Kitabı oku: «Ormond; Or, The Secret Witness. Volume 2 (of 3)», sayfa 6

It was immediately requisite to attend to the disposal of the corpse. He felt himself unfit for this mournful office. He was willing to relieve himself from it by any expedient. Helena's next neighbour was an old lady, whose scruples made her shun all direct intercourse with this unhappy girl; yet she had performed many acts of neighbourly kindness. She readily obeyed the summons of Ormond, on this occasion, to take charge of affairs till another should assert it. Ormond returned home, and sent the following note to Constantia: —

"You have predicted aright. Helena is dead. In a mind like your's every grief will be suspended, and every regard absorbed in the attention due to the remains of this unfortunate girl. I cannot attend to them."

Constantia was extremely shocked by this intelligence, but she was not unmindful of her duty. She prepared herself, with mournful alacrity, for the performance of it. Every thing that the occasion demanded was done with diligence and care. Till this was accomplished, Ormond could not prevail upon himself to appear upon the stage. He was informed of this by a note from Constantia, who requested him to take possession of the unoccupied dwelling and its furniture.

Among the terms of his contract with Helena, Ormond had voluntarily inserted the exclusive property of a house and its furniture in this city, with funds adequate to her plentiful maintenance. These he had purchased and transferred to her. To this he had afterwards added a rural retreat, in the midst of spacious and well-cultivated fields, three miles from Perth-Amboy, and seated on the right bank of the Sound. It is proper to mention that this farm was formerly the property of Mr. Dudley, – had been fitted up by him, and used as his summer abode during his prosperity. In the division of his property it had fallen to one of his creditors, from whom it had been purchased by Ormond. This circumstance, in conjunction with the love which she bore to Constantia, had suggested to Helena a scheme, which her want of foresight would, in different circumstances, have occasioned her to overlook. It was that of making her testament, by which she bequeathed all that she possessed to her friend. This was not done without the knowledge and cheerful concurrence of Ormond, who, together with Melbourne and another respectable citizen, were named executors. Melbourne and his friend were induced by their respect for Constantia to consent to this nomination.

This had taken place before Ormond and Constantia had been introduced to each other. After this event, Ormond had sometimes been employed in contriving means for securing to his new friend and her father a subsistence, more certain than the will of Helena could afford. Her death he considered as an event equally remote and undesirable. This event, however unexpectedly, had now happened, and precluded the necessity of further consideration on this head.

Constantia could not but accept this bequest. Had it been her wish to decline it, it was not in her power, but she justly regarded the leisure and independence thus conferred upon her, as inestimable benefits. It was a source of unbounded satisfaction on her father's account, who was once more seated in the bosom of affluence. Perhaps, in a rational estimate, one of the most fortunate events that could have befallen those persons, was that period of adversity through which they had been doomed to pass. Most of the defects that adhered to the character of Mr. Dudley, had, by this means, been exterminated. He was now cured of those prejudices which his early prosperity had instilled, and which had flowed from luxurious indigencies. He had learned to estimate himself at his true value, and to sympathize with sufferings which he himself had partaken.

It was easy to perceive in what light Constantia was regarded by her father. He never reflected on his relation to her without rapture. Her qualities were the objects of his adoration. He resigned himself with pleasure to her guidance. The chain of subordination and duties was reversed. By the ascendancy of her genius and wisdom the province of protection and the tribute of homage had devolved upon her. This had resulted from incessant experience of the wisdom of her measures, and the spectacle of her fortitude and skill in every emergency.

It seemed as if but one evil adhered to the condition of this man. His blindness was an impediment to knowledge and enjoyment, of which, the utmost to be hoped was, that he should regard it without pungent regret, and that he should sometimes forget it; that his mind should occasionally stray into foreign paths, and lose itself in sprightly conversations, or benign reveries. This evil, however, was by no means remediless.

