Kitabı oku: «Secresy; or, Ruin on the Rock», sayfa 18

TO GEORGE VALMONT ESQ

Sir,

The charge you are pleased to make against me reflects infinitely more disgrace on yourself by its injustice than on me. Such an imputation deserves nothing but scorn, yet I will answer it so far as to say that neither my son, nor any person breathing has received from me the smallest intimation of Miss Valmont's fortune. My son never was in Valmont castle under any other name than that of Lord Filmar, where his behaviour kept pace with the dignity of his name, which will never suffer him to intrude himself or his alliance where it will not be rather courted than accepted.

I am quite as desirous as you, Sir, can be of dropping the acquaintance; and till the time you mention I shall (as I have ever done) sacredly guard my trust – wishing you may do the same, I remain, Sir,

Your humble servant,

ELSINGS

Didst thou never, dear Walter, see two curs pop unexpectedly on one another within a yard and half of a bone? – Er-er-rar – says one, softly setting down his lifted fore foot. – Er-er-rar, replies t'other; and each clapping his cowardly tail between his legs slinks backward a little way; then ventures to turn round, and scampers off like a hero. – If thou has wit to find the moral, thou mayst also apply it. – As for me, having reached the top round of my information, I beg leave to resign you to your cogitations and am as I am.

FILMAR

P.S. She is a girl of spirit! And, on my soul, 'tis infamous she should be thus treated! – Had the Earl a grain of kindness, he would rescue her; but no; he asserts he cannot possibly think of interfering. In two years, she will be of age; and then, if she should demand his protection, it will be a different matter. – Ah! – but I won't say what. – You are to know, Boyer, that Griffiths has accidentally met his dear friend the butler. It was she herself spoke to her uncle of having seen a stranger; and what she further told him (which the butler does not know) irritated him to strike her. – Instantly, she rushed from his presence into the park; but, finding herself pursued, changed her direction which was toward her favourite wood, and flew to the other side of the park, where the wall not being very perfect she climbed it rapidly, and in sight of her pursuers threw herself headlong into the moat. She was taken up unhurt; and is locked within her own apartments. Either from disappointment, terror, or real indisposition, she confines herself to her bed, and preserves a perfect silence whenever Andrew or her female domestic approaches. Mr. Valmont has not seen her since. The prevaricating confusion of some of the servants made Mr. Valmont suspect them of being bribed to admit a stranger; but the butler, being quite positive no one living soul more than he knows of has been within the walls, he and others think Miss Valmont has seen the spirit again and is disordered in her intellects.

I am completely puzzled. – That hermit! – Miss Monckton has seen Montgomery, and calls him a fine elegant fellow, who makes love to every pretty woman he meets. If that's his forte, he would scarcely be content to creep like a snail out of his shell for a few stolen moments at midnight. – But what has set me to doubt and conjecture is, that Griffiths has heard of a very handsome man who lodges at a farm hard by, and wanders about the country night and day. The people say it is a pity such a sweet gentleman should go mad for love. Yet is it possible any one should know so well how to enter and escape, but those who had lived in the secrets of the castle? – Psha! —

In ten hours after you receive this letter, I hope to sup in your new lodgings.

LETTER VIII
FROM GEORGE VALMONT TO CLEMENT MONTGOMERY

What does this mean, Clement Montgomery? Sibella talks of a marriage with you. – Have you dared, Sir, to form a marriage without my concurrence? I should dispute the possibility; but I find, from the avarice and ignorance of the wretches; in my household, people have been admitted for one purpose, and perhaps others may have been admitted for another purpose. I command you instantly to tell me how far you have proceeded, Sir, against the obedience due to

G. VALMONT

LETTER IX
FROM CLEMENT MONTGOMERY TO GEORGE VALMONT

Dear Sir,

An attempt would be vain to express my astonishment at the contents of your last favour, or my concern at your supposing me guilty of so flagrant a commission of ingratitude to him, who has been my more than father.

Miss Valmont's mode of expression is strong and vehement. She may call the early union of our affections a marriage, for I know of none other. – No, Sir; however my wishes might urge me forward, however painful the struggle might be and was betwixt my love of her and my duty to you, I sacrificed my hopes in my obedience.

I flatter myself you will rely on this assurance, and consider the assertions of your lovely niece as romantic as they really are.

My time, Sir, had not probably been spent to as much advantage as it might have been, but I dare venture to pronounce it not totally thrown away. It is true, I have not yet attached myself to any particular profession, although you may expect I should tell you of my progress therein; but, without a guide or director, I feared rashly to engage lest I should afterwards discover my abilities unfitted to the part I had chosen. A general knowledge of the nature and professors of each, previously gained according to your advice, I deemed might hereafter save me the time at present expended. Thus have I been employed, Sir; and thus I plead my excuse for not having written to you sooner.

