Secresy; or, Ruin on the Rock

LETTER I

FROM CAROLINE ASHBURN TO THE HONOURABLE GEORGE VALMONT

SIR,

I am by no means indifferent as to the opinion you may form of me, in consequence of my abrupt, and, in a degree, rude conduct, when you so peremptorily denied the boon I would have begged on quitting your castle. If the reasons which guided your refusal were such as fully satisfied yourself, however incompetent they might be in my judgment, I was wrong in being offended, and in showing my resentment by something like invective. Ere we had travelled two miles I became sensible of my pride and injustice; and it is from our first resting place I thus present myself to acknowledge my fault, to ask other favors, and to tell you that I have no pleasure in view equal to that I expected to enjoy in the society of Miss Valmont.

But though you denied me the charm of associating with your niece, you will not also refuse me her correspondence? A letter, Sir, cannot waft down your draw-bridges; the spirit of my affection breathed therein cannot disenchant her from the all-powerful spell of your authority. No. And you surely will not forbid an indulgence so endearing to us, while unimportant to yourself. Already I feel assured of your consent; and, with my thanks, dismiss the subject.

As your seclusion of Miss Valmont from the world is not a plan of yesterday, I imagine you are persuaded of its value and propriety, and I therefore see nothing which should deter me from indulging the strong propensity I feel to enquire into the nature of your system; a system so opposite to the general practice of mankind, and which I am inclined to think is not as perfect as you are willing to suppose. Remembering your contempt of the female character, I am aware that you may possibly treat this part of my letter only with neglect or disdain. Gladly would I devise a means by which to induce you to lay aside this prejudice against us, and in the language of reason, as from one being to another, discuss with me the merits or defects of your plan; which from its singularity, on the first view, excited my curiosity; and has since, from my observation of some of its consequences, interested me by worthier feelings than that of mere curiosity. If Miss Valmont's education, treatment, and utter seclusion were most valuable for her, why should she, yet so young, and removed from the common misfortunes of life, why should she be unhappy. You, Sir, may not have perceived this effect of your system; for, although shut within the same boundary and resident under one roof, you seldom see her, and when you do see, you do not study her. I believe I know more of her mental temperament in our seven days intercourse than you have learned in seven years, and I affirm that she is unhappy. Yet it is only from her sudden wanderings in conversation, and that apparent restlessness of dissatisfaction in her, which seeks change of place because of all places alike are irksome, that I ground my opinion, for having flattered myself that you would permit her to accompany me from your castle, I passed the days of my abode there, in closely observing Miss Valmont, rather than in endeavouring to gain her entire confidence; and have perhaps made but little progress toward obtaining a friendship, to which my heart aspires with zeal and affection.

In the hope of a speedy and candid answer from you,

LETTER II

FROM SIBELLA VALMONT TO CAROLINE ASHBURN

I am come from Mr. Valmont's study. – Can it be? – Oh yes! I am come from Mr. Valmont's presence, to write a letter – a letter to you! – Ah, Miss Ashburn! – to write a letter to you by my uncle's – Can command ever be indulgence? – No, no. I will not believe that: – No, not even would I believe it, though, when my heart expands with swelling emotion, he were then also to command me to – . Miss Ashburn, the command of Mr. Valmont in this, as in all other instances, is stern and repulsive, but, as his commands are odious to my acceptation, so, in equal degree, is the action of writing a letter to you grateful, delightful, overwhelming!

How came it? – How have you prevailed? – Oh teach me your art to soften his power, to unloose the grasp of his authority, and I will love you as – I believe I cannot love you better than I do; for have you not cast a ray of cheering light upon my dungeon? – Have you not bestowed upon me the only charm of existence that I have known for many and many a tedious day?

