CHAPTER VI.

His affection was of a very extraordinary alloy,--a composition of conscience, and love, and generosity, and gratitude, and all those noble affections that raise the passion to its greatest height.

_Clarendon's Life._

On the following morning, after some private conversation between the duchess, her son, and the Earl of Nithsdale, the Lady Winifred was summoned to the oak-chamber, where her mother formally taking her hand, placed it in that of the earl. They both knelt before her to receive her blessing; and though as yet they had never addressed one word to each other, they rose from their knees, their faiths mutually plighted.

Such marriages have often been contracted, and sometimes they may have proved as well assorted as those in which the choice of the individuals has been more consulted; but it has seldom occurred that hearts have so sincerely acquiesced in the vows dictated by others as on this occasion.

The Earl of Nithsdale was approaching the age of thirty. He had visited Paris, he had travelled in Italy, he had passed some time in Germany. There was a singularity in the eye-brows, whose darkness had already attracted Amy's notice, and the clear but melancholy blue eyes which they shaded, in the pale complexion, and the expression of sadness about the mouth, which had proved irresistible to many a foreign fair one. He had often won unwooed the hearts of those Parisian belles, who were not devoted to the dreary court decorum prevalent during the reign of Madame de Maintenon; while many of the more glowing beauties of Italy had absolutely courted the favour of the young Englishman, and many a sentimental German seemed ready to yield her heart, almost before he could lay siege to it.

In his early youth he had not failed to profit by the advances which were thus made to him; but his was not a character which could long find pleasure in such conquests. He had an innate preference for virtue and purity; his disposition was naturally enthusiastic and contemplative. The gay, the thoughtless, passing attachments to which we have alluded, were not in unison with his mind. The sprightly Parisian was too volatile to make any lasting impression on such a heart, the Italian too little refined, the German too easily won; so that, though he had passed the first flush of youth, his real affections were still unhackneyed.

He had accidentally found himself at Bruges when the Lady Lucy pronounced her vows, and was one of the assembly who crowded the church to witness the ceremony. Lady Winifred had been pointed out to him among the convent pensioners, as being sister to the young nun; and he had then remarked upon the innocence and purity of her countenance, and had thought within himself how much more attractive was such an expression than all the graces and fascinations which are meant to allure.

If there is any foundation of virtue in the heart of a man, the more he has been thrown with the less respectable part of the sex, the more he has been exposed to their allurements, the more highly does he prize entire innocence when he meets with it, and the more strict is his line of demarcation between the modest, and those in whose conduct there may be any touch of levity. It might almost be taken as a touchstone of the original disposition, whether or not, through all the errors into which man, when tempted, is liable to fall, he yet preserves a quick perception of genuine purity, and also retains a taste and a veneration for it. Whatever may have been his aberrations, there is always hope that such a one will return to the path of virtue.

The Earl of Nithsdale, however, was not one who had ever been completely carried away in the vortex of dissipation. He had still cherished within his mind an ideal model of perfection, which had preserved him from yielding up his affections to any of the fair creatures who fluttered around him. He had always resolved that the woman to whom he should unite himself should be pure as the unsunned snow, with mind, soul, and affections fresh and unpolluted.

It was, therefore, willingly that he entered into the alliance urged by the agent of his master--a master towards whom he inherited loyalty with the blood which flowed in his veins, and to whom, since his interview with him in Flanders, he felt additionally bound by every tie of romantic honour.

Lord Nithsdale had sought that interview with all the feelings of enthusiasm naturally inspired by the circumstance of the young prince so gallantly entering the King of France's army. He was then saddened at the appearance of ill-health visible in the Chevalier, and he was disheartened by perceiving how poorly he was attended. These facts, unpromising as they were, affected his hopes of success, but they did not lessen the interest he felt for the royal exile. The divisions among the Chevalier's adherents, consequent upon Colonel Hook's imprudent neglect of the more moderate Jacobites, who were not prepared rashly and unconditionally to yield the hard-earned liberties of their country into the hands of a restored monarch, portended, to a person who was not of a sanguine temperament, the ill-success which attended the attempt of 1707, but it did not for a moment affect his allegiance.

This despondent, yet devoted loyalty threw over his whole demeanour a tinge of melancholy, which was calculated to render him only more interesting in the eyes of a young girl; and she soon learned to watch with anxiety the varying expression of his brow, and to hail with joy the smile which her presence invariably called forth.

His affection for her was a mingled feeling of almost parental care and protection, with a punctilious respect, excited by her innocence and her noble birth.

She had been brought up to honour and to obey; and the love to which she gladly and dutifully yielded every faculty of her soul, evinced itself in a thousand actions of almost filial reverence. She was unaccustomed to the common attentions mechanically granted by the other sex, and unconsciously received by those who have lived in the world; and he sometimes smilingly checked her when she stooped for her own roll of silk, or performed for herself and others a thousand little services, which, in former days especially, were exacted not only from a lover, but from all gentlemen towards all ladies.

When, however, they occasionally found themselves alone, a circumstance of rare occurrence, then her instinctive inborn nobleness and modesty made her for the time assume, unknown to herself, the dignity of demeanour befitting one of her rank and station. She was no longer the timid and affectionate girl, only watching to forestall the wishes of him to whom she owed duty and allegiance; but the high-born damsel, whose gentle purity was more awful in its simplicity than the frown of another.

