Secresy; or, Ruin on the Rock

LETTER III

FROM SIBELLA VALMONT TO CAROLINE ASHBURN

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LETTER IV

FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME

I know not precisely where to begin, nor how much of the adventure I told you in my last. Did I not say, that, while yet at my oak, Nina entered the wood a little below the tomb and without observing me began to climb the rock? But I think I broke off before I had mentioned her swift return at my call, and the irresolution she betrayed by running backward and forward from me to the rock, and from the rock back again to me. Desirous to know what her manner portended, I arose as if to follow, and away she bounded, taking the path up to the hermitage. As she ascended much swifter than I could, she waited on the outer side of the ruin till I also arrived; and then bent her course round to the farther part, which being the most perfect of the building I imagined she had chosen for the purpose of sheltering her young ones. It is called the chapel. Standing on a projecting point of the rock, it is difficult of access, for the path is cumbered with loose stones, from one to the other of which runs in perplexing branches the twining ivy. High grass and clusters of bramble choak the wild flowers that shed their inviting fragrance on part of the lower side of the rock, nor do I remember ever but twice before to have gone beyond the unroofed cell, where Clement and I, one happy spring morning, raised a seat of stone, and plucked away the weeds that new springing grass might mingle with our mossy foot-stool. There too we planted a woodbine, rose, and jassamine, but the cell refused nourishment to our favorites. Foiled in our attempt to make the ruin bloom a garden, it had no longer for us any attractions.

Nina's wistful look as she again stopped at the chapel's entrance now tempted me on, but it could tempt me no farther. At the stairs my curiosity or at least all inclination to gratify it terminated. In one corner of this small chapel where the wall is yet undecayed, remains a kind of altar. Some stones in front have falled away and discover a flight of dark narrow steps, I concluded Nina had concealed her young in the vault below, for she would not return when I called: but I could not think of encountering I knew not what damp and darkness in the hope of finding them. Both suppositions were erroneous. The cell is superior in dimensions and dryness to those above ground, nor had my fawn any offspring there. This place, Caroline, was Mr. Murden's abode. Thence he ascended followed by Nina, and stood before me the original of your painting, and the same who once in the wood started from every appearance of feeble age into youth and vigour.

He named himself. 'Miss Valmont,' said he, 'I no longer bear a borrowed character. Henceforward, should you ever think of me, know I am Murden, the friend of Clement Montgomery, and the acquaintance (I dare not say more) of your Miss Ashburn. Already the victim of unsuccessful love, by all my hopes of heaven, I came hither only to seek your consolations. The world cannot find time to sooth a breaking heart. You in solitude might. But you have no pity, no friendship. An accident keeps me here this day, or I had now been gone for ever. Do not Miss Valmont, do not set your people of the castle to hunt me; for I am desperate.'

'Whose victim are you?' said I.

'Whose?' repeated he loudly and wildly. 'Did you say whose, Miss Valmont?' Then turning away and sinking his voice, he said, 'Ay whose, indeed! Do you know,' added he, approaching nearer to me, 'that death is of icy coldness! The eye beams no tidings, for the heart feels no warmth! Such is my love to me! – Tell me, Miss Valmont, what would you do were Clement thus?'

'Alas! Die also!'

'Oh brave!' said Murden with a strange kind of smile: – 'bear witness, thou unhallowed gloomy mansion, for one, one moment of our lives are we agreed! – Miss Valmont, I shall never see you more. If I have created uneasiness in your breast, by my strange visits to this spot, forgive and forget it. Ask me no questions. In some hour of less anguish than the present, I will tell Miss Ashburn how and why I came hither. Another person there is also to whom I shall owe the detail. – Hold' – for I was going to speak. 'Do not name him. Your last words were, Die also! To me your last, choicest blessing. No! No! I will not hear you speak again. This is our final interview. – In peace and safety, Miss Valmont, return to your wood; and when remembrances of love shall be no longer remembrances of happiness, then —Die also.

And who, Caroline, could outlive their remembrances of happiness? I have placed myself one minute in the situation of this unfortunate young man: I beheld the tomb close upon the lifeless form of Clement, and in the wide world there was no longer room for me.

Murden descended to his cell; and I went home to weep for him. Will not you weep for him, my friend? and Clement too? I feel you will. Clement knows full well the value of requited affection; he will sooth his friend, but he will not ask him to live. It would be cruelty.

Nina looked kindly at me, but she followed Murden; and, since he quitted that ill-chosen abode, I often see her descending the rock. She even appears to mourn his absence; and she looks around expectingly, and starts at every gust of wind, as she used when Clement first bade us adieu.

Either to you or Clement I appeal for the further history of your drooping friend. Bid Clement write: be it only three words, 'Bless my Sibella;' and I will wear it next my heart – a charm to hold disease and foreboding at defiance.

My dearest friend, farewel!