A surgeon of uncommon skill had lately arrived from Europe. He was one of the numerous agents and dependants of Ormond and had been engaged to abdicate his native country for purposes widely remote from his profession. The first use that was made of him was to introduce him to Mr. Dudley. The diseased organs were critically examined, and the patient was, with considerable difficulty, prevailed upon to undergo the necessary operation. His success corresponded with Constantia's wishes, and her father was once more restored to the enjoyment of light.

These were auspicious events. Constantia held herself amply repaid by them for all that she had suffered. These sufferings had indeed been light, when compared with the effects usually experienced by others in a similar condition. Her wisdom had extracted its sting from adversity, and without allowing herself to feel much of the evils of its reign, had employed it as an instrument by which the sum of her present happiness was increased. Few suffered less in the midst of poverty, than she. No one ever extracted more felicity from the prosperous reverse.

CHAPTER VIII

When time had somewhat mitigated the memory of the late disaster, the intercourse between Ormond and Constantia was renewed. The lady did not overlook her obligations to her friend. It was to him that she was indebted for her father's restoration to sight, and to whom both owed, essentially, though indirectly, their present affluence. In her mind, gratitude was no perverse or ignoble principle. She viewed this man as the author of extensive benefits, of which her situation enabled her to judge with more accuracy than others. It created no bias on her judgement, or, at least, none of which she was sensible. Her equity was perfectly unfettered; and she decided in a way contrary to his inclination, with as little scruple as if the benefits had been received, not by herself, but by him. She indeed intended his benefit, though she thwarted his inclinations.

She had few visitants beside himself. Their interviews were daily and unformal. The fate of Helena never produced any reproaches on her part. She saw the uselessness of recrimination, not only because she desired to produce emotions different from those which infective is adapted to excite, but because it was more just to soothe than to exasperate the inquietudes which haunted him.

She now enjoyed leisure. She had always been solicitous for mental improvement. Any means subservient to this end were valuable. The conversation of Ormond was an inexhaustible fund. By the variety of topics and the excitement to reflection it supplied, a more plenteous influx of knowledge was produced than could have flowed from any other source. There was no end to the detailing of facts, and the canvassing of theories.

I have already said that Ormond was engaged in schemes of an arduous and elevated nature. These were the topics of epistolary discussion between him and a certain number of coadjutors, in different parts of the world. In general discourse, it was proper to maintain a uniform silence respecting these, not only because they involved principles and views remote from vulgar apprehension, but because their success, in some measure, depended on their secrecy. He could not give a stronger proof of his confidence in the sagacity and steadiness of Constantia than he now gave, by imparting to her his schemes, and requesting her advice and assistance in the progress of them.

His disclosures, however, were imperfect. What knowledge was imparted, instead of appeasing, only tended to inflame her curiosity. His answers to her inquiries were prompt, and, at first sight, sufficiently explicit; but upon reconsideration, an obscurity seemed to gather round them, to be dispelled by new interrogatories. These, in like manner, effected a momentary purpose, but were sure speedily to lead into new conjectures, and reimmerse her in doubts. The task was always new, was always on the point of being finished, and always to be recommenced.

Ormond aspired to nothing more ardently than to hold the reins of opinion, – to exercise absolute power over the conduct of others, not by constraining their limbs, or by exacting obedience to his authority, but in a way of which his subjects should be scarcely conscious. He desired that his guidance should control their steps, but that his agency, when most effectual, should be least suspected.

If he were solicitous to govern the thoughts of Constantia, or to regulate her condition, the mode which he pursued had hitherto been admirably conducive to that end. To have found her friendless and indigent, accorded, with the most fortunate exactness, with his views. That she should have descended to this depth, from a prosperous height, and therefore be a stranger to the torpor which attends hereditary poverty, and be qualified rightly to estimate and use the competence to which, by this means, she was now restored, was all that his providence would have prescribed.

