Valerie by Frederick Marryat

Author:Frederick Marryat [Marryat, Frederick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
Published: 2007-12-21T05:00:00+00:00

* * *

Chapter Nine.

I put the papers down on the table as soon as I had finished them, and for a long while was absorbed in meditation.

“Is it possible,” thought I, “that love disappointed can turn to such fury—can so harden the heart to all better feelings—induce a woman to shorten the days of her parent—to allow a sister to remain in painful error on her death-bed, and wreak vengeance upon an innocent being, regardless of all justice? Grant, then, that I may never yield to such a passion! Who would have ever imagined, that the careless, eccentric Lady R— had such a load of crime weighing her down, and daily and hourly reminded of it by the presence of the injured party? How callous she must have become by habit, to still delay doing an act of justice—how strange that the fear of the world and its opinion should be greater than the fear of God!”

This last remark proved how little I yet knew of the world, and then my thoughts went in a different direction. As I have already said, I had been brought up as a Catholic; but, after my grandmother’s death, I had little encouragement or example shown me in religious duties. Now, having been more than two years in England, and continually with Protestants, I had gone to the established Protestant church with those I resided with at first; because I considered it better to go to that church, although I knew it to be somewhat at variance with my own, rather than go to no church at all, and by habit I was gradually inclining to Protestantism; but now the idea came across my mind, if Lady R— had confessed as we Catholics do, this secret could not have been kept so long; and, if she withheld herself from the confessional, had her agents been Catholics, the secret would have been divulged to the priest by them, and justice would have been done to Lionel; and, having made this reflection, I felt as it were, that I was again a sincere Catholic.

After a little more reflection, I put away the papers, wrote a letter to Mr Selwyn, the solicitor, requesting that he would call upon me the following morning, and then went down to Lady M—.

“I suppose that we shall not have much of the pleasure of your company, Miss de Chatenoeuf,” said her ladyship, “now that you have such a novel occupation?”

“It is a very distressing one,” replied I, “and I wish Lady R— had not paid me such a compliment. Might I trespass upon your ladyship’s kindness to request the loan of the carriage for half-an-hour to obtain some papers from Lady R—’s house in Baker Street?”

“Oh, certainly,” replied her ladyship. “Pray have you seen Lady R—’s will?”

“Yes, madame.”

“And how has she disposed of her property?”

“She has left it all to her nephew, Lady M—.”

“Nephew! I never heard her speak of a nephew before. Sir Richard had no nephews or nieces, for

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