Complete Poetical Works of Charlotte Smith

by Charlotte Smith

  But notwithstanding the frequent opportunities they now had of meeting, and even of passing whole hours alone together, how was it possible that a private marriage could be effected? — Rosalie knew that to escape to Scotland, and return without being missed, and without avowedly eloping, was impossible. Montalbert allowed it to be so, but he had another expedient ready — they might be married by a Catholic priest. Rosalie had heard, but in a vague way, that such marriages were not valid, but Montalbert reasoned her out of this persuasion. “Admitting, (said he), my dearest love, that it were as you have heard, would not such a marriage be binding to me? Might it not at any time be renewed according to the laws of any country where we may reside, when I shall be wholly at liberty? and is it material to you what restrictions are laid upon such marriages in England, if your husband looks upon other laws binding to him? — Even if we were to have the ceremony performed in your church, I should think it necessary to have it gone over a second time by a priest of ours.” By such arguments he sometimes shook the wavering resolution of Rosalie, who, except the single circumstance of his mother’s known aversion to his marrying an English protestant, which her reason told her was unjust and unreasonable, saw nothing that ought to prevent her giving her person where she had already given her heart. In point of family and fortune, Montalbert was infinitely her superior. Her mother therefore, however she might reproach her with having married clandestinely, could not accuse her with having debased herself or degraded her family. She had no other person to whom she was accountable, unless it was her elder brother, whom she loved too much to be quite easy as to his sentiments; but, on the other hand, it was impossible he could make any objections, unless it was the difference of religion; yet she dared not venture to tell him, least that single circumstance should appear to him of consequence enough to prevent entirely a union otherwise so desirable.

  Every opportunity that occurred, Montalbert pressed his suit with redoubled ardour: he urged, with all the vehemence of passion, the necessity of his immediate return to Italy, as he had already, on various pretences, prolonged his stay two months beyond the time he intended. — There was now a danger that his mother might suspect that some of those connections, she was so averse to, were the occasion of his prolonged absence, and might engage some of her friends in England in an inquiry that would be the cause of discovering what nobody now seemed to suspect. This and numberless other reasons Montalbert always had ready to offer why there was no time to deliberate: he had already conquered one obstacle — the difficulty of finding a Catholic priest who would venture to perform the ceremony.

  Besides the consequence, both in England and in Italy, of his family and his connections, the ease with which a dispensation might be obtained whenever his mother withdrew her opposition, and the pecuniary advantage Montalbert promised the priest, with whom he had at length succeeded; knew that Rosalie was the daughter of a country clergyman, and had no relations who were at all likely to be displeased at her marrying a man so greatly her superior, and of course not likely to proceed against one who had committed a breach of law so much to their advantage: he rather wished to detach Montalbert from his pursuit, by representing the great distance between him and Rosalie in temporal concerns, as well as the difference in spiritual affairs, which appeared to him so momentous. Finding it, however, very bootless to argue with a man of three and twenty, madly in love, he consented to do as Montalbert required, and reconciled his conscience by that accommodating reflection at hand on so many occasions, “If I do not do it, some other will.” He stipulated with Montalbert, however, that if there should be any probability of his incurring the heavy penalty for marrying a minor, that he should be immediately sent to Rome at the expence of Montalbert; an expedient which Montalbert immediately agreed to, as indeed he would have done so to any demands the father thought proper to have made, however unreasonable they might have been.

  The longer Rosalie reflected on the proposals of her lover, the fainter became her opposition; yet still conscious that it could not be right to dispose of herself without the consent of her mother and her brother, she more than once intreated Montalbert to allow her to consult them; but he heard this request always with impatience, declaring, that if she determined to tear herself from him, to abandon him to all the horrors of that despair which her loss would inflict, she could find no way more certain than what she proposed. His vehemence, and the conviction of his sincerity, which that vehemence brought with it, once more conquered her scruples. Montalbert extorted once more a reluctant and trembling acquiescence, and then eagerly insisting on finding some immediate opportunity for them to meet, where the priest might attend, Rosalie, terrified at the step she was about to take, again recoiled, and intreated to be released from her inconsiderate promise.

