第43章 THE LADY ICENWAY(1)

By the Churchwarden In the reign of His Most Excellent Majesty King George the Third,Defender of the Faith and of the American Colonies,there lived in 'a faire maner-place'(so Leland called it in his day,as I have been told),in one o'the greenest bits of woodland between Bristol and the city of Exonbury,a young lady who resembled some aforesaid ones in having many talents and exceeding great beauty.With these gifts she combined a somewhat imperious temper and arbitrary mind,though her experience of the world was not actually so large as her conclusive manner would have led the stranger to suppose.Being an orphan,she resided with her uncle,who,though he was fairly considerate as to her welfare,left her pretty much to herself.

Now it chanced that when this lovely young lady was about nineteen,she (being a fearless horsewoman)was riding,with only a young lad as an attendant,in one o'the woods near her uncle's house,and,in trotting along,her horse stumbled over the root of a felled tree.

She slipped to the ground,not seriously hurt,and was assisted home by a gentleman who came in view at the moment of her mishap.It turned out that this gentleman,a total stranger to her,was on a visit at the house of a neighbouring landowner.He was of Dutch extraction,and occasionally came to England on business or pleasure from his plantations in Guiana,on the north coast of South America,where he usually resided.

On this account he was naturally but little known in Wessex,and was but a slight acquaintance of the gentleman at whose mansion he was a guest.However,the friendship between him and the Heymeres--as the uncle and niece were named--warmed and warmed by degrees,there being but few folk o'note in the vicinity at that time,which made a newcomer,if he were at all sociable and of good credit,always sure of a welcome.A tender feeling (as it is called by the romantic)sprang up between the two young people,which ripened into intimacy.Anderling,the foreign gentleman,was of an amorous temperament;and,though he endeavoured to conceal his feeling,it could be seen that Miss Maria Heymere had impressed him rather more deeply than would be represented by a scratch upon a stone.He seemed absolutely unable to free himself from her fascination;and his inability to do so,much as he tried--evidently thinking he had not the ghost of a chance with her--gave her the pleasure of power;though she more than sympathized when she overheard him heaving his deep drawn sighs--privately to himself,as he supposed.

After prolonging his visit by every conceivable excuse in his power,he summoned courage,and offered her his hand and his heart.Being in no way disinclined to him,though not so fervid as he,and her uncle making no objection to the match,she consented to share his fate,for better or otherwise,in the distant colony where,as he assured her,his rice,and coffee,and maize,and timber,produced him ample means--a statement which was borne out by his friend,her uncle's neighbour.In short,a day for their marriage was fixed,earlier in the engagement than is usual or desirable between comparative strangers,by reason of the necessity he was under of returning to look after his properties.

The wedding took place,and Maria left her uncle's mansion with her husband,going in the first place to London,and about a fortnight after sailing with him across the great ocean for their distant home--which,however,he assured her,should not be her home for long,it being his intention to dispose of his interests in this part of the world as soon as the war was over,and he could do so advantageously;when they could come to Europe,and reside in some favourite capital.

As they advanced on the voyage she observed that he grew more and more constrained;and,by the time they had crossed the Line,he was quite depressed,just as he had been before proposing to her.A day or two before landing at Paramaribo,he embraced her in a very tearful and passionate manner,and said he wished to make a confession.It had been his misfortune,he said,to marry at Quebec in early life a woman whose reputation proved to be in every way bad and scandalous.The discovery had nearly killed him;but he had ultimately separated from her,and had never seen her since.He had hoped and prayed she might be dead;but recently in London,when they were starting on this journey,he had discovered that she was still alive.At first he had decided to keep this dark intelligence from her beloved ears;but he had felt that he could not do it.All he hoped was that such a condition of things would make no difference in her feelings for him,as it need make no difference in the course of their lives.

Thereupon the spirit of this proud and masterful lady showed itself in violent turmoil,like the raging of a nor'-west thunderstorm--as well it might,God knows.But she was of too stout a nature to be broken down by his revelation,as many ladies of my acquaintance would have been--so far from home,and right under the Line in the blaze o'the sun.Of the two,indeed,he was the more wretched and shattered in spirit,for he loved her deeply,and (there being a foreign twist in his make)had been tempted to this crime by her exceeding beauty,against which he had struggled day and night,till he had no further resistance left in him.It was she who came first to a decision as to what should be done--whether a wise one I do not attempt to judge.

'I put it to you,'says she,when many useless self-reproaches and protestations on his part had been uttered--'I put it to you whether,if any manliness is left in you,you ought not to do exactly what I consider the best thing for me in this strait to which you have reduced me?'