Her thoughts were equally obsequious to his direction. The novelty and grandeur of his schemes could not fail to transport a mind ardent and capacious as that of Constantia. Here his fortune had been no less propitious. He did not fail to discover, and was not slow to seize, the advantages flowing thence. By explaining his plans, opportunity was furnished to lead and to confine her meditations to the desirable tract. By adding fictitious embellishments, he adapted it with more exactness to his purpose. By piecemeal and imperfect disclosures her curiosity was kept alive.

I have described Ormond at having contracted a passion for Constantia. This passion certainly existed in his heart, but it must not be conceived to be immutable, or to operate independently of all those impulses and habits which time had interwoven in his character. The person and affections of this woman were the objects sought by him, and which it was the dearest purpose of his existence to gain. This was his supreme good, though the motives to which it was indebted for its pre-eminence in his imagination were numerous and complex.

I have enumerated his opinions on the subject of wedlock. The question will obviously occur, whether Constantia was sought by him with upright or flagitious views. His sentiments and resolution on this head had for a time fluctuated, but were now steadfast. Marriage was, in his eyes, hateful and absurd as ever. Constantia was to be obtained by any means. If other terms were rejected, he was willing, for the sake of this good, to accept her as a wife; but this was a choice to be made only when every expedient was exhausted for reconciling her to a compact of a different kind.

For this end he, prescribed to himself a path suited to the character of this lady. He made no secret of his sentiments and views. He avowed his love, and described, without scruple, the scope of his wishes. He challenged her to confute his principles, and promised a candid audience and profound consideration to her arguments. Her present opinions he knew to be adverse to his own, but he hoped to change them by subtlety and perseverance. His further hopes and designs he concealed from her. She was unaware that if he were unable to effect a change in her creed, he was determined to adopt a system of imposture, – to assume the guise of a convert to her doctrines, and appear as devout as herself in his notions of the sanctity of marriage.

Perhaps it was not difficult to have foreseen the consequence of these projects. Constantia's peril was imminent. This arose not only from the talents and address of Ormond, but from the community of sentiment which already existed between them. She was unguarded in a point where, if not her whole yet doubtless her principal security and strongest bulwark would have existed. She was unacquainted with religion. She was unhabituated to conform herself to any standard but that connected with the present life. Matrimonial as well as every other human duty, was disconnected in her mind with any awful or divine sanction. She formed her estimate of good and evil on nothing but terrestrial and visible consequences.

This defect in her character she owed to her father's system of education. Mr. Dudley was an adherent to what he conceived to be true religion. No man was more passionate in his eulogy of his own form of devotion and belief, or in his invectives against atheistical dogmas; but he reflected that religion assumed many forms, one only of which is salutary or true, and that truth in this respect is incompatible with infantile and premature instruction.

To this subject it was requisite to apply the force of a mature and unfettered understanding. For this end he laboured to lead away the juvenile reflections of Constantia from religious topics, to detain them in the paths of history and eloquence, – to accustom her to the accuracy of geometrical deduction, and to the view of those evils that have flowed in all ages, from mistaken piety.

In consequence of this scheme, her habits rather than her opinions, were undevout. Religion was regarded by her not with disbelief, but with absolute indifference. Her good sense forbade her to decide before inquiry, but her modes of study and reflection were foreign to, and unfitted her for this species of discussion. Her mind was seldom called to meditate on this subject, and when it occurred, her perceptions were vague and obscure. No objects, in the sphere which she occupied, were calculated to suggest to her the importance of investigation and certainty.

It becomes me to confess, however reluctantly, thus much concerning my friend. However abundantly endowed in other respects, she was a stranger to the felicity and excellence flowing from religion. In her struggles with misfortune, she was supported and cheered by the sense of no approbation but her own. A defect of this nature will perhaps be regarded as of less moment when her extreme youth is remembered. All opinion in her mind were mutable, inasmuch as the progress of her understanding was incessant.

It was otherwise with Ormond. His disbelief was at once unchangeable and strenuous. The universe was to him a series of events, connected by an undesigning and inscrutable necessity, and an assemblage of forms, to which no beginning or end can be conceived. Instead of transient views and vague ideas, his meditations, on religious points, had been intense. Enthusiasm was added to disbelief, and he not only dissented but abhorred.

