Complete Poetical Works of Charlotte Smith

by Charlotte Smith

  “Just as I had finished the last sentence, Cattina came to tell me, that a Turkish xebec, chased by a Maltese galley, was in sight; and that I might now be convinced how very near the Barbarians sometimes approached the shore. I trembled, and had hardly strength to follow her up to the western tower, which affords the most extensive view: I saw two vessels, one of which pursued the other, but they were too distant for me to distinguish with what nations they were manned. Soon afterwards, however, they were so near that I could distinguish the form of the Turkish vessel, and see the crescent she bore as an ensign; but fighting did not seem to be her purpose at that time; for, finding the Maltese gain upon her, set up more sail, and made every effort to get away. The enemy, however, pursued, and fired upon her; we heard the report, and soon after saw the flashes of the guns amid clouds of smoke; the Corsair returned the fire, but still made off, and, I suppose having some advantage as to lightness, soon got out of the reach of the firing. At length the xebec became like a doubtful spot in the horizon, and then entirely disappeared; while the Maltese vessel, to my great comfort, abandoned the chase, yet continued cruizing along the coast, as if to protect us against the invader, should he dare to return.

  “My eyes are affected by gazing so long at the dazzling expanse of sea, and they and my heart still flutter with apprehension. I dread going to bed, for I shall fancy I hear hostile sounds in the adjoining rooms, and threatening tones in an unknown language: yet I know these pirates are gone, and unlikely now to molest us.

  “I went down into the garden in hopes of calming my spirits before I attempted to sleep. — Already the heats have tarnished the lively verdure of spring, and the cicala has began to devour the leaves; while in England the trees are but just budding, and the earlier shrubs hardly in leaf. If I were a poet, I should be tempted, were my heart ever for a moment at ease, to add one to the number of those who have celebrated, or have attempted to celebrate, the nightingale; for here the note of that bird is infinitely more mellow and delicious than in England. I have been vainly trying to recollect some of the most beautiful addresses to this songstress of the night, but trouble and anxiety have driven from my memory the few images that, in my circumscribed reading, I had once collected......Montalbert! shall I ever again be restored to happiness and you? — If ever I am, shall I not feel myself so depressed, so undone, by this tedious course of suffering, as to have lost the few claims I had to your tenderness. — Ah! here is another source of pain opened — I become a self tormenter. But, conscious that it is weak, nay, perhaps wicked, I will try to check this continual inclination to repine — I will kneel by my sleeping infant, and recommend him and Montalbert to the protection of that merciful Being, who preserved me and my child among the crash of ruins, and the yawning gulphs that surrounded us in Sicily, and who can deliver us from this dreary prison, and restore us to the husband and the father.”

  The little narrative of Rosalie was now interrupted.

  Wearied by the continual sameness of wandering about the fortress, where gloomy strength was not allied to safety, and where there was no alternative between the stagnation of cheerless solitude and the tremors of fear, (for whenever she conversed with Cattina these fears failed not to be renewed), Rosalie, on the day following that of which she has last given an account, took a walk hitherto untried, and went down to the village, if a small group of fishermen’s huts could be called so. — These were built with pieces of marble, intermingled with clay, and among them lay scattered many remains of magnificent buildings, pieces of large statues, and broken pillars. The idea of the splendid works of man fallen to decay, and hastening to oblivion, yet having survived for ages the beings who toiled to raise them, has always something mournful in it to a reflecting mind; and Rosalie was imagining to herself how different the appearance of this port must have been seven hundred years ago, when it was crowded with vessels, and its streets displayed all that commerce then procured for the rich and luxurious. Now, strange reverse! a few half-naked children playing before the humble doors, where their sun-burnt mothers sat spinning coarse hemp, or a fisherman or two pushing off their barks with the evening tide, to fish during the night, on the success of which, their principal subsistence depended, were all the living beings visible in this obscure hamlet.

  A high mound, rising in the midst of the village, had been formed by the fallen ruins of a temple. It was now covered with grass and low shrubs, but through them a marble capital, or an half-buried column, here and there were visible. On one of these last Rosalie sat down to rest a few moments before she returned home, and was sometimes indulging the reflections inspired by the place, sometimes talking to her child in a low and sweet voice, when she was startled by the footsteps of a person on the hollow ground near her; she looked suddenly up, and saw, not an Algerine pirate, but a gentleman, whom she immediately knew to be an Englishman.

  Her amazement prevented her either moving or speaking; while the stranger, taking off his hat, said— “You must forgive me, Madam, if I cannot repress my curiosity — I believe you are English? — I fear I may appear impertinent; but it is impossible for me to restrain the eager wish I have to know by what extraordinary circumstance I here find a person so unlike the inhabitants — so unlike the objects I came hither to seek?”

  However respectfully this address was made, there were places and occasions where Rosalie would have resented it as impertinent; but now, on the desert coast of Calabria, an Englishman seemed to her as a brother — and the accents of an English voice, as a voice from Heaven.

