Charlotte Smith- Collected Poetical Works

by Charlotte Smith

  To her, however, this circumstance was particularly grating. She complained bitterly to every body she saw, that poultry, if she had by any accident occasion to buy it, was doubled in price; that the prime sea fish was carried to the Castle; and more money was demanded for the refuse, than she was accustomed to give for the finest. But with the beginning of September more aggravating offences began also. An army of sportsmen came down to the Castle, who had no respect for the hitherto inviolate manors, nor for the preserved grounds around Rayland Hall, which not even the game-keepers ever alarmed with an hostile sound. Her park – even her park, where no profane foot had ever been suffered to enter, was now invaded; and on the second of September, the day of which the occurrences have been here related, five young men and two servants, with a whole kennel of pointers, had crossed the park, and killed three brace of partridges within its enclosure, laughing at the threats, and threatening in their turns the keepers who had attempted to oppose them.

  No injury or affront that could be devised could have made so deep an impression on Mrs Rayland’s mind, as such a trespass. She was yet in the first paroxysm of her displeasure, though the occasion of it happened early in the morning, when Orlando was admitted; whose mind, attuned to the harmonizing hope of being indulged with the frequent sight of Monimia, was but little in unison with the petulant and querulous complaints of Mrs Rayland; while she for above an hour held forth with unwearied invective against the new inhabitant of Carloraine. ‘These,’ cried she, ‘these are modern gentlemen! – Gentlemen! a disgrace to the name! – City apprentices, that used to live soberly at their shops, are turned sportsmen, forsooth, and have the impudence to call themselves gentlemen. I hear, and I suppose ’tis true enough, that Mr Philip Somerive thinks proper to be acquainted with this mushroom fellow – and to be one of his party! – Pray, child, can you tell me – is it true?’

  ‘I believe, madam, my brother has some acquaintance, but I fancy only a slight acquaintance, with Mr Stockton.’

  ‘Oh! I have very little curiosity – I dare say he is one of the set, and it is very fit he should. “Birds of a feather, you know, flock together.” But this I assure you, Mr Orlando – take this from me – that if you should ever think proper to know that person, that Stockton, your visits here will from that time be dispensed with.’

  Orlando, conscious that he had never exchanged a word with any inhabitant or visitant of Carloraine, and conscious too that all his wishes were centred in what the Hall contained, assured Mrs Rayland with equal warmth and sincerity that he never had, nor ever would have, any connexion with the people who assembled there. ‘So far from my wishing to hold with such people any friendly converse, I shall hardly be able to refrain from remonstrating with them on their very improper and unhandsome manner of acting towards you, madam; and if I meet them on your grounds, I shall, unless you forbid me, very freely tell them my opinion of their conduct.’

  Mrs Rayland had never in her life been so pleased with Orlando as she was at that moment. The readiness with which he entered into her injuries, and the spirit with which he undertook to check the aggressors, placed him higher in her favour than he had ever yet been; but her way of testifying this her satisfaction, consisted in what of all others was at this moment the most mortifying; for she invited him to stay to supper in her apartment, which was a favour she hardly did him twice a year. Orlando, wretched as it made him, could not make any excuse to escape; and it was near an hour later than usual, before Mrs Rayland, retiring, dismissed Orlando to watch for the silence of the house, which was a signal for his going to the beloved turret.

  CHAPTER V

  THE clock in the servants’ hall struck twelve, and was answered by that in the north gallery. With yet deeper tone the hour was re-echoed from the great clock in the cupola over the stables; when Orlando, listening a moment to hear if all was quiet, proceeded through an arched passage which led from the library to the chapel, and then through the chapel itself, whose principal entrance was from a porch which opened to a sort of triangular court on the back of the house next the park. He had previously unbarred the chapel door, which was slightly secured by an iron rod: the lock had long since been rusted by time, and the key lost; for, since the death of Sir Hildebrand, who was buried with his ancestors in the chancel, the ladies his daughters had found themselves too much affected to enter the chapel (which was also the church of the small parish of Rayland), and had removed the parochial service to that of the next parish, within a mile: and as both belonged to them, the livings were united, and the people of either were content to say their prayers wherever their ladies chose to appoint.