He deemed it prudent, however, to disguise sentiments which, if unfolded in their full force, would wear to her the appearance of insanity. But he saw and was eager to improve the advantage which his anti-nuptial creed derived from the unsettled state of her opinions. He was not unaware, likewise, of the auspicious and indispensable co-operation of love. If this advocate were wanting in her bosom, all his efforts would be in vain. If this pleader were engaged in his behalf, he entertained no doubts of his ultimate success. He conceived that her present situation, all whose comforts were the fruits of his beneficence, and which afforded her no other subject of contemplation than himself, was as favourable as possible to the growth of this passion.

Constantia was acquainted with his wishes. She could not fail to see that she might speedily be called upon to determine a momentous question. Her own sensations, and the character of Ormond were, therefore, scrutinized with suspicious attention. Marriage could be justified in her eyes only by community of affections and opinions. She might love without the sanction of her judgement; but, while destitute of that sanction, she would never suffer it to sway her conduct.

Ormond was imperfectly known. What knowledge she had gained flowed chiefly from his own lips, and was therefore unattended with certainty. What portion of deceit or disguise was mixed with his conversation could be known only by witnessing his actions with her own eyes and comparing his testimony with that of others. He had embraced a multitude of opinions which appeared to her erroneous. Till these were rectified, and their conclusions were made to correspond, wedlock was improper. Some of these obscurities might be dispelled, and some of these discords be resolved into harmony by time. Meanwhile it was proper to guard the avenues to her heart, and screen herself from self-delusion.

There was no motive to conceal her reflections on this topic from her father. Mr. Dudley discovered, without her assistance, the views of Ormond. His daughter's happiness was blended with his own. He lived but in the consciousness of her tranquillity. Her image was seldom absent from his eyes, and never from his thoughts. The emotions which it excited sprung but in part from the relationship of father. It was gratitude and veneration which she claimed from him, and which filled him with rapture.

He ruminated deeply on the character of Ormond. The political and anti-theological tenets of this man were regarded, not merely with disapprobation, but antipathy. He was not ungrateful for the benefits which had been conferred upon him. Ormond's peculiarities of sentiment excited no impatience, as long as he was regarded merely as a visitant. It was only as one claiming to possess his daughter that his presence excited, in Mr. Dudley, trepidation and loathing.

Ormond was unacquainted with what was passing in the mind of Mr. Dudley. The latter conceived his own benefactor and his daughter's friend to be entitled to the most scrupulous and affable urbanity. His objections to a nearer alliance were urged with frequent and pathetic vehemence only in his private interviews with Constantia. Ormond and he seldom met. Mr. Dudley, as soon as his sight was perfectly retrieved, betook himself with eagerness to painting, – an amusement which his late privations had only contributed to endear to him.

Things remained nearly on their present footing for some months. At the end of this period some engagement obliged Ormond to leave the city. He promised to return with as much speed as circumstances would admit. Meanwhile, his letters supplied her with topics of reflection. These were frequently received, and were models of that energy of style which results from simplicity of structure, from picturesque epithets, and from the compression of much meaning into few words. His arguments seldom imparted conviction, but delight never failed to flow from their lucid order and cogent brevity. His narratives were unequalled for rapidity and comprehensiveness. Every sentence was a treasury to moralists and painters.

CHAPTER IX

Domestic and studious occupations did not wholly engross the attention of Constantia. Social pleasures were precious to her heart, and she was not backward to form fellowships and friendships with those around her. Hitherto she had met with no one entitled to an uncommon portion of regard, or worthy to supply the place of the friend of her infancy. Her visits were rare, and, as yet, chiefly confined to the family of Mr. Melbourne. Here she was treated with flattering distinctions, and enjoyed opportunities of extending as far as she pleased her connections with the gay and opulent. To this she felt herself by no means inclined, and her life was still eminently distinguished by love of privacy and habits of seclusion.

