Complete Poetical Works of Charlotte Smith

by Charlotte Smith

  No doubt of these facts mingled itself with the various emotions which agitated D’Alonville on reading this account of them. He felt that Du Bosse was still his brother; and though the recollection, that by his cruel indifference to the happiness of his father, by boundless ambition, and hypocritical pretensions to a disinterested love of his country, he had deserved the fate that had overtaken him, alleviated the concern of D’Alonville; his humanity and his natural affection forbade him even to appear indifferent at the recital. Ellesmere alone knew to what cause the emotion, which he could not conceal, was to be imputed; and left it should by others be ascribed to very different reasons, he gave D’Alonville an immediate opportunity of retiring, by giving him a message to a brother officer — D’Alonville understood him, and withdrew.

  When he had executed the commission Ellesmere had given him, and was at liberty to reflect on what had heard, these mixed emotions of concern and surprise, were almost lost in a stronger sentiment, that of rage and indignation against Heurthofen, whose treachery in this last instance exceeded all the infamy of which D’Alonville had believed him capable. The earnest wish for an hour of general retribution against the monsters whose conduct disgraced human kind, was felt with redoubled force, when he added to it the hope of individual vengenace, and imagined the possibility of punishing with his own hand this apostate villain.

  CHAPTER XII.

  — “He has much land and fertile — It is a chough

  — but as I say, spacious in the possession of dirt.

  A VERY few hours reflection served to reconcile D’Alonville to the fate of a man who, though his brother, had so few claims to his regret. It was by the conduct of Du Bosse that the last moments of the Viscount de Fayolles had been embittered, if not accelerated; and when D’Alonville recalled to his memory the dying words of his father, it seemed as if the punishment of heaven had justly fallen on the ungrateful and unfeeling son. Another consideration would have reconciled to most men of D’Alonville’s age, the loss of a much more valuable relation than he could ever have found in Du Bosse — this was the circumstance of being his heir, not only to the whole of those extensive possessions in France, but to the property with which Du Bosse had entrusted him, with a view of securing it in England as a resource against the storm which he saw gathering, but which had burst upon him the sooner for those precautions. The estates of his family he hoped one day to regain; and the possibility of laying them at the feet of Angelina, brought, while he reflected on it, a thousand delicious visions of future happiness. — This, however, was barely a possibility. But what he had saved from the wreck of his family’s personal property, and which was now undoubtedly his own, secured him against the immediate indigence to which so many of his countrymen were exposed; and it released him from the apprehension of being burthensome to his friends — from the humiliation of dependence, and its insupportable consequence, contempt.

  Almost immediately on his escape from Valenciennes, he had given nearly the whole of the valuable articles he had saved to Ellesmere, requesting him to send them to England; which had been done, and advice of their being delivered safely to his banker. This property, amounting to between three and four thousand pounds sterling, was now his own; and as in the present scene of incessant action, his life was every hour in hazard, he drew up a short testament, describing what he possessed, and the hands it was in, and, after bequeathing a valuable jewel to Ellesmere, in remembrance of their friendship, he gave the rest to Angelina Denzil, in testimony of his ardent and unalterable affection. This paper he sealed up, and deposited with Ellesmere, giving him, at the same time, another copy of it to send to England: and, having settled all this, he returned with redoubled alacrity to the duties of his station.

  A general assault of Valenciennes was now hourly expected. and from the obstinate resistance which the besieging army had already experienced, they expected that the town would hold out to the last extremity. As the time might perhaps be short that they could pass together, D’Alonville took the opportunity of every little respite from duty to converse with Ellesmere, and avail himself of moments that would too probably return no more. He was with him when a large pacquet of letters were delivered to him from England — Ellesmere ran over the covers — from my father? said he — from my brother? — from my sister Elizabeth? D’Alonville could not help enquiring if there was none from Mrs. Denzil? Ellesmere answered, no; “But perhaps, added he, “some of my letters may speak of her and her family.” He opened and read slightly over that from his father — It was short, and referred him to his brother’s letter for intelligence, which, he said, could not fail to be pleasing to his son Edward. This being inspected, ran thus: —

  DEAR EDWARD,

  THERE is nothing more highly gratifying to a man of a certain turn of mind, than to announce to any of its branches the prosperity of his family; and, when such a man has the very high satisfaction of knowing, that he has himself contributed to elevate, in the eyes of the world, the race from which he derives an honourable descent, this proud consciousness cannot but extremely encrease the complacency with which he recurs to the past events of his life.

