Charlotte Smith- Collected Poetical Works

by Charlotte Smith

  In hopes that he might see the light at length glimmer through the casement, which would assure him Monimia was there, he determined to watch for it a little longer, where he might not be himself observed.

  It was indeed so very dark that he was sure it was impossible for any one to discern him from the house, or at least to distinguish his figure from that of the deer who were feeding around him. He sat down therefore on the turf; but the dreary moments passed, and still no light appeared – though Orlando was sure that if a light was in the room he must see it, because of the want of shutters towards the upper part of this long window. A thousand conjectures disturbed him, and grew, as time wore away, more and more painful. Perhaps Monimia was indisposed, and had gone early to bed; perhaps the alarms she had suffered the preceding evening, and the uneasiness at his not having seen her, might have overcome her tender spirits, and, together with the harsh reproaches of her aunt, have rendered her really ill. His warm and rapid imagination now represented her sinking under anguish of mind which she dared not communicate – and tenderly reproaching him for being the cause of all her sufferings. It was he who had disturbed the innocent serenity of her bosom – and persuaded her to grant him interviews, with which she continually reproached herself. Or, if this was not the case, if her lovely frame was not overwhelmed by sickness arising from sorrow, perhaps she was more strictly confined in some part of the house where it would be impossible for him to see her; from whence it would be equally impossible for her to escape to him, to indulge him in the last sad pleasure of parting interview. This last conjecture appeared highly probable, from what Mrs Lennard had said to him in the morning; and he found it too intolerable, even while it was but conjecture, to be supported with patience. The great clock now struck eleven: every vibration seemed to fall on his heart. – He traversed yet a little longer the turf immediately under the windows of the turret; and at length saw a light from the servant’s’ hall, whither he went, hoping, yet fearing, to gain some intelligence which he dreaded to ask. He entered, however; but found only Pattenson there who was putting out the fire. It was in vain Orlando addressed him with great civility. The sulky old butler, who imputed him to the alacrity with which his favourite nymph had left the house, looked at him with a countenance cloudy and indignant, and deigned not even to give him the candle he asked for. – ‘There are candles, if you want them!’ was all he could obtain from him. He enquired if Mrs Rayland was gone to her room? if he could speak to Mrs Lennard? To which Pattenson, turning sullenly away, replied, ‘The women’s side of the house has been shut up these two hours – you’ll hardly get any admittance to make your flummering speeches to any on ’em to-night.’ – Orlando, already irritated by vexation, was so much provoked at this insolence, that he was tempted to knock down the consequential Mr. Pattenson; but he fortunately recollected that he was an old man, and a servant, and that it was unworthy of him to strike such a person, whatever might be the provocation. He could not however help expressing his anger for the insult, in terms stronger than he usually allowed himself; and then, half frantic, went to his own room, merely because he knew not what to do to obtain some intelligence of Monimia.

  After a moment’s consideration, he went through the chapel, and to the lower room of the turret. If Mrs Lennard had discovered the door of communication, he thought he should perceive it by some means or other – but all below was as he left it: – he then mounted the stairs, and listened at the door behind Monimia’s bed, but all was profoundly silent. He ventured to tap softly at the door, their usual signal, which Monimia never failed, when she was alone, to answer instantly; but now no answer was returned. He spoke – but no soft voice in tremulous whispers, replied. Again he rapped, and spoke louder; but still all was dead silence around him. – Yet he waited a moment or two – lost in distracting conjectures – Monimia was certainly not in her room – what then was become of her, or whither was she gone? He felt as if he should never see her more, though it was impossible to suppose she was removed from the house, At length he returned to his own apartment again, more wretched than he left it; – and not seeing any probability of discovering that night what could thus have robbed him of the sight of Monimia, he went to his bed – but not to sleep, though he had suffered so many hours of mental and bodily fatigue. He watched the earliest dawn of light; and as soon as he could discern the objects about the park, he dressed himself and went out – walking slowly round the house, and looking up at all the windows, in hopes that if Monimia was as restless as he was, she might appear at that of the room she was confined in, in the expectation of seeing him. But he made his melancholy tour repeatedly in vain. He then returned to his own room, furnished himself with materials for shooting, and went into the kitchen under the pretence of drying some powder; that, while he watched it carefully himself, he might have some excuse for staying to talk a little with the cook. This woman, whose admiration of Orlando’s beauty had made her much his friend, was willing enough to gossip with him, and talked much of Betty’s being so suddenly discharged, declaimed against her, and hinted that it was a pity such a young ‘squire should undervalue himself so as to take a liking to such a tawdry trollop. – Orlando, who cared very little what was thought of him in regard to Betty, rather humoured than denied the oblique charge; but endeavoured to lead the conversation towards Mrs Lennard, whom she called a covetous cross old frump; ‘and as for that,’ added the woman, ‘she uses that sweet child, her niece as they call her, no better than a dog.’

