The frightful treachery of Old Death towards his half-sister, the beautiful but ill-fated Octavia, was revealed step by step;--but there was likewise an elucidation which touched a chord that thrilled to the inmost recesses of young Hatfield’s heart,--and this was the fact that Octavia was wedded by the late Earl of Ellingham previous to the birth of the child! Yes--there was the marriage-certificate: there, too, was the certificate of the child’s baptism;--and that child was therefore, at its very birth, the heir to the proud title and the entailed estates of a mighty Earldom!
Here let us pause for a few moments to afford an explanation which now becomes necessary.
If the reader will refer to the forty-seventh chapter of this narrative, he will find recorded so much of the history of poor Octavia Manners as Arthur himself was acquainted with. In relating that history to Lady Georgiana Hatfield, Arthur had stated that Octavia fled away from her vile half-brother’s house the very day after her disgrace was consummated. “For several months no trace was discovered of her: it was feared she had committed suicide.” During that interval the first Countess of Ellingham died. At length the Earl (Arthur’s father) accidentally discovered that Octavia was living, and that she was in a way to become a mother. “He hastened to the miserable garret which she occupied, and found her in the most abject state of poverty--endeavouring to earn a subsistence with her needle.” All his affection for her revived, with renewed vigour; and his heart smote him with remorse for the appalling treachery which he had perpetrated towards her. He saw her ruined in health, character, and spirits,--ruined by him,--still surpassingly beautiful, but only a wreck of what she once was;--he saw all this--and he was horror-struck at the effects of his crime! He threw himself on his knees--he offered her every possible reparation which it was in his power to make;--and then--for the sake of the child which she bore in her bosom--she said, “If you would prove your contrition, my lord--if you would impart one single gleam of hope, however faint, to my goal--you will make me your wife! It is not for myself that I demand this boon at your hands,--for a boon it becomes when the violater espouses the violated,--yes, a boon in the estimation of the world, though only an act of justice in the eyes of God! No--it is not for myself; ’tis for our child! Think not that I--the sister of the marine-store dealer--shall ever assume the name or adopt the rank of Countess of Ellingham! Let our union be secret--only let it take place at once, so that our child may be legitimate!” Thus spoke Octavia Manners on that occasion; and the Earl of Ellingham, her violater, consented to all that she asked. They were married with so much privacy that even Miranda--the faithful gipsy girl who had formed so strong an attachment to Octavia--remained ignorant of the important occurrence. But the very next day Octavia fled! No affection had she for the noble who had ruined her--who had been the cause of her severance from the object of her first and only love: she had only asked him to marry her for the sake of the honour of their child’s parentage--and, the ceremony being performed, she withdrew herself into the strictest solitude and obscurity, to brood over her woes and sufferings in secret!