Matilda Montgomerie Or The Prophecy Fulfilled Part 29

Gerald quitted the sofa, took up the light, and traversing the room raised the gauze curtain that covered the painting. It was indeed the portrait of the deceased Major, habited in full uniform.

"How strange," he mused, "that so vague an impression should have been conveyed to my mind last night, when now I recal without difficulty those well remembered features," Gerald sighed as he recollected under what different circ.u.mstances he had first beheld that face, and dropping the curtain once more, crossed the room and flung himself at the side of Matilda.

"For whom did you take it, if not for Major Montgomerie?" asked the American after a pause, and again her full dark eye was bent on his.

"Nay, I scarcely know myself, yet I had thought it had been the portrait of him I have sworn to destroy."

There was a sudden change of expression in the countenance of Matilda, but it speedily pa.s.sed away, and she said with a faint smile,

"Whether is it more natural to find pleasure in gazing on the features of those who have loved, or those who have injured us?"

"Then whose was the miniature on which you so intently gazed, on that eventful night at Detroit?" asked Gerald.

"That," said Matilda quickly, and paling as she spoke--"that was _his_--I gazed on it only the more strongly to detest the original--to confirm the determination I had formed to destroy him."

"If _then_," returned the youth, "why not _now_--may I not see that portrait, Matilda? May I not acquire some knowledge of the unhappy man whose blood will so shortly stain my soul?"

"Impossible," she replied, "The miniature I have since destroyed. While I thought the original within reach of my revenge, I could bear to gaze upon it, but no sooner had I been disappointed in my aim, than it became loathsome to me as the sight of some venomous reptile, and I destroyed it." This was said with undisguised bitterness.

Gerald sighed deeply. Again he encircled the waist of his companion and one of her fair, soft, velvet hands was pressed in his.

"Matilda," he observed, "deep indeed must be the wrong that would prompt the heart of woman to so terrible a hatred. When we last parted, you gave me but an indistinct and general outline of the injury you had sustained. Tell me now all--tell me everything," he continued with energy, "that can infuse a portion of the hatred which fills your soul into mine, that my hand may be firmer--my heart more hardened to the deed."

"The story of my wrongs must be told in a few words, for I cannot bear to linger on it," commenced the American, again turning deadly pale, while her quivering lips and trembling voice betrayed the excitement of her feelings. The monster was the choice of my heart--judge how much so when I tell you that, confiding in _his_ honor, and in the a.s.surance that our union would take place immediately, I surrendered to him _mine_. A constant visitor at Major Montgomerie's, whose brother officer he was, we had ample opportunities of being together. We were looked upon in society as affianced lovers, and in fact it was the warmest wish of Major Montgomerie that we should be united. A day had even been fixed for the purpose, and it wanted, but eight and forty hours of the time, when an occurrence took place which blasted all prospect of our union for ever.

"I have already told you, I think," resumed Matilda, "that this little temple had been exclusively erected for my own use. Here however my false lover had constant ingress, and being furnished with a key, was in the habit of introducing himself at hours when having taken leave of the family for the evening, he was supposed by Major Montgomerie and the servants to have retired to his own home. On the occasion to which I have just alluded, I had understood from him some business, connected with our approaching marriage, would detain him in the town to an hour too advanced to admit of his paying me his usual visit. Judge my surprise, and indeed my consternation, when at a late hour of the night I heard the lock of the door turn, and saw my lover appear at the entrance."

There was a short pause, and Matilda again proceeded.

"Scarcely had he shown himself, when he again vanished, closing the door with startling violence. I sprang from the sofa and flew forth after him, but in vain. He had already departed, and with a heart sinking under an insurmountable dread of coming evil, I once more entered the temple, and throwing myself upon the sofa, gave vent to my feelings in an agony of tears."

"But why his departure, and whence your consternation?" asked Gerald, whose curiosity had been deeply excited.

"I was not alone," resumed Matilda, in a deep and solemn voice. "When he entered, I was hanging on the neck of another."

Gerald gave a half start of dismay, his arm dropped from the waist of the American, and he breathed heavily and quickly.

Matilda remarked the movement, and a sickly and half scornful smile pa.s.sed over her pale features. "Before we last parted, Gerald, I told you, not only that I was in no way connected with Major Montgomerie by blood, but that I was the child of obscure parents."

"What then?"

"The man on whose neck I hung was my own father."

"It was Desborough!" said the youth, with an air and in a voice of extreme anguish.

"It was," returned Matilda, her face crimsoning as she reluctantly acknowledged the parentage. "But how knew you it?"

"Behold the proof!" exclaimed Gerald, with uncontrollable bitterness, as he drew from his bosom the portrait of a child which, from its striking resemblance, could be taken for no other than her to whom he now presented it.

"This is indeed mine," said Matilda, mournfully. "It was taken for me, as I have since understood, in the very year when I was laid an orphan and a stranger at the door of that good man, who, calling himself my uncle, has been to me through life a more than father. Thank G.o.d," she pursued, with great animation, her large, dark eyes upturned, and sparkling through the tears that forced themselves upwards, "thank G.o.d, he at least lives not to suffer through the acts of his adopted child.