The novelty of such a character--the contrast it afforded to those which he had previously met with--the unusual mixture of perfect confidence in her entire affection for himself, and of perfect certainty that a few weeks would make her his wedded wife, with the fear of alarming the shrinking bashfulness of one nurtured in such utter seclusion,--the desire of winning the unreserved confidence of a creature accustomed to reveal the secret workings of her innocent soul to her confessor alone, and the pleasure of gently insinuating himself into her heart of hearts,--gave a new and singular character to this courtship. His own soul seemed to grow fresh, young, and pure by the study of hers. He enjoyed once more all the simple tastes and pleasures of childhood, which had long ceased to charm him; and he hailed with as much delight, as in some cases a lover would the confession of reciprocal affection, any detail of the youthful amusements of her convent life which he could succeed in luring her to describe.

It was seldom, however, that she spoke herself. She loved to sit in her own accustomed and retired seat, apparently occupied with her embroidery, while she gave up her whole soul to the rapture of listening to his voice, and of drinking long draughts of the new and absorbing passion which it was become her duty to feel. If, as not unfrequently happened, he addressed himself to her, and asked her opinion, her feelings, upon the subject which might be under discussion, she started as from a reverie; and unless it was one which touched upon some matter of morality, of religion, or of loyalty, she could give no opinion, for in truth she had none. She listened for the pleasure of hearing his full, sweet, mellow voice; of learning his sentiments; and of sometimes stealing an occasion of dwelling unobserved upon the countenance, which, in her eyes, beamed with all that was noble and intellectual.

On the day preceding that on which the marriage ceremony was to be performed by a Catholic priest in the chapel of Poole Castle, the Duchess of Powis gave her daughter some of the sage maternal counsel which was to fit her to become a virtuous wife, and the head of a noble household, at a period when the duties of housewifery really devolved upon the mistress.

"Be seated, my dear Winifred, and listen to me attentively. You are now about to enter upon a mode of life entirely new to you; you will have no one to guide and direct you."

"Oh! madam! think you my lord is likely to be called away from me so soon?"

"No, my child; it is not on that account I speak, unless indeed our gracious master should carry his proposed landing into effect; in such a case you would not be a degenerate daughter of the house of Herbert, but you would wish your husband to be among the first who flock to the standard of our rightful sovereign. But though no such paramount duty, to which all others must yield, should call him from your side, there are many points connected with your household arrangements in which you must act and judge for yourself. Of course, should any circumstance occur on which there should be a diversity of opinion between yourself and your husband," (the Lady Winifred looked up in her mother's face with an expression of unfeigned astonishment,) "remember, Winifred, that on such occasions it will be your duty to submit, whether your reason is convinced or not."

"Is it possible?"

"Is what possible, my child?"

"Is it possible, madam, that I should ever hold an opinion contrary to my lord's?"

"Such things have occurred," resumed the duchess, while a transient, almost imperceptible smile passed over her lips. "When you have lived more in the world, you may perhaps acquire wishes and sentiments of your own. Should subjects of dispute arise----"

"Oh! madam!"

"Remember, it is the wife's duty to yield; and remember, that a soft word turneth away wrath."

The duchess had proceeded so far with her advice, because she had ever deemed it right thus to admonish each of her daughters before they entered into the marriage state, when the Lady Winifred exclaimed with tears in her eyes--

"Oh! my dearest mother! surely you have not seen in me any signs of wilfulness! Heaven knows my heart is all submission towards him to whom it has pleased you and my sovereign to unite my destiny. Heaven is my witness," she added, clasping her hands, "that I honour him--that I revere him, (saving yourself, madam, and Father Albert,) second to nothing under Heaven! And to-morrow, mother--to-morrow, I suppose, I may honour him first of all created beings!" She turned her soft and tearful eyes to Heaven with an expression of such enthusiastic, such sublime devotion--though the devotion was not at the moment all religious, that the duchess looked upon her for a space in mute astonishment.

"You are a strange girl," at length she said; "so silent, so reserved, and yet so ardent:" and the mother, who had been too much occupied with other thoughts to study the real character concealed under the gentle, unobtrusive deportment of her child, was surprised and perplexed at this unexpected burst of feeling.

After a pause she resumed. "And there is another thing which I have never failed to impress upon your sisters, which is, that however exalted may be a woman's rank, however ample her husband's fortune, she should not disdain to be the diligent housewife as well as the high-born lady. I have in this small clasped book a collection of family receipts, which I wish you to study carefully, and which you will find of infinite service. They descended to me from my grandmother, her grace of Somerset; and our family have always been renowned for our almond comfits and our spiced cakes. Amy Evans can assist you, for she has learned to compose these condiments under our faithful Rachel."

The Lady Winifred with gratitude and humility received from her mother's hand the small green book with silver clasps which contained these valuable documents. The duchess continued: "In uniting you to one of the Maxwell blood, I need scarcely fear for your principles of loyalty. There can be no doubt that, born of the Herberts, and married to a Maxwell, you will live and die true to the king of your ancestors. And now, my dear child, may a merciful Providence grant that, firm in the faith in which you have been brought up, you may live a virtuous, if not a happy life, and that you may die the death of the righteous!"

The Lady Winifred knelt; and her mother having thus advised her upon conjugal, economical, political, and religious subjects, kissed her fair child's forehead, and they retired to rest.

The next day witnessed the vows of the betrothed pair; and they shortly afterwards took up their abode at the Earl of Nithsdale's castle of Terreagles, in Dumfriesshire.