The Midnight Bell/Volume II/Chapter XIII

CHAPTER XIII.

During the two first days after the death of the hermit, Lauretta's solitude remained unbroken; and the expectation of being quickly restored to the protection of Alphonsus, tended alone to solace her in the gloomy scene she was constrained to contemplate.

On the evening of the day prior to that on which she had been taught to await the return of the peasant, she had about an hour retired to her straw pallet, when whispering voices met her ear: her heart beat high, her breath became suspended, and she listened awhile in that state of silent anxiety which fears to move, lest it lose the sound it wishes to catch. In a few moments she plainly heard footsteps in the outer division of the cave, and immediately after a voice said, "Give me the light." The light was produced, and the first object which it showed to the expecting eyes of Lauretta was the visage of Theodore.

Lauretta shrieked; and immediately the man who had held the lantern, having given it into the hand of Theodore, advanced, and taking her arm in his, led her from the cave. Theodore secreted the light under his garment, and closely followed them.

The moment Lauretta had so much dreaded was now arrived: agony inexplicable filled her heart, and choked her utterance. Her guide continued to walk quickly forward, and she of necessity suited her steps to his:—neither Theodore nor his companion spoke;—and, when the power of speech returned to Lauretta, she well knew how callous the flinty heart of the chevalier would be to any entreaty she could offer up to him; and she judged also, how deaf to the cries of misery must he be, who would hire himself to be Theodore's agent, whether he was acquainted with his base designs, or had blindly sold himself to execute his will.

A few faintly shining stars served to light them on their way; and Lauretta shortly perceived that they had entered the forest through which she had passed on the morning on which she had so miraculously escaped from her confinement in the castle. They still continued to proceed; and, as they advanced, Lauretta began to discern the fatal building rising above a gentle acclivity, which they were ascending.

Presently a tucket, much resembling that Lauretta had heard on the second night of her imprisonment in the castle, sounded at a distance: her heart thrilled at the recollection of the delusive hopes that sound had once raised in her panting breast, and she started as the sound met her ear. Her guard, who probably, from the sudden motion of her body, conjectured she was endeavouring to disengage herself from him, drew her arm more strictly within his, and at the same instant turning round his head to Theodore, said, "There they are."—"Then let us stop a few minutes," returned Theodore. "Oh no!" replied the man; "they will be housed long ere we reach the cavern: besides, were they not, they would not see us." "'Tis well," answered Theodore; "proceed then."

"The cavern!" echoed Lauretta's heart; and busy thought, ever ready to torment the breast it inhabits, pointed out that cavern as her destined grave.

The tears burst from her eyes:—the horrible idea of never again beholding her Alphonsus, at that moment so forcibly impressed on her mind, was too heart-rending a sensation for the tide of grief with which it swelled her aching breast to be suppressed; and she was on the point of falling on her knees, and endeavouring to move the mercy of her guard, when a voice, at some distance from her, exclaimed, "Lauretta Byroff!"

"Oh God!" cried Lauretta, "what is it I hear?"

They were still amongst the trees. Theodore called to the man who conducted Lauretta to stop: he obeyed the summons, and they looked round on all sides: no one was to be seen, and all was still.

"This is astonishing," said Theodore. "These words were addressed to you," turning to Lauretta: "explain them, I charge you."

"I am unable," answered Lauretta.

"Is it not your name?" rejoined Theodore, hastily.

"You know Lauretta is my name."

"You equivocate. I ask, whether Byroff is also your name?"

"No," said Lauretta.

"What is it, then?" asked Theodore. "Beware not to deceive me."

"It is Byroff," replied Lauretta: a moment's thought had reminded her not to utter a name her husband had so cautiously laboured to conceal: and she was too innocent in deceit to substitute a feigned one.

"Your own words have proved upon you one falsehood," cried Theodore. "How am I conscious you have not uttered another? Therefore, unravel the mystery of that voice, or this moment is your last."

