Ormond; Or The Secret Witness. Volume 1 (of 3) Read online

  CHAPTER II.

  Thus in a moment was this man thrown from the summit of affluence to thelowest indigence. He had been habituated to independence and ease. Thisreverse, therefore, was the harder to bear. His present situation wasmuch worse than at his father's death. Then he was sanguine with youthand glowing with health. He possessed a fund on which he could commencehis operations. Materials were at hand, and nothing was wanted but skillto use them. Now he had advanced in life. His frame was not exempt frominfirmity. He had so long reposed on the bosom of opulence, and enjoyedthe respect attendant on wealth, that he felt himself totallyincapacitated for a new station. His misfortune had not been foreseen.It was embittered by the consciousness of his own imprudence, and byrecollecting that the serpent which had stung him was nurtured in hisown bosom.

  It was not merely frugal fare and a humble dwelling to which he wascondemned. The evils to be dreaded were beggary and contempt. Luxury andleisure were not merely denied him. He must bend all his efforts toprocure clothing and food, to preserve his family from nakedness andfamine. His spirit would not brook dependence. To live upon charity, orto take advantage of the compassion of his friends, was a destiny farworse than any other. To this therefore he would not consent. Howeverirksome and painful it might prove, he determined to procure hit breadby the labour of his hands.

  But to what scene or kind of employment should he betake himself? Hecould not endure to exhibit this reverse of fortune on the same theatrewhich had witnessed his prosperity. One of his first measures was toremove from New York to Philadelphia. How should he employ himself inhis new abode? Painting, the art in which he was expert, would notafford him the means of subsistence. Though no despicable musician, hedid not esteem himself qualified to be a teacher of this art. Thisprofession, besides, was treated by his new neighbours with general,though unmerited contempt. There were few things on which he pridedhimself more than on the facilities and elegances of his penmanship. Hewas besides well acquainted with arithmetic and accounting. He concludedtherefore to offer his services, as a writer in a public office. Thisemployment demanded little bodily exertion. He had spent much of histime at the book and the desk: his new occupation, therefore, wasfurther recommended by its resemblance to his ancient modes of life.

  The first situation of this kind for which he applied he obtained. Theduties were constant, but not otherwise toilsome or arduous. Theemoluments were slender, but my contracting, within limits as narrow aspossible, his expenses, they could be made subservient to the merepurposes of subsistence. He hired a small house in the suburbs of thecity. It consisted of a room above and below, and a kitchen. His wife,daughter, and one girl, composed its inhabitants.

  As long as his mind was occupied in projecting and executing thesearrangements, it was diverted from uneasy contemplations. When his lifebecame uniform, and day followed day in monotonous succession, and thenovelty of his employment had disappeared, his cheerfulness beganlikewise to fade, and was succeeded by unconquerable melancholy. Hispresent condition was in every respect the contrast of his former. Hisservitude was intolerable. He was associated with sordid hirelings,gross and uneducated, who treated his age with rude familiarity, andinsulted his ears with ribaldry and scurrilous jests. He was subject tocommand, and had his portion of daily drudgery allotted to him, to beperformed for a pittance no more than would buy the bread which he dailyconsumed. The task assigned him was technical and formal. He wasperpetually encumbered with the rubbish of law, and waded with laborioussteps through its endless tautologies, its impertinent circuities, itslying assertions, and hateful artifices. Nothing occurred to relieve ordiversify the scene. It was one tedious round of scrawling and jargon; atissue made up of the shreds and remnants of barbarous antiquity,polluted with the rust of ages, and patched by the stupidity of modernworkmen into new deformity.

  When the day's task was finished, jaded spirits, and a body enfeebled byreluctant application, were but little adapted to domestic enjoyments.These indeed were incompatible with a temper like his, to whom theprivation of the comforts that attended his former condition wasequivalent to the loss of life. These privations were still more painfulto his wife, and her death added one more calamity to those tinder whichhe already groaned. He had always loved her with the tenderestaffection, and he justly regarded this evil as surpassing all his formerwoes.