May I not presume to expect a continuance of your favours whilst I continue to deserve them? – I beg my dutiful respects to Mrs. Valmont; and, as my sister, I hope I may offer my best wishes to Sibella.

To you, Sir, I shall ever remain the most grateful and respectful of your servants.

CLEMENT MONTGOMERY

LETTER X
FROM CAROLINE ASHBURN TO ARTHUR MURDEN

Yes, rash and inconsiderate young man, I do accept your confidence, your offered friendship; but remember I cannot profess myself the friend of any one, to gloss over follies or vices. A friend, not blindly partial, but active to amend you, is the friend you must at once receive or at once reject in me.

I have heard myself called pedantic, inflexible, opinionated; I have been told, by some gentler people, that I am severe, misjudging, giving to those little foibles almost inseparable from human nature the name of vice, and this may be true; for you call yourself a foolish man – I call you vicious. – Nay start not, Murden; but lay your hand on your heart, and tell me, if you have well employed your time and talents? If you have done service to human kind, or if you have not in fraud and secresy bubbled away your happiness? and if it is the part of a virtuous man to sigh with black misanthropy in solitude a few passive years, and then lie down in the grave unblessing and unblessed?

Yet I do pity you, for I have neither a hard nor a cold heart, nor a heart that dare receive a sensation it will not for your example dare to acknowledge. – Yes, I confess I have loved you! yet, because I could not possess myself of the strong holds in your heart, shall I sink down and die? – No! no! – I bade the vague hope begone. – I refused to be the worst of slaves, the slave of self; and now, my friend, more worthy than ever of your friendship, I am ready to do any thing in your behalf that reason can approve.

That service is to gain Sibella for you. Again you retreat. – Your false delicacy and false refinement fly to guard you with their sevenfold shield from the attack. – But hear me, Murden: – I would not unite you as you are to the Sibella Valmont whom you have loved with all the fervour the most impassioned language can describe, the erring Sibella while she sees neither spot nor stain in him with whom she has pledged herself in union: – No! I would first subdue the fermentation of your senses, teach you to esteem Sibella's worth, pity her errors, and love her with infinite sincerity, but not so as to absorb your active virtues, to transform you from a man into a baby. – You are but two beings in the great brotherhood of mankind, and what right have you to separate your benevolence from your fellow-creatures and make a world between you, when you cannot separate your wants also? – You must be dependent for your blessings on the great mass of mankind, as they in part also depend on you. – When you can thus love, I would unite you to Sibella, who in turn shall be roused from the present mistaken zeal of her affections. Her soul will renounce the union her mistakes have formed, when she knows Clement as unworthy of her as he really is. From a struggle perhaps worse than death, she will rise dignified into superior happiness: – Claim you as her friend, her monitor, her guide; and devote her life, her love to your virtues!

O yes, I know it well! – your imagination teems with the rhapsodies of passion! – I hear your high-wrought declamation, the dictates of a fevered fancy. I do pity you, Murden, from my soul; and if I did not believe you able to overcome all the misery you deplore I should not pity you at all.

I can scarcely picture to myself a life more negative, less energetic, notwithstanding your fervor, than that you would have led with Sibella had fortune placed you in the situation Clement stood with her. Do not let your burning brain consume you at the supposition; for, highly gifted as you both are, mind cannot always feel in that extreme: – the tight drawn wire must either snap or slacken. – Too happy, banished in rapture, age would have come upon you without preparation for its arrival, without proper nourishment for its abode. In vain you then turn to each other for consolation. – The spell that guarded you from every intruding care is broken: and you have lessons, wearisome tasks to learn, which would only have been pleasant relaxations intermixed with the abounding delights of youth.

You are both at present the victims of erroneous educations, but your artificial refinements being so admirably checked in their growth, now I know not two people upon earth so calculated, so fitted for each other as Murden and Sibella. – My resolution envigorates with the prospect! – Be ye but what ye may, and the first vaunted pair of paradise were not more happy! I perceive not only the value of the work I undertake, but the labour also; nor am I deterred by the firmness wherewith you hold your resolutions, not by the tedious scarcely perceptible degrees with which I must sap the foundation of Sibella's error. – Ah, Murden, I suspect, had she possessed equal advantages with yourself, she would have soared far beyond what you are as yet!

