No, Andrew, 'tis in vain you search. No fair wood-nymph greets your eye. No voice answers to your call.——Ay! ay! assemble them:—hold your convocations in the great hall:—crowd, closer and closer:—whisper your suspicions, lest the dread ear of Valmont catch the tidings, that—she is gone!—Who shall carry these tidings to Mr. Valmont?—Not I! not I! not I! answers every voice at once; and up to the hall door drives his coach and six. Away fly the pale culprits!—Jostling against each other, confusion retards their speed, and the dreadful secret is in part betrayed.
Fye! Mr. Valmont, fye! don't swear! don't call hard names!
Can't you hear him, Walter, declaring his rage, and threatening his vengeance?—I can.
Ill news fly fast. Mr. Valmont's horses are not unharnessed.—Turn your eyes to Monkton Hall. See the squire enter—See the earl turn pale; the baronet attempt to look sorry; and see them, as I before observed, sitting in judgment on me, and putting their own black constructions on my innocent praise-worthy intentions.
Assuredly, Walter, could I have commanded every circumstance in my own way, it could not have happened more favourably. Mr. Valmont's porter is ill, and has been removed from the lodge into the house to be better nursed. Two grooms were deputed to take care of the draw-bridge. Mr. Valmont absent, we found it down; and down it remains now.—With what art Griffiths drew off the postilion, while I got into the chaise! The lad had not a suspicion he carried more than two—I crouched to the bottom, as they got out; and Griffiths whip'd up the blinds in an instant. He gave me one complete fright, for we had agreed the postilion should follow them into the house to be paid, while I freed myself; imagine how I trembled to hear them discharging him on the spot, and he thanking and wishing their honours good night.
'Stop my boy,' at length, cried Griffiths; 'hasn't thou got a wet jacket?'
'Yes, indeed, master,' replied the postilion, ''tis well soaked.'
'Why you griping old fellow,' this was addressed to the butler, who had come out to meet them, 'you grow as stingy as your master!—Why don't you offer the lad a little inside clothing? Come, postilion, come, you shall go in and drink my health in a bumper. But first, my boy, lead your horses under that arch, and they escape being wetter.' Then singing, he led the whole train into the back part of the castle.
Now this thought of the arch was the luckiest imaginable; for, had any of the grooms by chance staid loitering about the yard, the chaise was then so effectually screened, they could not have seen me descend from it. Turning on the right side of the arch, I crept along the front of the castle, crossed the inner court, and the hall door, with one gentle push, gave me admittance. Had the door been fastened, I must have waited there till Griffiths could steal an opportunity to let me in. In this part of the castle 'twas dark, as darkness itself; but as I had been in this apartment before, and came by the great stair-case, I found my way hither without trip or stumble. Griff——I fancied,—Nay, I'm sure, I heard a noise!—yet, all is silent again.—It was like the creaking of a door, and like something falling.——Rat's probably; the midnight tenants of the mansion.
Good God, how slowly the minutes move! only seventeen minutes and a half after twelve!—Astonishing!—that must be hail surely! I never heard rain drive with such impetuosity.—The casements tremble. I could almost fancy the building rocks with the tempest's violence.
What wonders will not education, custom, and habit accomplish! Miss Valmont, I dare say, feels no horror in listening to such sounds, nor tracing these murmuring galleries, lonely staircases, &c. I should not exist six months in this castle.—She must, indeed, be a strange unformed being!—Her portrait, that I told you of, hangs in this very room; and on my conscience it would persuade me she is an animated intelligent creature; but I know 'tis impossible; and now and then, when the 6000l. per annum gets a little into the shade, I anticipate fearful things.
It is fortunate, Walter, that she has the advantages of person, for, on that account, I shall have a little the less reluctance in showing her to the world, and a little more pleasure in attempting to humanize her.—Yet, I fear, it will be but gawky beauty neither, and that I abominate.—Robust health, no doubt; strong limbs; hanging arms; a gigantic stride; and the open-mouthed stare of a savage!—Oh, dear!