One morning, feeling an indisposition to abstraction, she determined to drop in, for an hour, on Mrs. Melbourne. Finding Mrs. Melbourne's parlour unoccupied, she proceeded unceremoniously to an apartment on the second floor, where that lady was accustomed to sit. She entered, but this room was likewise empty. Here she cast her eyes on a collection of prints, copied from the Farnese collection, and employed herself for some minutes in comparing the forms of Titiano and the Caracchi.

Suddenly, notes of peculiar sweetness were wafted to her ear from without. She listened with surprise, for the tones of her father's lute were distinctly recognized. She hied to the window, which chanced to look into a back court. The music was perceived to come from the window of the next house. She recollected her interview with the purchaser of her instrument at the music shop, and the powerful impression which the stranger's countenance had made upon her.

The first use she had made of her recent change of fortune was to endeavour to recover this instrument. The music dealer, when reminded of the purchase, and interrogated as to the practicability of regaining the lute, for which she was willing to give treble the price, answered that he had no knowledge of the foreign lady beyond what was gained at the interview which took place in Constantia's presence. Of her name, residence, and condition, he knew nothing, and had endeavoured in vain to acquire knowledge.

Now, this incident seemed to have furnished her with the information she had so earnestly sought. This performer was probably the stranger herself. Her residence so near the Melbournes, and in a house which was the property of the magistrate, might be means of information as to her condition, and perhaps of introduction to a personal acquaintance.

While engaged in these reflections, Mrs. Melbourne entered the apartment. Constantia related this incident to her friend, and stated the motives of her present curiosity. Her friend willingly imparted what knowledge she possessed relative to this subject. This was the sum.

This house had been hired, previously to the appearance of the yellow fever, by an English family, who left their native soil with a view to a permanent abode in the new world. They had scarcely taken possession of the dwelling when they were terrified by the progress of the epidemic. They had fled from the danger; but this circumstance, in addition to some others, induced them to change their scheme. An evil so unwonted as pestilence impressed them with a belief of perpetual danger as long as they remained on this side of the ocean. They prepared for an immediate return to England.

For this end their house was relinquished, and their splendid furniture destined to be sold by auction. Before this event could take place, application was made to Mr. Melbourne by a lady whom his wife's description showed to be the same person of whom Constantia was in search. She not only rented the house, but negotiated by means of her landlord for the purchase of the furniture.

Her servants were blacks, and all but one, who officiated as steward, unacquainted with the English language. Some accident had proved her name to be Beauvais. She had no visitants, very rarely walked abroad, and then only in the evening with a female servant in attendance. Her hours appeared to be divided between the lute and the pen. As to her previous history or her present sources of subsistence, Mrs. Melbourne's curiosity had not been idle, but no consistent information was obtainable. Some incidents had given birth to the conjecture that she was wife, or daughter, or sister of Beauvais, the partizan of Brissot, whom the faction of Marat had lately consigned to the scaffold; but this conjecture was unsupported by suitable evidence.

This tale by no means diminished Constantia's desire of personal intercourse. She saw no means of effecting her purpose. Mrs. Melbourne was unqualified to introduce her, having been discouraged in all the advances she had made towards a more friendly intercourse. Constantia reflected, that her motives to seclusion would probably induce this lady to treat others as her friend had been treated.

It was possible, however, to gain access to her, if not as a friend, yet as the original proprietor of the lute. She determined to employ the agency of Roseveldt, the music-shopman, for the purpose of rebuying this instrument. To enforce her application, she commissioned this person, whose obliging temper entitled him to confidence, to state her inducements for originally offering it for sale, and her motives for desiring the repossession on any terms which the lady thought proper to dictate.

Roseveldt fixed an hour in which it was convenient for him to execute her commission. This hour having passed, Constantia, who was anxious respecting his success, hastened to his house. Roseveldt delivered the instrument, which the lady, having listened to his pleas and offers, directed to be gratuitously restored to Constantia. At first, she had expressed her resolution to part with it on no account, and at no price. Its music was her only recreation, and this instrument surpassed any she had ever before seen, in the costliness and delicacy of its workmanship. But Roseveldt's representations produced an instant change of resolution, and she not only eagerly consented to restore it, but refused to receive any thing in payment.

