon felt at home, and capable of enjoying those sisterly attentions on the part of Florentia, and that spontaneous interest on the part of my brother, which nothing but close kindred can originate. I had been three days an inmate of the palace, had visited all Florentia's pensioners and proteges in Bajabella, and wandered with poor Wrottesley among his favovirite haunts along the coast, before I even beheld the venerable princess and my sister^s friend Dorothea. At length, having left us ample time for our family colloquies and revelations, they complimented my arrival by a visit of etiquette to Florentia ; and never had I found so strong an occasion to mark the peculiarities of our national character, contrasted with those of continental nations, as THE OPERA. 195 in replying to the harassing interrogations of the good old lady. Her inquiries extended to the most delicate subjects ; and a thousand questions which, while alone with my sister, had trembled on my tongue ere I gave them utterance, were asked, and answered, and forgotten with easy in- difference by her garrulous curiosity. ' Did I intend to return to India ? — to settle in Italy ? — to renounce my profession or choose another ? — was I a good Catholic and a loyal subject ? — married or single ? — a father or chUdless ?** It was in vain that Florentia attempted to stop the current of her old friend's volubility. ' It was strange,"* the princess kept repeating, ' that nei- ther the Count Abbotscourt nor Wrottesley had mentioned to her the existence of a third brother, during their first sojourn in Italy ; so much as she had talked to them of their country and relatives, and so much as they had said in their turn of the charms and excellencies of the amiable Fio- renza.' And it was actually from my sister's answers to her inquisitive guest, that I discovered k2 196 THE OPERA. how much treachery had been exercised to seduce Wrottesley from his brotherly affection towards me ; that our mutual letters had been invariably intercepted ; and that his first knowledge of my marriage and banishment, as well as of her own immurement in a provincial Irish con- vent, had been obtained on his return from the continent, a few months prior to my father''s death. Yet it appeared, that even such dis- torted details of these facts as were to be gathered from public report, aided by Lord Abbotscourt^s invectives, and the accusations of Father John, had sufficed to rouse the indignation of my bro- ther in my behalf; and I was now able to discover, from the reluctant and incoherent answers vouch- safed by Miss Maldyn to the princess, that my elder brother's marriage had originated in some family dispute undertaken in my behalf. " ' And your younger broth er''s anxiety to pro- nounce his vows at Rome, and his increasing in- firmity of health, would not permit you to re- main in Ireland, and await the arrival of Signore THE OPERA. 197 Capitano ? What a pity ! — or you might all have travelled together. But then I should have missed the happiness of having you with me during the past winter !' said the venerable gos- sip to my sister, adjusting our family affairs, and her own pinch of snuff, with the same easy non- chalance. ' Ah ! India is a sad place,' she resumed ; ' a land of barbarism and atrocities. We Italians seldom travel so far ; nay ! are seldom to be found out of our own country. But why ? Lavished around us, we have the corn, and wine, and oil, which others go so far to seek ; while in England, I am assured that the commonest pro- ductions of the earth can scarcely be forced into cultivation ! No wonder you are tempted to perform such journies and voyages, to catch a glimpse of the sunshine.' '' She might have talked for ever, now that she had anchored on a topic of general interest, un- molested by interruption or molestation from Florentia or myself; but Dorothea, mortified by her mother's involuntary rudeness, attempted to 198 THE OPERA. turn the conversation by inquiries concerning India — a country all but apochryphal to an Ita- lian understanding. Her mother, however, soon managed to repossess herself of the lost ground ; and before I had the honour of re-conducting her to her own apartments, and receiving a ge- neral invitation for future visits, she had managed to acquaint me, that her daughter was betrothed to a young baron of the Valvassone family, then on his travels with her own young son, Prince Bagnagliori ; that had it not been for this en- gagement, she could have been well content to unite her with my elder brother, ' the reigning "* Lord Abbotscourt— with whom they had become intimately acquainted during his stay at the Court of Naples ; that my sister was an angel, and my brother Wrottesley a saint — much more of a saint than he had promised to become when he originally presented himself in her Neapolitan circle ; and too much indeed — since it was by no means necessary for a man of his family and for- tune to be so strict in his professional observ- THE OPERA. 