The Heroine

Accordingly, at the celebrated hour of midnight, I took up the taper, and unbolting my door, stole softly along the lobby.

I stopped before one of our family pictures. It was of a lady, pale, pensive, and interesting; and whose eyes, which appeared to look at me, were sky-blue, like my own. That was sufficient.

'Gentle image of my departed mother!' ejaculated I, kneeling before it, 'may thy sacred ashes repose in peace!'

I then faintly chaunted a fragment of a hymn, and advanced. No sigh met my listening ear, no moan amidst the pauses of the gust.

With a trembling hand I opened a door, and found myself in a spacious chamber. It was magnificently furnished, and a piano stood in one corner of it. Intending to run my fingers over the keys, I walked forward; till a low rustling in that direction made me pause. But how shall I paint to you my horror, my dismay, when I heard the mysterious instrument on a sudden begin to sound; not loudly, but (more terrible still!) with a hurried murmur; as if all its chords were agitated at once, by the hand of some invisible demon.

I did not faint, I did not shriek; but I stood transfixed to the spot. The music ceased. I recovered courage and advanced. The music began again; and again I paused.

What! should I not lift the simple lid of a mere piano, after Emily's having drawn aside the mysterious veil, and discovered the terrific wax doll underneath it?

Emulation, enthusiasm, curiosity prompted me, and I rushed undaunted to the piano. Louder and more rapid grew the notes – my desperate hand raised the cover, and beneath it, I beheld a sight to me the most hideous and fearful upon earth, – a mouse!

I screamed and dropped the candle, which was instantly extinguished. The mouse ran by me; I flew towards the door, but missed it, and fell against a table; nor was it till after I had made much clamour, that I got out of the room. As I groped my way through the corridor, I heard voices and people in confusion above stairs; and presently lights appeared. The whole house was in a tumult.

'They are coming to murder me at last!' cried I, as I regained my chamber, and began heaping chairs and tables against the door. Presently several persons arrived at it, and called my name. I said not a word. They called louder, but still I was silent; till at length they burst open the door, and Lady Gwyn, with some of her domestics, entered. They found me kneeling in an attitude of supplication.

'Spare, oh, spare me!' cried I.

'My dear,' said her ladyship, 'no harm shall happen you.'

'Alas, then,' exclaimed I, 'what portends this nocturnal visit? this assault on my chamber? all these dreadful faces? Was it not enough, unhappy woman, that thy husband attempted my life, but must thou, too, thirst for my blood?'

Lady Gwyn whispered a servant, who left the room; the rest raised, and put me to bed; while I read her ladyship such a lecture on murder, as absolutely astonished her.

The servant soon after returned with a cup.

'Here, my love,' said her ladyship, 'is a composing draught for you. Drink it, and you will be quite well to-morrow.'

I took it with gladness, for I felt my brain strangely bewildered by the terror that I had just undergone. Indeed I have sometimes experienced the same sensation before, and it is extremely disagreeable.

They then left a candle in my room, and departed.

My mind still remains uneasy; but I have barricaded the door, and am determined on not undressing. I believe, however, I must now throw myself on the bed; for the draught has made me sleepy.

Adieu.

LETTER XXVIII

O Biddy Grimes, I am poisoned! That fatal draught last night – why did I drink it? – I am in dreadful agony. When this reaches you, all will be over. – But I would not die without letting you know.

Farewell for ever, my poor Biddy!

I bequeath you all my ornaments.

LETTER XXIX

Yes, my friend, you may well stare at receiving another letter from me; and at hearing that I have not been poisoned in the least!

I must unfold the mystery. When I woke this morning, after my nocturnal perambulation, I found my limbs so stiff, and such pains in all my bones, that I was almost unable to move. Judge of my horror and despair; for it instantly flashed across my mind, that Lady Gwyn had poisoned me! My whole frame underwent a sudden revulsion; I grew sick, and rang the bell with violence; nor ceased an instant, till half the servants, and Lady Gwyn herself, had burst into my chamber.

'If you have a remnant of mercy left,' cried I, 'send for a doctor!'

'What is the matter, my dear,' said her ladyship.

'Only that you have poisoned me, my dear,' cried I. 'Dear, indeed! I presume your ladyship imagines, that the liberty you have taken with my life, authorizes all other freedoms. Oh, what will become of me!'

'Do, tell me,' said she, 'how are you unwell?'

