Charlotte Smith- Collected Poetical Works

by Charlotte Smith

  “But even these reflections were ease compared to those that assailed me when I remembered the conversation of the evening before and repeated to myself the dreadful name of Vyvian. — There is a kind and a degree of grief that annihilates the feeling from its violent pressure, as the extremities of bodily pain are said to deprive the sufferer of sensation. This was the effect which the commands of my father had on my mind, now that alone, and amidst the silence of the night, I reflected on them — lost in the terible contemplation of the future,I forgot the present, and was unconsious of the dreary scene around me, till I was startled from my reverie by the sight of a man, who, coming from among the ruins, slowly approached. Rivetted to the spot by fear, mingled with a strange desire to know whether this was a being of another world, or whether it brought me intelligence of Ormsby, I had no power to stir. The figure approached, and, as if encouraged by my remaining where I was, spoke to me in a low voice, and said something as if entreating me not to be alarmed; but I heard only the beginning of the sentence; the voice was, I thought, Ormsby’s, and a thousand sensations, which I could neither discriminate then, nor can describe now, contributed to deprive me of my senses. The predominant idea, however, was, the hazard Ormsby was in, in thus returning round the house, for of any supernatural appearance I had none.

  “On recovering some degree of recollection, I found myself on the ground, and a man kneeling by me, whom I still believed to be Ormsby, till he explained himself in these words ——

  ‘I have long waited for an opportunity of speaking to you, Miss Montalbert — recover your recollection — your presence of mind —— the life of Ormsby depends on you.’

  ‘Of Ormsby?’ cried I faintly.

  ‘Of Ormsby! (answered he) — my unfortunate brother.....It is you who must either release him; or must either restore him to life and liberty, or condemn him to end his miserable days in poverty and imprisonment.’ — I have not strength, Rosalie, to relate every word as it passed; suffice it therefore to tell you, that it was one of the brothers of poor, unhappy Ormsby, who related, that he had come from Ireland on finding that my father had imprisoned Ormsby for debt; and that he had declared to the elder Mr. Ormsby by letter, that he never would release him, unless, under the most positive promise, that he would go immediately to India — never again to see or correspond with me, and renounce, in the most solemn manner, every claim that I might have given him to my person or my affections. This Ormsby had positively refused to do.

  My father, irritated to frenzy by a circumstance that renewed all his suspicions, declared, in terms of the greatest violence, that Ormsby should perish in prison. His father could do nothing for him; but sent over his second son, only two years older than Ormsby, to endeavour to appease the anger of Mr. Montalbert, by engaging his brother to make the concessions that were required of him.

  ‘I have now (said the young man) lingered about the place more than a fortnight, in hopes of having an opportunity of speaking with you. At the risk of my life I have attempted to make my way into the house, and probably have owed my preservation to the notion impressed upon your father’s servants, that the restless spirit of my brother, whom they supposed to have been murdered, haunted the house and gardens.....Now, dearest Madam, (continued George Ormsby), if you have, indeed, honoured my brother with your regard, resolve to save him — resolve to restore to my poor, unhappy parents the peace this fatal circumstance has robbed them of.’ —— I asked faintly what I could do? — He answered, that by consenting to marry the man proposed to me by my father, I should end at once the persecution of Ormsby, and secure my own peace — I shuddered, and was on the point of declaring why it was impossible for me to do this, when the noise of voices at a distance compelled him hastily to quit me. He retired again among the ruins, and I, without knowing how I found strength, walked towards the house. I met Helene and one of the men servants coming in search of me: Helene, in accosting me, trembled so she could hardly speak — I leaned on her arm and reached the house, where I had again to encounter the angry looks and fierce interrogatories of my father. I know not how I answered; overwhelmed by the scene I had just passed I sunk once more under the violent agitation of my mind, and could hardly be said to be sensible till the soothing voice of Mrs. Lessington, at my bedside the next morning, restored me in some measure to my reason. But notwithstanding the perfect reliance I had on her friendship, I should never have had courage to relate to this dear friend the extent of my imprudence and its consequences; but Helene had already told her so much, that she entered at once upon the subject as soon as I appeared in a state to attend to her; by transferring the blame from me to my father, she reconciled me in some measure to myself, and, with some degree of composure, I suffered her to speak of what could be done in circumstances so dreadful and distressing.

