Ellen Percy; or, The Memoirs of an Actress — page 172: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ELLEN PERCY; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF AN ACTRESS. MLL LLL LL LLL LLL an awful consternation were upon me!—as if I had _ been smitten down by the storm of heaven, and was now waking again to hear the stupendous thunder continue to reverberate around me! Hd- win St. Clair endeavoured to elicit from my lips a response to the propositions which he had been addressing unto me: he therefore lavished caresses upon me—or rather he attempted to do so; but I sprang away from him. Then, as he entreated me to be pacified, and as he appealed to the strength of his passion as an excuse for the treachery he had committed, I cut him short by telling him that I loathed and abhorred him—that E would sooner find myself a wretched mendicant in the streets than accept the gilded splendour which he offered me—and I concluded by ceclaring that all he could now do to mitigate, if possible, the atrocity of the outrage was to keep the secret, and not compel me to have recourse to suicide as the only refuge from degradation and disgrace. This prayer on my part that he would keep the secret, was in entire consonance with his own views and wishes; and indeed he himself had been recommending that course, as I have already stated. Then, Hilen, I left the house—and I re- turned hither. You had just come home from Willowbridge: I need not recapitulate all that took place between yourself and me. You can judge what was the state of my mind! But at one time I really did purpose to make you my confidant, and to reveai everything on the morrow. When the morrow came, however, I had not the courage. No!—I.shrank from the idea of pro- claiming to you how weak, how credulous, and how foolish I had been—and how this folly of mine had led to my ruin! When [ looked up in your face, Ellen, and knew that you were pure and chaste, I could not bring my mind to confess that I was polluted andcontaminated. I knew not how to act; there was no excuse which I could devise—no tale that I could tell you, to account for that mood in which I had returned home ; and therefore I was compelled to shut myself up in that reserve which must doubtless have seemed so unkind and so ungenerous towards you. Oh, dear Hilen! believe me that I have not loved you less than I had been wont to do: but you can make allowances for the horribly afflicted state of my mind—for the mingled shame and despair which had possession of me !” * Alas, my poor Mary,” I exclaimed, “ I can make every allowance! Oh, what a history of villany and iniquity is this which has just flowed from your lips! And you have cherished a desire for vengeance, Mary?—you have not once felt your love for that man reviving ?” “Oh, no!” cried Mary: “love for him ?—it is impossible! I never loved him in reality: it was a fasclnation—a bewilderment of the mind at a moment when that mind was beginning to recover from the morbid influence of past circumstances, and was therefore perhaps more than ever sus- ceptible of certain impressions. No! I never loved- St. Clair as I loved Herbert Dalrymple: and Oh! even if it were the reverse—oven if I had adored and worshipped the very ground upon which St. Clair trod—everything would have become changed within me by the foul treachery which he prac. tised! it seems to me that true love can only associate itself with an idea of that which is noble 159 and magnanimous and high-souled, and that it must suffer annihilation in the presence of the un. masking of cold-blooded villany. But as I have already assured you, Ellen, whatsoever sentiment I in the first instance experienced for Edwin St. Clair, was not genuine love; and therefore it sur- vived not the blow which was dealt to my feelings on that fatal day. ‘The hope of vengeance has ever since been cherished in my heart!” “And supposing, Mary,” I said,—* only sup- posing for an instant, that Edwin St. Clair might be induced by coercion, by menaces and threats, to make you his wife “No, Ellen!” interrupted Mary Glentworth; “T could not accompany that man to the altar! Ob, I would surrender up ten of the best years of my life to regain that diadem of purity which has been snatched from my brow; and you may be- lieve me when I declare that immense are the sacrifices I would make in order to cover my shame with a gloss of virtue and stand before the world as a wedded wife! But to be the wife of him No, no! it were impossible! I gould not so far play the hypocrite as to kneel at the altar by the side of the man who has so foully wronged me! I would sooner want bread than receive it from such asource! Yes!’”—and here Mary’s naturally soft and amiable eyes glistened with an expression of fierceness,—‘“‘ and I would sooner that the babe which I bear in my bosom should be born in shame and nameless, than that it should inherit that name which henceforth must to me be ever held accursed,—a name which I shall never breathe ex- cept in company with a malediction flowing from the heart!” “ There is something terrible in the very strength of your language, Mary,” I said; “ but it at least proves to me that on no consideration would you espouse the man who has so deeply wronged you.” “Never!” replied Mary emphatically. ‘“ Not once since my ruin has been accomplished have I ever entertained such an idea, nor experienced the scintillation of such a hope. I have not appealed to him to do me an act of justico—I have not onco made the slightest attempt to communicate with him. I seem to be devoting myself to the idea of vengeance, if ever circumstances should place it in my power to inflict condign punishment upon Edwin St. Clair. Do you remember that evening it was about five or six weeks ago—when you went to the theatre to announce to Mr. Richards your intended return to the stage——we remained to see the ballet % “Tremomber it perfectly,” I said; “and that very same evening Mr. St. Clair was present in the theatre.” “ Yes—it was to this very incident I was about to allude,” responded Mary Glentworth. “ {6 was the first timo he had been to the theatre since his iniquitous conduct towards myself or at least it was tho first time that I had seen him there “ But when I pointed him out to you,” I in- terjected, “little suspecting how well you knew him—and even considering it possible that you might have forgotten who he was since the night you saw him in the House of Commons,—you seemed to be as calm and self-possessed, or rather ag cold and indifferent i “Yes—I know it,’ said Mary; “and I expe. Com C .IOoOK rrr rrr rrr amen (E©)