Charlotte Smith- Collected Poetical Works

by Charlotte Smith

  Orlando answered incoherently that it was his father’s house – that he came to look for his father. – The girl in terror left him; and, believing him either a madman or a robber, but rather the former, ran in to her mistress, and, carefully locking the kitchen door, informed her that there was a crazy man in the yard. This young woman, who was the mistress of one of Stockton’s friends to whom he had lent the house, wanted neither understanding nor humanity, however deficient she might be in other virtues; and knowing the natural propensity of the vulgar to terrify themselves and others, she called to a man, who was at work in the garden, to follow her, and then went to speak herself to the person whom her servant had represented as a lunatic.

  She found the unhappy young man seated on a pile of wood near the door, his arms resting on his knees and concealing his face. The noise of her opening the door and approaching him seemed not to rouse him from his mournful reverie: but she spoke gently to him; and Orlando, looking up, shewed a countenance on which extreme agony of mind was strongly painted, but which was still handsome and interesting, and appeared to belong to one who had seen better days: – ‘Is there anything, Sir, you wish to know? Can I be of any service to you?’ These few words, spoken in a pleasing female voice, had an immediate effect in softening the heart of Orlando, petrified by affliction. He burst into tears; and rising said – ‘Ah, Madam! forgive my intrusion, forgive me, who am a stranger where I had once a home. This house was my father’s! – Here I left him when seventeen months since I went to America – Here I left my father, my mother, and three sisters – and all, all are gone!’ He lost his voice, and leaned against a tree near him.

  The young person, extremely affected by the genuine expression of grief, and convinced that he was no madman, now invited him into the parlour; and Orlando, unknowing what he did, followed her.

  Every object that he saw was a dagger to his heart. As Philip had sold to Stockton every thing as it remained at his father’s death, a great part of the furniture was the same. Startled at every step he took by the recollection of some well known object, he entered the parlour more dead than alive, and pale as a corpse, and with quivering lips, he attempted to speak, but could not. The young woman saw his agitation, and pouring him out a large glass of wine, besought him to drink it, and to compose himself, again repeating her offers of kindness. He put back the glass – ‘I thank you, Madam, but I cannot drink – I cannot swallow. – That picture,’ added he, fixing his eyes wildly on a landscape over the chimney – ‘that picture belonged to my father; he used, I remember, to value it highly – I beg your pardon, Madam – I know not what I proposed by coming hither, unless it were to procure a direction to my mother and sisters. Where my father is I know too well, though I believe,’ continued he, putting his hand to his forehead, ‘that I said when I first came into the court-yard, that I looked for him – Can you, Madam, tell me where I can find the part of my family that does survive?’

  The young woman, with increasing interest, told him that she had been there only a few weeks, and was quite a stranger in the country; but that, if he could recollect any person thereabouts likely to be better informed, she would send a servant to fetch them, or with any message he might direct.

  CHAPTER III

  AFTER a pause, sufficiently expressive of the difficulty with which he thought, Orlando said, that there was at the neighbouring town an Attorney with whom his father had been long connected; and who at his setting out in life had received many favours from the family of Somerive. – To him he wished to send – ‘or rather I will go to him, Madam – for why should I be longer troublesome to you?’ He then got up; but the young person with great gentleness and good nature, said, ‘You are not able, I am sure, to walk so far – if you are not too much wounded by the recollections that surround you here to stay, I beg you to take some refreshment, while I send a servant to the gentleman; he shall go on horseback, and will soon be back.’ As Orlando did indeed doubt whether he was able to walk so far as the town, and an idea struck him, that while the messenger was gone, he could visit the family vault, in the church of West Wolverton, where the remains of his father were deposited, he accepted, after a slight apology, of the obliging offer of his hostess; who bringing him pen and ink, he wrote with an uncertain and trembling hand – ‘Mr O. Somerive being returned from America, and quite ignorant till his arrival here of the many alterations in this neighbourhood, will esteem it a favour if Mr Brock will oblige him with his company for half an hour – at the house formerly his father’s, at West Wolverton. –’

  Having sent away this note, and being prevailed upon to take the refreshment he had at first refused; he told his new acquaintance, that he had a wish to visit two or three places in the adjoining village, and would, with her permission, return to the house in time to meet Mr Brock, if he were so obliging as to attend upon his message.

