Charlotte Smith- Collected Poetical Works

by Charlotte Smith

  Orlando kissed away the tears that now fell on her lovely cheeks, and mingled his own with them; when Monimia after a little time recovered her voice, and went on – ‘It was to indulge such meditations, the only comfort I had, that I stole out whenever I could be secure that my persecutor was with his military friends; and as I dared not go far, the church-yard on that side of the cathedral where the soldiers did not parade, or sometimes the cathedral itself, were the only places where there was a chance of my not being molested; and there, if I could ever procure quiet for a quarter of an hour, the daws that inhabited the old building, and who were now making their nests (for it was early spring), recalled to my mind, by the similarity of sounds, Rayland-Hall; and when I compared my present condition with even the most comfortless hours I passed there, I reproached myself for my former discontent, and envied all who were at peace beneath the monumental stones around me. – Later than usual one evening I returned from this mournful walk, and, making my way with some difficulty through the crowds who were assembled in the streets to celebrate some victory or advantage in America (and at the very name of America my heart sickened within me), I was overtaken near the door of Mrs Newill’s lodging, by the person whom I most dreaded to meet – Sir John Belgrave, evidently in a state of intoxication, with three officers in the same situation, who insisted on seeing me home. I was within a few yards of the door, and hastened on to disengage myself from them; but they followed me on, talking to me in a style of which I was too much terrified to know more than that it was most insulting and improper.

  ‘In this way, however, while I remonstrated, and trembled, and entreated in vain, I was forced into a little room behind the shop, where Mrs Newill usually sat, where, instead of her, there sat by the side of a small fire (for the weather was yet cold) a young man in the naval uniform, who, starting up on the abrupt entrance of such a party, stood amazed a moment at the language of Sir John Belgrave and his friends, and and then, fiercely demanding what business they had in that house, ordered them to leave it; and, taking my hand, he said – ‘I am ashamed, gentlemen, of your treatment of this young woman – Don’t be alarmed, miss – I will protect you.’

  ‘I most willingly put myself into the protection he offered, when Belgrave, enraged at being thus addressed by a person whom he considered as so much his inferior, uttered a great oath, and said – ‘And pray, fellow, who are you? and what the devil have you to do with this girl?’ – ‘Master of my mother’s apartment,’ replied, the young sailor, who I now understood was Mrs Newill’s son – ‘and an Englishman! As the first, I shall prevent any ruffian’s insulting a woman here; as the second, I shall defend her from insult any where.’ – ‘You be d – d!’ cried Belgrave; ‘you impudent puppy, do you think that black stock makes you on a footing with a gentleman?’ Belgrave’s companions had by this time wisely retired; for, as I was not their pursuit, they saw no occasion to incur the danger of a quarrel in it. The only answer the stranger gave to this additional insolence of Belgrave was a violent blow, which drove the aggressor against the side of the wainscot, that in so narrow a room prevented his falling; and then young Newill, seizing him by the collar, with a sudden jerk threw him out of the room, and shut the door. The noise all this made brought Mrs Newill down stairs, who demanded of her son what was the matter? He answered, that some brutal officers, very drunk, had insulted a young lady who had taken shelter in that room, and whom he had rescued from their impertinence by turning them out of it. His mother, in additional consternation, then turned to me, ‘What!’ said she, ‘it was you, miss, was it? And I suppose the gentleman was Sir John Belgrave – Fine doings! And so, William, this is the way you affront my friends?’

