Mrs. Valmont said, you were a strange unformed child. Mr. Valmont would gladly have been silent; but, as I continually addressed myself to him, he could not rid himself, without gross rudeness, of the necessity of answering me. He spoke mysteriously of his systems, and his plans, of his authority, his wisdom, and your dependence, of his right of choosing for you, and your positive duty of obeying him without reserve or discussion. At last, with tones and gestures, by which I was to understand that he went to the extreme of condescension in my favour, he consented that, provided no other company came to visit him in the time, you should associate with us while we remained at Valmont castle.
Your very extraordinary seclusion and your extraordinary self, occupied my mind during the greatest part of that night. I had found you highly interesting; and I believed you to be infinitely amiable. I thought I might embrace you as the first choice of my affections; but I doubted whether you might not, if now exposed to the glitter of the world, lose that vigour of feeling which in solitude made you appear so singular, so attractive. I longed to make the experiment, for my hopes of you were stronger than my fears; and, as I had so far prevailed on Mr. Valmont, I flattered myself I should also prevail on him to suffer me to conduct you from the castle. And these were the motives, this the expectation, dearest Sibella, that withheld me from confessing in Valmont woods—that I loved you with all my soul.
The seven days I remained at the castle I forbore, although with difficulty, to ask you questions, that I might gradually develope your character, as surrounding circumstances should operate on your feelings. Sometimes, I saw you devoted to me; sometimes, I saw your imagination soaring as it were beyond the bounds prescribed to your person, in search of a remoter object. Why, dear Sibella, are you so pensive? Why do you gaze on that portrait of yourself with so much earnestness? And why do you caress that little fawn, who wears a collar inscribed with the initials—C. M.—till your eyes fill with tears?
Let me be the partaker of your unrestrained emotions; while I, who have a wider range of observation, will place my opinions before you without check or limit. Our next resting place is to be the seat of a nabob: Sir Thomas Barlowe's, amongst whose laboured pleasures I shall wish to return to gloomy Valmont, where I found a felicity of which I have no promise in the scenes I am now destined to partake. Adieu! adieu!
CAROLINE ASHBURN
LETTER IV
FROM SIBELLA VALMONT
TO
CAROLINE ASHBURN
Was I pensive, did I gaze, did I sigh, did I weep, when you Miss Ashburn were with me—what do I know when I have only for companion the faithful, the exquisite, but torturing representation of memory? Can I do more than gaze, and sigh, and weep? O yes, I can: for, Miss Ashburn, I can raise altars on a thousand spots in these woods, which were once hallowed by the footsteps of him I love!
Two years have elapsed since he bade me farewel: therefore did you see me pensive.