“My dear Angelica: I am happy to know that
there are circumstances which will turn aside much
of the poignancy of the communication I am about to
make to you. If I am not mistaken at least, in believing
a mutual attachment to exist between yourself
and Count Pallardos, you will at once comprehend
the ground of my mental relief, and perhaps, in
a measure, anticipate what I am about to say.
“I have never spoken to you of the fearful inheritance
in the blood of the Aymars. This would
appear a singular omission between two members of
one family, but I had strong reasons for my silence,
one of which was your possible sympathy with your
mother's obstinate incredulity. Now—since yesterday's
appalling proof—you can no longer doubt the
inheritance of the phantom head—the fearful record of
some nameless deed of guilt, which is doomed to
haunt out festal table as often as the murderous day
shall come around to a descendant of our blood.
Fortunately—mercifully, I shall perhaps say, we are
not visited by this dread avenger till the maturity of
manhood gives us the courage to combat with its
horror. The Septembers, since my twentieth year,
have brought it with fatal certainty to me. God alone
knows how long I shall be able to withstand the taint
it gives to my thoughts when waking, and to the dreams
upon my haunted pillow.
“You will readily see, in what I have said, another
reason for my silence toward you on this subject. In
the strong sympathy and sensitive imagination of a
woman, might easily be bred, by too vivid picturing,
a fancy which would be as palpable almost as the
reality; and I wished you to arrive at woman's years
with a belief that it was but a monomaniac affection of
my own brain—a disease to pity but not to share!
You are now twenty. The females of my family have
invariably seen the phantom at seventeen! Do you
anticipate the painful inference I draw from the fact
that this spectre is invisible to you!
“No, Angelica! you are not my daughter! The
Aymar blood does not run in your veins, and I know
not how much it will soften the knowledge of your
mother's frailty to know, that you are spared the dread
inheritance that would have been yours with a legitimacy
of honor. I had grounds for this belief at your
birth, but I thought it due to the hallowed character
of woman and wife to summon courage to wait for
confirmation. Had I acted out the impulse, then
almost uncontrollable within me, I should have profited
by the lawless land in which I resided to add more
weight to the errand of this phantom avenger. But
time and reason have done their work upon me. Your
mother is safe from open retribution. May God
pardon her!
“You will have said, here, that since Count Pallardos
has been revealed by the same pursuing Providence
to be my son, I may well refrain from appearing
as my wife's accuser. I have no wish to profit by
the difference the world makes between infidelity in
man, and infidelity in woman; nor to look, for an
apology, into the law of nature upon which so general
and undisputed a distinction must needs be founded.
I confess the justice of Heaven's vengeance upon the
crime—visited upon me, I fearfully believe, in the
unconscious retaliation which gave you birth. Yet
I can not, for this, treat you as the daughter of my
blood.
“And this brings me to the object of my letter.
With the care of years, I have separated, from the
entail of Aymar, the bulk of my fortune. God has
denied me a legitimate male heir, and I have long ago
determined, to leave, to its natural conflict with circumstances,
the character of a child I knew to be
mine, and to adopt its destiny, if it proved worthy,
should my fears as to your own parentage be confirmed
by the undeniable testimony of our spectral curse.
Count Pallardos is that child. Fate drew him here,
without my interference, as the crisis of your destiny
turned against you. The innocent was not to be
punished for the guilty, and the inheritance he takes
from you goes back to you—with his love in wedlock!
So, at least, appearances have led me to believe, and
so would seem to be made apparent the kind provisions
of Heaven against our resentful injustices. I must
confess that I shall weep tears of joy if it be so, for,
dear Angelica, you have wound yourself around my
heart, nearer to its core than the coil of this serpent
of revenge. I shall find it to be so, I am sadly sure,
if I prove incorrect in my suppositions as to your attachment.
“I have now to submit to you, I trust only as a
matter of form, two offers for your hand—one from
Mr. Townley Manners, and the other (conditional,
however, with your fortune) from Lord Frederick
Beauchief. An annuity of five hundred a year would
be all you would receive for a fortune, and your
choice, of course, is free. As the countess Pallardos,
you would share a very large fortune (my gifts to my
son, by a transfer to be executed this day), and to that
destiny, if need be, I tearfully urge you.
“Affectionately yours, my dear Angelica,
“Aymar.”
