Secresy; or, Ruin on the Rock

Mrs. Ashburn and the Earl mutually explained. His Lordship was persuaded, it seems, that a letter exciting such visible pleasure as that did which the servant delivered to me must be from a favoured lover. My mother was certain the effect was produced by my romantic friendship, to use her own expression; and, as the Earl was incredulous, she was desirous of referring the decision to me. Lady Laura affectedly begged I would defend the sweet powers of friendship; and my mother sneeringly observed, that I had a fine scope for my talents in the present instance.

I took your letter from my pocket. I unfolded and spread it open in my lap. 'This is the letter,' said I.

'A pretty hand,' said Colonel Ridson.

'Nay, it is not a female character, Miss Ashburn,' the Earl said.

I asked if I should read it; the Earl professed to admire my condescension, but my mother yawned.

I selected two passages from your letter, and read them. Lord Ulson, who had only chosen this subject for want of something to do, was now perfectly satisfied and convinced; for Sir Thomas had invited him to piquet. The Colonel thought your stile very charming. Lady Barlowe thought it very dull; and, as no one contradicted her ladyship's opinion, the subject would here have ended, had I not as I put the letter again into my pocket, told my mother that her friend Mrs. Valmont had lately been ill.

A poor inanimate vapoured being, Mrs. Ashburn called her friend; dying, she said, of diseases whose slightest symptom had never reached her, a burden to herself, and a torment to every one else; nevertheless her fate to be pitied, lamented, and deplored without bounds. Then it became your uncle's turn; and his sum of enormities was divided and subdivided into multitudes of sins, so that I was ready to ask myself if I had really ever known this Mr. Valmont. No one spark of pity remained for him. No: he was neither pitied by Mrs. Ashburn, nor prayed for by the Countess of Ulson.

When my mother had exhausted her topic, I said to her, 'Your pictures are vivid to-night, madam. Suppose you finish the family. Miss Valmont, what say you of her?'

'I leave her to you,' replied Mrs. Ashburn; 'I only think her a little handsome, a little proud, a little ignorant, and half insane. You can tell the rest.'

'Pray do, Miss Ashburn,' cried Lady Mary Bowden. 'I dearly love to hear of queer creatures.'

'I am to add,' said I, 'all that remains of a queer creature, already declared to be proud, ignorant, and half mad. – To the best of my judgment, I will. This – '

The door opened, and in came Mr. Murden; and the poor Indian, the country girl, and the old farmer who had wept sleepless nights for Peggy's naughtiness, together rushed upon my imagination. Again, Lady Laura made room for Murden; and again, he took his seat on the same sopha. I said to myself, as I looked at him, where are the signs of remorse? There are none. Not even the softened eye of new-born virtuous resolutions. Strange, that I read of nothing in that face but inward peace and freedom!

'Do go on, Miss Ashburn,' cried Lady Mary.

I did, Sibella, I began once more to speak of you; and, in a little time, I called back a part at least of the vigour and warmth which Murden's entrance and a train of fugitive thought had chased from me.

I began with your beauty: I omitted nothing which I could devise to make the picture worthy of the original. I spoke of the first sight I had of you; the impressive effect at that moment of your face, your form, your attitude, your simple attire. I appealed to my mother, to testify the singular beauty of your eyes, your forehead, your mouth, your hair. I told them that your hair had never been distorted by fashion; that, parted from the top of the head and always uncovered, it fell around your shoulder, displaying at once its profusion and its colour, and ornamenting, as well by its shade as its contrast, one of the finest necks that ever belonged to a human figure.

Lady Laura now grew restless in her seat; for Murden listened, he had even dropped a shuttle he had taken out of Lady Laura's hand, and either inattentively, or quite unconsciously, had allowed her ladyship to stoop to the ground for it herself. Still he listened.

'Thus adorned by nature,' said I, 'in what way shall I further recommend her? Art has disclaimed her. This queer creature, Lady Mary, never out of her uncle's castle since she was six years old, has been left utterly without the skill of the governess and waiting maid. An old tutor, indeed, gave her some singular lessons on the value of sincerity, independence, courage, and capacity; and she, a worthy scholar of such a teacher, as indeed you may judge from the specimen I read of her letter, has odd notions and practices; and, half insane, as Mrs. Ashburn says, would rather think herself born to navigate ships and build edifices, than to come into a world for no other purpose, than to twist her hair into ringlets, learn to be feeble, and to find her feet too hallowed to tread on the ground beneath her.'

'Stop!' cries Murden, bending eagerly forward, 'tell me, Miss Ashburn, of whom you speak.'

'Of a Miss Valmont,' said Lady Laura, peevishly. 'Miss Valmont!' rejoined Murden, 'Miss Ashburn, do you really speak of Miss Valmont?'

'I really do, Mr. Murden.'

He did not reply again; but, folding his arms, he leaned thoughtfully on the back of the sopha. Lady Laura, now quite out of temper, began to complain that he was an encumbrance; and, forgetting to offer the least apology, he instantly sprang up, and took a distant chair.

I should tell you that, by this time, my mother, Sir Thomas, the Earl, and the Colonel, were at cards, so that I had only Lady Barlowe and the younger part of the company for my auditors.

'And how,' asked Lady Mary, does this odd young lady (I must not again say queer creature) employ her time?'

'Playing with cats and dogs, and chattering with servants, I suppose,' said Lady Barlowe.

