 | CHAPTER XXVII. Ormond, or, The secret witness |  |
27. CHAPTER XXVII.
These incidents and reflections were speedily
transmitted to me. I had always believed
the character and machinations of Ormond, to be
worthy of caution and fear. His means of information
I did not pretend, and thought it useless
to investigate. We cannot hide our actions and
thoughts, from one of powerful sagacity, whom
the detection sufficiently interests, to make him
use all the methods of detection in his power.
The study of concealment, is, in all cases, fruitless
or hurtful. All that duty enjoins, is to design
and to execute nothing, which may not be
approved by a divine and omniscient observer.
Human scrutiny is neither to be solicited, nor
shunned. Human approbation or censure, can
never be exempt from injustice, because our
limited perceptions debar us from a thorough
knowledge of any actions and motives but our
own.
On reviewing what had passed, between Constantia
and me, I recollected nothing incompatible
with purity and rectitude. That Ormond
was apprized of all that had passed, I by no
means inferred from the tenour of his conversation
with Constantia, nor, if this had been incontestably
proved, should I have experienced any
trepidation or anxiety on that account.
His obscure and indirect menaces of evil, were
of more importance. His discourse on this topic,
seemed susceptible only of two constructions.
Either he intended some fatal mischief, and was
willing to torment her by fears, while he concealed
from her the nature of her danger, that he
suitable precautions; or, being hopeless of rendering
her propitious to his wishes, his malice was
satisfied with leaving her a legacy of apprehension
and doubt.
Constantia's unacquaintance with the doctrines
of that school, in which Ormond was probably
instructed, led her to regard the conduct of this
man, with more curiosity and wonder, than fear.
She saw nothing but a disposition to sport with
her ignorance and bewilder her with doubts.
I do not believe myself destitute of courage.
Rightly to estimate the danger and encounter it
with firmness, are worthy of a rational being;
but to place our security in thoughtlessness and
blindness, is only less ignoble than cowardice.
I could not forget the proofs of violence, which
accompanied the death of Mr. Dudley. I could
not overlook, in the recent conversation with
Constance, Ormond's allusion to her murdered
father. It was possible that the nature of this
death, had been accidentally imparted to him;
but it was likewise possible, that his was the
knowledge of one who performed the act.
The enormity of this deed, appeared by no
means incongruous with the sentiments of Ormond.
Human life is momentous or trivial in
our eyes, according to the course which our habits
and opinions have taken. Passion greedily
accepts, and habit readily offers, the sacrifice of
another's life, and reason obeys the impulse of
education and desire.
A youth of eighteen, a volunteer in a Russian
army, encamped in Bessarabia, made prey of a
Tartar girl, found in the field of a recent battle:
Conducting her to his quarters, he met a friend,
who, on some pretence, claimed the victim:
From angry words they betook themselves to
claimant ran his antagonist through the body.
He then bore his prize unmolested away, and
having exercised brutality of one kind, upon the
helpless victim, stabbed her to the heart, as an
offering to the manes of Sarsefield, the friend
whom he had slain. Next morning, willing more
signally to expiate his guilt, he rushed alone upon
a troop of Turkish foragers, and brought away
five heads, suspended, by their gory locks, to his
horse's mane. These he cast upon the grave of
Sarsefield, and conceived himself fully to have
expiated yesterday's offence. In reward for his
prowess, the General gave him a commission in
the Cossack troops. This youth was Ormond;
and such is a specimen of his exploits, during a
military career of eight years, in a warfare the
most savage and implacable, and, at the same
time, the most iniquitous and wanton which history
records.
With passions and habits like these, the life of
another was a trifling sacrifice to vengeance or
impatience. How Mr. Dudley had excited the
resentment of Ormond, by what means the assassin
had accomplished his intention, without awakening
alarm or incurring suspicion, it was not
for me to discover. The inextricability of human
events, the imperviousness of cunning, and
the obduracy of malice, I had frequent occasions
to remark.
I did not labour to vanquish the security of my
friend. As to precautions they were useless.
There was no fortress, guarded by barriers of
stone and iron, and watched by centinels that never
slept, to which she might retire from his stratagems.
If there were such a retreat, it would
scarcely avail her against a foe, circumspect and
subtle as Ormond.
I pondered on the condition of my friend. I
reviewed the incidents of her life. I compared
her lot with that of others. I could not but discover
a sort of incurable malignity in her fate. I
felt as if it were denied to her to enjoy a long life
or permanent tranquillity. I asked myself, what
she had done, entitling her to this incessant persecution?
Impatience and murmuring took place
of sorrow and fear in my heart. When I reflected,
that all human agency was merely subservient
to a divine purpose, I fell into fits of accusation
and impiety.