  But his destiny seemed never weary of persecuting him. It was not enoughthat he should fall a victim to the most atrocious arts, that he shouldwear out his days in solitude and drudgery, that he should feel not onlythe personal restraints and hardships attendant upon indigence, but thekeener pangs that result from negligence and contumely. He wasimperfectly recovered from the shock occasioned by the death of hiswife, when his sight was invaded by a cataract. Its progress was rapid,and terminated in total blindness.

  He was now disabled from pursuing his usual occupation. He was shot outfrom the light of heaven, and debarred of every human comfort. Condemnedto eternal darkness, and worse than the helplessness of infancy, he wasdependant for the meanest offices on the kindness of others; and he whohad formerly abounded in the gifts of fortune, thought only of endinghis days in a gaol or an almshouse.

  His situation however was alleviated by one circumstance. He had adaughter whom I have formerly mentioned, as the only survivor of manychildren. She was sixteen years of age when the storm of adversity fellupon her father's house. It may be thought that one educated as she hadbeen, in the gratification of all her wishes, and at an age of timidityand inexperience, would have been less fitted than her father forencountering misfortune; and yet when the task of comforter fell uponher her strength was not found wanting. Her fortitude was immediatelyput to the test. This reverse did not only affect her obliquely, andthrough the medium of her family, but directly, and in one way usuallyvery distressful to female feelings.

  Her fortune and character had attracted many admirers. One of them hadsome reason to flatter himself with success. Miss Dudley's notions hadlittle in common with those around her. She had learned to square herconduct, in a considerable degree, not by the hasty impulses ofinclination, but by the dictates of truth. She yielded nothing tocaprice or passion. Not that she was perfectly exempt from intervals ofweakness, or from the necessity of painful struggles, but theseintervals were transient, and these struggles always successful. She wasno stranger to the pleadings of love from the lips of others, and in herown bosom; but its tumults were brief, and speedily gave place to quietthoughts and steadfast purposes.

  She had listened to the solicitations of one not unworthy in himself,and amply recommended by the circumstances of family and fortune. He wasyoung, and therefore impetuous. Of the good that he sought, he was notwilling to delay the acquisition for a moment. She had been taught avery different lesson. Marriage included vows of irrevocable affectionand obedience. It was a contract to endure for life. To form thisconnection in extreme youth, before time had unfolded and modelled thecharacters of the parties, was, in her opinion, a proof of perniciousand opprobrious temerity. Not to perceive the propriety of delay in thiscase, or to be regardless of the motives that would enjoin upon us adeliberate procedure, furnished an unanswerable objection to any man'spretensions. She was sensible, however, that this, like other mistakes,was curable. If her arguments failed to remove it, time, it was likely,would effect this purpose. If she rejected a matrimonial proposal forthe present, it was for reasons that might not preclude her futureacceptance of it.

  Her scruples, in the present case, did not relate to the temper orperson, or understanding of her lover; but to his age, to theimperfectness of their acquaintance, and to the want of that permanenceof character, which can flow only from the progress of time andknowledge. These objections, which so rarely exist, were conclusivewith her. There was no danger of her relinquishing them in compliancewith the remonstrances of her parents and the solicitations of herlover; though the one and the other were urged with all the force ofauthority and insinuation. The prescriptions of duty wer
e too clear toallow her to hesitate and waver; but the consciousness of rectitudecould not secure her from temporary vexations.

  Her parents were blemished with some of the frailties of that character.They held themselves entitled to prescribe in this article, but theyforbore to exert their power. They condescended to persuade, but it wasmanifest that they regarded their own conduct as a relaxation of right;and had not the lever's importunities suddenly ceased, it is notpossible to tell how far the happiness of Miss Dudley might have beenendangered. The misfortunes of her father were no sooner publiclyknown, than the youth forbore his visits, and embarked on a voyage whichhe had long projected, but which had been hitherto delayed by a superiorregard to the interests of his passion.