  ‘Why, how does she use her?’ cried Orlando faltering and in a hurried voice: ‘What! has she lately done any thing?’

  ‘Not as I knows on; but I knows she is always rating her, so as the poor young thing have no peace of her life – and if she offer for to come to speak to any of us sarvants, there’s a rare to-do! – Fine airs truly for mother Lennard to give herself – as if her niece was a bit better than we be! – If she’s so proud that she won’t let the girl speak to no sarvants, I think she mid as well not make her work like one – which I’m sure she does, and shuts her up like a felon in a jail.’

  ‘Where,’ said Orlando, ‘does she shut her up?’

  ‘Why in her own room, don’t she? From morning to night and from one year’s end to another, she’s lock’d up in that there place that’s just for all the world like a belfry.’

  ‘And is she there now?’ cried Orlando eagerly.

  ‘Yes,’ replied the cook, ‘I suppose so – I think, ‘squire, instead of running after such a drab as Bet, you’d better help Miss out of her cage.’

  This was said merely at random; but Orlando’s confusion was evident. He found that whatever removal Mrs Lennard had projected and executed for her niece, she had not communicated her intentions, or the motives of them, to this servant, and probably not to any of the others. – His distracting suspense was now almost insupportable. He had promised his father to enquire after Philip; he was under the necessity of seeing Mrs Rayland; and must pass some part of the day with his family. Thus circumstanced, it was impossible, unless he gained some intelligence of Monimia, that he could acquaint her with the decision made in the course of the preceding day in regard to his departure for London – impossible to contrive a meeting, on which his hopes had so long dwelt, when he might reconcile her to his going, and offer her those vows of everlasting attachment which he meant most religiously to keep. It now occurred to him, that he would take his gun, and fire it on that side of the house that was next to Mrs Lennard’s apartment, in hopes that Monimia might come to the window for the chance of seeing if it was he who fired. – Retiring therefore hastily from the kitchen, without seeming to attend to the raillery of the servant with whom he had been talking, he said there was a hawk about the park, which he had seen early that morning strike a young hare; and that he would endeavor to shoot it. He went then almost under the windows of Mrs Lennard’s room, and fired repeatedly, without obtaining what he had wished for. At length he saw through the casement the figure of Monim
ia. He clasped his hands together, as if to entreat her stay, and to express the anguish he laboured under. She looked fearfully behind her, as if dreading her aunt – and then beckoned to him to approach. He flew under the window – she opened the casement, and said, while fear made her voice almost inarticulate, ‘My aunt suspects us, and has removed me into her closet – Come after it is dark under the window, and I will tell you farther.’ ‘Gracious Heaven!’ exclaimed Orlando, ‘I go from hence on Monday, and we shall meet then no more.’

  ‘I dare not stay,’ cried the trembling Monimia – ‘Pray, come as soon as it is dark!’

  ‘To what purpose,’ exclaimed Orlando, ‘if I am only to see you thus? By Heaven I shall lose my senses!’

  ‘Oh! if you knew,’ said Monimia, ‘what I have suffered, you would not terrify me now – for mercy’s sake, go!’ She then shut the window; and Orlando, not caring and hardly knowing what he did, went again around the house – half tempted to turn the mouth of his gun against himself. The wildness and the distraction of his countenance struck one of the under keepers, who, believing he was really in pursuit of some bird of prey, came to offer his assistance. The impatience however of Orlando’s answers, so unlike his general obliging manners, convinced the fellow that the report he had heard in the family was true, and that Orlando was in despair, because handsome Betty, as she was called among the servants, had left the family on his account. The young man loved Orlando, as did indeed every creature who approached him; and he now endeavoured to console him, ‘I would not take this to heart so much.’ ‘What!’ cried Orlando peevishly, ‘take what to heart?’ – ‘Why, about this young woman,’ answered the keeper: ‘to be sure you be parted, but perhaps all’s for the best; who knows?’