By her last letter, I find she discovers a deficiency in Clement's conduct which she struggles to hide from her own penetration. – He is my best auxiliary. I once thought him only a negative character, drawn this way or that by a thread. Now, I see he has an incessant restlessness after pomp and pleasure which nothing can subdue, and to which every thing must yield: Sibella in her turn – indeed, half her hold at least is gone already. – If he speaks of her now to me, she is not as before – his adored – an angel – superior to every thing in heaven or on earth – but one lady has an eye almost as intelligent as Sibella's – another, a bloom of complexion scarcely less exquisite – and a third, in form in graces moves a counterpart goddess! – As you say, there is a vehemency and energy in his expressions, that, in the general apprehension, cloathe him with attributes which never did and never can belong to him. It is but very rarely that I partake of his effusions, for I am not to his taste. My mother is his confidante; and she is quite fascinated with the descriptions of his love. When he was first introduced to us, I thought it necessary, for a reason you perhaps divine, to mention the mutual attachment subsisting between Clement and Sibella. – Mrs. Ashburn declared she would take his constancy under her protection: yes, she would guard him from folly and temptation.

Alas, Murden, I am sick of the scenes that surround me! formerly, we were moderate and retired to what we are now. Our house is the palace of luxury. Every varying effort of novelty is exerted to fill the vacant mind with pleasure. Useless are my remonstrances. Eastern magnificence and eastern voluptuousness here hold their court, and my mother, borrowing from her splendor every other pretension to charm, plunges deeper and deeper in the vortex of vanity. Fain would I leave it all, but I dare not proscribe my little power of doing good. – Come then, my friends, you who have already taken your station in my heart! – Murden and Sibella – live for each other – live that I may sometimes quit the drudgery of dissipation to participate of happiness with you!

If it really was Mr. Valmont's design (which I very much doubt) to give Clement up to a profession, nothing could be more unfortunate than his introduction here – where, with his natural inclination to do the same, he sees wealth lavished without check or restraint. So highly does he stand in my mother's opinion for taste, and so animated are his bursts of applause, that no overstrained variety is received or rejected without his sanction. – To be the confidante of a heart is a novelty with Mrs. Ashburn, who has had little concern in affairs of the heart; and perhaps to preserve him from sacrificing in her presence to the vanity of others may be her motive for encouraging him to speak of his passion for Sibella. – I have watched him narrowly; and, if he has any lurking wishes here, I am persuaded they fix on Mademoiselle Laundy.

I believe you never saw this companion of Mrs. Ashburn. She, or I greatly mistake, has of all persons I know most command over herself.

I had almost forgotten to tell you that Clement read me a few concluding lines of your last letter to him. What a decided melancholy have you displayed therein! – No, my dear friend, you must not, shall not die. – Clement was considerably affected by the representation of your feelings; yet he said you had used him ill in the foregoing part, and he believed he should never write to you again. – I find he has no suspicions of you; and I leave you to tell him at your own time, and in your own way.

Still I say nothing of Sibella's present distress, you cry. I have had no information of it, except from yourself. I have written again to Sibella, and look for an answer daily with respect to her fortune, I think it probable that she should be her father's heir; but of that we can judge better when we hear what her uncle says to the charge. Alas, I know Mr. Valmont is vindictive, proud, and impatient of contradiction. – She resolute, daring to do aught she dare approve. – He might strike her. – As to suicide, I know her better: it would be as remote from her thoughts, under any suffering, as light from darkness. Oh, Murden, she is indeed a glorious girl! Mr. Valmont promised me an unrestrained correspondence with Sibella; and, while he is satisfied in the exercise of his own power over her person, he will as usual suffer her to communicate to me the crowd of welcome and unwelcome strangers passing to and fro in her mind.

I need scarcely assure you that, whatever intelligence I receive, you shall share the communication. – Remain at Barlowe Hall; for, though your uncle is very desirous that you should come to London, I am certain, in your present frame of mind, you would find yourself still more removed from ease in the society which Sir Thomas would provide for you than in solitude. – I should be sorry to depend for my happiness on that heart which could invite pleasure and gaiety to quell those griefs it could not banish by reason and reflection. Nor have I, Murden, so supreme an idea of your prudence, as not to foresee the birth of a new folly, should Montgomery and you meet each other.

Farewel! and may the blessing you bestowed on me rest also with yourself.

CAROLINE ASHBURN

LETTER XI
FROM LORD FILMAR TO JANETTA LAUNDY

In apartments opposite to Sir Walter Boyer's, there lives an Adonis. – A Paris, rather, to whose wishes Venus sends a beauteous Helen. Janetta, thou understandest me. – A chair – Twilight – . As tradition tells us that the famed city was burned, and the famed family is I suppose extinct, I want to know from what Troy this Paris came, and what Priam was his father.