  The servant being sent away, Orlando set forth to visit the tomb of his father. – He knew well the spot: – it was in the chancel of the church, and the entrance was marked by a stone, with the arms of Somerive and Rayland quartered upon it. The sexton, who at first appeared to have lost all recollection of him, gave him the keys as soon as he knew him – and the unhappy wanderer, throwing himself on the ground, gave way to that grief which he had hitherto checked. – Now it was, however, that he felt the reward of his dutiful conduct; for he was conscious that, except in the single instance in regard to his sister Isabella, he had never wilfully disobeyed his father; and he felt too, that if by taking Monimia with him, or by any other act of disobedient ingratitude, he had felt himself accessary to that affliction which he too well understood had hastened the death of his parent, that sorrow, which was now unmixed with self-reproach, would then have driven him to distraction. – As he kissed and took a last leave of this deposit of the ashes of his family, he recollected, that his affection to the lost friend whom he deplored would be shewn rather by his tenderness and duty towards his mother and sisters, than by giving himself up to useless despair. – Roused by this reflection to more manly thoughts, he arose from the ground, and his heart having been relieved by the indulgence he had thus given to his grief, he quitted the church with a deep sigh, and determined to walk as quickly as he could round Rayland park – having an unconquerable desire to visit the turret of Monimia, which he thought he might do in the day time, by letting himself in through the same door where he had entered before; and, as he knew every part of the house, finding his way thither without alarming the vigilance of the old woman who kept the house. In this intention he traversed the outside of the park paling very hastily, when the sight of the north lodge and the cottage near it, brought to his mind the circumstances of Monimia’s letter; who there described her meeting with Sir John Belgrave. And he thought the woman of the cottage might give him some particulars, which he hitherto had not been able to learn. – Entering therefore, and making her, not without much difficulty, recollect him; he was forced to bear all her wondering, and all her enquiries, before he could prevail upon her to give him the following particulars:

  ‘Lord, Sir! why now I tell you as well as I can all how these bad things have come to pass. – In the first place, after you was gone, somehow there seemed no content at the Hall – I heard say, that Madam began to droop as ‘twere a fortnight or two afterwards; and was never pleas’d with nothing that could be done for her – And there came out a story about Pattenson – the rights of the matter, my husband says, never were cleared up; but however, to the surprise of every body, my Lady she believed some story about him; and though ’twas reported he tried to turn the tables upon Madam Lennard, sure enough he was dismissed from the Hall for good; but for certain not like a disgraced servant; for Madam gave him a power of good things, and his farm as he took was stocked from the Hall; and sure enough he had feather’d his nest well one way or other; for he died worth a mort of money.’ –

  ‘Pattenson is dead then?’ said Orlando.

  ‘Lord help you, yes!’ answ
ered the good woman – ‘Why he died of the gout in his stomach just afore my Lady – But if you’ll have a little patience I’ll go on with my story. So Pattenson went away; and after that Madam Lennard seem’d somehow to govern my Lady more than ever; yet folks said, that it was not so much she, as them there Rokers, uncle and nephew, that was put in by her as stewards; and to be sure there was for a long time strange talk – and they said, that Madam Lennard was jealous of young Roker, he as she afterwards married – and so sent away her niece’s daughter, that sweet pretty young creature that you remember at the Hall.’

  ‘And what is become of her?’ cried Orlando eagerly – ‘Whither was she sent?’

  ‘Why that nobody knew nothing about at the time, as every body saw Madam Lennard was shy of speaking of her; but folks have said since, that she was gone up to London, with some Lord or Baron Knight; for my part, as I says to my husband, I don’t care to give credit to such scandalous stories upon mere hearsay. – However, to go on with my story: – By then Madam Lennard had sent this poor young thing away, every body thought how the affair would go – at least folks about the house says, they saw it plain enough – so then, your poor father, who had been ailing a long time, he was taken sick, and when all the doctors had given him over, he sent to beg Mrs Rayland would come to him; and though Mrs Lennard she did, as I’ve heard say, all she could to hinder my Lady’s going, she went; and though nobody knows what passed, because nobody was in the room but Madam Somerive, your good mother, yet every body said, that the ‘squire got a power better after he had seen the old lady, and said his mind was easy; and then, every body thought he would recover – and it was given out, that the ‘squire had seen my Lady’s will, or, however, that she had told him the contents, and that she had made you her heir.’

