The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 307: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

292 THE MYSTERIES. —--— ‘Tim Meagles and the Amazon then quitted Wind- | the rapidly exchanged but emphatic sentences con- sor Castle, well pleased with the result of their in-| cerning the certificate. terview. The Princess Amelia was stupified—astounded. Pale as marbie, she leant against the door for sup- one port. She heard her father sob—and she could not fly to hisassistance. Her limbs were paralysed—her CHAPTER LXXXITI. very breath was suspended. A dumb, dead bewil- derment was upon her: an awful consternation held THE PRINCESS AMELIA. her powerless — motionless — voiceless. Even her eyes did not wink—her lips remained apart—her THE favourite daughter of George III, uv0n | breast was upheaved and still. leaving the King in oraer that he might grant an What could the document be that Meagles had audience to Mr. Meagles and his fair companion; | produced ?—what spell did it exercise over her sire? retired into an adjacent room, where she endeavoured | —what crime or misfortune on his part had endowed to amuse herself with a book. But feeling convinced | it with such appalling influence ? | that something unpleasant had occurred in respect} Fleet as lightning did these questions flash through to her brother the Prince of Wales, and dreading her brain -—but how was her imagination to suggest that such intelligence might produce a disagreeable | the answers to them ? effect upon her father, her uneasiness became most | Hark!—the silencein the next room is new broken painful; and when she heard the King talking in a] again: the King speaks. She listens, as if her life Joud and angry tone in the next room, she was quite | were dependent on catching the words which he unable to endure the torture of suspense any longer. | utters. He demands that the document be given up Approaching the door communicating with that] to him. Meagles refuses) Nay—he even declares apartment, she became a listener just at that point | with confidence that its price is a dukedom ! in the discourse when her father, interrupting the A cold tremor—as if a snake were slowly coiling Amazon's narrative, dwelt with such emphatic | its slimy folds about her—passed gradually over the reiteration on the word “misfortune.” But it was | form of the Princess: for that her father must have not until several more sentences had been exchanged | committed some dreadful crime, or that Meagles was between his Majesty and the Amazon, that the | the depositor of some tremendous secret respecting Princess Amelia learnt the entire truth: namely, |the Royal Family, was evident. Otherwise, how that her eldest brother had seduced a young lady of | would this man have dared not only to bandy words respectable family—that the name of the victim was | with the King of England—but iikewise to dictate Octavia Clarendon—that she was related to Lord | his own terrns in a tone proving that he had not mis- Marchmont—and that a peerage and pension for the | calculated the extent of the terrible influence which father were suggested as the means of hushing up | he thus wielded over the unhappy monarch. the girl’s disgrace and the heir-apparent’s treachery.| And now the Princess Amelia heard her sire as- The Princess Amelia was shocked, certainly—but | sent to those conditions—nay, even humiliate him- not particularly amazed. The irregularities, gaieties, | self so far as to admit that he must use subterfuge and gallantries of her eldest brother were too nume- | and artifice with his Prime Minister in order to pro- rous, too notorious, and too flagrant to be entirely a} cure the peerage and the pension for Mr. Claren- secret to her; and indeed, the King was often wont | don. to deplore, when alone with his favourite daughter,}| A death-like sensation came upon the wretched the course of life which the Prince of Wales was| Princess. She loved her father as dearly as ever leading. child was devoted to a parent: and the discourse She was not surprised, then, we say, when from | which she overheard had revealed things—or rather the discourse now passing between his Majesty and | excited alarms and apprehensions of so vague, un- the Amazon she gathered the particulars of her | certain, yet terrible a character that the chill of the brother’s new freak and the embarrassment in which | grave appeared to have seized upon her. But this it had plunged him: nor was she astonished when | feeling rapidly yielded to one more intense and ex- her sire so peremptorily and irascibly refused the | cruciating still: for when she thought of the deep peerage which was demanded for Mr. Clarendon. humiliation to which her father was reduced—and But no pen can depict her amazement and indig- | that father a King—she felt as if red-hot iron were nation when she heard Meagles take up the thread | searing her heart and drops of molten lead trickling of the conversation and utter dark menaces. She | upon her brain. Then—in order to avoid giving ut- could scarcely believe her ears: she listened with | terance to the hysterical cry which rose ‘o her very suspended breath ;—her bosom was as motionless | lips—she suddenly tore herself away from the door and still as if she were a marble statue! to which her ear had hitherto been rivetted; and, ‘‘ I mean, sire, that his Royal Highness the Prince | with steps that were staggering and uneven although of Wales will not fall alone. If he sink beneath | so rapid, she fled to her own apartment. the weight of infamy and shame, he will drag down __ Throwing herself upon a sofa, the young Princess others with him—yes—even though it be his own burst into an agony of weeping. Torrents of tears father.” ‘now poured forth from the eyes that had hitherto Such were the words which the Princess Amelia been so hot and dry; and her bosom—that fair caught: such were the words that her brother’s | virgin breast—heaved with convulsive sobs, as if emissary dared address to her own father—the King | her heart must break. of England! | Butin a few minutes that flood of anguish was But the scene which followed was of more ominous | followed by the relief which tears invariabl y atford; significancy and more tremendously mysterious im- | and the violence of her affliction subsided. By de- port. For Meagles grew bolder: he spoke in a tone | grees, however, she experienced a suflocating sensa- of easy defiance to his Majesty ;—and then came | tion—a want of the fresh air—and a longing to feel rer ee ree (C(O) nn) (C 6)(0)() ‘S.Cco