The Vale of Cedars; Or, The Martyr
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CHAPTER V.
"And we have won a bower of refuge now In this fresh waste."
MRS. HEMANS.
The Vale of Cedars, as described in our first chapter, had beenoriginally the work of a single individual, who had found there arefuge and concealment from the secret power of the Inquisition, fromwhose walls he had almost miraculously escaped: this individual wasJulien Henriquez, the grandfather of Marie. For five years he remainedconcealed, working unaided, but successfully, in forming a comfortablehome and concealed retreat, not only for himself but for his family.Nature herself appeared to have marked the spot as an impenetrableretreat, and Julien's skill and energy increased and strengthened thenatural barriers. During these five years the secret search for hisperson, at first carried on so vigilantly that his enemies supposednothing but death could have concealed him, gradually relaxed, andthen subsided altogether. Foes and friends alike believed him dead,and when he did re-appear in the coarse robe, shrouding cowl, andhempen belt, of a wandering friar, he traversed the most populoustowns in safety, unrecognized and unsuspected. It was with somedifficulty he found his family, and a matter of no little skill toconvey them, without exciting suspicion by their disappearance, to hisretreat; but all was accomplished at length, and years of domesticfelicity crowned every former effort, and inspired and encouragedmore.
Besides his own immediate family, consisting of his wife, a son,and daughter, Henriquez had the charge of two nephews and a niece,children of his sister, whose husband had perished by the arm of thesame secret power from which Henriquez had escaped; their mother haddied of a broken heart, from the fearful mystery of her husband'sfate, and the orphans were to Julien as his own.
As years passed, the Vale of Cedars became not only a safe, but aluxurious home. Every visit to the world Julien turned to profit, bythe purchase first of necessaries, then of luxuries. The little templewas erected by the active aid of the young men, and the solemn ritesof their peculiar faith adhered to in security. Small as the familywas, deaths, marriages, and births took place, and feelings andsympathies were excited, and struggles secretly endured, making thatsmall spot of earth in very truth a world. The cousins intermarried.Ferdinand and Josephine left the vale for a more stirring life;Manuel, Henriquez's own son, and Miriam, his niece, preferred thequiet of the vale. Julien, his nephew, too, had loved; but hiscousin's love was given to his brother, and he departed, unmurmuringlyindeed, but he dared not yet trust himself to associate calmly withthe object of his love: he had ever been a peculiarly sad and silentboy; the fate of his father never for an instant seemed to leave hismind, and he had secretly vowed to avenge him. Love, for a while, hadbanished these thoughts; but when that returned in all the misery ofisolation to his own breast, former thoughts regained dominion, and hetried to conquer the one feeling by the encouragement of the other.His brother and his wife constantly visited the vale; if at no othertime, almost always at those solemn festivals which generally fellabout the period of the Catholic Easter and Michaelmas; oftenaccompanied by faithful friends, holding the same mysterious bond ofbrotherhood, and to whom the secret of that vale was as precious andsecure as to its natural inmates. Its aged founder had frequently thehappiness of gathering around him from twenty to thirty of his secretrace, and of feeling that his work would benefit friends as well asoffspring. Julien alone never returned to the vale, and his family atlength mourned him as one amongst the dead.
The career of his brother was glorious but brief; he fell fightingfor his country, and his widow and young son returned to the parentalretreat. Though the cousins had married the same day, the son ofFerdinand was ten years older than his cousin Marie; Manuel and Miriamhaving lived twelve years together ere the longed-for treasure wasbestowed. At first, therefore, she had been to the youthful Ferdinandbut as a plaything, to pet and laugh with: he left the vale as pageto his father's companion in arms, Gonzalos de Lara, when Marie waslittle more than five years old; but still his love for her and hishome was such that whenever it was possible, he would snatch if itwere but half a day to visit them. Gradually, and to him it seemedalmost strangely, the plaything child changed into the graceful girl,and then again into the lovely woman; and dearer than ever became hisboyhood's home, though years had snatched away so many of its belovedinmates, that, at the period of our story, its sole occupants wereMarie and her father.