  Though the attachment between these young people seemed not even to be suspected either by Mrs. Vyvian or Mrs. Lessington, yet the conflict in the mind of Rosalie had such an effect on her frame, that the former one day observed it to her as they were sitting together alone. “Surely, my dear, (said she, laying down her work, and looking very earnestly at Rosalie), surely you are not well.”

  “Dear Ma’am, (answered Rosalie), why do you suppose so?”

  “You are pale, (said Mrs. Vyvian); your eyes are heavy and languid, I am afraid, my love, —— —— —— — —” She hesitated, and the conscience of Rosalie at that moment accusing her, a faint blush overspread her countenance as she eagerly cried, “Afraid, my dear Madam, of what?”

  “Nay, of nothing, Rosalie, that need alarm you: I will tell you my fears — either you have some affection that makes you uneasy, or the almost total seclusion in which you live is too much for your spirits.”

  “Indeed, Madam, my spirits would be very ill bear the dissipation in which my sister lives. The seclusion that gives me an opportunity of passing some of my hours with you, is the greatest gratification I can enjoy.”

  “But to the other article, Rosalie, what do you say?”

  “To what article, Madam?”

  “Oh! you have forgot already — to what I told you I feared as one cause of the alteration I have observed.”

  “Indeed, my dear Mrs. Vyvian, I am sensible of no alteration. You know how few people I see, and that with fewer still I have much acquaintance, or with it.”

  Mrs. Vyvian shook her head with an air of incredulity, and as Rosalie fancied of concern; but she suffered the discourse to drop, and Rosalie left her, trembling lest the truth was suspected, and dreading, yet feeling it necessary, to give an account of this dialogue to Montalbert.

  CHAPTER 9

  WHAT had passed the preceding evening between Mrs. Vyvian and Rosalie was no sooner repeated to Montalbert, than it served as an additional argument to enforce the consent he had been so long soliciting. Montalbert was of a warm and impetuous temper: though he had never yet been emancipated from the government of an high-spirited and imperious mother, he was not the less bent on pleasing himself, than are those who have never been contradicted. It seemed, indeed, as if the severe restraint he had so long habitually been under, disposed him to be more earnest in a circumstance on which the whole happiness of his life depended; and when Rosalie asked him how he could hope ever to reconcile his mother to a marriage to which he himself owned she would have unconquerable objections, he inquired, in his turn, what amends she could make him for opposing the only connection which could make him happy, only from prejudice and difference of opinion in matters wherein he could not think as she did, and wherein he thought it unreasonable that her prepossessions should interfere with his choice. “I will certaily not make my mother uneasy, (said he); I will so far pay a compliment to her unfortunate prejudices, as to conceal from her what would make her so: but to relinquish the only woman I could ever love, is surely a greater sacrifice than she ought to demand of me. If, indeed, I were about to disgrace her, Rosalie, by uniting myself with a woman without reputation, or of a very mean and unworthy origin, I should feel that
I ought not to be forgiven; but why, because our modes of worshipping God are different — why, because my mother was born in Italy, and you in England, should an imaginary barrier be raised, which must shut me out from happiness for ever? What has reason and common sense to do with all this?” — Rosalie was compelled to acknowledge that it had very little: still, however, the idea of a clandestine marriage shocked her; she solicited most earnestly that her mother might be made acquainted with it. This he strenuously opposed; representing, that if Mrs. Lessington knew it, it would not be a secret from Mrs. Vyvian, “Who, however, she may love you, (said he), would make it a point of conscience to prevent my marrying a Protestant, and ruining myself, as she would conclude I should, in the affections of my mother for ever. You know, Rosalie, how much I love my aunt. There is a pensive resignation to a very unhappy fate, a sort of acquiescence, which arises not from want of sensibility, but from the patience and self-government she has learned, that render her to me infinitely interesting, while her kindness and affection to me demand all my gratitude. But with great virtues, and I know hardly any one who has for so many, she is not without prejudices, which greatly add to her own unhappiness. It is unnecessary to point out to you what these are; nor need I tell you, Rosalie, that they are exactly such as would induce her to think it her indespensible duty to inform my mother of our attachment. Then all the evils, I apprehend, would follow. I must either hazard offending her beyond all hope of forgiveness, or I must lose you for ever.” — Let no fastidious critic, on the characters of a novel, declaim against the heroine of this, as being too forward or too imprudent. There are only two ways of drawing such characters: they must either be represented as ——

