the bed; but slept not, Walter. At breakfast they, particularly Valmont
and my father, wondered at the alteration in my countenance. I muttered
curses at their inquisitiveness. They, doubtless, thought it was
blessings for their consolations; and kindly increased them.
Not one syllable has Griffiths breathed on the adventure. We dress and
undress as mute as mourners at a funeral. The brother is too much
humbled by the affair of the lanthern, to appear before me at present.
Eat he must, be my disappointment what it may. Do take him into your
household, Walter. Then, if I catch a glimpse of future operations and
find his aid needful, he would doubtless double his diligence, and call
up his valour to retrieve a lost reputation.
Order Steele to go on again with the writings. I will be in town to sign
by the twenty-eighth. Heigh ho!--One last sigh to the memory of my
departing estate.--I--
Why, Walter, these fashionable damsels beat us hollow in the ease and
gaiety of impudence. Miss Monckton (who arrived here the day following
my disaster,) just now entered the library; and, coming up to the
writing table, familiarly peered over my shoulder.
'A _lost reputation_!--Oh you wretch,' cried she, snatching the paper
from under my hand, 'it is the volume of your sins!--Nay:--I protest,
I'll read it.'
And she actually crammed it into her pocket.
'Madam,' said I passionately, 'I insist on your giving me the letter.'
'And I insist on keeping it.' Is not a lady's _insist_ equal to that of
a lord?'
'Madam--'
'Sir--Come hither.' she pulled me toward the glass. 'Look at
yourself.--Guilty or not guilty?--Ah, Filmar, Filmar, from whom did you
take your lesson of blushing?--But let me go, let me go.--I die to read
the story, that I may know whether you have yet any chance for heaven!'
I don't perceive, Walter, why sex should be a security against
horse-whipping. Such a revenge I could have bestowed with a warm
good-will on Miss Monckton.--I took the next best, in my power; and had
just forced the paper from her, when in walked my father, and the lady
withdrew.
Would you believe it? The earl solemnly asked how I dared treat with
such impertinence a woman of Miss Monckton's rank?--Did I think I was
romping with some chambermaid?
'Be assured, my lord', answered I 'if I made a respectful distinction in
this case, it is on the side of the chambermaid.'
My father looked his reply, (as well as he could Walter) and walked
away.
Miss Monckton is a coquette, with all the finish of high breeding. She
is elegant, though diminutive; highly accomplished in exterior: the rest
a blank.--Yet her ease, grace, and vivacity, would have claimed more
moments of admiration from me, were not my thoughts perpetually gadding
after this Sibella Valmont: sometimes arraigning, sometimes acquitting,
her. But my heart has no interest in the motive, Boyer.--No; she is
quite an original, formed rather to constitute the business of a life,
than the casual pleasure of a moment. I should hate uniformity even of
happiness. Give me the zest of an occasional hour of rapture, snatched
from a vortex of novelty, whim, and folly.
A blessed portion has Miss Monckton of these latter recommendations. But
seven thousand pounds can't buy me. Six thousand pounds per annum!
There's the bribe, Walter. And if I must have a counter-balancing evil,
why e'en let it be the vice of nature, rather than a vice of education
and art.--Ay: but I forgot. Miss Valmont has her art too; and a devilish
deep-rooted art it is.--And now dare I not, with all my zealous wishes
perpetually impelling me to the discovery, yet dare I not spoil their
pleasures. To blast Montgomery is to betray myself.
By my soul, Walter, she is a most lovely creature.--'_Oh Clement!
Clement! art thou safe, my love?_'--What! The hour of assignation was
past, no doubt! Happy fellow! Favoured Montgomery! Who nightly turns
the dwelling of horror into Mahomet's paradise with this Houri.
Be in London, to meet me by the twenty-eighth.
FILMAR
This instant has it shot across my mind to ask Valmont for letters to
his pupil. The lad can't be here and there too. It will afford me a fine
and safe opportunity of setting scrutiny on foot. Adieu.
LETTER II
FROM ARTHUR MURDEN
TO
CLEMENT MONTGOMERY
'_Thou wilt make her thy wife._'--Good God what an implication! And is
her claim yet to be enforced!--'_I will make her my wife._'--How often,
since I read thy letter, have I repeated those words--those despicable
words!
