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SECRESY

Or

The Ruin on the Rock

by

ELIZA FENWICK

    Disguise! I see thou art a Wickedness,
    Wherein the pregnant Enemy does much.

                              _Shakespeare_

CONTENTS

    Dedication               xi

    Volume I                  1

    Volume II                91

    Volume III              177

TO

ELIZA B----

What does the world care about either you or me? Nothing. But we care
for each other, and I grasp at every opportunity of telling it. A
letter, they may say, would do as well for that purpose as a dedication.
I say no; for a letter is a sort of corruptible substance, and these
volumes _may_ be IMMORTAL. Beside, it is perhaps my pride to write a
dedication and your pride to receive one. I desire the world then to let
it pass; for, to tell them a truth--you have paid me for it
before-hand.

VOLUME I

LETTER I

FROM CAROLINE ASHBURN

TO

THE HONOURABLE GEORGE VALMONT

SIR,

I am by no means indifferent as to the opinion you may form of me, in
consequence of my abrupt, and, in a degree, rude conduct, when you so
peremptorily denied the boon I would have begged on quitting your
castle. If the reasons which guided your refusal were such as fully
satisfied yourself, however incompetent they might be in my judgment, I
was wrong in being offended, and in showing my resentment by something
like invective. Ere we had travelled two miles I became sensible of my
pride and injustice; and it is from our first resting place I thus
present myself to acknowledge my fault, to ask other favors, and to tell
you that I have no pleasure in view equal to that I expected to enjoy in
the society of Miss Valmont.

But though you denied me the charm of associating with your niece, you
will not also refuse me her correspondence? A letter, Sir, cannot waft
down your draw-bridges; the spirit of my affection breathed therein
cannot disenchant her from the all-powerful spell of your authority. No.
And you surely will not forbid an indulgence so endearing to us, while
unimportant to yourself. Already I feel assured of your consent; and,
with my thanks, dismiss the subject.

As your seclusion of Miss Valmont from the world is not a plan of
yesterday, I imagine you are persuaded of its value and propriety, and I
therefore see nothing which should deter me from indulging the strong
propensity I feel to enquire into the nature of your system; a system so
opposite to the general practice of mankind, and which I am inclined to
think is not as perfect as you are willing to suppose. Remembering your
contempt of the female character, I am aware that you may possibly
treat this part of my letter only with neglect or disdain. Gladly would
I devise a means by which to induce you to lay aside this prejudice
against us, and in the language of reason, as from one being to another,
discuss with me the merits or defects of your plan; which from its
singularity, on the first view, excited my curiosity; and has since,
from my observation of some of its consequences, interested me by
worthier feelings than that of mere curiosity. If Miss Valmont's
education, treatment, and utter seclusion were most valuable for her,
why should she, yet so young, and removed from the common misfortunes of
life, why should she be unhappy. You, Sir, may not have perceived this
effect of your system; for, although shut within the same boundary and
resident under one roof, you seldom see her, and when you do see, you do
not study her. I believe I know more of her mental temperament in our
seven days intercourse than you have learned in seven years, and I
affirm that she is unhappy. Yet it is only from her sudden wanderings in
conversation, and that apparent restlessness of dissatisfaction in her,
which seeks change of place because of all places alike are irksome,
that I ground my opinion, for having flattered myself that you would
permit her to accompany me from your castle, I passed the days of my
abode there, in closely observing Miss Valmont, rather than in
endeavouring to gain her entire confidence; and have perhaps made but
little progress toward obtaining a friendship, to which my heart aspires
with zeal and affection.

In the hope of a speedy and candid answer from you,

I remain, Sir,

Your well wisher,

And humble servant,

CAROLINE ASHBURN

LETTER II

FROM SIBELLA VALMONT

TO

CAROLINE ASHBURN

I am come from Mr. Valmont's study.--Can it be?--Oh yes! I am come from
Mr. Valmont's presence, to write a letter--a letter to you!--Ah, Miss
Ashburn!--to write a letter to you by my uncle's----Can command ever be
indulgence?--No, no. I will not believe that:--No, not even would I
believe it, though, when my heart expands with swelling emotion, he were
then also to command me to----. Miss Ashburn, the command of Mr. Valmont
in this, as in all other instances, is stern and repulsive, but, as his
commands are odious to my acceptation, so, in equal degree, is the
action of writing a letter to you grateful, delightful, overwhelming!

How came it?--How have you prevailed?--Oh teach me your art to soften
his power, to unloose the grasp of his authority, and I will love you
as----I believe I cannot love you better than I do; for have you not
cast a ray of cheering light upon my dungeon?--Have you not bestowed
upon me the only charm of existence that I have known for many and many
a tedious day?

But why did you do so? Do you love me as I love you? You never told me
so. Seven days and seven nights you lived in our castle; and you walked
with me by day, you wandered with me by night. I talked to you almost
without ceasing.--You spoke infinitely less than I did.--You pressed my
hand as it held yours: but you never said, _I love you!--I love you,
Sibella, with all my soul._--Nor did you ever quit your rest, amidst the
darkness of the night, to hover near my chamber, as I have done near
yours.--Yes, Miss Ashburn, when at night you had retired from me, I
beheld only solitude and imprisonment; and I have waited hours in that
forlorn gallery, that I might catch the whisper of your breathings,
that the consciousness of being near a friend might restore me to hope,
to hilarity, to confidence.

Yet now I recollect it, and you do love me; for you asked the imperious,
the denying Mr. Valmont, to let you take me from the castle. Oh, you did
urge--you did intreat.--You do love me.--I am writing a letter to you;
and perhaps, one day, I shall have all my happiness.

I wish Mr. Valmont would show me the letter you wrote to him. He has
charged me to answer it, and I have been obliged to walk a great while,
and to think a great deal, before I could remember a word of what he
said I was to repeat to you; and now I do not think I recollect the
whole. I would return to his study and ask him to tell it me again; but
he has an aversion to trouble, and perhaps, irritated by my
forgetfulness, might say, I should not write to you at all.--Ah, if he
were to say that, Miss Ashburn, and if it were possible for me to send a
letter out of the castle in defiance of his commands, do you think I
would obey him?--No, no.

Andrew came to me in the wood, to bid me attend my uncle in his library;
and I went thither immediately. He was but just risen; and a letter,
which I suppose was your letter, and which must have arrived yesterday,
was laying open on the table beside him; and when he spoke to me he laid
his right hand upon the letter.

'Numberless are the hours, child,' Mr. Valmont said to me soon after I
entered, 'that I have employed in pondering on your welfare:--yet you
are not the docile and grateful creature I expected to find you.'

'Sir,' I said, 'if in all those hours of pondering you never thought of
the only means by which my welfare can be effected, am I therefore
forbidden to be happy?--Am I to be unhappy, because I and not you
discovered how I might be very, very happy?'

Mr. Valmont raised himself more erect on his chair; and he frowned too.
'Always reasoning,' he said: 'I tell you, child, you cannot, you shall
not reason. Repine in secret as much as you please, but no reasonings.
No matter how sullen the submission, if it is submission.'

I replied, 'I do not think as you do.'

'Child, you are not born to think; you were not made to think.' He
turned the letter on the table, as he spoke, and took a leaning
attitude.

'But I cannot----.'

'Silence, Sibella!' cried my uncle. He fiercely recovered his upright
posture; and then, for I was effectually silenced, he gradually and
slowly fell back into his reclining station. Indeed, Miss Ashburn, I am
in some instances still a mere child, as Mr. Valmont calls me; and yet,
I wish you would account for it, for I do not know how, I feel every day
bolder and bolder. I can speak to him when I first meet him, as calmly
as I can to Andrew; and I can oppose him a little. And when I have not
opposed him as much as I wish to do, and have ran away from the fight of
his face, and the sound of his voice, I take myself to talk, and say,
foolish Sibella! Can a frown kill you?--Can your uncle, though he should
be tenfold angry with you, do more to you than he has already done? And,
when my throbbing heart denies the possibility of that, I resolve the
next time to tell him every thing I feel: and then I wait, and long, and
wish that the next time would arrive. When it does arrive, I begin
without fear; or, at least, I have only a weak trembling, which I should
soon lose, if he did not call up one of those frowns which infallibly
condemn me to silence and to terror. But I know, and he knows too if he
would but own it, that I do think; that I was born to think:--and I will
think.

Oh dear, dear Miss Ashburn, I am writing a letter to you! And what was
it but my power of thought, which gave birth to that affection which
would impel me on with a rapidity that my pen cannot follow? It seems to
me that my thought dictates volumes in an instant; and that, in an
instant, I have said volumes. Yet I have only a few pages of paper under
my eye and my hand. If Mr. Valmont tells me, I cannot cut the air with
wings, I will answer--'Tis true: but in imagination, I can encompass the
vast globe in a second. Hail thought! Thought the soul of
existence!--Not think!--why do not all forms in which the pulse of life
vibrates, possess the power of thought?--Have I not seen the worm,
crawling from his earthy bed to drink the new-fallen dew from the grass,
swiftly shrink back to his shelter, his attentive ear alarmed by my
approach?--The very insect, while sporting in the rapture of a sun-beam
on my habit, is yet wary and vigilant, and will rather leave his
half-tasted enjoyment, if apprehension seize him, than hazard the
possibility of my inflicting injury upon him. And what but thought,
imperceptible yet mighty thought, could make a creature so infinitely
diminutive in its proportions, so apparently valueless in the creation,
shun the hand of power, and seek for itself sources of enjoyment?--I
could tell you, Miss Ashburn, how I have imagined I met sympathy and
reflection in that flower which enamoured of the sun mourns throughout
the term of his absence, droops on her stalk, and shuts her bosom to the
gloom and darkness which succeeds, nor bursts again into vigour and
beauty till cheered by his all inspiring return. It is not for you,
happy you, who live with liberty, live as free to indulge as to form
your wishes, I say it is not for you to find tongues in the wind. It is
for the imprisoned Sibella to feed on such illusions, to waft herself on
the pinions of fancy beyond Mr. Valmont's barriers, within which, for
the two last years, her fetters have been insupportable:--for two years,
except when she saw you, has she been joyless. I could talk of those two
years: but then I should want also to tell you, Miss Ashburn, of the
previous hours, the days, the months, the years that came, that smiled,
and passed away.

I wonder if I should tire you? Surely I think not: yet I have already
written much, and I have also my uncle's words to deliver.----Ah! to
quit such a theme for my uncle!

I told you, Mr. Valmont silenced me by his frowns. He was some time
silent himself. He took the letter from off the table, and appeared to
read parts of it at length he said, 'Miss Ashburn has very properly
apologized for her behaviour to me the morning she went hence.
Doubtless, child, you also were much disappointed, that I did not
consent to your going with her and her mother.'

'No, sir.'

'No!' my uncle said, seemingly surprised; 'and why not?'

'Because I did not expect you would suffer me to go.'

'Methinks it was a mighty natural expectation.' My uncle looked angry.
He presently added. 'Did you wish to go with them, child?'

'O yes, sir, I did indeed wish!'

'It was natural enough, Sibella, that you should wish for such an
indulgence;' and he said this very mildly: 'but I alone am capable of
judging of its propriety. Miss Ashburn, I believe, has been little used
to disappointment. I pity her. Perhaps a miserable old age is in store
for her.'

'Impossible!' I exclaimed; but the exclamation was swift and low; and my
uncle, absorbed in contemplating his own designs, did not hear me.

And at last he told me, after many pauses, many slow speeches, that you
may write letters to me, and that I shall write letters to you.

I would have kissed him, for I had seized his hand, but his eye spoke no
encouragement; and I sat down again to glow, and to tremble.

Part of what followed has escaped me, as I feared it would. I remember
that my uncle said, 'Tell Miss Ashburn from me, Sibella, that, like all
other females, she has decided with more haste than judgment.'

Thus much for Mr. Valmont. And now for myself, Miss Ashburn;--no, dear
Caroline, adieu!

SIBELLA VALMONT

LETTER III

FROM CAROLINE ASHBURN

TO

SIBELLA VALMONT

Thankful to Mr. Valmont for his consent to my request, and more and more
endeared to you, my Sibella, by the joy with which you receive his
consent, I am impatient till I have explained the motives that withheld
me, while in the woods of Valmont, from saying--'_I love you:--I love
you, Sibella, with all my soul._' To have these motives fully understood
by you, it is necessary I should made a sketch of my education, the
incidents of my life, and their consequent effect upon my character. Yet
I know you will continue to read with avidity. Ask yourself if the ear
of affection is easily satiated with the communications of a friend, and
wonder that you should have repressed your wishes, when they incited you
to unfold to me, with minute attention, the feelings of your heart. The
breaks, the allusions in your letter, led me for a time into the
tormenting and silly practice of forming conjectures. Now I have ceased
to conjecture; but I have not ceased to be desirous of being admitted to
your utmost confidence, to the full participation of your remembrances,
whether of joy or of sorrow.

You have seen my mother, Sibella, but people of a superior class must
have superior forms; and the endearing name of mother is banished for
the cold title of ceremony. Mrs. Ashburn, as I am now tutored to call
her, was the very fashionable daughter of very fashionable parents, who
died when she had attained the age of twenty-three, and left her in
possession of the most aspiring longings after splendor and dissipation,
but destitute of every means for their gratification. Among the many
friends who came to pity or advise, one offered her his assistance. His
proposal was abrupt and disgusting, but there was no alternative. He
would equip her to go in search of a wealthy marriage among the
luxurious inhabitants of India; or, with her other professing friends,
he would leave her to the poverty which lay immediately before her. The
offer, after little deliberation, was accepted. Rather than be poor, she
humbled the pride of her birth and pretensions; she strengthened her
nerves for the voyage; and, having safely arrived in India, her
recommendations, but above all her personal charms, secured her the
addresses of Mr. Ashburn, who, though he was neither young nor
attractive, had gold and diamonds in abundance. A very short interval
elapsed between the commencement of their acquaintance with each other,
and the celebration of their marriage.

