Secresy; or, Ruin on the Rock

LETTER V

FROM ARTHUR MURDEN TO CAROLINE ASHBURN

When friendship and advice can no longer avail him, Murden intreats a patient ear to the history of his misfortunes.

Intreat! Did he say? – No, Madam; he intreats nothing of you: he demands your ear, demands your attention, your sighs, your sorrow: and little indeed is that, though your all of reparation, for the mischievous eloquence, which first instigated him to become the poor valueless object of pity, sighs, and sorrow.

To tell you that I love Sibella Valmont, is no more than Montgomery will tell you. But he loves her, in his way. – I, in mine. When present, her supreme and every varying beauty, makes his rapture; and, till he has been a day without her, he imagines absence would be insupportable. – Absent or present, alike she fills my every vein. I love her, Miss Ashburn, as – oh misery! – as she loves Clement!

Judge me not so absurd as to entertain hope, although I tell you I am again returned to the hermit's cell. Offer hope in its most seducing form; and still would I renounce it. Yes, Madam: possession of Sibella, were I an atom less to her than she is to me, must inflict torture worse than the present.

Nor deem, that I would dare assail her ears with my unauspicious love. I have spoken in mystery; and she thinks I mourn a buried mistress. – Alas! and so I do!

Montgomery, what dost thou owe me? Yet 'twas not thee I meant to serve; therefore thou owest me nothing. Thou canst find happiness any where: but, in the circle of thy arms and heart, centres the full measure of Sibella's wishes.

I would almost, Miss Ashburn, as soon have rushed into the fire, as again sustained the chilling beam of her eye. Yet I have come hither again, have endured this and more, to check the carniverous meal of anxiety already begun on her cheek's bloom.

I have been told, and have told Sibella, that instead of being a dependent on her uncle, she is mistress of fifty thousand pounds: with infinite astonishment she heard me, and is gone to demand an explanation of Mrs. Valmont. I requested her to forbear naming me, till I had made a safe retreat from the park; for Valmont is proud, insolent and cruel. And she bade me wait her return here, that according to Mr. Valmont's reception of the tidings, I, as Clement's friend, might yield her my prompt advice.

Yes! as Clement's friend, she said. Ah well may I talk of endurance!

When I first knew you, Madam, at Barlowe Hall, you won my admiration and esteem, by the uniform reserve, or I may say repugnance of your manners toward me. I adored your disdain of a character I equally disdained, while I contemptibly descended to wear it; and, though I could not instantly resolve to cast aside the unmerited fame of my licentiousness, yet you never moved or spoke, that I was not all eye and ear, however, you might contemn the abettor of impertinence and folly in Lady Margaret and Lady Laura Bowden.

One evening, you may remember, I abruptly shook off those interrupters, who wore gorgon-heads in my view, while they delivered their invidious suppositions concerning the lovely being, whose picture you had so animatedly given. – When your eulogium on Sibella Valmont ceased, I withdrew; flew to my chamber; and hastily locked the door, as if I had newly found treasure to deposit there in secresy. I threw myself into a chair. 'And is not all this familiar to thee, Murden?' said I, after a pause. 'Hast thou not a thousand and a thousand times, in thy waking and sleeping visions, described a being thus artless, thus feminine, yet firm, such an all-attractive daughter of wisdom? – Ay: but I had never personified her in Sibella Valmont, though Clement had sworn ten thousand fathom deeper to her beauty.'

I could make no more nor less of it. My head ached; and my soul was burthened. I went to bed, and dreamt of a wilderness, and an angel; and the vision followed me through the engagements of the succeeding day.

Whether it was that I more industriously fought it than formerly, I know not, but soon an opportunity arose of conversing with you alone. It was easy to lead to a theme wherein your affections were as much engaged as my curiosity; and I heard every interesting particular of her mind, manners, and seclusion. Her love of Clement Montgomery, was also remembered. To me, his love of her never bore any striking features; and, somehow, her's to him seldom intruded amidst my chimeras. Strange wishes arose – tremulous expectations. 'It is all curiosity,' said I; 'and to overcome the obstacles that forbid thy knowledge of this Phœnix, is worthy the labour of ingenuity.'

