The Works of Charlotte Smith, Part I Vol 4

Stuart Curran

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000749267
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literatura
• Subtopic: Literatura general

Reveals the extent to which Charlotte Turner Smith's work constitutes as significant an achievement as her poetry, representing the turbulent decade of the 1790s on its social and political, as well as literary, planes with an unparalleled richness of detail and an unblinkered vision.

CELESTINA.

A NOVEL.

IN FOUR VOLUMES.

By CHARLOTTE SMITH.

VOL. I.

SECOND EDITION.

LONDON:
PRINTED FOR T. CADELL, IN THE STRAND.
M.DCC.XCI.

CELESTINA.

CHAPTER I.

MRS. WILLOUGHBY was, at the age of thirty, left a widow with a son and a daughter, of whom she was extremely fond, and to whose education she entirely devoted herself. George Willoughby, her son, had been placed at Eton by his father, but attended by a private tutor, a man of sense and learning, who was distantly related to their family. When he was about thirteen, a fever, from which he narrowly escaped, so injured his constitution, that his mother was directed by his physicians to take him to the South of Europe. Thither she and her daughter, with Mr. Everard, accompanied him. A few months completely restored his health; and they then went all together to Geneva; where, after a short residence, she left her son to pursue his studies under the care of Mr. Everard; and with her daughter Matilda, then near eight years old, she fixed herself for some time at Hieres, on the coast of Provence; a town with whose beauty she had been much struck four or five years before, when, to divert her concern for the loss of her husband, she had made a tour of some months through France and Italy.

Matilda was placed in a convent, for the purposes of instruction; and there she became the playfellow of a little girl almost three years younger, who was known among the Nuns by the name of la petite Celestine. The fondness which soon subsisted between her and Matilda introduced her of course to Mrs. Willoughby, who was at first sight charmed with her beauty, and after a few interviews, so delighted with her infantine caresses that she became as anxious to see her every day as she was to see her own child. Her countenance, with that blooming delicacy which the French distinguish by calling it ‘le vrai teint Anglois,’¹ had all that animation which is more usually found among the natives of the south of Europe; yet this spirited expression often melted into softness so insinuating, that it was difficult to say whether pensive tenderness or sparkling vivacity was the most predominant; or whether it was the loveliness of her little form and face, or the enchantment of her manners, which made her so very attractive, that the very servants who saw her with Matilda became so fond of her, as never to carry her back to the convent, after a visit to their lady, but with reluctance and regret.

The Nuns, however, with whom she lived, seemed, either from seeing her constantly, or for want of taste, to be quite insensible of perfections which won every other heart. They treated her sometimes with harshness, and always with indifference; so that to be with Mrs. Willoughby soon became the greatest happiness the little Celestina could enjoy. Mrs. Willoughby found an equal pleasure in returning her affection; and was sometimes moved even to tears, when happening to caress Matilda, the other amiable child would approach as if to share her tenderness, take her hand, look innocently in her face, and say with a sigh, ‘Helas! que n’ai je aussi une Maman.^*!’

* Alas! why have not I a Mama too.^a

These artless expressions, and the coldness with which the sisterhood treated their infant pensioner, raised in Mrs. Willoughby a great desire to know to whom the child belonged: but every attempt to gain information was at first repressed by so much reserve, that she almost despaired of being gratified. At length however she received a hint, that by the skilful application of means equally potent in Courts or Convents,² she might learn all the Nuns knew; and in consequence of pursuing this hint, she was informed, that the last Superior of the house, who had been dead two years, had received Celestina into it when only a few months old, as a child whose birth it was of the utmost consequence to conceal: that only the Superior herself, and her Confessor, who was also dead, had ever known to whom she belonged; every trace of which secret had by them been so carefully obliterated, that after the decease of both every attempt at discovery had been ineffectual. It was believed that a considerable sum of money had been received as the price of secrecy, and as a provision for the child; but it had never been carried to account, or any part of it appropriated to the use of the community in general, who now consequently murmured at the necessity they were under, as they said, par charité et pour lamour de Dieu,^† to support la petite Celestine for life: but they added, that as soon as she was old enough to take the vows, she must become a Nun, and fill one of the inferior offices of the convent, since she had no friends or money to pay for being on a higher footing.

† Through charity, and for the love of God.