'I am sick to death,' cried I. 'I have pains in all my limbs, and I shall be a corpse in half an hour. Oh, indeed, you have done the business completely. Lady Eleanor Gwyn, I do here, on my death-bed, and with all my senses about me, accuse you, before your domestics, of having administered a deadly potion to me last night.'

'Go for the physician,' said her ladyship to a servant.

'Well may you feel alarmed,' cried I. 'Your life will pay the forfeit of mine.'

'But you need not feel alarmed,' said her ladyship, 'for really, what I gave you last night, was merely to make you sleep.'

'Yes,' cried I, 'the sleep of the grave! O Lady Gwyn, what have I done to you, to deserve death at your hands? And in such a manner too! Had you even shewn so much regard to custom and common decency, as to have offered me the potion in a bowl or a goblet, there might have been some little palliation. But to add insult to injury; – to trick me out of my life with a paltry tea-cup; – to poison a girl of my pretensions, as vulgarly as you would a rat; – no, no, Madam, this is not to be pardoned!'

Her ladyship again began assuring me that I had taken nothing more than a soporific; but I would not hear her, and at length, I sent her and the domestics out of the chamber, that I might prepare for my approaching end.

How to prepare was the question; for I had never thought of death seriously, heroines so seldom die. Should I follow the beautiful precedent of the dying Heloise, who called her friends about her, got her chamber sprinkled with flowers and perfumes, and then gave up the ghost, in a state of elegant inebriation with home-made wine, which she passed for Spanish? Alas! I had no friends – not even Stuart, at hand; flowers and perfumes I would not condescend to beg from my murderess; and as for wine, I could not abide the thoughts of it in a morning.

But amidst these reflections, a more serious and less agreeable subject intruded itself upon me, – the thoughts of a future state. I strove to banish it, but it would not be repulsed. Yet surely, said I, as a heroine, I am a pattern of perfect virtue; and therefore, I must be happy hereafter. But was virtue sufficient? At church (seldom as I had frequented it, in consequence of its sober ceremonies, so unsuited to my taste,) I remembered to have heard a very different doctrine. There I had heard, that we cannot learn to do right without the Divine aid, and that to propitiate it, we must make ourselves acquainted with those principles of religion, which enable us to prefer duteous prayers, and to place implicit reliance on the power and goodness of the Deity. Alas, I knew nothing of religion, except from novels; and in these, though the devotion of heroines is sentimental and graceful to a degree, it never influences their acts, or appears connected with their moral duties. It is so speculative and generalized, that it would answer the Greek or the Persian church, as well as the christian; and none but the picturesque and enthusiastic part is presented; such as kissing a cross, chanting a vesper with elevated eyes, or composing a well-worded prayer.

The more I thought, the more horrible appeared my situation. I felt a confused idea, that I had led a worthless, if not a criminal life; that I had left myself without a friend in this world, and had not sought to make one in the next. I became more and more agitated. I tried to turn my thoughts back to the plan of expiring with grace, but all in vain. I then wrote the note to you; then endeavoured to pray: nothing could calm or divert my mind. The pains grew worse, I felt sick at heart, my palate was parched, and I now expected that every breath would be my last. My soul recoiled from the thought, and my brain became a confused chaos. Hideous visions of eternity rushed into my mind; I lay shivering, groaning, and abandoned to the most deplorable despair.

In this state the physician found me. O what a joyful relief, when he declared, that my disorder was nothing but a violent rheumatism, contracted, it seems, by my fall into the water the morning before! Never was transport equal to mine; and I assured him that he should have a place in my memoirs.

He prescribed for me; but remarked, that I might remain ill a whole month, or be quite well in a few days.

'Positively,' said her ladyship, 'you must be quite well in four; for then my ball comes on; and I mean to make you the most conspicuous figure at it. I have great plans for you, I assure you.'

I thanked her ladyship, and begged pardon for having been so giddy as to call her a murderess; while she laughed at my mistake, and made quite light of it. Noble woman! But I dare say magnanimity is our family virtue.

No sooner had I ceased to be miserable about leaving the world, than I became almost as much so about losing the ball. To lose it from any cause whatever, was sufficiently provoking; but to lose it by so gross a disorder as a rheumatism, was, indeed, dreadful. Now, had I even some pale, genteel, sofa-reclining illness, curable by hartshorn, I would bless my kind stars, and drink that nauseous cordial, from morning even unto night. For disguise thyself as thou wilt, hartshorn, still thou art a bitter draught; and though heroines in all novels have been made to drink of thee, thou art no less bitter on that account.