199 ances, and shut himself up among the Francis- cans of the Bajabella Friary, instead of coming occasionally to chat with herself and Princess Dorothea. Unable to evade her importunities, I promised to become his substitute, and accompany her daughter and my sister in their walks and riding excursions ; but I felt my spirits wholly unequal to such a sacrifice, and returned to Florentia's saloon wearied and ill at ease ; and anxious only to prosecute those inquiries to which her friend's rapacious curiosity had directed my attention. " But on many points of oiu: family affairs, Flo- rentia still remained as ignorant as myself. ' We parted, my dear Randolph,' said she, in answer to my questions, ' with the promise of constant intercourse and a speedy re-union. But scarcely had you quitted the castle, when my hopes were destroyed by my poor father's commands that I should hold no further communication with his rebellious son ; and on Father John's subsequent discovery of my attempt to infringe these harsh 200 THE OPERA. orders, I was conveyed to Kilkenny, and re- sided there in total ignorance of all that was going on in my family, till a few days previous to the death of our unfortunate parent. Never shall I forget the state of excitement in which I found him on my inauspicious return to the castle ! On the arrival of my eldest brother and Wrottesley from Italy, it had been his first ob- ject to vindicate his conduct towards yourself, and engage them in his own intemperate opposi- tion to the Templeton family; but in the course of Father John''s representations on the subject to his favourite and ally, my brother Maldyn, some inexplicable circumstance transpired which determined both my brothers to visit England— whither the Darley family had retired — and seek a personal interview with Lord Templeton. The result you know ! — and the speedy announcement of my brother's union with Lady Katharine was the first hint of the motive and destination of their journey which reached my father's ears. In his frantic resentment he wrote to me as his sole THE OPERA. 201 remaining child, summoning me home to the castle. But it was only to witness his frenzy — to shudder over his death-bed ; nor did I behold my brothers from the period of their departure for the continent till the day which re-united us for the mournful ceremony of his interment.** " ' You must have been painfully startled by the alteration in Wrottesley's appearance ?'' said I. ' For my own part, I own I can trace no analogy between the joyous and confiding friend of my boyhood, and the reserved and gloomy re- cluse of Bajabella.' " ' They bear, indeed, but a slight resem- blance !' replied Florentia, with a mournful wave of the head ; ' far less than even my im- petuous brother Randolph, to the kind, gentle, and considerate Captain Maldyn.' " ' Your brother Randolph has been trained by the harsh discipline of adversity into his present tameness ; every plague that Heaven could rain upon my head has been successively my portion : but Wrottesley has suffered no bereavement, save K 3 202 THE OPERA. in the ordinary course of nature. Wrottesley has been doomed to no privation, save those self, inflicted by the austerity of his religious ob- servances. <^ ^ You are right !** said my sister, in answer to these arguments. ' Yet the reality of his sorrow is as undeniable, as it is difficult of justi- fication. Every day his health declines, though untouched by any definite disease ; every hour his mind becomes more abstracted from human interests, though unoppressed by any real af- fliction. He is infinitely changed since we quitted Abbotscourt. At that period, my poor brother was subject to attacks of nervous agita- tion, and subsequent debility, which often made me tremble for his reason ; but since his residence in Italy, and more especially since we inhabited this secluded place, he has gradually sunk into his present condition of calm and habitual me- lancholy. Even your arrival has done little for him beyond the excitement of the moment.'' " ' He embraced his sacred calling at his own THE OPERA. 203 instigation,' I involuntarily observed. ' Can it be that he repents those vows which alienate liim from the softer ties of human nature — from pursuits more congenial with his age?"