We will now move, for a while, to a far distant scene, and go back to
a somewhat earlier period of the year; for, having a violent objection
to all stiff rules, I cannot even consent to bind myself by the very
good advice of Count Antoine Hamilton--"_Mon ami, toujours commencez
par le commencement_;" in which he differed from Horace, and a great
many wonderful men of old.
On the western coast of England, and in one of the most beautiful
parts of that beautiful coast, is a spot which I must describe, not
only for the benefit of those who may profit by it, or of those who
may love to identify any place they read of, with some place which
they remember or imagine, but because many of the principal events of
my tale occurred in the midst of that precise scene. Those who know
the sea-board of Devonshire will, I think, have no difficulty in
recognising the locality from certain distinctive marks.
The place to which I allude is a little bay, taking somewhat the form
of a horse-shoe, and indenting the land deeply. It is formed by a high
headland, on the south western side, which shelters it from the
prevailing winds. The face of this promontory, to its very extreme
point, is one precipitous cliff of cold grey stone, varying from six
to nine hundred feet in height, rugged and broken indeed, but
apparently pathless; and bold would be the man who should attempt to
scale it; still bolder he who should seek to descend from the height
above. This is called Ale Head; and the opposite limb of the bay
consists of another promontory, not so steep or precipitous, indeed,
but still lofty and scarped enough, which bears the name of Ale Down.
Neither does it project so far into the sea from the general line of
coast, which trends away to the eastward at no very abrupt angle.
Protected thus on three sides by very high ground, and with only a
somewhat narrow opening in one direction, the waters of that bay,
during the greater part of the year, are as soft and tranquil as a
dream of heaven; but they are very deep also, for the cliffs run down
far below the low water-mark. Standing on the heights above, I have
looked down, and beheld the sea lying beneath my feet, as smooth as a
mirror and as blue as a sapphire. A hundred-gun ship could anchor in
that bay, within pistol-shot of the cliffs of Ale Head.
Between the higher promontory and the lower, however, is a deep dell.
I must not call it a valley; for the sides are too steep, and the
concavity too narrow, to admit of that name. Down this dell flows a
strong deep stream of beautifully clear water, over a rooky bed, from
which a large quantity of sand is carried down, forming a soft dry
landing-place, where the dell opens upon the bay. This little beach is
not at all extensive, being, from the foot of the rock on the one side
to the base of the hill on the other, not more than two hundred yards
wide, and perhaps forty in depth. Through the centre of it flows the
stream into the sea; and, twice a-day, ocean comes up to meet its
tributary, covering by far the greater part of the sands.
There were then, and are now--at least I have never seen it
without--some five or six boats hauled up on the shore, giving the
first intimation which one receives on entering Ale Bay from the
seaward, that that wild and lonely scene has human habitations near.
But so it is; and, on each side of the little river, commencing at
about a hundred yards from the mouth, and ending about a quarter of a
mile farther up the dell, are built a number of fishermen's cottages,
pressed between the steep hill-side on the one hand and the deep
banks of the stream on the other. At various places down the
dell, too, little bridges are built across from bank to bank;
sometimes merely the trunk of a tree flattened on the side that lies
uppermost--sometimes an ill-turned arch of roughly hewn stone. These
are all foot-bridges, I need hardly say; for horse, cart, or carriage,
never, I believe, ventured so far down the valley.
The next object, speaking of human life, which you see after the
boats, on entering the bay, is the end of the lowest fisherman's hut,
peeping out through the opening of the valley; but a moment or two
afterwards, as you pull on, you will perceive upon the side of the
hill to the south-west, if you raise your eyes in that direction, the
gables and chimneys of a large old mansion, rising above a wood of
considerable extent and luxuriance which clothes the valley nearly to
the shore, for in that favoured climate vegetation does not shrink
from the sea air; and at no great distance may be seen the trees
actually dipping their branches in the waves. They wisely eschew,
however, the cutting winds upon the hill top; and the high summit of
Ale Head is as bare as the back of a tortoise, and well nigh as brown.
We must look a little more closely at the mansion, however. Let us
suppose, then, that we have landed by the side of the stream, crossed
the dry sands, and entered the little dell, with light clouds floating
rapidly overhead and making the blue bay and the grey cliffs, and the
brown downs above, sparkle with gleams like the sweet transitory hopes
that brighten, as they pass, the hard stern features of this earthly
life. Oh, ye bright visions of imagination, could one but grasp and
arrest ye for an hour, how much happier, how much better, might man
be!--what a different thing were life! But ye are of air, and only given
us, in this stormy scene, to assure the sad and tempest-beaten heart
that there is still sunshine above the clouds.