'No, Lady Barlowe,' I replied, 'the resources of her mind, various and increasing, to use her own description, furnish better expedients. She wishes for communication, for intercourse, for society; but she is too sincere to purchase any pleasure, by artifice and concealment; she is too proud to tempt the servants from their duty, all of whom, except two, are forbidden to approach her. A grey-headed unpolished footman, brings her breakfast and supper to her apartment. If she is there, it is well; if not, he leaves it, be the time longer or shorter till she does come. Her female domestic, deaf and deformed, would attend if summoned; but Miss Valmont finds her dress simple enough, and her limbs robust enough, to enable her to perform all the functions of her toilet. A true child of nature, bold in innocence, day or night is equally propitious to her rambles; and always mentally alive, she has the glow of animation on her cheeks, the fire of vivacity in her eye, alone in a solitary wood at noon-day or at midnight.'

'At midnight!' Lady Laura exclaimed, 'surely you did not go alone into the woods at midnight?'

I removed the idea her Ladyship and others perhaps had of its impropriety, by informing them your wood was of small extent, not distant from the castle, and inclosed within the moat, which, by means of a canal, had been carried round the park as well as castle. 'No human foot,' said I, 'but those admitted over the draw-bridge, can enter this wood, which though small is romantic, and though gloomy has its beauties. It rises on the side of the canal, and terminates at the foot of a rock. It contains a tomb. On one part of the rock are spread the tottering ruins of a small chapel and hermitage, and these objects serve to invite Miss Valmont to her wood, while they check the approach of diseased imaginations.'

I spoke further, Sibella, of your favourite lonely haunt, the flying speed with which I have seen you bound there, the affectionate caresses of your little fawn, and numberless other circumstances. Lady Laura was resolved neither to be amused by the novelty, nor seduced by the merit I had attributed to you. She found you more whimsical than pleasing; more daring than delicate. She wished you all manner of good things; and, among the rest, that you might not at last fall in love with one of your uncle's footmen.

I smiled and replied to her Ladyship, that your uncle's wisdom and foresight had provided against that misfortune. You already had a lover worthy of you.

'Good God! Are you acquainted with Clement Montgomery?'

It was Murden from whom this exclamation burst; and I looked at him without power to reply. It almost appeared miraculous, to hear any one in that room name Clement Montgomery.

'Is that the Mr. Montgomery,' Lady Barlowe asked, 'you went abroad with, Murden?'

'Yes, madam.'

'Then,' said I, 'you know Clement Montgomery intimately.'

He replied that he did.

'How could you be so cruel,' said I; 'why did you not interrupt me long since? You, who know Miss Valmont's lover, must know Miss Valmont also. Why did you not take the voice of that lover, and paint, as you must have heard him paint, her attractive graces, her noble qualities? Oh it was barbarous to leave that to be done by monotonous friendship, to which the spirit of love could alone do justice!'

Methinks his answer was a very strange one; so cold, so abrupt! I felt displeased at the moment; and checked myself in some eager question I was about to ask respecting Clement Montgomery. Murden's reply, Sibella, was, – That I had done enough: and he withdrew, too – immediately withdrew, as if weary of me and my subject.

At supper, his place at table was vacant. His valet alledged he was writing letters. Sir Thomas would be positive he was ill; we heard of nothing but the fever, and it is highly probable the house would have been presently half filled with physicians, and Sir Thomas really in need of them, if Murden had not come smiling and languishing into the supper room.

This time I had the honour of his choosing his seat next me; and, as I saw that he only pretended to eat in order to appease his uncle, I told him in a low voice I believed he was ill.

'My mind is my disease,' he said.

Ah, then, thought I, he does perhaps repent! I longed to talk to him, but I could think of no subject, no name but Peggy; and Peggy I had not courage to mention.

I made an awkward remark upon our ride to the water side; then I introduced as awkwardly, and to as little purpose, the time of my leaning out of my chamber window. Murden, unconscious of my meaning and allusions, heard me composedly; and I ended only where I began. He found me absent and embarrassed; and, though little suspecting that his mind was also my disease, his attentions were more exclusively mine, than I had ever before experienced them to have been.

A few minutes before the company separated, Murden said to me, 'I am informed, Miss Ashburn, that you intend visiting our poor Indian to-morrow morning.'

'Yes,' I said, 'I had ordered my horse early for that purpose.'

'I should request your permission to attend you, madam; but I am in some sort engaged to eat my breakfast on brown bread and new milk at a farm-house.'

'A farm-house!' said I.

'Yes, madam,' rejoined Murden, as calmly as though he had carried content and joy into that farm-house, instead of remorse and misery; 'Yes, madam, the most charming spot in this country. My constant house of call in the shooting season. Many pleasant brown bread breakfasts and suppers have I eaten there.'

So unblushing, so hard-hearted a confession absolutely startled me. I had already risen to retire, he rose also, and said, 'Will you, Miss Ashburn, allow me to ride with you in the morning?'

'And neglect the farm-house, Mr. Murden.'

He replied, 'the time is of little consequence, I can go there afterward.'

'Oh, but it is,' said I, 'now of infinite consequence. Not for the world would I be the means of your dispensing with one title of your promises to that farm-house. Pray,' said I, turning back, after having bade him good night, 'Mr. Murden, do you correspond with Clement Montgomery?'

Again I became reconciled to him; again I was persuaded, that he repented of his error, and that he is not hardened in his transgressions, for he understood the fullest tendency of my question. His countenance instantly expressed shame, surprise, and sorrow too; and his voice faultered while he said —

'Why, Miss Ashburn, why should you wish to know that?' And when he added, 'I do indeed, madam, correspond with Mr. Montgomery,' he looked from me.

My good night was more cordial than the former one; and I hope, that, if Murden finds his breakfast at the farm-house less pleasant than heretofore, its usefulness will increase, as its pleasure ceases.

Day-light bursts into my chamber. In another hour, I shall prepare to visit the Indian. My Sibella, farewel!