  It has been my fortune to feel this sentiment, and I glory in it. I should be sorry to have cause to complain of any derogation in the other branches of the Ellesmere family; or to suppose, that the absurd predilection you have frequently shewn for strangers, should, for a moment, interfere with the interest you ought to take in the concerns of the family of which you are fortunate enough to be a member.

  My sister Mary, since she has been under the auspices of Lady Sophia Ellesmere, has been addressed by two gentlemen of equal respectability, but of fortune to unequal, that she would not hesitate a moment between them, had not an invidious, and, I am well convinced, a false report obtained, that Mr. Melton formerly made an offer of his hand to some little obscure girl, whose very existence must have been unnoticed, had not her family been suffered, by the easy goodness and unresisting benevolence of my good friend Lord Aberdore, to claim I know not what remote alliance to the illustrious house of his lordship.

  Report, which in truth one equally contemns and detests, goes farther, and asserts (though its extreme incredibility destroys the assertion), that this person refused Mr. Melton, notwithstanding the immense disparity in their conditions; and refused him on account of her attached to that Frenchman whom you inconsiderately introduced to your friends. Nay, it has been said, that a challenge afterwards passed between you and Mr. Melton, about that foreigner; and that it was with difficulty you were prevented from proceedin proceeding to an hostile discussion of the question, whatever it might be, between you. An officious old woman, a Mrs. Risby, has been so impertinent as to tell Mary all this. Her pride, which women ever place improperly, has taken the alarm; and she will not give her ultimatum to her lover, Mr. Melton, till this matter is cleared up. This you, brother Edward, can easily do; and I expect it of you, as does Sir Maynard. — I think I need say no more; however, it may not be amiss to point out to your observation, the advantages of an alliance between our family, and that of Mr. Melton:

  He possesses, in the countries of Gloucester and Worcester, between four and five thousand pounds a year, besides a borough, for which he brings two members into the House of Commons:

  He is, though not heir to an Irish barony, yet within two of it; and the persons between him and this honour are old — and, though married, childless. He has, in his gift church-preferment to the annual value of seven or eight hundred pounds. You will recollect that Hugh is destined for the church — and make your own application.

  I thought Mary had more sense than to have hesitated a moment about accepting all these advantages; but, as her ridiculous punctilio is so easily obviated, I wish to leave her no excuse.

  Let me, then, hear from you immediately; that is, write such a letter as may satisfy this vain capricious girl, that Mr. Melton made no proposals to this Miss What-d’ye-call-her; and that the whole confused story she has
heard from Mrs. Risby is untrue.

  I am,

  Dear Edward,

  Your’s,

  H. M. W. ELLESMERE.

  The existing circumstances require an immediate reply.

  To this sententious letter, Ellesmere immediately settled what to answer. He then read his sister’s, which contained not a word of what he wanted to know; and D’Alonville, who say that his friend was vexed at something in his brother’s letter, and that he had no chance of gaining any intelligence of Angelina, soon after left him.