But why did you do so? Do you love me as I love you? You never told me so. Seven days and seven nights you lived in our castle; and you walked with me by day, you wandered with me by night. I talked to you almost without ceasing. – You spoke infinitely less than I did. – You pressed my hand as it held yours: but you never said, I love you! – I love you, Sibella, with all my soul.– Nor did you ever quit your rest, amidst the darkness of the night, to hover near my chamber, as I have done near yours. – Yes, Miss Ashburn, when at night you had retired from me, I beheld only solitude and imprisonment; and I have waited hours in that forlorn gallery, that I might catch the whisper of your breathings, that the consciousness of being near a friend might restore me to hope, to hilarity, to confidence.

Yet now I recollect it, and you do love me; for you asked the imperious, the denying Mr. Valmont, to let you take me from the castle. Oh, you did urge – you did intreat. – You do love me. – I am writing a letter to you; and perhaps, one day, I shall have all my happiness.

I wish Mr. Valmont would show me the letter you wrote to him. He has charged me to answer it, and I have been obliged to walk a great while, and to think a great deal, before I could remember a word of what he said I was to repeat to you; and now I do not think I recollect the whole. I would return to his study and ask him to tell it me again; but he has an aversion to trouble, and perhaps, irritated by my forgetfulness, might say, I should not write to you at all. – Ah, if he were to say that, Miss Ashburn, and if it were possible for me to send a letter out of the castle in defiance of his commands, do you think I would obey him? – No, no.

Andrew came to me in the wood, to bid me attend my uncle in his library; and I went thither immediately. He was but just risen; and a letter, which I suppose was your letter, and which must have arrived yesterday, was laying open on the table beside him; and when he spoke to me he laid his right hand upon the letter.

'Numberless are the hours, child,' Mr. Valmont said to me soon after I entered, 'that I have employed in pondering on your welfare: – yet you are not the docile and grateful creature I expected to find you.'

'Sir,' I said, 'if in all those hours of pondering you never thought of the only means by which my welfare can be effected, am I therefore forbidden to be happy? – Am I to be unhappy, because I and not you discovered how I might be very, very happy?'

Mr. Valmont raised himself more erect on his chair; and he frowned too. 'Always reasoning,' he said: 'I tell you, child, you cannot, you shall not reason. Repine in secret as much as you please, but no reasonings. No matter how sullen the submission, if it is submission.'

I replied, 'I do not think as you do.'

'Child, you are not born to think; you were not made to think.' He turned the letter on the table, as he spoke, and took a leaning attitude.

'But I cannot – .'

'Silence, Sibella!' cried my uncle. He fiercely recovered his upright posture; and then, for I was effectually silenced, he gradually and slowly fell back into his reclining station. Indeed, Miss Ashburn, I am in some instances still a mere child, as Mr. Valmont calls me; and yet, I wish you would account for it, for I do not know how, I feel every day bolder and bolder. I can speak to him when I first meet him, as calmly as I can to Andrew; and I can oppose him a little. And when I have not opposed him as much as I wish to do, and have ran away from the fight of his face, and the sound of his voice, I take myself to talk, and say, foolish Sibella! Can a frown kill you? – Can your uncle, though he should be tenfold angry with you, do more to you than he has already done? And, when my throbbing heart denies the possibility of that, I resolve the next time to tell him every thing I feel: and then I wait, and long, and wish that the next time would arrive. When it does arrive, I begin without fear; or, at least, I have only a weak trembling, which I should soon lose, if he did not call up one of those frowns which infallibly condemn me to silence and to terror. But I know, and he knows too if he would but own it, that I do think; that I was born to think: – and I will think.