  She tried, however, in vain to answer distinctly the unexpected question thus made, and, faltering and trembling, said, in a voice hardly articulate, “I do not wonder, Sir, you are surprised at seeing me here! I am, indeed, an English stranger, and brought hither by a series of events too long to relate.” — At that moment she recollected, that, if she was seen speaking to any one, her walks would be put an end to, and her confusion increased. She took courage, however, to add— “I am detained here wholly against my inclinations, and despair ever to revisit my native country......I thank you, Sir, for the interest you seem to take in my misfortunes; but I dread being seen to converse with - - - - - -”

  “Hasten then, I conjure you, (cried the Englishman), to tell me where you live, and how I can be of use to you....Good God! you are here against your inclinations! — But who dares to confine you? — I am a stranger to you, Madam, and a mere idle wanderer in this land; but, as a man of your country, you have a right to all my services — command, and be assured I will at least try to obey you.”

  A ray of hope now darted into the mind of Rosalie. Prepossessed with an idea that Montalbert was in England, the offers of this gentleman seemed to be directed by the interposition of Heaven to convey her to him. The tumult of her spirits were too great to allow her to reflect on the hazard she might incur by putting herself into the power of a stranger; the hopes of being conveyed to England, and Montalbert, by his means, absorbed at that moment every other consideration: but the more delightful the prospect was, the more she dreaded its vanishing, and this she know would happen if Cattina discovered her talking to any one.

  Terrified, therefore, lest she should be observed, she said, in a hurried way— “I am so situated, that I dare not stay to explain who I am, or relate the causes that have made me a prisoner in the great castle you see above; but, if you are in the neighbourhood of this place to-morrow - - - - - - -”

  “If I am? (cried the stranger eagerly), only tell me where I shall see you again, and I will wait your own time — I will attend you at the risk of my life.”

  “I hope, (interrupted Rosalie tremulously) — I hope there will be no risk.....If you will be, at five o’clock to-morrow evening, in a small wood, which is the boundary of a sort of garden on the other side of the castle, near a place where the remains of several statues surround a ruined fountain - - - - - - -; (she recollected that she was making an assignation with a man she had never seen before, and stopped, for
she felt all the impropriety of it; yet, encouraged by her motives and the rectitude of her intentions, she proceeded) — I will be there, and explain to you who I am, and how - - - - you can oblige me, (she was going to say, but again checked herself, and only added) — but now it is impossible for me to stay.” The stranger repeated her directions with earnestness, and assured her he would be there.—” And this lovely child too! (said he, still following her as she turned to go to the castle), is this too of my country?”— “It is mine, (answered Rosalie mournfully); but, indeed, you must now leave me, or your obliging offers of service will be frustrated.” — The gentleman bowed, and suffered her to go, following her with his eyes till she reached the buildings adjoining the castle, which concealed her from his sight. He then slowly retired, while Rosalie, breathless and trembling, sought her guard, and so over-acted her part, by complaining of her solitary walks, and affecting her former languor, that a more accurate observer than Cattina would have guessed that some unusual circumstance had befallen her.

  Cattina had, however, no suspicions, and Rosalie went to her room, and to her reflections on what had passed.

  She endeavoured to recall the person, expressions, and manner of the stranger to whom she had spoken, that she might now, in a cooler moment, ask herself whether he appeared to be really a gentleman, and one in whom she ought to repose so much confidence as to put herself under this protection. —— He was a young man, apparently not more than two or three and twenty; his countenance was less handsome than expressive, and there was something remarkable in it, which Rosalie could not define. He had the air and manners of a gentleman; but she knew that many have those advantages whom it would be extreme imprudence to trust. Perhaps too, notwithstanding the earnestness with which he offered her any services in his power, he might shrink from the trouble and expence of conducting her and her child to England; for young as she was, and little as she had yet seen of the world, she was not now to learn that those who most warmly profess friendship, are often those who fly from the performance of any kindness at all inconvenient to themselves. These and other reflections half discouraged Rosalie from the plan she had formed, in the first moments of meeting, with a man who seemed to have the power of releasing her. The disposition of Montalbert forcibly recurred to her; he might be rendered for ever suspicious of her conduct, if she thus rashly entrusted herself to a person of whom she could know nothing, and whose character might be such as would entirely ruin hers, in the opinion of the world, when it should be known that she had been conducted by him to England. — Yet, on the other hand, in losing the only opportunity to escape that might ever offer, she condemned herself and her little boy to perpetual imprisonment, and became accessary to her own misery and that of Montalbert......Ah! who could tell that he would not, in the persuasion of her death, yield to the importunities of his mother, and marry the Roman lady to whom she had so long wished to unite him. This idea was as insupportable as that of this death, and, compared with its being realized, every other evil became light, and every hazard disappeared. — Sometimes, however, the fear of her husband’s having perished at Messina obtruded itself; but the pains his mother had taken to conceal her argued strongly against it. But, even if such calamity had really happened, it seemed to be the duty of his widow to claim the rights of his child, and how could this be done but by having recourse to her friends in England: for friends, she believed, she had, not only in her mother, who would protect and assist, though she could not own her, but in Charles Vyvian her real, and William Lessington her adopted, brother. Towards these she thought she might look for protection and kindness; and these hopes, added to her dread of remaining for life in the melancholy and even dangerous solitude of Formiscusa, determined her, if the stranger on their meeting still appeared willing to assist her, to endeavour, by his means, to reach England.