I must be fond too, I suppose, as we travel towards matrimony; but I don't feel the least inclined to fondness!—No! although I shall seize her unattired in bed, perhaps.—No: not one wild wish or mischievous thought will enter my bosom.—My pulse will continue to beat evenly.—My blood keep in its temperate course. I shall be a perfect anchorite. For me, she can have no enticements.——My——Merciful! Do I dream?——or——
Boyer, am I not in Valmont castle?—Did I not come hither to carry off the niece of Valmont? And was that bright vision the Sibella Valmont whom I have so traduced?—Hush! Walter! repeat not my crime, if thou hopest for peace in this world, or happiness in the next! It could not be her, her that I came in search of!—Yes, but it was her. Angel as she is in form, her heart is the heart of a mortal still. 'Oh, Clement!' said she, and, spreading one hand upon her heaving bosom, sighed deeply.—She addressed herself to that picture.
'Art thou safe, my love?—terrifying dreams disturb my rest!' She saw me not, for her back was toward me as she entered. 'Heaven preserve my Clement!' said she again after a pause.
She would have continued thus soliloquizing, but I, to gain a view of her face, attempted to change my attitude. My cursed coat had somehow got entangled in the chair, and threw it against the table as I moved. She turned around; and I, as in the presence of a goddess, bowed lowly to the very ground.
She then approached nearer; and my eyes retreated from the scrutiny with which she viewed me. The examination lasted more than a minute; and all that time I was racking my invention to find words to address her, but I might as well have been born dumb: I had neither articulation, nor sounds to articulate.
'Mark me, Sir,' said she, and I, like the idiot I had been describing her, bowed again: 'Mr. Valmont may bring you here; may make this castle my prison; but my will is free. I tell you, Sir, I am beyond your reach. Remember it, I am beyond your reach.'—And away she glided.
'Mr. Valmont may bring you here.' Why, who the devil could she take me for? I thought Mr. Valmont brought nobody here!—'I am beyond your reach.' Say not so, sweet saint!—I would not have you now beyond my reach for a king's ransom. If she should alarm the house, Walter.——Hark!——No.—'Tis nothing.—she knew me: yet knew me not.—defied me: yet is a stranger to my purpose.—What can all this mean?—Ha! then it may be true, that this frightful place has deranged her intellects!—Certainly that is the case. She looked a lovely lunatic, wrapped up in a loose gown, her hair streaming at its length; and arisen, in the dead of night, to apostrophize to her own picture!
Yet I am not deterred, Walter. I'll undertake her restoration. Expect me in London immediately. I unsay all. I would not yield her up to her uncle, no not for an hour!
Is she returned to her bed, I wonder?—Oh! my moderation is given to the wind!—The time draws near!—I heard the clapping of distant doors.——I cannot write.—I can hardly breathe.
Boyer, they shall neither of them touch her.—I will carry her myself.——I could not bear to see their arms encircle the sweet girl.—I'll enter her chamber first.—Her face they must behold; but, with the same zeal that I would feast mine own senses upon her other charms, will I hide them from the profanation of vulgar eyes.
The great clock striking two has just filled the turrets with its sound.—Griffiths has been with me. Their gayer sports have ceased. Punch bowls and story telling succeed the dance and song. Their animal spirits drooping with excess and fatigue, their old midnight habits return.—Mysterious tales of ghosts go round the circle; and each becomes desirous of seeking rest, though fearful to separate. A few more bumpers Griffiths says will at once bring them courage and sleep. He bids me assure myself of success.
Griffiths and his brother are to have a chamber in the front of the north wing. All the domestics, he says, except Andrew and his daughter, lie in the back part of the building.
'Within two hours, my lord,' said Griffiths as he quitted me, 'your triumph is complete.'
Two hours! Walter, two hours of yesterday were nothing: but two hours of this night!—now!—You do not know the length of hours, Boyer! how should you?
When you come to this line, my dear Walter, fill to your friend's prosperity.—My two agents are here. The light is already placed in the dark lanterns.—Not a sleepless eye in the castle but our own. All, even old Andrew, partook of the libations; and resigned their senses, to seal my triumph.
