Kitabı oku: «Secresy; or, Ruin on the Rock», sayfa 15

LETTER II
FROM ARTHUR MURDEN TO CLEMENT MONTGOMERY

'Thou wilt make her thy wife.' – Good God what an implication! And is her claim yet to be enforced! – 'I will make her my wife.' – How often, since I read thy letter, have I repeated those words – those despicable words!

Trust me, Clement, I have no settled ill will towards thee. No: by heaven, have I not – yet, there are moments when I hate thee heartily.

The severity with which I speak may dissolve the bond of our intimacy: – was it ever a bond of friendship? – Carry me back to its origin. – 'Mr. Murden,' said the good natured Du Bois, 'I have a young gentleman committed to my care whom I wish to make known to you.' – And then he expatiated on the greatness of your expectations, the astonishing privacy of your education, and the singular naiveté of your manners.

Such as he described, you were; and I neglected all my former acquaintance, to run with you through the round of town amusements: – With what enthusiasm did you enjoy! with what fire did you describe! No moment of disgust or lassitude assailed you. The existing pleasure was still the best, the greatest. All to you, was rapture, fascination, enchantment.

What a novelty, methought! How enviable and extraordinary! – For, I had partaken of these pleasures without a particle of enjoyment. Frequenting the resorts of dissipation from custom, labouring to compel my revolting senses to the gratifications of pleasure, struggling to wear a character opposite to my inclination, seeking in public to seduce the attentions of women, from whose hours of private yielding I fled with disgust, effectually removed from society which would have taught me the importance of mental pursuits, and living in the profusion of splendor, I almost prayed for wants, for a something, any thing, that could interrupt the routine of sameness, that could make me cease to be as it were the mere automaton of habit.

You charmed me. I longed to investigate the source of your never-failing satisfactions. You did not inform my understanding, but you greatly interested my curiosity. My uncle talked of my making the grand tour; and that was your destiny likewise. It must be amusing, thought I, to travel with one so volatile yet energetic; and such an arrangement was speedily resolved on.

We travelled. Sometimes you complained of my indifference, of the cold reserve that hung upon my character; but the avidity with which you perpetually hunted after variety, and the readiness wherewith I listened to your descriptions, reconciled you to whatever discordance you chanced to perceive between my feelings and your own. – Am I not right, Clement? Was not this rather intimacy than friendship?

While we viewed the Alps and Pyrenees, their sublimity poured into my mind a flood of enthusiasm. The laughing (as the French emphatically call it) country of Italy filled me with delight. But memory can often present such scenes with the warmth and vigour they first bestow; and even her attempts were repressed by the multitudes of follies that perpetually assailed us. I saw on every hand oppression, priestcraft, and blindness. Neither my tutor nor my companions were capable of stimulating me to inquire into the moral and physical causes of the evils I lamented; and, perceiving only the effect, I concluded they were without remedy, and dismissed the subject.

To one point, then, I chained my expectations; and that one point was love. And here, I quixoted my fancy into the wildest hopes. I wanted beauty without vanity, talent without ostentation, delicacy without timidity, and courage without boast. If I saw the semblance of any of these qualities, I hastened to search for the rest. Disappointment succeeded disappointment, without producing any other effect than to bring the visions of my brain before me with fresh allurements, with increase of attributes.

You, Montgomery, perhaps happily for yourself, have been a stranger to this species of refinement. You could have loved any where; and the utmost stretch of your powers of imagination, will not produce even a faint picture of that life of never-fading bliss I expected to enjoy, when I should have found my ideal fair one, for whose tenderness I preserved my heart a sanctuary, sacred, and inviolate. What, then, had been my faith, if, when the prototype of the ideal form did burst upon me in existence, I had been the chosen above all mankind of a heart corresponding in all things with my own.

Sir Thomas commanded me home. You I left without pain. To him I returned without pleasure. – Yes: I returned home – and soon – it was men, Clement – ay then it was —

You say I advised you to forget her in other arms. Montgomery, why did I advise? – And wherein was I competent to judge? – Had you not already prepared other arms to open for your reception? How could I divine that she whom you loved was not of the race of those beings to whom you were constantly lending the epithets of charming, lovely, exquisite angelic? Nought beyond a glance of transient admiration, or a temporary delirium of the senses, could they excite in me. I sighed to find something worthy of remembrance. You sighed to forget the worth, the inestimable worth you had known!

