Twice-Told Tales (33 page)

Our host in due season uncorked a bottle of Madeira of such exquisite
perfume and admirable flavor that he surely must have discovered it in
an ancient bin down deep beneath the deepest cellar where some jolly
old butler stored away the governor's choicest wine and forgot to
reveal the secret on his death-bed. Peace to his red-nosed ghost and a
libation to his memory! This precious liquor was imbibed by Mr.
Tiffany with peculiar zest, and after sipping the third glass it was
his pleasure to give us one of the oddest legends which he had yet
raked from the storehouse where he keeps such matters. With some
suitable adornments from my own fancy, it ran pretty much as follows.

Not long after Colonel Shute had assumed the government of
Massachusetts Bay—now nearly a hundred and twenty years ago—a young
lady of rank and fortune arrived from England to claim his protection
as her guardian. He was her distant relative, but the nearest who had
survived the gradual extinction of her family; so that no more
eligible shelter could be found for the rich and high-born Lady
Eleanore Rochcliffe than within the province-house of a Transatlantic
colony. The consort of Governor Shute, moreover, had been as a mother
to her childhood, and was now anxious to receive her in the hope that
a beautiful young woman would be exposed to infinitely less peril from
the primitive society of New England than amid the artifices and
corruptions of a court. If either the governor or his lady had
especially consulted their own comfort, they would probably have
sought to devolve the responsibility on other hands, since with some
noble and splendid traits of character Lady Eleanore was remarkable
for a harsh, unyielding pride, a haughty consciousness of her
hereditary and personal advantages, which made her almost incapable of
control. Judging from many traditionary anecdotes, this peculiar
temper was hardly less than a monomania; or if the acts which it
inspired were those of a sane person, it seemed due from Providence
that pride so sinful should be followed by as severe a retribution.
That tinge of the marvellous which is thrown over so many of these
half-forgotten legends has probably imparted an additional wildness to
the strange story of Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe.

The ship in which she came passenger had arrived at Newport, whence
Lady Eleanore was conveyed to Boston in the governor's coach, attended
by a small escort of gentlemen on horseback. The ponderous equipage,
with its four black horses, attracted much notice as it rumbled
through Cornhill surrounded by the prancing steeds of half a dozen
cavaliers with swords dangling to their stirrups and pistols at their
holsters. Through the large glass windows of the coach, as it rolled
along, the people could discern the figure of Lady Eleanore, strangely
combining an almost queenly stateliness with the grace and beauty of a
maiden in her teens. A singular tale had gone abroad among the ladies
of the province that their fair rival was indebted for much of the
irresistible charm of her appearance to a certain article of dress—an
embroidered mantle—which had been wrought by the most skilful artist
in London, and possessed even magical properties of adornment. On the
present occasion, however, she owed nothing to the witchery of dress,
being clad in a riding-habit of velvet which would have appeared stiff
and ungraceful on any other form.

The coachman reined in his four black steeds, and the whole cavalcade
came to a pause in front of the contorted iron balustrade that fenced
the province-house from the public street. It was an awkward
coincidence that the bell of the Old South was just then tolling for a
funeral; so that, instead of a gladsome peal with which it was
customary to announce the arrival of distinguished strangers, Lady
Eleanore Rochcliffe was ushered by a doleful clang, as if calamity had
come embodied in her beautiful person.

"A very great disrespect!" exclaimed Captain Langford, an English
officer who had recently brought despatches to Governor Shute. "The
funeral should have been deferred lest Lady Eleanore's spirits be
affected by such a dismal welcome."

"With your pardon, sir," replied Dr. Clarke, a physician and a famous
champion of the popular party, "whatever the heralds may pretend, a
dead beggar must have precedence of a living queen. King Death confers
high privileges."