* " * Impossible !' faltered my companion, cross- ing herself at the bare sound of this sacrilegious suggestion. ' It is only since my father''s death, and at the sole prompting of his own inclinations, that Wrottesley pronounced his final vows. His object in visiting Italy was less the re-estabhsh- ment of his enfeebled health, than the accomplish- ment of this important duty."* ^' ' Still I do not understand,' said I but my further interrogations were interrupted by the entrance of their object ; and although I had pre-determined to avow to him my uneasi- ness respecting his condition of mind and body, I was involuntarily awed into silence by the spectacle of his unnatural solemnity. Instead of presuming to speak to him of himself or his own affairs, the evening passed away in interroga- ti ons on his part touching the spiritual and intel- 204 TilE OPERA. lectual enlightenment of the oriental nations I had visited ; and he seemed much affected when I acknowledged that there were still interior pro- vinces of the peninsula to which the light of the Gospel had not yet penetrated. ' It would be an office worthy an Apostle/ said I, ' to con- vey the benefits of redemption to the darkness of such a land. ' To live and die in the dis- charge of so trying a duty might avail perhaps as an aU of expiatioii!^ he replied; and the ordinary sternness of his voice was broken by an involuntary sigh. " Meanwhile our intercourse with the Bagna- gliori family partook of the languor of my own state of mind. When the confusion occasioned by my sudden arrival had in some measure sub- sided, Florentia indeed resumed her habits of affectionate familiarity with the princess, and spent a considerable portion of every morning with Dorothea, engaged with music or needle- work, or the labours of benevolence ; but it was my habit to devote these hours to study, or ra- THE OPEKA. 205 iher to the silent and solitary reflexions "which I fancied myself to be evading by literary applica- tion ; my books lay neglected before me as a mirage of blessed reminiscences rose before my eyes ! It was therefore a matter of heartfelt rejoicing to the sociable old lady, to hear that the presence of Colonel Manningfield was soon to enliven our circle; and when, on his actual arrival, she found in him a handsome, animated young man, speaking several European languages with elegance and fluency, and elaborately versed in the latest gossip and scandals of Naples, she soon learned to regard him as very superior to any of the three brothers of her favourite, ^ Renziellina,' a nom de caresse^ she had bestowed upon Miss Maldyn. Previous to his arrival, I own a hope had crossed my mind, that my sister might be inclined to join in this preference ; and that Man- ningfield — one of the noblest and bravest fellows that ever drew breath — might sympathise in my own opinion of Florentia's excellence. But I would not dwell on the idea, lest by interesting 206 THE OPERA. myself too warmly in the subject, I might ensure its defeat ; I felt myself destined to disappoint- ment in every serious expectation of my life. This prudential resolve secured me from the peevishness of mortification, when I perceived, shortly after Colonel M.^s appearance at Baja- bella, that it was to Princess Dorothea his atten- tions and admiration were directed. I knew and warned him of her matrimonial engagement; and felt half inclined to apprise the princess, her mother, of the perils she suffered Dorothea to en- counter, by encouraging her intimacy with a man so attractive as Manningfield ; for since she was irrevocably destined to become the wife of Count Valvassone, it was unjust towards all three to court the probabilities of a dangerous attach- ment. But in spite of my secret predictions of evil, music-parties, boating-parties, and excur- sions into the forest, still went on. Manning- field seemed to forget India, and renounce his professional ambition, while, in the stillness of the evening twilight, he sat under the trellices of THE OPERA. 