Wearied with the importunity of – 'would to God I could forget her!' – Forget her in other arms, I said. – Most readily did you yield to the advice; for which, as you have justly said in one of your letters, you deserved – 'tis your own words, Clement – you deserved damnation.

And what art thou doing now? – Now, even that she has sacrificed herself to save thee from despair? – That she has – Let thy heart tell thee her deserts – let it remind thee, that she is sorrowing for thy safety – preparing in mind and affection against thy return ages of joy, of felicity, such as never – merciful heaven! – And thou art – seeking reconciliation with Janetta Laundy.

Rememberest thou, Montgomery, the terrific and awful minutes we past on Vesuvius! Was not that a scene which, while it gratified curiosity and exhausted wonder, made nature shrink with repugnance from the situation? – Yet, in all the horrors of a night worse than that hour, lighted only by the flame of destruction, with showers of thundering dangers obstructing my footsteps, yet, had I been thee Clement! would I have climbed that summit – aye and precipitated myself into the gulph of ruin, rather than forever blacken the fair sheet of love, by sinking to the embraces of a prostitute!

Oh 'tis a stain indelible!

 
Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather
The multitudinous sea incarnadine,
Making the green, one red.
 

I seek not to quarrel with you, Montgomery. Careless as to your resentment, but willing still to possess your esteem, I am not more ready to declaim against your errors than to confess my own. Your's are recoverable. Make peace with yourself and heaven; while I go, not to expiate, but patiently to abide the punishment of mine.

This is the last time, Clement, that mystery shall cloud my words and actions. – In this very letter I meant to have cast it off. I thought I had torn myself for ever from the enchantment; and that reserve and secresy were at an end. But a strange unexpected circumstance, perchance productive of benefit to those for whom I would if possible sacrifice more than self, leads me once more to that scene where my dearest wishes lie buried – where I raised a funeral pile of all my hopes of happiness in this world – 'twas I conducted the fatal torch – I stood passive and witnessed their annihilation!

One day longer shall I remain at Barlowe Hall. I only arrived here yesterday. I may be absent a week; then I return again for a short time, to seek in solitude, a temporary recruit of spirits and resolution. Much indeed do I need them. You I have to meet. My uncle too. All who call themselves my friends: for, with this emaciated form, and mere emaciated mind, am I coming to London.

And what is my business there? – To take an everlasting leave of ye all. – To implore Sir Thomas Barlowe that he will allow me but a pat of the ample provision he has given me here, to supply nature's necessities in a foreign land. – I go abroad. Opposition and remonstrances are a feather in the balance. – I go, Montgomery, to find a grave. – Life and I are already separated! – I breathe: but I do not live! – Sleep and peace are vanished from me! – How swift are the ravages of an unhealthy mind, and who would not rejoice when the vague and fleeting scene shall have finally closed! – But a little time Montgomery and rumour will say, or perhaps some stranger affected into sympathy by my youth, will, as the least office of humanity, charge himself particularly to inform thee, that it was a sigh of resignation which liberated the agonized soul and, forever sealed the lips of

A. MURDEN

LETTER III
FROM SIBELLA VALMONT TO CAROLINE ASHBURN

Not write me one line! – Did you, Caroline, forbid him? – Prudence and safety required no such sacrifice! – Last night I dreamt – but why talk of dreams? When waking miseries surround us, why need we recur to those of imagination!

Tell Clement, if he meant a triumph, tell him he may congratulate himself. I would neither conceal nor deny, he has it most completely. – Here then I remain. – In full conviction that Clement has already learned a part of Mr. Valmont's lesson, I obey. – Yes: I suffer myself to be commanded into acquiescence, against which every fond affection of my soul revolts.

Tell Clement that – yet stay – ask thy heart, Sibella, that heart in which love and disappointment mingle the bitter poison which corrodes the very vitals of thy peace, whether this is not the momentary effusion of a perhaps unfounded resentment? – Tell him not, Caroline: or, if thou tellest him aught, and I do commit an error, oh may the tear which accompanies prove its atonement!