These remarks-were interchanged while the speakers waited a passage
through the crowd which had gathered on each side of the gateway,
leaving an open avenue to the portal of the province-house. A black
slave in livery now leaped from behind the coach and threw open the
door, while at the same moment Governor Shute descended the flight of
steps from his mansion to assist Lady Eleanore in alighting. But the
governor's stately approach was anticipated in a manner that excited
general astonishment. A pale young man with his black hair all in
disorder rushed from the throng and prostrated himself beside the
coach, thus offering his person as a footstool for Lady Eleanore
Rochcliffe to tread upon. She held back an instant, yet with an
expression as if doubting whether the young man were worthy to bear
the weight of her footstep rather than dissatisfied to receive such
awful reverence from a fellow-mortal.

"Up, sir!" said the governor, sternly, at the same time lifting his
cane over the intruder. "What means the Bedlamite by this freak?"

"Nay," answered Lady Eleanore, playfully, but with more scorn than
pity in her tone; "Your Excellency shall not strike him. When men seek
only to be trampled upon, it were a pity to deny them a favor so
easily granted—and so well deserved!" Then, though as lightly as a
sunbeam on a cloud, she placed her foot upon the cowering form and
extended her hand to meet that of the governor.

There was a brief interval during which Lady Eleanore retained this
attitude, and never, surely, was there an apter emblem of aristocracy
and hereditary pride trampling on human sympathies and the kindred of
nature than these two figures presented at that moment. Yet the
spectators were so smitten with her beauty, and so essential did pride
seem to the existence of such a creature, that they gave a
simultaneous acclamation of applause.

"Who is this insolent young fellow?" inquired Captain Langford, who
still remained beside Dr. Clarke. "If he be in his senses, his
impertinence demands the bastinado; if mad, Lady Eleanore should be
secured from further inconvenience by his confinement."

"His name is Jervase Helwyse," answered the doctor—"a youth of no
birth or fortune, or other advantages save the mind and soul that
nature gave him; and, being secretary to our colonial agent in London,
it was his misfortune to meet this Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe. He loved
her, and her scorn has driven him mad."

"He was mad so to aspire," observed the English officer.

"It may be so," said Dr. Clarke, frowning as he spoke; "but I tell
you, sir, I could wellnigh doubt the justice of the Heaven above us if
no signal humiliation overtake this lady who now treads so haughtily
into yonder mansion. She seeks to place herself above the sympathies
of our common nature, which envelops all human souls; see if that
nature do not assert its claim over her in some mode that shall bring
her level with the lowest."

"Never!" cried Captain Langford, indignantly—"neither in life nor
when they lay her with her ancestors."

Not many days afterward the governor gave a ball in honor of Lady
Eleanore Rochcliffe. The principal gentry of the colony received
invitations, which were distributed to their residences far and near
by messengers on horseback bearing missives sealed with all the
formality of official despatches. In obedience to the summons, there
was a general gathering of rank, wealth and beauty, and the wide door
of the province-house had seldom given admittance to more numerous and
honorable guests than on the evening of Lady Eleanore's ball. Without
much extravagance of eulogy, the spectacle might even be termed
splendid, for, according to the fashion of the times, the ladies shone
in rich silks and satins outspread over wide-projecting hoops, and the
gentlemen glittered in gold embroidery laid unsparingly upon the
purple or scarlet or sky-blue velvet which was the material of their
coats and waistcoats. The latter article of dress was of great
importance, since it enveloped the wearer's body nearly to the knees
and was perhaps bedizened with the amount of his whole year's income
in golden flowers and foliage. The altered taste of the present day—a
taste symbolic of a deep change in the whole system of society—would
look upon almost any of those gorgeous figures as ridiculous, although
that evening the guests sought their reflections in the pier-glasses
and rejoiced to catch their own glitter amid the glittering crowd.
What a pity that one of the stately mirrors has not preserved a
picture of the scene which by the very traits that were so transitory
might have taught us much that would be worth knowing and remembering!

Would, at least, that either painter or mirror could convey to us some
faint idea of a garment already noticed in this legend—the Lady
Eleanore's embroidered mantle, which the gossips whispered was
invested with magic properties, so as to lend a new and untried grace
to her figure each time that she put it on! Idle fancy as it is, this
mysterious mantle has thrown an awe around my image of her, partly
from its fabled virtues and partly because it was the handiwork of a
dying woman, and perchance owed the fantastic grace of its conception
to the delirium of approaching death.

