The Heroine

'See, see!' cried the girls crowding round. ''Tis covered all over with diamonds!'

'I flatter myself it is,' said I. 'There is proof irrefragable for you!'

'Proof enough to hang you I fancy!' cried the old gentleman, snatching it out of my hand. 'So now, my lady, you must march to the magistrate.' I wept, knelt, entreated, all was in vain: his son, the young man who had paid my face the compliment, took charge of my person, and accompanied by the servant who had seized me, set off with me to the magistrate's.

During our walk, he tried to discover how I had got possession of the picture, but I was on my guard, and merely replied that time would tell my innocence. On a sudden, he desired the servant to go back for an umbrella, and take it to the magistrate's after him.

The man having left us:

'Now,' said the 'squire, 'whether you are a pilferer of pictures I know not, but this I know, that you are a pilferer of hearts, and that I am determined to keep you in close custody, till you return mine, which you have just stolen. To be plain, I will extricate you from your present difficulty, and conceal you in a cottage just at hand, if you will allow me to support and visit you. You understand me.'

The blood gushed into my cheeks as he spoke; but however indignant I felt at the proposal, I likewise felt that it would be prudent to dissemble; and as other heroines in similar predicaments do not hesitate to hint that they will compromise their honours, I too determined to give my tempter some hope; and thus make him my friend till I could extricate myself from this emergency.

I therefore replied that I trusted he would not find me deficient in gratitude.

'Thank you, love,' said he. 'And now here is the cottage.'

He then tapped at a door: an elderly woman opened it, and within I perceived a young woman, with a bold, but handsome face, hastily adjusting her cap at a glass.

'I have brought a wretched creature,' said he, 'whom I found starving on the road. Pray take care of her, and give her some refreshment. You must also contrive a bed for her.'

The women looked earnestly at me, and then significantly at each other.

'She shall have no bed in my house,' said the elder, 'for I warrant this is the hussey who has been setting you against poor Susan, in order to get you herself, and telling you lies about Tommy Hicks's visiting here – poor girl!'

'Ay, and Bob Saunders,' cried the daughter.

'Sweet innocent!' cried the mother. 'And the three Hawkins's,' cried the daughter.

'Tender lamb!' cried the mother, 'and a girl too that never looked at mortal man but the 'squire.'

'And John Mullins, and Jacob Jones, and Patrick O'Brien,' cried the daughter.

'Think of that!' cried the mother.

'Yes, think of that!' cried the daughter. 'Patrick O'Brien! the broad-shouldered abominable man! Oh! I will cut my throat – I will – so I will!'

'Alas!' said I, 'behold the fatal effects of licentious love. Here is a girl, whom your money, perhaps, allured from the paths of virtue.'

'Oh! no,' cried Susan, 'it was his honour's handsome face, and his fine words, so bleeding and so sore, and he called me an angel above the heavens!'

'Yes,' said I, 'it is the tenderness of youth, the smile of joy, the blush of innocence, which kindle the flame of the seducer; and yet these are what he would destroy. It is the heart of sensibility which he would engage, and yet in that heart he would plant every rankling pang, every bitter misery. Detestable passion! which accomplishes the worst of purposes, through the medium of the best and sweetest affections. She whose innocent mind ascribes to others the motives that actuate itself, she who confides, because she would not deceive, she who has a tear for real grief, and who melts at the simulated miseries of her lover, she soonest falls a sacrifice to his arts; while the cold vestal, who goes forth into the world callous to feeling, and armed with austerity, repulses his approaches with indignation, and calls her prudence virtue.'

The young man gazed on me with surprise, and the mother had come closer; but Susan was peeping at her face in the glass.

'Look on that beautiful girl before you,' cried I. 'Heaven itself is not brighter than her brow; the tints of the morning cannot rival her blushes.'

Susan held down her head, but cast an under glance at the 'squire.

'Such is she now,' continued I, 'but too soon you may behold her pale, shivering, unsteady of step, and hoarse with nocturnal curses, one of those unhappy thousands, who nightly strew our streets with the premature ruins of dilapidated beauty.'

'Yes, look at her, look at her!' cried the mother, who flushing even through her wrinkles, and quivering in every limb, now rushed towards her daughter, and snatching off her cap, bared her forehead. 'Look at her! she was once my lovely pride, the blessing of my heart; and see what he has now made her for me; while I, miserable as I am, must wink at her guilt, that I may save her from disgrace and ruin!'

