Uvo Delavoye

“ I would not linger till to-morrow in this suspence to be master of the universe!”
“I have told it you, Sir, already; whatever is clandestine carries a consciousness of evil, and so repugnant do I find it to my disposition and opinions, that till you give me back the promise I so unworthily made, I must be a stranger to peace, because at war with my own actions and myself.”
“Recover, then, your peace,” cried Delvile with much emotion, “for I here acquit you of all promise!—to fetter, to compel you, were too inhuman to afford me any happiness. ”

“ Fill it up, Louvois! Put this villain's name in it! Let him be arrested to-night, and taken there in his own caleche. The shameless, ungrateful, foul-mouthed villain! Why did you bring me these letters, Louvois? Oh, why did you yield to my foolish whim? My God, is there no truth, or honour, or loyalty in the world?" He stamped his feet, and shook his clenched hands in the air in the frenzy of his anger and disappointment.
"Shall I, then, put back the others?" asked Louvois eagerly. He had been on thorns since the king had begun to read them, not knowing what disclosures might come next. ”

“ Delvile himself is content to relinquish me; no father has commanded, no mother has interfered, he has required no admonition, full well enabled to act for himself by the powerful instigation of hereditary arrogance! Yet my family, he says,—unexpected condescension! my family and every other circumstance is unexceptionable; how feeble, then, is that regard which yields to one only objection! how potent that haughtiness which to nothing will give way! ”

“ But the king had little breathing space. His assailants knew that with persistence they had bent his will before, and they trusted that they might do so again. It was Louvois, the minister, now who entered the room, with his majestic port, his lofty bearing, his huge wig, and his aristocratic face, which, however, showed some signs of trepidation as it met the baleful eye of the king.
"Well, Louvois, what now?" he asked impatiently. "Has some new state matter arisen?"
"There is but one new state matter which has arisen, sire, but it is of such importance as to banish all others from our mind." ”

“ The arrogance of Mr Delvile had offended all the neighbouring gentry, who could easily be better entertained than by receiving instructions of their own inferiority, which however readily they might allow, was by no means so pleasant a subject as to recompense them for hearing no other. And if Mr Delvile was shunned through hatred, his lady no less was avoided through fear; high-spirited and fastidious, she was easily wearied and disgusted, she bore neither with frailty nor folly—those two principal ingredients in human nature! ”

“ And you venture to act without my authority!"
"I thought that I knew your wishes, sire," stammered Louvois, whose haughty manner had quite deserted him, and whose face was as white as the ruffles of his shirt.
"You are not there to think about my wishes, sir. You are there to consult them and to obey them. Why is it that I have turned away from my old nobility, and have committed the affairs of my kingdom to men whose names have never been heard of in the history of France, such men as Colbert and yourself? ”

“ I have marked you of late, Louvois. You have grown beyond your station. You take too much upon yourself. See to it that I have not again to complain to you upon this matter."
The humiliated minister sat as one crushed, with his chin sunk upon his breast. The king muttered and frowned for a few minutes, but the cloud cleared gradually from his face, for his fits of anger were usually as short as they were fierce and sudden.
"You will detain that messenger, Louvois," he said at last, in a calm voice.
"Yes, sire." ”

“ Delvile, struck by this evident dismay, instantly concluded his plan had disgusted her. He waited some minutes in anxious expectation of an answer, but finding her silence continued while her emotion encreased, the deepest crimson dyed his face, and unable to check his chagrin, though not daring to confess his disappointment, he suddenly quitted her, and walked, in much disorder, about the room. But soon recovering some composure, from the assistance of pride, “Pardon, madam,” he said, “a trial such as no man can be vindicated in making. ”

“ An attack so earnest from almost any other person could hardly have failed being very offensive to her, but in the manners of young Delvile good breeding was so happily blended with frankness, that his freedom seemed merely to result from the openness of his disposition, and even in its very act pleaded its own excuse. ”

“ Now, I think it’s funny; don’t you?”
“Your historian has given me so many side-lights on slavery that I’m dazzled with the brilliancy of them; whether serious or amusing, it is astonishing.”
“Only to strangers,” said the girl; “to us they are never puzzling; they are only grown-up children––even the wisest––and need to be managed like children. Those crazy abolitionists should hear Nelse on the ‘hoodoo’ of freedom; I fancy he would astonish them.”
“Not the slightest doubt of it,” agreed Delaven, who usually did agree with Evilena––except when argument would prolong a tete-a-tete. ”

“ Frugality and health alike obliged Major Delavie to observe a careful regimen. He had served in all Marlborough’s campaigns, and had afterwards entered the Austrian army, and fought in the Turkish war, until he had been disabled before Belgrade by a terrible wound, of which he still felt the effects. Returning home with his wife, the daughter of a Jacobite exile, he had become a kind of agent in managing the family estate for his cousin the heiress, Lady Belamour, who allowed him to live rent-free in this ruinous old Manor-house, the cradle of the family. ”

“ Lady Geraldine glowed with generous indignation.
Afterwards, in speaking to me of Lord O’Toole, Devereux said, “His lordship’s classification of men is as contracted as the savage’s classification of animals: he divides mankind into two classes, knaves and fools; and when he meets with an honest man, he does not know what to make of him.” ”

“ She saw throughout the whole behaviour of Mrs Delvile, a warmth of regard which, though strongly opposed by family pride, made her almost miserable to promote the very union she thought necessary to discountenance; she saw, too, that it was with the utmost difficulty she preserved the steadiness of her opposition, and that she had a conflict perpetual with herself, to forbear openly acknowledging the contrariety of her wishes, and the perplexity of her distress ”

