Complete Poetical Works of Charlotte Smith

by Charlotte Smith

  ‘Do not laugh at such things, Orlando, do not, pray! unless you are very sure they are all foolish and superstitious fancies. I assure you, Orlando, that having been used to walk about this great old rambling house by myself, at all times of the day, and sometimes, when you have not been here, late of a night, I cannot have been much used to indulge fear; for, frightened or not frightened, I must have gone if my lady or my aunt had ordered me. But though I am not the least afraid, or used not to be afraid, when I was assured in my own heart that I had never done or intended any harm, yet I have seen and heard –’

  ‘Nay then, Monimia, tell me what you have seen and heard,’ cried he, fixing his eyes eagerly on her face, and pulling his chair nearer to hers, ‘and let us draw round the fire and have a discourse upon apparitions.’

  ‘You will laugh at me, Orlando,’ said she, looking smilingly and yet grave; ‘but what I have to tell you is true nevertheless.’

  ‘Tell it then, Monimia – If any proofs have power to make me a convert, they must be yours.’

  ‘Well then, Orlando, I assure you it is no fancy, but absolutely true, that some time last February, at which time my aunt was very ill by the fall she had down stairs, she used to intrust me with the keys, and to send me all about the house for things she wanted. You know that when Mr Pattenson is out, she always insists upon having the keys of the great cellars, as well as all the rest, left with her; and that, after quarrelling some years about it, she has got the better; and, though he will not give her his keys, has my lady’s leave to have keys of her own, which she always takes particular pleasure in using when he is out (which he happened to be that night at the christening of Mr Butterworth’s child), whether she really wants the things she sends for or no. It was a terrible stormy night and very dark, when my aunt, who was but just got well enough to sit in my lady’s room, took it into her head, after every body was gone to bed but Betty Richards and I, that she wanted some hot shrub and water. She sent me to look for shrub in her closet, where I believe she knew there was none; and when I came back to say there was none, she bade me go into the east-wing cellar, which goes, you know, under the house towards this end of it, and fetch half a dozen bottles; and she gave me the key and a basket. I stood trembling with fear; for had I been sure of being killed even at that moment, I am very certain I could not have determined to venture alone.”

  ‘What is the foolish girl afraid of?’ said my aunt. ‘Of going alone so far, Ma’am,’ said I, ‘at this time of night.’

  ‘And is not this time of night,’ said my aunt angrily, ‘or is not any time of night, or any time of day, the same thing to you? Idiot! – and do you dare to affect any choice, how and when you shall obey my commands?’

  ‘Oh! no indeed, my dear dear aunt,’ answered I trembling, ‘no indeed; but remember – remember, before you are so angry with me, that an hundred and an hundred times you have told me, that all the galleries and passages about this house are haunted; and that you have yourself seen strange sights and heard frightful noises, though you never would tell me what they were: how shall I, my dear aunt, encounter that which has terrified you? – Pray, forgive me! or, if you will not, inflict upon me any punishment you please: only be assured, my dear dear aunt, that, terrible as your anger is to your poor girl, she had rather endure it than go into those passages and vaults alone.’

  ‘Why, thou art a driveller, a perfect idiot,’ answered Mrs Lennard, ‘and art fit only for a cap and bells, clean straw, and a whirligig. – Apparitions, you stupid fool! But tell me, will you go for what I want, if this other moppet, who looks as white as a cheese-curd, will go with you?’

  ‘The offer of going with Betsy Richards had somehow quite a charm with it, compared with the terrors of going alone; and therefore I readily agreed to the proposal, flattering myself that Betsy would refuse, and that I should so be excused.

  ‘But poor Betsy had, like myself, a most terrible awe of my aunt, whom ever since she could remember she had been taught to fear. ‘To be sure, I will go,’ said poor Betsy; ‘to be certain, I will go, if madam she desires it; though for certain –’

  ‘None of your ifs, you silly baggage, but here, take the candle; and do you, you nonsensical ninnyhammer, take the basket, and fetch instantly what I want. The old shrub stands in a bin, quite at the lower end of the farthest arched vault, next the chapel wing: put your hands elbow deep in the saw-dust, and you will feel it; bring half a dozen bottles, and mind you take care of your candle – for the whole family of Rayland are piled up in their velvet coffins within two or three feet of you; and it would be a very unhandsome thing to set their old dry bones in a blaze on their own premises.’