After my birth my father bowed to no other idol than me; for, although
my father had gained a very handsome wife, and my mother almost the
wealthiest of husbands, yet happiness was still at a distance from them.
Indolent in the extreme, he abhorred every species of pleasure which
required a portion of activity in its pursuit: he equally abhorred
solitude; and expected to find, in his wife, a lounging companion; a
partaker of his habits; something little differing from a mere
automaton. She, on the contrary, was laborious in the pursuits of
pleasure and dissipation. She had pride and spirit to maintain her
resolution of gratifying her own wishes. He was too idle to remonstrate:
and theirs was an union as widely removed from the interruptions of
bickerings and jealousies, as from the confidence, esteem, and
endearments of affection.

From me then my father expected to gain the satisfaction his marriage
had failed to afford; nor were his hopes better founded than heretofore.
Admired, adored by him, flattered by his slaves, incited by indulgencies
showered upon me without distinction to make demands the most
extravagant and unattainable, I oftener tormented my father by my
caprice than delighted him by my fondness. But still every species of
advice or of restraint was withheld; and I continued fruitful in
expedients for the exercise of my power, continued the discontented
slave of my own tyranny. Happily for me, I met with an adventure when I
was little more than thirteen years of age that wrought miracles upon
me.

Near to a seat of my father's, as near as the cottage of poverty dare
rise to the palace of opulence, lived the wife and family of a poor
industrious European. The blue eyes of one of their children had spoken
so submissively once or twice, as she viewed me passing, that I became
enamoured of her interesting countenance, and demanded to have her for
a playmate. Day after day Nancy came, and my fondness for her increased
daily. If the turbulence of my temper sometimes broke loose in the
course of our amusements, I afterward endeavoured, by increased efforts
of condescension, to relieve Nancy from the terror my pride or violence
had excited; and, to impress her with a strong sense of my attachment to
herself, in her presence I affected to be more than commonly overbearing
and insolent to those around us, while to her I was attentive and
obliging. At length I became resolved to have her wholly at my command;
and, without troubling myself to enquire whether or not my father would
object to my plan, I rose earlier than usual one morning, and dispatched
a messenger for Nancy; and, while he was absent, pleased myself with
anticipating what answers she would make, and what joy she would evince,
when I should tell her that henceforward she should live with me, and
should have as fine clothes, as fine apartments, and as many slaves to
obey her as I myself possessed. My messenger returned alone. He told me
Nancy was ill. What a disappointment! How insolent, methought, to be
ill, when I wanted her more than I had ever wanted her before. And so
much did she appear to merit my resentment, that I gave orders she
should be forbidden to see me again, and that all the valuable trinkets
I had heaped upon her should be taken from her by force, if she would
not yield them when demanded. But no sooner were the toys brought into
my presence than I relented, sent them back with many additions, and
wept while I delivered messages, intreating--that she would be well by
the next day. On the morrow, still no Nancy came; and I passed the day
in alternate paroxysms of rage and sorrow. The third morning I hastened
to the cottage; and the first object I beheld was Nancy blooming as
health could make her.

The insolence with which I reproached the mother of Nancy on this
occasion may be easily imagined; but I shall relate minutely to you,
Sibella, the good woman's answer; I have never forgotten it.

'Miss,' she said, 'I might as well have told the truth at once, for out
it must. Nancy is not sick in body, Miss; and if I can help it, she
shan't be sick in mind. Your papa is a great rich man, and you will be a
great rich lady. You, Miss, who are so high born and so rich, need not
care if people do hate you; but my Nancy is a poor child, and will never
have a penny that an't of her own earning--she never used to fleer, and
flout, and stamp at her little brothers and sisters, as she does since
she came to your house, Miss. And so, Miss, as she will never be able to
pay folks for saying she is good when she is bad, I, who am her mother,
must make her as good as I can. You may be good enough for a great lady;
but Nancy will never be a great lady; and, be as angry as you will,
Miss, indeed she can't come to your fine house any more.'

Yes, Sibella; she persisted, in defiance of my resentment and its
probable consequences, the worthy woman persisted in preserving her
child from the infectious example of my vices. Her lesson had awakened
in my mind a true sense of my situation; nor could anger or disdain once
force me from the painful conviction that people were hired and paid to
lavish on me their insincere encomiums. All the instances of attention
or kindness I could recollect I believed had been mine only because I
was rich and powerful. I imagined I saw lurking hatred and loathing in
every eye; and, though I ceased to command, I resented with an acrimony
almost past description every effort that was directed towards
increasing my pleasures or convenience. These ebulitions of a wounded
vanity insensibly wore away, while I considered how much of amendment
and happiness was yet in my power; and, at length, I began seriously to
remedy the defects which had made me unworthy to be the companion of
Nancy; but, ere I had courage to demand again the society of my little
friend, her parents had removed to a distant part of the country, and in
this instance frustrated the end of my labours. Yet the labour itself
had become delightful, and was amply rewarded by the satisfaction
betrayed in the eyes of my numerous attendants; but who, however, as I
was a great lady and a rich lady, durst not openly rejoice in my
amendment. I longed to hear them burst into praises. I almost sickened
for the accents of well-earned commendation; but shame of my former
unworthiness, and perhaps a remaining degree of pride, withheld me from
encouraging such an explanation: and they continued silently to receive
the benefits of my reformation.

And now, Sibella, I must bring you back again to my mother, with whom in
these years of childhood I have been but little acquainted. She hated
children; their noise and prattle and monkey tricks threw her into
hysterics. For a few minutes after dinner, I was sometimes admitted,
hushed to silence with a profusion of sweetmeats, and dismissed with a
kiss or a frown, just as the avocations and pleasures of the day
happened to fix her disposition. As I grew older, I was occasionally
allowed to sit in her dressing-room, or to take the air with her in the
same carriage; and on those occasions I reached the highest pinnacle of
her confidence, and used to listen while she poured forth her longing
desires to return to England. As I had been frequently disgusted at
witnessing the malignant feuds existing among the Europeans resident in
the East-Indies, it was easy for her to interest me in the first of her
wishes, namely, that my father would return to England. She spoke of
this island as of the abode of pleasure. She described an almost
innumerable circle of friends, amidst whose society delights would
abound. My imagination gave a stronger colouring to her pictures: I
indulged the visionary theme till I also panted to become an inhabitant
of this climate of peace, joy and felicity.

No sooner had I adopted the project than my father's lethargic indolence
gave way to his desire of gratifying my wishes. He vigorously completed
the necessary arrangement of his affairs; and we were in daily
expectation of quitting India, when he was attacked by the malignant
disease of which he died.

My mother was now the uncontrouled mistress of a world of wealth; and,
placing her remittances in a proper train, we speedily set sail for our
land of promise.

Safely arrived in London, I expected Mrs. Ashburn would instantly fly to
the embraces of her friends. But no: a sumptuous house and equipage were
first to be prepared; and, while she exulted in preparation, I repined
at her want of sympathy for the feelings of those who I imagined were
expecting her with fondness and impatience. Alas, Sibella, I had not
followed my mother three times into her circles of friendship, ere I
discovered that the enjoyments she had looked forward to, during so many
years, consisted only of triumphing with superiority of splendor over
those who formerly with the same motives had triumphed over her.

Here my enthusiasm in the search of sincere and uniform friendship would
have been extinguished; but that my hopes yet rested on Mrs. Valmont. Of
Mrs. Valmont my mother had spoken as playmate, schoolmate, and the
confidant of juvenile secrets. Separated, said I to myself, near twenty
years, what emotions must a first interview produce! The fire of youth
in Mrs. Valmont and Mrs. Ashburn will be, for some moments, renewed; and
I shall anticipate the effusions of my own heart when it finds a friend.

After exhibiting our pomp at every place of resort in the metropolis, we
began our tour; and passed by several invitations to pay our first visit
at Valmont castle. What a freezing sensation crept in my veins, as we
waited for the raising of your uncle's draw-bridges, as we rolled along
his dark avenues! Such gloom, such menacing grandeur brought into my
mind a feeling totally opposite to the hilarity, the glow of expectation
I had cherished on the journey. Many persons had spoken in my hearing of
Mr. Valmont as the most absurd ridiculous misanthrope of his age; but I
had not the highest respect for the authorities from which the
information was derived, and I had also conceived with much more fancy
than judgment of the delights of a life of solitude. I, in my dream, had
forgotten the name of Castle, and the ideas associating with the name;
my imagination in its reveries had blended elegance and simplicity,
nature and art with their most fascinating productions; when, instead of
smiling lawns and gay parterres, without, I found moats, walls, and
draw-bridges, frowning battlements that looked as uninviting on the
friend as threatening on the enemy, turrets all cheerless, all hostile,
and discouraging to the wandering stranger. The castle's Gothic
magnificence within reminded us at every step of the dignity of the
Valmont race; the apartments received their guests without welcome; the
domestics were obedient, but neither cheerful nor attentive. Through
carved saloons and arched galleries, into which the bright sun of spring
can only cast an oblique ray, we were conducted to Mrs. Valmont's
dressing-room.

My Sibella, can you not imagine, you hear your aunt mingling complaint
and compliment, languor and restlessness, and labouring to interest real
sensibility by moans of imaginary disease? Can you not imagine my mother
secretly urging her triumphs over the immured Mrs. Valmont, by lamenting
the slavery of pleasure to which she herself is perpetually compelled?
And can you not see your disappointed, disgusted Caroline Ashburn
viewing caresses without warmth, hearkening to professions without
sincerity?

Your uncle entered the room for a moment. Appearing to act, to speak, to
look according to some rule settled for the hour, I deemed his character
too much assumed to be quickly understood. From the solemn pride which
sat on his brow, I judged, however, that he was fitted for his castle,
and his castle fitted for him.

Here, thought I, in this place and with these people have we promised to
remain for seven long days; and I quitted Mrs. Valmont's dressing-room,
to search for amusement and variety in the park and surrounding woods.

I must have been devoid of taste and feeling, if in viewing the
exquisite scenery of the park, I had not forgotten the gloomy entrance
and the dreary building. I found a seat on the margin of that fine sheet
of water which is skirted by _your_ majestic wood; and I rested there
till twilight began to spread itself over the horizon. Who would not,
Sibella, although evening had cast its misty shade over the tall trees
and impressed an awful serenity on every surrounding object, who
would not, I say, like me have ventured into the wood rather than have
returned to Mr. and Mrs. Valmont and their castle. I found the paths so
admirably contrived in their breaks and windings, that I could not
forbid myself to proceed. Every now and then I had an imperfect view of
something dark, rugged, and mountainous. On a sudden, I caught a glimpse
of a rude pile of stones, seemingly carried to a tremendous height,
which as suddenly vanished from my sight, amidst the intercepting
branches; a few steps further, it was again before me as a wild ruin
tottering on the projecting point of a rock. Silence, solitude, the
twilight, the objects filled my mind with a species of melancholy. Fancy
had become more predominant than judgment. I slackened my pace: I
breathed heavily: when, suddenly turning into a new path that I expected
would bring me to the foot of the rock, I beheld a female form, clothed
in white, seated at the foot of a large oak. Her hair, unrestrained by
either hat or cap, entirely shaded her face as she bowed her head to
look on a little fawn, who in the attitude of confidence and affection
was laying across her lap.

The names of Wood Nymph, Dryad and Hymadriad, with a confused number of
images, arose in my memory; and I was on the point of reverently
retreating, but a moment's pause prevented the romance of the fence from
thus imposing on my reason, and I resolved to examine whether the face
like the form bespoke more of divinity than of mortal.

As I approached nearer, away bounded the fawn--up sprang the nymph.
Again, Sibella, I stood still, unknowing whether to fall at your feet or
to clasp you in my arms.

Such was our first romantic interview. There was something wild in your
air; your language was simple and concise, yet delivered with an
impressive eloquence, and I thought you altogether a phenomenon. My
heart could not help partaking the transport with which you received my
promise of staying with you in the wood. Yet it was to me
incomprehensible how you could talk so familiarly of roaming in woods at
night, without seeming to know any thing of the ideas of loneliness and
apprehension generally supposed to belong to such situations.

But my habits would not so suddenly yield to your's. You saw that the
damp and darkness affected me, and you instantly led the way to the
castle: but you became silent: you sighed: you walked at a greater
distance from me: and I began to fear lest you could only submit to be
pleased in your own way. The instant we entered the outer court of the
castle you seized my hand; and, having pressed it forcibly to your
bosom, you darted through a small side door in the building, and closed
it after you. I was going to follow--'This way, if you please, madam,'
said the servant who had been sent to search for me in the park. 'I will
accompany Miss Valmont,' said I. 'Miss Valmont does not see company,
madam,' replied the man, 'her uncle does not permit it.'

I suffered myself to be conducted to the supper room, where I related
the manner of our meeting, the information you had given me of your
relationship to Mr. Valmont; and finally I spoke of the singular way in
which you had quitted me, and expressed my surprise at not finding you
of the supper party.

Mrs. Valmont said, you were a strange unformed child. Mr. Valmont would
gladly have been silent; but, as I continually addressed myself to him,
he could not rid himself, without gross rudeness, of the necessity of
answering me. He spoke mysteriously of his systems, and his plans, of
his authority, his wisdom, and your dependence, of his right of choosing
for you, and your positive duty of obeying him without reserve or
discussion. At last, with tones and gestures, by which I was to
understand that he went to the extreme of condescension in my favour, he
consented that, provided no other company came to visit him in the time,
you should associate with us while we remained at Valmont castle.

