Complete Poetical Works of Charlotte Smith

by Charlotte Smith

  It was near the end of April before the General, who now remained steady to his engagements, could prevail upon the tardy special pleader, the puzzling counsel, and the parchment-loving solicitor, to complete their parts in this intended contract. At last however the General, attended by two of them, set out for West Wolverton, and in a few days was followed by Orlando.

  The day after his arrival was occupied till it was almost dark, with the ceremony of hearing these endless settlements read; and, as he was a party to them all, it was impossible to escape, even on pretence of the indisputably necessary visit to Mrs Rayland; but the instant they were signed he flew eagerly to the Hall.

  The sight of the many well-known objects on his way – every tree, every shrub, recalled to his mind a thousand pleasing ideas; and as he passed hastily through the fir wood, where in a dreary night of December he had last parted from Monimia, or at least passed a few agitated moments previous to their parting, he compared his present sensations to what he had at that time felt, and laughed at the superstitious impression given him then, and on some former occasions, by the gloom of the winter sky – when he fancied that, in the hollow murmur of the breeze, he heard, ‘Orlando will revisit these scenes no more!’

  Every object, then wrapped in real and imaginary horrors, was now gay and joyous. It was a lovely glowing evening, towards the end of April. – The sun was set, but his beams still tinged with vivid colours the western clouds, and their reflection gave the water of the lake that warm and roseate hue which painting cannot reach. – The tender green of spring formed to this a lovely contrast; and, where the wood of ancient pines ceased, his path lay through a coppice of low underwood and young self-planted firs – the ground under them thickly strewn with primroses and the earliest wild flowers of the year.

  Hope and pleasure seemed to breathe around him – Hope and pleasure filled the heart and flashed in the eyes of Orlando; and perhaps the moment when he reached the door of the old Hall, though he was forced to stop a moment to recover his breath and recollection, was one of the happiest of his life.

  It had been the established custom, from his first admission to the Hall, never to enter the apartment of Mrs Rayland but on permission; but now, as he had informed her from London that he intended to be at the Hall in a few days, and had received an answer most cordially inviting him, his impatience would not permit him to wait for this ceremony; and he hardly felt the ground beneath him, as he sprang up the stairs that led to her usual sitting parlour, and opening the door, saw, by the faint light which the old gothic casements afforded at that hour of the evening, Monimia sitting on the opposite window seat alone. He flew towards her, forgetting, at that moment, that the world contained any other being. Surprise and pleasure deprived her as much of her recollection as they had done her lover; but it returned sooner, and she entreated him to forbear those frantic expressions of tenderness which were so dangerous in such a place. – ‘Where are the old Ladies then?’ cried he. – ‘They are only walking in the gallery,’ replied Monimia, ‘as Mrs Rayland was not well enough to go out to-day – they will be back immediately.’ – ‘That cannot be,’ cried Orlando impatiently, ‘for you know how slow their progress is; but let us not lose a moment in talking of them. – Tell me, Monimia, can I see you at night as I used to do? – Are you still in your turret, with the same means of leaving it? – Tell me, Monimia, I must not – I cannot be refused.’

  ‘Ah, Orlando!’ answered the faltering Monimia, ‘dearest Orlando! how often have I repented of those dangerous, those improper meetings; with how much difficulty we escaped, and how impossible it would have been for any other circumstance than your absence to have quieted the suspicions of my aunt! – And ought we now to renew this hazardous correspondence – ought we to incur again such danger?’ – Orlando interrupted her: ‘Ought we!’ exclaimed he. ‘Is that a question, Monimia would have made after so long an absence, if Monimia was not changed?’ – ’Changed, Orlando! can you think me changed?’ – ‘Prove then that you are not,’ said he, again impatiently interrupting her: ‘let me see you to-night; my leave of absence is only for a few days, till my sister is married and I must not – I will not be trifled with.’ – ‘Oh, hush! hush!’ whispered she, ‘there is a noise! they are coming from the gallery! – I had better not be found here with you.’ – ‘Promise then, Monimia – promise me, and you shall go. – I will hazard every thing, even an immediate discovery, if you refuse me.’ Monimia, trembling at his vehemence, then sighed her consent – and hardly knowing what she was about, gathered up the work that lay in the window seat, and softly left the room, while Orlando walked to the other end of it, assuming, as well as he was able, an air of unconcern; but before he had made a second turn Mrs Rayland entered – and started at the sight of him, though she had expected him either that day or the next.

  He approached her with all that affection which is inspired by gratitude; and as he respectfully kissed her hand, she expressed her pleasure at seeing him returned. He then paid his compliments to Mrs Lennard, whose eyes he saw were thrown around the room for Monimia; she returned his civilities, however, with great good humour. Candles were ordered, and Mrs Rayland invited him to supper, and to take up his residence at the Hall – favours which, with unfeigned pleasure he accepted. The old Lady, who had now long been accustomed to contemplate Orlando as a creature of her own forming, was pleased to fancy him improved, both in his person and his manners, during his short absence. – He had acquired a military air – he was more easy, but not less respectful; and she fancied that he resembled her grandfather’s picture more than he used to do; but she expressed some surprise not to see him in uniform, which she said, in her time, all gentlemen of the army appeared in usually.