This injustice was transient, and soberer views
convinced me that every scheme, comprizing the
whole, must be productive of partial and temporary
evil. The sufferings of Constance were limited
to a moment; they were the unavoidable
appendages of terrestrial existence; they formed
the only avenue to wisdom, and the only claim
to uninterrupted fruition, and eternal repose in
an after-scene.
The course of my reflections, and the issue to
which they led, were unforeseen by myself.
Fondly as I doated upon this woman, methought
I could resign her to the grave without a murmur
or a tear. While my thoughts were calmed by
resignation, and my fancy occupied with nothing
but the briefness of that space, and evanescence
of that time which severs the living from the dead,
I contemplated, almost with complacency, a violent
or untimely close to her existence.
This loftiness of mind could not always be accomplished
or constantly maintained. One effect
of my fears, was to hasten my departure to
Europe. There existed no impediment but the
want of a suitable conveyance. In the first packet
that should leave America, it was determined
to take charge of Constantia's property, and, after
the sale of it, to transmit to her the money that
should thence arise.
Meanwhile, I was anxious that Constance should
leave her present abode and join me in New-York.
She willingly adopted this arrangement,
but conceived it necessary to spend a few days
at her house in Jersey. She could reach the latter
place without much deviation from the streight
road, and she was desirous of re-surveying a spot
where many of her infantile days had been spent.
This house and domain I have already mentioned
to have once belonged to Mr. Dudley. It
was selected with the judgment and adorned with
the taste of a disciple of the schools of Florence
and Vincenza. In his view, cultivation was subservient
to the picturesque, and a mansion was
erected, eminent for nothing but chastity of ornaments,
and simplicity of structure. The massive
parts were of stone; the outer surfaces were
smooth, snow-white, and diversified by apertures
and cornices, in which a cement uncommonly tenacious
was wrought into proportions the most
correct and forms the most graceful. The floors,
walls and cielings, consisted of a still more exquisitely
tempered substance, and were painted by
Mr. Dudley's own hand. All appendages of this
building, as seats, tables and cabinets, were
modelled by the owner's particular direction, and
in a manner scrupulously classical.
He had scarcely entered on the enjoyment of
this splendid possession, when it was ravished
away. No privation was endured with more impatience
than this; but, happily, it was purchased
by one who left Mr. Dudley's arrangements
unmolested, and who shortly after conveyed it
entire to Ormond. By him it was finally appropriated
a singular contexture of events, it had reverted
to those hands, in which the death of the original
proprietor, if no other change had been made in his
condition, would have left it. The farm still remained
in the tenure of a German emigrant, who
held it partly on condition of preserving the garden
and mansion in safety and in perfect order.
This retreat was now re-visited by Constance,
after an interval of four years. Autumn had made
some progress, but the aspect of nature was, so
to speak, more significant than at any other season.
She was agreeably accommodated under
the tenant's roof, and found a nameless pleasure
in traversing spaces, in which every object
prompted an endless train of recollections.
Her sensations were not foreseen. They led
to a state of mind, inconsistent, in some degree,
with the projects adopted in obedience to the
suggestions of her friend. Every thing in this
scene had been created and modelled by the genius
of her father. It was a kind of fane, sanctified
by his imaginary presence.
To consign the fruits of his industry and invention
to foreign and unsparing hands, seemed a
kind of sacrilege, for which she almost feared that
the dead would rise to upbraid her. Those images
which bind us to our natal soil, to the abode
of our innocent and careless youth, were recalled
to her fancy by the scenes which she now beheld.
These were enforced by considerations of the
dangers which attended her voyage, from storms
and from enemies, and from the tendency to revolution
and war, which seemed to actuate all
the nations of Europe. Her native country was
by no means exempt from similar tendencies, but
these evils were less imminent, and its manners
and government, in their present modifications,
and improvement of the human race, than those
which prevailed in any part of the ancient world.
My solicitations and my obligation to repair to
England, overweighed her objections, but her
new reflections led her to form new determinations
with regard to this part of her property. She
concluded to retain possession, and hoped that
some future event would allow her to return to
this favorite spot, without forfeiture of my society.
An abode of some years in Europe, would
more eminently qualify her for the enjoyment of
retirement and safety in her native country. The
time that should elapse before her embarkation,
she was desirous of passing among the shades of
this romantic retreat.
I was, by no means, rcconciled to this proceeding.
I loved my friend too well to endure any
needless separation without repining. In addition
to this, the image of Ormond haunted my
thoughts, and gave birth to incessant but indefinable
fears. I believed that her safety would
very little depend upon the nature of her abode,
or the number or watchfulness of her companions.
