University of Virginia Library

16. CHAPTER XVI.

Thus then had the days passed with Marian during those
years of which her sister knew so little, each day sadder and
bearing less of hope than the last. She had heard of her
mother's death, that mother whom she had once so cherished,
whose memory was still so dear to her — yet had those gloomy
tidings brought no increase to the unhappy wife's cold sadness.
No! so completely had the hardening touch of despair petrified
all her feelings, that she now felt that nothing could increase or
diminish the burden under which she labored. If she thought
of the dead at all, it was to envy, not weep — it was to clasp
her hands, and turn her eyes up to heaven, and to cry — “Blessed
are the dead, who die in the Lord; even so saith the Spirit;
for they rest from their labors!” And worse every day,
and more vicious — ay! and more loathsome and more cruel in
his vices, did Ernest de Vaux show himself. Alas! the career
of virtue is as it were on a road up a steep mountain's side.
There is no halting on the way, no standing still — no power
of remaining where you are. Upward or downward, you must
on, and on for ever! Upward with conscientious hopes
and earnest struggles and energetical resolves to virtue, and to
honor, and to peace — or downward, with headlong speed, to
crime, and agony, and ruin, and that perdition which shall not
end when all things else have reached their termination. Alas!
I say — alas! for this latter was the path in which the steps of
De Vaux were hurrying, and toward this termination.

From gentlemanly vice, as it is falsely called, and those extravagances
or excesses rather, of which men, deemed by the
world honorable, may be guilty without losing caste, Ernest

began now to degenerate into low profligacy, vulgar habitual
debauchery! His noble features and fine form had already begun
to display the symptoms of habitual intemperance; his
courtly manners and air, once so noble, had deteriorated sadly;
his temper, equable and mild, and at the least in outward show
so kindly, had become harsh, and querulous, uneven, and at
times violent and brutal.

Yet Marian still clung to him, faithful in weal and wo, in
wealth as in poverty — for at times, in the changes and chances
of the civil war, they had in truth undergone much hardship —
she was still the unchanged, unrepining, fond consoler — but
alas! how cruelly, and how often were her sweet consolations
cast back upon her, her kind and affectionate advances met with
harsh words, and bitter menaces — and once! yes, once, when
the mad demon of intoxication was all-powerful within him —
yes! once with a blow.

It was the fifth year of the civil war, and though many fierce
and sanguinary fields had been fought, many towns taken, many
halls and manor-houses stormed and defended, much generous,
noble blood prodigally wasted, neither side yet had gained anything
of real or permanent advantage. It was the fifth year of
the civil war, and the marquis of Newcastle, one of the most
accomplished and gallant noblemen of the day, was holding
York for the king, though besieged by an overwhelming force,
by the united forces of the English puritans and independents,
under Lord Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell, and the Scotch covenanters,
under David Leslie, and many of the protestant lords
of the sister-kingdom.

The siege had indeed lasted some time, but although those
within the city were beginning to look eagerly for the relief
which was expected daily from Prince Rupert, they were not
as yet straitened for provision, or dispirited. And here in the
midst of present apprehension, and perhaps soon to be in the

midst of peril, here in the very city, wherein she had passed
those few bright days, the brightest and the happiest of her
life, alas! that they should have led to consequences so cruelly
disastrous — here, in a poor, mean lodging in a small, narrow
street, nigh Stonegate, dwelt the once bright and happy Marian.

It was night, and although summer-time, the air was exceeding
damp and chilling. It was night, dead night, and quite
dark, for there was no moon, and the skies were so cloudy that
the faint glimmer of the stars failed to pierce their thick
folds. There were no sounds abroad in the beleaguered city
but the distant call from hour to hour of the answered sentinel,
and the occasional tramp and clash of arms, as the grand rounds
passed through the streets to visit the outposts, or the relief
parties marched toward the walls.

At this dead hour of the night, in a small, wretched parlor,
scantily furnished with a few common wooden chairs, a coarse
oak table, on which stood a brazen lamp diffusing a pale, uncertain
light through the low-roofed apartment, and sufficing
barely to show the extreme poverty and extreme cleanliness of
that abode of high-born beauty, sat Marian, Lady de Vaux,
plainly attired, and in nowise becomingly to her high station,
pale, wan, and thin, and careworn, and no more like to the Marian
Hawkwood of old days than the poor disembodied ghost to
the fair form it once inhabited.

The floor of the wretched room was neatly sanded, for it was
carpetless, and no curtains veiled the small latticed casements
— the walls were hung with defensive armor and a few weapons,
two or three cloaks and feathered hats, disposed with a
sad attempt at symmetrical arrangement and decoration — four
or five books, some paper and materials for writing, and an old
lute lay on the table by which Marian was sitting, and on another
smaller board at a little distance, neatly arranged with a
clean white cloth, stood a loaf of bread, the remnants, now very

low reduced, of a sirloin, and a half bottle of red wine — the
supper prepared by the hapless wife, herself fasting and hungered,
for the base recreant husband.

An open Bible lay before Marian on the board, but though
her eyes rested on the blessed promises, and her hands, at
times, as if mechanically, turned its pages, her mind was far
away, suspended on every distant sound that rose from the deserted
streets, starting at every passing footstep, with a strange
mixture as it seemed of eager expectation and wild fear.

At length a quick, strong, heavy tread came up the street,
and paused under the window.