  Orlando, whose head and heart were full of Monimia, imagined that it was of her the man spoke; and turning hastily to him, he said in an eager, yet angry way –

  ‘What is it you mean, Jacob, and what is for the best?’

  ‘Nay, Sir,’ answered Jacob, ‘I only say, that worse might have come of it; for to my knowledge there have been a deal said, and the talk of the country sure enough it have been. There was t’other night at the Three Horse Shoes – there was three or four of us of the Hall, and John Dutton and Richard Williams at Mill, and Stokes and Smith, and some more – and so they were speaking of this here young body; and Stokes, who is a free spoken man, he said, says he’ – ‘What scoundrel,’ exclaimed Orlando, enraged and thrown wholly off his guard, ‘what infamous lying scoundrel shall dare to traduce her? – I will tear the soul out of any rascal, who shall breathe even a suspicion against Monimia.’

  ‘Monimia, Sir!’ cried the man, who was thunderstruck by the violence of Orlando, ‘Lord, I was speaking of Betty – she as went away this morning because of your keeping company with her – I’m sure, Sir, I never thought no harm of Miss Monimmy, nor scarce ever see her twice in my life.’

  Orlando now repented him of his rashness. – ‘Well, well,’ said he – ‘I believe you, Jacob – I’m sure you would not say or think any harm of an innocent young lady, especially, Jacob, if you thought it would displease me, and do me a great deal of harm.’ – Jacob now most earnestly protested not only his unwillingness to offend, but his desire to oblige his honour. – Orlando, whose spirits were yet in such tumult, that he could not arrange the ideas that crowded on his mind, now bade Jacob to follow him into his study. Unwilling as he had always been to put Monimia into the power of servants, he knew that something decisive must be hazarded, or that he must resign all hopes of seeing her before he went: he was the less scrupulous, as he was so soon to go, and he hoped he could make it this young man’s interest to be faithful to him. – It occurred to him, that even when he was gone, some person must be in his confidence, who would receive, and deliver to Monimia, the letters which he knew he dared not direct to her at the Hall. This mistake therefore, which had for a moment vexed and confused him, he now thought a fortunate circumstance, and, without farther reflection, disclosed to this young man his long affection for Monimia; the difficulties he was in at the present moment about seeing her; and his wish to find some means of corresponding with her hereafter. Jacob entered into his situation with an appearance of intelligence and interest with which Orlando was well satisfied. They agreed upon a plan for the evening – by which Orlando hoped to procure an interview with Monimia, instead of merely seeing her at the window; and elated with this hope, he forgot the hazard and impropriety of the means he had used to obtain it.

  Having however talked over and settled every thing with his new confidant, he went to pay his compliments to Mrs Rayland, to whom he reported the arrival of his commission, and whom he found in the same disposition as when he last saw her – Then having obtained her leave to dine at his father’s, he set out in pursuit of his brother, in hopes of carrying some intelligence to his family that might dissipate their uneasiness, of which his own did not render him unmindful. He rode therefore to Mr. Stockton’s, where he learned from the servants, that Mr. Philip Somerive had been there about one o’clock; that he had borrowed linen of their master, with whom he staid till after a late dinner, and then had set out in a post-chaise, as he said, for London. This was information but little likely to quiet the uneasiness of his father and his family – with a heavy heart, therefore, Orlando proceeded to give it. Mr. Somerive received it with a deep sigh, but without any comment; his wife with tears; while the General, from whom they concealed nothing, endeavoured to console them by speaking light of it. ‘I am persuaded,’ said he, ‘my good friends, that your extreme solicitude and anxiety for your children often carry you beyond the line that dispassionate reason would mark for your conduct towards them.’ – Then addressing himself in his insinuating way to Mrs Somerive, he added – ‘For example, now, my dear good friend – you no sooner hear that it is right for you to part with your younger son for the army, than you imagine that he will be killed. No sooner is your elder son missing upon one of those little excursions, which a young man of high spirits, without any present employment, very naturally indulges himself in, than you figure to yourself I know not what evil consequence. Believe me, Orlando will not sleep in the bed of honour, nor our more eccentric Philip be devoured by the Philistines. Make yourselves easy, therefore, I beg of you. You son is gone to London for four or five days perhaps – what then? – Here is your other son going with me – and we will make it our business to see Philip, if you will but make yourselves easy – and I dare say you will have him with you again, before you eat your Christmas dinner, safe and sound.’