Trust me, Clement, I have no settled ill will towards thee. No: by
heaven, have I not--yet, there are moments when I hate thee heartily.
The severity with which I speak may dissolve the bond of our
intimacy:--was it ever a bond of friendship?--Carry me back to its
origin.--'Mr. Murden,' said the good natured Du Bois, 'I have a young
gentleman committed to my care whom I wish to make known to you.'--And
then he expatiated on the greatness of your expectations, the
astonishing privacy of your education, and the singular naiveté of your
manners.
Such as he described, you were; and I neglected all my former
acquaintance, to run with you through the round of town
amusements:--With what enthusiasm did you enjoy! with what fire did you
describe! No moment of disgust or lassitude assailed you. The existing
pleasure was still the best, the greatest. All to you, was rapture,
fascination, enchantment.
What a novelty, methought! How enviable and extraordinary!--For, I had
partaken of these pleasures without a particle of enjoyment. Frequenting
the resorts of dissipation from custom, labouring to compel my revolting
senses to the gratifications of pleasure, struggling to wear a character
opposite to my inclination, seeking in public to seduce the attentions
of women, from whose hours of private yielding I fled with disgust,
effectually removed from society which would have taught me the
importance of mental pursuits, and living in the profusion of splendor,
I almost prayed for wants, for a something, any thing, that could
interrupt the routine of sameness, that could make me cease to be as it
were the mere automaton of habit.
You charmed me. I longed to investigate the source of your never-failing
satisfactions. You did not inform my understanding, but you greatly
interested my curiosity. My uncle talked of my making the grand tour;
and that was your destiny likewise. It must be amusing, thought I, to
travel with one so volatile yet energetic; and such an arrangement was
speedily resolved on.
We travelled. Sometimes you complained of my indifference, of the cold
reserve that hung upon my character; but the avidity with which you
perpetually hunted after variety, and the readiness wherewith I listened
to your descriptions, reconciled you to whatever discordance you chanced
to perceive between my feelings and your own.--Am I not right, Clement?
Was not this rather intimacy than friendship?
While we viewed the Alps and Pyrenees, their sublimity poured into my
mind a flood of enthusiasm. The laughing (as the French emphatically
call it) country of Italy filled me with delight. But memory can often
present such scenes with the warmth and vigour they first bestow; and
even her attempts were repressed by the multitudes of follies that
perpetually assailed us. I saw on every hand oppression, priestcraft,
and blindness. Neither my tutor nor my companions were capable of
stimulating me to inquire into the moral and physical causes of the
evils I lamented; and, perceiving only the effect, I concluded they were
without remedy, and dismissed the subject.
To one point, then, I chained my expectations; and that one point was
love. And here, I quixoted my fancy into the wildest hopes. I wanted
beauty without vanity, talent without ostentation, delicacy without
timidity, and courage without boast. If I saw the semblance of any of
these qualities, I hastened to search for the rest. Disappointment
succeeded disappointment, without producing any other effect than to
bring the visions of my brain before me with fresh allurements, with
increase of attributes.
You, Montgomery, perhaps happily for yourself, have been a stranger to
this species of refinement. You could have loved any where; and the
utmost stretch of your powers of imagination, will not produce even a
faint picture of that life of never-fading bliss I expected to enjoy,
when I should have found my ideal fair one, for whose tenderness I
preserved my heart a sanctuary, sacred, and inviolate. What, then, had
been my faith, if, when the prototype of the ideal form did burst upon
me in existence, I had been the chosen above all mankind of a heart
corresponding in all things with my own.
Sir Thomas commanded me home. You I left without pain. To him I returned
without pleasure.--Yes: I returned home--and soon--it was men,
Clement--ay then it was--
You say I advised you to forget her in other arms. Montgomery, why did I
advise?--And wherein was I competent to judge?--Had you not already
prepared other arms to open for your reception? How could I divine that
she whom you loved was not of the race of those beings to whom you were
constantly lending the epithets of charming, lovely, exquisite angelic?
Nought beyond a glance of transient admiration, or a temporary delirium
of the senses, could they excite in me. I sighed to find something
worthy of remembrance. You sighed to forget the worth, the inestimable
worth you had known!
