"may heedfully be broken." But, scarce as the records of unbroken vows
may be, they are deserving of a permanent record, more especially as
the direction of their eccentricity is, for the most part, in itself
curious and uncommon. Love, for instance, has been responsible for
many strange and curious vows in the past, and some years ago it was
stated that the original of Charles Dickens's Miss Havisham was living
in the flesh not far from Ventnor in the person of an old maiden lady,
who, because of the maternal objection to some love affair in her
early life, made and kept a vow that she would retire to her bed, and
there spend the remainder of her days. It was a stern vow but she kept
her word, "and the years have come and gone, and the house has never
been swept or garnished, the garden is an overgrown tangle, and the
eccentric lady has spent twenty years between the sheets." But whether
this piece of romance is to be accepted or not, love has been the
cause of many foolish acts, and many a disappointed damsel, has acted
in no less eccentric a fashion than Miss Havisham, who was so
completely overcome by the failure of Compeyson to appear on the
wedding morning that she became fossilised, and gave orders that
everything was to be kept unchanged, but to remain as it had been on
that hapless day. Henceforth she was always attired in her bridal
dress with lace veil from head to foot, white shoes, bridal flowers in
her white hair, and jewels on her hands and neck. Years went on, the
wedding breakfast remained set on the table, while the poor half
demented lady flitted from one room to another like a restless ghost;
and the case is recorded of another lady whose lover was arrested for
forgery on the day before their marriage was to have taken place. Her
vow took the form of keeping to her room, sitting winter and summer
alike at her casement and waiting for him who was turning the
treadmill, and who was never to come again.