  ‘Neither Betsy nor I dared answer; for, as my aunt spoke these last words, she waved her hands for us to go. After we were out of hearing, I, who held Betsy fast by the arm, expressed my apprehension at what had passed. I did this more particularly, because I had never heard my aunt talk so freely before. Betsy, frightened as she was at the thought of the expedition we were undertaking, could not help tittering at the surprise I expressed, and said, ‘Lord! why, the old woman has been sitting so long after supper with Madam, that she has been taking care to keep the cold out of her stomach:’ – meaning that Mrs Lennard had been drinking too much, which till then I had never any notion of. ‘I am sure,’ replied I to my trembling companion, as we went down the cellar stairs, and were frightened by the echo of our feet, ‘I am sure, Betsy, we want something to keep the cold of fear out of ours. – Do I tremble as much as you do, and do I look as pale?’ ‘Oh! hush,’ said she, ‘hush! I shall drop if I hear a voice – it sounds so among these hollow doors.’ Her teeth chattered in her head, and she held the candle in her hand so unsteadily that I was afraid it would have gone out. In this manner we proceeded to the bottom of the stairs, which you know are very long, and had got half a dozen paces along the passage, which is, you may remember, very high and narrow and long, when we heard a loud rushing noise at the other end of it. Something came sweep along; but Betsy let fall the candle, and fell herself against the wall, where I endeavoured in vain to support her. She sunk quite down; and, as I stooped to assist her, somebody certainly brushed by me. I know not what I heard afterwards, for fear deprived me of my senses. This, however, lasted but a moment; for, my recollection returning, I was sensible that, whatever there was to hurt us, we should do more wisely to endeavour to return back to my aunt’s room than to remain in that dismal place. With great difficulty, by rubbing her hands within mine, and reasoning with her as soon as she seemed able to hear it, I prevailed upon Betsy Richards to try to walk. The apprehension that this frightful apparition might return (which she whispered me had the figure of a tall man in a white or light-coloured gown), had more effect upon her than any thing I could say; and she consented to try to return up the stairs. It was so dark, however, that we were obliged to feel our way with our hands; and I own I every moment expected to put them against the frightful figure which my companion had seen.’

  ‘But you were wrong there,’ said the incredulous Orlando; ‘for, if it were a ghost, Monimia, you know a ghost is only air, and of course you could not have touched it. – But tell me how your aunt received you.’

  ‘It was, I am sure, almost half an hour before we got back, more dead than alive, to the oak parlour. She asked us very impatiently, what we had been so long about? but neither of us was presently able to answer. She saw how it was by our faces, but very sharply bade us tell her that moment what was the matter. Betsy had then more courage than I had; for I was more afraid of my aunt, if possible, than of the ghost, and so she related as well as she could all she saw, or fancied she saw. Mrs Lennard was extremely angry with us both, and scolded us for a quarter of an hour; which I thought a little unreasonable towards me, since she was angry with me now for being afraid of the very things she had been teaching me to fear. However, as there was no chance of persuading us to make another attempt that night, and she was disabled by lameness from going hersel
f, she was forced to be content with some other of the cordials she had in her closet; and afterwards she rather wished to have the story hushed up and forgotten, for somehow or other that key of the cellar was never found after that night. The basket and the candle remained where they were dropped; yet the key, which was a very great heavy key, and which I had in my hand, was gone; and Mr Pattenson would have made such a racket about it, that my aunt, as she had another, let the story drop, and contrived an excuse a week or two afterwards, when she was able to get about herself, to have the lock changed.’

  ‘And this is all the reason you have, my Monimia, from your own observation, to believe in spirits?’ said Orlando.

  ‘All!’ replied she, ‘and is it not then enough?’

