"Hawthorne, Nathaniel - Lady Eleanores Mantle" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hawthorne Nathaniel)

1838

TWICE-TOLD TALES

LADY ELEANORE'S MANTLE

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

NOT LONG AFTER Colonel Shute had assumed the government of
Massachusetts Bay, now nearly a hundred and twenty years ago, a
young lady of rank and fortune arrived from England, to claim his
protection as her guardian. He was her distant relative, but the
nearest who had survived the gradual extinction of her family; so that
no more eligible shelter could be found for the rich and high-born
Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe than within the Province House of a
transatlantic colony. The consort of Governor Shute, moreover, had
been as a mother to her childhood, and was now anxious to receive her,
in the hope that a beautiful young woman would be exposed to
infinitely less peril from the primitive society of New England than
amid the artifices and corruptions of a court. If either the
Governor or his lady had especially consulted their own comfort,
they would probably have sought to devolve the responsibility on other
hands; since, with some noble and splendid traits of character, Lady
Eleanore was remarkable for a harsh, unyielding pride, a haughty
consciousness of her hereditary and personal advantages, which made
her almost incapable of control. Judging from many traditionary
anecdotes, this peculiar temper was hardly less than a monomania;
or, if the acts which it inspired were those of a sane person, it
seemed due from Providence that pride so sinful should be followed
by as severe a retribution. That tinge of the marvellous, which is
thrown over so many of these half-forgotten legends, has probably
imparted an additional wildness to the strange story of Lady
Eleanore Rochcliffe.

The ship in which she came passenger had arrived at Newport, whence
Lady Eleanore was conveyed to Boston in the Governor's coach, attended
by a small escort of gentlemen on horseback. The ponderous equipage,
with its four black horses, attracted much notice as it rumbled
through Cornhill, surrounded by the prancing steeds of half a dozen
cavaliers, with swords dangling to their stirrups and pistols at their
holsters. Through the large glass windows of the coach, as it rolled
along, the people could discern the figure of Lady Eleanore, strangely
combining an almost queenly stateliness with the grace and beauty of a
maiden in her teens. A singular tale had gone abroad among the
ladies of the province, that their fair rival was indebted for much of
the irresistible charm of her appearance to a certain article of
dress- an embroidered mantle- which had been wrought by the most
skilful artist in London, and possessed even magical properties of
adornment. On the present occasion, however, she owed nothing to the
witchery of dress, being clad in a riding habit of velvet, which would