‘I solemnly assure you, (replied Mr. Hayward), that I do not know what is become of our unfortunate friend, nor, perhaps, shall I ever know......I dare not make any inquiry; and all I have been able to learn is, that, on receiveing the infamous scrawl last night, your father ordered every body out of his room, and remained alone, or only with Ormsby, for some time. He then directed two of the grooms to be sent to him, and that the steward might also attend.....Mr. Ormsby appeared no more. These two men, the grooms, have never been seen since; but there is no track of a carriage around the house, nor has any body been seen to leave it. The steward observes the most profound silence, and all that is known in the house is, that something has happened which has obliged Mr. Ormsby suddenly to leave it; that he has deeply offended Mr. Montalbert; and that it is required of all who would not enrage their master, and be dismissed from the family, never to mention the name of Ormsby even to each other.’
‘My father did see him? (inquired I) — had they any conversation which urged on this precipitate violence?’
‘I believe they had, but I know nothing certainly — any attempt on my part to draw from Mr. Montalbert more than he chooses to entrust me with, would not only be abortive, but would, in all probability, deprive me of every future opportunity of softening the asperity of his resentment. Let me conjure you, my dearest Madam, if you would not hearafter reproach youself with the fatal effects of this resentment, to exert your utmost resolution — endeavour to command yourself so as to appear to-morrow before your father....The second attempt will be more easy, and I trust, in a day or two, your spirits wil be so much calmed, that you will be able to consider of taking the measures so necesary to be thought of for the preservation of your reputation, perhaps of your life.’
‘You believe then, (said I), that the life of poor Ormsby is safe?’
‘Believe it! — (exclaimed Mr. Hayward) — surely I believe it.....To whatever extremities the unhappy prejudices or violent passions of Mr. Montalbert may drive him, and none can have greater apprehensions on that subject than I have, hitherto I hope and believe that Mr. Montalbert has taken no unjustifiable measures in regard to this luckless young man. — (Then deeply sighing, Mr. Hayward added) — In my opinion his future fate depends entirely upon you —— it is in your power to save or to destroy him.’
‘Gracious Heaven! — (exclaimed I) — what right has my fahter over this ill-starred young man? — My life may be in his power — he gave it me, and most willingly would I resign it; but Ormsby surely ought not to suffer.’
‘Mr. Montalbert, (interrupted Mr. Hayward), will consider but little what he ought to do, or what he has a right to do, when vengeance is in question; but surley I need urge this subject no further — you are perfectly acquainted with his temper — you know that he is master of the country around for some miles. His servants, his dependents, his tenants, are in such habits of obeying him, that he is in some measure capable of exercising a sort of despotism, which, though frequent enough in other countries, is seldom seen in this......I will now leave you, my dear Miss Montalbert — again beseeching you to consider what I have said, and to command yourself as much as possible to-morrow.’
“Mr. Hayward then left me, and sent to my faithful Helene to attend me, who had been absent during our conversation; but my senses were yet stunned by the violence of the shock I had receieved — I could not shed a tear, and sat like a statue repeating almost unconciously to myself — — ‘Ormsby is gone! — he is lost for ever — he is condemned to ignominy and disgrace, and it is I who have undone him, who may perhaps occasion his death!’
“I know not now by what arguments Helene at length prevailed upon me to take some refreshement, and to undress myself......I believe that by the contrivance of Mr. Hayward, who, as I afterwards found, kept a small dispensary of medicines in his own room, Helene gave me some remedy that assisted in quieting my spirits — for after passing some time in a state of mind which I cannot even at this distance of time reflect upon without horror, I sank into insensibility, from which I was suddenly startled by a fancied noise, and awoke only to recollect all the bitterness of my destiny.”
The narrative of Mrs. Vyvian, which became every moment more interesting to Rosalie, was now interrupted by a letter which announced the arrival of Mr. Vyvian, Mrs. Bosworth, and her sister, in London. Her spirits were already agitated by recollecting scenes in which she had formerly suffered so much, and this intelligence contributed to overwhelm them. The visit from her family was not to be made till the second or third day after the present; there was yet, therefore, time enough for her to relate the sequel of her story; which, at the request of Rosalie, who sacrificed her own impatience to consideration for her mother’s health, was postponed to the following morning.
CHAPTER 16
MRS. Vyvian on the following day thus proceeded ——
“When I look back on the situation I was now in, I am astonished that I ever supported it — description at this distance of time could but do little justice to the state of my mind, even if I were capable of discriminating now the variety of miseries I then suffered under. It seems, on retrospection, the most extraordinary circumstance in the world, that in such a state of mind as I was in, I should have acquired resolution enough to appear before my father, as Mr. Hayward recommended, on the following day; but this I did do; and though I cannot but suppose that my figure and countenance bore full testimony to the state of my heart, he seemed determined not to notice the deadly paleness of my countenance, or the feeble and uncertain step with which I approached him: yet, when he supposed I did not remark him, he cast toward me looks of indignation and resentment, the meaning of which I could not mistake. I shuddered when I observed them, but in my turn affected to be as tranquil as before this storm that had wrecked for ever my happiness and my peace.