Constantia was deeply affected by this unexpected generosity. It was not her custom to be outstripped in this career. She now condemned herself for her eagerness to regain this instrument. During her father's blindness it was a powerful, because the only, solace of his melancholy. Now he had no longer the same anxieties to encounter, and books and the pencil were means of gratification always at hand. The lute therefore, she imagined, could be easily dispensed with by Mr. Dudley, whereas its power of consoling might be as useful to the unknown lady as it had formerly been to her father. She readily perceived in what manner it became her to act. Roseveldt was commissioned to redeliver the lute, and to entreat the lady's acceptance of it. The tender was received without hesitation, and Roseveldt dismissed without any inquiry relative to Constantia.

These transactions were reflected on by Constantia with considerable earnestness. The conduct of the stranger, her affluent and lonely slate, her conjectural relationship to the actors in the great theatre of Europe, were mingled together in the fancy of Constantia, and embellished with the conceptions of her beauty derived from their casual meeting at Roseveldt's. She forgot not their similitude in age and sex, and delighted to prolong the dream of future confidence and friendship to take place between them. Her heart sighed for a companion fitted to partake in all her sympathies.

This strain, by being connected with the image of a being like herself, who had grown up with her from childhood, who had been entwined with her earliest affections, but from whom she had been severed from the period at which her father's misfortunes commenced, and of whose present condition she was wholly ignorant, was productive of the deepest melancholy. It filled her with excruciating, and, for a time, irremediable sadness. It formed a kind of paroxysm, which, like some febrile affections, approach and retire without warning, and against the most vehement struggles.

In this mood her fancy was thronged with recollections of scenes in which her friend had sustained a part. Their last interview was commonly revived in her remembrance so forcibly as almost to produce a lunatic conception of its reality. A ditty which they sung together on that occasion flowed to her lips. If ever human tones were qualified to convey the whole soul, they were those of Constantia when she sang: —

 
"The breeze awakes, the bark prepares,
To waft me to a distant shore:
But far beyond this world of cares
We meet again to part no more."
 

These fits were accustomed to approach and to vanish by degrees. They were transitory, but not unfrequent, and were pregnant with such agonizing tenderness, such heart-breaking sighs, and a flow of such bitter yet delicious tears, that it were not easily decided whether the pleasure or the pain surmounted. When symptoms of their coming were felt she hastened into solitude, that the progress of her feelings might endure no restraint.

On the evening of the day on which the lute had been sent to the foreign lady, Constantia was alone in her chamber immersed in desponding thoughts. From these she was recalled by Fabian, her black servant, who announced a guest. She was loath to break off the thread of her present meditations, and inquired with a tone of some impatience, who was the guest. The servant was unable to tell; it was a young lady whom he had never before seen; she had opened the door herself, and entered the parlour without previous notice.

Constantia paused at this relation. Her thoughts had recently been fixed upon Sophia Westwyn. Since their parting four years before she had heard no tidings of this woman. Her fears imagined no more probable cause of her friend's silence than her death. This, however, was uncertain. The question now occurred, and brought with it sensations that left her no power to move: – was this the guest?

Her doubts were quickly dispelled, for the stranger taking a light from the table, and not brooking the servant's delays, followed Fabian to the chamber of his mistress. She entered with careless freedom, and presented to the astonished eyes of Constantia the figure she had met at Roseveldt's, and the purchaser of her lute.

The stranger advanced towards her with quick steps, and mingling tones of benignity and sprightliness, said: —

"I have come to perform a duty. I have received from you to-day a lute that I valued almost as my best friend. To find another in America, would not, perhaps, be possible; but, certainly, none equally superb and exquisite as this can be found. To show how highly I esteem the gift, I have come in person to thank you for it." – There she stopped.