'Oh! then,' cried I, turning to the 'squire, 'while still some portion of her fame remains, fly from her, fly for ever!'

'I certainly mean to do so,' replied he, 'so pray make your mind easy. You see, Susan, by this young woman's sentiments, that she cannot be what you suspected her.'

'And I am convinced, Susan,' said I, 'that you feel grateful for the pains I have taken to reclaim the 'squire from a connection so fatal to you both.'

'I am quite sure I do,' sobbed Susan, 'and I will pray for your health and happiness ever while I live. So, dear Miss, since I must lose him, I hope you will coax him to leave me some money first; not that I ever valued him for his money, but you know I could not see my mother go without her tea o'nights.'

'Amiable creature!' cried I. 'Yes, I will intercede for you.'

'My giving you money,' said the 'squire, 'will depend on my finding, when I return to-morrow morning, that you have treated this girl well to-night.'

'I will treat her like a sister,' said Susan.

The 'squire now declared that he must be gone; then taking me aside, 'I shall see you early to-morrow,' whispered he, 'and remove you to a house about a mile hence, and I will tell my father that you ran away. Meantime, continue to talk virtue, and these people will think you a saint.'

He then bade us all good-night, and departed.

Instantly I set my wits at work, and soon hit upon a plan to accomplish my escape. I told the women that I had an old mother, about a mile from the cottage, who was almost starving; and that if I could procure a little silver, and a loaf of bread, I would run to her hut with the relief, and return immediately.

To describe the kind solicitude, the sweet goodnature that mother and daughter manifested, in loading me with victuals and money, were impossible. Suffice it, that they gave me half-a-crown, some bread, tea, and sugar; and Susan herself offered to carry them; but this I declined; and now, with a secret sigh at the probability that I might never see them again, I left their house, and hastened towards the cottage of the poor woman. Having reached it, I made the hungry inhabitants happy once more, while I solaced myself with some tea, and the pleasing reflection, that I had brought comfort to the distressed, and had reclaimed a deluded girl from ruin and infamy.

Adieu,

LETTER XXXVI

After my last letter, I spent two tedious days in employments that I now blush to relate; – no less than doing all the dirty work of the cottage, such as sweeping the room, kindling the fire, cooking the victuals; and trying, by dint of comb and soap, to make cherubs of the children. What bewitched me, I cannot conceive, for the humanity of other heroines is ever clean, elegant, and fit for the reader. They give silver and tears in abundance, but they never descend to the bodily charity of working, like wire-drawers, for withered old women and brats with rosy noses. I can only say, in vindication of myself, that those who sheltered me were poor and helpless themselves, and that they deserved some recompense on my part for their hospitality to me. So you must not condemn me totally; for I do declare to you, that I would much rather have relieved them with my purse, and soothed them with my sympathy, than have fried their herrings and washed their faces.

At the same time, take notice, I was not totally forgetful of my nobler destiny; for I dedicated part of this period to the composition of a poem, which I reserve for my memoirs. My biographer can say that it was suggested by the story of Susan; and even if it should still appear to be somewhat forced into my book, I would rather have this the case, than suffer posterity to go without it altogether. Here it is.