  Orlando, till he found it opened his way to Monimia without going through or near any inhabited part of the house, had never explored the chapel; but the night before that on which the experiment was to be made, he had taken care to see that in his passage through it he had no impediment to fear; for of those superstition might have raised to deter a weaker mind, or one engaged in a less animating cause, he was insensible.

  He now, having convinced himself that all the family were retired, walked softly through the aisle; and having without any difficulty opened the door of the porch, that adjoined the pavement around the east or back front, he stepped with light feet along it, entered the lower room of the turret which was nearly opposite, and ascended still as silently as he could the narrow stair-case.

  ‘Monimia! Monimia!’ cried he in a half whisper, ‘Monimia, are you ready?’ ‘I am,’ replied a low and tremulous voice. ‘Remove the hangings then,’ said Orlando. Slowly the faltering hands of the trembling girl removed them. Orlando eagerly received her as she came through the door-way. ‘Are you here at last?’ cried he vehemently. ‘Shall I be at liberty, at last to see you? But how cold you are! how you tremble!’ ‘Ah! Mr Orlando,’ answered Monimia, half shrinking from him, ‘ah! I am so certain that all this is wrong, I so dread a discovery, that it is impossible to conquer my terrors: besides, I have recollected that one of the windows of my aunt’s closet up stairs looks this way. If she should be in it, if she should see us!’

  ‘How can she be in it without a light? She hardly sits there in the dark for her amusement. You know it is impossible she can have any suspicion; yet you torment yourself, and destroy all my happiness by your timidity. Ah, Monimia! you are cruel to me.’ ‘I would not be cruel to you for a thousand worlds, Orlando, you know I would not. But, if I were to die, I cannot conquer my terrors. I tremble too with cold as well as with fright; for I have waited so long past my hour of going to bed, that I am half frozen.’

  ‘And yet you are not glad to see me, Monimia, when at last I am come?’

  ‘Indeed I am glad, Orlando; but hush! hark, surely I heard a noise. Listen a moment, for heaven’s sake, before we go down.’

  ‘It is nothing,’ said Orlando, after a pause, ‘it is nothing, upon my soul, but the wind that rushes up the narrow stair-case to the top of the tower.’

  ‘Speak low, however,’ replied Monimia, as she gave him her cold tremulous hand to lead her slowly down the ruined steps; ‘speak very low; or rather let us be quite silent, for you remember what an echo there is in the court.’

  They then proceeded silently along the flag-stones that surrounded the court opening on one side to the park, and entered the porch of the chapel; where when Monimia arrived, she seemed so near fainting, that, as they were now sheltered from all observation, Orlando entreated her to sit down on one of the thick old worm-eaten wooden benches that were fixed on either side.

  Unable to support herself, Orlando made her lean against him, as endeavouring to re-assure her, he besought her to conquer an alarm, ‘for which,’ said he, ‘Monimia, I cannot account. What do you fear, my sweet friend? Do you already repent having entrusted yourself with me?’

  ‘Oh! no indeed,’ sighed Monimia, ‘but the chapel!’ ‘What of the chapel?’ cried Orlando impatiently. ‘It is haunted, you know, every night by the spirit of one of the Lady Raylands, who I know not ho
w long ago died for love, and whose ghost now sits every night in the chancel, and sometimes walks round the house, and particularly along the galleries, at midnight, groaning and lamenting her fate.’