  Edward Ellesmere knew his sister too well not to be well assured, that some other reason that operated on her mind more powerfully than these vague stories against her accepting a man who was so near an Irish barony, and actually possessed a fortune that would give her a right to enjoy all the pleasures and luxuries of life — that he guessed truly, the following letter will evince. Miss Mary never confided in her elder sister, But to the daughter of the clergyman of the next parish to Eddisbury-hall, a romantic girl of her own age, with whom she had agreed to correspond, when she went to London, she unveiled the various emotions of her heart in tolerable spelling, and in a stile partly from the conversation of the day , and partly from the conversation of the people she now lived among. Part of her letter described an assembly at which she had been:— “But what is all this,” continued she— “ah! what, my Janetta, to the sentiments of the heart! Oh! Frederic! — could you have but seen him, my friend, could you but hear him, you would not for a moment be surprised at my wavering — he is amiable to a degree there is in his manner so much fashion — so much elegance! He has only one brother, who is now serving in the army under the Duke of York. He declares, that he should really be sorry if any thing happened to his brother. With what gaiety, yet with what proper feeling did he speak of his chance of being a peer of England, if this should be the case. It is true, that Mr. Melton is altogether unexceptionable as to his situation, and he has almost a certainty of having a title — then his fortune and interest — and my brother’s partiality to him — besides that, I have really no objection to him.

  But this Frederic Fitz-Raymond! — Oh! my Janetta, how unequally are the gifts of fortune divided! Fitz-Raymond protests, that he never loved till now; and how can I do otherwise than believe him? when he, who could without doubt marry the greatest heiress, attaches himself to your Mary, while I have every day assurances that Mr. Melton really did make his addresses to one of those Denzils — Ridiculous! — one can hardly think it possible. My mother, Lady Sophia, and Miss Milsington, are amazed at my thinking of this as an objection; and the latter, (who certainly speaks from experience) assures me, I may live and die Mary Ellesmere, if I wait till I find a man who has never before had an attachment — yet Frederic Fitz-Raymond is that man!” In short, the fact was, that the vanity and the love of the young lady were engaged on one side, her interest and ambition on the other; but the scale was turned, not by her brother Edward’s answer, which was carefully concealed from her, but by a still more mortifying circumstance: Her lover, the enchanting Frederic Fitz-Raymond, suddenly turned all his attention to a young widow, who, just at the period in question, returned to the world of fashion, with unimpaired beauty and a large jointure; and Miss Ellesmere had the humiliating assurance, that before the death of her husband, the man whose first affections she had believed were hers, had been the most constant attendant of this lady to whom he now paid serious addresses. — To relate such a circumstance to her, Janetta, was impossible — to recollect all she had written was painful — and the wisest thing she could do, was to accept Mr. Melton without hesitation; on which, therefore, she immediately determined. The wedding was celebrated with splendour; and Mr. Melton carried his bride to his seat in Worcestershire; of which fortunate event Sir Maynard wrote to his son Edward, in terms highly expressive of his satisfaction’.

  A very short time afterwards, another event of equal importance and equal delight happened in this apparently prosperous family: — The rich manufacturer died, whose purchases near Eddisbury had so greatly disturbed the felicity of Sir Maynard Ellesmere, that, notwithstanding the arising prosperity and accumulating places of his family, he felt like the illustrious prince who continually addressed one of his courtiers,

  “Sir, I am not Duke of Tuscany while you wear those spectacles.”

  The old baronet was not Sir Maynard Ellesmere, while Mr. Nodes, whose money was obtained by making buttons, had the impertinence to buy land near the old family seat of the Ellesmeres of Eddisbury-hall, where he impudently built a better house than Eddisbury-hall itself; placed a bust of Franklin in his vestibule; (a vestibule in the house of a mechanic!) had Ludlow among his books, quoted Milton to his companions, and drank to the rights of man.

  If the removal of a neighbour so obnoxious was an agreeable circumstance to the inhabitants of Eddisbury, it was followed by one much more so: — The house thus raised by button-making, becoming the property of a great number of the late owner’s collateral relations, it was put up to sale, and purchased by a Mr. Darnly, who was just returned from a thirty years residence in India, with a great deal of money, and a resolution to marry and found a family. In consequence of this, he changed the name of Grange-hill-house, to that of Darnly Park. The neighbours venerated his riches, though acquired perhaps by means somewhat less innocent than those of its late possessor, and agreed to forget, in favour of this regulation, the appellation of Button-Buildings, or Node’s Folly, with which they had hitherto indulged their envy or their spleen.