CAROLINEBeneath a thatch, where gadding woodbine flower'd,About the lattice and the porch embower'd,An aged widow lived, whose calm decline,Clung on one hope, her lovely Caroline.Her lovely Caroline, in virtue blest,As morning snow, was spotless and unprest.Her tresses unadorn'd a braid controll'd,Her pastoral russet knew no civic gold.In either cheek an eddying dimple play'd,And blushes flitted with a rosy shade.Her airy step seem'd lighting from the sky,And joy and frolic sparkled in her eye.Yet would she weep at sorrows not her own,And love foredoom'd her heart his panting throne.For her the rustics strove a homely grace,Clipped their redundant locks, and smooth'd their pace;Lurk'd near her custom'd path, in trimmest guise,And talk'd the simple praises of her eyes.But fatal hour, when she, by swains unmov'd,Beheld the master of the vale, and loved.Long had he tempted her reserve in vain,Till one luxuriant eve that sunn'd the plain;On the bent herbage, where a gushing brook,Blue harebells and the tufted violet shook;Where hung umbrageous branches overhead,And the rain'd roses lay in fragments red,He found the slumbering maid. Prophane he press'dHer virgin lip, then first by man carest.She starts, and like a ruddy cloud bestrewn,At brake of morning, o'er the paly moon;Or as on Alpine cliffs, a wounded doeSheds all its purple life upon the snow;So the maid blushes, while her humble eyesFear from a knot of primroses to rise;And mute she sits, affecting to repairThe discomposed meanders of her hair.Need I his arts unfold? The accomplish'd guileThat glosses poisonous words with gilded smile?The tear suborned, the tongue complete to please;Eyes ecstasied, idolatry of knees?These and his oaths I pass. Enough to tell,The virgin listen'd, and believ'd, and fell.And now from home maternal long decoy'dShe dwells with him midst pleasures unenjoy'd;Till the sad tidings that her parent dearTo grief had died a victim reach her ear.Pale with despair, 'At least, at least,' she cries,'Stretch'd on her ashes, let me close these eyes.Short shelter need the village now bestow,Ere by her sacred grave they lay me low.'Then, without nurture or repose, she hastesHer journey homeward over rocks and wastes;Till, as her steps a hill familiar gain,Bursts on her filling eyes her native plain.She pants, expands her arms, 'Ah, peaceful scene!'Exclaiming: 'Ah, dear valley, lovely green,Still ye remain the same; your hawthorn still,All your white cottages, the little mill;Its osiered brook, that prattles thro' the meads,The plat where oft I danced to piping reeds.All, all remain unalter'd. 'Tis but thineTo suffer change, weak, wicked Caroline!'The setting sun now purples hill and lake,And lengthen'd shadows shadows overtake.A parting carol larks and throstles sing,The swains aside their heated sickles fling.Now dairies all arrang'd, the nymphs renewThe straggling tress, and tighten'd aprons blue;And fix some hasty floweret, as they runIn a blithe tumult to the pipe begun.And now, while dance and frolic shake the vale,Sudden the panting girl, dishevell'd, pale,Stands in the midst. All pausing gather round,And gaze amaz'd. The tabors cease to sound.'Yes, ye may well,' the faltering suppliant cries,'Well may ye frown with those repulsive eyes.Yet pity one not vicious but deceiv'd,Who vows of marriage, ere she fell, believ'd.Without a mother, sire, or fostering home,Save, save me, leave me not forlorn to roam.Not now the gifts ye once so fondly gave,Not now the verse and rural wreath I crave;Not now to lead your festive sports along,Queen of the dance, and despot of the song;One shed is all, oh, just one wretched shed,To lay my weary limbs and aching head.Then will I bless your bounty, then inureMy frame to toil, and earn a pittance poor.Then, while ye mix in mirth, will I, forlorn,Beside my murder'd parent sit and mourn.'She paus'd, expecting answer. None replied.'And have ye children, have ye hearts?' she cried.'Save me now, mothers, as from future harmsYe hope to save the babies in your arms!See, to you, maids, I bend on abject knee;Youths, even to you, who bent before to me.O, my companions, by our happy plays,By dear remembrance of departed days;By pity's self, your cruel parents move;By sacred friendship; Oh! by those ye love!Oft when ye trespassed, I for pardon pray'd;Oft on myself your little mischiefs laid.Did I not always sooth the wounded mind?Was I not called the generous and the kind?Still silent? What! no word, no look to cheer?No gentle gesture? What, not even a tear?Go then, ye pure! to heights of virtue climb;Let none plead for me, none forgive my crime.Go – yet the culprit, by her God forgiven,May plead for you before the throne of heaven!Ye simple pleasures of my rural hours,Ye skies all sunshine, and ye paths all flowers;Home, where no more a soothing friend I see,Dear happy home, a last farewell to thee!'Claspt are her hands, her features strewn with hair,And her eyes sparkle with a keen despair.But as she turns, a sudden burst of tears,And struggles, as of one withheld, she hears.'Speak!' she conjures, 'ere yet to phrenzy driven,Tell me who weeps? What angel sent from heaven?''I, I your friend!' exclaims, with panting charms,A rosy girl, and darts into her arms.'What! will you leave me? Me, your other heart,Your favourite Ellen? No, we must not part;No, never! come, and in our cottage live;Come, for the cruel village shall forgive.O, my own darling, come, and unreproved,Here on this heart rest ever, ever lov'd;Here on this constant heart!' While thus she spoke,Her furious sire the linkt embraces broke.Borne in his arms, she wept, entreated, rav'd;Then fainted, as a mute farewell she wav'd.But now the wretch, with low and wildered cries,Round and around revolving vacant eyes:Slow from the green departs, and pauses now,And gnaws her tresses and contracts her brow.Shock'd by the change, the matrons, stern no more,Pursue her steps and her return implore:Soon a poor maniac, innocent of ill,She wanders unconfined, and drinks the rill,And plucks the simple cress. A hovel nearHer native vale defends her from the year.With tender feet to flint and thistle bare,And faded willows weeping in her hair,She climbs some rock at morn, and all alone,Chaunts hasty snatches of harmonious moan.When moons empearl the leafy locks of bowers,With liquid grain, and light the glistening flowers,She gathers honeysuckle down the dells,And tangled eglantine, and slumbering bells;And with moist finger, painted by the leaves,A coronet of roses interweaves;Then steals unheard, and gliding thro' the yews,The odorous offering on her mother strews.At morn with tender pause, the nymphs admire,How recent chaplets still the grave attire;And matrons nightly tell, how fairies seen,Danc'd roundelays aslant its cowslipped green.Even when the whiten'd vale is bleak with snows,That verdant spot the little Robin knows;And sure to find the flakes at dawn remov'd,Alights and chirps upon its turf belov'd.Such her employ; till now, one wintry day,Some shepherds hurrying by the haunted clay,Find the pale ruin, life for ever flown,With her cheek pillow'd on its dripping stone.The turf unfinish'd wreaths of ivy strew,And her lank locks are dim with misty dew.Poor Ellen hymns her requiem. Willows pineAround her grave. Fallen, fallen Caroline!

