CHAPTER I.
THE DEATH-BED OF JOHN VERNON.--HIS DYING WORDS.--DESCRIPTION OF HIS
DAUGHTER, THE HEROINE.--THE OATH.
"Is the night calm, Constance?"
"Beautiful! the moon is up."
"Open the shutters wider, there. It _is_ a beautiful night. How
beautiful! Come hither, my child."
The rich moonlight that now shone through the windows streamed on little
that it could invest with poetical attraction. The room was small, though
not squalid in its character and appliances. The bed-curtains, of a dull
chintz, were drawn back, and showed the form of a man, past middle age,
propped by pillows, and bearing on his countenance the marks of
approaching death. But what a countenance it still was! The broad, pale,
lofty brow; the fine, straight, Grecian nose; the short, curved lip; the
full, dimpled chin; the stamp of genius in every line and
lineament;--these still defied disease, or rather borrowed from its very
ghastliness a more impressive majesty. Beside the bed was a table spread
with books of a motley character. Here an abstruse system of Calculations
on Finance; there a volume of wild Bacchanalian Songs; here the lofty
aspirations of Plato's Phoedon; and there the last speech of some County
Paris on a Malt Tax: old newspapers and dusty pamphlets completed the
intellectual litter; and above them rose, mournfully enough, the tall,
spectral form of a half-emptied phial, and a chamber-candlestick, crested
by its extinguisher.
A light step approached the bedside, and opposite the dying man now stood
a girl, who might have seen her thirteenth year. But her features--of an
exceeding, and what may be termed a regal beauty--were as fully developed
as those of one who had told twice her years; and not a trace of the bloom
or the softness of girlhood could be marked on her countenance. Her
complexion was pale as the whitest marble, but clear, and lustrous; and
her raven hair, parted over her brow in a fashion then uncommon, increased
the statue-like and classic effect of her noble features. The expression
of her countenance seemed cold, sedate, and somewhat stern; but it might,
in some measure, have belied her heart; for, when turned to the moonlight,
you might see that her eyes were filled with tears, though she did not
weep; and you might tell by the quivering of her lip, that a little
hesitation in replying to any remark from the sufferer arose from her
difficulty in commanding her emotions.
"Constance," said the invalid, after a pause, in which he seemed to have
been gazing with a quiet heart on the soft skies, that, blue and eloquent
with stars, he beheld through the unclosed windows:--"Constance, the hour
is coming; I feel it by signs which I cannot mistake. I shall die this
night."
"Oh, God!--my father!--my dear, dear father!" broke from Constance's
lips; "do not speak thus--do not--I will go to Doctor ----"
"No, child, no!--I loathe--I detest the thought of help. They denied it
me while it was yet time. They left me to starve or to rot in gaol, or to
hang myself! They left me like a dog, and like a dog I will die! I would
not have one iota taken from the justice--the deadly and dooming weight of
my dying curse." Here violent spasms broke on the speech of the sufferer;
and when, by medicine and his daughter's attentions, he had recovered, he
said, in a lower and calmer key:--"Is all quiet below, Constance? Are
all in bed? The landlady--the servants--our fellow-lodgers?"
"All, my father."
"Ay; then I shall die happy. Thank Heaven, you are my only nurse and
attendant. I remember the day when I was ill after one of their rude
debauches. Ill!--a sick headache--a fit of the spleen--a spoiled lapdog's
illness! Well: they wanted me that night to support one of their paltry
measures--their parliamentary measures. And I had a prince feeling my
pulse, and a duke mixing my draught, and a dozen earls sending their
doctors to me. I was of use to them then! Poor me! Read me that note,
Constance--Flamborough's note. Do you hesitate? Read it, I say!"
Constance trembled and complied.
"My dear Vernon,
"I am really au desespoir to hear of your melancholy state;--so sorry I
cannot assist you: but you know my embarrassed circumstances. By the by,
I saw his Royal Highness yesterday. 'Poor Vernon!' said he; 'would a
hundred pounds do him any good?' So we don't forget you, mon cher. Ah!
how we missed you at the Beefsteak! Never shall we know again so glorious
a bona vivant. You would laugh to hear L---- attempting to echo your old
jokes. But time presses: I must be off to the House. You know what a
motion it is! Would to Heaven you were to bring it on instead of that ass
T----. Adieu! I wish I could come and see you; but it would break my
heart. Can I send you any books from Hookham's?
"Yours ever,
"FLAMBOROUGH."
"This is the man whom I made Secretary of State," said Vernon. "Very
well!--oh, it's very well,--very well indeed. Let me kiss thee, my girl.
