Theresa Marchmont

Theresa Marchmont

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Title: Theresa Marchmont
Author: Mrs Charles Gore
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THERESA MARCHMONT,
OR,
THE MAID OF HONOUR.
A TALE.
BY MRS. CHARLES GORE

"La cour est comme un édifice bâti de marbre; je veux dire qu'elle est
composée d'hommes fort durs, mais fort polis." _LA BRUYERE._
London, MDCCCXXIV

CHAPTER I.
"Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves shall never tremble.
Hence horrible shadow! Unreal mockery, hence!"--MACBETH
It was a gloomy evening, towards the autumn of the year 1676, and the
driving blasts which wept from the sea upon Greville Cross, a dreary
and exposed mansion on the coast of Lancashire, gave promise of a
stormy night and added to the desolation which at all traces pervaded
its vast and comfortless apartments.
Greville Cross had formerly been a Benedictine Monastery, and had
been bestowed at the Reformation, together with its rights of Forestry
upon Sir Ralph de Greville, the ancestor of its present possessor.
Although that part of the building containing the chapel and refectory
had been long in ruins, the remainder of the gloomy quadrangle was
strongly marked with the characteristics of its monastic origin. It had
never been a favourite residence of the Greville family; who were

possessed of two other magnificent seats, at one of which, Silsea Castle
in Kent, the present Lord Greville constantly resided; and the Cross,
usually so called from a large iron cross which stood in the centre of
the court-yard, and to which thousand romantic legends were attached,
had received few improvements from the modernizing hand of taste.
Indeed as the faults of the edifice were those of solid construction, it
would have been difficult to render it less gloomy or more convenient
by any change that art could affect. Its massive walls and huge oaken
beams would neither permit the enlargement of its narrow windows,
nor the destruction of its maze of useless corridors; and it was therefore
allowed to remain unmolested and unadorned; unless when an
occasional visit from some member of the Greville family demanded an
addition to its rude attempts of splendour and elegance. But it was
difficult to convey the new tangled luxuries of the capital to this remote
spot; and the tapestry, whose faded hues and moulding texture betrayed
the influence of the sea air, had not yet given plan to richer hangings.
The suite of state apartments as cold and comfortless in the extreme,
but one of the chambers had been recently decorated with more than
usual cost, on the arrival of Lord and Lady Greville, the latter of whom
had never before visited her Northern abode. Its dimensions, which
were somewhat less vast than those of the rest of the suite, rendered it
fitter for modern habits of life; and it had long ensured the preference
of the ladies of the House of Greville, and obtained the name of "the
lady's chamber," by which it is even to this day distinguished. The
walls were not incumbered by the portraits of those grim ancestors who
frowned in mail, or smiled in fardingale on the walls of the adjacent
galleries. The huge chimney had suffered some inhospitable contraction,
and was surmounted with marble; and huge settees, glittering with
gilding and satin, which in their turn would now be displaced by the
hand of Gillow or Oakley, had dispossessed the tall straight
backed-chairs, which in the olden times must have inflicted martyrdom
on the persons of our weary forefathers.
The present visit of Lord Greville to the Cross, was supposed to
originate in the dangerous illness of an old and favourite female servant,
who had held undisturbed control over the household