Being on this subject, I have to lament, that I am utterly unacquainted with those refined ailments, which every girl that I read of, meets with, as things of course. The consequence is my wanting that beauty, which, touched with the languid delicacy of illness, gains from sentiment what it loses in bloom; so that really this horse's constitution of mine is a terrible disadvantage to me. I know, had I the power of inventing my own indispositions, I would strike out something far beyond even the hectics and head-aches of my fair predecessors. I believe there is not a sigh-fever; but I would fall ill of a scald from a lover's tear, or a classic scratch from the thorn of a rose.

Adieu.

LETTER XXX

This morning I awoke almost free from pain; and towards evening, I was able to appear in the drawing-room. Lady Gwyn had asked several of her friends to tea, so that I passed a delightful afternoon; the charm, admiration, and astonishment of all.

On retiring for the night to my chamber, I found this note on my toilette, and read it with a beating heart.

To the Lady Cherubina.

'Your mother lives! and is confined in one of the subterranean vaults belonging to the villa. At midnight you will hear a tapping at your door. Open it, and two men in masks will appear outside. They will blindfold, and conduct you to her. You will know her by her striking likeness to her picture in the gallery. Be silent, courageous, and circumspect.

'An unknown Friend.'

What a flood of new feelings gushed upon my soul, as I laid down the billet, and lifted my filial eyes to heaven! I was about to behold my mother. Mother – endearing name! I pictured to myself, that unfortunate lady, stretched on a mattrass of straw, her eyes sunken in their sockets, yet still retaining a portion of their wonted fire; her frame emaciated, her voice feeble, her hand damp and chill. Fondly did I depict our meeting – our embrace; she gently pushing me from her, to gaze on all the lineaments of my countenance, and then baring my temple to search for the mole. All, all is convincing; and she calls me the softened image of my noble father!

Two tedious hours I waited in extreme anxiety, till at length the clock struck twelve. My heart beat responsive, and in a few moments after, I heard the promised signal at my door. I unbolted it, and beheld two men in masks and cloaks. They blindfolded me, and each taking an arm, led me along. Not a word passed. We traversed several suites of apartments, ascended flights of stairs, descended others; now went this way, now that; obliquely, circularly, angularly; till I began actually to imagine we were all the time in one spot.

At length my conductors stopped.

'Unlock the postern gate,' whispered one, 'while I light a torch.'

'We are betrayed!' said the other, 'for this is the wrong key.'

'Then thou beest the traitor,' cried the first.

'Thou liest, dost lie, and art lying!' cried the second.

'Take that!' exclaimed the first. A groan followed, and the wretch dropped to the ground.

'You have murdered him!' cried I, sickening with horror.

'I have only hamstrung him, my lady,' said the fellow. 'He will be lame for life.'

'Treason!' shouted the wounded man.

His companion burst open the gate; a sudden current of wind met us, and we fled along with incredible speed, while low moans and smothered shrieks were heard at either side of us.

'Gracious heaven, where are we?' cried I.

'In the cavern of death!' said my conductor, 'famous for rats and banditti.'

On a sudden innumerable footsteps echoed behind us. We ran swifter.

'Fire!' cried a ferocious accent, almost at my ear; and in a moment several pistols were discharged.

I stopped, unable to move, breathe, or speak.

'I am wounded all over, right and left, fore and aft!' cried my conductor.

'Am I bleeding?' said I, feeling myself with my hands.

'No, blessed St. Anthony be praised!' answered he; 'and now all is safe, for we are at the cell, and the banditti have turned into the wrong passage.'

He stopped, and unlocked a door.

'Enter,' said he, 'and behold your unhappy mother!'

He led me forward, took the bandage from my eyes, and retiring, locked the door upon me.

Agitated already by the terrors of my dangerous expedition, I felt additional horror on finding myself in a dismal cell, lighted with a lantern; where, at a small table, sat a woman suffering under a corpulency unparalleled in the memoirs of human monsters. She was clad in sackcloth, her head was swathed in linen, and had grey locks on it, like horses' tails. Hundreds of frogs were leaping about the floor; a piece of mouldy bread, a mug of water, and a manuscript, lay on the table; some straw, strewn with dead snakes and skulls, occupied one corner, and the farther side of the cell was concealed behind a black curtain.