Caroline, I am incompetent to judge of his situation. Cares and tumults may surround him, and add to the anguish of separation. – And you, my friend, ah beware how you judge him rashly! The tender heart of Clement repels every approach of harshness. – While you seek to investigate, you forgot to soothe. – I detest your picture of my Clement's mind. – Oh! how ill do you appreciate that soul, wherein the image of Sibella lives immoveably, and eternally, undivested of her sway by any outward form or circumstance! – 'Tis true, indeed, Clement does attach to success and fortune in the world a value unfelt by me who know it not at all, and prized by you, only perhaps from its more intimate knowledge. But for whose sake is it, Caroline, that he dreads my uncle's resentment, that he would shrink to see me a pennyless outcast from Mr. Valmont's favour – is it not mine? – 'Tis I, that am, however distantly removed its effects from all but the discerning eye of love, I am his actuating principle! – Does he ever dismiss this one dear ultimate object from his thought? – 'tis because a lesser theme mixing therewith would degrade the loved idea. – Again undisturbed, self-possessed, his ardent mind returns to the dear remembrance of past, the still dearer anticipation of future, joys – when hourly, momentarily, they shall augment with the increase of years.

Oh Clement, that love at one and the same instant created on our sympathizing hearts! – sustained, with mutual ardor, through the uniform but interesting years of childhood! – at length spurred on by dangers and denial to form its firmest, chastest tie! – is there a temptation on earth, or a horror in futurity, which could bribe or bid that love seek to extinguish its smallest hope, its least particle of enjoyment? – No! No! Never! – An impassable gulph is placed between that love and diminution. – A chasm wide, deep, immeasurable, as eternity!

How dared I reproach my love! – How dared I decide, I whose mind is almost subdued by my situation! – Think Caroline! one hour heavily creeps after its fellowed hour; – day slowly succeeds to day, barely distinguished by another name; – the sun shines one morning, and hides his beam the next; – yon tall trees who bow their heads to the wind on this side to-day may to-morrow wave them on the other: and here ends the chapter of my varieties. – Night, indeed, brings variety amidst endless confusions! Broken sleep and apalling visions create debility of mind and body for the ensuing dawn! – It is but the fainting embers of my former animation that sometimes gleam upon the darkness of my soul. And, even now, now, while I acknowledge and reprobate my folly, I could return to the horrors of apprehension, could run through volumes of dire presages affirming while I disbelieved, creating as if to be interwoven in my fate fantastic, shapeless evils from which my better reason would turn, and would pronounce the worthless offspring of misrepresentation and falsehood.

And why, Caroline, should I be thus? – there is the question, that, as often as I impose on myself, as often returns unanswered. – I knew Clement was to go; and I know he will come again. What is new in my destiny is delightful to remembrance: it is the sacred union plighted by our willing hearts in the sight of heaven, the confirmation the everlasting bond of affection, which renders every blessing of this life subordinate, from which no change of circumstance could release us, nor not even death itself shall cancel.

I heard Clement speak one day of some ceremonials which would be deemed necessary to the ratification of this covenant, when we should enter the world. – Methinks I shall be loath to submit to them. The vow of the heart is of sacred dignity. Forms and ceremonies seem too trifling for its nature. But of the customs of your world, Caroline, I am ignorant.

I write at intervals – a giddiness returns upon me continually, and air is the only remedy. The last time I quitted my pen, I was almost overpowered, and could proceed no further than the great hall door. I sat on the step and leaned my head against a pillar of the portico. – It was not swooning, for I knew I was there. – I felt the cold wind blow on my face, but my limbs had lost their faculty, and my eye-sight its power. – A chill oppressive gripe seemed to fasten on my heart. – My uncle happened to pass in from the park. – He spoke, but I could not reply. I waved my hand, which he took in his; but, while he pressed it, he reproved me in an ungentle manner, for sitting on the damp stone, and exposed to the raw air – Tears unbidden and almost unexcited, roll down my cheeks. He called Andrew; and I was borne in, and laid on a sopha in the breakfast parlour.

After I recovered, my uncle, with a kinder tone of voice, noticed an appearance of ill health in my looks, and enquired into the nature of my indisposition. – 'You are too much in the cold, child,' said he. – 'Go; I give you permission to sit with Mrs. Valmont. I will join you there presently.' I replied I was engaged in my most interesting employment, that of writing to you? – 'Ah! child!' said my uncle, 'how much do you stand indebted to my indulgence for that liberty? – I rely on your integrity that you do not in any one instance, Sibella, abuse my confidence.' – I was going to answer, and began with your name.

'I know,' said my uncle, 'what Miss Ashburn is very well! Your friendship to her was formed by accident, and without my concurrence; but I had never suffered it to continue, had I not found something to approve in Miss Ashburn. She has sensibility and affection; that is all you ought to learn. The rest is the sad licentiousness of her education. I could have made her a charming woman. And as it is, she has too much feeling, for the companion of women of fashion; and too little reserve, for the wife of a man of delicacy. I am giving orders to Ross, Sibella. He is sending a packet to Clement. Have you any remembrances for your friend and play-fellow?'