  Orlando promised he would conform to what she thought right in that respect – not however without some apprehensions, that as he advanced in life she would propose to him, in order that he might be still more like Sir Orlando Rayland, whose portrait she wished him to resemble, to purchase a tie wig, and brandish a sword, of which the guard should be lost in an immense sleeve.

  As Mrs Rayland was not very well, having lately had an attack of the gout, to which she was in the spring particularly subject, she dismissed the young soldier early; and it was with inexpressible delight that Orlando took possession once more of his old apartments, which had been carefully prepared for him. It would not be easy to describe the subsequent meeting between him and Monimia, who suffered herself to be persuaded to renew that clandestine intercourse, which they had both so often condemned as wrong, and renounced as dangerous; but when Monimia could prevail upon him to talk less of his present happiness, and to be more reasonable, she related to him all that had passed during his absence. – Her life had, however, afforded very little variety, but was rather amended in regard to Mrs Lennard’s treatment of her, who employed her more than usual in attendance on Mrs Rayland, in order to save herself trouble, gave her more liberty, and was rather less harsh towards her than formerly. – She related, that she was now often suffered to go to church, which had afforded her the opportunities she had snatched to meet Selina and correspond with him. Her aunt had apparently forgotten her suspicions and anger when he was no longer near the Hall; and the disappearance of Betty Richards, who was said to have gone off (according to her own assertions) to Philip Somerive, and was reported to be supported by him in London, had been the means of eradicating entirely from the mind of Mrs Rayland all those suspicions which the gossip of the country, collected and repeated by the jealousy of the old butler, had made on her mind; and she now thought better of Orlando than if these doubts had never been raised.

  Orlando, in collecting all this from Monimia, saw too clearly the reason why his brother had so carefully avoided him; and amid all the delight of which his heart was sensible in this conference, it felt a sharp pang, when he reflected how great an accession of pain this intelligence, which did not seem to have reached him yet, would give to the already wounded heart of his
father.

  Day unwelcomely appeared, and it was dangerous for Monimia to stay a moment longer. – Orlando conducted her safely back, extorting from her a promise that they should meet every night during the short time he was to stay. When he left her his spirits would not allow him to sleep. – The morning was delicious, and a thousand birds from the woods, on every side the park, seemed to hail his arrival. Again all the enchanting visions with which youth and hope had formerly soothed his mind re-appeared – never did they seem to him so likely to be realized. His sanguine imagination, no longer repressed by doubts of Mrs Rayland’s intentions towards him, which were now every thing but actually declared, represented to him the most bewitching scenes of future happiness. The only alloy was his brother’s indiscretions and his father’s health; but he believed he should be able to obviate the inconveniencies of the one, and to restore the other, when he should possess, what the course of nature rendered likely to be at no great distance, the property of Mrs Rayland, which he meant to resign to his father for his life.

  ‘Happy pliability of the human spirit!’ Happy that period, when youth, and health, and hope, unite to paint in brilliant colours the uncertain future – when no sad experience, no corrosive disappointment, throws dark hues over the animating landscape; or, if they do, are softened into those shades that only add to its beauty! Orlando would not distinguish, in that his fancy was busied in drawing, any but agreeable objects – Monimia infinitely more lovely, and, if possible, more beloved than ever, was the principal figure. – He saw her the adored mistress of that house, where she had been brought up in indigence, in obscurity, almost in servitude; this gem, which he alone had found, was set where nature certainly intended it to have been placed – it was to him, not only its discovery, but its lustre was owing – he saw it sparkle with genuine beauty, and illuminate his future days; and he repressed every thought which seemed to intimate the uncertainty of all he thus fondly anticipated, and even of life itself.

  The cool tranquillity of morning, the freshness of the air, the beauty of the country whithersoever he turned his eyes, had not sufficient power to sooth and tranquillize his spirits – he believed a book which should for a moment carry him out of himself would do it more effectually; and returning to the library, he took from the shelves two or three small volumes of poetry which he had purchased, and retiring to an elevated spot in the park, which commanded a view of Monimia’s turret, he attempted in vain to read; but the sensations he felt were so much under the influence of fancy, that they suddenly assumed a poetical form in the following verses:

  HYMM to LOVE and HOPE

  TWIN stars of light! whose blended rays

  Illuminate the darkest road

  Where fortune’s roving exile strays,

  When doubt and care the wanderer load,

  And drive him far from joy’s abode.

  Propitious Love and smiling Hope!

  Be you my guides, and guardian powers,

  If, doom’d with adverse fate to cope,

  I quit in Honour’s rigid hours

  These dear, these bliss-devoted towers.

  Yet here, O still, most radiant! here

  (Attend this prayer of fond concern)

  To beauty’s bosom life endear,

  Presaging as ye brightly burn

  The rapture of my blest return.

