The Sylph Part 20

Adieu!

Your's for ever,

JULIA STANLEY.

LETTER LVIX.

TO Lady BRUDENEL.

Stanley-park.

Yes! my dear Maria, you shall be made acquainted with the extraordinary change in your friend! You had all the mournful particulars of my past life before you. I was convinced of your worth, nor could refuse you my confidence. But what is all this? I cannot spend my time, my precious time, in prefacing the scenes which now surround me.

You know how depressed my mind was with sorrow at the earnestness with which my father and sister espoused the cause of Mr. Woodley. I was ready to sink under the dejection their perseverance occasioned, aggravated too by my tender, long-cherished attachment to the unfortunate Baron. [This is the first time my pen has traced that word.]

I was sitting yesterday morning in an alcove in the garden, ruminating on the various scenes which I had experienced, and giving myself up to the most melancholy presages, when I perceived a paper fall at my feet.

I apprehended it had dropped from my pocket in taking out my handkerchief, which a trickling tear had just before demanded. I stooped to pick it up; and, to my surprize, found it sealed, and addressed to myself. I hastily broke it open, and my wonder increased when I read these words:

"I have been witness to the perturbation of your mind. How will you atone to your Sylph, for not availing yourself of the privilege of making application to him in an emergency? If you have lost your confidence in him, he is the most wretched of beings. He flatters himself he may be instrumental to your future felicity. If you are inclined to be indebted to him for any share of it, you may have the opportunity of seeing him in five minutes. Arm yourself with resolution, most lovely, most adored of women; for he will appear under a semblance not expected by you. You will see in him the most faithful and constant of human beings."

I was seized with such a trepidation, that I could hardly support myself; but, summoning all the strength of mind I could a.s.sume, I said aloud, though in a tremulous voice, "Let me view my amiable Sylph!"--But oh! what became of me, when at my feet I beheld the most wished-for, the most dreaded, _Ton-hausen!_ I clasped my hands together, and shrieked with the most frantic air, falling back half insensible on the seat.

"Curse on my precipitance!" he cried, throwing his arms round me. "My angel! my Julia! look on the most forlorn of his s.e.x, unless you pity me." "Pity you!" I exclaimed, with a faint accent--"Oh! from whence, and how came you here?"

"Did not my Julia expect me?" he asked, in the softest voice, and sweetest manner.

"I expect you! How should I? alas! what intimation could I have of your arrival?"

"From this," he replied, taking up the billet written by the Sylph.

"What do you mean? For Heaven's sake! rise, and unravel this mystery. My brain will burst with the torture of suspence."

"If the loveliest of women will pardon the stratagems I have practised on her unsuspecting mind, I will rise, and rise the happiest of mortals.

Yes, my beloved Julia, I am that invisible guide, that has so often led you through the wilds of life. I am that blissful being, whom you supposed something supernatural."

"It is impossible," I cried, interrupting him, "it cannot be!"

"Will not my Julia recollect this poor pledge of her former confidence?"

drawing from a ribband a locket of hair I had once sent to the Sylph.

"Is this, to me inestimable, gift no longer acknowledged by you? this dear part of yourself, whose enchantment gave to my wounded soul all the nourishment she drew, which supported me when exiled from all that the world had worth living for? Have you forgot the vows of lasting fidelity with which the value of the present was enhanced? Oh! sure you have not.

And yet you are silent. May I not have one word, one look?"

"Alas!" cried I, hiding my face from his glances; "what can I say? What can I do? Oh! too well I remember all. The consciousness, that every secret of my heart has been laid bare to your inspection, covers me with the deepest confusion."

"Bear witness for me," cried he, "that I never made an ill use of that knowledge. Have I ever presumed upon it? Could you ever discover, by the arrogance of Ton-hausen's conduct, that he had been the happy _confidant_ of your retired sentiments? Believe me, Lady Stanley, that man will ever admire you most, who knows most your worth; and oh!, who knows it more, who adores it more than I?"

"Still," said I, "I cannot compose my scattered senses. All appears a dream; but, trust me, I doat on the illusion. I would not be undeceived, if I am in an error. I would fain persuade myself, that but one man on earth is acquainted with the softness, I will not call it weakness, of my soul; and he the only man who could inspire that softness." "Oh! be persuaded, most angelic of women," said he, pressing my hand to his lips, "be persuaded of the truth of my a.s.sertion, that the Sylph and I are one. You know how you were circ.u.mstanced."

"Yes! I was married before I had the happiness of being seen by you."

"No, you was not."

"Not married, before I was seen by you?"

"Most surely not. Years, years before that event, I knew, and, knowing, loved you--loved you with all the fondness of man, while my age was that of a boy. Has Julia quite forgot her juvenile companions? Is the time worn from her memory, when Harry Woodley used to weave the fancied garland for her?"

"Protect me, Heaven!" cried I, "sure I am in the land of shadows!"

"No," cried he, clasping me in his arms, and smiling at my apostrophe, "you shall find substance and substantial joys too here."

"Thou Proteus!" said I, withdrawing myself from his embrace, "what do you mean by thus s.h.i.+fting characters, and each so potent?"

"To gain my charming Nymph," he answered. "But why should we thus waste our time? Let me lead you to your father."

"My father! Is my father here?"

"Yes, he brought me hither; perhaps, as Woodley, an unwelcome visitant.

But will you have the cruelty to reject him?" added he, looking slyly.

"Don't presume too much," I returned with a smile. "You have convinced me, you are capable of great artifice; but I shall insist on your explaining your whole plan of operations, as an atonement for your double, nay treble dealing, for I think you are three in one. But I am impatient to behold my father, whom, the moment before I saw you, I was accusing of cruelty, in seeking to urge me in the favour of one I was determined never to see."

