The Midnight Bell/Volume III/Chapter XXV

CHAPTER XXV.

Towards evening father Nicholas returned; he found Alphonsus risen: his health was materially restored; but his spirits were still depressed, and a degree of wildness was at times visible in his countenance.

"Didst thou know my mother?" said Alphonsus, first reverting to the subject on which all were thinking, but none had yet touched.

"Full well," returned the holy man. "Is it possible you do not recollect me?" continued he with some hesitation.

"No," replied Alphonsus, "no; and yet methinks that scar above your eye claims place in my remembrance; pardon me, that my harassed brain excludes all thought but on one subject; I pray you tell me your name."

"Father Nicholas, many years your mother's confessor."

"I know you now." He took his hand, pressed it in his, then kissed it. "You saw my mother then before she died?"—The friar hesitated to answer; Alphonsus perceived it not, and continued—"Did she wish again to see her son?"—The friar was still silent; Alphonsus went on, "You doubtless know my sad story?"

"I do."

"Oh! why did she discard me from her affections? wretched forlorn Alphonsus! my mother cruel! my father murdered!—Oh God! grant me to know his assassin!—Father, I have a vow in heaven of vengeance against his murderer, and here again I swear——"

The friar interrupted him, "Calm thy agitation, my son: thou canst not recall him into life by shedding another's blood; why then stain thy hands in murder?"

"Thou sayst true: heaven will avenge the deed better than I can; my hate and curses must fall on him.—Oh, if he must have fallen, would he had fallen by any hand rather than that he did!"

Father Nicholas sighed deeply.

"Who that knew him, could have believed that count Frederic would have murdered his brother?"

"If you believe he did, you wrong his memory."

"Is he too dead?—none left to bear a load of grief but me!—I recollect my mother told me, when she sent me from her, he was innocent; but she had first taught me to believe him guilty:—'twas strange!"

A pause ensued.

Suddenly recollecting himself, Alphonsus exclaimed, "If you can exculpate the innocent, you can arraign the guilty:—confess to me, I conjure you, whom I ought to hate; and guide my vengeance by your own discretion."

"Lay aside all thoughts of revenge; we are enjoined to be charitable to all; and who more strongly claims our pity, than he who suffers from the pangs of a conscience, that reproves him with the commission of murder?"

"It is a sentiment too refined to bias the heart of a son, bleeding at the recollection of a father's untimely death."

"The more severe our trials, the greater will be the reward bestowed on us, if amidst their severity we still do not deviate from the exercise of christian duty."

"If my mother knew the murderer!" Alphonsus exclaimed wildly, without having seemed to attend to father Nicholas's last words; and suddenly he interrupted himself—"Did she know him?" he added.

The holy man was silent.

"Say rather that she killed him,—burst my swelling heart, and end at once my agonies in death, than torture me by this mysterious hesitation."

The old man was affected to tears, by the transports of Alphonsus's feelings.—"Wouldst thou not rather that thy father lived, though thou couldst never see him more, than know him dead?" he asked.

"If he were happy, witness heaven, I would."

"And if thy absence from him constituted but his negative comfort, and even caused thy sorrow, hast thou enough of filial piety in thee to obey him?"

"Oh yes! on any terms, 'twere happiness to know he lived. But to what end avail these questions? I know he lives not, and yet you dazzle my imagination with ideas of what cannot be?"

"You once thought a mother had an equal claim on your obedience."

"Forbear, forbear to rack my heart, by telling me I wanted fortitude to obey her commands."

"Rouse your strength of mind to execute them now."

"What mean you?—explain yourself, I conjure you."

"Know then she lives,—but you must never see her more."

Alphonsus had till this moment been comparatively calm:—"Lives!" he re-echoed, in the most piercing accents; then falling on his knees, and raising his hands to heaven—"Angels of mercy, I thank you!—It was then her living self I saw; my disobedience did not call her from the grave. The eyes she fixed upon me, were not those of death.—Oh God, I thank thee!"—A flood of tears relieved his full heart, swelled with a multiplicity of indescribable sensations.

A general silence prevailed for some moments, when Alphonsus could again articulate, "May I not once more see her,—only once, to implore her forgiveness?" he said.

"You have her pardon; rest satisfied in that assurance," returned the friar.

"Tell me, then," cried Alphonsus, "tell me why she refuses again to behold me?—And hard, very hard as I feel the struggle between duty and inclination, I will not press to see her."

"There is a just cause for her refusal. I have her permission to reveal it to you; and much I think, when you have learnt it, you will no longer press your late entreaty."

"Speak it, I beseech you."

"Have you fortitude to hear a tale of horror, which is nearly related to yourself?"

