CHAPTER CCVIII.

PERDITA, THE LOST ONE!

IT was about three o’clock in the afternoon when Laura reached the

villa on Westbourne Terrace; and, having laid aside her bonnet and

handsome furs, she proceeded to the drawing-room, where, as Rosalie

had already informed her, her husband Lorenzo was anxiously awaiting

her presence.

The fact that he should have stated to the servant his desire that she

would speedily return home, was a proceeding so unusual on his part,

appearing, as it did, to imply annoyance at her absence, that it roused

the haughty temper of the imperious Laura; and for the first time since

their marriage, she wore a frown upon her features when she entered his

presence.

It was also for the first time that _his_ handsome countenance denoted

a storm raging within his breast, and all the pent-up violence of which

was about to explode against the deceitful, wanton creature into whose

character he had obtained so complete but fatal an insight that morning.

“You have been asking for me, Lorenzo?” said Laura, in a cold tone, as

she seated herself with an air of exhaustion upon a sofa.

“Yes, madam--I was most anxious to see you as soon as possible,”

answered the Italian, turning abruptly away from the window at which

he had been standing, and now advancing towards her. “When I came home

an hour ago I was surprised to find that you had been absent since

mid-day.”

“And pray, Lorenzo, am I to be kept a prisoner in this house?” demanded

Laura, in a tone of unfeigned surprise. “I had certain purchases

to make at different shops--and I went out in the carriage for the

purpose. Permit me to observe that your conduct is undignified in the

extreme, since you so far forget yourself as to express your feelings

to my lady’s-maid.”

“My God! and were I to proclaim my feelings to the whole world,

there would be but little cause for wonder!” exclaimed the Italian,

vehemently; and as he spoke, he thrust his hand into his bosom, and

clutched a dagger which he had concealed there.

But his eyes fell upon the countenance of his wife,--that countenance

so glorious in its beauty, though now with the sombre cloud

overshadowing it;--and he would have slain her then and there, had not

his glance thus suddenly embraced all the loveliness of her features

and all the rich contours of her splendid form. For, like a whelming

tide, rushed to his soul a thousand tender reminiscences,--vividly

recalling to his imagination all the joys and delights he had

experienced in her arms--the fervid passion he had seen reflected in

those magnificent eyes--the luscious kisses he had imprinted on those

lips--the wanton playfulness with which her long luxuriant hair had

oft-times swept across his cheeks--the ineffable bliss that had filled

his raptured soul when his head was pillowed on that glowing, swelling

bosom, which now palpitated with haughty indignation,--oh! he thought

of all this, and he felt that he could not slay one so exquisitely

lovely--so transcendently beautiful!

“Assuredly, your humour is strange to-day, Lorenzo,” said Laura, who,

though longing to make it up with the man whom she really and sincerely

loved, nevertheless was resolved to exact the homage which all women

under such circumstances require--namely, the first overture towards a

reconciliation. “At one moment your eyes glare savagely upon me as if I

had given you some mortal offence;--and now they assume an expression

of pity and commiseration. Come, sir, confess that you have entertained

some outrageous suspicion--that you are jealous of me--and I shall take

the avowal as a proof of affection. Do this,” she added, a faint smile

of encouragement appearing upon her lips, and allowing a glimpse of her

brilliant teeth; “do this, Lorenzo--and I will pardon your unkindness.”

“Pardon _me_!” exclaimed the Italian, bitterly--for the conduct of his

wife now appeared to him to be aggravated by levity and flippancy of

the most irritating nature, though in reality she was totally ignorant

of the fact that grave and serious charges were agitating in his mind

against her: “pardon _me_!” he repeated, his tone now assuming a

fierceness that began to amaze and even alarm the young woman, whose

conscience, as the reader is well aware, was not the clearest in the

world. “Oh! this is indeed a hideous mockery--a cool, deliberate

insult,” he continued,--“yes--a vile insult, to offer to pardon _me_!

What have I ever done to offend _you_--or merit _your_ forbearance

or _your_ forgiveness? My God! ’tis I who have been generous and

confiding--and ’tis you who have been the gross deceiver and the

unprincipled hypocrite!”

“These are harsh words, Lorenzo,” exclaimed Laura, rising from the

sofa, and drawing herself up to her full height; and though not tall

in stature, there was nevertheless something regal and majestically

imperious in her air and bearing: “yes--they are harsh words, I

repeat--and they may lead to a quarrel which no subsequent regrets nor

apologies can repair.”