Wearied with the importunity of--'would to God I could forget
her!'--Forget her in other arms, I said.--Most readily did you yield to
the advice; for which, as you have justly said in one of your letters,
you deserved--'tis your own words, Clement--you deserved damnation.
And what art thou doing now?--Now, even that she has sacrificed herself
to save thee from despair?--That she has--Let thy heart tell thee her
deserts--let it remind thee, that she is sorrowing for thy
safety--preparing in mind and affection against thy return ages of joy,
of felicity, such as never--merciful heaven!--And thou art--seeking
reconciliation with Janetta Laundy.
Rememberest thou, Montgomery, the terrific and awful minutes we past on
Vesuvius! Was not that a scene which, while it gratified curiosity and
exhausted wonder, made nature shrink with repugnance from the
situation?--Yet, in all the horrors of a night worse than that hour,
lighted only by the flame of destruction, with showers of thundering
dangers obstructing my footsteps, yet, had I been _thee_ Clement! would
I have climbed that summit--aye and precipitated myself into the gulph
of ruin, rather than forever blacken the fair sheet of love, by sinking
to the embraces of a prostitute!
Oh 'tis a stain indelible!
Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather
The multitudinous sea incarnadine,
Making the green, one red.
I seek not to quarrel with you, Montgomery. Careless as to your
resentment, but willing still to possess your esteem, I am not more
ready to declaim against your errors than to confess my own. Your's are
recoverable. Make peace with yourself and heaven; while I go, not to
expiate, but patiently to abide the punishment of mine.
This is the last time, Clement, that mystery shall cloud my words and
actions.--In this very letter I meant to have cast it off. I thought I
had torn myself for ever from the enchantment; and that reserve and
secresy were at an end. But a strange unexpected circumstance, perchance
productive of benefit to those for whom I would if possible sacrifice
more than self, leads me once more to that scene where my dearest wishes
lie buried--where I raised a funeral pile of all my hopes of happiness
in this world--'twas I conducted the fatal torch--I stood passive and
witnessed their annihilation!
One day longer shall I remain at Barlowe Hall. I only arrived here
yesterday. I may be absent a week; then I return again for a short time,
to seek in solitude, a temporary recruit of spirits and resolution. Much
indeed do I need them. You I have to meet. My uncle too. All who call
themselves my friends: for, with this emaciated form, and mere emaciated
mind, am I coming to London.
And what is my business there?--To take an everlasting leave of ye
all.--To implore Sir Thomas Barlowe that he will allow me but a pat of
the ample provision he has given me here, to supply nature's necessities
in a foreign land.--I go abroad. Opposition and remonstrances are a
feather in the balance.--I go, Montgomery, to find a grave.--Life and I
are already separated!--I breathe: but I do not live!--Sleep and peace
are vanished from me!--How swift are the ravages of an unhealthy mind,
and who would not rejoice when the vague and fleeting scene shall have
finally closed!--But a little time Montgomery and rumour will say, or
perhaps some stranger affected into sympathy by my youth, will, as the
least office of humanity, charge himself particularly to inform thee,
that it was a sigh of resignation which liberated the agonized soul and,
forever sealed the lips of
A. MURDEN
LETTER III
FROM SIBELLA VALMONT
TO
CAROLINE ASHBURN
Not write me one line!--Did you, Caroline, forbid him?--Prudence and
safety required no such sacrifice!--Last night I dreamt--but why talk of
dreams? When waking miseries surround us, why need we recur to those of
imagination!
Tell Clement, if he meant a triumph, tell him he may congratulate
himself. I would neither conceal nor deny, he has it most
completely.--Here then I remain.--In full conviction that Clement has
already learned a part of Mr. Valmont's lesson, I obey.--Yes: I suffer
myself to be commanded into acquiescence, against which every fond
affection of my soul revolts.
Tell Clement that--yet stay--ask thy heart, Sibella, that heart in which
love and disappointment mingle the bitter poison which corrodes the very
vitals of thy peace, whether this is not the momentary effusion of a
perhaps unfounded resentment?--Tell him not, Caroline: or, if thou
tellest him aught, and I do commit an error, oh may the tear which
accompanies prove its atonement!