When you, Madam, took the road to Bath, I unattended crossed the country to Valmont castle. Three days I passed in reviving and rejecting the scheme; and during that time, had stationed myself at a farm-house within a mile of Valmont. In the farmer, I recognized an old school-fellow of my day's of humility; and one whom I loved dearly too, before my uncle was a nabob. We met each other with an appearance of restraint and embarrassment. I, certainly conscious of an unjust neglect of him: he, perhaps secretly despising the man who preferred wealth to honesty. But reparation was then in my power; and the very critical moment at hand.

Farmer Richardson is rather given to endure than to complain. His simple statement of a few facts, which led to the service I rendered him, contained no invective. 'He told me he was an unfortunate man, to be sure; but Mr. Valmont was not obliged to know that.' – As to family concerns at the castle, after which I enquired, he said, 'he had occasionally heard more than he chose to relate. That the 'squire was perhaps proud and capricious, but he might have reasons for his conduct. Let every man act according to his own conscience, and the Lord have mercy on the greatest sinner.' Such is honest Richardson's creed.

The farmer's taciturnity was amply contrasted by the loquacity of his hind, formerly a domestic at the castle, and suddenly discharged with that pride and petulance for which its owner is famed. – John Thomas dwelt at Valmont-castle when Clement Montgomery was adopted; when Miss Valmont was brought thither – and though I always made him begin there, he constantly found means to shift his ground to the ancient mysteries of the domain. 'A sinful lord, turned penitent, enjoined to find money and materials for the structure, it pleased a neighbouring society of devout fathers to erect on the rock within the park. It was further necessary to his salvation, that this hermitage should be endowed on two of the most holy monks of the brotherhood, who would undertake to live longest by prayer and fasting. The event proved the choice admirably founded. Without the adventitious aid of victuals and drink, they dwelt I know not what number of years in this practice of piety, saw the society from whence they came broken and dispersed, and peaceably ended their days in the hermitage.' – Selfish fellows though these saints, according to John Thomas; for, dead, they will not yield possession to the living, but

I essayed to gain information concerning Miss Valmont; and John Thomas's deduction from the little he had seen and the more he had heard was, that Miss had not a right understanding. He always thought Master Montgomery better natured of the two, and he would be a fine fortune when he came back from foreign countries.

Legends of the haunted ruin, on which John Thomas delighted to dwell, first suggested to me a hermit's disguise. Already, Miss Ashburn, you contemn the romance of my scheme; and its practicability seems impossible in expectation. Experience taught me how much a little ingenuity and great perseverance will effect. In all cases, whether of right or wrong, jointly they can almost work miracles.

Early misfortunes, a life of hard labour and little profit, had blunted that quickness of sensation in farmer Richardson, which might have led him to conjecture something mysterious of me. If I was there to claim my meals, it was well; if not, 'twas the same. I contrived to evade all enquiries into my absence, whether it were of the night or day, by fixing on myself the character of an eccentric whimsical solitary.

Ah, Miss Ashburn! I smile to observe the precaution, and industry, wherewith I wrought my wretchedness! You allow me to be minute I know, for I know your sympathy and sincerity.

How this recapitulation of events has beguiled from me the consciousness of passing time! In this under-ground cell, where no ray of the sun's light ever penetrated, have I by my solitary lamp counted the lagging moments throughout a day. Yet now living over again in remembrance that preparatory fortnight when I was at farmer Richardson's was only restless, I have suffered hours to go by, without any additional torment of suspended expectation. Sibella is not returned. I thought I heard the sound of her feet in the chapel above; but, when I ascended, she was not there. I went on to the other side, but darkness has enveloped the castle, wood, and park. I shall not see her to-night then. Mr. Valmont may be from home, occupied or engaged; and she cannot gain an hearing. Nina too has quitted me; yet I am less alone than heretofore. The spirit of your friendship hovers round me. Be my friend, Miss Ashburn, while existence cleaves to me; and, when I am gone, double the portion of your love to Sibella. – Ah me! my heart has strange forebodings that she will greatly need it.

