The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 24: what you’re looking at

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

18 THE MYSTERIES OF THE COURT. respondence should be renewed. She had never, ghost ascending from the tomb; and as a ghost seen this letter since the day it arrived—she had | she is marble pale. If she caught the reflection never read it but once; yet she now recognised it | of her own image in the mirror opposite, she in a moment—and every line of its contents was | would start in dismay: she would not believe, in imprinted on her memory as if seared there with | the first shock, that it was herself she beheld red hot iron. Her first impulse was to open and | imaged there. But she has no outward vision for read it again—but she checked herself: the very | anything: her eyes behold nothing in the room. thought struck her as being an infidelity to her | All her thoughts—all her senses—all her faculties, husband. She could not prevent herself from | are absorbed in one idea which lies at the bottom thinking of Bertram—she could not prevent her | of her soul. mind from clinging witha soft, sad, serene affection | Again several minutes elapse; and then with a to his image: she had no power over her own vo- | slow mechanical movement, as if unconscious of lition. But on the other hand, she felt that she | the very impulse which she is obeying, Eliza had no right to do a positive deed which might re- | stoops down and picks up the letter which has suscitate all the frenzy of her regrets for his loss: | fallen from her hand—that letter which has pro- she had no right to voluntarily seek for the evi- | duced all which we have just been describing. dences of that love which heaven had refused to | And now she sits down, and reads it calmly and crown with happiness. Therefore, under the in- | deliberately. Oh, with what a calmness! It is fluence of this most scrupulous delicacy, Eliza put | the calmness which the ocean of hyperborean the letter aside; and again cast her looks into the | regions displays when frozen into solid ice,—the Fe of that glacial spell which can alone writing-desk. But, Ab! wherefore does she start? What writing is this which next meets her eye? what letter is that which, addressed to her father, she eagerly, greedily, almost frantically snatches up ? She examines the direction—she looks at the post- marks—a faintness comes over her: the letter drops tranquillize the mighty waters that if the talis- manic power were removed, would boil and rage in all the wild ebullition of the tempest. It is the calmness of the volcano that sleeps under a power supericr to its own, when its lava is hard- ened into petrifaction---but which, if the spell from her hand. She snatches it up again: and | should be remoye:!, and a spark should be set to again she scrutinizes the post-marks. Thoughts | the inflammable concrete, would pour forth the of strange and wild contexture sweep through her , gush of the burning levin. mind,—fancies so poignant, so bewildering, so} Eliza read the letter mechanically—deliberately fraught with a solemn wonderment and at the same | —from the first word tothe last. It was finished; time a fearful suspense, that they are almost over- | and then only did she display any outward emo- powering. A single glance at the interior of that | tion: then only was it that a strange expression letter would clear up all doubt—relieve her of all |—a sad expression indeed to be seen upon the suspense: and she knows—she feels—she has the | countenance of one so young and beautiful—passed conviction that it will do so: but there is within | slowly over her features, while simultaneously a her a shuddering awful horror to arrive at that | glacial tremor trailed itself as slowly through her certainty. Thoughts so wild—apparently so im- | entire form. possible—are agitating in her brain ; and yet what “T thank thee, O God, for one thing,” she said, she thinks of, is possible—for the proof is there: | in a voice which seemed as if borne upon a breath she holds it in her hand! There is within her the | of ice,—“and only for one thing. The rest is all certainty that it is so; and yet she flutters, and | dark—horrible—frightful—incredible !” trembles, and quivers with all the doubt of agoniz- It did not seem to strike her that she had given ing suspense. This state is intolerable. She opens | utterance to something savouring of impious blas- the letter—she reads—but only a few words, and | phemy, in accepting only one of the many dispen- for a few moments; and she sinks down upon her | sations of Providence on which her thoughts were knees with a low, deep, long-drawn, gasping moan, | evidently fixed. But she was in that state when the full meaning of which it would be almost im-/ the human soul is so chilled by despair, that the possible to describe. form to which it belongs is but a breathing, ani- Her head is bowed upon the chair from which | mated marble statue. she has sunk down: her face is buried in her| She looked over the remaining papers in the hands—and that boudoir is silent as the grave: | desk: there was another letter, in the same hand- not even the pulsations of her heart nor the | writing—of a recent date—a very recent date— respirations of her breath are audible. She is | and this also Eliza read. Again were her feelings motionless as the sculptured effigy of Despair | excited poignantly—horribly—agonizingly; and for kneeling by a monument of a loved and lost one. | some minutes she was convulsed with the tortures Yet it is not that she is in a state of unconscious- | of anguish, while the tears rained down her cheeks. ness. No: her sense remains—but experienced | She wrung her hands too—yes, wrung them bit- only as a stunned, dismayed consternation. There | teriy, bitterly ;—and it was long ere she recovered is something awful—something profoundly solemn | even the calmness of despair. Then she again looked —in the mental condition of that kneeling lady. | into the desk: but there was nothing more to inter She weeps not—her bosom is not convulsed: there | est her. Impossible indeed would it have been for is not a tremor thrilling through her form—not | any other paper to produce a state of being more de- even the slightest creeping agitation to give sign | plorable—more deserving the whole world’s com- of life. Yet she lives: but her’s are unutterable, | miseration—than those which had already placed a petrifying spell upon the heart of the unhappy ineffable feelings. Duchess of Marchmont. She locked up all the Minutes elapse while she thus remains kneeling by the chair, her face buried in her hands. At | papers in the desk again; and the desk itself she length slowly—Oh! so slowly, she rises up like a | secured ina bureau of which she kept the key. For GoOmMmiGdooks (CO)