  ‘I care not whose friends I affront,’ replied he: ‘if they behave like brutes to a woman, I would affront them if they were emperors.’ His mother, who I am afraid had been solacing herself above stairs with some of those remedies to which she often applied for consolation, now began to cry and lament herself; and, in her pathetic complaints, bemoaned her ill luck that had given her an apprentice that, so far from being an assistant, was only a trouble to her, and did nothing but offend her customers. Young Newill then, for the first time, understood that I was this apprentice; and as I sat weeping in a corner, I saw he pitied me – ‘Come, come, Madam,’ said he to his mother, ‘no more of this, if you please – nobody has offended your customers; but on the contrary, your customers, as you call them, have offended me; let us look a little after this good friend of yours, perhaps he may have some farther commands for me – it is unhandsome to sink such a fine fair-weather jack, without lending a hand to heave him up.’ He then, in despite of his mother’s entreaties, opened the door; but no Sir John Belgrave appeared, and the sailor observed that he had set all his canvas, and scudded off. ‘So now, dear mother,’ said he, ‘pr’ythee let’s have no more foul weather; but let us sit down to supper, for I’m sure this young woman must be glad of something after her fright – poor little soul, how she trembles still! – and you should remember that I have rode from Portsmouth since dinner, and a seaman just come from a two months cruise must eat.’ Mrs Newill still however appearing to think more of Sir John Belgrave than her son, he became presently impatient; and going out to a neighbouring inn, he ordered a supper and some kind of wine or punch; which being soon brought, Mrs Newill consented to partake of it, though she still behaved to me with such rude reserve, that I would immediately have retired, if young Newill had not insisted on my sitting down to supper with them, and I was too much obliged to him to refuse.’

  ‘You were certainly obliged to him,’ said Orlando, in a hurried voice; ‘but after such a scene I wonder you were able to remain with these people – What sort of a man is young Newill? Is he a well-looking man?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Monimia, ‘rather so; but I hardly knew then how he looked – and in the scene I have described, I rather recollected it afterwards, than attended to it at the time.’

  ‘Pardon me,’ interrupted Orlando, with quickness – ‘you must have attended to it at the time, or you could not have recollected it afterwards. Have you often seen this Mr Newill since? What is become of him now?’

  ‘He is gone to sea,’ replied Monimia.

  ‘You have not then seen him since?’

  ‘Yes, certainly I have – I saw him the next day.’

  ‘Where?’ cried Orlando, impatiently.

  ‘I was obliged,’ answered Monimia, ‘because Mrs Newill was not going immediately to join her imprisoned husband, to be up early to pack up some things in the shop for the person who had bought them; and while I did it, all my sorrows pressing with insupportable weight on my mind, and above all, your loss, Orlando – I wept as I proceeded in my task of typing up band-boxes and parcels, and yet I hardly knew I wept; when young Newill entered the place where I was, and offered to help me – ‘Good God!’ said he, ‘you are crying!’ He took my hand, it was wet with tears.’

  ‘And he kissed them off,’ cried Orlando, again wildly starting from his chair, ‘I know he did – yes! this stranger, infinitely more dangerous than Belgrave . . .’

  ‘Oh! dear Orlando,’ said Monimia, with a deep and tremulous sigh, ‘what is it you suspect me of? Do not, I beseech you, destroy me as soon as we have met, by suspicion, which indeed, if you will hear me with patience . . .’

  ‘Go on, Monimia,’ said he, recovering himself – ‘go on, and I will be as patient as I can – but this Newill’ – ‘Always,’ said Monimia, ‘behaved to me like the tenderest brother, and it is to him alone I am indebted for the safety and protection I have found. Yet it is true, Orlando, and I will not attempt to conceal it from you, that young Newill in this first interview professed himself my lover; but when I assured him that all my affections were buried with you, that it was out of my power to make him any other return to the regard he expressed for me, than gratitude; and if he would be so much my friend as to influence his mother, either to prevail upon my aunt to receive me, or to let me remai
n with any creditable person in the country, instead of taking me to London (where I had too much reason to believe I was to be exposed anew to the persecutions of Sir John Belgrave), I should be eternally indebted to him – this he promised to undertake, and seemed to acquiesce in my refusal of his addresses, which, had I been capable of listening to them, it would have been very indiscreet on his part to have pursued; for he was possessed of nothing but the pay of a midshipman, and out of that little had often contributed to relieve the distresses of his parents; and now on hearing of his father’s confinement, immediately after his return from a cruise, in which the frigate he was on board had taken two small prizes, he hastened to their assistance; and bearing with sailor-like philosophy all present evils, and never considering those of the future, he was treating for the advance of his pay for the next half year, in order to enable his mother to discharge some debts for which her creditors were very clamorous, before she left the town. Yet did he, under such circumstances, think very seriously of a wife – I believe that he supposed the dejection of my spirits was rather owing to my forlorn situation, than to an attachment which he had no notion of as existing after the death of its object, and that I should gradually be induced to listen to his love.’