"By heaven, I cannot!" answered Lauretta.

"Then I will," exclaimed Theodore, drawing from its scabbard his sword, on which he had laid his hand when he first demanded Lauretta's confession; and, commanding her guard not to leave her, he rushed amongst the trees from whence the voice had proceeded.

Lauretta and her guide followed him with their eyes in silent wonder for some moments, when a sudden blow from an unseen hand levelled her companion with the earth, and, from the firmness with which he had held her arm, he in his fall drew her upon him. Astonishment closed her lips; and in an instant, a man muffled up in a cloak lifted her from the ground, and whispering in her ear "Be silent," he took her arm under his, and led her swiftly along: they continued for some time to approach towards the decayed castle. This was a matter of surprise to Lauretta, for as she could not doubt his being one interested in her safety, it was natural for her to suppose that he would have led her as far distant as possible from the spot that contained Theodore's companions in iniquity. She was now, however, in the power of this stranger; and she was well aware that if he was her enemy, her questions could render her little service; if a friend, that an inquiry would be breaking an injunction on which, perhaps, her safety materially depended.—She suppressed her curiosity: the little portion of thought she could spare from her present mysterious situation, convinced her that the voice of him who now conducted her was familiar to her ear; but she could not recollect where she had heard it.

Being approached within about a furlong of the castle, her guide turned into a narrow glen which lay on their left; they had not proceeded many paces, when he stopped, and disengaging himself from Lauretta, he stooped down, and having drawn aside a bunch of furze and brambles which lay against the side of the glen, he took from an inner pocket of his coat a lantern, which, holding downwards, showed to Lauretta the mouth of a stony rock, which seemed hardly large enough to admit a person on their hands and knees.

Her guide knelt down, and creeping forward, in a low voice called to Lauretta to follow him;—she hesitated a moment:—"This was doubtless the cavern Theodore and the ruffian, who had brought her from the hermit's cave, had alluded to."—She shuddered.—"I conjure you, follow me," said her guide:—his accents seemed mild and persuasive:—Lauretta crossed herself, and followed him.

After having proceeded a few feet, they arrived in an apartment which, by what Lauretta could distinguish of it by the partial and gloomy light thrown out by the lantern of her guide, appeared to her a large vault; they crossed it, and entered a long and narrow passage cut out of the rock;—their footsteps echoed as they traversed it; and Lauretta could not forbear frequently turning her head to assure herself they were not pursued.

Having attained the extremity of the passage, they entered another vaulted chamber, larger than the first.—Her guide opened a door on one side, which presented to their view a flight of stone steps; her guide began to descend them;—Lauretta paused.—"Quick, quick, I entreat you," said he, taking her hand: again the recollection of his voice struck her, and she suffered herself to be led by him down into a passage much resembling that through which they had passed above; on the right hand was a small door, which the guide opened, and presented to her view a small room, in which were a seat, a table, a bed, and a lamp: they entered, and the guide throwing off a long robe and cowl which he had hitherto kept closely round him, discovered to Lauretta the person of Ralberg.

Lauretta was petrified with astonishment;—she knew not what to hope, or what to fear.

"Be not alarmed," he said, "at beholding him you once thought your enemy; he was never willingly so; and be assured that he will now protect you at the hazard of his life: but your safety and my own both depend on my instantly leaving you:—fear not to be interrupted here, and rely on seeing me again very soon."

He lighted the lamp, and was departing.

"Oh! do not leave me," exclaimed Lauretta, catching hold of his garment.

"For heaven's sake, do not detain me to your own destruction.—If you should chance to hear footsteps, extinguish the lamp.—Angels guard you!" So saying, he hastily closed the door, and Lauretta heard him lock it and depart.

For some moments Lauretta remained motionless on the spot where Ralberg had left her.—When before in his power, she had felt no sensation but fear: now, his words had given her room to hope the greatest kindness from him; and yet the air of mystery that had accompanied them, outweighed every consolation they might otherwise have brought her.