Your very extraordinary seclusion and your extraordinary self, occupied
my mind during the greatest part of that night. I had found you highly
interesting; and I believed you to be infinitely amiable. I thought I
might embrace you as the first choice of my affections; but I doubted
whether you might not, if now exposed to the glitter of the world, lose
that vigour of feeling which in solitude made you appear so singular, so
attractive. I longed to make the experiment, for my hopes of you were
stronger than my fears; and, as I had so far prevailed on Mr. Valmont, I
flattered myself I should also prevail on him to suffer me to conduct
you from the castle. And these were the motives, this the expectation,
dearest Sibella, that withheld me from confessing in Valmont
woods--_that I loved you with all my soul_.

The seven days I remained at the castle I forbore, although with
difficulty, to ask you questions, that I might gradually develope your
character, as surrounding circumstances should operate on your
feelings. Sometimes, I saw you devoted to me; sometimes, I saw your
imagination soaring as it were beyond the bounds prescribed to your
person, in search of a remoter object. Why, dear Sibella, are you so
pensive? Why do you gaze on that portrait of yourself with so much
earnestness? And why do you caress that little fawn, who wears a collar
inscribed with the initials--C. M.--till your eyes fill with tears?

Let me be the partaker of your unrestrained emotions; while I, who have
a wider range of observation, will place my opinions before you without
check or limit. Our next resting place is to be the seat of a nabob: Sir
Thomas Barlowe's, amongst whose laboured pleasures I shall wish to
return to gloomy Valmont, where I found a felicity of which I have no
promise in the scenes I am now destined to partake. Adieu! adieu!

CAROLINE ASHBURN

LETTER IV

FROM SIBELLA VALMONT

TO

CAROLINE ASHBURN

Was I pensive, did I gaze, did I sigh, did I weep, when you Miss Ashburn
were with me--what do I know when I have only for companion the
faithful, the exquisite, but torturing representation of memory? Can I
do more than gaze, and sigh, and weep? O yes, I can: for, Miss Ashburn,
I can raise altars on a thousand spots in these woods, which were once
hallowed by the footsteps of him I love!

Two years have elapsed since he bade me farewel: therefore did you see
me pensive.

That picture of me was painted by himself: therefore do I gaze on it.

The fawn he took from a dying mother; by him she was nourished into
familiarity. Nina has ceased to mourn the absence of her benefactor; she
is satisfied with my caresses; but the heart of Sibella Valmont, nor
now, nor ever, can find any substitute for her Clement Montgomery.

I was nearly six years old when they told me that I had lost my father.
He had travelled a twelvemonth before to foreign countries, for the
benefit of his health; and I knew not that his death more than his
absence would deprive me of my happiness, till my uncle Valmont came and
carried me away in his coach from my governess, my maid, and all the
domestics who loved me and whom I loved, of my father's household.

Then, indeed, I mourned; and my uncle attempted to soothe me. He said, I
must be happy, for I was now dependent upon him; and it was my duty to
love him, obey him, and be satisfied. My swelling heart revolted against
being commanded to be happy; and I found not one person at the Castle
who could supply to me the want of my kind governess and kind maid,
except a little dog that on my first entrance had fawned on me as if he
wished to make me happier. Him I carried incessantly in my arms; and I
told him, whenever we were alone, how I longed to get back to my
father's house and to carry him along with me.

In a fortnight after I arrived at Valmont, the affectionate little
animal died; and I remained inconsolable. I was sitting weeping on the
hall steps when my uncle came to me. He wiped away my tears; bade me be
cheerful; and said he had procured me a better play-fellow than Fidelle.
My uncle led me with him into the library; and presented me to a boy
three years older than myself, blooming, blushing, beautiful. 'Clement
is my adopted son, Sibella,' said my uncle. He will henceforth live with
you in the castle. Take him out child; and show him where you find the
prettiest flowers and the ripest fruit.'

Ah! need I tell you how we advanced from shyness to familiarity, from
familiarity to kindness, from kindness to love, all powerful, all
potent! The castle then seemed no prison; the moat seemed no barrier.
Sometimes my uncle carried Clement abroad to visit him, but then I was
sure of his return. Even the hours of instruction I shared with him. He
had a good, an amiable tutor, who delighted in teaching to me also every
science he taught to Clement; and if Mr. Valmont frowned upon me or
checked my industry, Clement was still at my side and I smiled through
my tears.

Thus passed away the years from six till sixteen. On the day that I
became sixteen, we had run races with our little fawn; and, having
wearied ourselves with exertion, we had lain down to rest in each
other's arms, at the foot of that oak where you, Miss Ashburn, first
beheld me. My uncle broke our happy slumbers. He came to the oak; and
sternly commanded Clement to rise and follow him.

I followed too. My uncle sat down in his library; and appeared to
meditate; while we looked on each other with love and pity, and on him
we looked with suspicion and affright.

When my uncle began to speak, Clement trembled; but all my emotions were
chained up in astonishment: for I heard him say that Clement should that
day quit the castle, that he should seek new companions, new countries,
new climates.

'Never! never!' I cried. I folded my arms round my lover--'Thou shalt
not go, Clement,' I said. 'We have world enough. No: thou shalt not go,
my Clement!'

Mr. Valmont furiously bade me desist; but he had awakened a dread in my
mind more powerful than my dread of him. For a time, I expostulated with
vehemence and courage; but I could not repress my tears--and, while I
was compelled to listen to my uncle, his tone, his words impressed me
with my former awe of him and rendered my remonstrance timid and
useless.

To Clement he said, 'You are now to leave these boyish follies, and
learn the duties of a man. You shall mix with society; but remember that
you are not to be attracted by its specious appearances. Scrutinize into
its follies and enormities, as I have done; and let my precepts and
instructions be your guide and law. Remember, Clement, that I took you
from poverty and obscurity. Remember too that, on your duty and
gratitude depends your security. That child,' he pointed to me, 'mind
me, sir, that child is in future to be considered only as your sister.'

'As for you, Sibella,' he said to me, 'your duties in life are easily
performed. I have chosen a part for you: and nothing is required of you
but obedience. You have heard me declare to Clement, and I now repeat it
to you, that to Clement Montgomery you are to be no more than a sister.'
This day he quits us. When he shall return, I have not determined.'

Yes, Caroline, my Clement went. Two years has he roamed in a world which
I am forbidden to know. But, alike in viewing the palace or the cottage,
the burning mountain or the fertile plain, must the idea of Sibella
accompany him. Our minds, our principles, our affections are the same;
and, while I trace his never to be forgotten image within my breast, I
know how fondly he cherishes the remembrance of mine.

Caroline, adieu! I go to the oak. On that consecrated spot, mountains,
seas, continents dissolve, and my spirit unites with his!

SIBELLA VALMONT

LETTER V

FROM CAROLINE ASHBURN

TO

SIBELLA VALMONT

Yes, dearest Sibella, charming Sibella, in that one short but rapid
sentence, you have taught me to understand your progress, _from shyness
to familiarity, from familiarity to kindness, from kindness to love, all
powerful, all potent_. Oh! be that love happy in its continuance, as at
its commencement! Be it the pure garb of your Clement's soul, upon which
vice shall leave no spot nor wrinkle! Be it, as you say, That _your
hearts, your affections, your principles are the same_; and I would
trust this lover amidst allurements such as virtue held seldom rejected,
had seldom turned from without contamination.

Your uncle, my Sibella, I perceive, intended you for your lover, and
your lover for you. His project, then, was to place a second Adam and
Eve in the garden of Eden. Well, Sibella, innocence remains with you.
Your Eden will yet bloom; for, trust me, innocence and happiness cannot
long be separated.

Why will that uncle of your's so strenuously uphold his mysterious
reserve and silence? I long to ask him a million of questions; and he
knows that I do, and he wishes that I should. It is not because he is
altogether convinced of the wisdom and utility of his plans, that he
does plan; it is, that he will oppose himself to general customs and
general experience. It is singularity and not perfection that he is in
search of; and, since experience formerly taught him, that even the
renowned name of Valmont might mix undistinguished with a herd of less
illustrious names, he now bravely resolves to enforce the wonder of his
compeers, if he cannot claim their reverence.

Perhaps, with the flattering promises of success, he sometimes soothes
the rancour of his solitude. And occasionally, indeed, his existence is
remembered, and his whimsies are made the subject of ridicule, contempt,
and laughter; but some novel circumstance, such as the gay Mrs.
Ashburn's visit to his gloomy retirement, must call them into this
remembrance, or the name of Mr. Valmont would rest as undisturbed as
does, in every memory but his own, the deeds of his forefathers.

It is to my mother's excursion to Valmont castle, that I owe the
felicity of calling you my friend, it is to her escape from thence, as
she herself terms it, that I owe my knowledge of Mr. Valmont's history.
Surrounded, on her arrival at the house of Sir Thomas Barlowe, by a
crowd of visitors, as gay, profuse, and dissipated as herself, she
hastens to communicate her joy at the agreeable change, and to inveigh
against the morose Mr. Valmont and his insipid wife. A conversation
ensued of some length for such a subject, during which I discovered that
two of the party, the Earl of Ulson and Colonel Ridson were once the
intimate companions of Mr. Valmont. The former of these gentlemen
appeared eager to place his defects in the strongest point of view;
while the latter, with less zeal, to be sure, but with a sweetness of
temper infinitely endearing, was willing to smooth the rugged parts of
Mr. Valmont's character, and to place a vice behind the glare of a
virtue. By setting aside, to the best of my judgment, the Earl's
exaggerations, and making also some allowance for the palliative temper
of Colonel Ridson, I had succeeded in learning as much of Mr. Valmont's
history as enables me to form some, and I believe no inaccurate estimate
of his worth, abilities, and character.

Your grandfather, Sibella, a being quite as eccentric tho' less
whimsical than your uncle, lived in the castle you now inhabit. Nor
would he, of his own free will, have quitted that castle for heaven
itself. Every stone of the building that had kept its station in times
of turbulence and discord against the attack of an enemy was to him an
idol. If he was thoughtful, it was in recalling the great deeds of his
ancestors; if he was talkative, it was on the same theme; if he had
wishes, they were that he had lived in those glorious days when fighting
well was the most eminent of virtues, and a strong fortified castle and
obedient vassals the most valuable of possessions.

As is the established practice in families of such renown and dignity,
as that to which you, my friend, appertain, the first born son of your
grandfather was the only hope, the only joy, the only object of the
careful solitude of his anxious parents; while your father, coming into
the world two years after his brother, was adored, flattered and
spoiled by no creature but his nurse. Your uncle, I understand, received
a stately kind of education within the castle walls; and your father,
happier because of less consequence, passed his early years with other
young men of fashion at school and at college.

Mr. Valmont was not a whit behind his father in his veneration for high
birth, but he could not boast so unqualified a love of fruits of armour;
nor did he think that civil war was the only time when a man could
gather honours worthy of a distinguished name. No sooner was your uncle
emancipated from the fetters of his minority, than he resolved to repair
to court, where he expected to find only his equals, and those equals
alive to and exact in the observance of all that haughty decorum, which
Mr. Valmont deemed indispensably necessary to the well being of social
institutions. Poor man! he feels himself lost in the motley multitude,
sees his high-born pretensions to notice and deference pushed aside by
individuals obscure in their origin, but renowned for artful intrigues,
for bold perseverance, and dazzling success! Shocked at the
contaminating mixture, he had fled back with precipitancy to his castle,
but love detained him, for he had made an offering of his heart to a
woman of rank and fashion. Nothing could be more unfortunate than this
passion. Nothing further from congeniality than the minds and manners of
Lady Margaret B---- and Mr. Valmont: he, just risen, as it were, from
the tomb of his progenitors, loaded with the punctilio of the last age,
recoiling from the salute of every man who could not boast an
unblemished pedigree, and lastly, and most worthily, possessing refined
ideas of female delicacy, of honourable love, and of unchanging
fidelity; and she, on the contrary, a graceful coquette, without an atom
of real tenderness in her heart, and valuing her rank merely as it gave
her opportunities of extending her conquest. Lady Margaret B---- was
highly diverted with Mr. Valmont's formalities; and, in spite of the
torture her dissipated coquettish manners inflicted on him, she had
sufficient power to make him the most ardent of her lovers. In fine, she
rejected him, laughed at him, despised him.

I could not hear this anecdote, nor can I repeat it, without a sensation
of pain, so strongly do I enter into the irritable feelings of your
uncle, when, hitherto accustomed only to receive homage and obedience,
he is at once foiled in his ambition by low born courtiers, and betrayed
in his love by a high born jilt.

Mr. Valmont consulted no other guide than his passions; and instantly
drew an angry and false picture of mankind. With such people as I have
spoken of he could not associate; for their vices he abhorred; but his
mind had not fortitude enough, had not comprehension enough, to cast
aside his own prejudices; and, instead of attempting to reform mankind,
he retires to rail at them; and carries with him the pride, selfishness,
and love of power, in which all the vices of society originate.

Wrapped in the impenetrable selfishness of high birth, Mr. Valmont
denies the possibility of eminent virtue existing without rank. Who
shall presume to arraign his principles, to sit in judgment upon his
actions, to teach him his duty? I stand, cries Mr. Valmont, within the
sacred verge of nobility! Look on that coat of arms! I derive from the
Normans! Wisdom in rags--keep off!

True: his ancestors conquered, that he should be wise!--Oh, cede to him
the palm! Bind his brows with the laurel!

After a few months retirement, Mr. Valmont ventured once more into the
heterogeneous multitude, in search of a wife: for, I suspect he found
himself as ill qualified for solitude as society. Beside, he had formed
the virtuous project of instructing a new race, to put the old world out
of countenance.

