Ormond; Or, The Secret Witness. Volume 2 (of 3)

by Charles Brockden Brown

  CHAPTER IX.

  Domestic and studious occupations did not wholly engross the attentionof Constantia. Social pleasures were precious to her heart, and she wasnot backward to form fellowships and friendships with those around her.Hitherto she had met with no one entitled to an uncommon portion ofregard, or worthy to supply the place of the friend of her infancy. Hervisits were rare, and, as yet, chiefly confined to the family of Mr.Melbourne. Here she was treated with flattering distinctions, andenjoyed opportunities of extending as far as she pleased her connectionswith the gay and opulent. To this she felt herself by no means inclined,and her life was still eminently distinguished by love of privacy andhabits of seclusion.

  One morning, feeling an indisposition to abstraction, she determined todrop in, for an hour, on Mrs. Melbourne. Finding Mrs. Melbourne'sparlour unoccupied, she proceeded unceremoniously to an apartment on thesecond floor, where that lady was accustomed to sit. She entered, butthis room was likewise empty. Here she cast her eyes on a collection ofprints, copied from the Farnese collection, and employed herself forsome minutes in comparing the forms of Titiano and the Caracchi.

  Suddenly, notes of peculiar sweetness were wafted to her ear fromwithout. She listened with surprise, for the tones of her father's lutewere distinctly recognized. She hied to the window, which chanced tolook into a back court. The music was perceived to come from the windowof the next house. She recollected her interview with the purchaser ofher instrument at the music shop, and the powerful impression which thestranger's countenance had made upon her.

  The first use she had made of her recent change of fortune was toendeavour to recover this instrument. The music dealer, when reminded ofthe purchase, and interrogated as to the practicability of regaining thelute, for which she was willing to give treble the price, answered thathe had no knowledge of the foreign lady beyond what was gained at theinterview which took place in Constantia's presence. Of her name,residence, and condition, he knew nothing, and had endeavoured in vainto acquire knowledge.

  Now, this incident seemed to have furnished her with the information shehad so earnestly sought. This performer was probably the strangerherself. Her residence so near the Melbournes, and in a house which wasthe property of the magistrate, might be means of information as to hercondition, and perhaps of introduction to a personal acquaintance.

  While engaged in these reflections, Mrs. Melbourne entered theapartment. Constantia related this incident to her friend, and statedthe motives of her present curiosity. Her friend willingly imparted whatknowledge she possessed relative to this subject. This was the sum.

  This house had been hired, previously to the appearance of the yellowfever, by an English family, who left their native soil with a view to apermanent abode in the new world. They had scarcely taken possession ofthe dwelling when they were terrified by the progress of the epidemic.They had fled from the danger; but this circumstance, in addition tosome others, induced them to change their scheme. An evil so unwonted aspestilence impressed them with a belief of perpetual danger as long asthey remained on this side of the ocean. They prepared for an immediatereturn to England.

  For this end their house was relinquished, and their splendid furnituredestined to be sold by auction. Before this event could take place,application was made to Mr. Melbourne by a lady whom his wife'sdescription showed to be the same person of whom Constantia was insearch. She not only rented the house, but negotiated by means of herlandlord for the purchase of the furniture.

  Her servants were blacks, and all but one, who officiated as steward,unacquainted with the English language. Some accident had proved hername to be Beauvais. She had no visitants, very rarely walked abroad,and then only in the evening with a female servant in attendance. Herhours appeared to be divided between the lute and the pen. As to herprevious history or her present sources of subsistence, Mrs.Melbourne's curiosity had not been idle, but no consistent informationwas obtainable. Some incidents had given birth to the conjecture thatshe was wife, or daughter, or sister of Beauvais, the partizan ofBrissot, whom the faction of Marat had lately consigned to the scaffold;but this conjecture was unsupported by suitable evidence.

  This tale by no means diminished Constantia's desire of personalintercourse. She saw no means of effecting her purpose. Mrs. Melbournewas unqualified to introduce her, having been discouraged in all theadvances she had made towards a more friendly intercourse. Constantiareflected, that her motives to seclusion would probably induce this ladyto treat others as her friend had been treated.