"Oh yes: my heart has felt too much substantial misery, to sink beneath recited ills."

"I need not warn a wife to secrecy, on a point of tender interest to her husband," said the friar, raising his eyes to Lauretta, and then passing them on to count Byroff.

"Nor her father," said the count, "to act for the welfare of both."

The friar gently inclined his head, in token of his satisfaction, and thus began:—"On the death of your aunt, count Frederic's wife, the kind attentions which the goodness of your mother's heart inclined her to use towards his children, raised in the breast of your deceased father a suspicion that her regards were bestowed on his offspring from the love which she bore their father.

"How this unhappy suspicion ever gained way into his thoughts, I can no otherwise account for, than that the single foible of his nature was an inclination towards distrust; and I am certain that your uncle and mother were both innocent of the false imputation which your father laid on them.

"The three first years after the loss of his wife were sorrowfully marked to count Frederic by the death of his children; and, unable to remain in the midst of scenes which gave him such ample scope for poignant reflection, he resolved to travel. He visited Venice; and here chance introduced him to a lady who seemed to promise a reparation of the loss he had sustained; but a mercenary father doomed her to the arms of a man she disliked, who carried her away from Venice; and his repeated journeys and inquiries could never lead him to discover whither she had been conveyed."

The agitation here expressed by the count and Lauretta, induced the friar to break off his narrative, and inquire the cause of their emotions: count Byroff briefly explained it, to the great surprise of the friar, who in return informed them, that, after the count's departure from Venice, a report had been circulated by Arieno's servants, that count Byroff, having killed the son of a senator in a duel, had fled with his wife into Spain, to which kingdom count Frederic's researches after his Lauretta were then confined.

This, though a new instance of count Arieno's villainy, was but a slight one, and count Byroff requested the friar to proceed.

"Every return of your uncle into Germany refreshed your father's fears, which his absence had lulled: he perceived his brother to be a prey to grief, and as he always refused to explain what afflicted him, your father's suspicion grew stronger on the repeated refusals of your uncle to divulge his cause of sorrow.

"The last time your uncle returned, was with a resolution no longer to pursue a fruitless search after her he loved; and he retired to his own mansion, where he determined to live a recluse from the world, visiting only his brother's castle.

"Every visit continued to increase your father's secret suspicion; and although he was always present when count Frederic saw his wife, he worked himself into a persuasion that a criminal intercourse was actually subsisting between them. At length, no longer able to bear the torture of suspicion, he resolved to clear his doubts, convinced that he could not be more miserable than he now was, be the result of his stratagem what it might.

"He accordingly gave out that an affair of consequence called him to Vienna. It was a probable circumstance, and gained belief; the day prior to his departure, he visited his brother: he told him that he had a matter of the greatest importance to confide to him, and in which he must entreat his assistance, which count Frederic readily promised. Your father then required of him to swear that he would be secret, before he communicated to him the matter in question: to this your uncle at first objected, but after many entreaties on the part of your father, he gave his faith not to reveal to any one what he should impart to him. Your father then told him that he suspected the fidelity of his wife.—Count Frederic, as it is easy to suppose, showed marks of no small surprise at this intelligence. Your father immediately misconstrued his astonishment with secret satisfaction at his own sagacity and penetration. Count Frederic proceeded to inquire whom his brother supposed to be the paramour of your mother? 'Suffice it that I know him,' returned your father; 'what I have to require of you is, that during my absence you will endeavour to win my wife to your love, and inform me of your success on my return.'—Count Frederic remonstrated warmly against measures, from which he could not possibly conceive that any discovery or advantage could be derived; but your father was so earnest in his entreaties, that count Frederic at length yielded to make the experiment.

"On the following day, a fatal day to him, your father left his castle, and taking with him old Robert his faithful servant, they proceeded to the cottage of my sister, about five leagues north of Cohenburg castle. I was in the secret of your father's plan, and had, at his request, there provided for him a reception.

"For nearly two months, your unhappy mother was constrained to bear the blandishments and caresses which count Frederic unwillingly tempted her with; she complained in private to me, and I could only give her such consolation as I taught her to derive from the innocence of her own heart.

"Repeated letters did your uncle write to his brother, assuring him of the fidelity of his wife; and as a proof of her nice sense of honour, added, that no male visitor, except himself and me, had been admitted at the castle since his departure.

"These letters your father read with very opposite sentiments to what they were meant to produce in him.

"The period now arrived which he had determined should stamp his happiness or misery. Robert, as it had been preconcerted, returned to the castle with information of your father's having been assassinated in the Wolf's Wood in his return from Vienna; and the late conduct of your uncle represented him to your mother as the murderer of her husband."