  “Nothing, however, could be immediately determined upon. I agreed with her, that it was necessary her husband should know my cruel embarrassment, for without his assistance and participation she could do nothing. She gave me in the mean time every consolation in her power; but I thought I perceived, not withstanding she evaded the conversation that she thought I ought to relinquish every idea of ever again seeing Ormsby, and that if I could escape from the perils of my present melancholy situation, I should dispose myself to act in compliance with my father’s commands.

  “Many were the conferences we now had; but probably it would have been impossible to have saved me from that death, which my father might have thought could alone wipe away the dishonour I had brought upon his family, had not Providence interfered in my favour.

  “Mrs. Lessington now met and conversed with George Ormsby: they agreed that the only means of saving his brother was to procure his renunciation of every pretension to me in whatever form my father should dictate. This I alone could engage him to do, and this at length Mrs. Lessington extorted from me in a few lines, by which I asked this of him — with a trembling hand, and eyes overflowing with tears, I signed the fatal paper. Mrs. Lessington assured me George Ormsby went immediately with it to London. — In about ten days afterwards, Mrs. Lessington, who remaind at Holmwood, informed me she had heard from him; that his brother Charles was released, and on his voyage to India. There was something in all this that I could not comprehend; but I dared not trust myself either with inquiries or with conjectures — Ormsby was lost to me for ever, and I, sometime in the bitterness of my soul, accused him of having abandoned me, though, in more reasonable moments, I was compelled to acknowledge that his stay would have been destructive to us both...My father, who, as it appeared from his conduct, knew much of the truth, though this loss of my honour was yet unknown to him, became somewhat less severe toward me; yet I shrunk more than ever from his eye, and my timidity and terror must have betrayed me, if the change in my person, now every day more evident, could have escaped observation; but, whether it was that the violence of temper, which my father had yielded to in regard to Ormsby, had aggravated his arthritic complaints, or whether his constitution was breaking entirely up, he became at this period so ill, that a physician, who had always successfully attended him, was sent for from London; he gave him some relief, but declared, that unless he went to town, where constant attendance could be given him, the consequence would be greatly to be apprehended.

  “The result of his advice was, that we removed to London. Thither also my friends Mr. and Mrs. Lessington removed; and Mrs. Lessington being then near her time, it was so managed, that when the hour arrived when you, my beloved child, came into the world, you were concealed by Mrs. Lessington for three weeks, and then produced as twin with the daughter of which she was delivered, who is since dead.

  “You may imagine, my Rosalie, how very difficult it was to conceal the fatal secret of your birth — you may imagine, for I cannot describe, what were the terrors I had to encounter — the anguish of heart with which, when I had once beheld you, once pressed you to my heart, I saw you torn from me, and knew that I should never dare to call you
mine, or again to shed over you the tears excited by the resemblance your infant features bore to those of your father.

  “But, on calmer reflections, I agreed with Mrs. Lessington, who represented to me incessantly, how thankful I ought to be for the good fortune with which I had saved my reputation, if not my life. The suspicions that had been entertained, in consequence of my father’s violent conduct towards Ormsby, were now, she said, blown over and forgotten. His own family had reported, that so far from his having undergone any persecution from Mr. Montalbert, it was to him he was obliged for the advantageous situation in which he was gone to India; that the circumstances which had given rise to such strange reports in the neighbourhood of Holmwood originated in error and misrepresentation; and, in a word, that the Ormsbys, instead of showing any resentment toward my father, every where made his eulogium as the benefactor of the whole family. I was not, however, the less miserable, though I owned the truth of all Mrs. Lessington urged; and whenever I was alone, I gave way to that anquish of heart, which, while I was with her, I endeavoured to repress or conceal, because I would not be thought ungrateful, or insensible of the obligations I owed to her friendship.

