 CHAPTER 17 FATAL PASSION What dreadful havoc in the human breast the passions make, when unconfined and mad they burst, unguided by mental eye, the light of reason which in various ways points them to good, or turns them back from ill. Thompson. The annals of some of our old and respected families have occasionally been sadly stained by hideous exhibitions of cruelty and lust. In certain instances the result of an unscrupulous disregard of moral duty and of a vindictive fierceness in avenging injury. It has been often times remarked that few tragedies which the brain of the novelist has depicted have surpassed in their unnatural and horrible details those enacted in real life, for— When headstrong passion gets the reins of reason, the force of nature, like too strong a gale, for want of ballast oversets the vessel. Love, indeed, which has been proverbially set to lead to as much evil as any impulse that agitates the human bosom, must be held responsible for only too many of those crimes which from time to time outrage society, for as the authors of guesses at truth have remarked, jealousy is set to be the offspring of love, yet unless the parent make haste to strangle the child, the child will not rest till it has poisoned the parent. Thus a tragedy which made the castle of Caustafine, the scene of a terrible crime and scandal in the year sixteen seventy-nine, may be set to have originated in an unhellowed passion. George, First Lord Forrester having no male issue, made an arrangement whereby his son-in-law James Bailey was to succeed him as Second Lord Forrester in proprieture at the estate of Caustafine. Just four years after this compact was made, Lord Forrester died, and James Bailey, a young man of twenty-five, succeeded to the title and property. But this arrangement did not meet with the approval of Lord Forrester's daughters, who regarded it as a manifest injustice that the honors of their ancient family should devolve on an alien, a feeling of dissatisfaction which was more particularly nourished by the third daughter, Lady Hamilton, whose husband was far from wealthy. It so happened that Lady Hamilton had a daughter, Christian, who was noted for her rare beauty and high spirit, but unfortunately she was a girl of strong passion which added to her self-will caused her, when she had barely arrived at a marriageable age, to engage herself to one James Nimmo, the son of an Edinburgh merchant. Before many weeks had elapsed, the young couple were married, and the handsome young wife was settled in her new home in Edinburgh. Time wore on, the novelty of marriage died away, and as Mrs. Nimmo dwelt on her mercantile surroundings, she recognized more and more what an ill-assorted match she had made, and in her excitable mind she cursed the bond which connected her with the man whose social position she despised and whose occupation she scorned. The report, however, of her uncommon beauty, could not fail to reach the ears of young Lord Forrester, who on the score of relationship was often attracted to Mrs. Nimmo's house. At first he was received as coldness, but by flattering and appealing to her vanity he gradually accomplished the ruin of this unhappy young woman and made her the victim of his licentious and unprincipled designs. But no long time had elapsed when this shameful intrigue became the subject of common talk, and public indignation took the side of the injured woman, when Lord Forrester, after getting tired of her, was so cruel and baseless to speak of her openly in the most opprobrious manner, even alluding to her criminal connection with him. In doing so, however, he had not taken into consideration the violent character of the woman he had wronged, nor thought he of her jealousy, wounded pride, and despair. In his haste also to rid himself of the woman who no longer fascinated him, he paid no heed to the passion that was lurking in her inflamed bosom, nor count down her spreet injuria for me. On the other hand, while he was forgetting the past in his orgies, Mrs. Nimmo, whose love for him was turned to the bitterest hate, was alley reproaching him, and alas the fatal moment arrived when she felt bound to proceed to Caustafion Castle and confront her evildoer. At the time Lord Forrester was drinking at the village tavern, and when the infuriated woman demanded to see him he was flushed with Claret and himself in no amiable mood. The altercation naturally soon became violent, bitter reproaches were uttered on the one side and contemptuous snares on the other. Goaded to frenzy, the unhappy woman stabbed her paramour to the heart, killing him instantly. When taken before the Sheriff of Edinburgh, she confessed her crime, and as though she told the court in the most pathetic manner how basely she had been wronged by one who should have supported rather than ruined her, sentence of death was passed upon her. She managed, writes Sir Bernard Burke, fifty-six, to postpone the execution of her sentence by declaring that she was