Thine, whilst I had love and money,

FILMAR

LETTER XII
ANSWER

My Lord,

Janetta does not understand you, and yet in another sense she understands you but too well. Once I thought you all tenderness, and generosity, but now you can both neglect and insult one whose love of you was her undoing. I neither know Sir Walter Boyer, nor any one who lives opposite to him, nor can in the least imagine what you would insinuate by twilight and a chair. If your recollection of former fondness does not incline you to treat me with more respect, at least her sad change of situation might preserve from your contempt, the unfortunate

JANETTA LAUNDY

LETTER XIII
FROM LORD FILMAR TO JANETTA LAUNDY

Undone! no charmer! Carry that face to the looking-glass, and ask if any thing but age or small-pox could undo thee! If thy mirror does not say enough to thy satisfaction, consult Montgomery. – Ha! have I caught thee? It was no stroke of Machiavelian policy amidst all thy profundity of practice, that the lodging opposite Sir Walter Boyer's should be so suddenly vacated.

But child, I do hold all my former fondness in my mind's eye; and thou art very ungrateful to refuse one little favour to him who has bestowed on thee so many. Can I more evince my respect of thy situation than by refraining to interrupt its harmony by my presence? What but respect, thinkest thou, made me order the horses back to the stable, when I had them ready harnessed to come and throw myself at thy feet for the little boon of information thou hast refused my letter.

I applaud Helen's taste. The Paris of old was a Jew pedlar to the present Paris of – street. Grace was in all her steps. Need I ask information of my eyes when my throbbing heart could tell me? – Oh yes, I should know my Helen's mien from a thousand.

I tell you, his name's Montgomery. Now you must tell me, if 'tis Montgomery of Valmont castle. If it is, you are directly to introduce me to him. – Remember, Janetta, in this I am serious; – remember also I am —an old acquaintance– now I hope you understand me.

FILMAR

LETTER XIV
FROM JANETTA LAUNDY TO LORD FILMAR

My Lord,

I did suppose, on the receipt of your first letter, that you alluded to my calling one evening on Mr. Montgomery; and had I not been withheld by the unwillingness I felt to disclose the secrets of another person I should certainly then have acknowledged that I paid a visit to Mr. Montgomery. But, my Lord, you compel me notwithstanding my extreme reluctance to make this confession; at the same time I must, to prevent your surmises injurious to myself, own to you that I called on Mr. Montgomery the evening you named by the order of Mrs. Ashburn whose very particular friend he is. The commission, my Lord, respected some business of a private nature; therefore you will perceive how necessary it is that you should keep secret your knowledge of this transaction. There is scarce any thing which Mrs. Ashburn would not sooner pardon in me than this breach of confidence.

With respect to my introducing you, my Lord, to Mr. Montgomery, a moment's consideration will convince you of its impropriety. In the unhappy and dependent situation which the misfortunes heaped upon my family have compelled me to seek, it is not the least of its afflicting circumstances that I am obliged to shape all my actions to the will or opinions of those by whom I am surrounded. That I should so suddenly claim an intimacy with a person of Lord Filmar's youth, graces, and accomplishments might appear suspicious to Mrs. Ashburn; beside, my Lord, how do you suppose I am to conduct myself in your presence? for, although you may have forgotten the time when you could not approach me without trembling, I can neither cease to remember nor cease to feel.

It is not possible for me to divine why you should insist so vehemently on my bringing you acquainted with Mr. Montgomery; nor is it easy to decline any request however hazardous the grant, when it is urged by one who has such claims, although now neglected, as you have, my Lord, on me. I have studied in what way, with any probability of safety to myself, I can gratify your wish; and find no other than your renewing your acquaintance with the Dutchess de N – , who is also at this time in London. Mr. Montgomery visits there frequently.

I think, my Lord, I need hardly remind you of the caution you ought to use, if by any accident it appears that we are acquainted. Mr. Montgomery was in Paris a short time after you left it. He was, like you, intimate with my father; but he did not, gain the devoted heart of the daughter. To wound my reputation now would be barbarity. Were you by any hint or jest to create a surmise in the breast of Mr. Montgomery, it would instantly be conveyed by him to Mrs. Ashburn; and my ruin would be certain. I intreat you will think of this with attention; and you would be well convinced of the attention it demands, could you know how scrupulously observant Mrs. Ashburn is of my conduct.

JANETTA LAUNDY