* * * * *
Caroline, I am incompetent to judge of his situation. Cares and tumults
may surround him, and add to the anguish of separation.--And you, my
friend, ah beware how you judge him rashly! The tender heart of Clement
repels every approach of harshness.--While you seek to investigate, you
forgot to soothe.--I detest your picture of my Clement's mind.--Oh! how
ill do you appreciate that soul, wherein the image of Sibella lives
immoveably, and eternally, undivested of her sway by any outward form or
circumstance!--'Tis true, indeed, Clement does attach to success and
fortune in the world a value unfelt by me who know it not at all, and
prized by you, only perhaps from its more intimate knowledge. But for
whose sake is it, Caroline, that he dreads my uncle's resentment, that
he would shrink to see me a pennyless outcast from Mr. Valmont's
favour--is it not _mine_?--'Tis I, that am, however distantly removed
its effects from all but the discerning eye of love, I am his actuating
principle!--Does he ever dismiss this one dear ultimate object from his
thought?--'tis because a lesser theme mixing therewith would degrade the
loved idea.--Again undisturbed, self-possessed, his ardent mind returns
to the dear remembrance of past, the still dearer anticipation of
future, joys--when hourly, momentarily, they shall augment with the
increase of years.
Oh Clement, that love at one and the same instant created on our
sympathizing hearts!--sustained, with mutual ardor, through the uniform
but interesting years of childhood!--at length spurred on by dangers and
denial to form its firmest, chastest tie!--is there a temptation on
earth, or a horror in futurity, which could bribe or bid that love seek
to extinguish its smallest hope, its least particle of enjoyment?--No!
No! Never!--An impassable gulph is placed between that love and
diminution.--A chasm wide, deep, immeasurable, as eternity!
* * * * *
How dared I reproach my love!--How dared I decide, I whose mind is
almost subdued by my situation!--Think Caroline! one hour heavily creeps
after its fellowed hour;--day slowly succeeds to day, barely
distinguished by another name;--the sun shines one morning, and hides
his beam the next;--yon tall trees who bow their heads to the wind on
this side to-day may to-morrow wave them on the other: and here ends the
chapter of my varieties.--Night, indeed, brings variety amidst endless
confusions! Broken sleep and apalling visions create debility of mind
and body for the ensuing dawn!--It is but the fainting embers of my
former animation that sometimes gleam upon the darkness of my soul. And,
even now, now, while I acknowledge and reprobate my folly, I could
return to the horrors of apprehension, could run through volumes of dire
presages affirming while I disbelieved, creating as if to be interwoven
in my fate fantastic, shapeless evils from which my better reason would
turn, and would pronounce the worthless offspring of misrepresentation
and falsehood.
And why, Caroline, should I be thus?--there is the question, that, as
often as I impose on myself, as often returns unanswered.--I knew
Clement was to go; and I know he _will_ come again. What is new in my
destiny is delightful to remembrance: it is the sacred union plighted by
our willing hearts in the sight of heaven, the confirmation the
everlasting bond of affection, which renders every blessing of this life
subordinate, from which no change of circumstance could release us, nor
not even death itself shall cancel.
I heard Clement speak one day of some ceremonials which would be deemed
necessary to the ratification of this covenant, when we should enter the
world.--Methinks I shall be loath to submit to them. The vow of the
heart is of sacred dignity. Forms and ceremonies seem too trifling for
its nature. But of the customs of your world, Caroline, I am ignorant.
* * * * *
I write at intervals--a giddiness returns upon me continually, and air
is the only remedy. The last time I quitted my pen, I was almost
overpowered, and could proceed no further than the great hall door. I
sat on the step and leaned my head against a pillar of the portico.--It
was not swooning, for I knew I was there.--I felt the cold wind blow on
my face, but my limbs had lost their faculty, and my eye-sight its
power.--A chill oppressive gripe seemed to fasten on my heart.--My uncle
happened to pass in from the park.--He spoke, but I could not reply. I
waved my hand, which he took in his; but, while he pressed it, he
reproved me in an ungentle manner, for sitting on the damp stone, and
exposed to the raw air--Tears unbidden and almost unexcited, roll down
my cheeks. He called Andrew; and I was borne in, and laid on a sopha in
the breakfast parlour.
