Theresa Marchmont | Page 4

permission to accompany him with her son,
when he suddenly announced his intention of visiting Greville Cross.
Her petition was at first met with a cold negative; but when she
ventured to plead the advice she had received recently from several
physicians, to remove to the sea coast, and reminded him of her
frequent indispositions, and present feebleness of constitution, he
looked at her for a time with astonishment at the circumstance of her
thus exhibiting so unusual an opposition to his will, and afterwards
with sincere and evident distress at the confirmation borne by her faded
countenance to the truth of her representation.
"Thou art so patient a sufferer," he replied "that I am somewhat too
prone to forget the weakness of thy frame--but be content--I must be
alone in this long and tedious journey."
The tears which rose in her eyes were her only remonstrance, and her
husband stood regarding her for some minutes in silence, but with the
most apparent signs of mental agitation on his countenance.
"Helen," said he at length, in a low, earnest tone, "Helen, thou wert
worthy of a better fate than to be linked to the endurance of my
waywardness; but God who sees thine unmurmuring patience, will give
thee strength to meet thy destiny. Thou hast scarcely enough of
womanly weakness in thee to shrink from idle terrors, or I might strive
to appall thee," he added faintly smiling, "with a description of the
gloom and discomfort of thine unknown northern mansion; but if thou
art willing to bear with its scanty means of accommodation, as well as
with thy husband's variable temper, come with him to the Cross."

Helen longed to throw herself into his arms as in happier days, when he
granted her petition, but she had been more than once repulsed from his
bosom, and she therefore contented herself with thanking him
respectfully; and in another week, they became inmates of Greville
Cross.
The evening whose stormy and endless commencement I have before
described, was the fourth after her arrival in the North; and
notwithstanding the anxiety she had felt for a change of habitation, she
could not disguise from herself that there was an air of desolation, a
general aspect of dreariness about her new abode which justified the
description afforded by her husband. As she crossed the portal, a
sensation of terror ill-defined, but painful and overwhelming, smote
upon her heart, such as we feel in the presence of a secret enemy, and
Lord Greville's increasing uneasiness and abstraction since he had
returned to the mansion of his forefathers, did not tend to enliven its
gloomy precincts. The wind beat wildly against the casement of the
apartment in which they sat, and which although named "the lady's
chamber," afforded none of those feminine luxuries, which are now to
be found in the most remote parts of England, in the dwellings of the
noble and wealthy. By the side of a huge hearth, where the crackling
and blazing logs imparted the only cheerful sound or sight in the
apartment, in a richly-carved oaken chair emblazoned with the armorial
bearings of his house, sat Lord Greville, lost in silent contemplation. A
chased goblet of wine with which he occasionally moistened his lips,
stood on a table beside him, on which an elegantly-fretted silver lamp
was burning; and while it only emitted sufficient light to render the
gloom of the spacious chamber still more apparent, it threw a strong
glare upon his expressive countenance and noble figure, and rendered
conspicuous that richness of attire which the fashion of those stately
days demanded from "the magnates of the land;" and which we now
only admire amid the mummeries of theatrical pageant, or on the
glowing canvas of Vandyck. His head rested on his hand, and while
Lady Greville who was seated on an opposite couch, was apparently
engrossed by the embroidery-frame over which she leant, his attention
was equally occupied by his son, who stood at her knee, interrupting
her progress by twining his little hands in the slender ringlets which

profusely overhung her work, and by questions which betrayed the
unsuspicious sportiveness of his age.
"Mother," said the boy, "are we to remain all winter in this ruinous den?
Do you know Margaret says, that some of these northern sea winds will
shake it down over our heads one stormy night; and that she would as
soon lie under the ruins, as be buried alive in its walls. Now I must own
I would rather return to Silsea, and visit my hawks, and Caesar, and--"
"Hush! sir, you prate something too wildly; nor do I wish to hear you
repeat Margaret's idle observations."
"But mother, I know you long yourself to walk once again in your own
dear sunshiny orangery?"
"My