University of Virginia Library

A letter from Lord Aymar to Lady Angelica will put the story
forward a little:

“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 our 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 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 Mynners,
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.

“Dear Count: You will wonder at receiving a friendly note
from me, after my refusal, two months since, to meet you over
`pistols and coffee;' but reparation may not be too late, and this
is to say, that you have your choice between two modes of settlement,
viz:—to accept for your stable the hunter you stole from
me (vide police report) and allow me to take a glass of wine with
you at my own table and bury the hatchet, or, to shoot at me if
you like, according to your original design. Mynners and Beauchief

hope you will select the latter, as they owe you a grudge for
the possession of your incomparable bride and her fortune; but I
trust you will prefer the horse, which (if I am rightly informed)
bore you to the declaration of love at Chasteney. Reply to
Crockford's.