I cannot but pause, to reflect upon your uncle's toils in search of his
help mate. He must have a wife, whose pedigree his future sons might
place beside his own; and he must have one, of a temperament and
character opposite to that of lady Margaret B----; and his good stars,
his ill stars, or whatever else you please, led him to the feet of Mrs.
Valmont.

It is true, your aunt was neither as coquettish nor had she the
sprightly wit nor the mischievous gaiety of lady Margaret, but she loved
crowds, detested solitude, and was a votary of dissipation; to convince
her how much he had studied her inclinations, and how much he meant to
gratify them, no sooner was Mr. Valmont in possession of his bride then
he snatched her from the scenes where her existence was alone valuable
to her, and buried her amidst obscurity and horror at Valmont castle.

What is the consequence? she had no mental accomplishments in reserve
for their mutual benefit and delight; nor had he mind enough to steal
fire from heaven and animate with life the marble. From the struggle of
tempers, and the warfare of words, she droops into an hypocondriac; he
degenerates into a cynic, proud of himself alone.

Among the disappointments produced by this marriage, the want of
children was the most offensive to Mr. Valmont. Your father, who had
pursued a course of life quite different from his brother, tasting all
the excesses of dissipation; died; and, very improperly in my opinion,
left you to the guardianship of your uncle. That Mr. Valmont should
adopt a son from the lowly condition of a cottager's child, has
occasioned much wonder and many surmises; however, as I do not find any
thing material either to you or me in the conjectures, I have listened
to on this occasion, I shall not be at the pains of relating them.

But how comes it to pass, my dearest Sibella, that when your uncle had
the means of gratifying his darling wish in educating two children, and
one of them a female, to whom according to his creed, nothing should be
granted beyond what the instinct of appetite demands, how comes it, I
say, that you possess the comprehensive powers of intellect? from what
sources did you derive that eager desire of knowledge of which I find
you possessed; and how came you to be learned on subjects, which, in the
education of females, are strictly withheld, to make room for trifling
gaudy and useless acomplishments? tell me by what miracle I find you
such as you are, and let me cease to wonder at you, but never let me
cease to love you.

Tell me too, how came you to be dependent on your uncle? Does your
dependence only mean the protection due from him who stands in the place
of a parent to you? I wish to be informed what explanation Mr. Valmont
and yourself affix to the term of dependent, when it is applied to you;
for colonel Ridson talks so familiarly of the fortune you must possess
from your mother, and also the wealth of the Valmont family which he
says is yours by heirship, that I must own I am puzzled. I care little
about your being rich, but is seems unnatural and unjust to have you a
dependent on your haughty uncle.

Ah, my dear Sibella, how often in a day do I feast my imagination by
allowing it to bear me back to you; and yet perhaps, our separation
gives a spur, a stimulus to our friendship. I am not convinced, indeed,
but that temporary separations are even useful between lovers; and that
Mr. Valmont may have acted rather wisely than otherwise, in parting you
and your Clement for a season. Why he should bid you remember him only
as a brother, is really too far plunged into obscurity for me to
discover.

Do not, however, suppose for an instant that my affection for you would
decay were I at liberty to enjoy your society as I wish; on the
contrary, I am persuaded that every hour I should pass with you would
add something to my improvement, and render us more valuable to each
other. My expression arose from my being at that moment in idea a
partner of your seclusion, and feeling that I should want in the same
situation that energy and activity which is the support of your
solitude. I am fond of society; and, indeed, I find myself most excited
when I have most opportunities of observing the various characters and
pursuits of those around me. Gladly would I possess the power of
selecting my society. From that happy privilege I am debarred. But I
seldom make one of a circle in which I do not find some novelty of
character, and something either of excellence or absurdity from which I
may draw improvement.

Yet, a two month's visit at the villa of Sir Thomas Barlowe is rather a
hard trial of my patience; and, unless we are enlivened by new visitors,
I fear the company here will afford me but a trifling harvest of
observation. I shall soon be glad to turn from them to my own resources;
and fly, even oftener than I now do, to the ever vivifying remembrance
of my Sibella.

Sir Thomas Barlowe has risen from some very obscure station to the
wealth and dignity of a nabob. He has risen too, I greatly fear, by the
same depredating practices which the unfortunate natives of India seem
destined constantly to suffer from those who perfidiously call
themselves the protectors of the country. Sir Thomas Barlowe's riches
have become his punishment. Each morning, his fears awaken with his
faculties, lest that day should bring tidings of the dreaded scrutiny;
and, when evening arrives, and he struggles to yield himself to mirth
and wine amidst the circle he has assiduously gathered round him, a
word, a look, or the most remote hint or allusion gives his watchful
terrors an alarm. A sudden turn of his head, perchance, discovers his
shadow on the wall. Legions of threatening phantoms then crowd upon his
apprehension; and the evening, yet more miserable than the day,
concludes with an opiate, administered to lull the feeble body into
lethargy, and hush the perturbed conscience into silence.

And my mother can look on this existing fact with indifference, while I
shudder. Those enormous sums of wealth she lavishes away, that cluster
of pearls she triumphantly places in her hair, those diamonds heaped
into different ornaments, how were they obtained? Thousands
perhaps----Oh, Sibella! I have laid aside my ornaments! A dress plain as
your's supersedes them.

Lady Barlowe is a composition of a very curious kind. She is about forty
years younger than her husband, is tolerably pretty, and has a showy
talent of repartee that she mistakes for a sublime genius; and her
inclinations are perpetually at warfare, without being able to decide
whether she shall be most renowned as a wit or a beauty. She is
extravagantly fond of admiration, which she formerly enjoyed
unlimitedly, being the head toast of a small county town, till she
became the wife of a nabob. Prosperity has not increased her happiness;
for in the great and gay world she has found rivals of such magnitude
that malice and envy have strung up within that bosom which till now
owned no inmate but vanity.

These are our host and hostess. The first in precedency among the
visitors ranks the Earl of Ulson: an antiquated gallant, who, in public,
affects not to feel the approaches of age; and, in private, broods over
the consciousness of its effects till he sickens with ill nature. The
countess of Ulson hates her husband; nor has she over much charity and
good-will towards other men. She talks largely, indeed, of her piety,
and the strict performance of her manifold duties.

This amiable pair are attended by their son and two daughters. Lord
Bowden is so perfectly satisfied within himself, that, if you will take
his word for it, there is not a more amiable and accomplished young man
in England. His eldest sister, lady Mary Bowden claims no praise beyond
what is justly due to the complacency of her temper; she is at once too
giddy and too indolent to aim at meriting a more enlarged praise; she
loves dress, company, cards, and scandal; and indulges herself in the
use of the latter as a mere matter of course, without entertaining the
smallest particle of ill-will towards the very persons she helps to
vilify. I have endeavoured to convince lady Mary of the folly of this
practice, and she acknowledges, that what I say appears very much to the
purpose, but then how can she cease to do what every body does.

All the beauty that exact regularity of feature, and transparency of
complexion can bestow, is in the possession of the Earl of Ulson's
youngest daughter, lady Laura Bowden. Beyond this description, I hardly
know what to say of her. I can perceive she entertains a very hearty
contempt for her sister; and perhaps, she may hold me in as little
estimation; but a woman so perfectly well bred as lady Laura does not
display such sentiments if she entertains them, unless some species of
rivalship should unfortunately call her passions into action. I do not
think her either witty or wise, yet I have been told she bears the
reputation of the former, and is poet enough occasionally to pen a rebus
or an acrostic. It may be so. I have not been favoured with her
confidence. A delicate languor pervades her manners, and this is
generally honoured with the name of sensibility. I am apt to call it
affectation; for the sensibility that I understand and admire, is
extreme only in proportion to the greatness of the occasion; it does not
waste itself in vapours, nor is it ever on the watch for wasps and
spiders. Colonel Ridson assures me that Lady Laura Bowden is admired by
the whole world, and that he must be the happiest of men on whom her
ladyship bestows a preference.

Colonel Ridson loves his white teeth, and his epaulet. He likes every
body, praises every body, is attentive to every body; lives without
attachment; and will probably die in the same torpid state, without ever
knowing felicity, or ordinary misfortune.

The colonel hitherto has been the only unmarried man amongst us, except
Lord Bowden, who really is so assiduous in remembering his own
recommendations that no one else finds it necessary to remember him or
them at all.

But we are now to be enlivened. It seems we damsels are to be excited to
call forth our charms, for the conquest of a youth of no common value,
as his fame goes here. Sir Thomas Barlowe's nephew, Mr. Murden, arrived
at the villa this very day.

I know not why I should be particularly selected from the party, by Sir
Thomas Barlowe, to listen to his encomiums on this nephew. From the most
insignificant occurrences, the Baronet has constantly occasion to
say--'Ha! Ha! Miss Ashburn, if my nephew Arthur was but come!' If I
praised a dish of fruit at table, the nabob's nephew Arthur had
certainly done the same thing. Let me speak of walking or riding, let me
complain of hail, rain or sunshine, Arthur was still my promised
chaperon, the future knight-errant of all my grievances.

'Tell me something,' said I one day to Colonel Ridson, 'of this Mr.
Murden, this hope of the family.'

'He is very handsome,' replied the Colonel.

'But is he good?'

'Assuredly.'

'And amiable?'

'Infinitely!'

'And wise?'

'To a miracle, madam,' replied the Colonel.

Good! amiable! wise!--Who could desire more?

Lady Mary Bowden stood beside me one afternoon, while the baronet was
reminding me of his dear Arthur. 'Sir Thomas I believe intends,' said I
to her, 'that I shall be in love by anticipation. You know Mr. Murden.
What is he?'

'Oh!' cried Lady Mary, lifting up her right hand, to enforce the spirit
of her emphasis, 'he is the most abominable rake in the universe!'

I absolutely started. 'It is possible, Lady Mary, you should mean what
you say?' I asked after a moment's pause. 'Yes! certainly!' replied her
ladyship, quite gaily; 'every body knows of hundreds with whom he has
been a very happy man.'

'I do not want,' said I, 'to hear what every body says. I want, Lady
Mary, to know your own sincere opinion of Mr. Murden. If you have
already told me a fact, my situation to be sure will oblige me to be
sometimes in his company; but, in that case, there exists not a reptile,
however noxious or despicable, from whom I should shrink with more
abhorrence than from this boasted nephew of the nabob.'

'Good God!' cried Lady Mary: 'Why! what did I say? I protest I have
forgotten, already. I am sure I know no harm in the world of Mr.
Murden.'

'Did not you tell me he was an abominable rake?'

'They say so,' replied Lady Mary. 'He certainly is very engaging. He
admires fine women. But I don't know whether he has ever made serious
addresses to any one. Miss Ashburn, I'll tell you a secret.'

'You had better not. I don't keep secrets.'

'Oh, all the world knows it, already. Lady Laura is quite fond of
Murden. You would have laughed to have seen her last winter, as I did,
plunged over head and ears in sentiment and sensibility. Well, I do hate
affectation.'

'And you do love good nature.'

'So I do,' said she smiling; 'and I hope with all my heart that my poor
sister may now secure her conquest, unless indeed, Miss Ashburn, it
should interfere with you.'

Neither the baronet's hints, the colonel's all good, all wise, nor the
motley dubious character given by Lady Mary Bowden of Mr. Murden, would
have tempted me to devote thus much of my paper to him. I have other
inducements. I have heard that the domestics of Barlowe Hall anxiously
expected the day of his coming. A gardener, who has been discharged for
no worse fault, I believe, than his being too old, assures himself, that
the prosperity of him and his family will be restored when Mr. Murden
arrives. I have heard also, that the neighbouring cottagers bless him.
Such a man must have worth. Agnes, who is zealous to tell me all the
good she can of any one, has related several anecdotes of Mr. Murden,
from which I learn, that he possesses sympathy and benevolence. I cannot
tell how such qualities can exist in the mind of a man who is, either
in principle or practice, a libertine. Yet, Agnes also had been told
that Mr. Murden was a libertine. I bade her enquire more; and she could
hear of no particular instances wherein the peace of individuals or
families had been injured by him. Still those with whom Agnes conversed,
bestowed on him this hateful title. I fear the reproach may belong to
him. Young men are frequently carried into these excesses, from the
pernicious effect of example, sometimes from vanity, and from a variety
of other causes, all which tend to one uniform effect, to destroy the
understanding, deprave the heart, corrupt the disposition, and render
loathsome and detestable a being that might have lived an honour and a
blessing to his species. If Mr. Murden is indeed devoted to this error,
farewel to his benevolent virtues, to his sense of justice; and farewel
to the pleasure and instruction I might have gained in the society of a
virtuous man.

I said Mr. Murden was already arrived; but I have not seen him. He paid
his duty to his uncle, in the Baronet's own apartment; and then retired
to dress before he would present himself in the breakfast parlour. Lady
Laura appeared impatient; she was adorned in a new morning dress,
perfectly graceful and becoming. The hour came in which I was to write
to my Sibella; and I would not sacrifice that employment for twenty such
introductions.

Farewel, my friend! Close to your altar of love, raise one of
friendship, and I also will meet you at the oak.

CAROLINE ASHBURN

LETTER VI

FROM SIBELLA VALMONT

TO

CAROLINE ASHBURN

A confused recollection sprang up in my mind when you questioned me
concerning my dependence. On the day of his last departure, my father
caressed me fondly; he held me a long time in his arms; and he shed
tears over me. He spoke, likewise, at intervals; not, perhaps, with any
expectation of being understood by me, but to relieve the weighty
pressure of his thoughts. I well remember that he named my uncle. He had
many papers on a table before him; and I think there was a connection in
his discourse between them and me. I believe he spoke of some
disposition of his fortune; but the time is now remote, and the idea is
indistinct. I cannot cloathe it in expression.