  “Such faultless monsters as the world ne’er saw” ——

  Or with the faults and imperfections which occur in real life. Of these, many are such as would, were they described as existing in a character for which the reader is to be interested, entirely destroy that interest. There are other errors, which, in an imaginary heroine, we may at once blame and pity, without finding the interst we take in her story weakened. This is the sentiment that Rosalie may excite; who being tenderly attached to a man, not only amiable in his person, but of the most insinuating manners, believing his declarations of love, and persuaded that her friends could not disapprove of the step he so earnestly urged her to take; fearing, on the other hand, to lose him; that he would be convinced he was indifferent to her, would return to Italy, and make an effort to forget her; found her objections giving way before so many motives, and at length, though with trembling reluctance, agreed to the expedient Montalbert proposed — of their being married by the priest whom he had engaged for that purpose. Rosalie neither knew the danger this man incurred, nor that her marriage would not be binding. She knew, however, enough, from such information as she had casually picked up, to express her doubts to Montalbert as to its legality, who found the means of satisfying her scruples. “It is binding to me, (said he), since the ceremony is performed after the laws of our own church; and where then, my Rosalie, can be the foundation of your doubts? — In a few, a very few days after that fortunate hour, which shall give me a right to call you mine, I must leave you; but I shall know myself to be your husband; I shall feel no disquiet, lest the persuasion of your family, or any other circumstance, should throw you into the arms of another, and the hope of returning soon to England to claim you for my wife, will give me patience not only to endure this enforced absence, but will animate me to those exertions that may shorten its duration.” —— The calmer reason of Rosalie sometimes told her, that there was much sophistry in many of these arguments; but what young woman her age listens to reason, in opposition to the pleadings of the man she loves? — Montalbert was equally passionate and perservering: he had some plausible manner of obviating every apprehension, and it now only remained to be considered, how the marriage ceremony might pass with most secrecy.

  Though Montalbert had not seemed to make more frequent visits than usual at the house of Mrs. Vyvian, nor to appear oftener at Hampstead, he had in reality hardly ever quitted it since Mrs. Vyvian had settled there; but had taken an obscure lodging in the lower part of the village, where he was sure he should not be known, and this gave him an opportunity of remaining later either with his aunt, when Rosalie happened to be there, or at the house of Mrs. Lessington, who was now more frequently than ever in London. Then it was that Rosalie passed the evenings entirely with Mrs. Vyvian, and nothing was so natural as that Montalbert, when he happened to be there, should attend her home, to which Mrs. Vyvian never seemed to make any objections on Rosalie’s account, though she often expressed her apprehensions of the danger he incurred in returning so late to London.

