CHAPTER 3
WHEN PERUSING the first parcel of books, Maria had, with her pencil, written
in one of them a few exclamations, expressive of compassion and sympathy, which
she scarcely remembered, till turning over the leaves of one of the volumes,
lately brought to her, a slip of paper dropped out, which Jemima hastily
snatched up.
"Let me see it," demanded Maria impatiently, "You surely are
not afraid of trusting me with the effusions of a madman?" "I must
consider," replied Jemima; and withdrew, with the paper in her hand.
In a life of such seclusion, the passions gain undue force; Maria therefore
felt a great degree of resentment and vexation, which she had not time to
subdue, before Jemima, returning, delivered the paper.
"Whoever you are, who partake of my fate, accept my sincere
commiseration--I would have said protection; but the privilege of man is denied
me.
"My own situation forces a dreadful suspicion onmy
mind--I may not always languish in vain for freedom--say are you--I cannot ask
the question; yet I will remember you when my remembrance can be of any use. I
will enquire, why you are so mysteriously detained-- and I will have an answer.
"HENRY DARNFORD."
By the most pressing intreaties, Maria prevailed
on Jemima to permit her to write a reply to this note. Another and another
succeeded, in which explanations were not allowed relative to their present
situation; but Maria, with sufficient explicitness, alluded to a former
obligation; and they insensibly entered on an interchange of sentiments on the
most important subjects. To write these letters was the business of the day, and
to receive them the moment of sunshine. By some means, Darnford
having discovered Maria's window, when she next appeared at it, he made her,
behind his keepers, a profound bow of respect and recognition.
Two or three weeks glided away in this kind of intercourse, during which
period Jemima, to whom Maria had given the necessary information respecting her family, had evidently gained some
intelligence, which increased her desire of pleasing her charge, though she
could not yet determine to liberate her. Maria took advantage of this favourable charge, without too minutely enquiring into the
cause; and such was here agerness to hold human
converse, and to see her former protector, still a stranger to her, that she
incessantly requested her guard to gratify her more than curiosity.
Writing to Darnford, she was led from the sad
objects before her, and frequently rendered insensible to the horrid noises
around her, which previously had continually employed her feverish fancy.
Thinking it selfish to dwell on her own sufferings, when in the midst of
wretches, who had not only lost all that endears life, but their very selves,
her imagination was occupied with melancholy earnestness to trace the mazes of
misery, through which so many wretches must have passed to this gloomy
receptacle of disjointed souls, to the grand source of human corruption. Often
at midnight was she waked by the dismal shrieks of demoniac rage, or of
excruciating despair, uttered in such wild tones of indescribable anguish as proved
the total absence of reason, and roused phantoms of horror in her mind, far
more terrific than all that dreaming superstition ever drew. Besides, there was
frequently something so inconceivably picturesque in the varying gestures of
unrestrained passion, so irresistibly comic in their sallies, or so
heart-piercingly pathetic in the little airs they would sing, frequently
bursting out after an awful silence, as to fascinate the attention, and amuse
the fancy, while torturing the soul. It was the uproar of the passions which she
was compelled to observe; and to mark the lucid beam of reason, like a light
trembling in a socket, or like the flash which divides the threatening clouds
of angry heaven only to display the horrors which darkness shrouded.
Jemima would labour to beguile the tedious
evenings, by describing the persons and manners of the unfortunate beings,
whose figures or voices awoke sympathetic sorrow in Maria's bosom; and the
stories she told were the more interesting, for perpetually leaving room to
conjecture something extraordinary. Still Maria, accustomed to generalize her observations,
was led to conclude from all she heard, that it was a vulgar error to suppose
that people of abilities were the most apt to lose the command of reason. On the
contrary, from most of the instances she could investigate, she thought it
resulted, that the passions only appeared strong and disproportioned, because
the judgment was weak and unexercised; and that they gained strength by the
decay of reason, as the shadows lengthen during the sun's decline.
Maria impatiently wished to see her fellow-sufferer; but Darnford was still more earnest to obtain an interview.
Accustomed to submit to every impulse of passion, and never taught, like women,
to restrain the most natural, and acquire, instead of the bewitching frankness
of nature, a factitious propriety of behaviour, every
desire became a torrent that bore down all opposition.
