The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 281: what you’re looking at

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

THE MYSTERIES OF THE COURT. 275 marriage with my cousin!” he exclaimed, clutching with avidity at the thought. “Tsabella is no more your cousin, Adolphus,” responded the old nobleman, “than I am your father and I am zot!’ he added emphati- cally. Adolphus raised his hands to his throbbing brows as if to steady his wildly agitated thoughts: his brain seemed to whirl in confusion. Could it possibly be true? Was he an unwilling im- postor? had he lived thus long an animated lie without knowing it? had he for twenty-four years passed in the world as a breathing falsehood, though utterly guiltless of wanton deceit? Oh, if it were so, he felt as if he could not survive it— *twere a blow too terrible to bear ! The old Earl had no such depth of feeling ; and though he was to a certain degree excited and dis- tressed, yet it was only to a degree, and not nearly to the same extent as the unhappy—the miserable —the soul-crushed Adolphus. ‘Yet allin a moment there sprang up in the young man’s heart a sense of consolation—yes, consolation in the midst of such overwhelming revelations as these. If he were not the Earl’s son, his crime in respect to her whom he had _ hitherto looked upon as his mother- in-law became in a moment many, many shades lighter to contemplate, dark though its hue still remained. “Tell me how all this happened !—explain it !” he said, with quick and excited utterance: “ for heayen’s sake keep me not another moment in suspense !” “ Listen then,” said the Earl, speaking with less silliness and flippancy than was his wont. “It was at Bloomfield that I was residing with my first wife when a son and heir was born twenty- four years and ahalfago. <A few days after that birth, important business hurried me away to the Continent; and the serious embarrassments in which a near relation, who is long since dead, had involved himself at Vienna, detained me there for a period of four months. When [I returned to England my wife was in a northern county, on a visit to some relations there: and indeed, as letters had previously informed me, I was assured that it was for the sake of her health that she had re- moved thither. I rejoined her: the child whom she represented to me as my son, was healthy and thriving. Years passed on—and you know with what kindness you were treated by her who passed as your mother, and indeed from whose bosom you were nourished in your infancy. You are aware likewise that she was of the Catholic per- suasion and that she was attended by a priest in her last hours, when a mortal illness overtook her beneath this roof. To that priest she confessed everything: but he dared not give her absolution unless she revealed to me the fraud which had been perpetrated.” “Go on,” groaned Adolphus in a half-stiflmg voice. “The revelation was made -accordingly,” con- tinued the Earl: “but I swore to the Countess— your mother of adoption—that I would continue to treat you as my son and never expose the fraud to the world. She died with a conscience much relieved she died blessing me,” added the old nobleman, now displaying deeper feeling than Adolphus had ever before seen him exhibit. ae a a, a * And why that fraud?” asked the young man, still profoundly agitated. “T have already told you that I was abruptly called away from England when my child was three days old. A month afterwards that child died. There were circumstances attending its birth—circumstances so painful to its mother, as to preclude the idea that she could ever again hope to become a parent. She dreaded lest the severance of thé tie which that child’s existence constituted betwixt herself and me should alienate my heart fronf"Kér, and make me look upon her even with aversion as a wife who could give no heir to the rhty name of Lascelles. She knew moreover that if anything happened to me, the estates would devolve upon my sister—Isabella’s mother,—and that she herself (my wife, I mean) would have to retire upon a small jointure, almost excluded as it were from that family of which it was her pride to be one of the heads. All these reasons induced her to practise the cheat which IE have described. Opportunities were favourable: I was absent, with a certainty of remaining away for yet some months—she had a surgeon and a nurse accessible to bribery—female dependants who were devoted to her—and I had left her with the illimitable command of funds. You understand the rest—I need say no more.” “ Yes, there is something more for you to tell me!’ answered Adolphus: then, after a pause, he said—and the words appeared to half choke him, —“ Whose son am [I ?” “© poor family’s who resided in some midland county which my wife traversed on her way to her friends in the north. This family, being heavily bribed. departed at once for America,—such imme- diate removal to a foreign clime being the para- mount condition of the compact. They have never since been heard of: but still, as I just now said, there is always the possibility, if not the proba- bility of some of them turning u 3 ‘And the name of this family ?” said Adolp! quickly. “Ido not know it,” replied the Karl can give the most satisfactory reason in —which is, that I never knewit. Ey late Countess intended to mention it, sl —which is just the same thing as if she } meant to tell me at all.” The old nobleman, having spoken in a se and deliberate manne” me time, was relapsing into his + ‘ity,—which on. served to aggravate 1. perienced by the wretch began to pace the library and vainly did he essay sufficiently for calm delibe blow which had struck him had been revealed slowly the effect was nevertheless him with a most cruel ab already said, the only glimr trated into the darknr the fact that his amou wear an incestuous *° hand, in what a posi ment an accident m foreseen circumstance prove to the whole wo rightful heir to ~anner ; Bou a - oO 5 " € feelings ex- The latter Aegis 6)(0)©) S (C(O)