  ‘Not quite, I fear, to convince the scepticism of the present day. I do not, however, wish to prejudice your mind on the other side, by bringing arguments against the possibility, of their existence; but I will give your reason an opportunity of deciding for itself. Against to-morrow night, when we shall meet again, I will look out and mark for you all those stories of supernatural appearances that are related by the most reasonable people, and are the best authenticated. You shall fairly enquire whether any of those visits of the dead were ever found to be of any use to the living. We are told that they have been seen (as is reported of that vision which Clarendon tells of), to warn the persons to whom they appeared, or some others to whom they were to repeat their mission, of impending danger. But the danger, however foretold, has never been avoided; and shall we therefore believe, that an all-wise and all-powerful Being shall suffer a general law of nature to be so uselessly violated, and shall make the dead restless, only to terrify the living?’

  ‘Oh! but in cases of murder you know what spectres have appeared!’

  ‘Yes, Monimia, to the conscience of the guilty; but even that is not always ready to raise hideous shadows to persecute the sanguinary monsters who are stained with crimes; for if it were, Monimia, I am afraid not one of our kings or heroes could have slept in their beds.’

  ‘And yet,’ said Monimia shuddering, ‘and yet, Orlando, you sometimes talk of being a soldier!’

  ‘Ah! my sweet friend,’ replied Orlando, ‘I have no choice, but must be what they would have me. Yet believe me, Monimia, if I had a choice, it would be to pass all my life in some quiet retirement with you. We should not want either of us to be very rich, for we should certainly be very happy.’

  To this poor Monimia felt herself quite unable to answer; but sighing deeply, from the fear that it could never be, she tried to turn the discourse: ‘Is it not very late, Orlando,’ said she, ‘and had I not better go?’

  ‘If you insist upon going yet, I shall be half tempted to let you travel through the chapel alone,’ replied he smiling, ‘and, to revenge myself for your desertion, expose you to meet the tall man in the white dress.’ He then led the conversation to other subjects, gave her some books he had selected for her reading, and some materials for writing; and, after insisting upon her promise to meet him the next night, he consented that she should return to her turret. As, with his arm round her waist, he conducted her through the chapel, and still found her tremble, he gently reproached her with it. ‘Ah!’ said she, ‘Orlando, you are surely unreasonable, if you expect me to be as courageous as you are!’ ‘Not at all,’ answered he; ‘for you may derive your confidence from the same source, and say, as I do, I fear no evil angel, and have offended no good one.’

  Monimia promised to do all she could towards conquering her apprehensions. They were by this time arrived at the door of her chamber, where tenderly kissing her hand, he again bade her good night, or rather good morning, for it was near three o’clock; and waiting till he heard the door safely concealed by her bed, and hearing that all was secure, he returned to his own room, and went to rest in spirits disposed to indulge delicious dreams of happiness to come.

  CHAPTER VI

  ANOTHER and another evening Orlando attended at the turret, and the apprehensions of Monimia decreased in proportion as her reason, aided by her confidence in him, taught her that there was in reality little to fear from the interposition of supernatural agency. The dread of being discovered by people in the house, however, still interrupted the hours which passed with imperceptible rapidity while they were together. This might happen a thousand ways, which Monimia was ingenious in finding out; while Orlando was sometimes successful, and sometimes failed, in ridiculing those apprehensions which he could not always help sharing.

  The mind of the innocent Monimia had been till now like that of Miranda in her desert island. To her, the world that was past and that which was now passing were alike unknown; and all the impressions that her infant understanding had received, tended only to confirm the artificial influence which her aunt endeavoured to establish over her imagination. Her poverty, her dependence, the necessity of her earning a subsistence by daily labour, had been the only lessons she had been taught; and the only hope held out to her, that of passing through life in an obscure service.