"Oh!" exclaimed Alphonsus, "I remember well the accusation which she then alleged against him; 'twas then I swore to—"

"No more of that now," interrupted the holy man. "Hear the conclusion of thy parent's fate:—when count Frederic arrived at the castle, and you left him with your mother, she accused him with the murder of his brother on the pretensions of his late conduct to her; he denied the charge, again urged his pretended love for her, and departed.

"On the next day, as you doubtless recollect, he returned to the castle; he re-iterated his love; she knelt to him, and implored him to cease adding pangs to the agony he had already inflicted on her. At this instant, as your mother has since told me, you entered the apartment:—this explains to you one mystery which you could not solve.

"Unknown to any one, I that night introduced your father into his own castle; for, as you may well suppose, he had not believed that his brother had written to him true accounts of his wife, and had only acted this farce the more deeply to entrap her, while the close of this hazardous experiment lay with himself.

"In the middle of that night a noise in your mother's chamber alarmed her,—she shrieked; a voice which she immediately concluded to be count Frederic's addressed her in accents of familiar love; she sprang from the bed, as the person advanced towards it; he held her arm; she stretched out her other hand to a table near the bed, and grasping a dagger which she had lately worn to defend herself from count Frederic, should he have attempted force upon her person, and which she now believed him to be doing, she pierced him who held her to the heart.

"Till the dawn arose, she thought herself the murderer of count Frederic; but alas! she beheld her bleeding husband, killed by her own hand! Immediately the vow she had exacted from you recurred to her, and constituted no small part of her agony; for the mad state of her brain taught her to believe you would fulfil it. What followed that morning, you know better than myself."

"Oh, God!" cried Alphonsus, in accents that seemed to proceed from a frame whose every nerve was racked by agony, "'till now I never knew what misery was! Oh, ye pitying angels, bless my unhappy mother!—Forgive my erring father!—Oh, father! thou said'st well that I should no longer press to disobey my mother, when I knew the cause of her commands:—'twere death to both to meet!—Oh, that vow!" Convulsed by pangs of sorrow he sunk upon count Byroff.

Recovering, he fixed his eyes on the friar:—"Oh, wretch! wretch! doomed to be cursed for parricide or perjury!" He inarticulately whispered, while sighs of agony partially choked his utterance.

"Comfort thee, my son: the church is able, and, I doubt not, will be willing to absolve thee from an oath of such a strange nature."

"Oh, her bloody hand!—methinks I see it now!—I would have embraced her, but she forbade me." He paused. "Oh, horrible! I swore to murder her who gave me being." He shuddered. "Fool that I was to say that misery had shot at me her keenest shafts, ere I had heard this tale of woe; she has but one other in her quiver that can pierce me. I will not part from thee!" he exclaimed, flying to Lauretta, and clasping her to his bosom. He then turned to the friar:—"Go on, good father: I can hear any thing now; thou shouldst have blunted thus my senses long ago:—go on, I pray thee."

"I will briefly relate the sequel of my tale," returned the friar, with a look to count Byroff, which indicated that he feared to disobey the request of Alphonsus, and yet was apprehensive his senses were again perplexed. "At an early hour I was sent for by your mother; and frantic with grief she confessed to me her involuntary crime, and its consequences. Shortly after count Frederic arrived at the castle, the sad tidings were announced to him by me: never did I behold a man so agonised; he immediately declared to your mother the cause of his pretended love for her, and cursed himself for having been the blind instrument of his brother's jealousy and suspicion.

"The countess entreated me in the most supplicating terms to hide from the world the real means of her husband's death, and to circulate an immediate report of her death: to execute the latter, I was under the necessity of calling in the assistance of some of my brother friars, and we contrived by a pretended funeral to accomplish her wish; after this ceremony, as you was no where to be found, and that count Frederic declared himself determined to pass his future days in seclusion from the world, at the monastery of Saint Paul, the servants were discharged, and the gates of the castle locked.

"Your mother had during this interval been secreted in the apartment to which the secret door in the south turret leads. On the first night of the evacuation of the castle I visited your mother, whom I had constantly supplied with the little provision she had required, and she then told me, that she had formed a resolution of passing the sad remainder of her days in solitude in the castle. I reprobated this idea: but she was firm in her determination, and no arguments could divert her from her purpose.

"An empty coffin had been brought in pomp by means of Robert's adroitness from the Wolf's Wood; in this we contrived to deposit secretly your father's remains, and it was then placed in the vault beneath the chapel; but, by the earnest entreaties of the countess, again removed into the chapel: and by it she has every night since prayed, and inflicted on herself voluntary punishments."

