The Project Gutenberg EBook of Theresa Marchmont, by Mrs Charles Gore

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Theresa Marchmont

Author: Mrs Charles Gore

Release Date: November, 2005 [EBook #9387]
Posting Date: August 10, 2009

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THERESA MARCHMONT ***

Produced by Hanno Fischer

THERESA MARCHMONT,

OR,

THE MAID OF HONOUR.

A TALE.

By Mrs. Charles Gore

"La cour est comme un edifice bati de marbre; je veux dire qu'elle est
composee d'hommes fort durs, mais fort polis." _LA BRUYERE._

London, MDCCCXXIV

CHAPTER I.

"Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves
shall never tremble. Hence horrible shadow!
Unreal mockery, hence!"--_MACBETH_

It was a gloomy evening, towards the autumn of the year 1676, and the
driving blasts which wept from the sea upon Greville Cross, a dreary
and exposed mansion on the coast of Lancashire, gave promise of a stormy
night and added to the desolation which at all traces pervaded its vast
and comfortless apartments.

Greville Cross had formerly been a Benedictine Monastery, and had been
bestowed at the Reformation, together with its rights of Forestry upon
Sir Ralph de Greville, the ancestor of its present possessor. Although
that part of the building containing the chapel and refectory had been
long in ruins, the remainder of the gloomy quadrangle was strongly
marked with the characteristics of its monastic origin. It had never
been a favourite residence of the Greville family; who were possessed of
two other magnificent seats, at one of which, Silsea Castle in Kent,
the present Lord Greville constantly resided; and the Cross, usually
so called from a large iron cross which stood in the centre of the
court-yard, and to which thousand romantic legends were attached, had
received few improvements from the modernizing hand of taste. Indeed
as the faults of the edifice were those of solid construction, it would
have been difficult to render it less gloomy or more convenient by any
change that art could affect. Its massive walls and huge oaken beams
would neither permit the enlargement of its narrow windows, nor the
destruc