A continuation of my narrative shall amuse the sleepless night. Who will dispute that my claim to saintship is not more incontestible than that of the former fasting inhabitants of this mansion? The holy monks by their mysterious passages into the castle, could and assuredly did indemnify themselves at night for the forbearance of the day. But I, who have learned in this cell and its invirons to banish sleep, one of nature's greatest wants, where shall I seek the lulling medicine which can steal me from self? – can anticipate the tomb?

During the fortnight previous to my first seeing Miss Valmont, I reconnoitred day after day every inch of ground around the moat, and a first circuit showed me that immediately beside the rock the moat, forming an angle, is not above a third part as broad as in any other place. This of course rendered it much easier to cross, but that facility was more than counterbalanced by the abruptness of the bank on the side next the lane, and the slippery steepness of the rock on the park side. Still this seemed the place, from its great privacy and difficulty of access, by which I must enter. Never but once did I see any creature approach it; and then I saw a gentleman on the opposite hill, who seemed to have lost his way. The exactness and solicitude of my observations at length pointed out a tolerable and easy method of descending the bank; for I perceived stumps of trees irregularly but artfully disposed, which I dare believe had been either purposely placed or purposely left there for the climber's assistance. At first, this surprised me: however, the whole business was fully explained, when measuring the depth of the moat in separate places, I discovered (and blessed the saintly contrivance of the starving monks) a mound raised across the moat, about two feet below its surface, on which large pieces of the rock were thrown, their edges just covered with water, so that with the assistance of my pole, I could pass from one to the other, suffering little more inconvenience than a wet shoe.

'Forerunners of your worthy successor,' exclaimed I, 'thankfully I receive the benefit of your labours! Your work, no doubt, is perfect in ingenuity; I shall tread in your steps up the mountain's rugged side, and nightly visit my shrine as you nightly deserted yours.'

Yes, Miss Ashburn, the ascent was attainable; and, though time has destroyed some of the useful works of the holy fathers, yet here and there, particularly in the more abrupt parts of the rock, I found steps formed. By diligent heed of these, and other aids, I certainly gained the only path by which I could have reached my destination. It brought me on the back of the hermitage to the chapel's entrance, which if you have at all noticed its situation, you will recollect to be so placed, that any one may enter it without being discovered from the wood, or even from the park side of the rock.

I will not tell – no, I cannot tell you the swelling joy with which I hailed myself master of the ruin. It commands no prospect, save of the wood-path where stands Valmont's monument, and, a dearer object, Sibella's oak; yet, I bent my eager view through the chapel's cracked wall, and bade the winds bear to the castle's owner my proud defiance. This my first visit, performed at twilight, was only a visit of inspection. I discovered the stairs under the altar; but deemed it, at least improper, if not dangerous, to explore them without light.

All my apparatus were forthwith conveyed to the moat's-edge, where rushes afforded them an hiding place, till I had carried them to my station. A few biskets alone was my provender; but for the supply of my dark lantern I was abundantly careful. No monarch ever ascended a throne with more bounding exultation than that which filled my breast, when I took possession of this lower cell.

The next day, I saw her. – Good God! and you have seen her too – at the foot of her oak – her flowing hair – her modest drapery – a model for the sculptor! – A vision for the poet! – I became neither! —

Were I to live ages, I could never describe her, for when her image is most perfect with me I have neither powers of mind, nor the common faculties of nature. The overwhelming sensation sinks me to the earth. Montgomery! – She may live in thy imagination, but not in thy heart, as in mine!

Surely I grow tedious in detail. These occurrences were few; yet they swell in relation.

Three days elapsed ere she came again to her wood. Doubtless, Madam, you have already heard of our conversation. – 'She feared me not' – She left me to inform Mr. Valmont. – In the first moment of our intercourse, I saw the firmness of her character. I saw she knew not how to threaten; she could only reason and resolve. I dared not quit the hermitage in day light, but I could provide for my safety within it. Walking backward and forward in my cell for exercise, one stone of the flooring had constantly resounded under my footsteps, and as I trod harder it appeared loosened from the rest. 'A grave or a treasure?' said I, and I raised the stone. There was only a flight of steps, three times as wide as those descending from the chapel. As I now trod the ground of mystery, this discovery excited no surprise; and, imagining myself securely and conveniently stationed in the cell, I had not the smallest inclination to explore further, till hearing the voices of people on the rock, who I doubted not were coming in search of me, I committed myself with my lantern to the subterraneous passage. Finding it well arched, dry, and wide, curiosity led me on; for I no sooner discovered it, than I conjectured its secret communication with some apartment of the castle.