Oh dear, dear Miss Ashburn, I am writing a letter to you! And what was it but my power of thought, which gave birth to that affection which would impel me on with a rapidity that my pen cannot follow? It seems to me that my thought dictates volumes in an instant; and that, in an instant, I have said volumes. Yet I have only a few pages of paper under my eye and my hand. If Mr. Valmont tells me, I cannot cut the air with wings, I will answer – 'Tis true: but in imagination, I can encompass the vast globe in a second. Hail thought! Thought the soul of existence! – Not think! – why do not all forms in which the pulse of life vibrates, possess the power of thought? – Have I not seen the worm, crawling from his earthy bed to drink the new-fallen dew from the grass, swiftly shrink back to his shelter, his attentive ear alarmed by my approach? – The very insect, while sporting in the rapture of a sun-beam on my habit, is yet wary and vigilant, and will rather leave his half-tasted enjoyment, if apprehension seize him, than hazard the possibility of my inflicting injury upon him. And what but thought, imperceptible yet mighty thought, could make a creature so infinitely diminutive in its proportions, so apparently valueless in the creation, shun the hand of power, and seek for itself sources of enjoyment? – I could tell you, Miss Ashburn, how I have imagined I met sympathy and reflection in that flower which enamoured of the sun mourns throughout the term of his absence, droops on her stalk, and shuts her bosom to the gloom and darkness which succeeds, nor bursts again into vigour and beauty till cheered by his all inspiring return. It is not for you, happy you, who live with liberty, live as free to indulge as to form your wishes, I say it is not for you to find tongues in the wind. It is for the imprisoned Sibella to feed on such illusions, to waft herself on the pinions of fancy beyond Mr. Valmont's barriers, within which, for the two last years, her fetters have been insupportable: – for two years, except when she saw you, has she been joyless. I could talk of those two years: but then I should want also to tell you, Miss Ashburn, of the previous hours, the days, the months, the years that came, that smiled, and passed away.

I wonder if I should tire you? Surely I think not: yet I have already written much, and I have also my uncle's words to deliver. – Ah! to quit such a theme for my uncle!

I told you, Mr. Valmont silenced me by his frowns. He was some time silent himself. He took the letter from off the table, and appeared to read parts of it at length he said, 'Miss Ashburn has very properly apologized for her behaviour to me the morning she went hence. Doubtless, child, you also were much disappointed, that I did not consent to your going with her and her mother.'

'No, sir.'

'No!' my uncle said, seemingly surprised; 'and why not?'

'Because I did not expect you would suffer me to go.'

'Methinks it was a mighty natural expectation.' My uncle looked angry. He presently added. 'Did you wish to go with them, child?'

'O yes, sir, I did indeed wish!'

'It was natural enough, Sibella, that you should wish for such an indulgence;' and he said this very mildly: 'but I alone am capable of judging of its propriety. Miss Ashburn, I believe, has been little used to disappointment. I pity her. Perhaps a miserable old age is in store for her.'

'Impossible!' I exclaimed; but the exclamation was swift and low; and my uncle, absorbed in contemplating his own designs, did not hear me.

And at last he told me, after many pauses, many slow speeches, that you may write letters to me, and that I shall write letters to you.

I would have kissed him, for I had seized his hand, but his eye spoke no encouragement; and I sat down again to glow, and to tremble.

Part of what followed has escaped me, as I feared it would. I remember that my uncle said, 'Tell Miss Ashburn from me, Sibella, that, like all other females, she has decided with more haste than judgment.'

Thus much for Mr. Valmont. And now for myself, Miss Ashburn; – no, dear Caroline, adieu!

LETTER III

FROM CAROLINE ASHBURN TO SIBELLA VALMONT

Thankful to Mr. Valmont for his consent to my request, and more and more endeared to you, my Sibella, by the joy with which you receive his consent, I am impatient till I have explained the motives that withheld me, while in the woods of Valmont, from saying – 'I love you: – I love you, Sibella, with all my soul.' To have these motives fully understood by you, it is necessary I should made a sketch of my education, the incidents of my life, and their consequent effect upon my character. Yet I know you will continue to read with avidity. Ask yourself if the ear of affection is easily satiated with the communications of a friend, and wonder that you should have repressed your wishes, when they incited you to unfold to me, with minute attention, the feelings of your heart. The breaks, the allusions in your letter, led me for a time into the tormenting and silly practice of forming conjectures. Now I have ceased to conjecture; but I have not ceased to be desirous of being admitted to your utmost confidence, to the full participation of your remembrances, whether of joy or of sorrow.