After the ceremonial greetings had been paid, Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe
stood apart from the mob of guests, insulating herself within a small
and distinguished circle to whom she accorded a more cordial favor
than to the general throng. The waxen torches threw their radiance
vividly over the scene, bringing out its brilliant points in strong
relief, but she gazed carelessly, and with now and then an expression
of weariness or scorn tempered with such feminine grace that her
auditors scarcely perceived the moral deformity of which it was the
utterance. She beheld the spectacle not with vulgar ridicule, as
disdaining to be pleased with the provincial mockery of a
court-festival, but with the deeper scorn of one whose spirit held
itself too high to participate in the enjoyment of other human souls.
Whether or no the recollections of those who saw her that evening were
influenced by the strange events with which she was subsequently
connected, so it was that her figure ever after recurred to them as
marked by something wild and unnatural, although at the time the
general whisper was of her exceeding beauty and of the indescribable
charm which her mantle threw around her. Some close observers, indeed,
detected a feverish flush and alternate paleness of countenance, with
a corresponding flow and revulsion of spirits, and once or twice a
painful and helpless betrayal of lassitude, as if she were on the
point of sinking to the ground. Then, with a nervous shudder, she
seemed to arouse her energies, and threw some bright and playful yet
half-wicked sarcasm into the conversation. There was so strange a
characteristic in her manners and sentiments that it astonished every
right-minded listener, till, looking in her face, a lurking and
incomprehensible glance and smile perplexed them with doubts both as
to her seriousness and sanity. Gradually, Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe's
circle grew smaller, till only four gentlemen remained in it. These
were Captain Langford, the English officer before mentioned; a
Virginian planter who had come to Massachusetts on some political
errand; a young Episcopal clergyman, the grandson of a British earl;
and, lastly, the private secretary of Governor Shute, whose
obsequiousness had won a sort of tolerance from Lady Eleanore.

At different periods of the evening the liveried servants of the
province-house passed among the guests bearing huge trays of
refreshments and French and Spanish wines. Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe,
who refused to wet her beautiful lips even with a bubble of champagne,
had sunk back into a large damask chair, apparently overwearied either
with the excitement of the scene or its tedium; and while, for an
instant, she was unconscious of voices, laughter and music, a young
man stole forward and knelt down at her feet. He bore a salver in his
hand on which was a chased silver goblet filled to the brim with wine,
which he offered as reverentially as to a crowned queen—or, rather,
with the awful devotion of a priest doing sacrifice to his idol.
Conscious that some one touched her robe, Lady Eleanore started, and
unclosed her eyes upon the pale, wild features and dishevelled hair of
Jervase Helwyse.

"Why do you haunt me thus?" said she, in a languid tone, but with a
kindlier feeling than she ordinarily permitted herself to express.
"They tell me that I have done you harm."

"Heaven knows if that be so," replied the young man, solemnly. "But,
Lady Eleanore, in requital of that harm, if such there be, and for
your own earthly and heavenly welfare, I pray you to take one sip of
this holy wine and then to pass the goblet round among the guests. And
this shall be a symbol that you have not sought to withdraw yourself
from the chain of human sympathies, which whoso would shake off must
keep company with fallen angels."

"Where has this mad fellow stolen that sacramental vessel?" exclaimed
the Episcopal clergyman.

This question drew the notice of the guests to the silver cup, which
was recognized as appertaining to the communion-plate of the Old South
Church, and, for aught that could be known, it was brimming over with
the consecrated wine.

"Perhaps it is poisoned," half whispered the governor's secretary.

"Pour it down the villain's throat!" cried the Virginian, fiercely.

"Turn him out of the house!" cried Captain Langford, seizing Jervase
Helwyse so roughly by the shoulder that the sacramental cup was
overturned and its contents sprinkled upon Lady Eleanore's mantle.
"Whether knave, fool or Bedlamite, it is intolerable that the fellow
should go at large."