  CHAPTER VIII

  THREE days, three happy days to Orlando, now passed rapidly away. Divided between his father’s house and the Hall, and appearing to constitute the comfort of both, he was himself gay and cheerful, in the certainty that at night he should see Monimia. The charms of the season; the beauty of the country, to which he was attached as well from taste as habit; the tender affection of Monimia, which, though more guarded, was more lively than on their early acquaintance; the delight of knowing that his father’s sorrows were soothed and suspended by his presence; and that his mother looked upon his attention to her as overpaying her for every other anxiety; all conspired to give value to his existence, and to blunt the asperity of those reflections in regard to his brother, which now and then would interpose and give him momentary disquiet. He was not quite content about Isabella, who, through the air of gaiety she assumed, did not seem to be really so well pleased as she affected to appear. The fulsome fondness of her ancient military lover sometimes raised her ridicule, but oftener disgust, which Orlando saw with concern. But on these occasions he reflected that nothing in this world is without its alloy; and that so many advantages would accrue to his family by the marriage of Isabella, that as she did not seem herself averse to it, it was folly in him to think of it with concern.

  On the morning of the fourth day after his arrival, he had just walked over from the Hall, where Mrs Rayland had detained him to breakfast, and was engaged in conversation in the parlour with his father and the General, when a dark-coloured chariot, drawn by four sleek dock tailed horses that might have matched the set at Rayland Hall, was seen to approach the house, followed by three servants in purple liveries.

  Mr Somerive expressed some surprise at this, as he had not the least recollection of the equipage: their enquiry, however who it could be, was immediately answered by the appearance of Doctor Hollybourn; who, waddling out, enquired for Mr Somerive, and was shewn into the room where he was sitting.

  Mr Somerive was so little accustomed to receive visits of civility from Doctor Hollybourn, or indeed any visits at all, that he was as much surprised at this as he could be at a matter of so little consequence. The very great condescension of the good Doctor, who bowed as low as his prominent stomach would let him, and whose speeches were interlarded by all kinds of flattery, Mr Somerive accounted for by recollecting that the Doctor was extremely fond of the company of persons of title, and never so happy as when he could introduce some anecdote which related to his ‘brother the Bishop’, or to some Right honourable or Right Reverend Friend. He had on the occasion of their meeting at Rayland Hall the preceding November, paid his court most assiduously to the General; and enlarged upon the beauty of his brother the Lord Barhaven’s seats; all of which, he said, he had visited. Somerive now therefore concluded that it was to the report of his honourable guest, and of his intended alliance with the family, that he owed this very obliging visit; which, however, he began to think very tedious, and dreaded its lasting till the evening: when, at length, the good Doctor, after a pompous preface, said that he had an affair of some consequence to communicate to Mr Somerive, on whose time he begged to trespass alone for ten minutes.

  Somerive, who could not imagine what a man with whom he had so slight an acquaintance could have to say to him, immediately applied this unexpected circumstance to the idea always present to his mind. He fancied some ill had befallen his eldest son, and that one of his friends had commissioned this man of the church to break to him the horrid tidings; and then to pour into his wounded mind the consolation his profession enabled him to bestow.

  In an agony not to be described, therefore, Somerive led the way into his study; where the Doctor, after another flourishing preface, which Somerive in the confusion of his mind took for a preparatory discourse, offered to him for Orlando his daughter, the fair and accomplished heiress, to whom he declared he would give twenty thousand pounds down, with an engagement that at at his death that sum should be trebled.

  Though the proposal gave no great pleasure to Somerive, because he disliked Doctor Hollybourn, and was almost sure Orlando disliked his daughter; yet this conversation, so different from what he expected to hear, gave, while it relieved him from the most dreadful apprehensions, the appearance of joy to his countenance: he thanked the consequential Doctor for the honour he did his family, promised to communicate to Orlando the purport of their conference, and to wait upon him with an answer, or send Orlando on the following day. They then returned to the General and Orlando – the conversation turned on common topics; and the Doctor, though asked to stay dinner, withdrew with his usual dignity.

  The General w
as now considered as part of the family; and before him Somerive, who had hardly yet recovered from his surprise, related to Orlando, as soon as he was gone, the purport of his visit.

  Mr Somerive seemed at first but little disposed to listen to proposals of such a nature from a man whom he had always rather disliked, and who now seemed to have made them, only because it was generally understood that Orlando was acknowledged as the intended heir to the great estates of the Rayland family.

  Orlando very plainly declared his disinclination to hear of them; while the General, by no means accustomed to consider pecuniary advantages as matters to be slightly thought of, or hastily rejected, asked such questions as led Somerive to explain the particulars of Miss Hollybourn’s fortune and expectations; after which he contrived to turn the conversation to indifferent matters for a few moments, and then walked away with Somerive, whom he very seriously advised to reconsider the matter before he suffered Orlando to throw from him this opportunity of becoming a man of fortune and independence.