  It was possible, however, to gain access to her, if not as a friend, yetas the original proprietor of the lute. She determined to employ theagency of Roseveldt, the music-shopman, for the purpose of rebuyingthis instrument. To enforce her application, she commissioned thisperson, whose obliging temper entitled him to confidence, to state herinducements for originally offering it for sale, and her motives fordesiring the repossession on any terms which the lady thought proper todictate.

  Roseveldt fixed an hour in which it was convenient for him to executeher commission. This hour having passed, Constantia, who was anxiousrespecting his success, hastened to his house. Roseveldt delivered theinstrument, which the lady, having listened to his pleas and offers,directed to be gratuitously restored to Constantia. At first, she hadexpressed her resolution to part with it on no account, and at no price.Its music was her only recreation, and this instrument surpassed any shehad ever before seen, in the costliness and delicacy of its workmanship.But Roseveldt's representations produced an instant change ofresolution, and she not only eagerly consented to restore it, butrefused to receive any thing in payment.

  Constantia was deeply affected by this unexpected generosity. It was nother custom to be outstripped in this career. She now condemned herselffor her eagerness to regain this instrument. During her father'sblindness it was a powerful, because the only, solace of his melancholy.Now he had no longer the same anxieties to encounter, and books and thepencil were means of gratification always at hand. The lute therefore,she imagined, could be easily dispensed with by Mr. Dudley, whereas itspower of consoling might be as useful to the unknown lady as it hadformerly been to her father. She readily perceived in what manner itbecame her to act. Roseveldt was commissioned to redeliver the lute, andto entreat the lady's acceptance of it. The tender was received withouthesitation, and Roseveldt dismissed without any inquiry relative toConstantia.

  These transactions were reflected on by Constantia with considerableearnestness. The conduct of the stranger, her affluent and lonely slate,her conjectural relationship to the actors in the great theatre ofEurope, were mingled together in the fancy of Constantia, andembellished with the conceptions of her beauty derived from their casualmeeting at Roseveldt's. She forgot not their similitude in age and sex,and delighted to prolong the dream of future confidence and friendshipto take place between them. Her heart sighed for a companion fitted topartake in all her sympathies.

  This strain, by being connected with the image of a being like herself,who had grown up with her from childhood, who had been entwined with herearliest affections, but from whom she had been severed from the periodat which her father's misfortunes commenced, and of whose presentcondition she was wholly ignorant, was productive of the deepestmelancholy. It filled her with excruciating, and, for a time,irremediable sadness. It formed a kind of paroxysm, which, like somefebrile affections, approach and retire without warning, and against themost vehement struggles.

  In this mood her fancy was thronged with recollections of scenes inwhich her friend had sustained a part. Their last interview was commonlyrevived in her remembrance so forcibly as almost to produce a lunaticconception of its reality. A ditty which they sung together on thatoccasion flowed to her lips. If ever human tones were qualified toconvey the whole soul, they were those of Constantia when she sang:--

  "The breeze awakes, the bark prepares, To waft me to a distant shore: But far beyond this world of cares We meet again to part no
more."

  These fits were accustomed to approach and to vanish by degrees. Theywere transitory, but not unfrequent, and were pregnant with suchagonizing tenderness, such heart-breaking sighs, and a flow of suchbitter yet delicious tears, that it were not easily decided whether thepleasure or the pain surmounted. When symptoms of their coming were feltshe hastened into solitude, that the progress of her feelings mightendure no restraint.

  On the evening of the day on which the lute had been sent to the foreignlady, Constantia was alone in her chamber immersed in despondingthoughts. From these she was recalled by Fabian, her black servant, whoannounced a guest. She was loath to break off the thread of her presentmeditations, and inquired with a tone of some impatience, who was theguest. The servant was unable to tell; it was a young lady whom he hadnever before seen; she had opened the door herself, and entered theparlour without previous notice.

  Constantia paused at this relation. Her thoughts had recently been fixedupon Sophia Westwyn. Since their parting four years before she had heardno tidings of this woman. Her fears imagined no more probable cause ofher friend's silence than her death. This, however, was uncertain. Thequestion now occurred, and brought with it sensations that left her nopower to move:--was this the guest?