Why had this man, who had so lately been an assistant in her misery, so suddenly changed his principles? A man who, when she had before beheld him, had worn on his brow the sullen frown of discontent; yet, she recollected, she had then remarked that the roughness of his voice had appeared assumed, and his whole manner that of restraint.—"May not fond hope again deceive me in this imagination?" she cried; "and yet the softness of voice with which he now addressed me has proved me right in one conjecture; his mien also is varied, the frown on his brow is dispersed, pity and anxiety are mingled in his eye, and a smile of satisfaction sits on his lips.—My name, too! by what means can he have learnt that?"—This was a mystery, to the unravelling of which she had no clue.

Her eyes had hitherto been fixed in deep thought on the ground: she now raised them;—the first object which attracted them was the lamp, and she beheld lying by it on the table—a dagger!

Her blood chilled;—she perfectly recollected that that instrument was not on the table when she entered the apartment; thus no doubt could remain to her of Ralberg having placed it there.—He had declared he would guard her life at the hazard of his own; that very declaration seemed to prove that he knew her life would be attempted: then why had he brought her to a spot over which such imminent danger was impending?—And if he had really meant to protect her, why had he left an instrument of death in her view?—No idea occupied her mind, but that Theodore meant to visit her where she now was, and that the alternative of suicide or dishonour would alone be left to her.—But then, if Ralberg still acted in the interest of the chevalier, how could she account for the occurrences that had so lately taken place on the skirts of the forest?—Perhaps Theodore had doubted the faith of the man whom he had brought with him to the hermit's cell, and had taken those means of freeing himself from him under the cloak of mystery: and this seemed the only conjecture that could in the slightest degree account for her being brought by a man who pretended to be her friend, to the very spot to which her professed enemy had declared his intention of carrying her.

For several hours no sound interrupted the stillness of the scene, and Lauretta with a trembling heart awaited her doom in anxious silence; at length she heard a footstep quickly approaching.—She immediately recollected Ralberg's injunction to blow out the light, but she wanted courage to comply with it: it struck her that her murderer, unable to view her dying agonies, might wish to perpetrate the deed of death in darkness.

The key was now placed in the lock: Lauretta started from the bed on which she had been sitting; the door opened, and Ralberg entered.—Having placed on the table a small basket he had brought with him, he closed the door, and taking Lauretta's hand, thus addressed her:—"Did I understand you rightly this evening in the wood? did you confess yourself to be Lauretta Byroff, when I unseen addressed you by those words?"

"I did," answered Lauretta.

Ralberg now drew from his pocket the ivory crucifix which Lauretta had been accustomed to wear suspended from her neck by the string of pearls, which were presented by her grandfather to her mother on the day of her marriage with count Byroff. "This then is doubtless yours?" said Ralberg, as he produced it.

"It is," replied Lauretta eagerly; "I well remember that I left it in the turret of the castle, and often since have mourned its loss."

" 'Tis then dear to you?" said Ralberg.

"As the dying gift of a lost mother can be!"—Recollection became painful as she uttered these words: she wept;—Ralberg sighed, and for an instant placed his hand before his eyes.

"Where did your mother die?" he asked.

"At the convent of St. Helena."

Again he seized the hand of Lauretta, and, with an energy that seemed to wring his heart, he exclaimed:—"Who was your father?"

"Count Byroff," she answered.

The tears started in Ralberg's eyes. "Deceive me not in this point," he cried, "I conjure you;—I charge you!"

There was something in his manner that awed Lauretta. "On my faith I do not," returned Lauretta. "My mother's dying breath declared him such."

"My child! my child!" uttered Ralberg, in a voice scarcely audible, and fell upon Lauretta's neck.—"I am thy unhappy father! I am he that was count Byroff."