'Such, Sir, as most befits a wife to a husband.' Encouraged by the complacency of his eye, I threw myself at his feet; and assuredly reserve and concealment would in that moment have vanished, had not Mr. Valmont placed his hand on my mouth. 'Hush, hush, child! – You know I will be obeyed. – Happiness ceases to be a blessing, if disappointment does not precede, to stamp its value. Go, Sibella. Your fate in the husband I ordain for you may not be as desperate as you, at present, perhaps, imagine.'

Repeat this to Clement, Caroline, a thousand times. Let him fix his comment, and then judge of the throbbing expectation of my heart by his own.

How insensibly my pen glides into this dear engrossing subject! I began this letter almost for the sole purpose of telling you I am no longer a stranger to the 'wood-haunter,' as you call him; and I have travelled through these number of lines without his idea having recurred to my memory.

From the night of the sigh and little ball, I sacrificed the first of my present enjoyments; and entered the wood no more. The opposite hill, from whence issues the parent spring of the lake, forms a shelter to the little park, a spot of ground left in its rude state to produce furze, &c. for the accommodation of our deer. Twice a day, for Nina's sake, I ascended the hill. Sometimes she appeared instantly, from the little park. – Oftner, after I had called loud, and long, she would come panting from the wood. But our meetings were less congenial than at the foot of our oak. – Nina would bound that way, suddenly stop, and look wistfully from me to the wood, thus as it were conjuring my return to that beloved spot where she used to share her fond caresses between Clement and myself, and spring from one embrace to be received in the other.

One afternoon Nina appeared on my first call; and, as I stooped to embrace her, I observed a folded paper tied to the plate of her collar. It contained only, 'your wood is free: farewel for ever.'

That Nina should become such a messenger must be, I concluded, by the order of Mr. Valmont, and the contrivance of a servant; for you, Caroline, experienced how inflexibly averse Nina is to strangers. Even to the domestics of the castle I never saw her more complacent. I felt grateful for the tidings; though I smiled to think my uncle should thus continually strive to perplex and mislead my imagination.

It was now near the close of evening. – Gathering clouds and fierce gusts of wind foretold a tempest. Instead of going to the wood, I returned to the castle; and scarcely was I housed, when the storm burst in its most tremendous violence.

You remember the apartment where my portrait hangs; and you have remarked the attractions of that picture for me. As the work of Clement, it is rather his image than my own. There I can vent the swelling sentiment of my heart, and find an auditor more interested than the dispersing winds. To this room and picture I resorted in the dead of that night, to harmonize my feelings and collect my thoughts, alarmed and scattered by a twice repeated dream full of terror and dismay.

There I met a stranger. I looked on him intensely; for I sought to discover the likeness of the spirit, whom you describe, I sought to recollect the features I had seen in the wood, and armoury: height and form agreed with your description, and my remembrance; but the countenance of this young man was devoid of softness and I thought possessed little interest. He had vivacious dark eyes, dark hair, and a full decided bloom. The impression of former circumstances was still powerful in my mind; I remembered the paper I had found on Nina's collar; and I concluded that this person could be no other than Mr. Valmont's chosen. I addressed him accordingly. I spoke of the weakness of his endeavours. I defied his utmost power. Twice the stranger bowed in silence; but he never attempted to answer me.

Early the succeeding morning, I decided on going to the wood. Should it be free – what a pleasure! Should the stranger be there – I had only to repeat, in a fuller manner, the sense of my last night's words and quit him.

Oh, Caroline, had you ever loved! – but love itself without separation could not have taught you the omnipotent value a lover's heart affixes to time, place, and memory! Who, in revisiting the hallowed ground of affection, can describe that slow eagerness of step, that still tumult of delight, which restrains while it impels, purchasing delay? – If these are not the happiest moments of life, at least, they are most worthy living for. The soul expands into a new existence. The body's encumbering mass seems no longer her organ.

Even now, Caroline, the charm returns, infusing itself through every vein, sending life's best blood in thrills to the heart, enkindling pleasure into agony!

I cannot proceed. – Will not Clement write me one line? – Another letter shall inform you, in what manner I discovered him; for the personated hermit is your Mr. Murden.

SIBELLA