Twice-told tales
being clad in a riding-habit of velvet which would have appeared stiff
and ungraceful on any other form.
The coachman reined in his four black steeds, and the whole cavalcade
came to a pause in front of the contorted iron balustrade that fenced
the province-house from the public street. It was an awkward
coincidence that the bell of the Old South was just then tolling for a
funeral; so that, instead of a gladsome peal with which it was
customary to announce the arrival of distinguished strangers, Lady
Eleanore Rochcliffe was ushered by a doleful clang, as if calamity had
come embodied in her beautiful person.
“A very great disrespect!” exclaimed Captain Langford, an English
officer who had recently brought despatches to Governor Shute. “The
funeral should have been deferred lest Lady Eleanore’s spirits be
affected by such a dismal welcome.”
“With your pardon, sir,” replied Dr. Clarke, a physician and a famous
champion of the popular party, “whatever the heralds may pretend, a
dead beggar must have precedence of a living queen. King Death confers
high privileges.”
These remarks-were interchanged while the speakers waited a passage
through the crowd which had gathered on each side of the gateway,
leaving an open avenue to the portal of the province-house. A black
slave in livery now leaped from behind the coach and threw open the
door, while at the same moment Governor Shute descended the flight of
steps from his mansion to assist Lady Eleanore in alighting. But the
governor’s stately approach was anticipated in a manner that excited
general astonishment. A pale young man with his black hair all in
disorder rushed from the throng and prostrated himself beside the
coach, thus offering his person as a footstool for Lady Eleanore
Rochcliffe to tread upon. She held back an instant, yet with an
expression as if doubting whether the young man were worthy to bear the
weight of her footstep rather than dissatisfied to receive such awful
reverence from a fellow-mortal.
“Up, sir!” said the governor, sternly, at the same time lifting his
cane over the intruder. “What means the Bedlamite by this freak?”
“Nay,” answered Lady Eleanore, playfully, but with more scorn than pity
in her tone; “Your Excellency shall not strike him. When men seek only
to be trampled upon, it were a pity to deny them a favor so easily
granted—and so well deserved!” Then, though as lightly as a sunbeam on
a cloud, she placed her foot upon the cowering form and extended her
hand to meet that of the governor.
There was a brief interval during which Lady Eleanore retained this
attitude, and never, surely, was there an apter emblem of aristocracy
and hereditary pride trampling on human sympathies and the kindred of
nature than these two figures presented at that moment. Yet the
spectators were so smitten with her beauty, and so essential did pride
seem to the existence of such a creature, that they gave a simultaneous
acclamation of applause.
“Who is this insolent young fellow?” inquired Captain Langford, who
still remained beside Dr. Clarke. “If he be in his senses, his
impertinence demands the bastinado; if mad, Lady Eleanore should be
secured from further inconvenience by his confinement.”
“His name is Jervase Helwyse,” answered the doctor—“a youth of no birth
or fortune, or other advantages save the mind and soul that nature gave
him; and, being secretary to our colonial agent in London, it was his
misfortune to meet this Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe. He loved her, and her
scorn has driven him mad.”
“He was mad so to aspire,” observed the English officer.
“It may be so,” said Dr. Clarke, frowning as he spoke; “but I tell you,
sir, I could wellnigh doubt the justice of the Heaven above us if no
signal humiliation overtake this lady who now treads so haughtily into
yonder mansion. She seeks to place herself above the sympathies of our
common nature, which envelops all human souls; see if that nature do
not assert its claim over her in some mode that shall bring her level
with the lowest.”
“Never!” cried Captain Langford, indignantly—“neither in life nor when
they lay her with her ancestors.”
Not many days afterward the governor gave a ball in honor of Lady
Eleanore Rochcliffe. The principal gentry of the colony received
invitations, which were distributed to their residences far and near by
messengers on horseback bearing missives sealed with all the formality
of official despatches. In obedience to the summons, there was a
general gathering of rank, wealth and beauty, and the wide door of the
province-house had seldom given admittance to more numerous and
honorable guests than on the evening of Lady Eleanore’s ball. Without
much extravagance of eulogy, the spectacle might even be termed
splendid, for, according to the fashion of the times, the ladies shone
in rich silks and satins outspread over wide-projecting hoops, and the
gentlemen glittered in gold embroidery laid unsparingly upon the purple
or scarlet or sky-blue velvet which was the material of their coats and
waistcoats. The latter article of dress was of great importance, since
it enveloped the wearer’s body nearly to the knees and was perhaps
bedizened with the amount of his whole year’s income in golden flowers
and foliage. The altered taste of the present day—a taste symbolic of a
deep change in the whole system of society—would look upon almost any
of those gorgeous figures as ridiculous, although that evening the
guests sought their reflections in the pier-glasses and rejoiced to
catch their own glitter amid the glittering crowd. What a pity that one
of the stately mirrors has not preserved a picture of the scene which
by the very traits that were so transitory might have taught us much
that would be worth knowing and remembering!