  It was strange, that suspecting as Mrs. Vyvian seemed to do, some attachment which made Rosalie unhappy, she had no notion that her nephew might be the object of this attachment; but it seemed never once to have occurred to her, and Montalbert conducted himself so cautiously before her, when Rosalie was of the party, that she had no reason to believe he regarded her otherwise than as a common acquaintance. Montalbert, young as he was, had been a great traveller: he had lived at Paris, at Vienna, at Turin, at Rome, and at Florence, and had acquired in the more early part of his life the reputation of being a young man of dissipation and intrigue. These gaieties had been exaggerated, and Mrs. Vyvian had received an impression of his libertinism, which had never been effaced. She now, therefore, could not imagine, that for such a man the simplicity fo Rosalie’s beauty could have any attractions; and persuaded, as she was, that he was engaged in intrigues among many women of a very different description, she sometimes gently reproved and sometimes slightly rallied him, on these fashionable excesses. He humoured her in the answers he gave; listened as if half disposed to feel contrition, or defended himself, as if conscious of the truth of these charges — management which would have concealed his real sentiments and designs from a more penetrating observer than Mrs. Vyvian.

  During the few days that Montalbert was in doubt how to procure unsuspected the admission of the priest to Rosalie, while he was with her, the family of his aunt arrived from their house in the north to settle for the winter in Park Lane. Mr. Vyvian contented himself with calling one morning on horseback, with a slight and cold inquiry. He told his wife, that he had directed his steward to attend her whenever she pleased on money matters, and that his daughters should visit her the next day: he then mentioned the marriage of the eldest, of which the preliminaries were now settled; he did not, however, tell Mrs. Vyvian of this, because he thought her approbation of any consequence, but spoke of it as a matter settled, signifying, at the same time, that it was his pleasure she should speak to her daughter of the arrangement, as being what every part of her family would not but approve. Mrs. Vyvian acquiesced, without any remonstrance on the cruelty of thus disposing of her child at so early an age, without even consulting her mother. A few tears involuntarliy fell from her eyes as soon as her unfeeling husband was gone; but she immediately went to her oratory, and found consolation in the duties of religion; to which, under all these trying circumstances, she had ever recoursed.

  But the appearance of the two Miss Vyvians had another effect on Montalbert. These ladies, young as they were, had been early initiated into the world. They were no longer diffident and unassuming, but had all the confidence of women of middle age, without their judgement; were careless of the opinion of all the world as to any thing but their beauty and air of high ton, and rather inclined to provoke censure, by their singularity, than to conciliate by civility, or engage by gentleness. They had already learned that disdain of all inferiors which belongs to people of the very first world; and the alliance the eldest was about to form, which would eventually place her in the first rank of nobility, seemed to have elevated the haughty spirits of both: an alteration which, on their very first visit, their mother saw with additional disquiet; while Montalbert, who was with Mrs. Vyvian when they came, beheld and heard them with disg
ust, that amounted almost to aversion.

  During the stay Montalbert made her father’s seat in the north, Miss Vyvian had been piqued at the little attention he had shown her, and mortified to observe his neglect of those charms, which she thought, and which her maid assured her, ought to attract the homage of all the world. That Montalbert was so far from paying her this homage, that he took the privilege of his near relationship to tell her of her faults, was not to be forgiven by Miss Vyvian. She had by no means forgotten, now that she met him in London, the slights she had received in Yorkshire, and attacked him with severe sort of raillery, which he failed not to return, though with more good humour than the lady deserved. Thus passed the first visit; but, on the second, (as the young ladies affected still to retain so much consideration for their mother as to make their airings very frequently towards Hampstead), it happened, unluckily enough, that Mrs. Vyvian, not aware of their coming, had sent for Rosalie to sit with her. Montalbert soon after came in; and as Mrs. Vyvian was pleased to encourage her taste in drawing, Montalbert, who without any affectation understood it extremely well, was giving her some rules, and, leaning over her chair, was lost in pleasure of instructing his charming pupil; but he sometimes varied a little from what he undertook to teach, and, instead of giving her a sketch of the object he was describing, he wrote a line or two in Italian. Mrs. Vyvian was pensively at work, and did not regard them. The room where they sat was at a distance from the door to which the coaches drove up, and while this was going on, a footman entered, announcing the two Miss Vyvians.