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Charlotte Smith- Collected Poetical Works

Page 220

by Charlotte Smith


  “Vyvian! (cried Rosalie, not knowing what to believe) —— it is not Vyvian, but Montalbert, who is my husband.”

  “Montalbert! — and am I not then the wretch I thought myself? — O Heaven! hast thou yet mercy upon me!”

  “If dearest, dearest Mrs. Vyvain, you would but listen calmly to me —— —” Terror, for still she apprehended that Mrs. Vyvian was become insane, again prevented her proceeding; nor was this impression weakened by the solemnity with which she now spoke.

  “Yes, Rosalie, (said she), you are my child — I am not mad — I am only miserable — yet not so very miserable as I thought I was. Oh! why have so many cruel people been endeavouring to embitter the sad hours of my unhappy life, by repeating to me continually that Vyvian was so strongly attached to you, that neither reason nor absence could cure him of his passion. They knew not that in raising this idea in my mind, they poured into my heart the most fatal poison. — Alas! they knew not that the dread of this horrible crime drove from me my Rosalie — the dear, unhappy object of so many years of silent anguish and stifled solicitude.”

  Rosalie, more and more amazed, and doubting the evidence of her senses, could only listen in breathless wonder, while Mrs. Vyvian, whose heart seemed to be already relieved, proceeded ——

  “Montalbert then is your husband.....Ah! my poor girl, what a store of future misery you have laid up, it is too probable, for yourself. I am now amazed at my own blindness. Many, many hours of the most cruel anxiety would have been spared me, had not so strong a prepossession been given me of Charle’s frantic passion for you: yet I now wonder I did not discover that it was Montalbert you loved — that you were attached to somebody I was sure, and when I thought it was Charles —— oh! no words can do justice to the tortures that wrung my soul.”

  Rosalie sighed deeply; but not knowing what to say that should express the mingled emotions she felt, she remained silent, still holding the hand of Mrs. Vyvian, who seemed to be collecting some of the presence of mind her late terrors had so entirely dissipated.

  The pause had something of horror in it. Rosalie watched her countenance with a fearful and anxious eye, still assailed by the idea of some temporary derangement of intellect: for how could she, whose parents were never even doubted, be the daughter of Mrs. Vyvian? — The whole scene appeared to be a dream, and, during this silence, Rosalie apprehended that she should again see her relapse into frenzy. Till these fears gradually subsided, as Mrs. Vyvian began with some degree of calmness to inquire into the particulars of the marriage; it was legally and properly celebrated according to all her ideas.”

  “But tell me, (added she, when this inquiry was at an end) — was Montalbert ingenuous with you? — Did he tell you that he depends for every thing, but a bare subsistence, on the bounty of his mother? — Did he tell you, that mother has prejudices the most unconquerable against the natives and the established religion of England?......Ah! my poor dear girl, the same softness of heart that destroyed me, has been, I fear, most dangerous to you. I cannot, (continued she, deeply sighing), I cannot now tell you the sad particulars of your birth....I have not strength either of mind or body — the horrible idea, that my unhappy, perhaps guilty, attachment would be punished by a yet more fatal one between my children, was so very terrible, that it could not be sustained. — I tremble still like a wretch, who having seen himself on the brink of a precipice into which he must inevitably fall, is snatched from it as it were by miracle, and can hardly believe his safety.......Let it suffice, my dearest love, for the present, to tell you, that there are the most material reasons why you should conceal, even from Mrs. Lessington, this unexpected explanation between us — let her not know, I conjure you, what has happened; but let her, at least for a while, suppose the secret known only to her and to me. I need not tell you, that your future welfare, and that of my nephew, depend entirely on your still keeping secret this clandestine engagement. There are events that may obviate the inconveniences I forsee. — Ah, Rosalie! from an affection cherished in secret, arose the misfortunes that have embittered my life, and fearful to my imagination is any dissimulation; but I dare not speak farther now — I am unequal to it: already there is too much reason to fear that the violence of our emotions may have given rise to conjectures, which it is so necessary for us to stifle. Let what has happened be supposed to arise from indisposition on my part, and on yours from the fears that indisposition occasioned; and try, my best love, to recover yourself as much as you can, and to resume your usual composure.”