Poor Constance! You will have good friends when I am dead! they will be
proud enough to be kind to Vernon's daughter, when Death has shown them
that Vernon is a loss. You are very handsome. Your poor mother's eyes
and hair--my father's splendid brow and lip; and your figure, even now so
stately! They will court you: you will have lords and great men enough at
your feet; but you will never forget this night, nor the agony of your
father's death-bed face, and the brand they have burned in his heart. And
now, Constance, give me the Bible in which you read to me this morning:
that will do:--stand away from the light and fix your eyes on mine, and
listen as if your soul were in your ears.
"When I was a young man, toiling my way to fortune through the labours of
the Bar,--prudent, cautious, indefatigable, confident of success,--certain
lords, who heard I possessed genius, and thought I might become their
tool, came to me, and besought me to enter parliament. I told them I was
poor--was lately married--that my public ambition must not be encouraged
at the expense of my private fortunes. They answered, that they pledged
themselves those fortunes should be their care. I yielded; I deserted my
profession; I obeyed their wishes; I became famous--and a ruined man!
They could not dine without me; they could not sup without me; they could
not get drunk without me; no pleasure was sweet but in my company. What
mattered it that, while I ministered to their amusement, I was necessarily
heaping debt upon debt--accumulating miseries for future years--laying up
bankruptcy, and care, and shame, and a broken heart, and an early death?
But listen, Constance! Are you listening?--attentively?--Well! note now,
I am a just man. I do not blame my noble friends, my gentle patrons, for
this. No: if I were forgetful of my interests, if I preferred their
pleasure to my happiness and honour, that was any crime, and I deserve the
punishment! But, look you,--time went by, and my constitution was broken;
debts came upon me; I could not pay; men mistrusted my word; my name in
the country fell: With my health, my genius deserted me; I was no longer
useful to my party; I lost my seat in parliament; and when I was on a
sick-bed--you remember it, Constancy--the bailiffs came, and tore me away
for a paltry debt--the value of one of those suppers the Prince used to
beg me to give him. From that time my familiars forsook me!--not a visit,
not a kind act, not a service for him whose day of work was over! 'Poor
Vernon's character was gone! Shockingly involved--could not perform his
promises to his creditors--always so extravagant--quite unprincipled--must
give him up!'
"In those sentences lies the secret of their conduct. They did not
remember that _for_ them, _by_ them, the character was gone, the promises
broken, the ruin incurred! They thought not how I had served them; how my
best years had been devoted to advance them--to ennoble their cause in the
lying page of History! All this was not thought of: my life was reduced
to two epochs--that of use to them--that not. During the first, I was
honoured; during the last, I was left to starve--to rot! Who freed me
from prison?--who protects me now? One of my 'party'--my 'noble
friends'--my 'honourable, right honourable friends'? No! a tradesman whom
I once served in my holyday, and who alone, of all the world, forgets me
not in my penance. You see gratitude, friendship, spring up only in
middle life; they grow not in high stations!
"And now, come nearer, for my voice falters, and I would have these words
distinctly heard. Child, girl as you are--you I consider pledged to
record, to fulfil my desire--my curse! Lay your hand on mine: swear that
through life to death,--swear! You speak not! repeat my words after
me:"--Constance obeyed:--"through life to death; through good, through
ill, through weakness, through power, you will devote yourself to humble,
to abase that party from whom your father received ingratitude,
mortification, and death! Swear that you will not marry a poor and
powerless man, who cannot minister to the ends of that solemn retribution
I invoke! Swear that you will seek to marry from amongst the great; not
through love, not through ambition, but through hate, and for revenge!
You will seek to rise that you may humble those who have betrayed me! In
the social walks of life you will delight to gall their vanities in state
intrigues, you will embrace every measure that can bring them to their
eternal downfall. For this great end you will pursue all means. What!
you hesitate? Repeat, repeat, repeat!--You will lie, cringe, fawn, and
think vice not vice, if it bring you one jot nearer to Revenge! With this
curse on my foes, I entwine my blessing, dear, dear Constance, on
you,--you, who have nursed, watched, all but saved me! God, God bless
you, my child!" And Vernon burst into tears.
It was two hours after this singular scene, and exactly in the third hour
of morning, that Vernon woke from a short and troubled sleep. The grey
dawn (for the time was the height of summer) already began to labour
through the shades and against the stars of night. A raw and comfortless
chill crept over the earth, and saddened the air in the death-chamber.
Constance sat by her father's bed, her eyes fixed upon him, and her cheek
more wan than ever by the pale light of that crude and cheerless dawn.
When Vernon woke, his eyes, glazed with death, rolled faintly towards her,
fixing and dimming in their sockets as they gazed;--his throat rattled.
But for one moment his voice found vent; a ray shot across his countenance
as he uttered his last words--words that sank at once and eternally to the
core of his daughter's heart--words that ruled her life, and sealed her
destiny: "Constance, remember--the Oath--Revenge!"
