University of Virginia Library

21. CHAPTER XXI.

The marquis drew near, and seating himself respectfully
and tenderly by the side of Antonia,
said,—

“My sweet girl, hear me. Among all the miseries
which life has brought me, I have felt none
more bitterly than my wrongs at your hands.”

“Your wrongs, marquis!”

“Ay, fair girl, mine! Why do you hate—why
do you slander me? I have never done you injury.
I have watched over you even when you slept. And
this villain, whose crimes I. have unmasked, would
have succeeded perhaps in bearing you off—you
and your fortune—but for my care.”

“I thank your care gratefully.”

“Antonia, I love you!”

Antonia was silent.

“Father Ambrose has related to you your father's
dying wish, that you should not remain in this bad
world without a proper protector. See, scarcely
are his venerable bones in the earth, ere his sagacity
is apparent; and the basest and subtlest of
impostors, in the form of youth, beauty, intelligence,
and virtue, rises at once to insnare your
young affections.”

He paused. Antonia was yet silent.

“You revere your father's memory. It was his
last wish that you should be sheltered beneath my
care, not only as a ward, but as a wife.”

She looked up into his dark face, cast down her
eyes, and trembled.

“I know I am not a gallant like the idle butterflies
of the day,” continued Alezzi; “but I trust I
know what tenderness you deserve from a husband.
This youth—this Montfort, or Leslie, for he has
names a plenty—doubtless stands in my way to
your affections. Nay, start not; turn not pale, Antionia—I
know it. Now I have a proposition—
marry me, Antonia, let me be your friend, your
protector, your husband; this Leslie, if you still
love him—”

“Well, my lord—”

“Let him still dwell in your heart. We cannot
quell and master our affections at will, Antonia.
They rise and overwhelm us—they bear us away
with their deep and swollen tides. We are light
as thistle-down in their whirling and turbid eddies.
Take then this Leslie. Receive him as your guide.
Bend upon him—ah! favoured lover!—the light of
your eyes, the smiles, the vows, the kisses of your
lips. I will remain your protector in the eyes of

the world; and you should know, child, that it will
cause scandal if you encourage a lover before you
have a husband.”

“My lord,” said Antonia, for the customs of her
country caused this extraordinary proposition to be
received with less amazement and indignation than
the reader may deem proper, “I duly appreciate
your kindness.”

“if you love this Leslie, you will save him by
yielding to this proposal. He has thrust himself
upon my hatred. I hate him!” he said, his white
teeth shining through his curled lip; “he is an adder
in my path, and I will crush him to the dust!
But for your sake, dear girl, he shall pass unscathed
—he shall dwell with you in peace, only pledge me
your hand. You will secure his life, his happiness,
and your own.”

Antonia was yet silent, but sobbed, and covered
her face with her hands.

“My sweet child!” cried Alezzi, “you have
wronged me cruelly, and misunderstood my character.
Being your husband, I will not be your tyrant.
Marriage, my dear Antonia, is at once a
freedom from all narrow restraint, which must ever
check the warm heart of the maiden. You are
now a slave to fashion and calumny. Already the
world speak of your familiarity with this stranger
in terms of wonder and reproach. Be mine, the
voice of slander dies at once. Women will envy,
but cannot blame; and men will love, while they
dare not importune you. This youth, this Leslie,
we will suppose pure, innocent, wronged, falsely
accused—all that he should be—all that you think
him. Be mine, and you shall dwell with him undisturbed.
He shall still be the companion of your
steps, and the chosen of your affections. Confess
to me that you love him more than your own soul.”

“The Blessed Mother protect him!” said Antonia,
lifting her eyes to a small image of the Virgin,
exquisitely carved in ivory, which stood on a
kind of altar before the spacious mirror; “the
Blessed Mother protect him! I live only in his
presence!”

“Then, Antonia,” rejoined the marquis, “without
my aid, without my power—without my protection
as your husband, his absence will be eternal!
his death will be sure and speedy! I know much
of this unhappy man—much that would plunge him
into the blackest ruin. He has made himself so
deeply my foe—he has wronged and insulted me so
bitterly and audaciously, that, without other cause,
he dies. There is here, also, a noble lord from
France, who has sojourned in America, and who
knows the whole history of Leslie. He, too, has
been the victim of this man's haughty temper—he,
too, has sworn revenge before the altar and on the
cross. He has long been the companion of my
convivial hours, and he has confided to me the
secret of his hatred, and of his determined resolution
to lay your lover at his feet. He will pursue
him over the earth, and his vengeance is deadly as
fate! Antonia, these separate foes direct their batteries
against the single head of Leslie—unsheltered,
unfriended—a stranger in the land—blackened
in fame—the foul and poisonous stigma of murder
fixed upon him by his own country—a fugitive—a
wretch! What shield can he lift against this universal
war? Where can he crawl, or skulk, to hide
himself from this general hate? Even should he
defend his life, what becomes of his happiness?
Shunning all, shunned by all, his existence must be
that of an owl—an existence of solitude and night,
and trembling at the very beams of the blessed
sun.”