Would, at least, that either painter or mirror could convey to us some
faint idea of a garment already noticed in this legend—the Lady
Eleanore’s embroidered mantle, which the gossips whispered was invested
with magic properties, so as to lend a new and untried grace to her
figure each time that she put it on! Idle fancy as it is, this
mysterious mantle has thrown an awe around my image of her, partly from
its fabled virtues and partly because it was the handiwork of a dying
woman, and perchance owed the fantastic grace of its conception to the
delirium of approaching death.
After the ceremonial greetings had been paid, Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe
stood apart from the mob of guests, insulating herself within a small
and distinguished circle to whom she accorded a more cordial favor than
to the general throng. The waxen torches threw their radiance vividly
over the scene, bringing out its brilliant points in strong relief, but
she gazed carelessly, and with now and then an expression of weariness
or scorn tempered with such feminine grace that her auditors scarcely
perceived the moral deformity of which it was the utterance. She beheld
the spectacle not with vulgar ridicule, as disdaining to be pleased
with the provincial mockery of a court-festival, but with the deeper
scorn of one whose spirit held itself too high to participate in the
enjoyment of other human souls. Whether or no the recollections of
those who saw her that evening were influenced by the strange events
with which she was subsequently connected, so it was that her figure
ever after recurred to them as marked by something wild and unnatural,
although at the time the general whisper was of her exceeding beauty
and of the indescribable charm which her mantle threw around her. Some
close observers, indeed, detected a feverish flush and alternate
paleness of countenance, with a corresponding flow and revulsion of
spirits, and once or twice a painful and helpless betrayal of
lassitude, as if she were on the point of sinking to the ground. Then,
with a nervous shudder, she seemed to arouse her energies, and threw
some bright and playful yet half-wicked sarcasm into the conversation.
There was so strange a characteristic in her manners and sentiments
that it astonished every right-minded listener, till, looking in her
face, a lurking and incomprehensible glance and smile perplexed them
with doubts both as to her seriousness and sanity. Gradually, Lady
Eleanore Rochcliffe’s circle grew smaller, till only four gentlemen
remained in it. These were Captain Langford, the English officer before
mentioned; a Virginian planter who had come to Massachusetts on some
political errand; a young Episcopal clergyman, the grandson of a
British earl; and, lastly, the private secretary of Governor Shute,
whose obsequiousness had won a sort of tolerance from Lady Eleanore.
At different periods of the evening the liveried servants of the
province-house passed among the guests bearing huge trays of
refreshments and French and Spanish wines. Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe,
who refused to wet her beautiful lips even with a bubble of champagne,
had sunk back into a large damask chair, apparently overwearied either
with the excitement of the scene or its tedium; and while, for an
instant, she was unconscious of voices, laughter and music, a young man
stole forward and knelt down at her feet. He bore a salver in his hand
on which was a chased silver goblet filled to the brim with wine, which
he offered as reverentially as to a crowned queen—or, rather, with the
awful devotion of a priest doing sacrifice to his idol. Conscious that
some one touched her robe, Lady Eleanore started, and unclosed her eyes
upon the pale, wild features and dishevelled hair of Jervase Helwyse.
“Why do you haunt me thus?” said she, in a languid tone, but with a
kindlier feeling than she ordinarily permitted herself to express.
“They tell me that I have done you harm.”
“Heaven knows if that be so,” replied the young man, solemnly. “But,
Lady Eleanore, in requital of that harm, if such there be, and for your
own earthly and heavenly welfare, I pray you to take one sip of this
holy wine and then to pass the goblet round among the guests. And this
shall be a symbol that you have not sought to withdraw yourself from
the chain of human sympathies, which whoso would shake off must keep
company with fallen angels.”
“Where has this mad fellow stolen that sacramental vessel?” exclaimed
the Episcopal clergyman.
This question drew the notice of the guests to the silver cup, which
was recognized as appertaining to the communion-plate of the Old South
Church, and, for aught that could be known, it was brimming over with
the consecrated wine.
“Perhaps it is poisoned,” half whispered the governor’s secretary.
“Pour it down the villain’s throat!” cried the Virginian, fiercely.
“Turn him out of the house!” cried Captain Langford, seizing Jervase
Helwyse so roughly by the shoulder that the sacramental cup was
overturned and its contents sprinkled upon Lady Eleanore’s mantle.
“Whether knave, fool or Bedlamite, it is intolerable that the fellow
should go at large.”
“Pray, gentlemen, do my poor admirer no harm,” said Lady Eleanore, with
a faint and weary smile. “Take him out of my sight, if such be your
pleasure, for I can find in my heart to do nothing but laugh at him,
whereas, in all decency and conscience, it would become me to weep for
the mischief I have wrought.”
But while the bystanders were attempting to lead away the unfortunate
young man he broke from them and with a wild, impassioned earnestness
offered a new and equally strange petition to Lady Eleanore. It was no
other than that she should throw off the mantle, which while he pressed
the silver cup of wine upon her she had drawn more closely around her
form, so as almost to shroud herself within it.
“Cast it from you,” exclaimed Jervase Helwyse, clasping his hands in an
agony of entreaty. “It may not yet be too late. Give the accursed