207 lemon, jessamine, and magnolia, overhanging the terraces of the palace- gardens, with his eyes fixed on the soft and saddened countenance of the young princess. I was too proud for my sister to venture on those expostulations which I fancied might betray the disappointment of my anterior views. Applying all my own energies of mind to the entertainment of Florentia, I laboured only to prevent her from bestowing too much of her attention on the supposed admirer of her friend. " It had more than once occurred to me, that the secret affliction imdermining the heart and health of Wrottesley might proceed from a si- milar source. Notwithstanding the cold inacces- sibility of his demeanour, I had succeeded in extracting from him that Maldyn and himself had passed the greater portion of their former stay at Naples in the society of the Bagnagliori family ; the elder prince being then aHve, holding a high post of honour at court, and maintaining a noble establishment on this important addition to his hereditary revenues. But there were two elder 208 THE OPERA. daughters at that period gracing his domestic circle, who were more likely than the youthful Dorothea to have attracted his attention; one of whom was resident at Madrid as the wife of Count Pignatelli, ambassador from the Neapo- litan court ; while the other, Princess Camilla, now wedded to Prince Monterosa, lived in re- tirement on her husband's estates near Gaeta. Unwilling to distress my sister by exciting her suspicions on such a point, I strove to elicit some intelligence concerning them, by directing my inquiries to Princess Dorothea herself; but my utmost efforts could only ascertain, that Countess Pignatelli was the most volatile of coquettes, — Princess Monterosa, a rigid devotee ; and judging from my own feelings, I deemed it impossible that either should have attained so profound an in- fluence over any human heart as that exercised by the object of Wrottesley*'s imputed attach- ment. " How strange — how passing strange — the re- luctance which renders it so difficult to address a THE OPERA. 209 person with whom we live in the confidence of individual affection, on any subject involving the impulses of human tenderness ! Day after day did I converse with Wrottesley IVIaldyn on the holiest of mysteries — the most appalling responsi- bihties of mortal nature ; but I found it impossible to turn towards him with the simple inquiry of ' My brother, how hast thou sinned ? — My bro- ther, whom hast thou loved ?"* I would have given worlds for courage to force his confidence, that I might obtain the means of pouring com- fort into his soul ! It was grievous to me — blighted as I was in my own destinies, and shut out from the best interests of existence — to be denied the consolation of sympathising in his distress. " But time was passing rapidly away ! The purple clover with which the plains were clothed on my arrival at Bajabella, had given place to the rude surface of their winter fallows : the golden sheaves of the maize hung suspended from the eaves of many an out-building, while its 210 THE OPERA. Stunted and parched stalks disfigured the adjoin- ing fields. The plantations of elms adorning the avenues of Bagnagliori were growing dun and au- tumnal in their foliage ; and every evening the fishing- vessels rode close at anchor in the little bay before the approach of twihght, in terror of equinoxial storms. The princess was already busy with preparations for her departure for Naples, to pass the winter season ; and though she had failed in shaking our resolution to brave the desolation of La Puglia for some months longer, I fully prepared myself for Manningfi eld's declaration, that he must bid us farewell and accompany Dorothea. I was pondering within myself over the moment and manner he would probably select for the announcement, as he sat one afternoon by my side in a fissure of the cliffs near Bajabella, which we were all in the habit of frequenting, to overlook the wide level of the Mediterranean; when seeming to wake from a long reverie, he suddenly exclaimed, ' And in a few months Valvassone will make his ap- THE OPERA. 211 pearance, and then what will become of her?' " ' She will unite herself with the man selected by her family to receive her hand,** said I, coldly. ' We are not now in England, where the vague and often guilty impulses of the heart are allowed such overweening influence. In this country, no contract is valid if unhallowed by the sanction of those whom God and man have set in authority over us — our parents and our prince. Dorothea is too gentle even to dream of rebellion ; and he who would disturb the tranquillity of so soft a bosom, emulates in my eyes the sin of Satan, who first imparted to our first parents in their guiltless Eden the lesson of tears.' '' ' You are right!' said Manningfield, with fervent sincerity : ' it would, indeed, be the ac- tion of a demon ; but the wretchedness of Doro- thea experiences no aggravation from the sym- pathy of the object of her attachment. Surely it must be as plain to you as to myself, that Wrottesley regards her with indifference, and is 212 THE OPERA. either unconscious or careless of her prefer- ence ?** " ' Wrottesley !' I exclaimed. 