  Rosalie, still in astonishment at all she had heard, and surprised at the tranquility with which Mrs. Vyvian now spoke, obeyed her as well as she could; but, as she kissed her hand, and would have bade her adieu, the new sensations she felt, while she considered as her mother the friend whom she had always so tenderly loved, quite overcame her spirits, and her tears blinded her. Mrs. Vyvian, yielding for a moment to the tenderness she had for so many years suppressed, clasped her daughter fondly to her bosom, and, for almost the first time in her life, called her by the dear name of her child. There was some danger that they would both have indulged too long in these effusions of natual affection, but a rap at the chamber door compelled them hastily to recover themselves. It was a message from the venerable Mr. Hayward, who, returning from his morning walk, had heard of Mrs. Vyvian’s being greatly indisposed, and now solicited leave to inquire after her. Rosalie, therefore, who knew that for every wound of the mind Mrs. Vyvian found a resource in the spiritual consolation offered her by this excellent man, hastened to follow her wishes as to leaving her, and remaining only a few moments in another room to recover herself yet a little more, she left the house of her real, and returned to that of her supposed mother.

  Nothing could be less in harmony with her feelings than the group she found assembled there. A large party from the city, some of whom were entirely unknown to her, had been on a jaunt of pleasure to a village about ten miles distant, and, on their way back to London, had been engaged by Miss Lessington, who was one of the company, to dine and pass the rest of the day at her mother’s house at Hampstead.

  Some of the gentlemen, who seemed to be of that rank of beings who are called “City Bucks — Young Men of Spirit — Fine Flashy Fellows” —— were, in Rosalie’s opinion, the rudest and most insupportable set she had ever yet seen: agitated almost beyond endurance, as her spirits were, she was yet under the mortifying necessity of remaining for some time in this company, which did not separate till one of the men proposed finishing their pleasurable party by a jaunt to Ranelagh: it was not early spring, and it was not without difficulty that she was at length allowed to decline going, and saw Miss Lessington and this group of good folks, so perfectly contented with themselves, depart without her.

  She was then left alone with her supposed mother; but to conceal from her the perturbation of her mind was by no means difficult. Mrs. Lessington, whose new manner of life was much more pleasing to her than that she had lived in, the uniform insipidity of a country village, retained, however, so much of her original notable economy, as to use every hour to advantage which was not given to the vigils of the card table; she now, therefore, busily employed herself in domestic arrangements, that she might enjoy with higher relish the rubber of the evening; and she had, therefore, no time to make observations on the appearance of Rosalie.

  Thus left to herself, she reviewed with astonishment the strange discovery of the day; to find herself the daughter of Mrs. Vyvian, though of her father she was yet ignorant, seemed to be knowledge more flattering, more elevating than any event that could be imagined. —— She was now ready to account for a thousand things which had before seemed extraordinary. The little affection Mr. Lessington had ever shown for her; his leaving her name entirely out of his will; the indifference of Mrs. Lessington, who sometimes, and particularly lately, had seemed to forget her assumed character of mother, and to express only what she felt, the cold civility of a common acquaintance; the want of even the slightest famil
y resemblance between her and the other children of the family, and innumerable other circumstances which now crowded together upon her recollection. But if on one hand she now saw only strangers among those whom she had hitherto considered as her nearest relations, she beheld in Mrs. Vyvian a mother whom her heart bounded to acknowlege. To be her daughter, to be with her knowledge the wife of Montalbert, left her hardly any thing to wish, but that the hour was come when she might claim at least the latter title, and be received as belonging to a man, who had not disdained to give her that title when he thought her Rosalie Lessington, and knew not that she inherited a portion of the nobel blood of the Montalbert family: a family which, though now debarred from farther elevation by differing from the established religion, and estranged by foreign connections, had not formerly been inferior, either in antiquity or honour, to the most illustrious of the British nobility.

  VOLUME II.