After I recovered, my uncle, with a kinder tone of voice, noticed an
appearance of ill health in my looks, and enquired into the nature of my
indisposition.--'You are too much in the cold, child,' said he.--'Go; I
give you permission to sit with Mrs. Valmont. I will join you there
presently.' I replied I was engaged in my most interesting employment,
that of writing to you?--'Ah! child!' said my uncle, 'how much do you
stand indebted to my indulgence for that liberty?--I rely on your
integrity that you do not in any one instance, Sibella, abuse my
confidence.'--I was going to answer, and began with your name.
'I know,' said my uncle, 'what Miss Ashburn is very well! Your
friendship to her was formed by accident, and without my concurrence;
but I had never suffered it to continue, had I not found something to
approve in Miss Ashburn. She has sensibility and affection; that is all
you ought to learn. The rest is the sad licentiousness of her education.
I could have made her a charming woman. And as it is, she has too much
feeling, for the companion of women of fashion; and too little reserve,
for the wife of a man of delicacy. I am giving orders to Ross, Sibella.
He is sending a packet to Clement. Have you any remembrances for your
friend and play-fellow?'
'Such, Sir, as most befits a wife to a husband.' Encouraged by the
complacency of his eye, I threw myself at his feet; and assuredly
reserve and concealment would in that moment have vanished, had not Mr.
Valmont placed his hand on my mouth. 'Hush, hush, child!--You know I
will be obeyed.--Happiness ceases to be a blessing, if disappointment
does not precede, to stamp its value. Go, Sibella. Your fate in the
husband I ordain for you may not be as desperate as you, at present,
perhaps, imagine.'
Repeat this to Clement, Caroline, a thousand times. Let him fix his
comment, and then judge of the throbbing expectation of my heart by his
own.
How insensibly my pen glides into this dear engrossing subject! I began
this letter almost for the sole purpose of telling you I am no longer a
stranger to the '_wood-haunter_,' as you call him; and I have travelled
through these number of lines without his idea having recurred to my
memory.
From the night of the sigh and little ball, I sacrificed the first of my
present enjoyments; and entered the wood no more. The opposite hill,
from whence issues the parent spring of the lake, forms a shelter to the
little park, a spot of ground left in its rude state to produce furze,
&c. for the accommodation of our deer. Twice a day, for Nina's sake, I
ascended the hill. Sometimes she appeared instantly, from the little
park.--Oftner, after I had called loud, and long, she would come panting
from the wood. But our meetings were less congenial than at the foot of
our oak.--Nina would bound that way, suddenly stop, and look wistfully
from me to the wood, thus as it were conjuring my return to that beloved
spot where she used to share her fond caresses between Clement and
myself, and spring from one embrace to be received in the other.
One afternoon Nina appeared on my first call; and, as I stooped to
embrace her, I observed a folded paper tied to the plate of her collar.
It contained only, 'your wood is free: farewel for ever.'
That Nina should become such a messenger must be, I concluded, by the
order of Mr. Valmont, and the contrivance of a servant; for you,
Caroline, experienced how inflexibly averse Nina is to strangers. Even
to the domestics of the castle I never saw her more complacent. I felt
grateful for the tidings; though I smiled to think my uncle should thus
continually strive to perplex and mislead my imagination.
It was now near the close of evening.--Gathering clouds and fierce gusts
of wind foretold a tempest. Instead of going to the wood, I returned to
the castle; and scarcely was I housed, when the storm burst in its most
tremendous violence.
You remember the apartment where my portrait hangs; and you have
remarked the attractions of that picture for me. As the work of Clement,
it is rather his image than my own. There I can vent the swelling
sentiment of my heart, and find an auditor more interested than the
dispersing winds. To this room and picture I resorted in the dead of
that night, to harmonize my feelings and collect my thoughts, alarmed
and scattered by a twice repeated dream full of terror and dismay.
There I met a stranger. I looked on him intensely; for I sought to
discover the likeness of _the spirit_, whom you describe, I sought to
recollect the features I had seen in the wood, and armoury: height and
form agreed with your description, and my remembrance; but the
countenance of this young man was devoid of softness and I thought
possessed little interest. He had vivacious dark eyes, dark hair, and a
full decided bloom. The impression of former circumstances was still
powerful in my mind; I remembered the paper I had found on Nina's
collar; and I concluded that this person could be no other than Mr.
Valmont's chosen. I addressed him accordingly. I spoke of the weakness
of his endeavours. I defied his utmost power. Twice the stranger bowed
in silence; but he never attempted to answer me.