"'Twas there I saw her,—methought she rose from the coffin when I beheld her!" cried Alphonsus.

"But the midnight bell—" said count Byroff.

"Was tolled by her," interrupted the friar, "for the double purpose of keeping idle visitants from the castle, under the idea of its being haunted, and to call to her two holy men of our monastery, who, by turns, together with myself, visited her every night to assist her prayers over the body of her husband."

"But you were not with her," said Alphonsus, "when I beheld her in the chapel."

"No: we had left the castle, but she remained praying by the coffin."

"How know you this?"

"She informed me, that on the night on which I now find you entered the castle, she had seen a man advance a few paces into the chapel, who on beholding her had fled away alarmed."

"Oh! the piercing recollection of that night!" cried Alphonsus. "Oh, what did I not then feel."

"How did you escape from the castle?" asked father Nicholas.

"Frenzy gave me strength to burst the window at the extremity of the hall, and through it I effected my flight."

"Count Frederic," continued the friar, "immediately retired to the monastery of Saint Paul, and did not long survive his brother. Ever since your father's death, the brethren of the Holy Spirit have, by your mother's permission, enjoyed the rents of the estate on which the castle stands, in recompense for their nightly visits, and the assistance of their prayers. I often entreated her to have you sought after, and restore you to your legal possessions: but a wild frenzy of alarm always forbade me to urge my petition, though she unremittingly grieved at the hard lot you were innocently suffering.

"Yesterday morning I visited her alone, for the purpose of informing her of my suspicions, drawn from the name I had heard you called by, and many words I had heard you let fall, of you, her son, being now in the vicinity of the castle."

"Was not your visit to the castle paid between the hours of three and four?" asked count Byroff.

The holy man answered that it was, and this explained to the count the means by which the postern gate had been opened to him.

Father Nicholas continued:—"In return for the information I brought her, she only entreated that you might not see her, scarcely, I believe, crediting what I told her I surmised relative to you; for her faculties have been impaired by her distress of mind. The words you this morning addressed to me confirmed my conjecture, and I again visited her this afternoon; she heard me, contrary to my expectation, with composure; wept when she learnt that you had beheld each other, still however thankful she had not known you; declared her intention of putting you in possession of your natural rights, by immediately departing from the castle; and above all entreated, that when I had related to you her unhappy story, you would confer on her the only proof of affection she could ever desire, or hope to receive from you, namely, your never attempting to see her more."

Alphonsus's spirits were exhausted even to infantile weakness; he seemed no longer to attend to the words of the friar; he urged no farther inquiry into this heart-rending business; but wept, and that without intermission.

The holy man advised that he should retire to rest, and endeavour to compose his spirits; he retired to bed, but without giving any signs that he knew what he did; he sunk on the pillow, and spoke no more that night.

Having addressed some words of comfort to Lauretta, who, except that she respired, existed not, or at least without a thought to bestow on any other object than her Alphonsus and his sorrows; and having told count Byroff that he was called away by an urgent concern, but would return in the morning as early as he was able, father Nicholas left the inn, bestowing a benediction on its inhabitants.

The night passed on in sorrowing silence, broken only by occasional comments on what they had heard from the friar, on the part of count Byroff and his daughter; and heart-drawn sighs on the part of Alphonsus.

The tenth hour of the morning had sounded ere the holy man arrived; he found Alphonsus fallen into a gentle slumber. Count Byroff and the friar had a copious topic for conversation; they indulged themselves in discussing it till Lauretta came to inform them that Alphonsus was awake, and had inquired for the father.

They ascended to his chamber.—"Father," said Alphonsus, on beholding the friar, "you did not tell me whither my unhappy mother was gone."

"When I left you last," replied the holy man, "she was still in Cohenburg castle; I have this night conveyed her to the convent of the Virgin Maria, seven leagues distant from hence, and whose votaries are not permitted, when they have once entered its walls, ever again to hold converse with the world."

"What said she at parting?—nothing which you were to repeat to me from her?"

"She bade me tell you, that her blessing would fall a curse upon you,—thus she forbore to speak it. She entreats your prayers, and that you will sometimes view with pity her resemblance."

The friar here put into Alphonsus's hand a small portrait of his mother.

Alphonsus gazed eagerly upon it, then kissed it. "Forgive her, heaven!" he exclaimed. A small ribbon was fastened to the picture; he tied it round his neck, and turned the face inward to his bosom. "Lie there in peace," he cried: "and, oh! may the shades of my dear father and mother hereafter unite in scenes of bliss, with all the warmth and tenderness their images are now connected in my heart."