Edgar Huntly, or The Sleep Walker/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV.
"You call upon me for a confession of my offences.—What a strange fortune is mine! That a human being, in the present circumstances, should make this demand, and that I should be driven by an irresistible necessity to comply with it!—that here should terminate my calamitous series!—that my destiny should call upon me to lie down and die, in a region so remote from the scene of my crimes—at a distance so great from all that witnessed and endured their consequences!
"You believe me to be an assassin—you require me to explain the motives that induced me to murder the innocent! While this is your belief, and this the scope of your expectations, you may be sure of my compliance: I could resist every demand but this.
"For what purpose have I come hither? Is it to relate my story? Shall I calmly sit here and rehearse the incidents of my life? Will my strength be adequate to this rehearsal? Let me recollect the motives that governed me when I formed this design: perhaps a strenuousness may be imparted by them, which otherwise I cannot hope to obtain. For the sake of those, I consent to conjure up the ghost of the past, and to begin a tale that, with a fortitude like mine, I am not sure that I shall live to finish.
"You are unacquainted with the man before you: the inferences which you have drawn with regard to my designs and my conduct, are a tissue of destructive errors. You, like others, are blind to the most momentous consequences of your own actions; you talk of imparting consolation—you boast the beneficence of your intentions—you set yourself to do me a benefit.—What are the effects of your misguided zeal and random efforts? They have brought my life to a miserable close; they have shrouded the last scene of it in blood; they have put the seal to my perdition.
"My misery has been greater than has fallen to the lot of mortals; yet it is but beginning: my present path, full as it is of asperities, is better than that into which I must enter when this is abandoned. Perhaps if my pilgrimage had been longer, I might at some future day have lighted upon hope; in consequence of your interference, I am for ever debarred from it: my existence is henceforward to be invariable; the woes that are reserved for me are incapable alike of alleviation or intermission.
"But I came not hither to recriminate—I came not hither to accuse others, but myself. I know the retribution that is appointed for guilt like mine: it is just. I may shudder at the foresight of my punishment, and shrink in the endurance of it; but I shall be indebted for part of my torment to the vigour of my understanding, which teaches me that my punishment is just. Why should I procrastinate my doom, and strive to render my burden more light? It is but just that it should crush me. Its procrastination is impossible; the stroke is already felt—even now I drink of the cup of retribution: a change of being cannot aggravate my woe; till consciousness itself be extinct, the worm that gnaws me will never perish.
"Fain would I be relieved from this task; gladly would I bury in oblivion the transactions of my life: but no. My fate is uniform: the demon that controlled me at first is still in the fruition of power; I am entangled in his fold, and every effort that I make to escape only involves me in deeper ruin. I need not conceal, for all the consequences of disclosure are already experienced: I cannot endure a groundless imputation, though to free me from it I must create and justify imputations still more atrocious. My story may at least be brief: if the agonies of remembrance must be awakened afresh, let me do all that in me lies to shorten them.
"I was born in the county of Armagh. My parents were of the better sort of peasants, and were able to provide me with the rudiments of knowledge. I should doubtless have trodden in their footsteps, and have spent my life in the cultivation of their scanty fields, if an event had not happened, which, for a long time, I regarded as the most fortunate of my life; but which I now consider as the scheme of some infernal agent, and as the primary source of all my calamities.
"My father's farm was a portion of the demesne of one who resided wholly in the metropolis, and consigned the management of his estates to his stewards and retainers. This person married a lady who brought him great accession of fortune. Her wealth was her only recommendation in the eyes of her husband, whose understanding was depraved by the prejudices of luxury and rank, but was the least of her attractions in the estimate of reasonable beings.
"They passed some years together. If their union were not a source of misery to the lady, she was indebted for her tranquillity to the force of her mind: she was, indeed, governed in every action of her life by the precepts of duty; while her husband listened to no calls but those of pernicious dissipation: he was immersed in all the vices that grow out of opulence and a mistaken education.
"Happily for his wife, his career was short. He was enraged at the infidelity of his mistress, to purchase whose attachment he had lavished two thirds of his fortune: he called the paramour by whom he had been supplanted, to the field; the contest was obstinate, and terminated in the death of the challenger.
"This event freed the lady from many distressful and humiliating obligations. She determined to profit by her newly acquired independence—to live thenceforward conformable to her notions of right—to preserve and improve, by schemes of economy, the remains of her fortune, and to employ it in the diffusion of good. Her plans made it necessary to visit her estates in the distant provinces.