I do not possess a fortune; for my uncle calls me dependent, talks of
obligations I owe to him for the gratification of my wants. He talks of
obligations, who denies me instruction, equality, and my Clement. He
provides me food and raiment. Are there not thousands in the world,
where you and Clement live, who supply such wants by labour? And I too
could labour. Let Mr. Valmont retire to the shelter of his canopy, and
the luxury of down! I can make the tree my shade, and the moss my
pillow.

Mr. Valmont calls himself my father; and _calling_ himself such, he
there rests satisfied. Cold in his temperament, stern from his
education, he imagines kindness would be indulgence, and indulgence
folly. Ever on the watch for faults, the accent of reproof mingles with
his best commendations.

He demands my obedience, too! What obedience? the grateful tribute to
duty, authorised by reason, and sanctioned by the affections? No. Mr.
Valmont, here at least, ceases to be inconsistent. He never enlightened
my understanding, nor conciliated my affections; and he demands only the
obedience of a fettered slave. I am held in the bondage of slavery. And
still may Mr. Valmont's power constrain the forces of this body. But
where, Miss Ashburn, is the tyrant that could ever chain thought, or put
fetters on the fancy?

I charge you, cease to repeat my uncle's useless prohibition, that I
should remember Clement otherwise than as a brother. Let him give his
barrier to the waves, arrest the strong air in its current, but dream
not of placing limits to the love of Clement and Sibella!

Do I weary you with this endless topic? You read the world: I, my own
heart. Imprisoned, during so many years, within the narrow boundary of
this castle and its parks, the same objects eternally before me, I look
with disgust from their perpetual round of succession. Nature herself,
spring, summer, autumn, degenerate into sameness.

Where must I turn me then, but to the resources of my own heart? Love
has enriched it; and friendship will not reject its offerings.

Yes: they are many, my Caroline; various and increasing. Shall my uncle
tell me that my actions are confined to the mechanical operations of the
body, that I am an imbecile creature, but a reptile of more graceful
form, the half finished work of nature, and destitute of the noblest
ornament of humanity? Blind to conviction, grown old in error, he would
degrade me to the subordinate station he describes. He daringly asserts
that I am born to the exercise of no will; to the exercise of no duties
but submission; that wisdom owns me not, knows me not, could not find in
me a resting place.

'Tis false, Caroline! I feel within the vivifying principle of
intellectual life. My expanding faculties are nurtured by the passing
hours! and want but the beams of instruction, to ripen into power and
energy that would steep my present inactive life in forgetfulness.

Bonneville, when shall I cease to love thy memory, to recal thy lessons?
It was thou, Bonneville, who first bade me cherish this stimulating
principle; who called the powers of my mind forth from the chaos,
wherewith Mr. Valmont had enveloped them. Thou, Bonneville, taught me
that I make an unimpaired _one_ of the vast brotherhood of human kind;
that I am a being whose mistakes demand the conviction of reason, but
whose mind ought not to bow down under power and prejudice.

He of whom I speak, Miss Ashburn, was chosen to be Clement's tutor. Can
you conceive the sensations which swell within my breast while I recal
the memory of this friend of my infancy? My friend, ere I lost Clement,
ere I knew you, Caroline. Methinks I hear his voice; I see his gestures.
Again, he enters the wood path. Again, I behold that countenance
beautiful in age, radiant in wisdom.--He speaks. My soul hangs on his
utterance. All my lesser affections fade away.

Ah, no! no! no! Bonneville is gone for ever! Clement is torn from me!
You are interdicted! and I am alone in the wood path!

I hailed him by the name of father. He called me his child. He was
enervated with disease. The chill damps of evening pierced him. The
wintry blast shook his feeble frame. Still, would he endure the damps of
evening, and tremble under the cold blast, rather than Sibella should be
sunk in ignorance and sloth; for her cruel uncle had forbidden her an
entrance into that apartment where Bonneville gave Clement his daily
instruction.

Five days passed away, and Clement had not met his tutor in the library.
Five long evenings, Clement had taken his usual rides with Mr. Valmont,
yet no Bonneville had visited the oak. My mind anticipated the hour of
his approach, and mourned its disappointment. My questions accumulated;
I stored up demand upon demand; I recalled the subject of all our
conversations; I carefully selected for another investigation, those
parts which I had not fully comprehended; I arranged my doubts; and,
perhaps, had never so prepared my mind for improvement, as when I heard
that Bonneville was in bed, ill, dying. I flew to his apartment. Clement
followed me. We saw him die. 'My father! my father!' I cried. 'You will
not leave us! We are your children! Better were it that we should die
with you than be left without you. My father! my father!'

Sobs and tears could not delay the inexorable moment; and my life seemed
to fade from me, when I found that his lips were closed for _ever_.

Would you believe that my uncle----Yes, you would believe, for you know
his haughty sternness,--but no matter, 'tis past, and ought to be
forgotten.

But a few days, and not an eye save mine, wept for the absence of
Bonneville. Clement was satisfied with a new tutor. The new tutor was
wise, good, and kind; for Clement said so; but he strictly obeyed Mr.
Valmont, and Sibella was abandoned of guide, of father.

Death, an object new, hideous, and awfully mysterious was now ever
before me. Multitudes of dark perplexing ideas succeeded each other in
my mind, with a rapidity which doubt and dissatisfaction created. 'Why
is it?' said I to myself, 'and what cause can produce an effect so
overwhelming? Throughout life, the mind invariably rules the functions
of the body. It transports itself from, and returns to its abode at
pleasure; it can look back on the past, or fly forward to the future; it
passes all boundary of place; creates or annihilates; and soars or dives
into other worlds. Yet, in one moment, its wearied tool, the body, had
extinguished these omnipotent powers, and to me quenched its vast
energies for ever.' I wrung my hands in bitterness, and in anguish of
heart; and I called loudly on the name of my lost instructor, for I had
now no instructor.

Caroline, do not expect me to speak again of Bonneville. The tumult, the
perplexity returns; and no solution is at hand to soothe or to cheer me.

Seventeen days, Mr. Valmont, his steward, and their labourers have
occupied my wood.

My uncle himself gave me a command not to appear there during the
day.--I said, 'At night, Sir, I am I hope at liberty.'

'You are, child,' my uncle replied; and I failed not to avail myself of
the privilege. On the rising ground of the broad wood path, and nearly
opposite to my oak, I found the earth dug away, and preparations made,
of which I could not give an explanation; but from the progress of a few
days labour, a small beautiful edifice of white marble gradually rose
under the shade of a clump of yew trees, whose branches were reflected
on the polished surface as in a mirror.

Its structure appeared to me beautiful. I was charmed with it as a novel
object. I rejoiced that it was so near my oak. But I stood utterly at a
loss, when I attempted to form an opinion of its design or utility.

Perhaps when you were at the castle, you became acquainted with the
defects and singularities of the two attendants whom my uncle assigned
me. Andrew, almost inflexible in silence, attempts (when I put him to
the trial) to explain himself by signs. While his daughter possesses
not, that I could ever discover, in the smallest degree the faculty of
hearing. Andrew often looks on me with affection; but Margaret, who has
a most repulsive countenance and demeanour, appears, even while I
endeavour to conciliate her by kind looks, to be scarcely conscious that
I am in existence. With such companions intercourse is rigorously
excluded. In cases of peculiar uncertainty, I sometimes venture to apply
to Andrew, as I did on the morning after I had seen the beautiful
edifice in the wood path completed. Andrew said, 'Tis a tomb.'

Shortly after, I called at Mrs. Valmont's door to inquire of her health,
for she is now recovering slowly from a severe indisposition. Very
unusually, she desired I might be admitted. I stood while I spoke to
her, for the wood was at liberty, and I was impatient to be gone. The
surprise of Andrew's concise information was new in my mind, and I began
to describe the structure in the wood path. I perceived Mrs. Valmont's
attendant directing strange looks and gestures to me, and I paused to
ask her meaning. She positively denied the circumstance, and I
proceeded. When I mentioned the name of _tomb_, Mrs. Valmont started
forward on the couch where she sat. 'Raised a tomb!' cried she. 'For
whom?' And then, again falling back in seeming agony, she added without
waiting for my reply, 'Yes, I know it well, he has opened a tomb for
me.'

'For you, madam?' I said, 'you are not yet dead.'

'Barbarian!' exclaimed Mrs. Valmont, looking fiercely on me, 'not yet
dead!--Insolent!--Be gone, I shall be dead but too soon. Be gone, I say,
the very sight of any of your hated infidel race destroys me.'

I wished to understand how Mrs. Valmont's anger and agitations were thus
excited, for she began to utter strange assertions, that my uncle
intended to murder her, and that he had made me his instrument. She
groaned and wept. One of her attendants urged me to withdraw; and I
complied. From thence, I visited the tomb. Again I admired its structure
and its situation; but I could not devise why a receptacle for the dead
should be reared amidst the living.

At this time Mr. Valmont himself, followed by his steward and by Andrew,
came to inspect the tomb. Methought he looked pleased, when he saw me
resting upon it. He viewed it round and round, walked to the foot of the
rock, and contemplated it at that distance. Mr. Ross did the same, but
Andrew stood still some yards on the other side. My uncle spoke thus at
intervals.

'No doubt strange reports will circulate, throughout the neighbourhood,
of this monument.'

'The vulgar fools, who lend so ready a belief to the ridiculous tales of
that Ruin, will now have another hinge on which to turn their
credulity.'

'Sibella, take again the attitude I saw you in when I entered the wood.
There, child; keep that posture a short time, your figure improves the
scene.'

'Does the monument excite much wonder, Ross?'

'It does indeed, Sir,' the steward replied. 'They wonder at the expence,
they wonder more at the object; and, still more than that, they wonder
at the unconsecrated ground.'

'And my impiety is, I imagine, the topic of the country.' The steward
remained silent. 'Andrew remember my orders, and repeat them to your
fellows: I will have no idle tales fabricated in the servant's hall.'

'What are the opinions of other men, concerning holy and unholy, to me?
It belongs to men of rank to spurn the prejudices of the multitude.'

Shortly after, my uncle addressed himself to me.

'A strange message, child, has been sent me from Mrs. Valmont, which you
it seems have caused. What have you been saying to her?'

I repeated the conversation. My uncle smiled in scorn.

'Contemptible folly!' said he, 'The vicinity of a tomb becomes a mortal
disease. It is hard to judge whether the understanding or the frame of
such animals is of the weaker texture. Child, you have killed your aunt,
by reminding her that she may one day happen to be buried.'

I was startled with the phrase of, _I had killed my aunt_; and I began
eagerly to speak. My uncle interrupted me with saying:

'There is no real harm done, child. These nervous affections are
tremendous in representation, but trifling in reality. You will,
however, do well to remember, that I do not approve of your frequenting
Mrs. Valmont's apartments.'

My uncle then left me, not quite satisfied with myself nor with his
representation of Mrs. Valmont's case. Yet, on a careful review of the
past, I did not feel that my words, my manner, or my information could
justly tend to produce uneasiness either to her or me. Yet Mrs. Valmont
persists in holding me culpable; and has twice rejected the messages I
have sent by Andrew.

Still, Caroline, I do not understand why my uncle should have expended
money to rear a marble tomb, when any spot of waste ground might serve
for the receptacle of a lifeless body; nor can I understand how Mrs.
Valmont is injured by the knowledge of the circumstance. My uncle's
conversation with Mr. Ross is for the most part beyond my comprehension.
I observe too, that every part of the family, more carefully even than
before, now shun the wood. Last night, when Nina and I had held our
evening converse at the oak, till the moon shone at her height, Andrew
came in search of me; he stood at an unusual distance; and, having
beckoned me to return, he with a soft quick step, hastened before me to
the castle.

Thus, dearest Caroline, I pass from the weight of a tedious uniformity,
to view and wonder at the mysterious actions of mysterious people. Oh,
speak to me then, my friend. You I can understand. You I love, admire,
revere. Speak to me often, Caroline. Bring the varieties of your life
before me. Awaken my feelings with your's, and let my judgment
strengthen in your experience.

SIBELLA VALMONT

LETTER VII

FROM CAROLINE ASHBURN

TO

SIBELLA VALMONT

My dearest Sibella,

To all that I yet know of you, I give unmixed praise. Your own
rectitude, your own discernment, and your reliance on my sincerity,
satisfies you of this truth; and I am assured that I have your sanction
when I speak less of yourself than of frailer mortals.

On casting my eye over the foregoing lines, I smile to perceive that I
felt as if it were necessary to apologize for the strong propensity I
have to begin this letter as I concluded my last, namely, with Mr.
Murden; whom, in the moments of my best opinion, I cannot wholly admire,
nor, at the worst of times, can I altogether condemn.

As he is, then, or as I think he is, take him. Colonel Ridson, you know,
said Mr. Murden was handsome. So say I. At times, divinely handsome; but
only at times. His figure, it is true, never loses its symmetry and
grace; but his features, strongly influenced by their governing power
the mind, vary from beauty to deformity; that is, deformity of
expression. What would Lady Mary, Lady Laura, or the two Miss
Winderhams, who are lately added to our party, say to hear me connect
the ideas of Murden and deformity? Yet in their hearing, incurring the
terrible certainty of being arraigned in their judgments for want of
taste, of being charged with prudery, affectation, and I know not what
besides, I shall dare repeat, that I have looked on Murden, and looked
from him again, because he appeared deformed and disgusting. The
libertine is ever deformed; the flatterer is ever disgusting.

His daily practice in this house justifies me in bestowing on him the
latter epithet. I own, and I rejoice to own, that of the justice of the
former I have my doubts. Vain he is. That he is gratified by,
encourages, even stimulates the attention of fools and coquettes, I
cannot deny; and when I view him indulging a weakness so contemptible,
so dangerous, I am almost ready to believe he may be any thing that is
vicious; and that, having taken vanity and flattery for his guides, he
may attain to the horrid perfection of a successful debauchee.