with child by her seducer, and during her imprisonment succeeded in escaping in the disguise of a young man. But she was captured and on the 12th of November, sixteen-seventy-nine, paid the penalty of her rash act, appearing at her execution a tired and deep mourning and covered with a large veil. Radcliffe to this day possesses the tradition of a terrible tragedy, of which there are several versions. It appears that one Sir William de Radcliffe had a very beautiful daughter, whose mother died in giving her birth. After a time he married again, and the stepmother, actuated by feelings of jealousy, conceived a violent hatred to the girl, which ere long prompted her to be guilty of the most insane cruelty. One day, runs the story, when Sir William was out hunting, she sent the unsuspecting girl into the kitchen with a message to the cook that he was to dress the white dough. But the cook, professing ignorance of the particular white dough he was to dress, asserted to the young lady's intense horror that he had received orders to kill her, which there and then he did, afterwards making her into a pie. On Sir William's return from hunting he made inquiries for his daughter, but his wife informed him that she had taken the opportunity in his absence of going into a nunnery. Suspicious, however, of the truth of her story, for her jealous hatred of his daughter had not escaped his notice. He flew into a passion, and demanded in the most peremptory manner where his daughter was, whereupon the scullion boy denounced the stepmother, and warned Sir William against eating the pie. The whole truth was soon revealed, and the diabolic wickedness of Lady William did not pass unpunished, for she was burnt, and the cook was condemned to stand in boiling lead. A ballad in the Peep's collection, entitled The Lady Isabella's Tragedy, or The Stepmother's Cruelty, records this horrible barbarity, and in a Lancashire ballad called Fair Ellen of Radcliffe, it is thus graphically told. She straight into the kitchen went, her message fought to tell, and then she spied the Master Cook, who did with malice swell. Now, Master Cook, it must be so. Do that which I detail. You needst must dress the milk-white dough, you which do know full well. Then straight his cruel bloody hands he on the lady laid, who quivering and ghastly stands, while thus to her he said, Thou art the dough that I must dress, see here behold my knife, for it is pointed presently to rid thee of thy life. O then cried out the Scullyan boy, as loud as loud might be. O save her life, good Master Cook, and make your pies of me! The tradition adds that Sir William was not unmindful of the Scullyan boy's heroic conduct, for he made him heir to his possessions. Another cruel case of woman's jealousy, which happily was not so disastrous in its result as the former, relates to Maria, daughter of the honourable Alexander Mackenzie, second son of Kenneth, Earl of Seaforth, who was made of honour to Queen Caroline. Rumour goes that between this young lady, who was one of the greatest beauties about the court, and a Mr. Price, an admired man about town, there subsisted a strong attachment. Unfortunately for Miss Mackenzie, Mr. Price was in a special favourite of the celebrated Countess of Delarene, who, to get rid of her rival in beauty, poisoned her. But this crime was discovered in time, antidotes were administered with success, and the girl's life was saved, although her lovely complexion is said to have been ruined, ever after continuing of a lemon tint. Queen Caroline, desirous of shielding the Countess of Delarene from the consequences of her act, persuaded the poisoned beauty to appear, as soon as she was sufficiently recovered, at a supper, given either by the Countess of Delarene, or where she was to be present. Accordingly, on the night arranged, some excitement was caused by the arrival of Miss Mackenzie, for as she entered the room, someone exclaimed, How entirely changed! But Mr. Price, who was seated by Lady Delarene, remarked, In my eyes she is more beautiful than ever. And it only remains to add that they were married next morning. Like jealousy, thwarted love has often been cause of the most unnatural crimes, and a tragic story is told of the untimely death of Mr. Blandy, of Henley and Oxfordshire, who, by practice as an attorney, had accumulated a large fortune. He had an only child, Mary, who was regarded as an heiress, and consequently had suit as many. On one occasion it happened that William Cranstown, brother of Lord Cranstown, being upon a recruiting party in Oxfordshire, and hearing of Miss Blandly's great expectations, found an opportunity of introducing himself to the family. The captain's attentions, however, to Miss Blandly, met with the strong disapproval of her father, for he had ascertained that this suitor for his daughter's hand had been privately married in Scotland. But, against this objection, Captain Cranstown replied that he hoped to get this marriage speedily set aside