The pity excited by this account, added to the sensibility with which, infant as she was, she felt her own situation; her tender attachment to her benefactress, and to Matilda, and the sense and sweetness visible in all she said and did, procured for her, in the tender and generous heart of Mrs. Willoughby, an interest little short of what she felt for Matilda herself. Every hour increased this interest; till after a stay of eighteen months at Hieres, during which she had seen her almost every day, she found, in reflecting on her departure, that she should be really unhappy the rest of her life, if she returned to England, and left this amiable child to a fate so melancholy in itself, and so unworthy of the promise of perfection given by her infancy. Having once entertained the idea of taking her to England, it soon became too pleasing to be relinquished. There were however great difficulties in the way. Though the community complained of Celestina as a burthen to them, they made, as they declared, a point of conscience, not to part with her to an heretic; and the more solicitous Mrs. Willoughby became, the more they declaimed against the sin it would be, to hazard the soul of la petite Celestine for the sake of any worldly advantage. While the matter was yet in debate, George Willoughby and Mr. Everard, who had been sent for, that the whole family might return to England together, arrived; and the latter finding how much Mrs. Willoughby desired to become the sole protectress of the little orphan, prevailed with Father Angelo, the present confessor, to remove at once all the scruples he had been instrumental in raising: in a word, Mr. Everard used the argument to which Monks, in despite of their professions of poverty, are not more insensible than the rest of mankind; and Mrs. Willoughby having left a certificate of her having taken Celestina out of the convent, a promise to educate her without influencing her to change her religion, and to provide for her, together with a direction where she might, in case of enquiry, be found, was permitted to carry with her, from Hieres, the lovely little French girl, who was from that hour put on an equal footing with her own daughter, and whom she seemed as tenderly to love.

After an absence of between three and four years, Mrs. Willoughby and her family returned to England; where to all her friends who were generally struck with the beauty and elegance of her adopted child, she related, without reserve, the little history of their accidental attachment.

George Willoughby, now in his seventeenth year, was sent to Cambridge: his tutor retired to a small living, which had fallen near his estate in the West of England, since his absence, and to which his mother, as patroness in his minority, had presented this excellent and amiable man.

Mrs. Willoughby usually passed the winters in London; where masters of music, drawing, dancing and languages, attended her two girls, for so she equally termed Matilda and her little friend: – their summers were divided between public places and Alstone (or Alvestone, as it was spelt,) an estate between Sidmouth and Exeter, of which her husband had been so fond, that he had hurt his fortune by the large sums he had expended on its improvement. This attachment George seemed to inherit; and in compliment to him his mother always passed the vacations there: Willoughby himself having no pleasure so great as in talking and thinking of the happiness he should enjoy, when he should become master of Alstone, and see his mother and sister, of whom he was extremely fond, settled there with him for the greatest part of every year. Mrs. Willoughby, whose love for him might have been said to border on weakness, if it had been possible to discover any excess in the attachment of a mother to a son so uncommonly deserving, had always encouraged the inclination he had from his infancy betrayed for this his paternal seat: though his little projects often gave her pain; for she knew, what she had with more tenderness than prudence studiously concealed from him, that his father’s affairs were at his death so much embarrassed, as to render it doubtful whether a minority of near thirteen years would so far clear his estates, as to enable him at the end of that period to reside in this favourite place, with the splendour and hospitality for which his ancestors had for centuries been eminent. The last Mr. Willoughby had indeed continued the same line of conduct in the country; but his manner of living in town had been quite unlike that of his prudent and plainer ancestors; who had but just recovered his estate, when it was transmitted to him, from the injuries it had received by their adherence to Charles the First; during whose unfortunate reign they had sold some part of their extensive possessions, and had been plundered of more.³ His grandfather and great grandfather had nearly retrieved the whole of the estate round Alvestone, where they piqued themselves on losing none of the family consequence; but the manners of the times in which he lived, and a disposition extremely gay and volatile, had led the last possessor into expences, which, if they did, not oblige him to sell, had obliged him to mortgage great part of this, as well as all his other estates; and being charged at his death with twelve hundred a year to his widow, and the interest of ten thousand pounds given to his daughter, they slowly and with difficulty produced, under the management of very careful executors, little more than sufficient to pay such charges, and the interest of the money for which they were mortgaged.

Mrs. Willoughby however was unwilling to interrupt the felicity of her son’s happiest hours, by representing to him a dreary prospect of the future; especially as she thought that future might, as it advanced, become brighter; and that it was possible all his gay visions might be realized. He had a great uncle, far advanced in life, and very rich, who, though the late Mr. Willoughby had disobliged him, might, she thought, through mere family pride, give to the son, what he had often declared the father should never possess. Her brother, Lord Castlenorth, was the last male of his illustrious race: he had only a daughter; and an increase of his family becoming every day more improbable, he had concerted with his sister, even while George (who was younger than his daughter) was yet a child, how the family might be restored by a union of its two remaining branches.