Yet, what man, plunged in the whirlpool of debauchery, ever retained
delicacy of sentiment and pungency of feeling? I think Murden possesses
both. What man of debased inclinations would preserve that perpetual
delicacy, that happy medium between neglect and encouragement, by which
Murden regulates his conduct to Lady Laura Bowden? Lady Laura,
celebrated as a wit and beauty, betrays to every observer her passion
for Mr. Murden. I dreaded, on such an occasion, to see a vain young man,
insolent in pity, or barbarous in neglect; but Lady Laura has not a
particle more or less of his admiration, his flattery, and his services
than any other lady of the circle.

Ah, I feel already that my description languishes. The Murden before me
is a being of more vigour and more interest than the Murden on my paper.
I have failed in discriminating the contradictory parts of his
character; and I give up description; leaving those circumstances I may,
on further acquaintance, select from the round of his actions to speak
for him.

These insatiable devourers of amusement tear me from my pen. The
morning, which in my mother's house in town I possessed uncontrouled, is
no longer my own. The days are wasted in the execution of projects that
promise much and perform nothing; and I made a whimsical attempt the
other day, to convince my good friends here that we ought at least to be
rational one half of one's time, if we would find any pleasure in being
foolish the other half. But while I am complaining to you, Sibella, the
party are perhaps complaining of me. Adieu for a short time. I go to
taste _simplicity_. Not the simplicity of a golden age; but the
simplicity of gold and tinsel. On the banks of a charming piece of water
we fish, under a silken awning. Horns, clarionets, and bassoons are
stationed in a neighbouring grove, with their sweet concords
occasionally to soothe our fatigues. Ices, the choicest fruits, and
other delicate preparations for the refreshment of the palate are at
hand; and, notwithstanding all this costly care, it is very possible we
shall pass a listless morning, return without any increase of appetite,
or animal spirits, and be mighty ready to bestow loud commendations on
the pleasures of a morning, from which we derive no other secret
satisfaction than the certainty of its being at an end.

A summons! The carriages are at the door. You understand, I hope, that
this is a _rural_ expedition therefore a coach and a chariot attends,
Mr. Murden drives one phaeton, Colonel Ridson another, and Mrs. Ashburn,
who has arisen from the voluptuous luxury of the palanquin, and eight
slaves, to the more active triumph of a high seat, reins, and long whip,
will drive Lady Laura Bowden in her curricle.

It would be vain for me to attempt to sleep, for I endure at present a
very considerable portion, though from a different cause, of those
restless feelings which so often, my Sibella, urge you from your bed.

I believe I shall not go to bed this night, yet I have not to tell you,
that I am roused to this wakefulness by events strikingly removed from
the ordinary course of our lives. On the contrary, the accidents of the
day, though new in their form, are by no means of an uncommon character.
It is, alas, no novelty for some people to be inconsistent, and for
others to imagine that rank and riches, as it places them beyond the
reach of the common misfortunes of life, gives them full privilege to
censure the weak and contemn the unfortunate. I hope benevolence is not
a novelty. I would not subtract from the due praise of any individual;
but I feel it as it were a tacit reproach upon human nature, or rather
upon human manners, when we loudly vaunt the benevolent actions of any
single man. I love the man, be he whom he may, who will perform the
offices of a brother to the weakest, the most despised of his fellow
creatures; but I lament that the example should be so unusual; and, when
seen, rather vaunted than valued; and speedily forgotten.

I have no reason to accuse myself of a want of penetration. Our morning
was any thing but pleasant. The air from the water chilled Sir Thomas.
Lady Barlowe could find no scope amidst the very small talk for one
single repartee. The Earl of Ulson had the tooth-ache. The Countess
detests the music of wind instruments; and my mother found out that she
hated fishing. The young ladies lost their spirits and temper, by losing
Mr. Murden, whose absence occurred in such a way as put me out of
temper, and out of spirits also.

As we were on the road to the destined spot of diversion, a pretty
country girl on a horse loaded with paniers drew up to the hedge-side,
while the cavalcade passed her. I was in Mr. Murden's phaeton; and we
were the last carriage but one. The girl, in making her awkward
obeisance to the company, no sooner lifted her eyes to Mr. Murden, than
she blushed deeper than scarlet. It was a blush of such deep shame, of
such anguish, that I felt a sudden pain like a shock of electricity. The
time of passing was so instantaneous, that I could not see what effect
the blush had at the moment on Murden's countenance; but when I did look
on him, I found him lost in thought, from which he presently started, to
gaze back upon the girl, while she continued in sight. It was palpably
obvious, that in this incident Murden had a concern more powerful than
any interest he took in the party, for he remained dispirited and
absent; and, after refusing to angle, and walking a few turns to and fro
on the banks of the water, he said he should join us again before we
returned to dinner, mounted his servant's horse, and disappeared. Thus
were we left without one satisfied person of the party, except the
ever-satisfied Colonel Ridson, and the self-satisfied Lord Bowden. We
saw no more of Mr. Murden, till late in the afternoon.

I must now, my dear Sibella, call your attention to the history of an
unfortunate woman, who, in occupying the greatest part of this
afternoon, gave scope to the display of that hard-heartedness, and that
benevolence to which I alluded in a former passage of this letter.

When Sir Thomas Barlowe left the East Indies, he retained in his service
a young Creole as secretary. At that time, the youth, who was sanguine
enough, and young enough to believe that his situation would increase in
gain, and be permanent in favour, wrote to his mother, whom he
contributed to support, saying it was his wish she should come to
England. He expected she would wait for a remittance from him to pay her
passage; but the mother, impatient to join her only child, sold her
little property, borrowed on her son's credit the remainder of the money
for her passage, and set sail from Bengal much about the time that her
son, with whom the climate had disagreed, and whom Sir Thomas had
discharged, set sail from England.

Arrived in London, she hastens to Sir Thomas Barlowe's house, to meet
this beloved son. The family are in the country; the porter surlily
assures her that her son is gone. She will not believe him; demands the
name of Sir Thomas Barlowe's country seat; returns to her lodging with
trembling limbs and an aching heart; writes a letter to Barlowe Hall,
which probably was never sent; and falls ill of an ague and fever. Eight
weeks the unhappy woman languished in the extreme of misery and disease;
receiving no tidings from her son, having no friend, no acquaintance,
either to pity or relieve her. Her money all spent, her clothes almost
all sold, she availed herself of a small recruit of strength, and
begged her way, half naked, to Sir Thomas Barlowe's seat, kept alive, no
doubt, by the feeble hope that she should yet find her son.

At Barlowe Hall, the tidings of her son's departure was confirmed.
Despair gave her strength. In spite of the servants' opposition, she
forced her way into the dining parlour, ere the dessert was yet removed.
She designed to have thrown herself at the feet of Sir Thomas; but on
whom did her eye first fix? on no other than Mrs. Ashburn, whom, in her
own land, in her happiest days, she had served in the capacity of
housekeeper. Had the apartment held the first potentates of the earth, I
firmly believe they would have been as so many straws in the poor
woman's way when she rushed forward to Mrs. Ashburn. She clasped her
knees, kissed her hands, her gown, the very chair on which she sat, and
was so wild and extravagant in her joy, that I do not wonder at the
result. I only wonder that her intellects survived.

It was in vain the company expressed their disgust at so miserable an
object; in vain my mother and Sir Thomas commanded her to rise and
withdraw. She would, in her imperfect language, curse the climate of
Britain. She would intreat them to send her back to her own country. She
would relate the history of her griefs, till combined recollections, or
perhaps the frigid countenances of those around her, wrought a
passionate flood of tears; and she then quietly suffered the footman to
conduct her from the room.

The rigid Countess of Ulson instantly began a severe investigation of
the folly of the young Indian, who sent so far for his mother, while his
own prosperity was yet wavering and uncertain. Lady Barlowe and the
young ladies appeared disconcerted. The Earl of Ulson had dined in his
own chamber. Colonel Ridson often shifted his seat. Mrs. Ashburn and Sir
Thomas Barlowe gave their assent to the invective of Lady Ulson, adding
at the same time all the shades of imprudence in the mother's
enterprise. They agreed, however, in the necessity of affording her some
relief. Two guineas from Sir Thomas, and two from Mrs. Ashburn was the
_vast_ sum contributed; and, with this four guineas, the servant was
ordered to deliver the following commands: That she should immediately
go back to London, where she might easily find employment for her
support, till her son should know she was in England, and remit money
for her return to India.

Colonel Ridson stole to the door after the servant, and gave into his
hand a benefaction for the widow.

I had only waited the conclusion of the nabob's and my mother's
determination; and I now left them.

The Indian did not, as before, attempt to rush into the parlour; but in
the hall, she wrung her hands, gnashed her teeth, tore her hair,
exclaiming, she must go back, she could not work, she could not live in
a climate that would kill a dog. My remonstrances she could not hear. I
might as well have spoken to the dead.

It was then that Mr. Murden returned home. Astonished at the frantic
agonies of the poor distressed woman, he enquired the cause from the
servants, whom pity had drawn around her. He threw his whip out of his
hand, and coming up to the Indian--yes, Sibella, this _seducer_ perhaps,
this very elegant, fashionable, handsome, and admired Murden immediately
lifted in his arms the poor miserable despised object, from whose touch
others had revolted, carried her into an apartment, and seated her by
himself on a sopha, still holding his arm round her to prevent her
relapsing into those violent excesses.

'You shall go back,' cried Murden. 'I swear by the God that made me, you
shall go back to-morrow, to-day, this very hour, if you will but be
calm.'

She looked on him steadily--it was such a look, Sibella!

'See,' said Murden, 'Miss Ashburn says, you shall go back. You know Miss
Ashburn? Ay, and you love her too. I know you do.'

In a fainting voice, she said,--'Then I shall die with my poor Joseph at
last.'

Her head fell upon Murden's breast; and he suffered it to remain there,
till he found she had become insensible; he then requested the
housekeeper to see a bed prepared for her; and, by his kind speeches and
charming tones, he rendered every servant as eager to do the poor woman
service as he himself had been.

All this time, I forgot the country girl.

While I attended the Indian to her bed, Mr. Murden visited the drawing
room and when I also went thither, I found Murden's face in a glow. He
was debating with his uncle on the danger that might befal his sick
patient, by removing her from Barlowe Hall to the next village, and the
danger Sir Thomas might incur by allowing her to remain where she was.
The nabob recollected she had spoken of her fever in London; and,
already, he saw himself in the utmost danger, and half his family dead
or dying of the mortal disease. Any sum of money, any thing in his house
that could tend to her accommodation she might have, so that she was but
removed. He absolutely shook with apprehension; and Murden was at length
compelled to yield the point. A post chaise was accordingly got ready;
two maids went in it with her, to support her, for successive faintings
had reduced her to the weakness of an infant. Murden, although it was a
rainy evening, walked by the side of the chaise to the village, to see
that she was there taken proper care of.

In the drawing room, the interval between this arrangement and the time
of Murden's return from the village was passed in a most irksome state.
The weather would not allow of walking, or riding. No casual visitors
arrived. Every common topic of conversation languished; and each
individual dreaded lest some other of the party should begin to speak of
the Indian, whom they were one and all laboriously urgent to forget. The
entrance of tea and coffee was an immense relief. Their cups were
received with unusual complacency, and their drooping spirits revived.

The card-tables were just arranged, when Murden entered. Good God, what
a charm was diffused over his countenance! He was pale with fatigue, and
want of food; his linen soiled; and his hair disordered with the wind
and rain; but there was such a sweetness in his eyes, that no heart
could resist it. Every one pronounced his name at once.

'Dear Murden!' breathed Lady Laura in the melting voice of love: then,
covered with confusion, she added, 'Dear _Mr._ Murden, you will kill
yourself!' At the same time, she made an involuntary motion for him to
seat himself between her and her sister. He did so, his heart was open
to the reception of all tenderness. He could not reject Lady Laura's
tone. He took her hand. I saw him press it. He said something low and
soft, and her cheeks were instantly suffused with a burning colour.

_Ah that country girl!_ thought I. I could not help sighing for her. I
sighed too for Murden. 'Would,' said I to myself, 'that he could suffer
me to possess his confidence, would suffer me to advise, exhort, and
intreat him to be worthy of himself!'

Perhaps, while these and other such reflections occupied my mind, my
eyes were fixed upon Murden, for suddenly I perceived that his cheek
took a stronger glow than even Lady Laura's; and he sprang up from his
seat.

'James, bring me some biscuits and a jelly,' said he carelessly; 'Egad!
I believe I have not dined to-day.'

This was enough to rouse Sir Thomas.

'There now!' cried the nabob.

'Was ever any thing like it? You have had no dinner! And here you are
all this time in wet clothes! Lord, have mercy upon me! Call your
valet!' and he began to ring the bell furiously. 'I am sure, Arthur, you
will be ill. You will have a fever. You will certainly kill yourself, as
Lady Laura says.'

I had too much compassion to look at Lady Laura; and so had Murden, for
he crossed the other side of the room, and immediately withdrew.

As Murden shut one door, a servant opened another, and gave into my
hands your last dear letter. I retired to my own chamber to read it.

You are a glorious girl, Sibella, you elevate, you excite me! You awaken
my mind to more and more love of those fervid qualities that shine so
eminent in you. Had your Bonneville lived--Well, fear not my love. The
day of your liberty will come. There are perhaps other Bonnevilles in
the world, who will like him delight to give you that instruction for
which your mind pants. Already, you possess energy, fortitude, and
feeling; and those qualities, now kept alive and fostered by your love,
may one day be called into action by objects of higher magnitude, of far
higher value, (forgive me) than love, though it were the love of a
Sibella.

