“Well, then, Isidora, you will give me no proof of your love? Is that what I must understand?”
“Demand,” answered the innocent and high-souled Isidora, “any proof that woman ought to give—more is not in human power—less would render the proof of no value!”
Such was the impression that these words made on Melmoth, whose heart, however, plunged in unutterable crimes, had never been polluted by sensuality, that he started from the spot where he stood—gazed on her for a moment—and then exclaimed, “Well! you have given me proofs of love unquestionable! It remains for me to give you a proof of that love which I have described—of that love which only you could inspire—of that love which, under happier circumstances, I might—But no matter—it is not my business to analyse the feeling, but to give the proof.” He extended his arm toward the casement at which she stood.—“Would you then consent to unite your destiny with mine? Would you indeed be mine amid mystery and sorrow? Would you follow me from land to sea, and from sea to land—a restless, homeless, devoted being—with the brand on your brow, and the curse on your name? Would you indeed be mine?—my own—my only Immalee?”
“I would—I will!”
“Then,” answered Melmoth, “on this spot receive the proof of my eternal gratitude. On this spot I renounce your sight!—I disannul your engagement!—I fly from you forever!” And as he spoke, he disappeared.
XXII
I’ll not wed Paris—Romeo is my husband.
Shakespeare
Isidora was so accustomed to the wild exclamations and (to her) unintelligible allusions of her mysterious lover, that she felt no unwonted alarm at his singular language, and abrupt departure. There was nothing in either more menacing or formidable than she had often witnessed; and she recollected, that after these paroxysms, he often reappeared in a mood comparatively tranquil. She felt sustained, therefore, by this reflection—and perhaps by that mysterious conviction impressed on the hearts of those who love profoundly—that passion must always be united with suffering; and she seemed to hear, with a kind of melancholy submission to the fatality of love, that her lot was to suffer from lips that were sure to verify the oracle. The disappearance, therefore, of Melmoth, gave her less surprise than a summons from her mother a few hours after, which was delivered in these words: “Madonna Isidora, your lady-mother desires your presence in the tapestried chamber—having received intelligence by a certain express, which she deems fitting you should be acquainted withal.”
Isidora had been in some degree prepared for extraordinary intelligence by an extraordinary bustle in this grave and quiet household. She had heard steps passing, and voices resounding, but
“She wist not what they were,”
and thought not of what they meant. She imagined that her mother might have some communication to make about some intricate point of conscience which Fra Jose had not discussed to her satisfaction, from which she would make an instant transition to the levity visible in the mode in which one attendant damsel arranged her hair, and the suspected sound of a guitarra under the window of another, and then fly off at a tangent to inquire how the capons were fed, and why the eggs and Muscadine had not been duly prepared for Fra Jose’s supper. Then would she fret about the family clock not chiming synchronically with the bells of the neighbouring church where she performed her devotions. And finally, she fretted about everything, from the fattening of the “pullen,” and the preparation for the olio, up to the increasing feuds between the Molinists and Jansenists, which had already visited Spain, and the deadly dispute between the Dominican and Franciscan orders, relative to the habit in which it was most effective to salvation for the dying body of the sinner to be wrapped. So between her kitchen and her oratory—her prayers to the saints, and her scoldings to her servants—her devotion and her anger—Doña Clara continued to keep herself and domestics in a perpetual state of interesting occupation and gentle excitement.
Something of this Isidora expected on the summons, and she was, therefore, surprised to see Doña Clara seated at her writing desk—a large and fairly written manuscript of a letter extended before her—and to hear words thereafter uttered thus: “Daughter, I have sent for you, that you might with me partake of the pleasure these lines should afford both; and that you may do so, I desire you to sit and hear while they are read to you.”
Doña Clara, as she uttered these words, was seated in a monstrous high-backed chair, of which she actually seemed a part, so wooden was her figure, so moveless her features, so lacklustre her eyes.
Isidora curtsied low, and sat on one of the cushions with which the room was heaped—while a spectacled duenna, enthroned on another cushion at the right hand of Doña Clara, read, with sundry pauses and some difficulty, the following letter, which Doña Clara had just received from her husband, who had landed, not “at Ossuna,”50 but at a real seaport town in Spain, and was now on his way to join his family.
Doña Clara,
It is about a year since I received your letter advising me of the recovery of our daughter, whom we believed lost with her nurse on her voyage to India when an infant, to which I would sooner have replied, were I not otherwise hindered by concerns of business.
I would have you understand, that I rejoice not so much that I have recovered a daughter, as that heaven hath regained a soul and a subject, as it were, e faucibus Draconis—e profundis Barathri—the which terms Fra Jose will make plain to your weaker comprehension.
I trust that, through the ministry of that devout servant of God and the church, she is now become as complete a Catholic in