  But she had learned now that, abject and poor as she was, she was an object of affection to Orlando, who seemed in her eyes the representation of divinity. The reading he had directed her to pursue, had assisted in teaching her some degree of self-value. She found that to be poor was not disgraceful in the eye of Heaven, or in the eyes of the good upon earth; and that the great teacher of that religion which she had been bid to profess, though very little instructed in it, was himself poor, and the advocate and friend of poverty. In addition to all this knowledge, so suddenly acquired, she had lately made another discovery. Her aunt had always told her that she was a very plain girl, had a bad person, and was barely fit to be seen; but since the marriage of the servant who had lived at the Hall during the infancy of Monimia, Betty Richards, the under house-maid, had been ordered to do the little that Monimia was allowed to have done in her room. Mrs Lennard had taken her from the parish officers as an apprentice; and having long seen her only in her coarse gown and nailed shoes, and observed in her manner only a great deal of rustic simplicity, had not the least idea that under the semblance she concealed the cunning and the vanity of a country coquet; and that the first week she passed in Mrs Rayland’s family had called forth these latent qualities. She was a ruddy, shewy girl, with a large but rather a good figure; and her face was no sooner washed, and her hair combed over a roll, than she became an object which attracted the attention of the great Mr Pattenson himself; who, proceeding in the usual way by which he had won the favour of so many of the subaltern nymphs in Mrs Rayland’s kitchen, began to make her many presents, and to talk of her beauty; and as she could not forbear repeating all these extravagant expressions of his admiration, Monimia could as little help reflecting, though she was somehow humbled as she made the comparison, that if Betty was so handsome, she could not herself be so ugly as her aunt had always represented her. The fineries which her new friend received Monimia beheld without any wish to enjoy such herself; though on Betty, a poor girl bred in a workhouse, they had a most intoxicating effect. They were given under the strictest injunctions of secrecy, which was tolerably well observed towards the rest of the house; and the finery, which at first consisted only of beads and ribbands was reserved for Sunday afternoons, and put on at a friend’s cottage near a distant church. But it was not in female nature to conceal these acquisitions from Monimia; and it was in her drawers that they were often deposited, when there was reason to apprehend that the little deal box, which had till lately been amply sufficient for the check apron and linsey-woolsey gown of Betty, might not safety conceal the ribbands ‘colour of emperors’ eyes,’ the flowered shawls, the bugle necklaces, and caps with new edging to them, which she now possessed.

  Sometimes, when Betty obtained leave to go out, and thought that, Mrs Lennard being engaged with her lady, and the other servants gone different ways, she should escape unnoticed across the park, she persuaded Monimia, who knew not how to refuse her any thing, to let h
er dress at her little glass; and there the progress of rural coquetry had full power to display itself. She tried on her various topknots, disposed her hair in a thousand fanciful ways, and called to Monimia for her opinion, which of them was most becoming; appealing for the authority of these variations to a certain pocket-book, presented her also from the same quarter, which represented in one of its leaves ‘six young ladies in the most fashionable head-dresses for 1776.’

  Monimia, with all her ingenuous simplicity, had sense enough to smile at the ridiculous vanity of the girl; and to know, that her accepting all this finery from the old butler was quite wrong. But she felt also, that to reprove her for it would look like envy, and that to remonstrate would probably be vain. She contented herself therefore with keeping as much out of her confidence as she could; and had reasons enough of her own, which were continually strengthened by the exhortations of Orlando, for keeping her from being a too frequent visitor in her room.

  But the remarks she made upon all this, and upon numberless circumstances in the house which Betty related to her, no longer left her in her original ignorance. In a great house there are among the servants as many cabals, and as many schemes, as among the leaders of a great nation; and few exhibited a greater variety of interests than did the family of Mrs Rayland. Mrs Lennard at once hated, feared, and courted Pattenson, who, having been taken a boy from the plough, had been gradually promoted till he became the favourite footman of the elder Mrs Rayland, who, on the death of an old man who had long occupied that post, made him butler; where he was supposed to have accumulated in the course of five-and-twenty years a great deal of money, was known to have several sums out at interest, and had bought two or three small farms in the county, with the approbation of his lady, whose favour had never once failed him, though various attempts had been made to injure him in her opinion by complaints of his amours. Though he was a perfect Turk in morals, and though in his advanced life he rather indulged than corrected this propensity to libertinism, he had hitherto contrived to escape his lady’s wrath; and indeed knew that nobody but Mrs Lennard or the old coachman had, among the domestics, interest enough to shake her good opinion of him; and of both the one and the other, though aware that neither of them bore him any good will, he was tolerably secure.