Griffiths has shown me a gagg. It will not sure be necessary. Should it, I will heal those lips with kisses! My lines stagger.—No wonder!—I'm on the summit!—Now, I only stay to seal this letter. In the first town we arrive at after day-break, it shall be committed to the post. Go or send instantly, and stop all proceedings on the mortgage. Adieu! adieu! rejoice with
FILMAR
END OF THE SECOND VOLUME
VOLUME III
LETTER I
FROM LORD FILMAR
TO
SIR WALTER BOYER
DEAR WALTER,
Two days have I allowed you to wear out your astonishment at my ingenuity, address, and perseverance, and to exercise your imagination in following me and my bride from stage to stage of this admirably contrived journey.—Does the novelty of the adventure wear off?—Happy knight!—to have for thy chosen friend and bosom confidant, one who can ever open the field of variety before thee; and who, to cheer thy languid fancy, removes the pleasure on which thou hadst feasted to satiety, and places the pride-correcting view of disappointment in its stead.
Yes, indeed: old Andrew will find Miss Valmont where he left her; and I shall not be hanged for heiress-stealing. Don Valmont need not swear; and the trio will not sit in judgment on my deeds.—I have had my day of rage; and my day of sullens; and now, in the calmness of grief, I sit down to tell thee that, instead of being circled in my fair one's arms lord of her wealth, I am yet a poor broken-down gamester, and the guest of Sir Gilbert Monckton.
Heigh ho!—Had my plan been over turned when but half advanced, or had this family or that, even my father, or her uncle, detected me and torn her from my gripe I had forgiven it. But to be defeated in the moment of success by my own agents, my tools, tools for whose conscience and courage I had bargained—such tools I say, to be frightened by a black-gowned, bearded, nobody knows what—oh 'tis too much!
I swear when I wrote you that letter I would not have abated 500l. of my utmost expectations for the chances against me. How could I foresee I should have to deal with a knavish sort of a nameless something?—Who upon earth would imagine, in a seclusion so perfect, this girl could baffle a vigilant guardian, dupe a whole family, and with an art the most refined intrigue under circumstances and forms which sets discovery at defiance?—Nature-taught too!
But, my story.—Well: I described our intended route; and, in due process, we had crossed the antichamber, gone down the winding stairs, traversed the range of apartments below, and arrived at the West Tower, without the single creaking of a shoe to tell our progress. But, mind me: these brave fellows, who had so amply ridiculed the believing souls of the castle for their stories and their ghosts, now began to creep closer to each other.—And at every puff of wind that whizzed past us, they shrunk in circumference.
Thus I tell you we reached the West Tower: a tower long haunted in renown, and of which no apartment is either in use or preservation. We entered a rude kind of saloon, where we dimly saw mouldering walls, and unoccupied pedestals; scraps of its former carved ornaments were strewed upon the pavements; and here and there the faint rays of our lanthern glanced upon an headless hero. The saloon was cold and dreary; a wintry blast crept round us, with the hollow murmur of emptiness. We were treading ground, of which the apparitions of the castle had for time immemorial claimed the undisturbed possession; and the panic struck hearts of my companions were doubtless anticipating supernatural disasters, when slam went some door at no great distance. 'Lord, Lord have mercy on us!' cried Griffiths, seizing on my arm; while his yet paler brother, envying him the supposed protection, forced himself between us, and I have still the misfortune to bear tokens of his cowardly gripe. Enraged with the pain of this fellow's pinch, and the terror of being surprised, I shook him off like a fly; and, closing up the lanthern, I listened attentively at each door of the saloon, and became convinced we had heard only one of the accidental noises of an old and shattered building.
'Follow me, ye frightened fools,' said I, 'and at your peril——'
'Indeed, my lord,' whispered both cowards together, 'we were not at all frightened, and——'
With a look expressive enough I believe, for I was then mad with apprehension least their ignorance and credulity should ruin my project, I awed them into silence. I again bade them follow with the tone of authoritative command, and cowards are at all times most ready to obey.
Our next stage, and last except the stairs, was a winding, narrow, damp, stone passage.——The devil certainly owed me a grudge, since he incited me to enter it at that moment.——Ten minutes sooner, and I had probably secured the damsel, and had left the invisible night-walking inamorato to sigh, as it is now alass, Walter, my fate and fortune.