“ I laughed within myself to see Deslow alone hang back; he was unwilling to owe his life to one of my complexion—one who had been a slave. For there are men, do you know," said Pomp, with a smile of mingled haughtiness and pity, "who would rather that even their country should perish than owe in any measure its salvation to the race they have always hated and wronged!" ”

“ And this, though a work of pain and difficulty, was not impracticable; her sensibility, indeed, was keen, and she had suffered from it the utmost torture; but her feelings were not more powerful than her understanding was strong, and her fortitude was equal to her trials. Her calamities had saddened, but not weakened her mind, and the words of Delvile in speaking of his mother occurred to her now with all the conviction of experience, that “evils inevitable are always best supported, because known to be past amendment, and felt to give defiance to struggling.” ”

“ Then, calling out exultingly to her son, "See," she added, "how great a woman can act, when stimulated by generosity, and a just sense of duty! Follow then, at least, the example you ought to have led, and deserve my esteem and love, or be content to forego them."
"And can I only deserve them," said Delvile, in a tone of the deepest anguish, "by a compliance to which not merely my happiness, but my reason must be sacrificed? What honour do I injure that is not factitious? What evil threatens our union, that is not imaginary? ”

“ The king advanced angrily upon the minister, but Louvois suddenly flashed out his rapier. Louis sprang back with alarm and amazement upon his face, but it was the hilt and not the point which was presented to him.
"Pass it through my heart, sire!" the minister cried, falling upon his knees, his whole great frame in a quiver with emotion. "I will not live to see your glory fade!"
"Great heaven!" shrieked Louis, throwing the sword down upon the ground, and raising his hands to his temples, "I believe that this is a conspiracy to drive me mad. Was ever a man so tormented in his life? ”

“ Forget that I’m Valeria’s father—think of me only as one who has known suffering—aye, and sin, too. Make a safety-valve of me—let yourself go. But I can bear this sham cynicism of yours no longer. It’s wrong, Owen, it’s wrong. True fortitude faces what lies before it, finds its Gethsemane, and rises, purged of bitterness. Break down—weep, nay, curse if you will, only cast [105] open the floodgates. Let loose whatever devils possess your soul, you, the victim of treachery—let them loose, I say, and we will conquer them together. ”

“ Thus dreadfully passed the night; and in the morning, when the woman of the house came to see after her, she found her raving with such frenzy, and desperation, that her conscience was perfectly at ease in the treatment she had given her, being now firmly satisfied she required the strictest confinement.
She still, however, tried to get away; talked of Delvile without cessation, said she should be too late to serve him, told the woman she desired but to prevent murder, and repeatedly called out, “Oh beloved of my heart! wait but a moment, and I will snatch thee from destruction!” ”

“ How could Delapine marry her when she was without a sou? How could she earn her living except as a despised and pitied governess? He thought of his old comrade Duval—the brave old man in spite of his vanity and eccentricities—now lying cold in the grave. He thought of his son Pierre, a parricide and an outcast like Ishmael of old, a wild man, whose hand was against every man and every man's hand against him, and he trembled at the awful vista it awoke in his mind. ”

“ Mrs Delvile is as much disposed in your favour as myself, and as desirous to be of service to you. Endeavour, therefore, to cast off this timidity, and to make yourself easy. You must come to us often; use will do more towards removing your fears, than all the encouragement we can give you."
"But what are the fears," cried Mrs Delvile, "that Miss Beverley can have to remove? unless, indeed, she apprehends her visits will make us encroachers, and that the more we are favoured with her presence, the less we shall bear her absence." ”

“ But Lovat was not the only melancholy instance in which that extraordinary feature in the Highland character, loyalty to a chieftain, was employed in aiding the darkest treachery, and in deeds of violence and cruelty. [Pg 317]
For many years, Lovat revelled in the indulgence of the fiercest passions; but he paid in time the usual penalty of guilt. His name came to be a bye-word. Every act of violence, done in the darkness of night,—the oppressions of the helpless, the corruption of the innocent,—every plot which was based upon the lowest principles, were attributed to him. ”

“ The Canon lifted a haggard face.
“Perhaps I had set my heart overmuch upon your marriage with my child, Owen. It may be so—it may be so. I may have forgotten that we poor mortals cannot, after all, see very far—that all plannings and schemings are very vain, seen by the light of Immortal Wisdom. If so, I am receiving my punishment now.”
The Canon groaned again.
“I am at a loss how to act. I can decide nothing. I must see Valeria, but how can I do so until I can command myself?” ”

“ Had the lowest of women won the affections of Mr Delvile, could his father with less delicacy or less decency have acquainted her with his inflexible disapprobation? To send with so little ceremony a message so contemptuous and so peremptory!—but perhaps it is better, for had he, too, like Mrs Delvile, joined kindness with rejection, I might still more keenly have felt the perverseness of my destiny. ”

“ I cannot let you go in this way; for see, you are weeping. Surely this pretence of anger is unjust,—unjust to you and to me!"
Before she could speak, the voice went on, "Little rebel, sweet little rebel, will you not surrender to—a vanquished victor?" And with this, a kiss was pressed upon her lips.
At first Dorothy had been too startled to speak,—too frightened and dumb from the tumult his caressing voice had aroused within her. But the touch of his lips awakened her like a blow.
"How dare you?" she cried, struggling from his arms. "Oh, how I wish I had never seen you!" ”

“ Why don’t you harness up a mountain—you could do that, couldn’t you, Deevy?—and plough up the earth and trample it down and let people live as they were meant to live, and turn them into folks? Why don’t you?”
“It couldn’t be done that way,” said the Deev, very much excited and disgustingly certain.
“Well,” said Bit-bit, “then look at the men and women and children that have come along behind us. What about them—what about them? Why don’t you make your arms steel and act as if you had wings, and beat the world into a better place for them to live, instead of making a cake of it. ”