  Orlando, laughing at her simplicity, cried, ‘And who, my dear Monimia, who has violated thy natural good sense by teaching thee these ridiculous stories? Believe me, none of the Lady Raylands, as you called them, ever died for love; indeed I never heard that any of them ever were in love but my grandmother, who saved herself the absurdity of dying, by marrying the man she liked, in despite of the opposing pride of her family; and as she was very happy, and never repented her disobedience, I do not believe her spirit walks: or if it should, Monimia, if it were possible that it should, could you not face a ghost with me for your protector?’

  ‘Any living creature I should not fear, Orlando, if you were with me; but there is something so dreadful in the idea of a spirit!’

  ‘This is not a place,’ said Orlando with quickness, ‘this is not a place to argue with your prejudices, Monimia, for you seem half dead with cold; but come, I beseech you, into the library, where there is a fire, and trust to my arm to defend you from all supernatural beings at least, on the way.’

  He then drew her arm within his, and pushed open the door of the chapel. When Monimia felt the cold damp that environed her as he shut it after them, and found herself in such a place without any other light than what was afforded by two gothic windows half blocked with stone work, and almost all the rest by stained glass, at midnight, in a night of September, she again shuddered, and shrunk back: but Orlando again encouraging her, and ridiculing her fears, she moved on; and passing the stone passage, he at length seated her safely by the sturdy fire, which he now replenished with wood. As she was still pale and trembling, he brought her a glass of wine (of which Mrs Rayland allowed him whatever he chose), which he insisted on her drinking, and then, seating himself by her, enquired, with a gay smile, how she did after her encounter with the lady who died for love?

  ‘You think me ridiculous, Orlando, and perhaps I am so; but my aunt has often told me, that ghosts always appeared to people who were doing wrong, to reproach them: and, alas! Orlando, I am too sensible that I am not doing right.’

  ‘Curse on her prudish falsehood!’ cried the impetuous Orlando. ‘If ghosts, as you call them, were always on the watch to persecute evil doers, I believe from my soul that she would have been beset by those of all the Raylands that are packed together in the chancel.’

  Such was the awe of her aunt in which Monimia had been brought up, that the little respect and vehement manner in which Orlando spoke of her had in it additional terror. She did not speak; she was not able: but the tears which had till then trembled in her eyes now stole down her cheeks. Orlando was tempted to kiss them away before they reached her bosom; but he remembered that she was wholly in his power, and that he owed her more respect than it would have been necessary to have shown even in public.

  ‘Let us talk no more of your old aunt,’ re-assumed Orlando; ‘but tell me, Monimia, all that has happened in these long, long months of absence.’

  ‘Happened, Mr Orlando!’ repeated Monimia.

  ‘Nay,’ interrupted he, ‘let me not be Mr Orlando, my lovely friend, but call me Orlando, and try to fancy me your brother. Tell me, Monimia, how have you passed your time since I was allowed to see you last? What an age it is ago! Have you practised your writing, Monimia, and has Lennard allowed you the use of any books?’

  ‘A few I got at by the assistance of Betty Richards, who has the key of this room to clean it when you are absent, Orlando; but if my aunt had found it out, she would never have forgiven either of us. I was forced therefore to hide the books she took out for me with the greatest care, and to read only by snatches. And as to writing, I have done a little of it because you desired me; but it has been very difficult; for my aunt Lennard never would allow me to have pens and ink; and Betty Richards has given me these too by stealth, when she was able to procure them, as if they were for herself, of Mr Pattenson the butler, who was always very kind to her about such things, till a week or two ago; when he was so cross at her asking for more paper, that we thought it better to let alone applying to him again for some time.’

  ‘The old thief was jealous, I suppose,’ answered Orlando. ‘I believe he was,’ said Monimia; ‘for he has a liking, I fancy, to Betty, though to be sure he is old enough to be her father.’

  Orlando was now struck with an apprehension which had never before occurred to him: he feared that, in the gratitude of her unadulterated heart for the kindness she received from this Betty Richards, she might betray to her the secret of their nocturnal visits; and he knew that the love of gossiping, the love of finery, the love of nice morsels which the butler had it in his power to give, or even the love of shewing she was entrusted with a secret, were any of them sufficient to overset all the fidelity which this girl (the under house-maid) might either feel or profess to feel for Monimia.