I stood at my window to read your letter. The rain and wind had ceased;
there was not even breeze enough to shake away the drops that yet rested
upon the leaves. The dim, grey, melancholy remains of day, just afforded
sufficient light to read by; and, when I had finished your letter, I
threw up the sash and leaned out, thinking of you, my Sibella, in my
imagination seeing you, seeing your fawn, your wood, your oak, your
black angry looking rock, your solemn ruin, your clumps of yew trees,
your white marble tomb. And these objects engrossed my whole attention,
while those which surrounded me became hid in darkness.

Footsteps passed underneath my window through a path leading to the
stables.

One voice said, 'Many and many a hard day's work have my poor dame and I
done since, and have gone to bed to cry and moan all night for Peggy's
naughtiness. We were ashamed to show our faces in our own parish. But
your honour assures me you won't forget her.'

Another voice answered, 'All that I have promised I will perform, depend
on it.'

The latter voice was Murden's. Now I felt the chill air of evening, and
I shut down my window.

'Won't you have candles brought, Ma'am?' asked Agnes, entering my
chamber. 'Only think, Ma'am,' continued she, 'if that good Mr. Murden is
not going to send one of the grooms eight miles for a physician to come
to the poor Indian, because the laundry maid, who is just returned from
her, told him she is not any better. I believe there never was such a
young gentleman.'

'Do you know where he is now?' said I.

'Gone to the stables, Ma'am, to hurry away the groom.'

'Is any one with him?'

'Only an old farmer, who has been in his dressing room while he dined. I
dare say Mr. Murden has been doing some good thing or other for him
too.'

'I hope he has,' replied I. _All that I have promised, I will perform,
depend on it_,--I repeated to myself. 'Light me down stairs, Agnes,'
said I. 'I hope, indeed, Mr. Murden has done him some kindness.'

Agnes looked at me attentively, and did not reply to me. I returned to
the drawing room, divested of that pleasurable glow of feeling which I
enjoyed before the voices spoke underneath my window.

As I entered the room, Lord Ulson was saying to my mother, 'such a
reference as you propose, Madam, would be unpardonable from me, nor can
we possibly expect the lady will be sincere.'

I was surprised to understand, from the Earl's bow, that I was the
subject of their conversation; and I requested, that, if his Lordship
meant me, he would hereafter never expect to find me insincere; and I
begged to know I had merited the accusation.

Mrs. Ashburn and the Earl mutually explained. His Lordship was
persuaded, it seems, that a letter exciting such visible pleasure as
that did which the servant delivered to me must be from a favoured
lover. My mother was certain the effect was produced by my _romantic
friendship_, to use her own expression; and, as the Earl was
incredulous, she was desirous of referring the decision to me. Lady
Laura affectedly begged I would defend the _sweet powers_ of friendship;
and my mother sneeringly observed, that I had a fine scope for my
talents in the present instance.

I took your letter from my pocket. I unfolded and spread it open in my
lap. 'This is the letter,' said I.

'A pretty hand,' said Colonel Ridson.

'Nay, it is not a female character, Miss Ashburn,' the Earl said.

I asked if I should read it; the Earl professed to admire my
condescension, but my mother yawned.

I selected two passages from your letter, and read them. Lord Ulson, who
had only chosen this subject for want of something to do, was now
perfectly satisfied and convinced; for Sir Thomas had invited him to
piquet. The Colonel thought your stile very charming. Lady Barlowe
thought it very dull; and, as no one contradicted her ladyship's
opinion, the subject would here have ended, had I not as I put the
letter again into my pocket, told my mother that her friend Mrs. Valmont
had lately been ill.

A poor inanimate vapoured being, Mrs. Ashburn called her friend; dying,
she said, of diseases whose slightest symptom had never reached her, a
burden to herself, and a torment to every one else; nevertheless her
fate to be pitied, lamented, and deplored without bounds. Then it became
your uncle's turn; and his sum of enormities was divided and subdivided
into multitudes of sins, so that I was ready to ask myself if I had
really ever known this Mr. Valmont. No one spark of pity remained for
him. No: he was neither pitied by Mrs. Ashburn, nor prayed for by the
Countess of Ulson.

When my mother had exhausted her topic, I said to her, 'Your pictures
are vivid to-night, madam. Suppose you finish the family. Miss Valmont,
what say you of her?'

'I leave her to you,' replied Mrs. Ashburn; 'I only think her a little
handsome, a little proud, a little ignorant, and half insane. You can
tell the rest.'

'Pray do, Miss Ashburn,' cried Lady Mary Bowden. 'I dearly love to hear
of queer creatures.'

'I am to add,' said I, 'all that remains of a _queer creature_, already
declared to be proud, ignorant, and half mad.--To the best of my
judgment, I will. This----'

The door opened, and in came Mr. Murden; and the poor Indian, the
country girl, and the old farmer who had wept sleepless nights for
_Peggy's naughtiness_, together rushed upon my imagination. Again, Lady
Laura made room for Murden; and again, he took his seat on the same
sopha. I said to myself, as I looked at him, where are the signs of
remorse? There are none. Not even the softened eye of new-born virtuous
resolutions. Strange, that I read of nothing in that face but inward
peace and freedom!

'Do go on, Miss Ashburn,' cried Lady Mary.

I did, Sibella, I began once more to speak of you; and, in a little
time, I called back a part at least of the vigour and warmth which
Murden's entrance and a train of fugitive thought had chased from me.

I began with your beauty: I omitted nothing which I could devise to make
the picture worthy of the original. I spoke of the first sight I had of
you; the impressive effect at that moment of your face, your form, your
attitude, your simple attire. I appealed to my mother, to testify the
singular beauty of your eyes, your forehead, your mouth, your hair. I
told them that your hair had never been distorted by fashion; that,
parted from the top of the head and always uncovered, it fell around
your shoulder, displaying at once its profusion and its colour, and
ornamenting, as well by its shade as its contrast, one of the finest
necks that ever belonged to a human figure.

Lady Laura now grew restless in her seat; for Murden listened, he had
even dropped a shuttle he had taken out of Lady Laura's hand, and either
inattentively, or quite unconsciously, had allowed her ladyship to stoop
to the ground for it herself. Still he listened.

'Thus adorned by nature,' said I, 'in what way shall I further recommend
her? Art has disclaimed her. This _queer creature_, Lady Mary, never out
of her uncle's castle since she was six years old, has been left utterly
without the skill of the governess and waiting maid. An old tutor,
indeed, gave her some singular lessons on the value of sincerity,
independence, courage, and capacity; and she, a worthy scholar of such a
teacher, as indeed you may judge from the specimen I read of her letter,
has odd notions and practices; and, half insane, as Mrs. Ashburn says,
would rather think herself born to navigate ships and build edifices,
than to come into a world for no other purpose, than to twist her hair
into ringlets, learn to be feeble, and to find her feet too hallowed to
tread on the ground beneath her.'

'Stop!' cries Murden, bending eagerly forward, 'tell me, Miss Ashburn,
of whom you speak.'

'Of a Miss Valmont,' said Lady Laura, peevishly. 'Miss Valmont!'
rejoined Murden, 'Miss Ashburn, do you really speak of Miss Valmont?'

'I really do, Mr. Murden.'

He did not reply again; but, folding his arms, he leaned thoughtfully on
the back of the sopha. Lady Laura, now quite out of temper, began to
complain that he was an encumbrance; and, forgetting to offer the least
apology, he instantly sprang up, and took a distant chair.

I should tell you that, by this time, my mother, Sir Thomas, the Earl,
and the Colonel, were at cards, so that I had only Lady Barlowe and the
younger part of the company for my auditors.

'And how,' asked Lady Mary, does this odd young lady (I must not again
say queer creature) employ her time?'

'Playing with cats and dogs, and chattering with servants, I suppose,'
said Lady Barlowe.

'No, Lady Barlowe,' I replied, 'the resources of her mind, _various_ and
_increasing_, to use her own description, furnish better expedients. She
wishes for communication, for intercourse, for society; but she is too
sincere to purchase any pleasure, by artifice and concealment; she is
too proud to tempt the servants from their duty, all of whom, except
two, are forbidden to approach her. A grey-headed unpolished footman,
brings her breakfast and supper to her apartment. If she is there, it is
well; if not, he leaves it, be the time longer or shorter till she does
come. Her female domestic, deaf and deformed, would attend if summoned;
but Miss Valmont finds her dress simple enough, and her limbs robust
enough, to enable her to perform all the functions of her toilet. A true
child of nature, bold in innocence, day or night is equally propitious
to her rambles; and always mentally alive, she has the glow of animation
on her cheeks, the fire of vivacity in her eye, alone in a solitary wood
at noon-day or at midnight.'

'At midnight!' Lady Laura exclaimed, 'surely you did not go alone into
the woods at midnight?'

I removed the idea her Ladyship and others perhaps had of its
impropriety, by informing them your wood was of small extent, not
distant from the castle, and inclosed within the moat, which, by means
of a canal, had been carried round the park as well as castle. 'No human
foot,' said I, 'but those admitted over the draw-bridge, can enter this
wood, which though small is romantic, and though gloomy has its
beauties. It rises on the side of the canal, and terminates at the foot
of a rock. It contains a tomb. On one part of the rock are spread the
tottering ruins of a small chapel and hermitage, and these objects serve
to invite Miss Valmont to her wood, while they check the approach of
diseased imaginations.'

I spoke further, Sibella, of your favourite lonely haunt, the flying
speed with which I have seen you bound there, the affectionate caresses
of your little fawn, and numberless other circumstances. Lady Laura was
resolved neither to be amused by the novelty, nor seduced by the merit I
had attributed to you. She found you more whimsical than pleasing; more
daring than delicate. She wished you all manner of good things; and,
among the rest, that you might not at last fall in love with one of your
uncle's footmen.

I smiled and replied to her Ladyship, that your uncle's wisdom and
foresight had provided against that misfortune. You already had a lover
worthy of you.

'Good God! Are you acquainted with Clement Montgomery?'

It was Murden from whom this exclamation burst; and I looked at him
without power to reply. It almost appeared miraculous, to hear any one
in that room name Clement Montgomery.

'Is that the Mr. Montgomery,' Lady Barlowe asked, 'you went abroad with,
Murden?'

'Yes, madam.'

'Then,' said I, 'you know Clement Montgomery intimately.'

He replied that he did.

'How could you be so cruel,' said I; 'why did you not interrupt me long
since? You, who know Miss Valmont's lover, must know Miss Valmont also.
Why did you not take the voice of that lover, and paint, as you must
have heard him paint, her attractive graces, her noble qualities? Oh it
was barbarous to leave that to be done by monotonous friendship, to
which the spirit of love could alone do justice!'

Methinks his answer was a very strange one; so cold, so abrupt! I felt
displeased at the moment; and checked myself in some eager question I
was about to ask respecting Clement Montgomery. Murden's reply, Sibella,
was,--That I had done enough: and he withdrew, too--immediately
withdrew, as if weary of me and my subject.

At supper, his place at table was vacant. His valet alledged he was
writing letters. Sir Thomas would be positive he was ill; we heard of
nothing but _the fever_, and it is highly probable the house would have
been presently half filled with physicians, and Sir Thomas really in
need of them, if Murden had not come smiling and languishing into the
supper room.

This time I had the honour of his choosing his seat next me; and, as I
saw that he only pretended to eat in order to appease his uncle, I told
him in a low voice I believed he was ill.

'My mind is my disease,' he said.

Ah, then, thought I, he does perhaps repent! I longed to talk to him,
but I could think of no subject, no name but _Peggy_; and Peggy I had
not courage to mention.

I made an awkward remark upon our ride to the water side; then I
introduced as awkwardly, and to as little purpose, the time of my
leaning out of my chamber window. Murden, unconscious of my meaning and
allusions, heard me composedly; and I ended only where I began. He found
me absent and embarrassed; and, though little suspecting that _his mind
was_ also _my disease_, his attentions were more exclusively mine, than
I had ever before experienced them to have been.

A few minutes before the company separated, Murden said to me, 'I am
informed, Miss Ashburn, that you intend visiting our poor Indian
to-morrow morning.'

'Yes,' I said, 'I had ordered my horse early for that purpose.'

'I should request your permission to attend you, madam; but I am in some
sort engaged to eat my breakfast on brown bread and new milk at a
farm-house.'

'A farm-house!' said I.

'Yes, madam,' rejoined Murden, as calmly as though he had carried
content and joy into that farm-house, instead of remorse and misery;
'Yes, madam, the most charming spot in this country. My constant house
of call in the shooting season. Many pleasant brown bread breakfasts and
suppers have I eaten there.'

So unblushing, so hard-hearted a confession absolutely startled me. I
had already risen to retire, he rose also, and said, 'Will you, Miss
Ashburn, allow me to ride with you in the morning?'

'And neglect the farm-house, Mr. Murden.'

He replied, 'the time is of little consequence, I can go there
afterward.'

'Oh, but it is,' said I, '_now_ of infinite consequence. Not for the
world would I be the means of your dispensing with one title of your
promises to that farm-house. Pray,' said I, turning back, after having
bade him good night, 'Mr. Murden, do you correspond with Clement
Montgomery?'

Again I became reconciled to him; again I was persuaded, that he
repented of his error, and that he is not hardened in his
transgressions, for he understood the fullest tendency of my question.
His countenance instantly expressed shame, surprise, and sorrow too; and
his voice faultered while he said--

'Why, Miss Ashburn, why should you wish to know that?' And when he
added, 'I do indeed, madam, correspond with Mr. Montgomery,' he looked
from me.