This passage was barely wide enough for three to walk abreast. I placed myself in the middle; and they clung to me with infinite zeal. I carried the lanthern; and our step was soft as secresy on my part and terror on their's could make it.—Turning an angle of this infernal passage, behold there came sweeping towards us a tall long bearded figure, in a black cloak, and carrying a dark lanthern likewise.
Zounds! What a howl from Griffiths and his brother!—The phantom fled. I pursued.—That beard never, never, grew on his chin, Walter.—He out-ran me; and I could only keep him in sight till, like a flash of lightning, he darted through a pair of heavy folding doors.—I expected nothing so surely as that he had secured them on the inside; and, now grown desperate, I resolved on a trial of strength. But the doors gave me admission as readily as they had done to him: and the long swords, helmets, truncheons, and other rusty weapons, and accoutrements, taught me I was in the famed armoury.
Now, Walter, heaven and himself only know to this hour what became of him. These eyes saw him enter, but neither eyes or hands could find him there. Four narrow casements gave light to the armoury; and these were most amply defended by cross bars of iron. That way he could not vanish.
You and others may talk of nursery prejudices till ye are hoarse with discussion, and I will still maintain it was not in the nature of man to witness the unaccountable escape of this spright without feeling his blood change its course. I honestly confess, drops of cold dew stood on my forehead, as I paced round and round this vast hall, holding up my lanthern at every fifth step to discover, and endeavouring from each crack and crevice to force, an opening into some other apartment.—None could I find.—A fearful awe crept to my heart.—I looked behind me and around me—even the void seemed to threaten me with something undefined and horrible.
Baffled in my search, I turned my thoughts from the phantom to Miss Valmont; and remembered with renewed courage that, as the spright declined giving me an interview, there sprang no apparent hindrance to my plan.—'Take heart, Filmar,' said I to myself, 'haste seek thy agents and complete thy bold undertaking.'
No sooner were the hinges of the closing armoury door silenced, than I heard the passage resound with the audible voice of Griffiths' brother, repeating as follows:—
'Unto the third and fourth generation—I believe in the Holy Ghost born of the virgin Mary, and in Pontius Pilate, crucified dead and buried—But deliver us from all evil, the holy catholic church and communion of saints, and lead us not into temptation, to be a light to lighten the Gentiles, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning Amen.—I Believe in—.'
Charming! thought I—this will do exactly. These echoing vaults will bear the tidings to Miss Valmont's chamber; and, presently, we shall be all at prayers together. There was he kneeling when I came up, his face close to the wall: nor would he open his eyes, nor cease his unnatural jargon, till I had shaken, cuffed him, and actually stamped and swore aloud for vexation.
Verily Knight, the saddest of sorrow's sons must have yielded to laughter had he viewed the ghastly countenance this poor wretch exhibited, and had likewise seen the half raised eye-lid, under which he scowled a fearful examination of my whole person.—Perceiving I had neither saucer-eye, nor cloven foot, cautiously and tremblingly he ventured to lay three fingers on my arm—I did not vanish into air, as doubtless he expected; and the fool, overjoyed to find me a real man of flesh and blood, sprang up with open arms to embrace me. Desirous to elude the kindness, I stepped aside. His clumsy elbow came in contact with the lanthern, dashed it from my hand, and left us in total darkness.
With the extinguished light expired my last hope. To go on was impossible; and who would not, like me, have endeavoured to wreak some little vengeance on the stupid destroyers of my scheme. Fortunately for them, and perhaps in the end for myself, Griffiths' brother, fearing my escape, had seized me behind; and gaining strength from his terror, pinioned me in spite of all my struggles and threats till, as the price of my own freedom, I engaged to assist them in getting safe from this asylum of accidents, apparitions, and harms.
Do not suppose, Walter, that here ended my provocations. No, indeed; for Griffiths who had lain extended on the ground since the black-gowned apparition first appeared, venting sighs, groans, and tears in abundance, doubled his share of my torments, by refusing for a full hour at least either to be soothed or scolded into the use of his legs. Be assured I had left him to his repose, but the brother would not take of his embargo, till all the conditions on my part were fulfilled. The door which led to the terrace we had opened ready on leaving the saloon, and thither I rather dragged than conducted them.—We closed it after us. And then with a bitter curse, I bade them aid themselves; and walked on before, ruminating on my fatal disappointment, and its more fatal consequences.