“Poor, poor Montfort!” exclaimed Antonia,
tears gushing forth and rolling heavily down her
cheeks; “what will become of him. So proud—so
high—so noble! What will be his fate!”

“Misery, despair, terror, and a bloody death!”
cried Alezzi, in his deepest voice, and with a scowl
that sunk to the soul of the girl. “All this anguish
—all this wo and ruin, one word from your lips will
change to joy and love. All the clouds that roll and
frown above his head, ready to blast him with their
concentrated thunders, you, Antonia, with one word
—a breath—a smile—a look, can chase for ever
away. Through the pits that yawn about his feet,
you can conduct him in safety. Why do you hesitate?
I do not ask his safety at the expense of
his love. I do not ask you, in dismissing him from
death, to banish him from your arms, or your heart.
I ask you to reclaim him from danger—from destruction—from
absence; to lean upon his arm
—to sit by his side—to drink in the tones of his
voice—to study, to draw, to sing, to ride, to
dwell with him. And what do you lose?—what
sacrifice? You give to me—I will be frank with
you—a claim to your fortune, which is more than
you can use, can measure; and you give me a
mere formal ceremony—an abstract title to call you
wife.”

“And what pledge have I, my lord marquis, that
you will keep your word?”

“You may bind me by laws—by laws which I
cannot break or elude, to settle upon you such portions
of your useless and immense grandeur as will
suffice for your wishes and his. You may bind me
by laws, also, to grant you the full freedom of his
society and his love. The country you happily
live in provides you with this power. I tell you,
Antonia more frankly,” for the marquis really

warmed on the subject, “I am not a boy. I love
you, sweet child,” putting back a wandering curl
from her forehead with his finger, “but not with
the idle fever of the youthful and the romantic—
not with the monopolizing, self-absorbing, unnatural
passion that burns in the pages of poetry and romance,
or in bosoms warped from the liberality of
nature. Plainly, I would marry you as I would
purchase some rare and costly ornament—as I
would transplant some rich and beautiful flower,
not to lock you up and gloat on you, Antonia, in
secret selfishness. Woman I have never sought or
loved. I have other, nobler, higher, fiercer joys—
ambition, power, wealth. You are different. You
live as a gentle girl should—to love. Well, love
then, Antonia! Suppose that what you fair women
call `our hearts,' ” and he smiled, jestingly, “have
no share in commanding our union; we have motives,
to you as strong, to me stronger. Interest
commands it. You will purchase your lover; I,
my ambition. Speak, Antonia! say but that you
will be mine! Join yourself to me irrevocably this
night, and I swear to you, by the holiest of saints,
by the most sacred obligations, you shall be as free
as the air to adopt what lover you will; and, if
you desire, I will seek your presence only as a
stranger.”

“My lord,” replied Antonia, pale and faint, and
still perplexed and in doubt—for his soft and winning
manner and specious eloquence had staggered
her resolution, “give me till to-morrow to reflect
upon your offer!”

“And in the meantime, my good child,” said the
marquis, for he saw the danger of deviating from
the cool and unimpassioned manner which he had
assumed, and which rather, throughout the whole
scene, had resembled the sober kindness of an indulgent

father than the ardour of a lover, or the tenderness
of a husband—“in the meantime, my good
child, I will have papers drawn, so simply and so
palpably unequivocal to ensure to you, without
quibble or evasion, all that I have promised and all
that you can desire, that your timidest doubts will
be allayed, and every alarm of love and hope hushed
into peace and joy. I return to you, Antonia,
to-morrow.”

She motioned him assent and adieu; her heart
was too full and swollen for words. The wily noble
cast upon her a lingering look, in which a close
observer might detect the lurking warmth of passion,
blended with triumph scarcely repressed.
Then, with slow and studied deliberation, he bowed
and departed.

The reader will remember, that the most striking
objects to the traveller are not always the novel
aspects of shores and mountains, the sight of antique
and wonder-raising palaces and ruins, nor cities
fashioned in forms so strange and picturesque, that
even to look upon them stirs the breast with new
sensations. The intelligent wayfarer finds more
themes for reflection in the moods and standards
of the moral world, as they vary according to clime
and country. Italy presents many of these grotesque
wonders; and her systems of government
and society are as uncouthly shattered into wild
and accidental fragments, as her immense and
mouldering amphitheatres and her ruined towers;
with this exception, that her dilapidated edifices
and walls are the sublime wrecks of once perfect
things, while her monstrous shapes of politics and
morals appear but the phases of a mighty chaos,
which has never had bright order and perfection.
Her morals, her customs, her laws, her governments,
have no general connexion with truth, wisdom,

and virtue. Every object, every principle is
bent, warped, and distorted from the beauty and
glory of happier countries. Hence, opinion is a
crime—the press a danger—religion, a cheat—
and female dishonour, a fashion.