My nearness to her person would frustrate
no stratagem, nor promote any other end than my
own entanglement in the same fold. Still, that I
was not apprized, each hour, of her condition,
that her state was lonely and sequestered, were
sources of disquiet, the obvious remedy to which
was her coming to New-York. Preparations for
departure were assigned to me, and these required
my continuance in the city.
Once a week, Laffert, her tenant, visited, for
purposes of traffic, the city. He was the medium
of our correspondence. To him I entrusted a
letter, in which my dissatisfaction at her absence
confessed.
The confidence of safety seldom deserted my
friend. Since her mysterious conversation with
Ormond, he had utterly vanished. Previously to
that interview, his visits or his letters were incessant
and punctual; but since, no token was given
that he existed. Two months had elapsed. He
gave her no reason to expect a cessation of intercourse.
He had parted from her with his usual
abruptness and informality. She did not conceive
it incumbent on her to search him out, but
she would not have been displeased with an opportunity
to discuss with him more fully the motives
of her conduct. This opportunity had been
hitherto denied.
Her occupations, in her present retreat, were,
for the most part dictated by caprice or by chance.
The mildness of Autumn permitted her to ramble,
during the day, from one rock and one grove to
another. There was a luxury in musing, and in
the sensations which the scenery and silence produced,
which, in consequence of her long estrangement
from them, were accompanied with
all the attractions of novelty, and from which she
not consent to withdraw.
In the evening, she usually retired to the mansion,
and shut herself up in that apartment, which,
in the original structure of the house, had been
designed for study, and no part of whose furniture
had been removed or displaced. It was a
kind of closet on the second floor, illuminated by a
spacious window, through which a landscape of
uncommon amplitude and beauty was presented
to the view. Here the pleasures of the day were
revived, by recalling and enumerating them in
letters to her friend: She always quitted this recess
was half-spent.
One evening she retired hither when the sun
had just dipped beneath the horizon. Her implements
of writing were prepared, but before
the pen was assumed, her eyes rested for a moment
on the variegated hues, which were poured
out upon the western sky, and upon the scene of
intermingled waters, copses and fields. The view
comprized a part of the road which led to this
dwelling. It was partially and distantly seen,
and the passage of horses or men, was betokened
chiefly by the dust which was raised by their footsteps.
A token of this kind now caught her attention.
It fixed her eye, chiefly by the picturesque effect
produced by interposing its obscurity between her
and the splendours which the sun had left.
Presently,
she gained a faint view of a man and
horse. This circumstance laid no claim to attention,
and she was withdrawing her eye, when
the traveller's stopping and dismounting at the
gate, made her renew her scrutiny. This was
reinforced by something in the figure and movements
of the horseman, which reminded her of
Ormond.
She started from her seat with some degree of
palpitation. Whence this arose, whether from
fear or from joy, or from intermixed emotions, it
would not be easy to ascertain. Having entered
the gate, the visitant, remounting his horse, set
the animal on full speed. Every moment brought
him nearer, and added to her first belief. He
stopped not till he reached the mansion. The
person of Ormond was distinctly recognized.
An interview, at this dusky and lonely hour,
in circumstances so abrupt and unexpected, could
not fail to surpize, and, in some degree, to
was recalled. The evils which were darkly and
ambiguously predicted, thronged to her memory.
It seemed as if the present moment was to be, in
some way, decisive of her fate. This visit, she
did not hesitate to suppose, designed for her, but
somewhat uncommonly momentous, must have
prompted him to take so long a journey.
The rooms on the lower floor were dark, the
windows and doors being fastened. She had entered
the house by the principal door, and this
was the only one, at present, unlocked. The
room in which she sat, was over the hall, and
the massive door beneath could not be opened,
without noisy signals. The question that occurred
to her, by what means Ormond would gain
admittance to her presence, she supposed would
be instantly decided. She listened to hear his
footsteps on the pavement, or the creaking of
hinges. The silence, however, continued profound
as before.
After a minute's pause, she approached the
window more nearly, and endeavoured to gain a
view of the space before the house. She saw
nothing but the horse, whose bridle was thrown
over his neck, and who was left at liberty to pick
up what scanty herbage the lawn afforded to his
hunger. The rider had disappeared.
It now occurred to her, that this visit had a
purpose different from that which she at first
conjectured. It was easily conceived, that Ormond
was unacquainted with her residence at
this spot. The knowledge could only be imparted
to him, by indirect or illicit means. That
these means had been employed by him, she was
by no means authorized to infer from the silence
and distance he had lately maintained. But if
an interview with her, were not the purpose of
his coming, how should she interpret it?
| CHAPTER XXVII. Ormond, or, The secret witness | |