'And is it possible that you, Manningfield, cai;i fix your affection on a person convicted of a sacri- legious passion, of an attachment to the anointed priest of the altar.?' " * You are either mad or dreaming, Ran- dolph,** he replied, with unfeigned amazement. ' What are the frailties and errors of poor Do- rothea to me, unless as the source of affliction to your sister's friend^? While I was yet doubtful of Florentia's affection, the young princess kindly lent her ear to my doubts and anxieties, and hourly confirmed my attachment by details of Miss Maldyn's virtues and excellences ; and since T was blest with the certainty of her regard, I have naturally rewarded Dorothea's previous compassion with an unfeigned tribute of pity towards the difficulties of her own position. As far as my own prejudices are concerned, I am not sufficiently bigoted to the exterior THE OPERA. 213 observances of our creed, to regard with abhor- rence the marriage of priests. I have resided too long in a Protestant country to make it a matter of reproach." " ' An oath once taken, although on erroneous grounds, is sacred for ever !' said I. ' Wrottesley is now beyond all power of dispensation from his vows — and should be above all indulgence in the common weaknesses of human nature."* " • We may look in vain for such perfection among the children of wrath," said Manningfi eld; ' but on this occasion let me absolve him. Not even Dorothea Bagnagliori suspects him of the slightest susceptibility ; nay ! the exalted sanc- tity of his character is, in fact, the source of her adoration ; she loves him with the veneration of a votary, rather than with the weakness of a woman ."" " ' Heaven be thanked I" I exclaimed. ' There will be the less danger — the less sorrow for both ! But yourself, Manningfield — how comes it that I am only thus accidentally permitted to learn 214 THE OPERA. your own views, your own attachments? Had you been more communicative you would have spared me many a heart-ache ! It was the wish nearest my heart that you shovild conceive an affection for my sister.' " ' Had you not so many anxious thoughts to occupy your attention,' replied my friend, ' I should pronounce your blindness inexcusable. Our hesitation in applying for your sanction of our engagement has arisen solely from the gene- rous scruples of your sister, who is equally unwil- ling to insist on my abandonment of my profession for her sake, and to leave her brothers to the mournful isolation of their destiny. Florentia is persuaded that if permitted to share the monotony of Wrottesley's existence, you, my dear Maldyn, will imbibe his self-denying austerity; nor will she hear of quitting Europe, while you evince your present despondency.' '^ « And you are willing to disappoint the views of your family, and renounce the military ambi- tion with which I have so often charged you, in THE OPERA. 215 order to gratify her tenderness towards us ? — This is indeed loving as I could wish Florentia Mal- dyn to be loved ! But it must not be ! If my brother persists in his detennination of monastic seclusion, and recovers sufficiently to justify our removal, I shall willingly return with you to Bengal. Heaven knows I have little to detain me in my native country ; and India or Apulia — what matters it where I waste away the remnant of my days ? — With you, and Florentia, and your children, I shall experience a nearer approach to happiness than I could find elsewhere. " I accordingly undertook to ascertain the views of Wrottesley, and convey to him the in- telligence of Florentia's projected marriage with my friend ; and although Princess Bagnagliori's intended departure for Naples rendered the cau- tion in some measure superfluous, I determined on profiting by the same occasion to warn him against the unacknowledged passion of Count Valvassone'*s betrothed wife, and sound anew the depths of mystery in which his own destinies 216 THE OPERA. were involved. I formed, in short, a resolution to utter those long repressed inquiries — ' My brother, whom hast thou loved ? — My brother, how hast thou sinned?' " THE OrERA. 