  CHAPTER 13

  ROSALIE now saw the beloved parent, whom she yet dared not own, every day; and the discovery of her marrige with Montalbert, which she had so much dreaded, had been the means of procuring her the knoweldge of the blessing she possessed in a mother, who now secretly indulged all the tenderness of her heart. The eldest Miss Vyvian, now Mrs. Bosworth, was still at the family seat of her husband with her sister, and her father was gone into the north during the recess of parliament; no impediment, therefore, existed at present against Roslaie’s passing almost all her time with Mrs. Vyvian, and so happy did this indulgence make her, that, had Montalbert been in England, she would hardly have had a wish left ungratified.

  It was now indeed that such a friend was more necessary to her than ever, and it was more requisite that this dear friend should know she was a wife, since she found it was probable she should become a mother. Nothing was more immediately pressing than that Montalbert should be informed of this; but without the concurrence of Mrs. Vyvian, and indeed without her assistance, she dared not hazard a letter, which, if it fell into the hands of his mother, might be the most fatal consequence. The two letters she had received from Montalbert were but too expressive of his despondence and uneasiness; and though he seemed to stifle part of the anguish of his heart from tenderness toward his wife, she saw that the reception his mother had given him was far from having been pleasant, and that, while he yet acknowledged the necessity of his journey, he regretted that he had made it.

  But Mrs. Vyvian, who had received letters from her son, knew yet more: she had learned that one reason for the impatience, expressed by the mother of Montalbert for his return to Naples, was, that she had projected a marriage for him with the daughter of a friend of her own, who had lately lost her husband, a Roman of high rank, and was now a very rich widow. Charles Vyvian related all the advantages offered by such an alliance: on the beauty of the young widow, and her predilection in favour of Montalbert, with whom she had been acquainted before her first marriage, he dwelt particularly; but added, laughingly, that he supposed Harry had left his heart in England, for at present he seemed as insensible to the charms of the lady, as deaf to the remonstrances of his mother.

  Mrs. Vyvian was extremely distressed by this intelligence, which she carefully avoided communicating. Though she loved Montalbert extremely, she had many doubts whether in affairs of love he had more honour than other gay young men. She had reason formerly to believe his principles were very free, and she could not but fear, that he might consider his marriage with Rosalie, celebrated as it had been contrary to the laws of England, as an engagement so little binding, that he might break it whenever ambition or the love of variety might induce him to it.

  The situation, therefore, of this beloved child, more dear than ever to her, was a dreadful weight on the spirits of Mrs. Vyvian; and she now felt renewed, in the person of Rosalie, all those cruel sensations which had corroded her own heart, when, betrayed by an unhappy passion into great and dangerous imprudence, she was compelled to undergo all the meanness of concealment, and all the terrors of detection. The similarity of their destinies hitherto endeared to her mother this lovely unfortunate young woman, who seemed too likely to be doubly a victim; yet, circumstanced as she was herself, she could not protect her openly, and even trembled every time she reflected that, with the return of the family of her husband, the indulgence of ever seeing Rosalie must be resigned; and that they must equally stifle their fears and their affections.

  Every day rendered the situation of Rosalie more critical. Though Mrs. Lessington seemed, as if by a tacit agreement with Mrs. Vyvian, not to notice the preference Rosalie so evidently gave to the latter, and to suffer her to act as she pleased, others, who still supposed her a member of the Lessington family, could not be but surprised at her associating so little with them, nor help remarking, that whenever they did see her among them, there was something peculiar in her manner and appearance. The men, who had admired her beauty, but who had been repulsed at her coldness, now discovered, as they always do on such occasions, that the poor girl was in love; and while the elder ladies thought her proud, conceited, and full of airs, some of the younger entirely agreed with them, while others, more candid or more sensible, pitied her on the supposition that she had an “unhappy attachment;” or, as the damsels of lower rank would have expressed it, “that she was crossed in love.”

  Mrs. Vyvian was too deeply interested to have a moment’s tranquility; and when the hour of Mrs. Bosworth’s return approached, this anxiety became more and more insupportable: and it was certain that health so delicate could not long resist such painful solicitude.