His travelling trunk, which contained the books lent to Maria, had been sent
to him, and with a part of its contents he bribed his principal keeper; who,
after receiving the most solemn promise that he would return to his apartment
without attempting to explore any part of the house, conducted him, in the dusk
of the evening, to Maria's room.
Jemima had apprized her charge of the visit, and she expected with trembling
impatience, inspired by a vague hope that he might again prove her deliverer,
to see a man who had before rescued her from oppression. He entered with an
animation of countenance, formed to captivate an enthusiast; and, hastily
turned his eyes from her to the apartment, which he surveyed with apparent
emotions of compassionate indignation. Sympathy illuminated his eye, and,
taking her hand, he respectfully bowed on it, exclaiming--"This is
extraordinary!--again to meet you, and in such circumstances!" Still,
impressive as was the coincidence of events which brought them once more
together, their full hearts did not overflow.--*
* The copy which had received the author's last corrections breaks off in
this place, and the pages which follow, to the end of Chap. IV, are printed from a copy in a less
finished state. [Godwin's note]
[And though, after this first visit, they were permitted frequently to repeat
their interviews, they were for some time employed in] a reserved conversation,
to which all the world might have listened; excepting, when discussing some
literary subject, flashes of sentiment, inforced by
each relaxing feature, seemed to remind them that their minds were already
acquainted.
[By degrees, Darnford entered into the
particulars of his story.] In a few words, he informed her that he had been a
thoughtless, extravagant young man; yet, as he described his faults, they
appeared to be the generous luxuriancy of a noble
mind. Nothing like meanness tarnished the lustre of
his youth, nor had the worm of selfishness lurked in the unfolding bud, even
while he had been the dupe of others. Yet he tardily acquired the experience
necessary to guard him against future imposition.
"I shall weary you," continued he, "by my egotism; and did
not powerful emotions draw me to you,"--his eyes glistened as he spoke,
and a trembling seemed to run through his manly frame,--"I would not waste
these precious moments in talking of myself.
"My father and mother were people of fashion; married by their
parents. He was fond of the turf, she of the card-table. I, and two or three other
children since dead, were kept at home till we became
intolerable. My father and mother had a visible dislike to each other,
continually displayed; the servants were of the depraved kind usually found in
the houses of people of fortune. My brothers and parents all dying, I was left
to the care of guardians; and sent to Eton. I never knew the sweets of domestic
affection, but I felt the want of indulgence and frivolous respect at school. I
will not disgust you with a recital of the vices of my youth, which can
scarcely be comprehended by female delicacy. I was taught to love by a creature
I am ashamed to mention; and the other women with whom I afterwards became
intimate, were of a class of which you can have no knowledge. I formed my
acquaintance with them at the theaters; and, when vivacity danced in their
eyes, I was not easily disgusted by the vulgarity which flowed from their lips.
Having spent, a few years after I was of age, [the whole of] a considerable
patrimony, excepting a few hundreds, I had no resource but to purchase a
commission in a new-raised regiment, destined to subjugate America. The regret I
felt to renounce a life of pleasure, was counter-balanced by the curiosity I
had to see America, or rather to travel; [nor had any of those circumstances
occurred to my youth, which might have been calculated] to bind my country to
my heart. I shall not trouble you with the details of a military life. My blood
was still kept in motion; till, towards the close of the contest, I was wounded
and taken prisoner.