“It was highly probable that the violent agitation I had undergone, as well as the dreadful uneasiness that preyed on my mind, for the fate of my unfortunate lover, would finish my inquietudes for the future, and bury in oblivion the fatal secret of this hapless affection; but this did not happen, and now every hour as it passed added such insupportable dread of what was to happen in future to the miseries of the present moment, that to exist long in such a state seemed impossible — yet were my sufferings but begun.
“Nothing could be more dreary and desolate than every object appeared round the house. It was the dark and melancholy month of November, and nature seemed to be in unison with my feeling. I looked now on the same scenes as I had so lately beheld luxuriant in foliage, and illuminated with the summer sun — the same scenes in which Ormsby had so long been a principal object.....Now — as the leaves fell slowly from the sallow trees, they seemed to strew his grave — the wind, as murmured hollow though the perennial foliage of the pines and furs, sounded to my ears as if it were loaded with his dying groans —— I heard him sigh among the thick shrubs that bordered the wood walks; he seemed to reproach my calmness — yet it was not the tranquility of indifference, it was the torpor of despair.
“I went out alone, that I might weep at liberty; yet, when I found myself in the silent solitude of the woods, I was unable to shed a tear, but sat down on one of the benches, and gazed on vacancy with fixed eyes, and without having any distinct idea of the object I beheld. In these dismal rambles rain and tempest, and once or twice night, overtook me. I was careless or insensible of outward circumstances; and certainly if my father had not determined to shut his eyes to the truth, as if the only alternative were between extreme severity and total ignorance, he must have discovered from my conduct that all his suspicions did not go beyond the reality.
“Some very fatal catastrophe would have followed the state of mind I was in, had not the pious and friendly councils of the Abbé Hayward, and the assiduous care of Helene, saved me from myself: the one exhorted me to patience, and a reliance on the mercy of Heaven; the other soothed and flattered my sickening soul with the hope of better days, and enabled me to
endure the present by encouraging me to look forward to the return of Mrs. Lessington, who alone seemed to be likley to advise and succour me in a situation which every hour and every day rendered more perilous.
“Mr. Hayward frequently followed me into the depth of the woods, argued, remonstrated, and then soothed and endeavoured to console me. I heard his arguments, and even his reproofs, with submission and calmness; but when he told me that I ought to be cheerful, to be resigned, to endeavour to conquer my affection for Ormsby, and to attempt, by every means in my power, to conceal that it had ever existed to so fatal an excess — I lost my patience, and my respect for this good man did not prevent my flying from him with something like resentment and disgust.
“So passed a month — a wretched month, during which time the name of Ormsby had never reached my ears, save only when Mr. Hayward, in the conversation which he thought it necessary to hold with me, reluctantly named him, or when I could so far command the agonies with which my heart was torn as to name him to Helene, and listen to the conjectures with which she attempted to relieve me as to what was become of him.
“Of this, however, she knew no more than I did; yet, from the looks and manners of the servants with whom she conversed at the times when they were necessarily altogether, a thousand vague ideas floated in her mind, to which she sometimes gave utterance with more zeal than prudence. From her I learned, that the two men who had disappeared when Ormsby was so suddenly sent away had never since returned, and that the places they filled were now occupied by others. I heard too, that though the name of Ormsby was never mentioned whenever the steward, my father’s old servant, or the housekeeper were present; yet that the inferior servants were continually whispering strange things, and that the people in the neighbourhood talked of nothing else; some of them going so far as to say, that inquiry ought to be made by people authorised, for that Mr. Ormsby had certainly been spirited away; while others gave dark hints, that, considering the revengeful temper of Mr. Montalbert, it would be well if something worse than being spirited away had not befallen the poor young man.
“All this I heard with alternate anguish and depression, of which it would be difficlut to convey with any idea to another. The fatal predilection that I had for Ormsby was then known, for no other reason could be given for such conduct towards him as was imputed to my father. I now saw none of the neighbours, for of the very few who had been accustomed to visit at the house, not one at this time approached it, and as I believed curiosity would have prompted them to come if they had no other motive, I thought it certain that my father had taken measures to prevent their visits. This I was not displeased at, for their looks would have been more uneasy to me than were those of the servants; whenever I saw any of them I was covered with confusion, and fancied they would remark and account for the sad change in my face and figure, of which I could not fail to be myself conscious.