“Let the quarrel be eternal--or to the very death!” returned Lorenzo,

his handsome countenance now distorted with rage. “Oh! I am sick of

this world with its hideous deceits--its hollow hearts--its boundless

profligacy! I care not how soon I throw off the coil of this life’s

trammels: but with my last breath shall I curse--bitterly, bitterly

curse--the odious name of _Perdita_!”

“Ah!” ejaculated the guilty woman, now perceiving that she was indeed

unmasked: but almost immediately recovering her self-possession, she

approached her husband and said in her softest, most seductive tones,

“You have heard evil reports concerning me, Lorenzo: and I hope ere

you prejudge me, that I shall be allowed an opportunity to give a full

explanation. Consider my position:--it is that of a friendless and

orphan woman, about to lose, perhaps, the only being on earth whom she

ever loved, or who has ever sincerely loved her!”

“Oh! how is it that such a demon heart is harboured in such an angelic

form!” cried Lorenzo Barthelma, surveying her for a moment with mingled

pity and admiration: then immediately afterwards, a full sense of all

her tremendous profligacy and deceit springing up in his soul, his eyes

glared upon her with the ferocity of a lynx, and a feeling of deep and

burning hatred took possession of him.

“If you refuse me a hearing--if you intend to cast me off with

contumely and insult,” said Perdita, her own eyes flashing fire

in their turn--but it seemed like living fire!--“if such be your

intentions,” she continued, in a tone of mingled bitterness and haughty

indifference, “the sooner this interview be terminated, the better.”

And she advanced towards the door, her bosom heaving with convulsions

almost to bursting from its confinement.

“No--no--you shall not leave me yet, nor thus!” cried the Italian,

darting after and catching her violently by the arm. “You _shall_ have

the opportunity of explanation which you desire; and God help you in

the task!”

Thus speaking he forced her back to the sofa; and then locked the door

of the apartment, putting the key in his pocket.

“This behaviour on your part, signor,” said Perdita, assuming a

composure which she did not--could not feel, “is alike mean and

cowardly. You seek to intimidate me--and that is mean: you use violence

towards me--and that is cowardly. What have you heard against me?

Name the calumniator, and recite the calumnies. But if the accusation

resolve itself into _this_,--that I was frail--weak--unchaste before I

became your wife, remember that I never deceived you on that subject!

You yourself were my paramour before you were my husband; and when

you offered me your hand, I reminded you that it was no virgin-bride

whom you would receive to the bridal-bed. Ere now you called me

_Perdita_--and I admit that such is my Christian name. But am I

responsible for the circumstances which induced my mother to bestow

it upon me? You are doubtless aware, from the same source whence you

have gleaned evil tidings concerning me, that I was born in Newgate,

and that my maternal parent gave me that odious name in a moment of

contrition. Well--is this my fault? Be just, Lorenzo--I do not ask you

to be generous;--but again I say, be just!”

“I have listened to you with attention, Perdita--and I am bound to

declare that you seek to veil a hideous depravity beneath the most

specious sophistry,” said Barthelma, speaking in a slow, measured

tone, but with a concentrated fury in his soul. “I do not reproach you

for your mother’s crimes--I commiserate you on that score. But I feel

indignant--oh! bitterly, bitterly indignant at all the treachery--the

perfidy you have practised towards me! I knew that you were unchaste,

as you yourself express it--but I believed that it was mere frailty

on your part, and not inveterate profligacy? Oh! Perdita, how dared

you bring to the marriage-bed of an honourable man a body polluted

with all the vice and iniquity of a penal colony, and which had been

for years common as that of the vilest prostitute? I gave you a noble

name--circumstances have robbed it of its aristocratic lustre--but it

is still honourable;--and now how is it menaced? You have lavished

your favours upon hundreds--you have led a life of such frightful

wantonness, young in years as you are, that your soul has grown old

in iniquity! Oh! I know it all--I know everything, Perdita: all the

intricacies of your character are revealed to me--I have read the

mysteries of its darkest depths--and my eyes are at length opened to

the astounding folly that I perpetrated in linking my fate with such as

you!”

