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MIRK ABBEY,

By James Payn

The Author of “Lost Sir Massengberd;” “the Clyffards Of Glyffe;”
 etc., etc.

In Three Volumes. Vol. I.

London: Hurst And Blackett, Publishers,

1866.


                        TO

                   Charles Dickens,

               This Book Is, By Permission,

                   Cordially dedicated.




CHAPTER I. IN MY LADY'S CHAMBER.

|IT is an hour short of midnight, and the depth of winter. The morrow is
Christmas Day. Mirk Abbey bears snow everywhere; inches thick upon its
huge broad coping-stones; much even on its sloping roof, save on the
side where the north wind makes fitful rushes, and, wolf-like, tears and
worries the white fleeces. Mirk woods sway mournfully their naked arms,
and grind and moan without; the ivy taps unceasingly against the pane,
as though entreating shelter.

The whole earth lies cold and dead beneath its snow-shroud, and yet the
snow falls and falls, flake by flake, soft and noiseless in its white
malice, like a woman's hate upon her rival.

It hides the stars, it dims the moon, it dulls the murmur of the river
to which the Park <DW72>s down, and whose voice the frost has striven in
vain to hush these three weeks. Only the Christmas-bells are heard,
now faint, now full--that sound more laden with divine regret than
any other that falls on human ear. Like one who, spurring from the
battle-field, proclaims “The fight is ours, but our great chief is
slain!” there is sorrow in that message of good tidings; and not only
for pious Christian folk; in every bosom it stirs some sleeping memory,
and reminds it of the days that are no more. No wonder, then, that such
music should touch my Lady's heart--the widowed mistress of Mirk
Abbey. Those Christmas-bells which are also wedding-bells, remind her
doubtless of the hour when Sir Robert lifted her lace-veil aside, and
kissed her brow before all the people in the little church by the sea,
and called her for the first time his Wife. He will never do so more. He
has been dead for years. But what of that? Our dead are with us still.
Our acts, our dealings with the world, form but a portion of our lives;
our thoughts still dwell with those dear ones who have gone home before
us, and in our dreams they still are our companions. My Lady is not
alone in her private chamber, although no human being is there besides
herself. Her eyes are fixed upon the fire, and in its flame she sees a
once-loved face invisible to others, whose smile has power to move her
even to tears. How foolish are those who ascribe romance to Youth alone
--to Youth, that has scarcely learned to love, far less to lose! My Lady
is five-and-forty at the least, although still comely; and yet there are
memories at work within that broad white brow, which, for interest and
pathos, outweigh the fancies of a score of girls. Even so far as we--the
world--are acquainted with her past, it is a strange one, and may well
give her that thoughtful air.

Lady Lisgard, of Mirk Abbey, has looked at life from a far other
station than that which she now occupies. When a man of fortune does not
materially increase his property by marriage, we call the lady of his
choice, although she may have a few thousand pounds of her own, “a
girl without a sixpence.” But Sir Robert Lisgard did literally make
a match of this impecunious sort. Moreover, he married a very
“unsuitable young person;” by which expression you will understand
that he was blamed, not for choosing a bride very much junior to
himself, but for not selecting her from the proper circles. When
accidentally interrogated by blundering folks respecting her ancestry,
the baronet used good-humouredly to remark, that his wife was the
daughter of Neptune and Thetis. When asked for her maiden name, he would
reply drily: “She was a Miss Anna Dyomene;” for the simple fact
was, that she had been thrown up almost at his feet by the sea--the sole
survivor of a crowded emigrant-ship that went to pieces before his
eyes while he was staying one stormy autumn at a sea-side village in the
South. Lashed to a spar, the poor soul came ashore one terrible night in
a very insufficient costume, so as to excite the liveliest compassion
in all beholders. There was a subscription got up among some visitors of
fashion to supply her with a wardrobe