217 CHAPTER XI, O happy persecution, I embrace thee With an unfettered soul ! So sweet a thing Is it to sigh upon the rack of pain. When each calamity bears groaning witness To the pure martyr's faith. MiDDLETOX. " It was after a night passed in harassing deli- berations on the mode of framing these questions with the least possible offence to Wrottesley's feelings, that I rose one morning, and, on seek- ing him in his own apartments, found he had already made his way to the Franciscan monas- tery Avhere the greater portion of his time was passed. On pretext of familiarizing himself with the religious exercises of the community, he had VOL. I. L 218 THE OPERA. obtained a cell from the favour of tlie superior ; a venerable man, to whom the peculiar sanctity and humility of the young acolyte rendered him an object of the highest interest. " To this hallowed retirement I determined to follow him ; and as I was slowly descending the terraces, leading by a succession of marble steps from the platform of the palace to the town be- low, pausing occasionally to admire the gorgeous brilliancy of the pomegranate blossoms, or the shapely outline of the bright green box trees which graced the marble vases ornamenting the balustrade, I perceived the advancing figure of Dorothea, ascending in the same direction lean- ing on the arm of her habitual attendant, an aged nurse who had watched over the infancy of all her family. The head of the young princess was enveloped in her black faldetta ; but she frequently paused in her ascent, as if panting for breath, and drew back the folds of sable silk from her face, as if to refresh herself by the cool morn- ing air which beat in gusts along the level THE OPERA. 219 terraces. On a nearer approach, I noticed that her hands were frequently and involuntarily- clasped together; and as she advanced still closer, I could hear the voice of her companion address- ing her in tremulous tones of counsel and comfort. But when she actually passed the spot where T stood, and hurriedly exchanged with me the com- pliments of the day, a rapid glance beneath her hood enabled me to discover that her cheeks were dim with even more than their wonted paleness, and her eyes discoloured by weeping. — How was this ? — Were Manningfield's speculations erro- neous ? — Was the object of her visit to Bajabella, like my own, a private interview with Wrottesley ? Was his retirement chosen as a cloak to this un- hallowed purpose .'* " Less tenderly disposed towards my brother's peculiarities than I had been in the commence- ment of my walk, I presented myself at the portal of the monastery ; and, on the plea of urgent family business, requested access to Mr. Maldyn. I was accordingly conducted to the door of his l2 220 THE OPERA. cell by a lay-monk of the order ; and admittance having been demanded in the name of his reve- rence the superior, I suddenly found myself in the presence of the startled Wrottesley. — Alas ! what a spectacle greeted me on my entrance ! — the form of my brother, lying extended on the floor in utter exhaustion, his bare shoulders lacerated and bleeding, — the discipline still grasped in his hand. ' Leave us !' I exclaimed to my conductor ; and raising him in my arms, placed him on the wooden chair constituting the sole furniture of his cheer- less apartment. I could perceive that his lips were wounded by the gnashing of his teeth in the extremity of bodily anguish ! " ' My dearest Wrottesley ! ^ cried I, irritated rather than touched by this excess of self-abase- ment and superstitious piety, *can you not be contented with bearing your faculties like a man, instead of indulging the spiritual pride which in- duces you to these extravagances of zeal ? What have you done — what crime committed — that you deem the measure of punishment appointed by THE OPERA. 221 the Almighty insufficient for your penance, and court these loathsome — these superfluous tor- tures ?' " ' He who wrestled with his agony in the gar- den of Gethsemane — ^ my brother began. " ' Blasphemer !' I exclaimed, interrupting him with involuntary indignation. ' Do you pre- sume to emulate the patience and fortitude of your Kedeemer ? ** «« « Pardon me, brother ! pardon me,' was his meek reply. ' That you thus exaggerate my fault and misconceive my motive is a blessing ; or that, or any other form of contumely or injury, do I welcome with joy. Yea ! trample upon me, my brother, and diminish my responsibility of sin and sufFering.** a i Wrottesley ! ' said I, ' you terrify my very soul by this vehemence. Heaven grant that it be the fruit of a mistaken zeal, rather than of the promptings of an evil conscience ! I would willingly believe that this prostration of spirit arises from the infirmity of health which is a 222 THE OPERA. source of so much anxiety to us all ; for well I know that the grasp of death upon the heart is capable of turning its best resolves to feebleness and mistrust. But shake off this morbid frame of mind; — rouse yourself, my dear Wrottesley, up, and be a man ! You have duties to perform to your faith, your country, your family, yourself, such as may better work out your task of mortal bondage than acts of proud and solitary pe- nance!' '« With an air of mortification, but not of resent- ment, he now resumed his customary array, while I unfolded to him the projects of happiness en- tertained by Florentia and my friend, my anxiety to return with them to the east, and a chimerical notion that had glanced into my mind of inducing him to prosecute in the same direction the duties of his sacred calling. It was true that such a resolution would place him beyond reach of those ecclesiastical dignities which afforded my father's original inducement in its selection ; but the feud existing between the head of the house of Maldyn THE OPERA. 