Walking on before the fishermen's cottages, along the very very narrow
path, we come to a spot where the road extends, but is no longer carried
on upon both sides of the stream. It mounts, too; the valley becomes
less deep, more wide. The left, or south-western side, is covered with
wood; the right slopes up sharply, clothed with short green sward.
Suddenly, at about half-a-mile from the bay, a road branches off to the
left, while that which you have been pursuing by the bank of the stream
widens out and becomes a good sound carriage-road. We must take the
left-hand road, however, which, forming an acute angle with the path
by which we have arrived, seems as if its ultimate point, or terminus,
as we should now corruptly call it, was destined to be the very highest
and farthest part of the promontory of Ale Head. But it has no such
ambitious notions; and, after rising somewhat abruptly for a little
way, it runs on towards the sea, with a very slight inclination upwards,
winding through the wood till, with a sharp turn to the right, it passes
between two gates of hammered iron-work, supported upon stone columns,
with large round globes on the top. Then come two or three little glades
in a slight hollow of the hill, and then the old mansion, standing on a
somewhat higher point. How can one describe it? It is but a collection
of innumerable gables, and walls, and windows, built in the reign of
Elizabeth, added to in the reign of James, left to go to decay during
the Commonwealth, repaired and re-decorated under Charles II. It is all
of the grey stone of the country; but the sea air, and the proximity of
the woods, have tinged it with many colours, so that its aspect is not
that of a venerable old man who has passed his life in peace and
tranquillity, but rather like the weather-beaten face of an old sailor,
bronzed and tinted by the wind and tempests.
Within, are many rooms and many passages; flights of steps go down,
apparently merely for the purpose of going up again; and you are
continually meeting doors and new rooms where nobody expected them.
But many of these rooms are very handsome--spacious, lofty, and
well-formed; and though, to say the truth, they would be more
lightsome and cheerful were they not generally panelled with walnut or
black oak--yet there is something fine and impressive in that dark
carved wainscoting; and, when the sunshine steals in and brightens it,
it is like a sweet smile upon the face of age.
In one of these large handsome rooms, upon the first floor above the
ground, on a spring day in 1715, sat a girl of about eighteen years of
age, in the dress of a highborn lady of that time. I need not, and had
better not, describe it; for it was as stiff and as ugly a costume as
ever was invented by the capricious taste of man. The character of an
epoch is always displayed in the dress of the generation; and what
could be expected from the dry gallantry of Louis the Fourteenth's
latter days, and the stiff decorum of George the First's?
Nevertheless, the most hard and unbending garments in which that fair
form could be encased could never have repressed its wild grace or
shackled its free light movements. Her maid complained that she burst
more bodice-laces than any lady in the country; and it is a certain
fact that her hair contrived to disentangle itself from combs and
fillets, and sport in the wind like wreaths of smoke, more frequently
than she herself wished or even knew. How it happened she could not
tell, and she gave herself no great trouble to enquire; for her mind
was often wandering after other things, sometimes with the eager
sportiveness of a child after a butterfly, sometimes with steady and
untiring thought, like a wayfarer on a long journey.
It must be said, too, in justice to her good taste, that she abhorred
the vile fashions of the day in which she lived, and would often stand
and contemplate the portraits of Vandyke, of which there were several
in the house, or other older pictures still, and wonder by what curious
process the mind of man had been led to abandon what is flowing and
beautiful for that which is rigid and ugly. There was a refuge, however,
even in the costume of those times, which saved part of the day from
being spent in durance vile; and this was in what ladies called their
night-clothes. The term, it is true, was a deceit; and the words,
"night-clothes," meant merely a light and easy morning-dress, in which
they often spent the early hours of the day before they dressed for
parks and promenades. It was put on as soon as they rose in the morning,
in exchange for the garments in which they had really passed the night.
Sometimes they even went out in those, wrongly called, "night-clothes"
before the conventional hour for appearing in public had arrived.
The young lady I have brought before the reader sat a little out of
the sun-beams, which, pouring in, and painting the floor with moving
tracery, fell also over the table before her; but her eyes could reach
the blue sky and catch the clouds wafted over it, as with silent speed
they hurried along upon the wings of the wind. It was very still and
quiet in that wide high room. The birds could be heard singing
without; the busy little flies, those most wonderful pieces of
mechanism, buzzed about the windows; and a clock at the top of the
stairs ticked faintly. But these were all the sounds; and they seemed
only to soothe the silence.
