LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 365, 13 August 1875, Page 4

LITERATURE.

THE ATHELSTONS OF MORTE d’ ATHELSTON.

{From the Dublin University Magazine.)

( Continued.) It w'as soon whispered through the silent house that the old lord was dead, anil a messenger from the village doctor summoned his great colleague to the Rady Rowenas room; she was in her own bed now, the oh housekeeper and Mademoiselle Auralie having carried her thither, the doctor rolling in a wisp the heavy train of silk and crepe, emblems of her almost widow s woe, which were wont to sweep so majestically behind her, following in the rear, She lay tossing uneasily now, her yellow hair pushed back in a tangled mass from her fair white brow, and a burning spot of red on each sunken cheek. Mademoiselle Auralie, who had been bathing her forehead with vinegar, ceased, and stood with Mrs Binny watching with anxious eyes, while Hit Gregory took out his watch, and felt the feeble but rapid PU ‘Fever has set in, Sir Gregory, I greatly fear,’whispered the village apothecary, in humble tones, almost as if it had been his fault; while Sir Gregory answered condescendingly, ‘Yes, brain very much affected, severe mental excitement, must be kept perfectly quiet. Is there a nurse anywhere near who could be procured at once ?’ ‘Not to-night I fear, sir,’ said the housekeeper, ‘but I will remain with her all night, and do whatever you may order. ? ‘ No chance of your falling asleep, eh ? The old woman flushed, but in spite of her inward indignation, answered respectfully, ‘ No, sir, I stood by her dying mother s bed for many a night, and never closed an eye, even when the hired nurse gave way. ‘ Oh, very well my good woman, very well, I shall remain all night, and come and see how you are getting on every hour or so ; there is not much to be done but to watch her carefully, and to moisten her lips occasionally with cold water. ’ Then Sir Gregory retired to the dining room, where he had refreshments, and made himself comfortable in a great arm-chair. And the weary invalid tossed and moaned, and muttered on her uneasy couch through the Tong hours of the night; and the sun struggling through the grey mists of the early dawn, found her tossing still, with the fever spots burning deeper and yet deeper on her hollow cheeks. Chapter VI. For six days and nights, the Earl lay in solemn state in the death chamber, covered with a gorgeous velvet pall, and heavy draperies of black, while his only child lay unconscious in the wild delirium of fever, never again to see that loving father, or to press one last kiss upon the clay-cold lips that were closed for evermore. With nodding plumes and sable scarfs, and all the pomp of funeral pride, they laid the old man in the great stone vault of the Athelstons. For more than a mile the long procession wound, carriage after carriage, some full, others with only the fat coachman and footman on the box, to testify the sympathy of the family they represented. Farmers in then' tax-carts, stout yeomen on horseback, comely maidens walking, a goodly sight to see ; and no doubt, even in her great grief and anxiety, the sight did afford poor old Mrs Binny some consolation, as she peeped under the blinds, denying herself the still greater gratification of sitting with her fellow-servants in the great mourning coach; but she could not leave her dear young lady, and so the first of the Athelstons for forty years was buried without her being there to see. Captain Athelston, now the Earl, lord of Morte d’Athelston, with ail its fair estates, came down from London, whither he had gone after the late lord’s death, and followed as chief mourner; Mr Broughton came, too, but still somehow the mystery of the young man’s disappearance never seemed to be satisfactorily accounted for, Lord Athelston himself being perfectly silent on the subject, and visibly shrinking from any reference whatsoever to the recent occurrences, notwithstanding a kind of account of the affair, and to a certain extent, a true one, was set afloat. Captain Athelston, so some one said, had fallen accidentally from the cliff, and been swept by the waves into the great cave; that upon coming to himself, he had walked a mile to the railway station, just cathing the up-train to London, where he arrived in the early morning; weak and ill, he had made his way to his lodgings, where Mr Broughton had joined him, who, immediately upon seeing his master’s state, had called in a doctor. For four weeks Captain Athelston had been laid up with violent rheumatic fever, during which time he never would allow his servant to make any other communication to the late lord than that which he had himself dictated upon the first day of his valet’s arrival But why he had so pertinaciously maintained this silence with his friends, why he had walked to the station and travelled to the station and travelled to London in wet clothes, instead of going to the Castle for dry, and finally, why he now never once visited his affianced wife, lying on the point of death, were things which remained a profound mystery even to Mr Broughton, who, however, would not acknowledge such a humiliating fact, and who, consequently, had recourse to an ominous shake of his head, and a tight shutting of his lips, thereby intimating that he would perish at the stake before he would betray his master’s confidence.

Lord Athelston returned to London after the funeral, and Mrs Binny, aided by a London nurse, tended, watched, and waited by her young mistress’s side, while the fever raged and burned, struggling hard with its victim, but not unto the death. Sir Gregory Powder paid periodical visits, and shook his head, and went his way; and the village doctor spoke despairingly of exhausted strength, and of a constitution worn out, and powerless to rally from the shock; albeit a change did come, and pale, weak, a wreck of her former self, with sunken eyes and faded beauty, the Lady Ilowena rose a conqueror for this time in the battle between life and death. Still, however, the victory gained seemed a very doubtful one, and weary weeks of weakness, and it almost seemed of mental as well as well as physical prostration, had to be passed before she showed any sign of returning vigour. She never spoke of the past, she asked no questions, and no one could tell save by her silence, and her never asking for him, if she were even aware of her father’s death. Ol the present lord’s existence she apparently hnew nothing whatever, and the country

doctor, to whose care she was now entirely entrusted, adhered strictly to Sir Gregory’s parting admonitions, and forbade all exciting topics of conversation; but seemingly the lady herself had no desire to speak, and so almost in complete silence each weary day wore on.

In the meantime Lord Athelston cogitated in his London lodgings upon what was best to be done. The late lord left no will, and almost no ready money, having, when all was arranged for his daughter’s marriage, drawn upon his bankers, in order to pay oil’ the remaining debts upon the house. Upon the supposed death of his nephew he had either believed that everything would, as a matter of course, go to his daughter, or he had put off the making of his will from day to day, with a morbid horror of the subject, thinking that there was time enough to look into his affairs and see how matters really stood; and so no will was made, and at last the old man died, leaving his paupered child a pensioner on the bounty of the cousin whom she had outraged. Ah ! well for him, poor doating father! that he never knew how terribly. ‘ He did not know all, thank God for that, though he knew that she and I had parted angrily in spite of her declaration, how she deceived him; but I cannot obey his dying wish, poor old man.’ To be continued.