by a decree of the Supreme Court of Session. And when the court refused to annul the marriage, Mr. Blandly absolutely refused to allow his daughter to have any further communications with so dishonourable a man—a resolution to which he remained inexorable. Intrigued between the two was the result, for it seems that Miss Blandly's affection for this profligate man, almost double her age, was violent. As might be expected, Captain Cranstown not only worked upon her feelings, but imposed on her credulity. He sent her from Scotland a pretended love-powder, which he enjoined her to administer to her father, in order to gain his affection and procure his consent. This injunction she did not carry out on account of a frightful dream, in which she saw her father fall from a precipice into the ocean. Thereupon the Captain wrote a second time, and told her in words somewhat enigmaticle, but easily understood by her his design. Horrible to relate, the wicked girl was so elated with the idea of removing her father, that she was heard to exclaim before the servants, Who would not send an old fellow to hell for thirty thousand pounds? The fatal dye was cast. The deadly powder was mixed, and given to him in a cup of tea. After drinking which, he soon began to swell enormously. What have you given me, Mary? Ask the unhappy dying man. You have murdered me. Of this I was warned, but alas I thought it was a false alarm. Oh, fly, take care of the Captain. Thus Mr. Blandy died of poison, but his daughter was captured whilst attempting to escape, and was conveyed to Oxford Castle, where she was imprisoned till the Ossises, when she was tried for parasite, was found guilty and executed. Captain Cranstown managed to affect his escape, and went abroad, where he died soon afterwards in a deplorable state of mind, brought about by remorse for the evil and misery he had caused. Almost equally tragic was the fatal passion of Sir William Kite, forming another strange domestic drama in real life. Possessed of considerable fortune and of ancient family, Sir William was deemed a very desirable match, and when he offered his hand to a young lady of noble rank and of great beauty, he was at once accepted. The marriage for the first few years turned out happily, but the crisis came when Sir William was nominated, at a contested election, to represent the borough of Warwick, in which county lay the bulk of his estate. After the election was over, Lady Kite, by way of recompensing a zealous partisan of her husband, took an innkeeper's daughter, Molly Jones, for her maid, a tall, genteel girl, with a fine complexion, and seemingly very modest and innocent. But before many months had elapsed Sir William was attracted by the girl, and eventually became so infatuated by her charms that, casting aside all restraints of shame or fear, he agreed to a separation between his wife and himself. Accordingly Sir William left Lady Kite, with the two younger children, in possession of the mansion-house in Warwickshire, and retired with his mistress and his two eldest sons to a farm-house on the Cotswold Hills. Charmed with the situation, he was soon tempted to build a handsome house here, to which were added two large side fronts, for no better reason than that Molly Jones, one day, happened to say, What is a kite without wings? But the expense of completing this establishment, amounting to at least ten thousand pounds, soon involved Sir William in financial difficulties, which caused him to drown his worries in drink. At this juncture, Molly Jones, forgetting her own past, was injudicious enough to engage a fresh-coloured country girl, who was scarcely twenty, as dairymaid, for whom Sir William quickly conceived an amorous regard. Actuated by jealousy or disgust, Molly Jones threatened to leave Sir William, a resolution which she soon carried out, retiring to Camden, a neighbouring market-town, where she was reduced to keep a small sewing-school as a means of livelihood. Although left to carry on his intrigue undisturbed, Sir William soon became a victim to gloomy reflections, feeling at times that he had not only cruelly wronged a good wife, but had been deserted by the very woman for whose sake he had brought this trouble and disgrace upon his family. Tormented by these conflicting passions, he occasionally worked himself up into such a state of frenzy that even his new favourite was terrified, and had run away. It was when almost maddened with the thought of his evil past, that he formed that fatal resolve which was a hideous ending to the dreadful consequence of a licentious passion not checked in its infancy. One October evening, as a housemaid was on the stairs, suddenly the lobby was all in a cloud of smoke. She gave the alarm, and on the door being forced open, whence the smoke proceeded, it was discovered that Sir William had set fire to a large heap of fine linen piled up in the middle of the room. From an adjoining room where Sir William had made his escape, the flames burst