  It must be allowed that the lady had not foreseen this event. She hadexercised her judgment upon his character, and had not been deceived.Before this desertion, had it been clearly stated to her apprehension,she would have readily admitted it to be probable. She knew thefascination of wealth, and the delusiveness of self-confidence. She wassuperior to the folly of supposing him exempt from sinister influences,and deaf to the whispers of ambition; and yet the manner in which shewas affected by this event convinced her that her heart had a largershare than her reason in dictating her expectations.

  Yet it must not be supposed that she suffered any very acute distress onthis account. She was grieved less for her own sake than his. She hadno design of entering into marriage in less than seven years from thisperiod. Not a single hope, relative to her own condition, had beenfrustrated. She had only been mistaken in her favourable conceptions ofanother. He had exhibited less constancy and virtue than her heart hadtaught her to expect.

  With those opinions, she could devote herself with a single heart to thealleviation of her parent's sorrows. This change in her condition shetreated lightly, and retained her cheerfulness unimpaired. This happenedbecause, in a rational estimate, and so far as it affected herself, themisfortune was slight, and because her dejection would only tend toaugment the disconsolateness of her parents, while, on the other hand,her serenity was calculated to infuse the same confidence into them. Sheindulged herself in no fits of exclamation or moodiness. She listenedin silence to their invectives and laments, and seized every opportunitythat offered to inspire them with courage, to set before them the goodas well as the ill to which they were reserved, to suggest expedientsfor improving their condition, and to soften the asperities of his newmode of life, to her father, by every species of blandishment andtenderness.

  She refused no personal exertion to the common benefit. She incited herfather to diligence, as well by her example as by her exhortations;suggested plans, and superintended or assisted in the execution of them.The infirmities of sex and age vanished before the motives to courageand activity, flowing from her new situation. When settled in his newabode and profession, she began to deliberate what conduct was incumbenton herself, how she might participate with her father the burden of thecommon maintenance, and blunt the edge of this calamity by the resourcesof a powerful and cultivated mind.

  In the first place, she disposed of every superfluous garb and trinketShe reduced her wardrobe to the plainest and cheapest establishment. Bythis means alone she supplied her father's necessities with aconsiderable sum. Her music, and even her books were not spared,--notfrom the slight esteem in which these were held by her, but because shewas thenceforth to become an economist of time as well as of money,because musical instruments are not necessary to the practice of thisart in its highest perfection, and because books, when she could procureleisure to read, or money to purchase them, might be obtained in acheaper and more commodious form, than those costly and splendid volumeswith which her father's munificence had formerly supplied her.

  To make her expenses as limited as possible was her next care. For thisend she assumed the province of cook, the washing of house and clothes,and the cleaning of furniture. Their house was small; the familyconsisted of no more than four persons, and all formality andexpensiveness were studiously discarded; but her strength was unequal tounavoidable tasks. A vigorous constitution could not supply the place oflaborious habits, and this part of her plan must have been changed forone less frugal. The aid of a servant must have been hired, if it hadnot been furnished by gratitude.

  Some years before this misfortune, her mother had taken under herprotection a girl, the daughter of a poor woman, who subsisted bylabour, and who dying, left this child without friend or protector.This girl possessed no very improvable capacity, and therefore could notbenefit by the benevolent exertions of her young mistress so much as thelatter desired; but her temper was artless and affectionate, and sheattached herself to Constantia with the most entire devotion. In thischange of fortune she would not consent to be separated; and MissDudley, influenced by her affection for her Lucy, and reflecting that onthe whole it was most to her advantage to share with her at once herkindness and her poverty, retained her as her companion. With this girlshe shared the domestic duties, scrupling not to divide with her themeanest and most rugged, as well as the lightest offices.

