"'In the morning your father got up without disturbing me; he had not
noticed anything extraordinary about me or the bed-hangings. When I
did arise I found a long broom in the gallery outside the bedroom
door, and with great difficulty I unhooded the curtain, fearing that
the position of it might excite surprise and cause inquiry. I bound
up my wrist with black ribbon before I went down to breakfast, where
the agitation of my mind was too visible not to attract attention.
Sir Tristram made many anxious inquiries as to my health, especially
as to my sprained wrist, as he conceived mine to be. I begged him to
drop all questions as to the bandage, even if I continued to adopt it
for any length of time. He kindly promised me not to speak of it any
more, and he kept his promise faithfully. You, my son, came into the
world as predicted, and your father died six years after. I then
determined to abandon society and its pleasures and not mingle again
with the world, hoping to avoid the dreadful predictions as to my
second marriage; but, alas! in the one family with which I held
constant and friendly intercourse I met the man, whom I did not regard
with perfect indifference. Though I struggled to conquer by every
means the passion, I at length yielded to his solicitations, and in a
fatal moment for my own peace I became his wife. In a few years his
conduct fully justified my demand for a separation, and I fondly hoped
to escape the fatal prophecy. Under the delusion that I had passed my
forty-seventh birthday, I was prevailed upon to believe in his
amendment, and to pardon him. I have, however, heard from undoubted
authority that I am only forty-seven this day, and I know that I am
about to die. I die, however, without the dread of death, fortified
as I am by the sacred precepts of Christianity and upheld by its
promises. When I am gone, I wish that you, my children, should unbind
this black ribbon and alone behold my wrist before I am consigned to
the grave.'
"She then requested to be left that she might lie down and compose
herself, and her children quitted the apartment, having desired her
attendant to watch her, and if any change came on to summon them to
her bedside. In an hour the bell rang, and they hastened to the call,
but all was over. The two children having ordered every one to
retire, knelt down by the side of the bed, when Lady Riverston unbound
the black ribbon and found the wrist exactly as Lady Beresford had
described it--every nerve withered, every sinew shrunk.
"Her friend, the Archbishop, had had her buried in the Cathedral of
St. Patrick, in Dublin, in the Earl of Cork's tomb, where she now
lies."
* * * * *
The writer now professes his disbelief in any spiritual presence, and
explains his theory that Lady Beresford's anxiety about Lord Tyrone
deluded her by a vivid dream, during which she hurt her wrist.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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