This morning, having resumed my muslins, I repaired to my castle, and seated on the stump of a withered oak, began an accurate survey of its strength, for the purpose of ascertaining whether it could stand a siege, in case Lady Gwyn should attempt to dispossess me of it. I must now describe it to you.

It is situated about a quarter of a mile from the road, on a waste tract of land, where a few decayed trunks of trees are all that remain of a former forest. The castle itself, which I fear is rather too small for long corridors and suites of apartments, forms a square, with a turret at each corner, and with a large gateway, now stopped up with stones, at the southern side. While I surveyed its roofless walls, over-topt with briony, grass, and nettles, and admired the gothic points of the windows, where mantling ivy had supplied the place of glass, long suffering and murder came to my thoughts.

As I sat planning, from romances, the revival of the feudal customs and manners in my castle, and of the feudal system among my tenantry (all so favourable to heroines), I saw a magnificent barouche, turning from the road into the common, and advancing towards me. My heart beat high: the carriage approached, stopt; and who should alight from it, but Higginson and Jerry!

After Higginson, with reverence, and Jerry, with familiarity, had congratulated me on my good fortune, the latter looked hard at the castle.

'The people told us that this was Monkton Castle,' said he; 'but where is the Monkton Castle that your ladyship is to live in?'

'There it is, my friend,' answered I.

'What? there!' cried he.

'Yes, there,' said I.

'What, there, there!'

'Yes, there, there.'

'Oh! murder! murder!'

'How far are we from your ladyship's house?' said the postilion, advancing with his hat off.

'This castle is my house,' answered I.

'Begging your ladyship's pardon,' said he; 'what I mean, is, how far are we from where your ladyship lives?'

'I live in this castle,' answered I.

Jerry began making signs to me over the fellow's shoulder, to hold my tongue.

'What are you grimacing about there, Mr. Sullivan?' said I.

'Nothing at all, Ma'am,' answered he. ''Tis a way I have got; but your ladyship, you know, is only come down to this castle on a sort of a country excursion, to see if it wants repairing, you know: you don't mean to live in it, you know.' And he put his finger on his nose, and winked at me.

'But I know I do mean to live in it,' cried I, 'and so I request you will cease your grinning.'

'Oh, murder, murder!' muttered he, swinging round on his heel.

The postilion now stood staring at the venerable edifice, with an expression of the most insolent ridicule.

'And what are you looking at?' cried Jerry.

'At the sky through the castle window,' said the fellow, reddening, and shaking with smothered laughter.

'Why then mind your own business,' cried Jerry, 'and that is, to take the horses from the carriage, and set off with yourself as fast as you can.'

'Not till I am paid for their journey down,' said the postilion. 'So will your ladyship have the goodness to pay me?'

'Certainly,' said I. 'Jerry, pay the fellow.'

'Deuce a rap have I,' answered Jerry. 'I laid out my last farthing in little things for your ladyship.'

'Higginson,' said I, 'shall I trouble you to pay him?'

'It irks me to declare,' answered Higginson, 'that in equipments for this expedition; – a nice little desk, a nice little comb, a nice little pocket-glass, a nice little – '

'In short you have no money,' cried I.