It is unnecessary, Miss Ashburn, to dwell on the construction of this passage, its ascents, and descents, windings, &c. – Suffice it to say, that it seemed a journey of infinite length; that the crumbling fragments of one broken arch had nigh forbidden my progress; and finally that, this difficulty overcome, a sliding pannel of oak incomparably fitted, gave me admission into the armoury. From amidst the surrounding trophies of honour I snatched a sword, determined therewith to defend myself against any direct attack.

In the armoury I remained all that night; for I thought it possible that someone might be stationed to watch for me in the cell. Shall I not tell you that a feeling which surmounted my apprehensions of discovery chained me to the armoury? – I was under the same roof with Sibella!

The first dawnings of morn burst imperfectly through the high and grated casements; and I heard the creaking door of the armoury begin to open; I darted through my pannel, but the pannel shut heavily and with noise. Some person had already entered the armoury ere the pannel was quite closed. I shuddered for the consequences that might ensue; and I retreated a few steps, and grasped my sword. I heard the person in the armoury walk, and several times pass the pannel. The step was light and gentle. I heard a sigh. My heart took the prompt alarm. I looked through the crevice. It was – I had almost said – my Sibella – No: Montgomery's Sibella! I forced back the panel – flew to her – trembled – spoke – was wild, vehement, and perhaps utterly unintelligible.

And here let me pause, Miss Ashburn, to remark how strongly I discovered in her mind I had pictured and panted to possess. When I first approached her in the wood, tottering under a hermit's disguise, I could perceive, as it were, her collecting spirits embody themselves to repel my fraud. 'It matters little to me,' said she, 'who or what you are, since I well know you cannot be what you would seem.' Conscious rectitude forbade her to fear me, – it forbade her to mix me with her ideas in one shape – all her all prevalent love forbade it in another. – I saw her once – when the time, the place, the circumstance would have appalled me into agony! When, unseen, I echoed her bursting sigh, from behind the monument, I saw her a moment mute with surprise, then, call into her mien a dignity so firm so undaunted, that it might have spoken lessons to a hero.

After Miss Valmont left me in the armoury, I waited another hour; and assuring myself, from the still silence that prevailed, my passage was undiscovered, I returned to my cell, which I believe none had entered since I quitted. The succeeding night I revisited farmer Richardson's.

John Thomas, ever delighted to talk, came on me open-mouthed, with a tale newly brought from the castle: namely, that Miss Valmont had seen and spoken with the hermit's ghost in the wood.

And next, Madam, to prevent suspicion and enquiry, I deemed it proper to join you and my uncle's party at Bath. There, in the midst of the crowds, was I alone. I saw but one form. I heard but one voice. I began to despise Montgomery; to assure myself, against conviction, that she did not could not love him; and had promised my heart I know not what of success and felicity when – the contrast past; his letter came; and I, in the saloon, in your presence, before a crowd of witnesses, behaved like a fool and a madman. Pardon, Miss Ashburn, in consideration of my despair, any surprise or shock my conduct gave you. Never can you know what were the feelings of that night. Love had no concern therewith. It was a night of hatred, revenge and rage.

Adieu, Madam. I have filled up the last space of my paper, and my narrative must rest till I return to the farm.

The blessings of an uncorrupted mind ever, ever, be your possession.

LETTER VI

FROM THE SAME – TO THE SAME

Four and twenty hours longer of fruitless expectation did I endure in that cell. No Sibella appeared. Did she then forget her request? Painting her future delights with Montgomery, has she forgotten the unblessed wretch, who for her sake could sustain hunger and cold, watching and weariness, who to hail the same breeze that had saluted her, quitted every indulgence of luxury for an abode that held comfort at defiance, who stretched himself along the bare stone rather than on a bed of down, because from that sleepless couch he could spring, to gain an indistinct view of her bewitching form?