  This was not all. She in the next place considered whether her abilityextended no farther than to save. Could she not by the employment of herhands increase the income as well as diminish the expense? Why shouldshe be precluded from all lucrative occupation? She soon came to aresolution. She was mistress of her needle; and this skill she conceivedherself bound to employ for her own subsistence.

  Clothing is one of the necessaries of human existence. The art of thetailor is scarcely less use than that of the tiller of the ground! Thereare few the gains of which are better merited, and less infurious to theprinciples of human society. She resolved therefore to become aworkwoman, and to employ in this way the leisure she possessed fromhousehold avocations. To this scheme she was obliged to reconcile notonly herself but her parents. The conquest of their prejudices was noeasy task, but her patience and skill finally succeeded, and sheprocured needlework in sufficient quantity to enable her to enhance inno trivial degree the common fund.

  It is one thing barely to comply with the urgencies of the case, and todo that which in necessitous circumstances is best. But to conform withgrace and cheerfulness, to yield no place to fruitless recriminationsand repinings, to contract the evils into as small a compass aspossible, and extract from our condition all possible good, is a task ofa different kind.

  Mr. Dudley's situation required from him frugality and diligence. He wasregular and unintermitted in his application to his pen. He was frugal.His slender income was administered agreeably to the maxims of hisdaughter: but he was unhappy. He experienced in its full extent thebitterness of disappointment.

  He gave himself up for the most part to a listless melancholy. Sometimeshis impatience would produce effects less excusable, and conjure up anaccusing and irascible spirit. His wife, and even his daughter, he wouldmake the objects of peevish and absurd reproaches. These were momentswhen her heart drooped indeed, and her tears could not be restrainedfrom flowing. These fits were transitory and rare, and when they hadpassed, the father seldom failed to mingle tokens of contrition andrepentance with the tears of his daughter. Her arguments and soothingswere seldom disappointed of success. Her mother's disposition was softand pliant, but she could not accommodate herself to the necessity ofher husband's affairs. She was obliged to endure the want of someindulgences, but she reserved to herself the liberty of complaining, andto subdue this spirit in her was found utterly impracticable. She died avictim to discontent.

  This event deepened the gloom that shrouded the soul of her father, andrendered the task of consolation still more difficult. She did notdespair. Her sweetness and patience was invincible by any thing that hadalready happened, but her fortitude did not exceed the standard ofhuman nature. Evils now began to menace her, to which it is likely shewould have yielded, had not their approach been intercepted by an evilof a different kind.

  The pressure of grief is sometimes such as to prompt us to seek a re
fugein voluntary death. We must lay aside the burden which we cannotsustain. If thought degenerate into a vehicle of pain, what remains butto destroy that vehicle? For this end, death is the obvious, but not theonly, or morally speaking, the worst means. There is one method ofobtaining the bliss of forgetfulness, in comparison with which suicideis innocent.

  The strongest mind is swayed by circumstances. There is no firmness ofintegrity, perhaps able to repel every species of temptation, which isproduced by the present constitution of human affairs, and yettemptation is successful, chiefly by virtue of its gradual andinvisible approaches. We rush into danger, because we are not aware ofits existence, and have not therefore provided the means of safety, andthe daemon that seizes us is hourly reinforced by habit. Our oppositiongrows fainter in proportion as our adversary acquires new strength, andthe man becomes enslaved by the most sordid vices, whose fall would, ata former period, have been deemed impossible, or who would have beenimagined liable to any species of depravity, more than to this.