“Then let us separate at once,” exclaimed Perdita, her cheeks flushing

with indignation. “Wherefore prolong this interview? Our quarrel

has gone too far and become too serious ever to admit of pardon or

oblivion.”

“It is not I who will seek such reconciliation,” returned Barthelma,

with terrible malignity in his tone and manner. “I loved you,

Perdita--God only knows how tenderly, how sincerely, how devotedly I

loved you! I would have died for you,--aye, and should have rejoiced

to surrender up my life, could such a sacrifice have benefitted you!

Confident, frank, and full of generous candour, I gave you the love of

an honourable man;--and you deceived me! Oh! I am now no stranger to

all your syren wiles--your Circean witcheries: I recognise all that

artifice and all that duplicity in many of the circumstances which

marked our first meetings, and which rivetted the chains that you threw

around me. What! do you suppose that I can consent to live and become

the scorn, the laughing-stock, and the scandal of all who know me?--and

think you that I will permit _you_ to go forth into the world and point

me out with taunting finger to the first idiot whom you may win as your

paramour? My God! the thought is maddening--it sears my very brain!”

And so terrible became the young Italian’s aspect,--with his flashing

eyes, convulsing countenance, and quivering lips,--that Perdita, now

seriously alarmed, rushed to the door, forgetting that it was locked.

But it opened not to her touch, and, with a cry of terror, she

turned towards her husband, who was evidently exercising superhuman

efforts to restrain the fury that boiled in his breast and darted in

lightning-shafts from his wild eyes.

“O Lorenzo--Lorenzo!” she exclaimed, joining her hands together; “what

do you mean to do?--what is it that you require of me? My God! I know

that I have been wicked--vile--profligate: but I have been faithful

to you--I have never ceased to love you from the first moment we met!

That day in the Champs Elysées has ever been a bright one--aye, the

brightest on which my retrospective looks could dwell--”

“That day in the Champs Elysées,” repeated Barthelma, in a low

and hollow tone, “is one accursed in my memory and in my life!

Wretch--profligate--shameless wanton,” he exclaimed, all his infuriate

passion now bursting forth,--“how dare you allude to that day?--how

can you think of it without the crimson blush of shame? For whose sake

did you deck yourself out so meretriciously on that occasion?--whose

jealousy was it to inspire, that you bent your warm and lustful looks

on me that day?--whom to beguile and win back to your arms, perhaps,

was that deceptive note written that induced me, Di Ponta, and Charles

Hatfield--”

“Ah! then you know every thing!” exclaimed Perdita, suddenly throwing

off the suppliant air and the appealing looks which she had ere now

assumed, and resolving to act with the energy natural to her character.

“It is useless, signor, to prolong this painful interview: I have

already made the same observation--and I now wish you to understand

that I will not remain a prisoner any longer here. Open that door and

let me depart--or I shall summon the servants.”

Thus speaking, she advanced towards the bell-pull.

“You menace me--you dare to menace me?” exclaimed Barthelma, springing

forward and confronting her so as to bar the way; and his whole frame

was quivering with a rage that appeared ready to burst forth into the

ungovernable fury of a perfect madness.

“How dare you thus coerce me?” demanded Perdita, her eyes flashing

fire. “Out of my path, coward--unless you intend to enact the Italian

bravo in this country where men are wont to be brave and chivalrous.”

And, as she spoke, she pushed him disdainfully aside.

But ere the eye had time to wink or the heart to palpitate once--and

while a sound, between a cry and a yell, of frenzied rage burst from

the lips of the maddened Barthelma,--his dagger flashed before the

sight of Perdita, and was instantly buried deep in her bosom.

A thrilling, agonising scream proclaimed her mortal agony--then ceased

suddenly; and, staggering forward a few paces, she fell heavily on the

carpet--and expired!

Barthelma stood for a few moments rivetted to the spot, silent and

motionless with horror at the deed which he had perpetrated; while in

his soul a revulsion of feeling took place with the whelming rapidity

that marks the ebb of a portentous tide.

A mortal dread came over him--and then he burst into an agony of

tears; and throwing himself on the still palpitating body of her whose

wondrous beauty had been his pride and his joy, he began to lament her

death in the most passionate terms.

But suddenly there was a sound as of several footsteps rushing up the

stairs--and then came a loud knocking at the door, and the voices of

the valet, Rosalie, and another servant demanding what was the matter

and what meant the piercing scream that had reached their ears.