I stood at the door, doubtful, and afraid to advance; while the prodigious prisoner sat examining me from head to foot.

At last I summoned courage to say, 'I fear, Madam, I am an intruder here. I have certainly been shewn into the wrong room.'

'It is, it is my own, my only daughter, my Cherubina!' cried she, with a tremendous voice. 'Come to my maternal arms, thou living picture of the departed Theodore!'

'Why, Ma'am,' said I, 'I would with great pleasure, but I am afraid that – Oh, Madam, indeed, indeed, I am quite sure you cannot be my mother!'

'For shame!' cried she. 'Why not?'

'Why, Madam,' answered I, 'my mother was of a thin habit; as her picture proves.'

'And so was I once,' said she. 'This deplorable plumpness is owing to want of exercise. You see, however, that I retain all my former paleness.'

'Pardon me,' said I, 'for I must say that your face is a rich scarlet.'

'And is this our tender meeting?' cried she. 'After ten years' imprisonment, to be disowned by my daughter, and taunted with sarcastic insinuations against my face? Here is a pretty joke! Tell me, girl, will you embrace me, or will you not?'

'Indeed, Madam,' answered I, 'I will embrace you presently.'

'Presently!' cried she.

'Yes,' said I, 'depend upon it I will. Only let me get over the first shock.'

'Shock!' vociferated she.

Dreading her violence, and feeling myself bound to do the duties of a daughter, I kneeled at her feet, and said:

'Ever excellent, ever exalted author of my being, I beg thy maternal blessing!'

My mother raised me from the ground, and hugged me to her heart, with such cruel vigour, that almost crushed, I cried out stoutly, and struggled for release.

'And now,' said she, relaxing her grasp, 'let us talk over our wrongs. This manuscript is a faithful narrative of my life, previous to my marriage. It was written by my female confidant, to divert her grief, during the long and alarming illness of her Dutch pug. Take it to your chamber, and blot it with your tears, my love.'

I put the scroll in my bosom.

'Need I shock your gentle feelings,' continued she, 'by relating my subsequent story? Suffice it, that as soon as you were stolen, I went mad about the woods, till I was caught; and on recovering my senses, I found myself in this infernal dungeon. Look at that calendar of small sticks, notched all over with my dismal days and nights. Ten long years I have eaten nothing but bread. Oh, ye favourite pullets, oh ye inimitable apple-pies, shall I never, never, taste you more? Oft too, my reason wanders. Oft I see figures that rise like furies, to torment me. I see them when asleep; I see them now – now!'

She sat in a fixed attitude of horror, while her straining eyes moved slowly round, as if they followed something. I stood shuddering, and hating her more and more every moment.

'Gentle companion of my confinement!' cried she, apostrophizing a huge toad that she pulled out of her bosom; 'dear, spotted fondling; thou, next to my Cherubina, art worthy of my love. Embrace each other, my friends.' And she put the hideous pet into my hand. I screamed and dropped it.

'Oh!' cried I, in a passion of despair, 'what madness possessed me to undertake this execrable enterprize!' and I began beating with my hand against the door.

'Do you want to leave your poor mother?' said she, in a whimpering tone.

'Oh! I am so frightened!' said I.

'You will spend the night here, however,' cried she; 'and probably your whole life too; for no doubt the ruffian who brought you hither was employed by Lady Gwyn to entrap you.'

When I heard this terrible suggestion, my blood ran cold, and I began crying bitterly.

'Come, my love!' said my mother, 'and let me lull thee to repose on my soft bosom. What is the world to us? Here in each other's society, we will enjoy all that affection, all that virtue can confer. Come, my daughter, and let me clasp thee to my heart once more!'

'Ah,' cried I, 'spare me!'

'What!' exclaimed she, 'do you spurn my proffered embrace?'

'Dear, no, Madam,' answered I. 'But – but you squeeze one so!'

My mother made a huge stride towards me; then stood groaning and rolling her eyes.

'Help!' cried I, half frantic; 'help! help!'

I was stopped by a suppressed titter of infernal laughter, as if from many demons; and on looking towards the black curtain, whence the sound came, I saw it agitated; and about twenty terrific faces appeared peeping through slits in it, and making grins of a most diabolical nature. I hid my face in my hands.