  CHAPTER 26

  So various and contradictory were the thoughts which agitated Rosalie during the night, that she found it impossible to sleep; she arose with the earliest dawn, and, though so many hours were to intervene before that of her appointment, she could not forbear going to the place she had marked to her new friend for their meeting, that she might be sure she had described it accurately. She returned, however, almost immediately to the house, for, conscious of having something to hide, she now feared Cattina might suspect her.

  From the windows towards the sea she now again saw the Maltese galley, which had been some days hovering on the coast. It cast anchor near the shore, a boat put off from it, and landed behind a small promontory, which formed one side of the port. It now occurred to Rosalie, that there was some connection between the arrival of this vessel and that of her new acquaintance. He came then from Malta, and was in all probability returning thither. If such was the case, how could he charge himself with her and her child? — or, admitting he would do so, how could she expose herself to the hazard of traversing the sea in a Maltese vessel, which, she knew, was liable to be continually engaged by Turkish and Algerine pirates. These doubts, added to these she had before, served to agitate her spirits so much, that, when the hour of the appointment came, she had hardly strength to go to the fountain in the wood, where her English friend had arrived before her.

  Rosalie trembled, and looked so pale as she advanced towards him, that, alarmed, he said— “I hope, Madam, nothing has happened, since I had the honour of meeting you yesterday, to give you uneasiness? — I hope the favour you do me, by thus condescending to come hither - - - - - - - - -”

  Rosalie, whose heart beat so violently that she was unable to speak, interrupted him by a deep sigh, and a faint attempt to articulate “No, Sir! nothing has happened — only I am so — so — unfortunate, and so uncertain what is to become of me, that - - - - - - - - -.” She could not proceed, but leaned against a tree, and tried to recover herself, while the stranger, who was apprehensive she would faint, led her towards a piece of broken marble, and entreated her to sit down upon it; she did so, and, in a short time, assured him she was better, and begged his pardon for the weakness she had betrayed.

  “I own, Madam, (said the stranger), that my curiosity is very strongly excited, and that I am impatient to know how I can be servicable to you? I might claim a sort of privilege to be admitted to your confidence, because I am of the same nation; but I rather rest my pleas on the earnest inclination I feel to be employed in your service: if, as I fear, you are unhappy, and suffering from the tyranny of some relation - - - - - - - - -.” The stranger hesitated, as if uncertain how to proceed on a subject that might be of a very delicate nature, and, from his manner, it struck Rosalie as if he thought she was confined by her husband — an impression which might involve her in very disagreeable consequences. She, therefore, took courage to say— “It is true I am a prisoner at this place, and am most desirous of being released, in hopes of being restored to my husband, who would, I am sure, be very grateful to any one who undertook to assist me in regaining my liberty — if (added she) he still lives — as I will not suffer myself to doubt.”

  “Good God! (exclaimed the English stranger), by what accident, for it is impossible it should be from choice, could a man, happy enough to be your husband, allow himself to be torn from you; and who can have authority to confine you here?”

  “My story is long and extraordinary, (answered Rosalie); I can only relate now, that I was separated from my husband in consequence of the earthquake which destroyed Messina, and that his mother, averse to his marriage with a woman of another religion and country, has taken occasion to divide us, as she hopes, for ever, by confining me here, and probably by persuading him that I am no more.”

  “He is an Italian then?” cried the stranger.

  “Born of an Italian mother, (replied Rosalie), but his father was an Englishman, and of an ancient English family.” — The recollection that Montalbert might at this moment believe her dead, and even be the husband of another, added to the fear that she was perhaps doing wrong, and putting herself into the
power of a man who might take base advantages of her confidence, were sensations so uneasy, that, losing the little fortitude she had collected, she burst into tears.

  The gentleman appeared to be really hurt at her distress; and, lowering his voice, said— “I thank you, Madam, for the confidence you have already placed in me; perhaps I ought not to expect you to trust me farther, till I tell you who it is that you so highly honour, and by what accident I am in a part of Italy so seldom visited by English travellers. But suffer me to ask, if you are now secure from the malicious observations of this Italian woman, who exercises over you tyranny so unjustifiable?”

  “There are only servants in the castle, (replied Rosalie). My persecutors deemed them sufficient for the purpose of guarding me in a place so remote, that my escape seemed impossible.......I believe they will not molest me here, as I am accustomed to walk alone of an evening.”

  “Since you permit me then, (said the stranger), I will relate, in a few words, what you have a right, Madam, to know, before I can expect you will rely on my assurances, of being ready to render you any service you may honour me with; and yet I am sensible that a man is never more awkwardly circumstanced than when he is obliged to speak of himself, and, above all, to tell who he is. It is particularly difficult for me to do this, (added he, in a dejected tone), since I have not unfrequently forgotten myself, or, at least, been in a disposition of mind which made me very sincerely try at it.” —

  He paused, but Rosalie continuing silent and attentive to him, he went on —