  “During my father’s very severe illness, I heard no more of Mr. Vyvian — Indeed I seldom saw my father, and when it was unavoidable, only for a few minutes. Mrs. Lessington, in whom he had great confidence, and expressed a regard unusual for him to feel, had contrived to obtain his leave for me to stay with her while she was very ill and unable to come to me, and by this management only it was that I escaped observation at the period when I could so little bear it. As my father recovered, however, my more constant attendance was again necessary. He now sometimes ordered me to read to him, and, when he was still more at ease, to play at chess with him. I was, indeed, but a poor substitute for Ormsby or Mr. Hayward; but I fancied that the latter sometimes got out of the way, as if on purpose to make me more necessary to my father, and to leave us together.

  “It was in one of these tête-à-tête parties, that my father, without much ceremony or much preface, asked me, whether I had reflected on what he had determined upon in regard to Mr. Vyvian, who would now in a few days be in England, whither he came on purpose to receive my hand?

  “The violent effect of this intelligence was evident on my countenance — I tried in vain to speak; my lips refused to articulate a syllable. Not only disregarding, but enraged at the pain I seemed to feel, he declared, in a voice that made me tremble like a leaf, that if I did not determine to obey without remonstrance, or hesitation, he knew how to punish, and would punish me as I deserved. He added, that I had already been the occasion of his undergoing uneasiness, which had brought on his late illness; of scenes the most disgraceful to his character, never sullied till he found a curse instead of a blessing in his daughter; and that not content with having once been nearly the cause of his death, I now was disposed to complete my work, and destroy him who had given me life. —— Figure to yourself, if it be possible, what I endured at this moment, and, if it be possible to carry your imagination farther, suppose what I must have suffered before I was compelled to give my hand to Mr. Vyvian, while my heart was devoted to Ormsby; while I would most willingly have shared with him the most obscure destiny; while I would have followed him to India, or to Nova Zembla, and have exposed myself to endure any hardships in any region of the world, rather than have been mistress of the world on condition of being the wife of Mr. Vyvian.

  “My friend Mrs. Lessington, however, and the Abbé Hayward, joined in this cruel persecution. The former removed you from my sight entirely, and sent you into the country; the latter seemed to have lost his usual humanity and tenderness, and to think that duty, which I had once violated, had now stronger claims upon me than before the fatal indiscretion I had been guilty of. From your father I heard nothing. His family reported every where that he was married to a woman of fortune, with whom he became aquainted on her voyage to India, whither she was sent for by an uncle, whose heiress she was. This I believed, as I had done many other stories that were among the artifices that were used to force me into this marriage. They succeeded but too well, or rather the extreme terror I had of my father left me no means of escape. I became then the wife of Mr. Vyvian. I have been ever since the most miserabe of women; my son only, and the consolation of having sacrificed myself to duty, alone supported me. Before, however, I was driven into this miserable union, I executed, as I was then of age, a deed of gift, in which I made over, during my life, to Mr. and Mrs. Lessington, the interest of four thousand pounds, which was the gift of a relation, and which I possessed independent of my father, but without the power of alienating the principal. This is part of the money which Mr. Vyvian has so often reproached me with wasting, as he terms it, on begging monks and chanting hypocrites; though, had I really bestowed it on my necessitous fellow creatures, I should have thought myself well justified in such a disposal of it.