The lady stirred not, spoke not, but sat with her elbow leaning on the
table, her cheek, warmly tinged with the rose, resting upon her white
hand, the "fringed curtains of her eyes" raised up, and the bright,
soft, hazel orbs themselves elevated towards the deep sunshiny
heavens. A book was on the table; but she read it not. There was a
mandolin in the corner; but she touched it not. Her thoughts were very
busy; and her heart was with her thoughts. Yet the images, the
questions, the answers which were presented to her mind, touched not
upon those topics which any one who did not know her would suppose.
She was in the bright expanding time of life, the spring of existence,
when the opening bosom of the rose courts the bee. But yet she thought
not of love. She knew it not; hardly by name, not at all by sensation,
although the young heart will yearn for that which was the only want
in Eden's garden when Adam was first formed. It was not of the gay
ball, the play, the promenade, or any of the fashionable amusements of
the day; for of them she was as ignorant as of love; but problems
which have puzzled many an aged philosopher were present to her mind,
though not stated in the most philosophical manner. Wildly and
strangely they rose, like the fantastic forms of clouds; and she
chased them eagerly in thought, as a child chases the fleeting shadows
that mock his speed.
"What am I?" she asked herself. "Of what strange elements composed?
Body and spirit, soul and mind! What are these things? Is the body the
spirit's slave, or the spirit's jailor--servant or master? I can
perceive nothing but what it will permit me to perceive. Through its
means must be all my communications with things animate or inanimate.
There it rules and triumphs. There it is the tyrant, the jailor; and
yet I can close my eyes, and the spirit, as if free from its hard
bondage, can wing its flight afar into that bright blue sky, and
question the heavens as to what is between myself and them. Can it be
that the human race is the great pausing point of God's creation, and
that between us and Him there is one vast void, untenanted, inanimate?
Or is yonder wide expanse of air, the stars, the heavens, the
universe, peopled with beings that I see not? Are there spirits in
those clouds that skim like ivory chariots through the sky? Are there
creatures of light and joy, now sporting with the sun-beams, or
resting under the green leaves of the wood? If so, is it possible that
there is no means of communication between me and them, that this body
is a barrier between the spirit that I feel within it, and the host of
spirits thronging around me? Strange, strange existence? what art
thou, what am I?"
On went the mind in the same course, inquiring, eager, keen, but
untutored and unsatisfied. All the great problems of human existence
seemed to crowd upon imagination and demand an answer from that which
cannot give it.
These were strange thoughts for a girl of eighteen; but yet perhaps
not unnatural for a quick and active spirit in the circumstances which
surrounded her. The heart had no occupation to give; and it was
impossible that imagination could rest idle. They were strange
thoughts certainly; but such were the thoughts of Emmeline.
She was without companionship. She had none whom she could call
friends around her. The poor fishermen of the village of Ale were
her nearest neighbours. There was none in the house with her with whom
she could exchange thought. It had been so during many years, and her
mind carried her back to little else than the same state. Far, far
away, in the distant past, images like phantoms were seen by the eye
of memory--sweet and pleasant images, too, but faint and ill-defined;
beings that she loved, forms that hung over her with affection, voices
that sounded musical even in remembrance; but she saw them as through
a glass; she could not approach nearer; she could not trace them more
distinctly. It was like the sight of a distant land beheld across the
sea, pleasant to view, but not to be reached, with the waves flowing
between the beholder and it.
After that, and after a succeeding period of darkness, in which she
perceived nothing, the figure of a venerable old man, the poor curate
of the parish, came on her memory. She remembered him well. He had
taught her much, and had seemed to regard her with peculiar tenderness
and affection. He had instructed her to think, and to delight in
thought; to read, and to ponder on what she read; for she had never
received what may be called the trifling parts of a woman's education.
Masters, it is true, had been procured for her from neighbouring
towns; but they were dull, heavy, material teachers. The only one who
had really instructed her was that old clergyman. But now he was gone,
and she was without a guide, for the man who had succeeded was a fat
and jovial priest who loved the material much more than the mental,
and whose weekly sermon laid a heavier burden on the shoulders of his
spirit than it was well able to bear. He sought not to acquire or to
communicate knowledge, except as to where good wine was given or good
punch brewed, or where, and at what hour, the savoury haunch was
roasted.
I have said that the old clergyman had taught her much; but there was
one subject on which he had taught her nothing: her own fate and
history. He had studiously avoided it, suffering--perhaps unwillingly,
but still intentionally--the facts of the past to drop from memory.
She had sometimes inquired, it is true, but he had always stopped her
gravely, and circumstances had occurred to make her think even at the
early age of fourteen, which she had reached when he died, that he had
been bound by some promise to forbear all such information. She even
sometimes suspected that his silence as to her history was part of a
compact--the condition on which he was permitted to visit and instruct
her.