out with such fury that all were glad to make their escape out of the house, the greater part of which was in a few hours burnt to the ground. No other remains of its master being found next morning but the hip bone and bones of the back. A case which at the time created considerable sensation was the murder of Tin of Longleet by a jealous antagonist. The 11th Duke of Northumberland left an only daughter, whose career, it has been said, might match that of the most erratic or adventurous of her race. Before she was sixteen years old she had been twice a widow, and three times a wife. At the age of thirteen she was married to the only son of the Duke of Newcastle, a lad of her own age, who died in a few months. Her second husband was Tin of Longleet, Tom of Ten Thousand, but the tie was abruptly severed by the bullet of an assassin set on by the notorious Count Koenig's mark, who had been a suitor for her hand, and was desirous of another chance. After his death the young widow, who was surrounded by a host of admirers, married the Duke of Somerset, and she seems to have made him a fitting mate, for when his second wife, a Finch, tapped him familiarly on the shoulder, or according to another version, seated herself on his knee, he exclaimed indignantly, My first wife was a Percy, and she never thought of taking such a liberty. It may be added that one of the most remarkable incidents in this celebrated beauty's life was when, by dint of tears and supplications, she prevented Queen Anne from making swift a bishop out of revenge for the Windsor prophecy, in which she was ridiculed for the redness of her hair, and upbraided as having been privy to the brutal murder of her second husband. It was doubted, says Scott, which imputation she accounted the more cruel insult, especially since the first charge was undoubted, and the second arose only from the malice of the poet. Another tragedy of a similar kind was the murder of William Mountford, the player. Captain Richard Hill had conceived a violent passion for Mrs. Brace-Girdle, the beautiful actress, and has said to have offered her his hand, and to have been refused. At last his passion became ungovernable, and he determined to carry her off by force. To carry out his purpose, he induced his friend Lord Moon to assist him in the attempt. According to one account, he dodged the fair actress for a whole day at the theatre, stationed a coach near the horseshoe tavern in Drury Lane to carry her off in, and hired six soldiers to force her into it. As the beautiful actress came down Drury Lane, at ten o'clock at night, accompanied by her mother and brother, and escorted by her friend Mr. Page, one of the soldiers seized her in his arms and endeavoured to force her into the coach. But the lady's screams attracted a crowd, and Captain Hill, finding his endeavours ineffectual, bid the soldiers let her go. Disappointed in their object, Lord Moon and Captain Hill vowed vengeance, and Mrs. Brace-Girdle, on reaching home, sent her servant to Mr. Mountford's home to take care of himself, warning him against Lord Moon and Captain Hill, who she feared had no good intention toward him, and did wait for him in the street. It appears that Mountford had already heard of the attempt to carry off Mrs. Brace-Girdle, and hearing that Lord Moon and Captain Hill were in the street, did not shrink from approaching them. The account says that he addressed Lord Moon and told him how sorry he was to find him in the company of such a pitiful fellow as Captain Hill, whereupon it is said, the Captain came forth and said he would justify himself, and went towards the middle of the street, and Mr. Mountford followed him and drew. The end of the quarrel was that Mountford fell with a terrible wound, of which he died on the following day, declaring in his last moments that Captain Hill ran him through the body before he could draw his sword. Captain Hill, it seems, owed Mountford a deadly grudge, having attributed his rejection by Mrs. Brace-Girdle to her love for him. An unlikely passion it is thought, as Mountford was a married man, with a good-looking wife of his own, afterwards Mrs. Verbreugen, and a celebrated actress. Alton House, Suffolk, long known as the Haunted House, acquired its ill-ohmened name from a tragic occurrence traditionally said to have happened many years ago, and the peasantry in the neighbourhood affirmed that at midnight a wild huntsman, with his hounds, accompanied by a lady carrying a poisoned cup, is occasionally seen. The story is that in the reign of George II, a squire returning unexpectedly home from the chase discovered his wife with an officer, one of his guests, in too familiar a friendship. High words followed, and the indignant husband, provoked by the cool manner in which the officer treated the matter, struck him, whereupon the guilty lover drew his sword and drove it through the squire's heart, the faithless wife and her paramour, afterwards making their escape. Some years afterwards