You have seen my mother, Sibella, but people of a superior class must have superior forms; and the endearing name of mother is banished for the cold title of ceremony. Mrs. Ashburn, as I am now tutored to call her, was the very fashionable daughter of very fashionable parents, who died when she had attained the age of twenty-three, and left her in possession of the most aspiring longings after splendor and dissipation, but destitute of every means for their gratification. Among the many friends who came to pity or advise, one offered her his assistance. His proposal was abrupt and disgusting, but there was no alternative. He would equip her to go in search of a wealthy marriage among the luxurious inhabitants of India; or, with her other professing friends, he would leave her to the poverty which lay immediately before her. The offer, after little deliberation, was accepted. Rather than be poor, she humbled the pride of her birth and pretensions; she strengthened her nerves for the voyage; and, having safely arrived in India, her recommendations, but above all her personal charms, secured her the addresses of Mr. Ashburn, who, though he was neither young nor attractive, had gold and diamonds in abundance. A very short interval elapsed between the commencement of their acquaintance with each other, and the celebration of their marriage.

After my birth my father bowed to no other idol than me; for, although my father had gained a very handsome wife, and my mother almost the wealthiest of husbands, yet happiness was still at a distance from them. Indolent in the extreme, he abhorred every species of pleasure which required a portion of activity in its pursuit: he equally abhorred solitude; and expected to find, in his wife, a lounging companion; a partaker of his habits; something little differing from a mere automaton. She, on the contrary, was laborious in the pursuits of pleasure and dissipation. She had pride and spirit to maintain her resolution of gratifying her own wishes. He was too idle to remonstrate: and theirs was an union as widely removed from the interruptions of bickerings and jealousies, as from the confidence, esteem, and endearments of affection.

From me then my father expected to gain the satisfaction his marriage had failed to afford; nor were his hopes better founded than heretofore. Admired, adored by him, flattered by his slaves, incited by indulgencies showered upon me without distinction to make demands the most extravagant and unattainable, I oftener tormented my father by my caprice than delighted him by my fondness. But still every species of advice or of restraint was withheld; and I continued fruitful in expedients for the exercise of my power, continued the discontented slave of my own tyranny. Happily for me, I met with an adventure when I was little more than thirteen years of age that wrought miracles upon me.

Near to a seat of my father's, as near as the cottage of poverty dare rise to the palace of opulence, lived the wife and family of a poor industrious European. The blue eyes of one of their children had spoken so submissively once or twice, as she viewed me passing, that I became enamoured of her interesting countenance, and demanded to have her for a playmate. Day after day Nancy came, and my fondness for her increased daily. If the turbulence of my temper sometimes broke loose in the course of our amusements, I afterward endeavoured, by increased efforts of condescension, to relieve Nancy from the terror my pride or violence had excited; and, to impress her with a strong sense of my attachment to herself, in her presence I affected to be more than commonly overbearing and insolent to those around us, while to her I was attentive and obliging. At length I became resolved to have her wholly at my command; and, without troubling myself to enquire whether or not my father would object to my plan, I rose earlier than usual one morning, and dispatched a messenger for Nancy; and, while he was absent, pleased myself with anticipating what answers she would make, and what joy she would evince, when I should tell her that henceforward she should live with me, and should have as fine clothes, as fine apartments, and as many slaves to obey her as I myself possessed. My messenger returned alone. He told me Nancy was ill. What a disappointment! How insolent, methought, to be ill, when I wanted her more than I had ever wanted her before. And so much did she appear to merit my resentment, that I gave orders she should be forbidden to see me again, and that all the valuable trinkets I had heaped upon her should be taken from her by force, if she would not yield them when demanded. But no sooner were the toys brought into my presence than I relented, sent them back with many additions, and wept while I delivered messages, intreating – that she would be well by the next day. On the morrow, still no Nancy came; and I passed the day in alternate paroxysms of rage and sorrow. The third morning I hastened to the cottage; and the first object I beheld was Nancy blooming as health could make her.

The insolence with which I reproached the mother of Nancy on this occasion may be easily imagined; but I shall relate minutely to you, Sibella, the good woman's answer; I have never forgotten it.