Where got you this, Gerald?" she proceeded, when, after a short struggle she had succeeded in overcoming her emotion.

Gerald, who in his narrative of events, had purposely omitted all mention of Desborough, now detailed the occurrence at the hut, and concluded what the reader already knows, by stating that he had observed and severed from the settler, as he slept heavily on the floor, the portrait in question, which, added to the previous declaration of Matilda as to the obscurity of her birth, connected with other circ.u.mstances on board his gun-boat, on his trip to Buffalo, had left an impression little short of certainty that he was indeed the father of the woman whom he so wildly loved.

For some minutes after this explanation there was a painful silence, which neither seemed anxious to interrupt. At length Gerald asked:

"But what had a circ.u.mstance, so capable of explanation, to do with the breaking off of your engagement, Matilda? or did he, more proud--perhaps I should say less debased--than myself, shrink from uniting his fate with the daughter of a murderer?"

"True," said Matilda, musingly; "you have said, I think, that he slew your father. This thirst for revenge, then, would seem hereditary.

_That_ is the only, because it is the n.o.blest, inheritance I would owe to such a being."

"But your affair with your lover, Matilda--how terminated that?"

demanded Gerald, with increasing paleness and in a faltering tone.

"In his falsehood and my disgrace. Early the next morning I sent to him, and bade him seek me in the temple at the usual hour. He came, but it was only to blast my hopes--to disappoint the pa.s.sion of the woman who doated upon him. He accused me of vile intercourse with a slave, and almost maddened me with ign.o.ble reproaches. It was in vain that I swore to him most solemnly, the man he had seen was my father--a being whom motives of prudence compelled me to receive in private, even though my heart abhorred and loathed the relations.h.i.+p between us. He treated my explanation with deriding contempt, bidding me either produce that father within twenty-four hours, or find some easier fool to persuade, that one wearing the hue and features of the black, could by human possibility be the parent of a white woman. Again I explained the seeming incongruity, by urging that the hasty and imperfect view he had taken was of a mask, imitating the features of a negro, which my father had brought with him as a disguise, and which he had hastily resumed on hearing the noise of the key in the door. I even admitted as an excuse for seeing him thus clandestinely, the lowly origin of my father and the base occupation he followed of a treacherous spy, who, residing in the Canadas, came, for the mere consideration of gold, to sell political information to the enemies of the country that gave him asylum and protection. I added that his visit to me was to extort money, under a threat of publis.h.i.+ng our consanguinity, and that dread of his (my lover's) partiality being decreased by the disclosure, had induced me to throw my arms, in the earnestness of entreaty, upon his neck, and implore his secresy; promising to reward him generously for his silence.

I moreover urged him, if he still doubted, to make inquiry of Major Montgomerie, and ascertain from him whether I was not indeed the niece of his adoption, and not of his blood. Finally, I humbled myself in the dust, and, like a fawning reptile, clasped his knees in my arms, entreating mercy and justice. But no," and the voice of Matilda grew deeper, and her form became more erect; "neither mercy nor justice dwelt in that hard heart, and he spurned me rudely from him. Nothing short of the production of him he persisted in calling my vile paramour, would satisfy him; but my ign.o.ble parent had received from me the reward of his secresy, and he had departed once more to the Canadas. And thus,"

pursued Matilda, her voice trembling with emotion, "was I made the victim of the most diabolical suspicion that ever haunted the breast of man."

Gerald was greatly affected. His pa.s.sion for Matilda seemed to increase in proportion with his sympathy for her wrongs, and he clasped her energetically to his heart.

"Finding him resolute in attaching to me the debasing imputation,"

pursued the American, "it suddenly flashed upon my mind that this was but a pretext to free himself from his engagement, and that he was glad to accomplish his object through the first means that offered. Oh, Gerald, I cannot paint the extraordinary change that came over my feelings at this thought! much less give you an idea of the rapidity with which that change was effected. One moment before, and, although degraded and unjustly accused, I had loved him with all the ardor of which a woman's heart is capable: _now_ I hated, loathed, detested him; and had he sunk at my feet, I would have spurned him from me with indignation and scorn. I could not but be conscious that the very act of having yielded myself up to him, had armed my lover with the power to accuse me of infidelity, and the more I lingered on the want of generosity such a suspicion implied, the more rooted became my dislike, the more profound my contempt for him, who could thus repay so great a proof of confidingness and affection.

"It was even while I lay grovelling at his feet," pursued Matilda, after a momentary pause, during which she evinced intense agitation, "that this sudden change (excited by this most unheard-of injustice) came over my mind--I rose and stood before him; then asked, in a voice in which no evidence of pa.s.sion could be traced, what excuse he meant to make to Major Montgomerie for having thus broken off his engagement. He started at my sudden calmness of manner, but said that he thought it might be as well for my sake to name what I had already stated to him in regard to the obscurity of my birth, as a plea for his seceding from the connexion. I told him that, under all the circ.u.mstances, I thought this most advisable, and then, pointing to the door, bade him be gone, and never, under any pretext whatever, again to insult me with his presence.