What a blissful sound was this to the grief-worn Lauretta: she had found a friend that would protect her; and, in that friend, a father. She met his embrace with the warmest fervor, and he for some moments held her clasped in silence to his bosom. At length, "that cross," said he, restoring it to Lauretta, "was my first gift to your mother. Oh! tell me! tell me! all that has befallen her.—But no—I must not risk the hearing now; it will too long detain me; I must instantly leave you, or perhaps never see you more."

"Alas!" cried Lauretta, "have I only found a father to be again bereft of him?"

"Oh my child!" said count Byroff, "I blush to confess to you the situation in which you meet that father. Misfortunes had driven me to despair, and that despair tempted me to——hark! surely I am not discovered?" He paused,—then continued, "No, all is still."

"To what?" asked Lauretta.

"To connect myself with a set of wretches, whose existence disgraces humanity.—Hark! is not that the trampling of horses?" he cried.—"I must fly, or I may lose thee for ever!—farewell; it will be some time ere thou wilt see me again."—He went hastily out, locked the door upon Lauretta as he had before done, and the sound of his footsteps in a few moments dying away, an awful silence prevailed.

It was some time ere Lauretta could convince herself that the transaction of the last minutes was more than a dream, and, when conviction did beam upon her, she wept tears of joy.

When reflection again returned, she began to meditate on the last words her father had uttered, and endeavoured to solve the mystery of his present situation: it baffled her attempts, and his declaration that it would be some time ere she again saw him, raised not less her wonder than her sorrow. "I am in safety," she cried, "but my Alphonsus is ignorant that I am so, and what pangs will not he experience on arriving at the hermit's cave, and finding me gone:—the situation, too, of my deceased benefactor will lead him to credit, that violence has been used against us both.—Oh! why did I not entreat my father to find some means of quieting the apprehensions of my Alphonsus?—When he returns, it may be too late for him to meet the object of my anxiety!"

She slept not that night: a variety of sensations ruffled her mind, and drove off the attacks of sleep: in the morning she examined the basket count Byroff had, on the preceding night, left on the table: it contained provisions which seemed calculated to last her for two or three days; a bottle of wine, another of water, and some oil in a flask to replenish her lamp.

Day passed on, and the solitude of her prison remained uninterrupted:—night arrived, and she still enjoyed little refreshment from sleep; her thoughts were occupied by the disappointed expectations of Alphonsus on not finding her in the hermit's cave. She rose from her bed, and endeavoured to compose her mind by prayer; but the crucifix which she placed before her, only afforded a fresh subject for thought, by recalling to her mind all the mystery dependent on the discovery and conduct of her newly-found parent.

The following day passed on, and count Byroff visited not his daughter. Lauretta's apprehensions were now raised for his safety; she began to fear that the discovery of his last visit to her, which he had seemed so much to dread, had taken place; and the only ray of comfort which shone upon her harassed mind in this fresh cause of alarm, was, that, had this been the case, they who had made the discovery of his visit, would, in all probability, ere this, have made it their business to discover its cause.

Her spirits had become much fatigued by continual watchings, apprehensions, and anxieties; and a few hours before midnight, a sound sleep closed her eyes for a short time; but, on waking, what was her grief to find, that, having too long neglected to feed and trim her lamp, it had burned out. The utter darkness in which she now found herself, appalled her senses; and again throwing herself on the bed, the tears flowed quickly down her burning cheeks.

Fearing, she knew not why, to quit her present situation in the darkness which now surrounded her, she remained upon the bed, till she conjectured it to be nearly midnight. The echoed responses of her own sighs were the only sounds she had heard, till a footstep approaching cautiously towards the door of her apartment, re-illumined a spark of hope and pleasure in her breast: she raised herself on the bed, and a few moments presented to her view count Byroff, habited in the garment of a friar.