runs the tale the squire's daughter, who had been left behind in the hasty departure, having grown to womanhood, was affianced to a youthful farmer of the neighbourhood, but on their bridal eve, as they were sitting together talking over the new life they were about to enter, a carriage, black and somber as a hearse, with close-drawn curtains, and attended by servants clad in sable liveries, drew up to the door. The young girl was seized by masked men, carried off in the carriage to her unnatural mother, while the betrothed was stabbed as he vainly endeavoured to rescue her. A grave is pointed out in the cemetery at Namour, as that in which was laid the body of the unhappy girl, poisoned it is alleged, by her unscrupulous and wicked mother. It is not surprising, we are told, that the locality was supposed to be haunted by the wretched woman, both as wife and mother, equally criminal. Family romance once more has many a dark page recording how despairing love has ended in self-destruction. At the beginning of the present century a sad catastrophe befell the Shuckburs of Shuckbur Hall. It appears the Bedfordshire militia was stationed near Upper Shuckbur, and the officers were in the habit of visiting the hall, whose hospitable owner, Sir Stucley Shuckbur, received them with every mark of cordiality. His daughter, then about twenty years of age, was a young lady of no ordinary attractions, and her fascination soon produced their natural effect on one of the officers, Lieutenant Sharp, who became deeply attached to her. But as soon as Sir Stucley became aware of this love affair, he gave it his decided disapproval. Lieutenant Sharp was forbidden in the house, and Miss Shuckbur resolved to smother her love and deference to her father's wishes. It was accordingly decided between the young people that their intimacy should cease, and that the letters which had passed between them should be returned. An arrangement was therefore made that the lady should leave the packet for Lieutenant Sharp in the summer house in the garden on a specified evening, and that the following morning she should find the packet intended for her in the same place. The sad engagement was kept, and having left her packet in the evening, Miss Shuckbur set out on the following morning to find her own. A servant, it is said, who saw her in the garden was curious to know what could have brought her out at so early an hour. He followed her and observed, and on drawing near to the summer house he heard the voices of the Lieutenant and the lady in earnest dispute. The officer was allowed an impassioned, the lady firm but unconcenting. Immediately was heard the report of a pistol in the fall of a body, another report in fall. Guessing the tragic truth, the servant raised an alarm, and the two lovers were found lying dead in their own blood. It is generally supposed that this terrible act of self-destruction was the result of mutual agreement, the outcome of passion and despair. Since that hour, writes Howitt, every object about the place which could suggest to the memory this fatal event has been changed or removed. The summer house has been raised to the ground. The disposition of the garden itself altered, but, he adds, such tragic passages in human life become part and parcel of the scene where they occur. They become the topic of the winter fireside. They last while passions and affections, youth and beauty last. They fix themselves into the soil and the very rock on which it lies, and though the house was raised from the spot, and its park and pleasantries turned into plowed fields, it would still be said for ages. Here stood Shockborough Hall, and here fell the young and lovely Miss Shockborough by the hand of her despairing lover. And to conclude with a romance in brief. Some forty or fifty years ago, in the far north of England, a girl was on the eve of being married. Her wedding dress was ordered, the guests were bidden. But it is said that at the eleventh hour, in a fit of passion and paltry jealousy, she resented some fancy want of devotion in her lover. He was single-minded, loyal, and altogether a finer stuff than herself. But she was as a wretched slave to such old-stock phrases as delicacy, family pride, and the like. And so he was allowed to go, for she came of people who looked upon unforgivingness as a virtue. Accordingly the discarded lover exchanged into a regiment under the orders for Afghanistan. At the time our troops were engaged there in hot fighting. The lad fell, and hidden on his breast was found to lock it, which his sweetheart had once given him. It came back to her through a brother officer, who had known something of his sad story, with a stain on it, a stain of his blood. When that painful relic silently told her of the devotion, which she had so unjustly and basely wronged, there came, in the familiar lines, A mist and a weeping rain, and life was never the same again. That stain marked every day of a lonely life throughout forty years or more.