  Against this therefore it was necessary to put her on her guard; which Orlando endeavoured to do in the most impressive manner possible, and even urged her with warmth to give him her solemn promise that she never would entrust this servant with any secret, or mention to her his name on any account whatever.

  ‘Indeed, Orlando,’ replied Monimia, when he had finished this warm exhortation, ‘indeed you need not be uneasy or anxious about it; for there is one reason that, if I had no other, would never permit me to tell this poor girl that I meet you unknown to my aunt.’

  ‘And what is that?’

  ‘It is, that Betty is, like myself, a very friendless orphan, a poor girl that my aunt has taken from the parish; and as I know very well that all our meetings will one day or other be discovered, it would entirely ruin her, and occasion the loss of her place and her character, if Betty were supposed to know anything about it; therefore you may be assured, Orlando, that she never shall: for whatever misery it may be my fate to suffer myself, I shall not so much mind, as I should being the cause of ruining and injuring another person, especially a friendless girl, who has always been as kind to me as her situation allowed her to be.’

  Enchanted with her native rectitude of heart and generosity of spirit, Orlando rapturously exclaimed, ‘Charming girl! how every sentence you utter, every sentiment of your pure and innocent mind delight me! No, Monimia, I am very sure that such a security as you have given me is of equal force, perhaps superior, as it ought to be, even to your faith to me – superior, Monimia, to the wish which I am sure you have, to spare me any sort of unhappiness.’ The fine eyes of Monimia were swimming in tears, as, tenderly pressing her hand between his, Orlando said this. ‘You do me justice,’ said she in a faltering voice, ‘and I thank you. I do not know, Orlando, why I should be ashamed to say that I love you better than any body else in the world; for indeed who is there in it that I have to love? If you were gone, it would be all a desert to me; for, though I hope I am grateful, and not undutiful to my aunt Lennard, I find I do not love her as I love you. But indeed I do believe she would not have me feel affection for any body; for she is always telling me, that it is the most disgraceful and odious thing imaginable, for a young woman, dependent as I am, to think about any person, man, woman, or child; and that, if I would not be an undone and disgraced creature, I must mind nothing but praying to God, which I hope I never neglected, and learning to earn my bread by my hands. And then she tells me continually how much I owe her for taking me into her lady’s family, and what a wicked wretch I should be if I were ungrateful.’

  ‘Don’t tell me any more about your aunt, do not, I entreat you,’ cried Orlando impatiently. ‘I should be sorry to say any thing that should stain, even with the most remote suspicion of ingratitude, that unadulterated mind. But – I cannot – no, it is impossible to resist saying, that, like all other usurped authority, the power of your aunt is maintained by unjust means, and supported by prejudices, which if once looked at by the eye of reason would fall. So
slender is the hold of tyranny, my Monimia!’

  ‘Dear Orlando,’ said Monimia smiling through her tears, “you talk what is by me very little understood.’ ‘No!’ replied he, ‘she has taken care to fetter you in as much ignorance as possible; but your mind rises above the obscurity with which she would surround it. She has however brought in supernatural aid; and, fearful of not being able to keep you in sufficient awe by her terrific self, she has called forth all the deceased ladies of the Rayland family, and gentlemen too for aught I know, and beset you with spirits and hobgoblins if you dare to walk about the house.’

  ‘Ah! Orlando,’ answered Monimia timidly, and throwing round the room a half fearful glance, ‘I do believe you injure my aunt Lennard in that notion; for I am almost sure she believes what she tells me.’

  ‘Pooh!’ replied he, ‘she has too much sense. A good bottle of Barbadoes water, or ratafia, would call your pious aunt in the darkest night, and just as the clock strikes twelve, into the very chancel of the chapel itself, or even into the vaults under it.’