"Confined to my bed, or chair, by a lingering cure, my only refuge
from the preying activity of my mind, was books, which
I read with great avidity, profiting by the conversation of my host, a man of
sound understanding. My political sentiments now underwent a total change; and,
dazzled by the hospitality of the Americans, I determined to take up my abode
with freedom. I, therefore, with my usual impetuosity, sold my commission, and
travelled into the interior parts of the country, to lay out my money to
advantage. Added to this, I did not much like the puritanical manners of the
large towns. Inequality of condition was there most disgustingly galling. The
only pleasure wealth afforded, was to make an ostentatious display of it; for
the cultivation of the fine arts, or literature, had not introduced into the
first circles that polish of manners which renders the rich so essentially
superior to the poor in Europe. Added to this, an influx of vices had been let
in by the Revolution, and the most rigid principles of religion shaken to the centre,
before the understanding could be gradually emancipated from the prejudices
which led their ancestors undauntedly to seek an inhospitable clime and
unbroken soil. The resolution, that led them, in pursuit of independence, to
embark on rivers like seas, to search for unknown shores, and to sleep under the
hovering mists of endless forests,whose
baleful damps agued their limbs, was now turned into commercial speculations,
till the national character exhibited a phenomenon in the history of the human
mind--a head enthusiastically enterprising, with cold selfishness of heart. And
woman, lovely woman!--they charm everywhere--still there is a degree of
prudery, and a want of taste and ease in the manners of the American women,
that renders them, in spite of their roses and lilies, far inferior to our
European charmers. In the country, they have often a bewitching simplicity of
character; but, in the cities, they have all the airs and ignorance of the
ladies who give the tone to the circles of the large trading towns in England.
They are fond of their ornaments, merely because they are good, and not because
they embellish their persons; and are more gratified to inspire the women with
jealousy of these exterior advantages, than the men with love. All the
frivolity which often (excuse me, Madam) renders the society of modest women so
stupid in England, here seemed to throw still more leaden fetters on their
charms. Not being an adept in gallantry, I found that I could only keep myself
awake in their company by making downright love to them.
"But, not to intrude on your patience, I retired to the track of land which
I had purchased in the country, and my time passed pleasantly enough while I
cut down the trees, built my house, and planted my different crops. But winter
and idleness came, and I longed for more elegant society, to hear what was
passing in the world, and to do something better than vegetate with the animals
that made a very considerable part of my household. Consequently, I determined
to travel.
Motion was a substitute for variety of objects; and, passing over immense
tracks of country, I exhausted my exuberant spirits, without obtaining much
experience. I every where saw industry the fore-runner and not the consequence,
of luxury; but this country, everything being on an ample scale, did not afford
those picturesque views, which a certain degree of cultivation is necessary
gradually to produce. The eye wandered without an object to fix upon over immeasureable plains, and lakes that seemed replenished by
the ocean, whilst eternal forests of small clustering trees, obstructed the
circulation of air, and embarrassed the path, without gratifying the eye of
taste. No cottage smiling in the waste, no travellers
hailed us, to give life to silent nature; or, if perchance we saw the print of
a footstep in our path, it was a dreadful warning to turn aside; and the head
ached as if assailed by the scalping knife. The Indians who hovered on the
skirts of the European settlements had only learned of their neighbours to plunder, and they stole their guns from them
to do it with more safety.
"From the woods and back settlements, I returned to the towns, and learned
to eat and drink most valiantly; but without entering into commerce (and I
detested commerce) I found I could not live there; and, growing heartily weary
of the land of liberty and vulgar aristocracy, seated on her bags of dollars, I
resolved once more to visit Europe. I wrote to a distant relation in England,
with whom I had been educated, mentioning the vessel in which I intended to
sail. Arriving in London, my senses were intoxicated. I ran from street to
street, from theater to theater, and the women of the town (again I must beg
pardon for my habitual frankness) appeared to me like angels.
"A week was spent in this thoughtless manner, when, returning very late
to the hotel in which I had lodged ever since my arrival, I was knocked down in
a private street, and hurried, in a state of insensibility, into a coach, which
brought me hither, and I only recovered my senses to be treated like one who
had lost them. My keepers are deaf to my remonstrances
and enquiries, yet assure me that my confinement shall not last long. Still I
cannot guess, though I weary myself with conjectures, why I am confined, or in
what part of England this house is situated. I imagine sometimes that I hear
the sea roar, and wished myself again on the Atlantic, till I had a glimpse of
you."*
A few moments were only allowed to Maria to comment on this narrative, when
Darnford left her to her own thoughts, to the
"never ending, still beginning," task of weighing his words,
recollecting his tones of voice, and feeling them reverberate on her heart.
* The introduction of Darnford as the deliverer
of Maria in a former instance, appears to have been an
after-thought of the author. This has
occasioned the omission of any allusion to that circumstance in the preceding
narration. EDITOR. [Godwin's note]