'Miss,' she said, 'I might as well have told the truth at once, for out it must. Nancy is not sick in body, Miss; and if I can help it, she shan't be sick in mind. Your papa is a great rich man, and you will be a great rich lady. You, Miss, who are so high born and so rich, need not care if people do hate you; but my Nancy is a poor child, and will never have a penny that an't of her own earning – she never used to fleer, and flout, and stamp at her little brothers and sisters, as she does since she came to your house, Miss. And so, Miss, as she will never be able to pay folks for saying she is good when she is bad, I, who am her mother, must make her as good as I can. You may be good enough for a great lady; but Nancy will never be a great lady; and, be as angry as you will, Miss, indeed she can't come to your fine house any more.'

Yes, Sibella; she persisted, in defiance of my resentment and its probable consequences, the worthy woman persisted in preserving her child from the infectious example of my vices. Her lesson had awakened in my mind a true sense of my situation; nor could anger or disdain once force me from the painful conviction that people were hired and paid to lavish on me their insincere encomiums. All the instances of attention or kindness I could recollect I believed had been mine only because I was rich and powerful. I imagined I saw lurking hatred and loathing in every eye; and, though I ceased to command, I resented with an acrimony almost past description every effort that was directed towards increasing my pleasures or convenience. These ebulitions of a wounded vanity insensibly wore away, while I considered how much of amendment and happiness was yet in my power; and, at length, I began seriously to remedy the defects which had made me unworthy to be the companion of Nancy; but, ere I had courage to demand again the society of my little friend, her parents had removed to a distant part of the country, and in this instance frustrated the end of my labours. Yet the labour itself had become delightful, and was amply rewarded by the satisfaction betrayed in the eyes of my numerous attendants; but who, however, as I was a great lady and a rich lady, durst not openly rejoice in my amendment. I longed to hear them burst into praises. I almost sickened for the accents of well-earned commendation; but shame of my former unworthiness, and perhaps a remaining degree of pride, withheld me from encouraging such an explanation: and they continued silently to receive the benefits of my reformation.

And now, Sibella, I must bring you back again to my mother, with whom in these years of childhood I have been but little acquainted. She hated children; their noise and prattle and monkey tricks threw her into hysterics. For a few minutes after dinner, I was sometimes admitted, hushed to silence with a profusion of sweetmeats, and dismissed with a kiss or a frown, just as the avocations and pleasures of the day happened to fix her disposition. As I grew older, I was occasionally allowed to sit in her dressing-room, or to take the air with her in the same carriage; and on those occasions I reached the highest pinnacle of her confidence, and used to listen while she poured forth her longing desires to return to England. As I had been frequently disgusted at witnessing the malignant feuds existing among the Europeans resident in the East-Indies, it was easy for her to interest me in the first of her wishes, namely, that my father would return to England. She spoke of this island as of the abode of pleasure. She described an almost innumerable circle of friends, amidst whose society delights would abound. My imagination gave a stronger colouring to her pictures: I indulged the visionary theme till I also panted to become an inhabitant of this climate of peace, joy and felicity.

No sooner had I adopted the project than my father's lethargic indolence gave way to his desire of gratifying my wishes. He vigorously completed the necessary arrangement of his affairs; and we were in daily expectation of quitting India, when he was attacked by the malignant disease of which he died.

My mother was now the uncontrouled mistress of a world of wealth; and, placing her remittances in a proper train, we speedily set sail for our land of promise.

Safely arrived in London, I expected Mrs. Ashburn would instantly fly to the embraces of her friends. But no: a sumptuous house and equipage were first to be prepared; and, while she exulted in preparation, I repined at her want of sympathy for the feelings of those who I imagined were expecting her with fondness and impatience. Alas, Sibella, I had not followed my mother three times into her circles of friendship, ere I discovered that the enjoyments she had looked forward to, during so many years, consisted only of triumphing with superiority of splendor over those who formerly with the same motives had triumphed over her.