'Not a farthing,' answered he.

'Neither have I,' said I; 'so, postilion, you must call another time.'

'Here is a pretty to do!' cried the postilion. 'Damme, this is a shy sort of a business. Not even the price of a feed of oats! Snuff my eyes, I must have the money. I must, blow me.'

''Tis I that will blow you,' cried Jerry, 'if you don't unloose your horses this moment, and pack off.'

The postilion took them from the carriage, in silence; then having mounted one of them, and ridden a few paces from us, he stopped.

'Now you set of vagabonds and swindlers,' cried he, 'without a roof over your heads, or a penny in your pockets, to go diddle an honest man out of his day's labour; wait till master takes you in hand: and if I don't tell the coachmaker what a blockhead he was to give you his barouche on tick, may I be particularly horsewhipt! Ladyship! a rummish sort of a tit for a Ladyship! And that is my Lord, I suppose. And this is the Marquis. Three pickpockets from Fleet-street, I would bet a whip to a wisp. Ladyship! Oh, her Ladyship!' and away he cantered, ladyshipping it, till he was out of hearing.

'That young person deserves a moral lecture,' said Higginson.

'He deserves a confounded drubbing,' cried Jerry. 'But now, 'pon your conscience, does your ladyship intend to live in this old castle?'

'Upon my honour I do,' replied I.

'And is there no decent house on the estate, that one of your tenants could lend you?' said he.

'Why you must know,' replied I, 'that though Lady Gwyn, the person who has withheld my property from me so long, acknowledged my right to it but a few days since, still, as she has not yet yielded up the title deeds, in consequence of a quarrel which obliged me to quit her house, it is improbable that the tenantry would treat me as their mistress. All I can do, is, to seize this uninhabited castle which lies on my own estate. But I can tell you, that a heroine of good taste, and who wishes to rise in her profession, would infinitely prefer the desolation of a castle to the comforts of a villa.'

'Well, of all the wise freaks – ' cried Jerry, standing astride, sticking his hands in his ribs, and nodding his head, as he looked up at the castle.

'I tell you what, Mr. Sullivan,' interrupted I, 'if you have the slightest objection to remaining here, you are at perfect liberty to depart this moment.'

'And do you think I would leave you?' cried he. 'Oh then, oh then, 'tis I that wouldn't! And the worse your quandary, the more I would stick by you; – that is Jerry Sullivan. And if it was a gallows itself you were speculating in, I would assist you all the same. One can find friends enough when one is in the right, but give me the fellow that would fight for me right or wrong.'

I shook his honest hand with warmth, and then asked him if he had performed my commissions.

'Your ladyship shall hear,' said he. 'As soon as I got your letter, I went with it in my hand, and shewed it at fifty different shops; – clothiers, and glaziers, and upholsterers, and feather-makers, and trumpet-makers; but neither old tapestry, nor old painted glass, nor old flags stained with old blood, nor old lutes, nor old any thing that you wanted, could I get; and what I could get, I must pay for; and so what I must pay for, I would not get; and the reason why, I had no money; and moreover, as sure as ever I shewed them your letter, so sure they laughed at it.'

'Laughed at it!' cried I.

'All but one,' said Jerry.

'And he?' cried I.

'Was going to knock me down,' answered Jerry. 'So, as I did not wish to come without bringing something or other to you, and as you commanded me to get everything old; egad, I have brought three whole pieces of damaged black cloth out of our own shop, that I thought might answer for the hangings and curtains; and I bought a parcel of old funeral feathers and an old pall, from an undertaker; and I bought an old harp with five strings, that will do any thing but play; and I stole our own parlour bell; and I borrowed a horn from the guard of a mail-coach, which I hope will do for a trumpet; and now here they are all in the barouche, and my bed and trunk; and a box of Mr. Higginson's.'

'But the barouche?' said I; 'how did you get that?'

'By not shewing your letter,' answered Jerry; 'and besides, the coach-maker knew me; and I told him it was for my Lady De Willoughby, as beautiful as an angel – but he did not mind that – and as rich as a Jew; – but he minded that; and so he gave me the barouche, and a shake-hands into the bargain.'

'Well, my friend,' said I, 'you did your best; so as soon as I can raise a sufficient sum, I will furnish my castle in a style of gothic grandeur, which your modern painters and glaziers have no notion of. Meantime, if you and Higginson will pull down those stones that choak the gateway, we will enter the building, and see what can be done with our present materials.'