My _good night_ was more cordial than the former one; and I hope, that,
if Murden finds his breakfast at the farm-house less pleasant than
heretofore, its usefulness will increase, as its pleasure ceases.

Day-light bursts into my chamber. In another hour, I shall prepare to
visit the Indian. My Sibella, farewel!

CAROLINE ASHBURN

LETTER VIII

FROM CLEMENT MONTGOMERY

TO

ARTHUR MURDEN

Infidel as thou art toward beauty, and indolent as thou art in
friendship, whence dost thou still derive the power to attract the
homage of beauty, and the zeal of friendship.

That Janetta, the Empress of all hearts, but callous thine, possessed
sensibility, susceptibility, or even animation, thou, infidel Arthur,
didst deny. Yet Janetta can sometimes torture her admiring Clement by
the repetition of thy praises.

Four letters of mine, long letters, letters to which I yielded hours
that might have been rapturous in enjoyments, those letters lie, the
last as the first, unanswered, unheeded in thy possession.

I devoutly thank the star that shed its influence over the hour of my
birth, that it gave me a temperament opposite to thine, Arthur: for,
have I not seen thee more than insensible, even averse to the offered
favours of the fair? Have I not seen thee yawn with listlessness at an
assembly, where rank and splendor, the delights of harmony, and the
fascinations of beauty, filled my every sense with exstacy? Give me the
sphere of fashion, and its delights! Fix me in the regions of ever
varying novelty!

Mine is life. I sail on an ocean of pleasure. Where are its rocks, its
sands, its secret whirlpools, or its daring tempests? Fables all! Fables
invented by the envious impotence of snarling Cynics, to crush the
aspiring fancy of glowing youth! Thy apathy, Murden, I detest. Nay, I
pity thee. And I swear by that pity, I would sacrifice some portion of
my pleasures, to awaken thee to the knowledge of one hour's rapture.

Soul-less Arthur, how couldst thou slight the accomplished L----? How
could thou acknowledge that she was beautiful, yet tell me of her
defects?--Defects! Good heaven! Defects, in a beautiful, kind, and
yielding woman!--Arthur, Arthur, in compassion to thy passing youth, thy
graceful figure, and all those manly charms with which thou art formed
to captivate, forget thy wild chimeras, thy absurd dreams of romantic
useless perfections; and make it thy future creed, that in woman there
can be no crime but ugliness, no weakness nor defect but cruelty.

Every day, every hour, Janetta brings me new proof that thy judgment is
worthless. She has tenderness, she has sensibility; she does not, as
thou didst assert, receive my love merely to enrich herself with its
offerings; and constancy she has, even more boundless than I (except for
a time) could desire; for she talks of being mine for ever, and says,
wherever I go thither will she go also.

And I will soothe her with the flattering hope. Why should I damp our
present ardors, by anticipating the hour when we must part? Why should I
suffuse those brilliant eyes with the tears of sorrow; or wound that
fondly palpitating heart, by allowing her to suspect that she but
supplies the absence of an all-triumphant rival?

Ah, let not my thoughts glance that way! Let not imagination bring
before me the etherial beauty of my Sibella! Let it not transport me to
her arms, within the heaven of Valmont wood! or I shall be left a form
without a soul; and be excluded from the enjoyment that I now admire, as
being in absence my solace, my happiness.

I expected I should have been dull without thee, Murden; but I hardly
know, except when I am writing, that thou hast left me. I dress, I
dance, I ride, I visit, I am visited. My remittances bring me all I
wish, in their profusion. I adore, and am adored; the nights and days
are alike devoted to an eternal round of pleasures; and lassitude and I
are unacquainted.

'Read the hearts of men,' says Mr. Valmont. I cannot. I am fascinated
with their manners. I pant to acquire the same soft polish; and their
endearing complaisance to my endeavours.

That graceful polish is already thine; and, there, I envy thee. I envy
too thy reputation; but I hate thy cold reserve. Why, if these triumphs
which are attributed to thee be really thine, why conceal them? Others
can tell me of thy successes, can show me the very objects for whom thou
hast sighed, whom thou hast obtained. When I alledge that I found thee
constantly dissatisfied, contemplating some imaginary being, complaining
that too much or too little pride, defective manners, or a defective
mind, gave thee an antidote against love, I am assured that it was the
mere effect of an overweening vanity. Seymour, who pretends to know thee
much better than I do, declares thou art vain beyond man's belief or
woman's example. He is thy sworn enemy; and well he may, provided his
charges against thee be true, for the other night in the confidence of
wine, he assured me, that thou art the seducer of his mistress. A
mistress, fond and faithful, till she listened to thy seductions. Is it
possible, Murden, thou canst have been thus dishonourably cruel? I doubt
the veracity of Seymour's representation; for, I think thou are not only
too strict for the transaction, but too inanimate to be assailed by the
temptation.

Prithee, Arthur, banish this thy ever impenetrable reserve; and tell me
truly, whether thou art inflated with victory; fastidious from change;
or, whether, as I deem thee, thou are not really too cold to love;
whether thou hast not cherished the indolent caprice of thy temper, till
it has deadened thee into marble?

Once more, I thank heaven I am not like thee. Ever may I thrill at the
glance, the smile of beauty! Ever may I live, to know no business but
pleasure; and may my resources ever be as unconfined as my wishes!

CLEMENT MONTGOMERY

LETTER IX

FROM SIBELLA VALMONT

TO

CAROLINE ASHBURN

It is now a week since, one evening at sunset, I carried your letters,
and that portrait painted by Clement in the days when we knew no sorrow,
into the wood; where, shutting out every remembrance, save those of love
and friendship, I was for a time wrapped in the sublimity of happiness.
Is the mind so much fettered by its earthly clog the body, that it
cannot long sustain these lofty flights, soaring as it were into
divinity, but must ever sink back to its portion of pains and penalties?
For, this I have before experienced; and, at the time of which I speak,
pain and grief suddenly burst in upon me. I rushed from the foot of my
oak to the monument; and, resting there, wept with a bitterness equal in
degree to my former pleasure.

Nina was at my side--and her flying from me into the wood, was a signal
that some one approached. I raised my head; and beheld, descending from
the Ruin on the Rock, the tall figure of a venerable man, with a white
and flowing beard. He was wrapped in a sort of loose gown; a broad hat
shaded part of his face; his step was feeble; he frequently tottered;
and, when he had come near to me, he leaned both hands on his staff, and
addressed me thus.

'Fair virgin, weep not! The spirits of the air gather round you; and
form a band so sacred, that the malignant demons hover at a distance,
hopeless of approach. Your guardian angel presides over this grove.
Here, Mildew, Mischief, and Mischance, cannot harm you. Fair virgin weep
not!' He paused, I said, 'Who are you?'

'Once,' he continued, 'I was the hallowed tenant of yon ruined mansion;
once, an inhabitant of earth, it was my lot to warn the guilty, and to
soothe the mourner. Well may such tears as thine draw me back to earth.
I come, the spirit of consolation. Fair virgin, why weepest thou?'

'I know,' I said, 'that the sleep of death is eternal. That the grave
never gives back, to form and substance, the mouldering body; and it
indeed matters little to me who or what you are, since I well know you
cannot be what you would seem.'

I stepped down from the monument; and turned up the wood path, leading
to the castle.

'Stay,' cried he. 'Do you doubt my supernatural mission?--View my
testimony. Behold, I can renovate old age!'

I looked back, the beard, the hat, the mantle were cast aside; and a
young man of graceful form and fine physiognomy appeared before me.

I stood, an instant, in surprise; and then, I again turned toward the
castle. He stepped forward, and intercepted my path with outspread arms.

'Fear me not,' said he. 'I----'

'No,' I answered. 'I do not fear you, though I know of no guardian
angels but my innocence and fortitude.'

He folded his arms, fixed his eyes upon the ground, and I passed on
without further interruption.

When Andrew brought supper into my apartment, I asked if there were
strangers in the castle; and Andrew shook his head, by which I
understood that he did not know if there were any.

The following morning, I expected my uncle's commands to absent myself
from the wood; and though no message came, I did absent myself, both on
that day and on the succeeding day and their nights, confining all my
walks to the open ground behind the castle and the lawn.

During these two days, I was attended only by Margaret. Poor Andrew was
indisposed. Banished from my oak, deprived of my Nina's society,
excluded even from the slight intercourse the table afforded with Mr.
and Mrs. Valmont (for my uncle has lately determined, that it is an
indelicate custom to meet together at stated times for the sole purpose
of eating; and refreshment is now served up to each in our separate
apartments) it is nearly impossible to tell you, Caroline, how much
_alone_ I felt myself, while these two days and two nights lasted.

The third day was bleak and stormy; the wind roared; and showers fell
frequently. Every one of this household seems at all times loath to
encounter such inclemencies, and I imagined that to me alone these were
things of little moment. I went, therefore, to the wood; but, ere Nina
had expressed half her joy, the stranger appeared.

'Why fly me,' he said, 'if you do not fear me?'

'I shun you,' replied I, 'because I do not understand you.'

'But, if you shun me, you cannot understand me.'

'I do not deem you worthy of enquiry,' I said; 'for you came with
pretences of falsehood and guile, and those are coverings that virtue
ever scorns.'

'Fair philosopher,' he exclaimed, 'teach me how you preserve such
vigour, such animation, where you have neither rivalship to sustain, nor
admiration to excite? Are you secluded by injustice from the world? Or,
do you willingly forsake its delights, to live the life of hopeless
recollection? Say, does the beloved of your soul sleep in that
monument?'

The supposition, Caroline, was for an instant too agonizing; and I
called twice on the name of Clement, with a vehemence that made this man
start. His face flushed with colour; he retreated a few steps, and
looked every way around him.

'No,' said I, as he again approached, 'my beloved lives. Our beings are
incorporate as our wishes. The sepulchre need not open twice. No tyranny
could separate us in death. But who are you,' I added, 'that come hither
to snatch from me the moments I would dedicate to remembrances of past
pleasure, and to promising expectation?'

'Is then your heart so narrowed by love, that it can admit neither
friendship nor benevolence?'

I answered, 'To my friendship you have no claim; for, we are not equal.
You wear a mask. Esteem and unreserved confidence are the only
foundations of friendship.'

As he had done on the former day, he again intercepted my path; for I
was going to quit the wood.

'Stay,' he said, 'and hear me patiently; or I may cast a spell around
you!'

He interrupted the reply I was beginning to make, thus--'I do not bid
you fear me. My power is not terrible, but it is mighty. Tell me, then,'
he added, 'have you no sense of the blessings of intercourse? Have you
never reflected on the selfishness of solitude, on the negative virtues
of the recluse?'

'I find you here,' said I, 'in Mr. Valmont's wood; and I expect,
therefore, that you already know my seclusion is not the effect of my
choice.'

'But from whom, other than yourself, am I to learn why it is the effect
of your submission?'

This was a question, Caroline, which I had never steadily put to myself;
and I stood silent some moments before I found my answer.

I said, 'I am not yet convinced that the time is arrived when my
submission ought to cease.'

'Ah, rather, honestly confess,' he replied, 'that you shun a stern
contention with that power which here detains you. But there are other
means. A secret escape. If you resolve to exert yourself for that
purpose----'

'No,' I said, 'I am not weak enough to descend to artifice. Did I think
it right to go, I should go openly. Then might Mr. Valmont try his
opposing strength. But he would find, I could leap, swim, or dive; and
that moats and walls are feeble barriers to a determined will.'

'Oh, stay, stay in these woods for ever!' he vehemently exclaimed. 'Go
not into the world, where artifice might assail and example corrupt that
noble sincerity. Or if, as I think, your courage, your integrity, are
incorruptible. Oh yet, go not into the world! View not its disgusting
follies! Taste not its chilling disappointments!'

My answer was: 'I am accustomed to listen to inconsistencies. You just
now, spoke of the pleasures and blessings of society.'

As he did not reply, but stood as though he was musing, I thought I
could pass him, which I attempted to do. He immediately knelt on one
knee before me; spread one hand on his bosom, and said--

'You are above my controul. I would not dare profane you, by the single
touch of my finger. But I beseech you, by that firmness, that innocence
which holds distrust and danger at defiance, I beseech you listen to me
a few short moments longer.'

'Have you any thing to impart which can interest me?' I asked him.

'I have that which ought to interest you.'--He rose from his kneeling
posture, and appeared to hesitate. 'Alas,' he then added, 'I have many
many faults! I am unstable in wise resolutions; and yielding, as
childhood, to temptation. I wanted a guide, a monitor. I sought one in
the world, and found only tempters. I have quitted the world. I have
chosen my abode in that Ruin. There I would fain learn to amend myself.
I want to learn to be happy. But I come not to that Ruin, to banish you
from this wood. This is your selected spot; and that is mine. Only a few
paces divides them. Yet, if you say it must be so, the distance shall be
as impassable as though entire kingdoms lay between us. Ah, reflect a
moment before your single word forms this immense barrier!--A moment
did I say?--No: reflect a day. Leave me now in silence; and return
to-morrow, the next day, when you will, and then tell me, if you could
not sometimes find me a more sympathizing auditor than trees and marble,
when you would breathe complaint, or utter joy. Go then. But----'

A second time he hesitated; and, when he spoke again, his articulation
was changed from its clear decisive character to a thicker lower
utterance.

'Be aware,' he said, 'that there are certain requisites necessary to
form the utility of my solitude: Uninterrupted retirement, and perfect
secresy.'

Was I unjust, Caroline? but his mention of secresy instantly filled my
mind with a supposition that his words wore one form, and his intentions
another. I warned him to depart. I told him, I despised concealment;
that I had ever scorned to separate my wishes from my acts, or my
actions from my words. I said, his caution pointed out my duty. I bade