Had her mother lived, perchance Marie had never been exposed to thedangers of an introduction to the world. Betrothed, in the secrethearts of not only her own parents, but of Ferdinand's mother, to hercousin, if she lived to attain sufficient age, Miriam would not havethought it so impossible as Manuel did, that the affections of hischild might be sought for by, and given to another, if she mingledwith the world; she would at least have waited till she wasFerdinand's wedded wife, and then sent her forth secure. But suchsubtle fears and feelings are peculiarly _woman's_; not the tenderest,most devoted father, could of himself have either thought of, orunderstood them. He might perhaps have owned their justice had theybeen presented to him by the affectionate warnings of an almostidolized wife; but that voice was hushed, her sweet counsels buriedin the grave; and the fond, proud father, only thought of his child'sbrilliant beauty, and how she would be admired and beloved, could shebe but generally known. And so, for her sake, he actually did violenceto his own love for the quiet retirement of the vale, and bore her tothe care of Donna Emilie de Castro; seeing nothing, feeling nothing,but the admiration she excited, and that she was indeed the loveliestthere. One wish he had, and that was, that his nephew could have beenthere likewise; but being engaged at that time on some importantprivate business for the Queen, Ferdinand did not even know that hiscousin had ever left the vale.
That his child's affections could be excited towards any but those ofher own race was a circumstance so impossible, and moreover a sin sofearful, that it never entered Manuel's mind: he knew not woman'snature, dreamed not of its quick impulses, its passionate yearnings,its susceptibility towards all gentle emotions, or he could not haveso trustingly believed in the power of her peculiar faith and creedto guard her from the danger. Even his dearest desire that she shouldbecome the wife of her cousin she knew not; for the father shrunk fromrevealing it to either his child or nephew, unless Ferdinand lovedand sought her himself. What therefore had she to warn her from theprecipice on which she stood, when new, strange, yet most exquisitelysweet emotions gradually obtained possession of her heart in her dailyintercourse with Arthur Stanley? What they were indeed she knew not;the word love was never uttered by either; she only knew that hispresence, his voice, the pressure of his hand, brought with it athrilling sensation of intense happiness, such as she had never known,never imagined before. It was indeed but a brief dream, for whenhe spoke, when he besought her to be his, then indeed she woke toconsciousness, not only that she loved, but of the dark and fatalbarrier between them, which no human effort could o'erleap. Thesacrifice of race, of faith, of family, indeed might be made; but todo this never entered the mind and heart of Marie, so utterly was itimpossible. To her peculiar feelings it was sin enough thus to haveloved.
Manuel Henriquez bore his child back to the vale, little dreaming ofthe anguish to which his unguarded love had exposed her. She had everbeen rather a pensive and gentle girl, and therefore that she shouldbe still serious was no matter of surprise. For fifteen months shehad sought to banish every dream of Arthur, every thought but that inloving him she had sinned against her God. Time and prayer had in somemeasure softened the first acute agony of her feelings; she thoughtshe was conquering them altogether, when his unexpected appearanceexcited every feeling anew. Yet in that harrowing interview still shehad been firm. She had even told him a secret, which it was almostdeath to reveal, that he might forget her; for how could he wed withher? And yet even that barrier he would have passed, and his generous,his determined love, would linger on her memory spite of every effortto think of him no more.
It was a fearful struggle, and often and often she yearned to c
onfessall to her father, whom she loved with no common love; but she knewtoo well, not only the grief such tidings would be to him, but whathis judgment must be, and she shrunk in agony from the condemnationof her feelings by another, constantly as she was condemning themherself.
Henriquez had been absent from the vale during Stanley's unexpectedvisit, and he tarried long enough to excite the alarm, not only of hischild but of their domestics; nor was its cause when explained likelyto ease Marie's anxiety. He had been attacked on the day of hisintended return by a strange sensation of giddiness, followed byinsensibility, which appeared to have weakened him more than he hadthought compatible with so brief an illness. He made light of it, butstill he was uneasy, not that he feared death himself, but that itmight take him from his Marie ere his wishes were accomplished, andher earthly happiness, as he thought, secured. The first attack wasbut the forerunner of others, sometimes very slight and brief, atothers longer and more alarming, rendering Marie more and moredetermined to keep her fatal secret from him; for it appeared to herthat any stronger emotion than customary would be followed by thoseattacks; and as her love for him seemed to increase in intensity withthe anxiety his precarious health occasioned, so did her dread ofoccasioning him aught of grief. But how fruitless are our best andwisest resolutions! One little hour, and every thought was changed.