“But if I fled thus from the observation of servants, what was my fear when compelled to appear before the severe and scrutinising eyes of my father? —— I had always an awe approaching to dread of him, even in those comparatively happy days when no reproaches of conscience assailed me......Now I endeavoured to attend on him with the same assiduity as I used to do before Ormsby became a sharer in the task, or rather undertook it entirely; but whether it was that my timidity made me awkward, and that, therefore, I was incapable of acquitting myself as I formerly did, or whether my father, more really angry than he chose to avow, took these occasions to vent in peevishness some part of the resentment and indignation he felt. Certain it is, that his harshness and asperity were almost insupportable, and the unkind expressions he sometimes used, the looks of rage and disdain he cast upon me, were not unfrequently such as affected my spirits so much as to throw me into fainting fits, from which I reproached my poor Helene for recalling me....Death, which alone seemed likely to end my miseries, I continually invoked, and I know not what would have been the consequence of such a series of present suffering, added to the dread of the future, had they continued much longer.
“Yet before the return of Mrs. Lessington, to which only I looked forward with the least hope of mitigating my woes, I had some trial of fortitude to encounter more difficult to sustain than any I had yet experienced.
“At the end of a long row of elms, of which now a few single trees only remain, you recollect a high mount now planted with firs, poplar, and larches, into which, as it is railed round, nobody now enters; you perhaps remember too, the very large yew tree that shadows a great space of ground near it, and which is also railed round. That mound covers the ruins of a small parish church, and that yew tree was in the church yard.
“An avenue of ancient trees was terminated by this church, at the distance of something more than a quarter of a mile from the house. It was merely the chancel of a larger edifice which had belonged to a monastery, some of the ruins of which remained scattered over the ground, and when I and my brother were children, we had been told by the servants many of those legends that almost always belong to such places. It was said too among them, that beneath these vestiges of buildings, which were not considerable above the ground, there were arched vaults, and subterraneous passages, which formerly served as burial places for the religious persons of this monastery. Their coffins, placed in niches along the walls, had been formerly seen by several persons, who had given a very terrific account of the skeletons in these dismal recesses; accounts which were now traditional in the neighbouring villages, and were of course greatly exaggerated. — The mournful relics that had been seen under the earth were imagined to visit its surface, and the place was universally believed to be haunted. The style of the building that remained, where light was admitted through long windows obscured by pieces of coloured glass, and now darkened by the ivy that mantled almost the whole edifice; the walls of great thickness, in some places green with the damps that continually streamed from the roof, in others marked with the remains of Latin sentences, surrounding the half-effaced representations of the crucifixion, all contributed to give an air of wildness and horror to this almost-deserted building; where, though at the Reformation, as it is called, under Henry the Eighth, it became a parish church, yet service was performed in it only once a year, as a mere matter of form, for the parish contained only the house of Holmwood, and three cottages belonging to my father, and since pulled down. So that when it was his pleasure to destroy this small church entirely, and unite the parish it belonged to with another, there were none to oppose the act of parliament he solicited and obtained for that purpose. At the time, however, of which I am speaking, this desolate spot inspired all that melancholy sort of horror which naturally gives rise to the reports of supernatural appearences; there was not a servant who would on any account have gone thither of a night, and even the gardeners and workmen, who were at any time occupied near it, related strange stories of uncommon noises, as of mourning and complaint, and more than once have run in terror to their fellow labourers, declaring that some obscure figures had issued from the vaults beneath, and then melted into air.
“Such as was the stern spirit of my father, and he so little knew how to make allowances for any weakness which he had never felt, that had any domestic betrayed fears of this sort before him, they would have been dismissed with disgrace; nor did my brother and I, while children, though we knew all the legends of the country, ever dare to speak to him of the stories we had been taught. Thus compelled to stifle our infantine fears, they were gradually subdued as our reason became stronger; and we were accustomed not only to find our way in the dark all over the extensive old buildings of Holmwood, but to traverse without fear the avenue that led to, and even the area that surrounded, the ruined church, though we credited the probable account that in the vaults beneath rested the remains of the former inhabitants of the decayed monastery.
“At the time I am now speaking of, I mean about six weeks after the departure of Ormsby, such was the gloomy temper of my soul, that I was pleased only w
ith the horrors, and it was through the avenue of elms, and toward the ruins that I now frequently directed my solitary walk. I observed, however, that when, in compliance with Helene’s earnest entreaty, I told her which way I was going, she shuddered and turned pale; and if I seemed disposed to go thither, when she was with me, she would find every possible excuse, such as that it was dewy from the high grass, or dirty, or the wind was in our faces, or any other objection she could raise against our taking that path; but none seemed to suit me so well......I found a melancholy sort of satisfaction in indulging the sad thoughts that incessantly pressed on my mind, in a place where I was sure none would interrupt my sorrow: even the labourer, fatigued with the toils of the day, or the benighted traveller from one village to another would not, to save a longer journey, cross my father’s grounds near this place. An adventurous sportsman, perhaps, might violate the gloomy shade with his gun; but, at the season of which I now speak, the end of December, even the hostile sounds of field sports were seldom heard — a dreary and mournful silence reigned around Holmwood, for it was long since the voice of hospitality or gaitey had been heard. The rooks returning in the evening to the high elm trees that led to the church-yard, and the owls that inhabited the ivies that half mantled it, seemed to be the only living creatures that could endure the melancholy solitude.
Charlotte Smith- Collected Poetical Works Page 223