  Franklin and his round-heads were swept away for ever. Instead of pictures of Price and Priestley, the aspiring Pagoda was represented on the painted sattin that covered the walls, and around them josses of mandarins of gold and ivory nodded on brackets of ore moulu.

  Lady Ellesmere, ever attentive to the operations of her neighbours, while for the fate of Europe she felt no manner of concern, had contrived to obtain a complete catalogue of all these fineries as they arrived, and knew exactly in what apartment they were placed. And the bamboo chairs; the curtains of Japan muslin lined with silk; the beds of the most rare chintz, or rich sattin; such immense jars as had never been seen in Staffordshire; and then, such a side-board of plate! — all these had made a deep impression on the mind of the good lady of the hall. When she looked at the high backed old fashioned chairs, so long in use in Sir Maynard’s family; the carpet which had been very handsome five and thirty years ago; the damask curtains faded and changed, and beds that were then though superb, but were now quite old-fashioned, she was half sorry that there must be a continual comparison between the antiquities of Eddisbury-hall, and the modern beauties of Darnly Park; and almost regretted the bust of Franklin, and the prints of Priestley and of Price; who could not, in point of respectability, be compared with all the noble personages who had borne for three centuries the name of Ellesmere, and of whom many were now represented among the ornaments of Eddisbury; and from within the gilt timber of the massy frames then encompassed them, beheld with majestic gravity, or simpered with soft amenity,

  “As in the days of their Queen Ann” —

  On the ponderous moveables, or rather immoveables, that seemed co-eval with themselves.

  This discontent, though carefully stifled, yet won insensibly on the mind of Lady Ellesmere, and in proportion as the India cabinets and Persian silks multiplied at Darnly Park, would have become a very uneasy sensation, if the profound politician, her eldest son, had not suggested what she, good woman, nor even Sir Maynard himself would have been long discovering; this was, that though Eddisbury-hall could not very conveniently be furnished like Darnly Park, yet, that from thence its most fair and most amiable ornament might be derived. In a word, Mr. Darnly was unmarried, very rich, and wanted a wife. Where could he find one superior to the eldest nymph of Eddisbury, Elizabeth Ellesmere? It is true that Mr. Darnly was about fifty, though he owned but six-and-thirty. He was not handsome, being originally of a very dark complexion, which, by the little bilious co
mplaints he had picked up in his various residences, had become the deepest tint between orange, tawny, and black, that the cuticula of an European could possibly assume — but then he had fine large dark eyes; and if his figure was none of the most elegant and light, he was always well dressed, talked well, nay, was even a respectable orator in Leaden hall-street — and, as to person, what signifies person? Mr. Darnly was very well for a man.

  All this was so true, and the prospect of being mother-in-law to the possessor of such sweet things as were assembling at Darnly Park, was so pleasant, that Lady Ellesmere now thought of nothing else. One recollection however startled her, the long attachment of her daughter Elizabeth to another man, who having for years persisted in “her hopeless unhappy passion,” might, in the true spirit of romantic heroism, determine still— “To flight the Squire, and wed the Curate,” or at “least to die a maid for his sake.”

  This was to be guarded against by all that maternal prudence and worldly wisdom could devise. The day before the meditated attack on the heart of Mr. Darnly, (with whom Mr. Ellesmere had taken care to cultivate an acquaintance in town, and who was now asked to dinner at Eddisbury, Sir Maynard having previously left his card in due form,) Lady Ellesmere began a very long and very sensible discourse on the folly of young women, who, before they were judges of what would constitute their happiness, suffered themselves to be entangled in attachments which prudence and reason afterwards forbade; and having finished the exordium, she glided into an eulogium of Darnly Park, and on the riches of its possessor; and then coming to the point communicated to her daughter the hopes her family had conceived, and the projects they meditated for the next day.