  ‘Me?’ said Orlando – ‘alas !no!’ –

  ‘Well, but that was the notion of the country, and I am sure, there’s nobody in all this here part of our county but what heartily wishes it had been true – Well, and so ‘Squire Somerive he went on for a little while, getting better and better; till something fresh broke out, about your brother, Mr. Philip; and so upon that, he grew worse again, and died in a few days. Oh! what sad affliction all the family was in! but Madam, at the Hall, was more kind to them than she used to be; for she sent to fetch them up to the Hall the day of the funeral, and kept them there three or four days, till the young ‘squire hearing how his father was dead, came down – then your mother and sisters went back to their house: but alack-a-day! – he soon began to make sad alterations, and was driving a bargain for the sale of the estate to ‘Squire Stockton, almost, folks said, before his father was cold in his grave.’ –

  Orlando clasped his hands eagerly together, and drew a convulsed sigh; but he was unable to interrupt the narration, and the woman went on –

  ‘So, Sir, just about that time Madam Rayland she was taken ill – yet it did not seem, somehow, that there was much the matter with her; but she drooped, and drooped, and pined, and pined – and people said, as saw her sometimes, that is, the footmen who waited before she took to her bed, and the maids as set up with her, especially Rachel, that she honed so after you, and used to send every day to your mother to know if she had heard of you; and sent for her to come to her, and gave her letters for you to desire you would come back; for she mistrusted, somehow, that Lennard had never sent the letters she wrote to you before; and all the people said, that Lennard, with all her art, had not been able to keep matters so snug, about her lover, but that her lady had an inkling of the matter – And they said, too, that Madam was not half so fond of her as she used to be; but that she had been used to her so long, and had been so in the custom of letting her do what she would, that now, as she was so old, and sick, and feeble, and out of spirits, she had not resolution to speak her mind. – Well, Madam died, and then – Good Lord, what a work there was at Hall!’ –

  ‘How do you mean?’ said Orlando.

  ‘Why, your brother Philip sent to take possession of every thing as heir at law; but old Roker and his nephew would not let him or his people come in; as they said they had a will of Madam Rayland’s, and he must come and hear it read. – Your mother tried, as I heard say, to pacify your brother; because she knew, or however believed for certain, that your honour’s self was the heir – So with that, upon a day appointed by these Rokers, who had possession of the house, your poor mother, and your two sisters, and the young ‘squire your brother, they went to the Hall, and there, as I heard say, was the two Rokers and Madam Lennard, and the servants, all assembled; and so young Roker took upon him to read the will, though your brother took a young lawyer with him from London, one Counsellor Staply; and there the will was read; and instead of leaving you the heir, it was a will made ever so long before, when Madam Rayland was out of humour with Mr Somerive: and so there, it seems, that she gave five-thousand pounds to Pattenson if he outlived her, but he was dead, and there was an end of that; and two thousand to the old coachman, who is as rich as a Jew already – and a matter of ten thousand to Mrs Lennard – And not only so, but all her clothes – and ever so many pieces of fine plate; and a diamond ring – and the Hampshire farms, which ben’t worth so little as four hundred pounds a year – And then, all Madam’s fine laces, and sattin gowns, and her sister’s too, for none of them had ever been given away – They say that ’twas not so little as six or seven hundred pounds worth of clothes and laces; and all the fine household linen – Such beautiful great damask tablecloths and napkins – And such great chests full of sheets; besides a mort of things that I cannot remember not I – But the great house, and all the noble estates in this county, she gave to the Bishop, as I suppose you know, and to the Dean and Chapter, for charitable uses, and to build a sort of alms-house – But it’s very well known that the greatest part of it will go into their own pockets – and I cannot think, for my share, and my husband he says the same, why a-deuce Madam gave her money to them there parsons, when they always take care to have enough out of the farmers and the poor men, let who will go without.’

  A deep sigh was again extorted from Orlando, and the good gossip remarking it, said: ‘Ah, Sir, to be sure you may well sigh! – Such a fine estate! and so justly your right by all accounts; and then, after promising your father so faithfully too! – Poor Madam Somerive, your good mother, was in very sad trouble – Philip, he raved and ranted, and made a sad to-do, but there was no remedy; them two Rokers had got possession of the house, and after the funeral, I reckon, they thought to have kept it, as stewards to the new owners; but whip! the parsons come upon them, and packed them off; and they’ve put in old Betty Grant and her son just to look after it, and open the windows – But, Lord! I’m sure the place looks so mollencholly as makes my very heart ach to pass it. – But, however, to go on with my story of all the troubles of your poor dear mother – After this, a week or so, news came by a negur man as went with that young captain as your sister Belle ran away with, that he and miss were drowned or cast away, at some place beyond sea – I can’t remember rightly the name of it; but, however, that they were lost, and that you were killed in battle by the wild Ingines; this man told my husband he saw you dead with his own eyes, and your skull cleft with one of their swords’ –

  ‘And where,’ said Orlando, ‘is this man now?’ – ‘Why, Madam took him,’ replied the woman, ‘and when the family left the country, he went up to London with them’ –

  ‘And how long have they been gone?’

  ‘Nigh two months, as well as I can remember; poor dear ladies! I’m sure we poor folks miss them sadly, and so we do the Hall’ –