But with whom was the compact? Probably with that swarthy man who is
now walking on the terrace below, booted and spurred as for a journey,
and waiting for his horses to be brought round. There is nothing very
remarkable in his appearance. His face is not forbidding, his features
not ill-formed, though his eyes are perhaps somewhat too near
together, and the pupils too small, as if they were always in excess
of light. He is about the middle height, stout, but not corpulent, and
perhaps fifty years of age. His air and manner are those of a
gentleman, his dress rich and costly. He is altogether a good-looking
middle aged man, but with a certain look of over-shrewdness that might
perhaps warn men to be careful in their dealings with him. This is Sir
John Newark, the possessor of Ale Manor-House and estates.
Emmeline could not remember when she had first seen him. It was too
far back for memory; but she knew that she was not his child. She
_felt_ it too, and he always called himself her guardian. By that term
he did not mean her tyrant, for he was kind to her, as kind as a man
of a cold, calculating, selfish nature could be. Nor was he altogether
an unpleasant companion; for, though he had not the slightest spark of
imagination, and fancy with him was a bird without wings--though he
could not even comprehend the existence of imagination in others,
and still less any of the generous and thoughtless impulses of the
heart--yet he had a good stock of information upon many subjects,
conversed well, and had seen a great deal of the world. He did not in
the least understand the character of Emmeline; but yet, as I have
said, he was kind to her, and even indulgent. She had her horses to
ride, her servants to attend upon her. She was allowed to roam about,
through the woods, over the hills, down to the fishermen's cottages,
and even to the neighbouring towns. All the restraints he placed upon
her were such as the customs of society in that day justified, if they
did not require. She was not permitted to visit any house, unless
accompanied by an elderly woman, whom he had placed about her, and who
acted the part of duenna with much skill and discretion. When she went
to the small town of Seaford, she was always well accompanied, and was
never out of sight of some one, except while in Ale Manor-House or
Park. There she was at full liberty; and she enjoyed it.
It must not be supposed that she thought Sir John's restraints very
hard; she knew that they were in some degree customary; and he had
always good reasons to give for every regulation. He would often talk
with her on such subjects in the evening, when they sat alone; but
there were two or three points which he strove to impress strongly
upon her mind, and which created doubts and enquiries; for I must not
call them suspicions. He had a great dislike to foreigners--no matter
what their class; and when any even of the fishermen or smugglers from
the Coast of France visited the little village of Ale, as was
sometimes the case, he enjoined Emmeline strictly to hold no
communication with them, but to keep herself within the walls of the
Park, and to receive nothing from their hands, even though sent as a
present.
"You are not fond of gauds or laces, Emmeline," he would say; "that I
know right well; but you might think it discourteous to refuse any
little gift, presented with the grace which all these men have.
Remember, however, these things are never offered without an object,
and that generally an evil one."
At first, when she was very young, she listened to these injunctions
with unquestioning reverence; but as she grew older and read much, she
began first to doubt whether he was not prejudiced, and then, from his
constant recurrence to the same theme, to imagine that he had some
motive which he did not utter; for she had already discovered, by his
dealings with others, that he seldom acted or spoke without a personal
object. We too often forget that we teach children our own characters,
as well as other things, and that each day is a lesson.
One evening, when perhaps, such thoughts were in her mind, she said,
in a musing sort of way, that she should like to see foreign lands and
foreigners in their own country. The start that he gave alarmed her;
but he answered nothing at the time, remaining, during the whole of
the rest of the evening, in deep and somewhat gloomy reverie.
The night following, however, he returned to the subject himself,
speaking in a grave but kindly tone, and evidently upon a plan. It
seemed as if he had made up his mind to enter upon a subject which he
would rather have avoided, and had weighed every word he was to utter.
"You told me last night, Emmeline," he said, "that you should like to
visit foreign countries. You know not what you wish, my child. To do
so would be your destruction."
"Then I will wish it no longer," she answered, with a bright look,
followed by a momentary shade as she added--"But I did not know, I had
not heard, that foreigners were so wicked, or their lands so evil.
Indeed, I had read of many a high and noble act amongst them, and
fancied they were much like Englishmen, only speaking another tongue."
"Far different, Emmeline, and far inferior," answered Sir John Newark;
"but, if that were all, I should little care, and would take you
readily to some gay foreign court to let you judge of the difference."
"I have seen no courts as yet," replied Emmeline, "and little wish to
see them."
"You shall soon," said her guardian; "for it is needful that every
woman should see courts who is destined to move in the higher sphere
of life. But, to return to what I was saying. To visit foreign lands
might be--nay, inevitably would be--your destruction. Some time ere
long, and certainly when you marry, I will tell you the whole history
of your family. It would be improper now to do so; but thus much I may
tell you, that there are pertinacious enemies of your race living
beyond the seas, whose anxious dearest wishes would be gratified if
they could but get you into their power."