  ‘Yet,’ cried Orlando warmly, ‘yet you talk of the brotherly and the disinterested regard of this new friend of yours.’

  ‘It was so in effect, Orlando, and I did not too minutely enquire into the motive of his conduct. Allow me to go on, and you will own that we are both much obliged to him. When he fully understood the nature of my situation, in invincible aversion to Sir John Belgrave, and my fears, which, mortifying as they must be to him, I could not help expressing, lest his father should prevail on Mrs Newill to betray me entirely into his power – he expressed in his rough sea language so much pity for me, and so much indignation at the conduct of his family, that I became persuaded I might trust him. But, alas! I had nothing to entrust him with – no means of escape from the evils I dreaded to propose to him – except Mrs Roker, I had no friend or relation in the world – I had written three letters to Selina, but I received no answer – and she too had, I feared, by the troubles of her own family, been compelled to appear for a while unmindful of her unhappy Monimia. – Young Mr Newill desired a few hours to consider what he could do for me; and in that time he talked to his mother of her ungenerous and base conduct in regard to me, with so much effect, that, after a struggle between her necessities and her conscience, she promised her son to receive no more the bribes of Sir John Belgrave, and even to let me quit her, if I insisted upon it. Having obtained thus much, he returned to me, and I was then to determine whither I would go. Oh! how gladly would I then have accepted of the lowest service! But who would take a creature apparently so slight as not to be able to do any kind of household work; and from such a woman as Mrs Newill, who was but little esteemed either for her morals or her economy? In this distress I wrote again to Selina, entreating her to enquire for a place for me; but no answer came in the usual course of the post, and Newill’s leave of absence expiring in three days, it became necessary to determine on something. Fruitless as every written application had hitherto been to Mrs Roker, I could think of nothing better than to address her in person; and as I dared not go so far alone, being ever in apprehension of meeting Sir John Belgrave, Mr Newill offered to go with me, and . . .’

  ‘How did you go?’ said Orlando, interrupting her.

  ‘In the stage to Alresford,’ replied Monimia; ‘and from thence we walked to the house, where, however, I was refused admittance by a sister of Roker’s, who told me her poor dear sister-in-law was in a bad state of health; that nobody could be admitted to see her; and advised me by all means not to depend upon any thing she could do for me, since her condition put all attention to business out of the question; and Miss Roker was sorry indeed to remind me, that my perverse undutiful behaviour had not a little contributed to derange the faculties of my worthy relation. I could have answered, that her faculties were certainly deranged when she married Mr Roker; but I had no opportunity to make this observation if I had had courage enough – for the woman shut the door in my face, repeating in very rude terms, ‘that any visits there would be to no purpose.’

  ‘Thus driven from the habitation of my only relation, I returned more broken-hearted than I set out to Winchester.’

  ‘And your protector, I suppose, renewed his solicitations by the way?’ said Orlando.