  Her doubts were quickly dispelled, for the stranger taking a light fromthe table, and not brooking the servant's delays, followed Fabian to thechamber of his mistress. She entered with careless freedom, andpresented to the astonished eyes of Constantia the figure she had met atRoseveldt's, and the purchaser of her lute.

  The stranger advanced towards her with quick steps, and mingling tonesof benignity and sprightliness, said:--

  "I have come to perform a duty. I have received from you to-day a lutethat I valued almost as my best friend. To find another in America,would not, perhaps, be possible; but, certainly, none equally superb andexquisite as this can be found. To show how highly I esteem the gift, Ihave come in person to thank you for it."--There she stopped.

  Constantia could not suddenly recover from the extreme surprise intowhich the unexpectedness of this meeting had thrown her. She couldscarcely sufficiently suppress this confusion to enable her to reply tothese rapid effusions of her visitant, who resumed with augmentedfreedom:--

  "I came, as I said, to thank you, but to say the truth that was not all,I came likewise to see you. Having done my errand, I suppose I must go.I would fain stay longer and talk to you a little. Will you give meleave?"

  Constantia, scarcely retrieving her composure, stammered out a politeassent. They seated themselves, and the visitant, pressing the hand shehad taken, proceeded in a strain so smooth, so flowing, sliding fromgrave to gay, blending vivacity with tenderness, interpretingConstantia's silence with such keen sagacity, and accounting for thesingularities of her own deportment in a way so respectful to hercompanion, and so worthy of a steadfast and pure mind in herself, thatevery embarrassment and scruple were quickly banished from theirinterview.

  In an hour the guest took her leave. No promise of repeating her visit,and no request that Constantia would repay it, was made. Their partingseemed to be the last; whatever purpose having been contemplatedappeared to be accomplished by this transient meeting. It was of anature deeply to interest the mind of Constantia. This was the lady whotalked with Roseveldt, and bargained with Melbourne, and they had beeninduced by appearances to suppose her ignorant of any language butFrench; but her discourse, on the present occasion, was in English, andwas distinguished by unrivalled fluency. Her phrases and habits ofpronouncing were untinctured by any foreign mixture, and bespoke theperfect knowledge of a native of America.

  On the next evening, while Constantia was reviewing this transaction,calling up and weighing the sentiments which the stranger had uttered,and indulging some regret at the unlikelihood of their again meeting,Martinette (for I will henceforth call her by her true name) entered theapartment as abruptly as before. She accounted for the visit merely bythe pleasure it afforded her, and proceeded in a strain even moreversatile and brilliant than before. This interview ended like thefirst, without any tokens on the part of the guest, of resolution ordesire to renew it; but a third interview took place on the ensuing day.

  Henceforth Martinette became a frequent but hasty visitant, andConstantia became daily more enamoured of her new acquaintance. She didnot overlook peculiarities in the conversation and deportment of thiswoman. These exhibited no tendencies to confidence or traces ofsympathy. They merely denoted large experience, vigorous faculties, andmasculine attainments. Herself was never introduced, except as anobserver; but her observations on government and manners were profoundand critical.

  Her education seemed not widely different from that which Constantia hadreceived. It was classical and mathematical; but to this was added aknowledge of political and military transactions in Europe during thepresent age, which implied the possession of better means of informationthan books. She depicted scenes and characters with the accuracy of onewho had partaken and witnessed them herself.

  Constantia's attention had been chiefly occupied by personal concerns.Her youth had passed in contention with misfortune, or in the quietudesof study. She could not be unapprised of contemporary revolutions andwars, but her ideas concerning them were indefinite and vague. Her viewsand her inferences on this head were general and speculative. Heracquaintance with history was exact and circumstantial, in proportion asshe retired backward from her own age. She knew more of the siege ofMutina than that of Lisle; more of the machinations of Cataline and thetumults of Clodius, than of the prostration of the Bastile, and theproscriptions of Marat.

  She listened, therefore, with unspeakable eagerness to this reciter, whodetailed to her, as the occasion suggested, the progress of action andopinion on the theatre of France and Poland. Conceived and rehearsed asthis was with the energy and copiousness of one who sustained a part inthe scene, the mind of Constantia was always kept at the pitch ofcuriosity and wonder.