When he had departed, I burst into a paroxysm of tears; but they were tears shed not for the loss of him I now despised, but of wild sorrow at my unmerited degradation. That conflict over, the weakness had for ever pa.s.sed away, and never, since that hour, has tear descended cheek of mine, a.s.sociated with the recollection of the villain who had thus dared to trifle with a heart the full extent of whose pa.s.sions he has yet to learn."

There was a trembling of the whole person of Matilda which told how much her feelings had been excited by the recollection of what she narrated, and Gerald, as he gazed upon her beautiful form, could not but wonder at the apathy of the man who could thus have heartlessly thrown it from him for ever.

"Had the injury terminated here," resumed Matilda, "bitter as my humiliation was, my growing dislike for him who had so ungenerously inflicted it, might have enabled me to endure it. But, not satisfied with destroying the happiness of her who had sacrificed all for his sake, my perfidious lover had yet a blow in reserve for me, compared with which his antecedent conduct was mercy. Gerald," she continued, as she pressed his arm with a convulsive grasp, "will you believe that the monster had the infamy to confide to one of his most intimate a.s.sociates, that his rupture with me was occasioned by his having discovered me in the arms of a slave--of one of those vile beings communion with whom my soul in any sense abhorred? How shall I describe the terrible feeling that came over my insulted heart at that moment.

But no, no--description were impossible. This a.s.sociate--this friend of his--dared on the very strength of this infamous imputation, to pollute my ear with his disrespectful pa.s.sion, and when, in a transport of contempt and anger, I spurned him from me, he taunted me with that which I believed confined to the breast, as it had been engendered only in the suspicion, of my betrayer. Oh! if it be dreadful to be accused by those whom we have loved in intimacy, how much more is it to know that they have not had even the common humanity to conceal our supposed weakness from the world. From that moment revenge took possession of my soul, and I swore that my destroyer should perish by the hand of her whose innocence and whose peace he had blasted for ever.

"Shortly after this event," resumed Matilda, "my base lover was ordered to join his regiment, then stationed at Detroit. A year pa.s.sed away, and during that period my mind pondered unceasingly on the means of accomplis.h.i.+ng my purpose of revenge; and so completely did I devote myself to a cool and unprejudiced examination of the subject, that what the vulgar crowd term guilt, appeared to me plain virtue. On the war breaking out, Major Montgomerie was also ordered to Detroit, and thither I entreated him to suffer me to accompany him. He consented, for knowing nothing of the causes which had turned my love into gall, he thought it not improbable that a meeting with my late lover might be productive of a removal of his prejudices, and our consequent reunion. Little did he dream that it was with a view to plunge a dagger into my destroyer's false heart, that I evinced so much eagerness to undertake so long and so disagreeable a Journey.

"Little more remains to be added," pursued Matilda, as she fixed her dark eyes with a softened expression on those of Gerald, "since with the occurrences there you are already sufficiently acquainted. Yet there is one point upon which I would explain myself. When I first became your prisoner, my mind had been worked up to the highest pitch of determination, and in my captor I at first beheld but an evil genius who had interposed himself between me and my just revenge, when on the very eve of its consummation. Hence my petulance and impatience while in the presence of your n.o.ble General."

"And whence that look, Matilda, that peculiar glance, which you bestowed upon me even within the same hour?"

"Because in your frank and fearless mien I saw that manly honor and fidelity, the want of which had undone me."

"Then if so, why the cold, the mortifying reserve, you manifested when we met at dinner at my uncle's table?"

"Because I had also recollected that, degraded as I was, I ought not to seek the love of an honorable man, and that to win you to my interest would be of no avail, as, separated by the national quarrel, you could not by any possibility be near to aid me in my plans."

"Then," said Gerald reproachfully, "it was merely to make me an instrument of vengeance that you sought me. Unkind Matilda!"

"Nay, Gerald--recollect, that then I had not learnt to know you as I do now--I will not deny that when first I saw you, a secret instinct told me you were one whom I would have deeply loved had I never loved before; but betrayed and disappointed as I had been, I looked upon all men with a species of loathing--my kind, good, excellent more than father, excepted--and yet, Gerald, there were moments when I wished even him dead" (Gerald started)--"yes! dead--because I knew the anguish that would crush his heart, if he should ever learn that the false brand of the a.s.sa.s.sin had been affixed to the brow of his adopted child." Matilda sighed profoundly, and then resumed. "Later, however, when the absence of its object had in some degree abated the keenness of my thirst for revenge, and when more frequent intercourse had made me acquainted with the generous qualities of your mind, I loved you, Gerald, although I would not avow it, with a fervor I had never believed myself a second time capable of entertaining."

Again the countenance of Matilda was radiant with the expression just alluded to by her lover. Gerald gazed at her as though his very being hung upon the continuance of that fascinating influence, and again he clasped her to his heart.