  ‘No indeed,’ answered Monimia, ‘he had too much sensibility; and whatever he might intend for the future, he too much respected the grief into which this cruel repulse had plunged me. The next day but one he was to go back to his duty, with a young shipmate who was visiting his mother then at Southampton, who was to call upon him, that they might return together. While I was yet undetermined what to do, time passed away, and this comrade of Mr Newill’s arrived. It was young Fleming, the eldest son of your friend, whom his mother’s relation, an old captain of a man of war, had taken from Winchester college at eighteen, and adopted at his father’s death upon condition of his becoming a sailor – a condition which Mrs Fleming, who had so recently lost her husband, lamented, but dared not oppose. War had just deprived her of her first support; yet him on whom she next relied she was compelled to part with for the same dreadful trade, because her pension, as a lieutenant’s widow, which was almost her sole dependence, was very insufficient for the support of her four other children; the two little girls you saw with me last night, another yet younger, and her second boy, whom her relation partly supports at an academy, intending him also for the sea – and who would have been so much offended, had she thwarted him in regard to taking the eldest son from college, that he would have renounced the whole family.

  ‘To this young man, who was his most intimate friend, Newill communicated, but not without first asking my permission, the difficulties I was under; concealing however those circumstances that seemed to reflect so much disgrace on his mother. They consulted together what I could do. . .’

  ‘Excellent and proper counsellors truly!’ exclaimed Orlando impatiently.

  ‘Less improper than you imagine,’ replied Monimia. ‘Fleming had not, like Newill, been so long at sea as to acquire that steadiness of mind which enables men of that profession to look on all personal danger with indifference, and on moral evil as a matter of course. But yet, recollecting not only his classics, but the romances he had delighted in at school, he had that natural and acquired tenderness of mind which made him sensible at once of all the discomforts of my situation. He saw in me a poor, deserted heroine of a novel, and nothing could be in his opinion so urgent as my relief. – Accustomed in all emergencies to apply to his mother, to whom he is the most affectionate and dutiful of sons . . .’

  ‘What is become of this Fleming?’ enquired Orlando, ‘is he often at home with his mother?’

  ‘No; he went almost immediately after my first becoming acquainted with her, to the East Indies – but your impatience, Orlando, will not let me conclude my sad story. Fleming seeing the affair in the light I have described, settled with his friend Newill that the latter should return alone to the ship – make some excuse for Fleming’s being absent two days longer, while he would return to his mother, and endeavour by her means to find some proper asylum for me. The readiness with which Newill consented to this plan, convinced me of his disinterestedness; though I own I had little hope of its success. I supposed that Mrs Fleming would have suspected the zeal of so young a man for a woman of my age, in distress, and would decline interfering for a person of whom she could know nothing. But the generosity of my young advocate rendered him eloquent; and she to whom he pleaded was not only naturally of the most candid and humane disposition, but her own sorrows had so softened her heart, that calamity never pleaded to her in vain, though her circumstances are such as do not always enable her to relieve it, as her heart dictates.

  ‘This excellent woman reflected, that there must be something remarkabl
e in the situation which had made so great an impression on her son; and that even if I was a young woman whom necessity had reduced to a discreditable mode of life, her kindness might yet save me from deeper destruction. With this humane persuasion, and remembering always the maxim of doing as she would be done by, she came herself to Winchester, to enquire what she could do for me – thinking, as she has since told me, that she ought to do this, if she hoped for the mercy of Heaven towards her own girls, who might, by so likely an event as her death, be as desolate and friendless as I was. I am too much exhausted, Orlando, to be particular now in relating our first interview. We shall, I hope have frequent opportunities of admiring the simplicity of character, the goodness of heart, and the attractive manners of my benefactress, who, from your description of your mother, is almost her counterpart. It is sufficient if I tell you that Mrs Fleming not only implicitly believed my melancholy story, but, as nothing immediately occurred to her for my permanent relief, determined to take me home with her, till some eligible situation could be found. When she had been a little accustomed to me, she would not part with me; I have been so happy as to make myself useful to her and her children; and in acquitting myself as far as I could of my debt of gratitude, I have found the best and only defence against that regret and anguish which devoured me. She had sorrows enough of her own; I forbore therefore to oppress her with mine, and I tried to be calm when I could not be cheerful; but when the conversation turned to the loss she had sustained in her husband, I mingled my tears with hers, and wept for Orlando.’