Ay, pour your contempt upon me, ye whose smiles I have beguiled you of! – View him who bought your unprized tenderness with the empty breath of flattery, view him, stealing slave-like into forbidden paths only to gaze at humble distance, only to catch the echo of a sigh, a sigh breathed to another! – He, Miss Ashburn, who lives without hope – must die for consolation.

Yet, surely this her absence cannot arise from so more than common an instance of insensibility; some accident may have prevented her return; and I am capricious and cruel, while I dare to accuse her of insensibility. John Thomas met me, as I returned to the farm. He was carrying malt to the castle. I will throw myself in his way when he comes home; and probably, amidst the abundance of information he will be eager to communicate, I may find something which will elucidate this strange absence of Miss Valmont.

Little remains, Madam, for me to add to my confessions. Sibella's tender but romantic contract placed an eternal barrier between me and the flattering illusions wherewith fancy fled my flame. I saw she loved as I had wished her to love: had I been the object! – In the first moments of phrenzy, I wrote Montgomery a mad letter; and no sooner recovered a better frame of mind, than I dispatched one of apology, which both made my peace, and quieted his astonishment, for he is not given to look beyond the surface.

Hours, Miss Ashburn, have I spent in wishing Montgomery worthier of his fate. Sometimes, have I calmed my swelling agony by reproaching her for loving him, then have humbled my proud heart to dust, to obtain her ideal pardon. Her seclusion, her enthusiasm, his reducing countenance, his vivacity of spirit, and above all his well expressed vehemence of love! Oh it could not be otherwise! She saw an outline: her imagination formed the rest.

No, not one single instance of self-reproach on Clement's account ever assailed me. When I first discovered that Montgomery's beloved was the selected friend of Miss Ashburn, I then knew they might be paired, but never mated. To rival him with one woman, methought could be little injury, when in her absence twenty others equally could charm.

After Miss Valmont had irrevocably given herself to Clement, I resolved to travel, for to the antipodes would I have journeyed, rather than met Montgomery. Yet I tutored my heart into the supposition that I still had a friendship for him, that Sibella had injured me, and was now not a jot beyond my friend, or my friend's wife. Dwelling on the delusion, it insensibly produced a desire, when Clement went to London, of returning to my hermitage, to her park, in order to behold her with firm composure, with almost indifference. – Self-devoted victim that I am.

'I can do her service,' said I to myself; 'and I can prevent her suspecting aught of the former intruder. Wishes she must have; something to alleviate the tedious uniformity of her existence.' And numberless plans to gratify and amuse her, without my having any apparent concern therein, I quickly resolved upon.

You recollect Madam, (perchance with disdain) my abrupt departure from Bath. – Farmer Richardson rejoiced to see me. John Thomas was yet brimful of Miss Valmont and the ghost. When these industrious labourers of the day retired to early rest, I betook myself to the now bleak and desolate hermitage. No sooner had I deposited my lanthorn and little basket, than I left my cell intending to revisit, not with rapture but regret, her selected paths.

It was I think one of the finest nights I ever beheld; and I must have wanted that fervour of soul which gave birth to my love, had I not been enchanted with the scene. The resplendent moon, now at the summit of her growth, silvered the wide spreading branches of Sibella's oak, the fairest tree of the forest; her steady beam glittered over one half the tomb; the bending bough of a cypress on the other half, shed irregular darkness; the rock cast its pointed shadow up the path-way; light and shade no longer blended but were abruptly contrasted. No cloud glided into motion, no zephyr into sound. On the broken-down porch, I leaned. Imagination was alive. I will not conceal aught from you, Miss Ashburn, an excess of tenderness, even produced tears. And why need I be ashamed of that emotion? 'Tis not a property of guilt. And while I wept, I made a vow at the shrine of reason to abandon my mad enterprise, to quit for ever and ever this seductive rock.

Alas reason and resolution were instantaneously torn from me, by the sweetest sound that ever stole on the listening ear of night. You know the rest. Enraptured, I listened to her effusions; unobserved, was her shadow; scrawled with my pencil that inconsistent address; sighed to her sigh; and was more delirious than ever.

Prudent, cool, and considerate, she came no more. I enticed her fawn into the utmost degree of fondness; and when Nina returned to my cell from the caresses of Sibella, she brought me a pleasure which the universe to me cannot equal.