  Mr. Dudley's education had entailed upon him many errors, yet who wouldhave supposed it possible for him to be enslaved by a depraved appetite;to be enamoured of low debauchery, and to grasp at the happiness thatintoxication had to bestow? This was a mournful period in Constantia'shistory. My feelings will not suffer me to dwell upon it. I cannotdescribe the manner in which she was affected by the first symptoms ofthis depravity, the struggles which she made to counteract this dreadfulinfatuation, and the grief which she experienced from the repeatedmiscarriage of her efforts. I will not detail her various expedients forthis end, the appeals which she made to his understanding, to his senseof honour and dread of infamy, to the gratitude to which she wasentitled, and to the injunctions of parental duty. I will not detail hisfits of remorse, his fruitless penitence end continual relapses, nordepict the heart-breaking scenes of uproar, and violence, and fouldisgrace that accompanied his paroxysms of drunkenness.

  The only intellectual amusement which this lady allowed herself waswriting. She enjoyed one distant friend, with whom she maintained anuninterrupted correspondence, and to whom she confided a circumstantialand copious relation of all these particulars. That friend is the writerof these memoirs. It is not impossible but that these letters may becommunicated to the world, at some future period. The picture which theyexhibit is hourly exemplified and realized, though in the many-colouredscenes of human life none surpasses it in disastrousness and horror. Myeyes almost wept themselves dry over this part of her tale.

  In this state of things Mr. Dudley's blindness might justly beaccounted, even in its immediate effects, a fortunate event. Itdissolved the spell by which he was bound, and which it is probablewould never have been otherwise broken. It restored him to himself, andshowed him, with a distinctness which made him shudder, the gulf towhich he was hastening. But nothing can compensate to the sufferers theevils of blindness. It was the business of Constantia's life toalleviate those sufferings, to cherish and console her father, and torescue him by the labour of her hands from dependence on publiccharity. For this end, her industry and solicitude were never at rest.She was able, by that industry, to provide him and herself withnecessaries. Their portion was scanty, and if it sometimes exceeded thestandard of their wants, not less frequently fell short of it. For allher toils and disquietudes she esteemed herself fully compensated by thesmiles of her father. He indeed could seldom be prompted to smile, or tosuppress the dictates of that despair which flowed from his sense ofthis new calamity, and the aggravations of hardship which his recentinsobrieties had occasioned to his daughter.

  She purchased what books her scanty stock would allow, and borrowedothers. These she read to him when her engagements would permit. Atother times she was accustomed to solace herself with her own music. Thelute which her father had purchased in Italy, and which had beendisposed of among the rest of his effects, at public sale, had beengratuitously restored to him by the purchaser, on condition of hisretaining it in his possession. His blindness and inoccupation now brokethe long silence to which this instrument had been condemned, andafforded an accompaniment to the young lady's voice.

  Her chief employment was conversation. She resorted to this as the bestmeans of breaking the monotony of the scene; but this purpose was notonly accomplished, but other benefits of the highest value accrued fromit. The habits of a painter eminently tended to vivify and make exacther father's conceptions and delineations of visible objects. The sphereof his youthful observation comprised more ingredients of thepicturesque than any other sphere. The most precious materials of themoral history of mankind are derived from the revolutions of Italy.Italian features and landscape constitute the chosen field of theartists. No one had more carefully explored this field than Mr. Dudley.His time, when abroad, had been divided between residence at Rome, andexcursions to Calabria and Tuscany. Few impressions were effaced fromhis capacious register, and these were now rendered by his eloquencenearly as conspicuous to his companion as to himself.

  She was imbued with an ardent thirst of knowledge, and by the acutenessof her remarks, and the judiciousness of her inquiries, reflected backupon his understanding as much improvement as she received. Theseefforts to render his calamity tolerable, and inure him to the profitingby his own resources, were aided by time, and when reconciled by habitto unrespited gloom, he was sometimes visited by gleams of cheerfulness,and drew advantageous comparisons between his present and formersituation. A stillness, not unakin to happiness, frequently diffuseditself over their winter evenings. Constantia enjoyed in their fullextent the felicities of health and self approbation. The genius andeloquence of her father, nourished by perpetual exercise, and undivertedfrom its purpose by the intrusion of visible objects, frequentlyafforded her a delight in comparison with which all other pleasures weremean.