  “I had not been married above fifteen months when my father died, and left Mr. Vyvian in possession of that fortune, which was undoubtedly his chief motive for overlooking my reluctance which I repeatedly avowed to him, and which he well knew accompanied me to the altar. After my father’s death, he no longer affected to treat me with the least degree of regard. We went abroad for some years, which served in some measure to relieve and dissipate the heaviness of my heart. I had often the consolation of hearing from Mrs. Lessington, and in her letters, with the acount she gave me of her family, my Rosalie, as one of that family, was always mentioned. When I returned to England, I found you, child of my fond affections, all that my fancy could form of loveliness and perfection. So many tears had my fatal error cost me, and so much I hoped had been expiated by the subsequent sacrifice I made, that I trusted it was not criminal to indulge myself with a sight of you: you know how easily I enjoyed that happiness, but I only knew what exquisite happiness it was till you grew up, and till Charles, returning from abroad, showed so much partiality for you, as made me tremble for the consequence. This fear, which a thousand circumstances contributed to irritate, rendered my life miserable — I thought, that as the heaviest punishment it could inflict, Heaven might permit a fatal passion to take place between you. This was the cause not only of the deep melancholy into which I fell, but of conduct which you then thought and I felt to be unkind and cruel.”

  Mrs. Vyvian here ended her long narrative, and, kissing the tears from the cheeks of her daugher, she dismissed her for that day, referring till the next day any farther conversation in regard to Montalbert.

  CHAPTER 18

  AT home and alone Rosalie had time to reflect on the story she had heard; and though she knew very little of the world, and Mrs. Vyvian had failed to be very minute in many parts of her story, it seemed certain that the family of Mr. Ormsby had been the principal instruments in terrifying her into a marriage, which would have rendered her life miserable even if her heart and her person had not belonged to another. The Italian letter, which was probably written in that language lest it should fall into other hands, and might have been read had it been in English; the improbability that George Ormsby should venture to appear about Holmwood, unless with the connivance of some of the family, if not of Mr. Montalbert; and the eagerness with which Mrs. Lessington and Mr. Hayward had adopted the views of Mr. Montalbert, though they knew her situation, were a combination of circumstances which seemed to leave no doubt in the mind of Rosalie but that her mother had been betrayed by some or all of those whom she considered as her best friends. Their motives were probably good; but Rosalie could not help reflecting, that had not such been their conduct, she might now have been the acknowledged daughter of her most tender and affectionate of mothers; she might have known and been blessed by the fondness and protection of her father; and they might in a happy union have effaced the remembrance of their early indescretion, for the death of Mr. Montalbert would soon have left his daughter at liberty, and her life would not have been passed in the miseries of such a marriage, n
or her spirits have been overwhelmed with the consciousness of being the wife of one man while her whole heart was another’s.

  “I should not then, (said Rosalie, as she considered these events), I should not then have been despicable in the eyes of Montalbert’s relations — I might have been received by his mother with pride and pleasure, from the hands of my own; but now I am an outcast, and have no right to claim the protection of any human being, unless it be thine, Montalbert, and thou art far, far from me! — Heaven knows whether we shall ever meet again!”

  A shower of tears fell from her eyes while she indulged these melancholy thoughts; but, from longer meditation, she was roused by a short note from Mrs. Vyvian, who informed her, that her daughters had just been with her; that they should now seldom be at liberty to meet, for that Miss Vyvian, who, for some reason or other, did not seem happy and satisfied with her sister, was to come to her mother during an excursion Mr. and Mrs. Bosworth were about to make to Scarborough.— “She is my daughter, (said Mrs. Vyvian), and I cannot refuse her my protection — alas! I will fulfill to the end of my life the duties that have been imposed upon me. Hitherto the consciousness of having acquitted myself of a very arduous task, to the utmost of my power, has sustained me in many an hour of anguish; it will smooth the bed of death, and no inconvenience I can sustain, no ingratitude with which I may be repaid, shall for a moment weaken the resolution I have made to acquit myself to my own conscience......Come to me, however, my Rosalie, to-morrow, as Bab will not be here till evening; Mr. Vyvian stayed only a day in London. He is now gone into the west to visit the borough for which he is representative, and is afterwards to make I know not what tour, with I know not whom, which is likely to detain him all the summer. Alas! I dare not hope that the monotonous life I lead can be pleasant to Barbara, who probably comes with reluctance that will render us both equally miserable. How differently, my Rosalie, could I indulge myself with having you always with me, would our hours pass; but I will not add a word more on this subject.”