Imagine what I felt when we came up to the waiting chaise, horses, &c.—money expended which I want; demands increased which I cannot pay.—And so near, so very near to—Well: I will not think.
It was past five when we got back to Sir Gilbert's—I threw myself on 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!
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.
Early the succeeding morning, I decided on going to the wood. Should it be free—what a pleasure! Should the stranger be there—I had only to repeat, in a fuller manner, the sense of my last night's words and quit him.
Oh, Caroline, had you ever loved!—but love itself without separation could not have taught you the omnipotent value a lover's heart affixes to time, place, and memory! Who, in revisiting the hallowed ground of affection, can describe that slow eagerness of step, that still tumult of delight, which restrains while it impels, purchasing delay?—If these are not the happiest moments of life, at least, they are most worthy living for. The soul expands into a new existence. The body's encumbering mass seems no longer her organ.
Even now, Caroline, the charm returns, infusing itself through every vein, sending life's best blood in thrills to the heart, enkindling pleasure into agony!
I cannot proceed.—Will not Clement write me one line?—Another letter shall inform you, in what manner I discovered him; for the personated hermit is your Mr. Murden.
SIBELLA
LETTER IV
FROM THE SAME
TO
THE SAME
I know not precisely where to begin, nor how much of the adventure I told you in my last. Did I not say, that, while yet at my oak, Nina entered the wood a little below the tomb and without observing me began to climb the rock? But I think I broke off before I had mentioned her swift return at my call, and the irresolution she betrayed by running backward and forward from me to the rock, and from the rock back again to me. Desirous to know what her manner portended, I arose as if to follow, and away she bounded, taking the path up to the hermitage. As she ascended much swifter than I could, she waited on the outer side of the ruin till I also arrived; and then bent her course round to the farther part, which being the most perfect of the building I imagined she had chosen for the purpose of sheltering her young ones. It is called the chapel. Standing on a projecting point of the rock, it is difficult of access, for the path is cumbered with loose stones, from one to the other of which runs in perplexing branches the twining ivy. High grass and clusters of bramble choak the wild flowers that shed their inviting fragrance on part of the lower side of the rock, nor do I remember ever but twice before to have gone beyond the unroofed cell, where Clement and I, one happy spring morning, raised a seat of stone, and plucked away the weeds that new springing grass might mingle with our mossy foot-stool. There too we planted a woodbine, rose, and jassamine, but the cell refused nourishment to our favorites. Foiled in our attempt to make the ruin bloom a garden, it had no longer for us any attractions.
Nina's wistful look as she again stopped at the chapel's entrance now tempted me on, but it could tempt me no farther. At the stairs my curiosity or at least all inclination to gratify it terminated. In one corner of this small chapel where the wall is yet undecayed, remains a kind of altar. Some stones in front have falled away and discover a flight of dark narrow steps, I concluded Nina had concealed her young in the vault below, for she would not return when I called: but I could not think of encountering I knew not what damp and darkness in the hope of finding them. Both suppositions were erroneous. The cell is superior in dimensions and dryness to those above ground, nor had my fawn any offspring there. This place, Caroline, was Mr. Murden's abode. Thence he ascended followed by Nina, and stood before me the original of your painting, and the same who once in the wood started from every appearance of feeble age into youth and vigour.
He named himself. 'Miss Valmont,' said he, 'I no longer bear a borrowed character. Henceforward, should you ever think of me, know I am Murden, the friend of Clement Montgomery, and the acquaintance (I dare not say more) of your Miss Ashburn. Already the victim of unsuccessful love, by all my hopes of heaven, I came hither only to seek your consolations. The world cannot find time to sooth a breaking heart. You in solitude might. But you have no pity, no friendship. An accident keeps me here this day, or I had now been gone for ever. Do not Miss Valmont, do not set your people of the castle to hunt me; for I am desperate.'