''Tis the banditti!' cried my mother.

As she spoke, the door opened, a bandage was flung over my eyes, and I was hurried off, almost senseless, in some one's arms; till at length, I found myself alone in my own chamber.

Such was the detestable adventure of to-night. Oh, Biddy, that I should have lived to meet this mother of mine! How different from the mothers that other heroines contrive to rummage out in northern turrets and ruined chapels! I am out of all patience. Liberate her I will, of course, and make a suitable provision for her, when I get possession of my property, but positively, never will I sleep under the same roof with – (ye powers of filial love forgive me!) such a living mountain of human horror.

Adieu.

LETTER XXXI

While her ladyship is busied in preparing for the ball of to-morrow night, I find time to copy my mother's memoirs for your perusal. Were she herself elegant and interesting, perhaps I might think them so too; and if I dislike them, it must be because I dislike her; for the plot, sentiment, diction, and pictures of nature, differ little from what we find in other novels.

Il Castello di Grimgothico, OR MEMOIRS OF LADY HYSTERICA BELAMOURA NOVEL By Anna Maria Marianne Matilda Pottingen, Author of the Bloody Bodkin, Sonnets on most of the Planets, &c. &c. &c

Oh, Sophonisba, Sophonisba, oh!

Thompson.

CHAPTER I

Blow, blow, thou wintry wind. – Shakespeare.

Blow, breezes, blow. – MooreA Storm. – A rustic Repast. – An Alarm. – Uncommon readiness in a Child. – An inundated Stranger. – A Castle out of repair. – An impaired Character

It was on a nocturnal night in autumnal October; the wet rain fell in liquid quantities, and the thunder rolled in an awful and Ossianly manner. The lowly, but peaceful inhabitants of a small, but decent cottage, were just sitting down to their homely, but wholesome supper, when a loud knocking at the door alarmed them. Bertram armed himself with a ladle. 'Lackadaisy!' cried old Margueritone, and little Billy seized the favourable moment to fill his mouth with meat. Innocent fraud! happy childhood!

The father's lustre and the mother's bloom. – Thompson.

Bertram then opened the door; when lo! pale, breathless, dripping, and with a look that would have shocked the Humane Society, a beautiful female tottered into the room.

'Lackadaisy, Ma'am,' said Margueritone, 'are you wet?'

'Wet!' exclaimed the fair unknown, wringing a rivulet of rain from the corner of her robe; 'O ye gods, wet!'

Margueritone felt the justice, the gentleness of the reproof, and turned the subject, by recommending a glass of spirits.

Spirit of my sainted sire.

The stranger sipped, shook her head, and fainted. Her hair was long and dark, and the bed was ready; so since she seems in distress, we will leave her there awhile; lest we should betray an ignorance of the world, in appearing not to know the proper time for deserting people.

On the rocky summit of a beetling precipice, whose base was lashed by the angry Atlantic, stood a moated, and turreted structure, called Il Castello di Grimgothico.

As the northern tower had remained uninhabited since the death of its late lord, Henriques De Violenci, lights and figures were, par consequence, observed in it at midnight. Besides, the black eyebrows of the present baron had a habit of meeting for several years, and quelquefois, he paced the picture-gallery with a hurried step. These circumstances combined, there could be no doubt of his having committed murder. Accordingly, all avoided him, except the Count Stiletto, and the hectic, but heavenly Hysterica. The former, he knew, was the most pale-faced, flagitious character in the world. But birds of a plume associate. The latter shall be presented to the reader in the next chapter.

CHAPTER II

'Oh!' – Milton.

'Ah!' – Pope.

A History. – a Mystery. – An original Reflection on Death. – The Heroine described. – The Landscape not described. – An awful Reason given

One evening, the Baroness De Violenci, having sprained her left leg in the composition of an ecstatic ode, resolved not to go to Lady Penthesilea Rouge's rout. While she was sitting alone, at a plate of prawns, the footman entered with a basket, which had just been left for her.

'Lay it down, John,' said she, touching his forehead with her fork.

That gay-hearted young fellow did as he was desired, and capered out of the room.

Judge of her astonishment, when she found, on opening it, a little cherub of a baby sleeping within.

An oaken cross, with 'Hysterica,' inscribed in chalk, was appended at its neck, and a mark, like a bruised gooseberry, added interest to its elbow.