"What would they do with me?" asked Emmeline, simply.
The question seemed to puzzle him; and he paused for an instant, in
dark meditation.
"I cannot tell," he said; "but all I know is, that they have ruined
many by their schemes. You are the last that remains to destroy. They
might indeed," he added, in a thoughtful considering tone, "they might
indeed, in consideration of your youth and innocence, restrain
themselves to shutting you up in a convent, never to come forth
again."
"That would be worse than death," replied Emmeline.
But he went on, not seeming to listen to her.
"Their object might be attained by that means as well as by others;
and it is, probably, the course they would take, if they could make
all so sure and irrevocable that no chance of your ever appearing
again in the world would be left. If they could put you to this living
death, they might be content."
Emmeline shuddered, and gazed at him with a look of fear.
"My only care is for you, dear child," he went on to say. "So long as
I live, I will defend and protect you. When you are married, your
husband, whoever he may be, will do the same; but till then, be
warned, my Emmeline. Avoid, as you would a person with the plague, all
persons from beyond the seas; for there is no art nor violence to
which your enemies would not have recourse, if they saw even a chance
of success. Hitherto _I_ have guarded you, and will continue to do so;
but you are old enough now to take precautions on your own behalf. I
have warned you of the danger; keep it ever in mind, and strive to
avoid it by every means in your power."
Emmeline answered not, but remained with her eyes cast down and her
fair brow bent, as if in earnest thought, till he asked, somewhat
sharply--
"Do you hear me, Emmeline? I said, 'strive to avoid this danger by
every means.'"
"I will, I will indeed," exclaimed Emmeline, clasping her hands
together; but, the next instant, she burst into tears, and ran out of
the room.
Her guardian's only observation to himself was--
"It has had more effect than I expected; but it is quite as well."
Great, indeed, was the effect; for it produced the first fear her mind
had ever known. She was not aware till then that she had an enemy upon
earth. Every human being seemed to love her; all had been kind to her;
even the rude, dull, obtuse son of her guardian, a lad about seventeen
years of age, somewhat deficient in intellect, was fond of, and gentle
with, her; and, when at home (which was seldom, for he was kept at a
school in London in the hope of strengthening and brightening his dull
and feeble mind), Emmeline could do anything with him. He would sit
beside her, choosing by preference a footstool near her feet,
listening to all she said, talking to her in return, and seeming to
gain some brightness from her light. All had seemed friendly to her;
all had seemed kind. But now she found she had an enemy--an enemy of
the most dark and irreconcilable kind--an enemy without a cause. It
was very terrible to her; and even the vagueness of the information
she had received--the dark obscure hints, which merely shadowed forth
the passions, and the danger, and the person, added to the horror. It
was in vain she attempted to nerve her heart against all fears, or to
scan the things which surrounded her in order to discover where any
real peril lay, and of what nature it was; her mind was like a timid
person wandering in the dark, and casting his eyes round only to find
objects of terror for the sight of fancy. All she knew was, that she
had an enemy, dark, mysterious, malignant; but that was quite enough
to depress, and agitate, and terrify her.
The heart of youth, however, has a restorative power which does not
easily fail; and the effect of the words which had been spoken to her,
though permanent, was greatly softened during the two or three months
which had passed since their utterance. She had taken refuge in
thoughts and fancies; she had read more than before, dreamed
more--waking, I mean--and had found solace in such occupations. She
confined herself more to the park, however; seemed anxious to have
more people with her when she went beyond its precincts; and kept
altogether to the house, unbidden, for two whole days, when she was
told that a foreign cutter was in Ale Bay. Her guardian remarked this
conduct, and was well pleased, and now, when he was setting out for
London upon business which seemed of importance, from the thoughtful
brow which he bore for two days before his departure, he left her,
convinced that the apprehensions which he had instilled would act as
perfect safeguards during his absence. As she sat there, gazing up
towards the sky, Emmeline did not know that he was actually about to
depart; for he was not fond of leave-takings, and seldom said farewell
when he went away. A minute or two after, however, she heard the sound
of the feet of several horses, and, running to the window, saw Sir
John Newark in the act of mounting, with two or three servants around
him, and a pack-horse held by a man on foot. Her guardian raised his
eyes to the window as soon as he was in the saddle; and Emmeline waved
her hand, saying, "Adieu!" He merely nodded his head, however, and
rode away, leaving her the mistress of the house, and _apparently_ of
her own actions.