Eliza Fenwick - Secresy; or, Ruin on the Rock

'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!

Infidel as thou art toward beauty, and indolent as thou art in friendship, whence dost thou still derive the power to attract the homage of beauty, and the zeal of friendship.

That Janetta, the Empress of all hearts, but callous thine, possessed sensibility, susceptibility, or even animation, thou, infidel Arthur, didst deny. Yet Janetta can sometimes torture her admiring Clement by the repetition of thy praises.

Four letters of mine, long letters, letters to which I yielded hours that might have been rapturous in enjoyments, those letters lie, the last as the first, unanswered, unheeded in thy possession.

I devoutly thank the star that shed its influence over the hour of my birth, that it gave me a temperament opposite to thine, Arthur: for, have I not seen thee more than insensible, even averse to the offered favours of the fair? Have I not seen thee yawn with listlessness at an assembly, where rank and splendor, the delights of harmony, and the fascinations of beauty, filled my every sense with exstacy? Give me the sphere of fashion, and its delights! Fix me in the regions of ever varying novelty!

Mine is life. I sail on an ocean of pleasure. Where are its rocks, its sands, its secret whirlpools, or its daring tempests? Fables all! Fables invented by the envious impotence of snarling Cynics, to crush the aspiring fancy of glowing youth! Thy apathy, Murden, I detest. Nay, I pity thee. And I swear by that pity, I would sacrifice some portion of my pleasures, to awaken thee to the knowledge of one hour's rapture.

Soul-less Arthur, how couldst thou slight the accomplished L – ? How could thou acknowledge that she was beautiful, yet tell me of her defects? – Defects! Good heaven! Defects, in a beautiful, kind, and yielding woman! – Arthur, Arthur, in compassion to thy passing youth, thy graceful figure, and all those manly charms with which thou art formed to captivate, forget thy wild chimeras, thy absurd dreams of romantic useless perfections; and make it thy future creed, that in woman there can be no crime but ugliness, no weakness nor defect but cruelty.