"During her abode in the manor of which my father was a vassal, she visited his cottage. I was at that time a child: she was pleased with my vivacity and promptitude, and determined to take me under her own protection. My parents joyfully acceded to her proposal; and I returned with her to the capital.
"She had an only son, of my own age. Her design, in relation to me, was, that I should be educated with her child; and that an affection, in this way, might be excited in me towards my young master, which might render me, when we should attain to manhood, one of his most faithful and intelligent dependants. I enjoyed, equally with him, all the essential benefits of education: there were certain accomplishments from which I was excluded, from the belief that they were unsuitable to my rank and station; I was permitted to acquire others, which, had she been actuated by true discernment, she would perhaps have discovered to be far more incompatible with a servile station. In proportion as my views were refined and enlarged by history and science, I was likely to contract a thirst of independence, and an impatience of subjection and poverty.
"When the period of childhood and youth was past, it was thought proper to send her son to improve his knowledge and manners by a residence on the Continent. This young man was endowed with splendid abilities; his errors were the growth of his condition: all the expedients that maternal solicitude and wisdom could suggest were employed to render him an useful citizen. Perhaps this wisdom was attested by the large share of excellence which he really possessed; and that his character was not unblemished, proved only that no exertions could preserve him from the vices that are inherent in wealth and rank, and which flow from the spectacle of universal depravity.
"As to me, it would be folly to deny that I had benefited by my opportunities of improvement. I fulfilled the expectation of my mistress in one respect—I was deeply imbued with affection for her son, and reverence for herself. Perhaps the force of education was evinced in those particulars, without reflecting any credit on the directors of it; those might merit the name of defects which were regarded by them as accomplishments: my unfavourable qualities, like those of my master, were imputed to my condition; though, perhaps, the difference was advantageous to me, since the vices of servitude are less hateful than those of tyranny.
"It was resolved that I should accompany my master in his travels, in quality of favourite domestic. My principles, whatever might be their rectitude, were harmonious and flexible: I had devoted my life to the service of my patron; I had formed conceptions of what was really conducive to his interest, and was not to be misled by specious appearances. If my affection had not stimulated my diligence, I should have found sufficient motives in the behaviour of his mother: she condescended to express her reliance on my integrity and judgment; she was not ashamed to manifest at parting the tenderness of a mother, and to acknowledge that all her tears were not shed on her son's account. I had my part in the regrets that called them forth.
"During our absence, I was my master's constant attendant. I corresponded with his mother, and made the conduct of her son the principal theme of my letters. I deemed it my privilege, as well as duty, to sit in judgment on his actions, to form my opinions without regard to selfish considerations, and to avow them whenever the avowal tended to benefit. Every letter which I wrote, particularly those in which his behaviour was freely criticised, I allowed him to peruse. I would on no account connive at or participate in the slightest irregularity; I knew the duty of my station, and assumed no other control: than that which resulted from the avoiding of deceit, and the open expression of my sentiments. The youth was of a noble spirit, but his firmness was wavering: he yielded to temptations which a censor less rigorous than I would have regarded as venial, or perhaps laudable. My duty required me to set before him the consequences of his actions, and to give impartial and timely information to his mother.
"He could not brook a monitor: the more he needed reproof, the less supportable it became. My company grew every day less agreeable, till at length there appeared a necessity of parting. A separation took place, but not as enemies; I never lost his respect: in his representations to his mother, he was just to my character and services. My dismission was not allowed to injure my fortune; and his mother considered this event merely as a new proof of the inflexible consistency of my principles.
"On this change in my situation, she proposed to me to become a member of her own family. No proposal could be more acceptable: I was fully acquainted with the character of this lady, and had nothing to fear from injustice and caprice: I did not regard her with filial familiarity; but my attachment and reverence would have done honour to that relation. I performed for her the functions of a steward; her estates in the city were put under my direction. She placed boundless confidence in, my discretion and integrity, and consigned to me the payment, and in some degree the selection and government, of her servants. My station was a servile one; yet most of the evils of servitude were unknown to me: my personal ease and independence were less infringed than that of those who are accounted the freest members of society. I derived a sort of authority and dignity from the receipt and disbursement of money: the tenants and debtors of the lady were, in some respects, mine; it was, for the most part, on my justice and lenity that they depended for their treatment. My lady's household establishment was large and opulent: her servants were my inferiors and menials. My leisure was considerable, and my emoluments large enough to supply me with every valuable instrument of improvement or pleasure.
"These were reasons why I should be contented with my lot; these circumstances alone would have rendered it more eligible than any other: but it had additional and far more powerful recommendations, arising from the character of Mrs. Lorimer, and from the relation in which she allowed me to stand to her.