The good sense of Mrs. Willoughby had not entirely saved her from family pride; and this project, which the situation of her son’s fortune rendered doubly desirable, had by degrees taken such possession of her mind, that nothing would have made her more unhappy, than suspecting it might not take effect. After her return with her family from France, she had an interview with her brother, Lord Castlenorth, who was then in England (though his health occasioned him for the most part to reside abroad), and it was then agreed with him, or rather with Lady Castlenorth, whose will was his law, that if the young people liked each other, of which they hardly suffered themselves to doubt, the match should take place as soon as young Willoughby became of age, who was then to assume the name of Fitz-Hayman, and in whose favour, when united with the sole heiress of the family, there was little doubt of procuring the succession to the title. Willoughby, who was yet ignorant of this proposed arrangement, had accompanied his mother in her visit: but far from feeling any partiality for his cousin, he had hardly taken any notice of her, and had passed all those hours when common civility did not oblige him to attend the family, in wandering with his tutor over the extensive domain belonging to his Lordship’s magnificent seat. He seemed indeed much more sensible of the charms of Castlenorth, which was the name of his uncle’s house, from whence the title was derived, than pleased with either its present or its future possessor. Mr. Everard, who anxiously watched every emotion of his mind, saw this, and he saw too that his pupil was of a temper which would ill bear to be dictated to in a point so nearly connected with his own happiness. He prevailed therefore, with some difficulty, on Mrs. Willoughby, not to explain her views till nearer the period when she meant they should be perfected; and they left Castlenorth without Willoughby’s having the smallest suspicion of them, or carrying away any other idea of his cousin, than that she was a tall, fat, formal brown girl, whom he soon forgot and never desired to remember. His uncle’s complaints and quack medicines – his long lectures on genealogy and heraldry – had tired him; and Lady Castlenorth’s dictatorial manners offended and disgusted him. He told Mr. Everard, that the only hour in which he had felt any pleasure during his abode at their house, was that in which his mother fixed the time of departing for her own. Thither he returned with redoubled delight, after the restraint he had felt himself under at Castlenorth; for there lay all his plans of future felicity, and there were Matilda and Celestina, his two sisters, as he always called them, who seemed equally dear to him.

In a few months he went to Cambridge; and Mr. Everard, who afterwards saw him only for a few days in the year, had no longer the same opportunities of judging of his sentiments. He still however had interest enough with Mrs. Willoughby, to prevail on her to delay any intimation of the intended alliance. Lord Castlenorth, his lady, and daughter, were now in Italy, and were to remain there till within six months of the time fixed among themselves for the marriage of the latter: but above a twelvemonth before the arrival of the former period, Mr. Everard died. Mrs. Willoughby and her family lost in him the sincerest friend and most capable monitor: a loss which greatly affected Willoughby, as well as his mother, who sent for her son from Cambridge on that melancholy occasion. Thither he had hardly returned, before the uncle of his father, on whom he had great dependance, and who had not long before taken him into his favour, and promised to make him his heir, died without, having altered his will, and endowed an hospital with the estate which he had really meant to give his nephew, had not death overtaken him before he could conquer his habitual indolence, aggravated by the feebleness and imbecility of eighty-seven.

This disappointment was severely felt by Mrs. Willoughby, who apprehended that not only the immediate but the contingent interest of her son might be deeply affected by it: she doubted whether it would not change the intentions of her brother in his favor; but after some weeks of uneasy suspense, she received assurances from Italy that those his intentions and wishes were still the same.

Mrs. Willoughby, though re-assured in this respect, was still in very low spirits, and felt every hour, with encreasing severity, the loss she had sustained in such a friend as Mr. Everard, whom she lamented indeed publicly, but still more bitterly in private. Her constitution, naturally very delicate, began to decline under the sorrow which oppressed her. Matilda, then about sixteen, was the only person about her who seemed insensible of the alteration which now made a slow but very evident progress in her looks and manner. Her countenance was still pleasing and interesting, but very languid: her eyes had lost their fire; and she grew very thin. Her amiable manners remained; but all her vivacity in conversation was fled. She no longer enjoyed society, of which she had been so fond: but she still went into company, because Matilda, now of an age to enter into all the gaieties of high life, did indeed engage in them with an avidity which her mother was too indulgent to repress, though she could not approve it. Sometimes however she suffered so much from crouded rooms and late hours, that though she did not even then complain, her physicians insisted on her forbearing so continually to hazard her health. Matilda, who was very uneasy if long kept from company, was then put under the care of some of her mother’s friends, and the task of attending on her beloved benefactress fell entirely to the lot of Celestina, who was never so happy as when employed in it, and who now having just completed her fourteenth year, surpassed, in the perfections both of person and mind, all that Mrs. Willoughby, partial as she had always been to he...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• CONTENTS
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• References and Further Reading
• Celestina
• Explanatory Notes
• Textual Notes