"But now you have seen him (it was all your sister required of you, you know), will you be inexorable to his vows?"

"I am determined to be guided by my Sylph," cried I, "in this momentous instance. That was my resolution, and still shall remain the same."

"Suppose thy Sylph had recommended you to bestow your hand on Woodley?

What would have become of poor _Ton-hausen_?"

"My confidence in the Sylph was established on the conviction of his being my safest guide; as such, he would never have urged me to bestow my hand where my heart was refractory; but, admitting the possibility of the Sylph's pursuing such a measure, a negative voice would have been allowed me; and no power, human or divine, should have constrained that voice to breathe out a vow of fidelity to any other than him to whom the secrets of my heart have been so long known."

By this time we had nearly reached the house, from whence my father sprung with the utmost alacrity to meet me. As he pressed me to his venerable bosom, "Can my Julia refuse the request of her father, to receive, as the best pledge of his affection, this valuable present? And will she forgive the innocent trial we made of her fidelity to the most amiable of men?"

"Ah! I know not what to say," cried I; "here has been sad management amongst you. But I shall soon forget the heart-aches I have experienced, if they have removed from this gentleman any suspicions that I did not regard him for himself alone. He has, I think, adopted the character of Prior's Henry; and I hope he is convinced that the faithful Emma is not a fiction of the poet's brain. I know not," I continued, "by what name to call him."

"Call me _your's_," cried he, "and that will be the highest t.i.tle I shall ever aspire to. But you shall know all, as indeed you have a right to do. _Your_ sister, and soon, I hope, _mine_, related to you the attachment which I had formed for you in my tenderest years, which, like the incision on the infant bark, _grew with my growth, and strengthened with my strength_. She likewise told you (but oh! how faint, how inadequate to my feelings!) the extreme anguish that seized me when I found you was married. Distraction surrounded me; I cannot give words to my grief and despair. I fled from a place which had lost its only attractive power. In the first paroxysm of affliction, I knew not what resolutions I formed. I wrote to Spencer--not to give rest or ease to my over-burdened heart; for that, alas! could receive no diminution--nor to complain; for surely I could not complain of you; my form was not imprinted on your mind, though your's had worn itself so deep a trace in mine. Spencer opposed my resolution of returning to Germany, where I had formed some connexions (only friendly ones, my Julia, but, as such, infinitely tender). _He_ it was that urged me to take the name of Ton-hausen, as that t.i.tle belonged to an estate which devolved to me from the death of one of the most valuable men in the world, who had sunk into his grave, as the only asylum from a combination of woes. As some years had elapsed, in which I had increased in bulk and stature, joined to my having had the small-pox since I had been seen by you, he thought it more than probable you would not recollect my person. I hardly know what I proposed to myself, from closing with him in this scheme, only that I take Heaven to witness, I never meant to injure you; and I hope the whole tenor of my conduct has convinced you how sincere I was in that profession. From the great irregularity of your late husband's life, I had a _presentiment_, that you would at one time or other be free from your engagements. I revered you as one, to whom I hoped to be united; if not in this world, I might be a kindred-angel with you in the next. Your virtuous soul could not find its congenial friend in the riot and confusion in which you lived. I dared not trust myself to offer to become your guide. I knew the extreme hazard I should run; and that, with all the innocent intentions in the world, we might both be undone by our _pa.s.sions_ before _reason_ could come to our a.s.sistance. I soon saw I had the happiness to be distinguished by you!

and that distinction, while it raised my admiration of you, excited in me the desire of rendering myself still more worthy of your esteem; but even that esteem I refused myself the dear privilege of soliciting for.

I acted with the utmost caution; and if, under the character of the Sylph, I dived into the recesses of your soul, and drew from thence the secret attachment you professed for the happy Baron, it was not so much to gratify the vanity of my heart, as to put you on your guard, lest some of the invidious wretches about you should propagate any reports to your prejudice; and, dear as the sacrifice cost me, I tore myself from your loved presence on a sarcasm which Lady Anne Parker threw out concerning us. I withdrew some miles from London, and left Spencer there to apprize me of any change in your circ.u.mstances. I gave you to understand I had quitted the kingdom; but that was a severity I could not impose upon myself: however, I constrained myself to take a resolution of never again appearing in your presence till I should have the liberty of indulging my pa.s.sion without restraint. Nine parts of ten in the world may condemn my procedure as altogether romantic. I believe few will find it imitable; but I have nice feelings, and I could act no other than I did. I could not, you see, bear to be the rival of myself.

_That_ I have proved under both the characters I a.s.sumed; but had I found you had forgotten Ton-hausen, Woodley would have been deprived of one of the most delicate pleasures a refined taste can experience. And now all that remains is to intreat the forgiveness of my amiable Julia, for these _pious frauds_; and to rea.s.sure her she shall, if _the heart of man is not deceitful above all things_, never repent the confidence she placed in her faithful Sylph, the affection she honoured the happy Ton-hausen with, nor the esteem, notwithstanding his obstinate perseverance, which she charitably bestowed on that unfortunate knight-errant, Harry Woodley."

"Heaven send I never may!" said I. But really I shall be half afraid to venture the remainder of my life with such a variable being. However, my father undertakes to answer for him in future.

I a.s.sure you, my dear Maria, you are much indebted to me for this recital, for I have borrowed the time out of the night, as the whole day has been taken up in a manner you may more easily guess than I can describe.

Say every thing that is civil to Sir George on my part, as you are conscious I have no time to bestow on any other men than those by whom I am surrounded. I expect my sister and her swain tomorrow.

Adieu!