  Mr. Somerive, who saw from sad experience the departure of Philip in a very different light, would not however dwell longer on a subject so affecting and so useless. It was of no avail to discuss now the reasons he had to dread the conduct of his eldest son, in this unexpected absence; nor did he wonder, for he had often seen it in others, at the composure with which General Tracy argued against the indulgence of uneasiness, which he himself could never feel; and he repeated to himself, as he longed to say to his friend, that it is easy to recommend patience with an untouched or insensible heart; patience in evils, that either can never reach the preacher, or which he is incapable of feeling. – Some lines of Shakespeare, applicable to the General’s remonstrance, and the uneasy state of his thoughts, occurred to him as he walked into the garden to conceal those thoughts from his wife.

  ‘No, no! ’tis all men’s office to speak patience

  To those that wring under a load of sorrow;

  But no man’s virtue or sufficiency

  To be so moral, when he shall endure

  The like himself. Therefore give me no comfort.’

  VOLUME III

  War is a game, which, were their subjects wise,

  Kings should not play at. Nations would do well

  T’extort their truncheons from the puny hands

  Of heroes, whose infirm and baby minds

  Are gratified with mischief, and who spoil,

  Be
cause men suffer it, their toy the world.

  COWPER

  CHAPTER I

  ORLANDO could not, though he attempted it, conceal the anguish of his heart during the day: for though he had arranged with his new confident the means of seeing Monimia, it was far from certain these plans would succeed; or, could he be content with the means which he had used, however desirable the end. Monimia, who while she yielded to his earnest entreaties had always felt, from the natural rectitude of her understanding, the impropriety of their clandestine correspondence, would, he feared, be more than ever sensible of her indiscretion, when she found that a servant was entrusted with it – and on thinking over what had passed between him and the under keeper, he found more reason to entertain a good opinion of his acuteness than of his integrity. – When to these reflections were added the certainty of his immediate departure, and the uncertainty of his return; the mournful looks of his mother, who could not behold him without tears; the deep, but more silent sorrow marked on the countenance of his father, and the pensive expression of regret on those of his sisters; he could with difficulty go through the forms of a melancholy dinner, at which the General in vain attempted to call off the attention of his hosts to topics of common conversation, and to divert them from private misery by those public topics which then interested none of them. The expulsion of the Americans from the province of Canada, which had happened the preceding August; and the victory gained by the British fleet near Crown Point against a small number of their gondolas and galleys, in the course of the following October, successes of which exaggerated official accounts were just received, were matters whereon the General triumphantly descanted, and on which he obtained more attention from his audience, because he asserted very positively that, in consequence of these amazing advantages, the whole continent of America would submit, and the troops of course return as soon as they had chastised the insolent colonists sufficiently for their rebellion. – Orlando then, he assured his family, was not at all likely to join his regiment, which would almost immediately be ordered home; but would be the safe soldier of peace, and perhaps return to them in a few weeks, no otherwise altered than by his military air and a cockade. The only smile that was seen the whole day on the faces of any of the family was visible on that of Mrs Somerive, on the General’s description of an American flight, though none had a more tender heart or a more liberal mind: but having heard only one side of the question, and having no time or inclination to investigate political matters, she now believed that the Americans were a set of rebellious exiles, who refused on false pretences ‘the tribute to Caesar,’ which she had been taught by scriptural authority ought to be paid. Thus considering them, she rejoiced in their new defeat, and was insensible of their misery; though, had not the new profession of Orlando called forth her fears for him, she would probably never have thought upon the subject at all – a subject with which, at that time, men not in parliament and their families supposed they had nothing to do. They saw not the impossibility of enforcing in another country the very imposts to which, unrepresented, they would not themselves have submitted. Elate with national pride, they had learned by the success of the preceding war to look with contempt on the inhabitants of every other part of the globe; and even on their colonists, men of their own country – little imagining that from their spirited resistance