  After long deliberation and consulting with the Abbé Hayward, who had long been aware of who Roslaie really was, Mrs. Vyvian determined to write to Montalbert with the same precautions as those Rosalie used by his directions. This she executed, not without finding it the most difficlut and painful task she had ever undertaken. To avow the dissimulation of her whole life to her nephew, to explain to him circumstances of which she knew he must be entirely ignorant, words were not easily found. At length, however, the letter was written and sent off, and she returned once more to her long and pensive conferences with the object of it, with whom also a task yet remained quite as distressing to her.

  This was to tell Rosalie to whom she owed her birth; to give a relation of circumstances which she knew must appear very strange to her. Mrs. Vyvian saw her often look as if she at once dreaded and expected this explanation; but never yet had she acquired courage to begin the conversation, and Rosalie was too timid to make any inquiries that led to it.

  But Mrs. Bosworth and Miss Vyvian would now return in a short time, and then the mother and daughter must no longer indulge themselves with being together for whole days as they were now — a heavy presentment of future evil, to which the former was too apt to yeild, told her, that if the present time was lost, future opportunities might be wanting. — The next morning, therefore, after having made her resolution, she put it into execution.

  Rosalie, whom she had desired to come early, was seated at work by her bedside, for she was too much indisposed to leave it; when Mrs. Vyvian, opening a little casket which she had previously placed near her pillow, put into the hands of Rosalie a miniature picture, and, in a trembling voice, said, “It is the likeness of — your father!” —— It represented a man of two or three years and twenty: the countenance expressed understanding and vivacity of sentiment, and the whole figure was remarkably handsome. Rosalie gazed on it in silence, and with sensations that cannot be described. “Do you see no resemblance, my Rosalie, (said Mrs. Vyvian), to a face you know? — Ah! do you not trace in these features the likeness you bear to - - - - - - - - - -? — Believe me, my child, (continued she, unable to restrain her tears), this morning is the first time for many years that I have allowed myself to look at that picture, and now I resign it for ever — take it, my dear girl, and may you not resemble him in fortune as in features.”

  “Does my father yet live, Madam?” Rosalie would have said, but she could not articulate
the sentence: her mother, however, understood her. “He does, (replied she), but not in England — I shall never see him more — nor am I guilty or wretched enough to wish it. — Never have these eyes beheld him since that fatal hour when I was compelled to give to another the hand which was his in the sight of God; but, though my hand was not at my own disposal, never has it acknowledged any sovereign but him to whom my fist vows were given: yet I very sincerely tried, when under the cruel necessity of giving myself to Mr. Vyvian, to fulfill the duties that were imposed upon me. He knew that I was compelled to marry him — he was indelicate and selfish enough to consider only the convenience of my fortune, and a person, which was then an object to a man, licentious and dissolute as he was: yet I think he never has had any just reason to complain of my counduct since I have borne the name of his wife. He knew I neither did nor ever could love him — for I told him so when I married him. He was contented to possess my fortune and my person — my heart he never thought worth the experiment that some men would have made to have gained it.” A deep sigh and a long pause, which Rosalie did not interrupt, now followed. ——

  In a few moments Mrs. Vyvian seemed to have regained her resolution, and thus proceeded — — “You should have an idea of what sort of a man, my father, Mr. Montalbert, was, before you can imagine how I was situated. I do not believe you know more than his name; for Mrs. Lessington was probably cautious of entering into any part of my unfortunate history. —— Mr. Montalbert then, my father, was the elder brother of a family, which, from its name, was evidently of Norman extraction — a boast that is generally deemed a sufficient ground for the pride of ancestry in England. The Montalberts, however, could carry their genealogy much farther, and were content to begin it only among the Emperors of the East. As English Peers, they adhered to the unfortunate James the Second, were banished with him, and lost their property, their title, and their rights as British subjects. My father, being much connected with nobel families more fortunate, had interest enough to obtain restitution of a small part indeed of the great fortune of his family, but sifficient to give once more a footing in England, where he was happy enough to marry one of its richest heiresses. My mother, who was the only offspring of an alliance between two noble houses, inherited all their possessions, and gave them and herself to my father, in despite of the opposition of such of her family as pretended to any right of giving their opinion; for her father and mother being dead, there were only uncles or cousins whose dissent could not prevent her following her own inclinations.

 

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