'Whose victim are you?' said I.
'Whose?' repeated he loudly and wildly. 'Did you say whose, Miss Valmont?' Then turning away and sinking his voice, he said, 'Ay whose, indeed! Do you know,' added he, approaching nearer to me, 'that death is of icy coldness! The eye beams no tidings, for the heart feels no warmth! Such is my love to me!—Tell me, Miss Valmont, what would you do were Clement thus?'
'Alas! Die also!'
'Oh brave!' said Murden with a strange kind of smile:—'bear witness, thou unhallowed gloomy mansion, for one, one moment of our lives are we agreed!—Miss Valmont, I shall never see you more. If I have created uneasiness in your breast, by my strange visits to this spot, forgive and forget it. Ask me no questions. In some hour of less anguish than the present, I will tell Miss Ashburn how and why I came hither. Another person there is also to whom I shall owe the detail.—Hold'—for I was going to speak. 'Do not name him. Your last words were, Die also! To me your last, choicest blessing. No! No! I will not hear you speak again. This is our final interview.—In peace and safety, Miss Valmont, return to your wood; and when remembrances of love shall be no longer remembrances of happiness, then—Die also.
And who, Caroline, could outlive their remembrances of happiness? I have placed myself one minute in the situation of this unfortunate young man: I beheld the tomb close upon the lifeless form of Clement, and in the wide world there was no longer room for me.
Murden descended to his cell; and I went home to weep for him. Will not you weep for him, my friend? and Clement too? I feel you will. Clement knows full well the value of requited affection; he will sooth his friend, but he will not ask him to live. It would be cruelty.
Nina looked kindly at me, but she followed Murden; and, since he quitted that ill-chosen abode, I often see her descending the rock. She even appears to mourn his absence; and she looks around expectingly, and starts at every gust of wind, as she used when Clement first bade us adieu.
Either to you or Clement I appeal for the further history of your drooping friend. Bid Clement write: be it only three words, 'Bless my Sibella;' and I will wear it next my heart—a charm to hold disease and foreboding at defiance.
My dearest friend, farewel!
SIBELLA VALMONT
LETTER V
FROM ARTHUR MURDEN
TO
CAROLINE ASHBURN
When friendship and advice can no longer avail him, Murden intreats a patient ear to the history of his misfortunes.
Intreat! Did he say?—No, Madam; he intreats nothing of you: he demands your ear, demands your attention, your sighs, your sorrow: and little indeed is that, though your all of reparation, for the mischievous eloquence, which first instigated him to become the poor valueless object of pity, sighs, and sorrow.
To tell you that I love Sibella Valmont, is no more than Montgomery will tell you. But he loves her, in his way.—I, in mine. When present, her supreme and every varying beauty, makes his rapture; and, till he has been a day without her, he imagines absence would be insupportable.—Absent or present, alike she fills my every vein. I love her, Miss Ashburn, as—oh misery!—as she loves Clement!
Judge me not so absurd as to entertain hope, although I tell you I am again returned to the hermit's cell. Offer hope in its most seducing form; and still would I renounce it. Yes, Madam: possession of Sibella, were I an atom less to her than she is to me, must inflict torture worse than the present.
Nor deem, that I would dare assail her ears with my unauspicious love. I have spoken in mystery; and she thinks I mourn a buried mistress.—Alas! and so I do!
Montgomery, what dost thou owe me? Yet 'twas not thee I meant to serve; therefore thou owest me nothing. Thou canst find happiness any where: but, in the circle of thy arms and heart, centres the full measure of Sibella's wishes.
I would almost, Miss Ashburn, as soon have rushed into the fire, as again sustained the chilling beam of her eye. Yet I have come hither again, have endured this and more, to check the carniverous meal of anxiety already begun on her cheek's bloom.
I have been told, and have told Sibella, that instead of being a dependent on her uncle, she is mistress of fifty thousand pounds: with infinite astonishment she heard me, and is gone to demand an explanation of Mrs. Valmont. I requested her to forbear naming me, till I had made a safe retreat from the park; for Valmont is proud, insolent and cruel. And she bade me wait her return here, that according to Mr. Valmont's reception of the tidings, I, as Clement's friend, might yield her my prompt advice.