  But, while this historian described the features, personal deportment,and domestic character of Antoinette, Mirabeau and Robespierre, animpenetrable veil was drawn over her own condition. There was a warmthand freedom in her details, which bespoke her own co-agency in theseevents, but was unattended by transports of indignation or sorrow, or bypauses of abstraction, such as were likely to occur in one whose hopesand fears had been intimately blended with public events.

  Constantia could not but derive humiliation from comparing her ownslender acquirements with those of her companion. She was sensible thatall the differences between them arose from diversities of situation.She was eager to discover in what particulars this diversity consisted.She was for a time withheld, by scruples not easily explained, fromdisclosing her wishes. An accident, however, occurred to remove theseimpediments. One evening this unceremonious visitant discoveredConstantia busily surveying a chart of the Mediterranean Sea. Thiscircumstance led the discourse to the present state of Syria and Cyprus.Martinette was copious in her details. Constantia listened for a time;and, when a pause ensued, questioned her companion as to the means shepossessed of acquiring so much knowledge. This question was proposedwith diffidence, and prefaced by apologies.

  "Instead of being offended by your question," replied the guest, "I onlywonder that it never before occurred to you. Travellers tell us much.Volney and Mariti would have told you nearly all that I have told. Withthese I have conversed personally, as well as read their books; but myknowledge is, in truth, a species of patrimony. I inherit it."

  "Will you be good enough," said Constantia, "to explain yourself?"

  "My mother was a Greek of Cyprus. My father was a Slavonian of Ragusa,and I was born in a garden at Aleppo."

  "That was a singular concurrence."

  "How singular? That a nautical vagrant like my father should sometimesanchor in the Bay of Naples; that a Cyprian merchant should carry hisproperty and daughter beyond the reach of a Turkish sangjack, and seekan asylum so commodious as Napoli; that my father should have
dealingswith this merchant, see, love, and marry his daughter, and afterwardsprocure from the French government a consular commission to Aleppo; thatthe union should in due time be productive of a son and daughter,--areevents far from being singular. They happen daily."

  "And may I venture to ask if this be your history?"

  "The history of my parents. I hope you do not consider the place of mybirth as the sole or the most important circumstance of my life."

  "Nothing would please me more than to be enabled to compare it withother incidents. I am apt to think that your life is a tissue ofsurprising events. That the daughter of a Ragusan and Greek should haveseen and known so much; that she should talk English with equal fluencyand more correctness than a native; that I should now be conversing withher in a corner so remote from Cyprus and Sicily, are events morewonderful than any which I have known."

  "Wonderful! Pish! Thy ignorance, thy miscalculation of probabilities isfar more so. My father talked to me in Slavonic; my mother and her maidstalked to me in Greek. My neighbours talked to me in a medley of Arabic,Syriac, and Turkish. My father's secretary was a scholar. He was as wellversed in Lysias and Xenophon as any of their contemporaries. Helaboured for ten years to enable me to read a language essentially thesame with that I used daily to my nurse and mother. Is it wonderful thenthat I should be skilful in Slavonic, Greek, and the jargon of Aleppo?To have refrained from learning was impossible. Suppose, a girl, prompt,diligent, inquisitive, to spend ten years of her life partly in Spain,partly in Tuscany, partly in France, and partly in England. With herversatile curiosity and flexible organs would it be possible For her toremain ignorant of each of these languages? Latin is the mother of themall, and presents itself of course to her studious attention."

  "I cannot easily conceive motives which should lead you before the ageof twenty through so many scenes."

  "Can you not? You grew and flourished, like a frail mimosa, in the spotwhere destiny had planted you. Thank my stars, I am somewhat better thana vegetable. Necessity, it is true, and not choice, set me in motion,but I am not sorry for the consequences."

  "Is it too much," said Constantia, with some hesitation, "to request adetail of your youthful adventures?"

  "Too much to give, perhaps, at a short notice. To such as you my talemight abound with novelty, while to others, more acquainted withvicissitudes, it would be tedious and flat. I must be gone in a fewminutes. For that and for better reasons, I must not be minute. Asummary at present will enable you to judge how far a more copiousnarrative is suited to instruct or to please you."

  END OF VOL. II