223 and its younger branches had already deprived him of the support of family interest in their ac- quirement ; and moreover, Wrottesley had dis- avowed, on many occasions, a view towards any honours at the disposal of the church of Rome. '' * To India ?' he exclaimed, on my hazarding the first hint of such a scheme, ' willingly — gladly ! — Oh ! that such a pilgrimage had been my fortune, instead of the destiny which con- ducted us to this luckless place ; one thorn had at least been spared from my crown of martyr- dom;' and he wrung his hands in irrepressible anguish. " ' Nay, then,* said I, ' it is as I feared, and Dorothea — "" " ' Is to me but as a suffering daughter of the faith ! ' faltered Wrottesley Maldyn. ' Pray for her, brother; give her your prayers and your pity, as I shall ; for never till this day did I dream that our sojourn at Bajabella had been a source of — ' He paused, and averted his face ; and at the same moment, remembering that the 224 THE OPERA. brother who conducted me to his presence had stated him to be substituted for the day in the duties of one of the elder brethren then labouring under severe sickness, and that my brother had only quitted the confessional a short time pre- vious to my visit, I had little doubt that in its sacred office Wrottesley had first obtained an insight into the lamentable weakness cherished in his favour by Princess Dorothea. " But I knew that the seal of such a communi- cation was sacred ; and, without dwelling further on the subject, slightly observed, that for all our sakes it would be advisable to hasten our de- parture. " *So soon ! so suddenly !' was his involuntary exclamation. ' I, too, who thought to lay down the weariness of life in this most favoured province of our holy church. But what matters on which section of the earth we inhale the breath of Heaven, and fulfil its behests .?' ^' ' We need remain in England,' said I, ^ only THE OPERA. 225 till the return of spring ensures the sailing of the eastern fleet ; and then — "* '' ' England !^ said my brother, arresting the hasty steps with which he had been traversing the cell, and having paused beside me, fixing his large dark eyes intently on my face. * England ! I had not thought of that. Cannot the voyage be otherwise achieved .?"* " And he listened with eager interest while I described to him the limited nature of the com- munication between Europe and Calcutta. At length it occurred to me that a passage might be procured for our family in a French merchant vessel fi'om Havre ; unless it became necessary for the adjustment of Manningfield's private affairs and the presentation of his bride to his family (one of considerable antiquity and respect- ability in the county of Derby) to visit London. " ' London ! ' again reiterated my brother. ' Impossible ! If such be the course of our career, suffer me to remain in Italy. — London ! — not all the wealth of the land to which we are bound, not l3 226 THE OPERA. all the attractions of this^ should induce me to set foot anew in that accursed city. Do not ask it, Randolph ; do not ask it.' '' Surprised by the intensity of his emotion, I proposed that, without interfering with Manning- field's arrangements, we two should make our voyage together, and rejoin our friends in Bengal. " ' They will be too happy,' said I, ' to need our society for some time to come.' " ' True,' said he, ' for some time they may indeed be happy ! —the stroke may be suspended over their heads ; the bitter cup may even be long in the decoction of its poisonous ingredients. But it will fall at length ; — the chalice must be quaffed at last ; — and will not the dark hour derive a deeper gloom from these moments of antecedent brightness V " ' Such are the vicissitudes of every destiny,' said I. •«« ' Such is the fixed and inalienable heritage of ours,' faltered my brother, again advancing THE OPERA. 227 towards me, and grasping my arm. ' So long as a Maldyn is born upon the earth, so long will the shadow overhang our race. A destiny is upon us. Accursed of Heaven, we are created but for the commission of crime, or the endiurance of anguish !'