Yes! as Clement's friend, she said. Ah well may I talk of endurance!
When I first knew you, Madam, at Barlowe Hall, you won my admiration and esteem, by the uniform reserve, or I may say repugnance of your manners toward me. I adored your disdain of a character I equally disdained, while I contemptibly descended to wear it; and, though I could not instantly resolve to cast aside the unmerited fame of my licentiousness, yet you never moved or spoke, that I was not all eye and ear, however, you might contemn the abettor of impertinence and folly in Lady Margaret and Lady Laura Bowden.
One evening, you may remember, I abruptly shook off those interrupters, who wore gorgon-heads in my view, while they delivered their invidious suppositions concerning the lovely being, whose picture you had so animatedly given.—When your eulogium on Sibella Valmont ceased, I withdrew; flew to my chamber; and hastily locked the door, as if I had newly found treasure to deposit there in secresy. I threw myself into a chair. 'And is not all this familiar to thee, Murden?' said I, after a pause. 'Hast thou not a thousand and a thousand times, in thy waking and sleeping visions, described a being thus artless, thus feminine, yet firm, such an all-attractive daughter of wisdom?—Ay: but I had never personified her in Sibella Valmont, though Clement had sworn ten thousand fathom deeper to her beauty.'
I could make no more nor less of it. My head ached; and my soul was burthened. I went to bed, and dreamt of a wilderness, and an angel; and the vision followed me through the engagements of the succeeding day.
Whether it was that I more industriously fought it than formerly, I know not, but soon an opportunity arose of conversing with you alone. It was easy to lead to a theme wherein your affections were as much engaged as my curiosity; and I heard every interesting particular of her mind, manners, and seclusion. Her love of Clement Montgomery, was also remembered. To me, his love of her never bore any striking features; and, somehow, her's to him seldom intruded amidst my chimeras. Strange wishes arose—tremulous expectations. 'It is all curiosity,' said I; 'and to overcome the obstacles that forbid thy knowledge of this Phœnix, is worthy the labour of ingenuity.'
When you, Madam, took the road to Bath, I unattended crossed the country to Valmont castle. Three days I passed in reviving and rejecting the scheme; and during that time, had stationed myself at a farm-house within a mile of Valmont. In the farmer, I recognized an old school-fellow of my day's of humility; and one whom I loved dearly too, before my uncle was a nabob. We met each other with an appearance of restraint and embarrassment. I, certainly conscious of an unjust neglect of him: he, perhaps secretly despising the man who preferred wealth to honesty. But reparation was then in my power; and the very critical moment at hand.
Farmer Richardson is rather given to endure than to complain. His simple statement of a few facts, which led to the service I rendered him, contained no invective. 'He told me he was an unfortunate man, to be sure; but Mr. Valmont was not obliged to know that.'—As to family concerns at the castle, after which I enquired, he said, 'he had occasionally heard more than he chose to relate. That the 'squire was perhaps proud and capricious, but he might have reasons for his conduct. Let every man act according to his own conscience, and the Lord have mercy on the greatest sinner.' Such is honest Richardson's creed.
The farmer's taciturnity was amply contrasted by the loquacity of his hind, formerly a domestic at the castle, and suddenly discharged with that pride and petulance for which its owner is famed.—John Thomas dwelt at Valmont-castle when Clement Montgomery was adopted; when Miss Valmont was brought thither—and though I always made him begin there, he constantly found means to shift his ground to the ancient mysteries of the domain. 'A sinful lord, turned penitent, enjoined to find money and materials for the structure, it pleased a neighbouring society of devout fathers to erect on the rock within the park. It was further necessary to his salvation, that this hermitage should be endowed on two of the most holy monks of the brotherhood, who would undertake to live longest by prayer and fasting. The event proved the choice admirably founded. Without the adventitious aid of victuals and drink, they dwelt I know not what number of years in this practice of piety, saw the society from whence they came broken and dispersed, and peaceably ended their days in the hermitage.'—Selfish fellows though these saints, according to John Thomas; for, dead, they will not yield possession to the living, but