Lauretta sprang forward to meet him; he embraced her, and without noticing the darkness in which he found her, and which he might perhaps imagine she had effected in compliance with his instructions, he immediately assisted her to muffle herself in his robe, which he had on the first night left in that apartment, and then told her to follow him with all possible celerity.

The count had reached the door of the apartment, when, stepping back, he took the dagger from the table, and sticking it in his under girdle, again commanded Lauretta to follow him closely, and proceeded swiftly along.

Lauretta followed her father's steps in silence; and by the light of a lamp which he held, she perceived that he was re-conducting her by the path which had led her to the dreary apartment she had just quitted. She remarked that his hand trembled, and on his countenance was depicted the wildest anxiety.

Being arrived in the glen, count Byroff threw down the lamp to extinguish it; and having closed up the mouth of the cavern, he loosened a horse which had been fastened to a stump of a tree near unto it, and having led the animal to the level ground, he mounted it, and taking up Lauretta before him, he clapped spurs to the beast, and they galloped swiftly forwards.

They proceeded nearly a league in silence, except when it was broken by the count addressing himself to his horse to increase his speed: at length Lauretta ventured to inquire, in a low accent, "Whither they were going?" "You must presently direct our road," returned the count;—"but be silent now, I conjure you; some one may be concealed amidst these trees." Lauretta obeyed her father's injunctions; but as suggestion but too often breeds suspicion, she could not forbear turning her eyes by turns on all sides, and watching every shadow as she passed it, fearing it should wear the form of man, and often conjecturing she beheld what she feared.

It was one of those nights when the waning moon sinks to the horizon full and crimson, and casts a tinge of fire upon the objects over which perspective seems to show it impended; and as the travellers turned a sharp angle of a narrow wood through which they had been passing, it suddenly burst upon their view. The scene was mournfully romantic, and Lauretta suffered it to occupy her thoughts;—at intervals a clump of trees intercepted it from her sight, and she then sought its partial light darting momentarily from amidst the breaks of the interwoven branches;—again it darted in full splendour upon her sight, and again an intercepting hillock, whose gilded crown reminded her where it was obscured, shut it from her eyes;—presently its reflected beams played on a crooked lake, along whose bank they were passing, and then again, attracted to the silken leaves of the elm, seemed for a time to clothe its branches with purest snow:—at length its nightly reign being ended, it imperceptibly sunk under the horizon, gradually stealing from the surrounding objects the gilded hue which it had lately sent to beautify them.

After travelling three hours and a half, the count and Lauretta arrived at a mean cottage. In a few minutes its door was opened in compliance with the request of the count; and its inhabitants, a middle-aged man, and a lad his son, shepherds by trade, readily granted admission to the count and his daughter.

The count quickly extorted from them a promise that they would not on any condition suffer any person to enter the cottage whilst he remained in it, or confess that any stranger was concealed within it, should inquiry be made of them. To this petition they agreed not less readily from the temptation of the large reward by which he offered to bribe their secrecy, than from their fear of his resentment falling on them or their flocks, should they betray him; for his habit had immediately led them to believe that he was a brother of some religious order, a circumstance which the count plainly perceived, and in which, from his acquaintance with the natural superstition of the lower ranks of people in that part of the country, he placed his chief dependence for ensuring such secrecy as he should require during the intervals in which he judged it expedient to interrupt his journey.

Having seen his horse safely bestowed, the count questioned Lauretta, whether she wished to compose herself to sleep; but she declared that her mind was too strongly agitated to suffer her to seek repose for her body: the count then hinted to her a wish that she would unfold to him the history of her life; she inwardly lamented that he had not first offered to communicate his own; but considering that his curiosity must be as strongly awakened as hers, in compliance with the obedience due to her father, she immediately acquiesced in his wish; and having retired with him to the only apartment of which the cottage consisted, in addition to that occupied by the shepherd and his son, she informed him of every particular that had occurred to her from the first moment of her entrance into the world, to that on which he had rescued her in the wood from Theodore and his accomplice.