"How shall I enter upon this theme? How shall I expatiate upon excellencies which it was my fate to view in their genuine colours, to adore with an immeasurable and inextinguishable ardour, and which, nevertheless, it was my hateful task to blast and destroy? Yet I will not be spared: I shall find in the rehearsal new incitements to sorrow: I deserve to be supreme in misery, and will not be denied the full measure of a bitter retribution.
"No one was better qualified to judge of her excellencies. A casual spectator might admire her beauty, and the dignity of her demeanour: from the contemplation of those, he might gather motives for loving or revering her. Age was far from having withered her complexion, or destroyed the evenness of her skin; but no time could rob her of the sweetness and intelligence which animated her features. Her habitual beneficence was bespoken in every look: always in search of occasions for doing good, always meditating scenes of happiness, of which she was the author; or of distress, for which she was preparing relief, the most torpid insensibility was for a time subdued, and the most depraved smitten by charms of which, in another person, they would not perhaps have been sensible.
"A casual visitant might enjoy her conversation, might applaud the rectitude of her sentiments, the richness of her elocution, and her skill in all the offices of politeness; but it was only for him who dwelt constantly under the same roof, to mark the inviolable consistency of her actions and opinions, the ceaseless flow of her candour, her cheerfulness, and her benevolence; it was only for one who witnessed her behaviour at all hours, in sickness and in health, her management of that great instrument of evil and good—money; her treatment of her son, her menials, and her kindred, rightly to estimate her merits.
"The intercourse between us was frequent, but of a peculiar kind. My office in her family required me often to see her, to submit schemes to her consideration, and receive her directions. At these times she treated me in a manner in some degree adapted to the difference of rank, and the inferiority of my station, and yet widely dissimilar from that which a different person would have adopted in the same circumstances: the treatment was not that of an equal and a friend, but still more remote was it from that of a mistress: it was merely characterised by affability and condescension; but as such it had no limits.
"She made no scruple to ask my counsel in every pecuniary affair, to listen to my arguments, and decide conformably to what, after sufficient canvassings and discussions, should appear to be right. When the direct occasions of our interview were dismissed, I did not of course withdraw: to detain or dismiss me was indeed at her option; but, if no engagement interfered, she would enter into general conversation. There was none who could, with more safety to herself, have made the world her confessor; but the state of society in which she lived, imposed certain limitations on her candour. In her intercourse with me, there were fewer restraints than on any other occasion: my situation had made me more intimately acquainted with domestic transactions, with her views respecting her son, and with the terms on which she thought proper to stand with those whom old acquaintance or kindred gave some title to her good offices. In addition to all those motives to a candid treatment of me, there were others which owed their efficacy to her maternal regard for me, and to the artless and unsuspecting generosity of her character.
"Her hours were distributed with the utmost regularity, and appropriated to the best purposes. She selected her society without regard to any qualities but probity and talents: her associates were numerous; and her evening conversations embellished with all that could charm the senses, or instruct the understanding. This was a chosen field for the display of her magnificence; but her grandeur was without ostentation, and her gravity unmingled with haughtiness.
"From these my station excluded me; but I was compensated by the freedom of her communications in the intervals. She found pleasure in detailing to me the incidents that passed on these occasions, in rehearsing conversations, and depicting characters. There was an uncommon portion of dramatic merit in her recitals, besides valuable and curious information.
"One uniform effect was produced in me by this behaviour: each day I thought it impossible for my attachment and to receive any new accessions; yet the morrow was sure to produce some new emotion of respect or of gratitude, and to set the unrivalled accomplishments of this lady in a new and more favourable point of view. I contemplated no change in my condition: the necessity of change, whatever were the alternative, would have been a subject of piercing regret: I deemed my life a cheap sacrifice in her cause; no time would suffice to discharge the debt of gratitude that was due to her; yet it was continually accumulating. If an anxious thought ever invaded my bosom, it arose from this source.
"It was no difficult task faithfully to execute the functions assigned to me. No merit could accrue to me from this source: I was exposed to no temptation; I had passed the feverish period of youth: no contagious example had contaminated my principles; I had resisted the allurements of sensuality and dissipation incident to my age. My dwelling was in pomp and splendour: I had amassed sufficient to secure me, in case of unforeseen accidents, in the enjoyment of competence. My mental resources were not despicable; and the external means of intellectual gratification were boundless. I enjoyed an unsullied reputation; my character was well known in that sphere which my lady occupied, not only by means of her favourable report, but in numberless ways in which it was my fortune to perform personal services to others."