“It is he,” she said, listening intently, with a deep crimson
flush rising to her whole face, but receding rapidly, and leaving
only two round hectic spots high up on her cheek-bones.
“Thank God! it is he at last!” and she arose and trimmed the
lamp, and drew the little table forward with the preparation for
his supper — but, as the door below yielded to the pass-key
which he carried, she started and turned white as ashes; for
the sound of a second step reached her ears, and the soft cadence
of a female voice. She paused, with her soul intent
upon the sound, and as they came nearer and nearer, and more
and more distinct —

“My God!” she said to herself, in a low, choked whisper,
clasping her hands together, as if in mortal anguish, “my God!
it can not be!”

But it was — it was, as she dreaded, as she would not believe!
Shame on the dastard villain! it was true!

The door opened suddenly, and Ernest de Vaux entered,
with a tall and exceedingly handsome woman leaning upon his
arm, whom Marian recognised the very moment their eyes met,
for the Lady Agnes Trevor, of whose bold and shameless conduct
with her husband she had long heard, though she strove
to close her ears to them, a thousand cruel rumors. This last

worst outrage, however, was not without its effect; even the
worm, when trodden under foot, will, it is said, rise up against
its torturer; and even her base husband was astonished at the
superb and stately majesty with which the wronged and heart-broken
woman drew herself up, as they entered — at the flash of
grand indignation which lightened from every speaking feature;
if he had calculated that her spirit was so utterly cowed
and broken, that she would endure everything in silence, madly
had he erred, and tremendously was he now undeceived.

Even the guilty woman who accompanied him, started back
and in dismay; it would appear even that she had not known
before whither he was conducting her, for she shrank back
aghast, and clung to his arm yet closer than before, as she
asked in a tremulous and agitated tone, “Who is this? who is
this lady, Ernest?”

“It is his wife, madam!” replied Marian, taking a forward
step; “his wedded wife, for whom it is rather to ask, who you
are, that intrude thus upon her, at this untimely hour?”

“It is my wife, Agnes,” answered De Vaux at the same
moment, “my wife, who will be happy to extend her hospitality
to you, until these most unhappy jars are ended, and you reconciled
to my lord; Marian, it is the Lady Agnes Trevor, who
asks your welcome; assure her—”

“I do assure her,” replied Marian, haughtily, “that she is
perfectly, fully welcome to enjoy all the comforts, all the hospitalities
which this roof has to offer — this roof—”

“Why, that is well,” replied her husband, with a sneering
smile; “I told you, Agnes, she would be very glad to receive
you; she is a sweet, mild, patient little creature, this pretty wife
of mine!”

“This roof,” continued Marian, “which, from this hour, shall
never cover my head any more.”

“Heyday! heyday! what is all this? what does this mean?”

“It means, simply, that hitherto I have borne much, have
borne all — but infamy. And infamy I will bear never. Fare
you well, sir; may you repent, I say — may you repent, I say,
and ere it be too late; and may you,” she added, turning to the
frail beauty, who trembled in her presence, “may you never
know the agonies which you have heaped upon my soul!”

And she passed by them, with a movement so impetuously
rapid, that she was out of the door before Ernest, to whom
Agnes Trevor was clinging still in mortal terror, could interpose
to arrest her flight. But recovering himself, instantly he
darted after and caught her by her dress, and would have
dragged her back into the room, but she laid hold of the balustrades
of the staircase, and clung to them so strongly, that he
could not move her.

“Do you so little know me, Marian,” he exclaimed furiously,
“as to imagine that I would suffer my wife to go forth alone, a
mark for evil tongues, at such an hour as this? Back, Madam
Marian! back to your chamber, or you will force me to do that
which I shall be sorry for!”

“Sorry for!” answered Marian, with calm scorn, “you sorry
for aught of injury to me! and do you, sir, so little know me,
as to imagine that I would stay one moment under the same
roof with your—”

“With my what? — with my what, madam?” shouted De
Vaux, “beware how you answer!”

“Unhand me, sir, unhand me!” she replied, “unhand me;
for I will go forth!”

“Answer me; with my what? under the same roof with my
what?” he again exclaimed, shaking her violently by the arm.

“With your harlot, sir,” she replied, firmly, and at the same
moment two fearful sounds followed her words; one the most
fearful sound, perhaps, that can be heard on earth at all; the
sound of a heavy blow dealt by a man to a weak woman; the

other a wild, piercing female shriek — a shriek that echoed far
and wide through the midnight city. But it came not, that awful
shriek, from the lips of Marian.

No, no; it was the reckless, the abandoned, outcast wife of
Lord Albert Trevor, that uttered the heart-rending cry, as she
rushed with a frantic air out of the chamber, and threw herself
at the feet of her seducer, and clasping his knees wildly with
one hand, caught with the other his upraised right arm — upraised
to smite again her whom he had sworn to love and honor.

“Me, me!” she cried, “oh, God — me! me! not her — strike
me — strike me, not her! for I deserve it — deserve it all — all
— all — me, as she rightly termed me; me, the outcast — the
harlot!”

And with so powerful a grasp, moved by the ecstasy of remorse
and frenzy, did the frail creature restrain the ruffian's
fury, that he was forced to stoop down and exert some power to
remove her. But the moment Marian perceived what was passing,
she darted down the stairs, and through the front door,
which she closed violently behind her, and into the vacant
street, and fled with a speed that soon set pursuit at defiance.
That night she slept at her old uncle's house in the minster
yard, the following day York was relieved, and the siege of the
puritans raised by the fiery Rupert. On the third morning the
royal troops sallied forth to give battle to the troops of Fairfax
upon the fatal moor of Long Marston, and while the roar of
cannon was deafening the ears of all for miles around her, and
her bad husband was charging in the maddest strife, Marian
was hurrying home to die — hurrying home to die in the calm
shades of Wharfdale.