Then Barthelma recollected that, as a murderer, he would receive

a murderer’s doom; and in a moment to his appalled soul started

up all the grim and terrible array of the criminal tribunal--the

executioner--the assembled myriads--and the gibbet!

All the frenzy of his maddening mind returned;--and tearing forth the

stiletto from the bosom of his slaughtered wife, he plunged it deep

into his own breast.

At the same instant the door of the apartment was forced in; and the

horror-stricken domestics caught sight of their master just at the

moment that he fell upon the corpse of their mistress!

* * * * *

So perished this youthful pair,--each endowed with a beauty of no

ordinary kind!

Yes--thus died the tender, impassioned Lorenzo, and the profligate,

wanton Perdita!

The world has seen no loveliness superior to hers, nor known a

depravity more inveterate.

But was she to be blamed only, and not pitied in the slightest degree?

It were unjust thus to regard her memory:--for, when her eyes first

saw the light, had some kind hand been nigh to receive the innocent

babe--to bear it away from that Newgate-cell which was the ominous

scene of its birth--to rear it tenderly and save it from passing in

the arms of a felon-mother into a penal settlement,--then to foster

and cherish the growing girl with a true maternal care--bend her

mind to the contemplation of virtue, and protect it from all bad

influences--preserve her soul from the effects of vile examples, and

inculcate principles of chastity, rectitude, and religion,--Oh! then

would the prison-born Perdita have given by her conduct a refutation to

her name, and she would have haply excelled in every accomplishment,

every amiable characteristic, and every endearing qualification that

combine like brilliant gems to form for the chaste woman’s brow a

diadem such as angels wear!

Oh! my Lady Duchess--or you, highborn daughter of some proud Peer

whose line of ancestry may be traced back to the period of the Norman

Conquest,--look not with unmitigated disgust upon the character of

Perdita, the _Lost One_! Let pity temper the feeling;--for--though the

truth which we are about to tell may be not over palatable--yet is the

moral which the Lost One’s history affords deserving of consideration.

Suppose, my Lady Duchess--or you, highborn maiden,--suppose that either

of you had been ushered into this world under such circumstances as

those which attended on the birth of Perdita;--suppose that you first

saw the light in Newgate--that you had been taken by a vile mother

to the far-off place of her exile--that you had been reared where

temptations abounded and virtuous influences were unknown--and that

every example you had before you was evil and profligate,--what would

have been the result? Do not dare to say, my Lady Duchess--or you,

highborn maiden--that an innate perception of right and wrong, and

a natural inclination to virtue, would have preserved you pure, and

chaste, and untainted throughout the terrible ordeal! No--no--you

would have fallen as Perdita fell--you would have been dragged through

the mire of demoralisation as she was--you would have imbibed the

infectious poison of vice as she did,--and, under such circumstances,

you, my Lady Duchess--and you, highborn maiden--would have justified

and illustrated in your own lives the history of the Lost One!

What, then, do we wish to impress upon our readers?--what do we seek

to impress upon the Legislature and the Government? That it is better

to adopt means to prevent crime, than to study how to punish it when

it is committed. We have a thousand laws which proclaim how a man may

be sent to the treadmill, or to the bulks, or to the penal colonies,

or to the gibbet: but we have none devising measures to keep him away

from those places. Everything is to punish--nothing to prevent. The

codes are crowded with enactments inflicting penalties upon grown-up

criminals,--but do not contain a single statute for the protection of

the children of the poor against contamination. Look at those emaciated

little beings rolling about all day long in the gutters, or eating the

offal off dust-heaps: does the law stretch forth its hand and pluck

them out of that filth which is only too painfully emblematical of the

moral mire in which their minds are likewise wallowing? No: the law

allows them to play on unheeded; but when, a few years afterwards,

these unhappy creatures, who can neither read nor write, and have no

idea of God nor hope nor heaven, pilfer a slice of rusty bacon or a

morsel of cheese from a shop-board in order to satisfy the cravings of

hunger--_then_ does the Law thrust forth its long arm and its great

hand, and seize upon the victims of----what?--its own neglect!

Yes: those are truths which we are never wearied of insisting upon.

Session after session is frittered away in party squabbles; but what

remedial steps are taken to moralise, christianise, and civilise the

children of the poor?

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