The Recess

Sophia Lee

• Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780813189956
• Topic: Literatura
• Subtopic: Literatura general

First published in an era when most novels about young women concentrated on courtship and ended with marriage, The Recess daringly portrays women involved in political intrigues, overseas journeys, and even warfare. The novel is set during the reign of Elizabeth I and features as narrators twin daughters of Mary, Queen of Scots, by a secret marriage. One of the earliest Gothic novels, The Recess pioneered the genre of historical fiction. The novel was also one of the first to describe characters and events from conflicting points of view and was wildly popular in its day.

THE

RECESS, &c.

PART I

TO

ADELAIDE MARIE DE MONTMORENCI.⁶

After a long and painful journey through life, with a heart exhausted by afflictions, and eyes which can no longer supply tears to lament them, I turn my every thought toward that grave on the verge of which I hover. Oh! why then, too generous friend, require me to live over my misfortunes? Such has been the peculiarity of my fate, that though tortured with the possession and the loss of every tye and hope that exalts or endears humanity, let but this feeble frame be covered with the dust from which it sprung, and no trace of my ever having existed would remain, except in the wounded consciences of those who marked me out a solitary victim to the crimes of my progenitors: For surely I could never merit by my own the misery of living as I have done—of dying as I must do.

Alas! your partial affection demands a memorial which calls back to being all the sad images buried in my bosom, and opens anew every vein of my heart. Yet consummate misery has a moral use, and if ever these sheets reach the publick, let the repiner at little evils learn to be juster to his God and himself, by unavoidable comparison. But am I not assuming an insolent consequence in thus admonishing? Alas, it is the dear-bought privilege of the unfortunate to be tedious!

My life commenced with an incident so extraordinary as the following facts alone could incline any one to credit. As soon as capable of reflection, I found myself and a sister of my own age, in an apartment with a lady, and a maid older than herself.—Every day furnished us with whatever was necessary for subsistence or improvement, supplied as it seemed by some invisible hand; for I rarely missed either of the few who commonly surrounded me. This Recess could not be called a cave, because it was composed of various rooms; and the stones were obviously united by labor; yet every room was distinct, and divided from the rest by a vaulted passage with many stairs, while our light proceeded from small casements of painted glass, so infinitely above our reach that we could never seek a world beyond; and so dim, that the beams of the sun were almost a new object to us when we quitted this retirement. These remarks occurred as our minds unfolded; for at first we were content, through habit and ignorance, nor once bestowed a thought on surrounding objects. The lady I have mentioned called us her children, and caressed us both with parental fondness.—Blest with every gentle charm, it is not wonderful she fully possessed the affection of those who had no one else to idolize. Every morning we met in a larger room than the rest, where a very venerable man performed mass, and concluded with a discourse calculated to endear retirement. From him we learnt there was a terrible large place called the world, where a few haughty individuals commanded miserable millions, whom a few artful ones made so; that Providence had graciously rescued us from both, nor could we ever be sufficiently grateful. Young hearts teem with unformed ideas, and are but too susceptible of elevated and enthusiastic impressions. Time gave this man insensibly an influence over us, as a superior being; to which his appearance greatly contributed. Imagine a tall and robust figure habited in black, and marked by a commanding austerity of manners.—His features bore the traces of many sorrows, and a kind of early old age, which interested every observer. The fire and nobility of his eye, the gracefulness of his decay, and the heart-affecting solemnity of his voice,

While on his reverend temples grew
The blossoms of the grave,⁷

gave an authority almost irresistible to Father Anthony, as we called him from hearing our mamma, to whom we understood he was brother. He usually partook our dinner, and from that time ’till the next morning vanished, for we knew not how or where he went. The interval we passed in little useful works, or in conversation with our mamma, whose only employment was that of forming our minds, for the world we were taught to dread.—She was our world, and all the tender affections, of which I have since proved my heart so full, centred in her, and my sister. Time and sorrow had given a wan delicacy to features exquisitely regular, while the soft symmetry of her person united to every common idea of beauty and elegance a feminine helplessness, which is, when unaffected, the most interesting of all charms. Her temper was equal, and her understanding enriched by a most extensive knowledge, to which she was every day adding by perpetual study. Inclined strongly by nature to serious reflection, and all her favorite employments, I used to pass those hours at her side Ellinor devoted to her play-things, or to Alice, whose memory was overcharged with those marvellous tales children always delight in. As our ideas every day expanded, we thought more and more concerning our origin, and our imprisonment. We knew Father Anthony constantly disappeared, but how or where was a secret beyond our comprehension; for in all our researches we had never found a door except those common to the family, and which shut us from the world. Ellinor, whose lively imagination readily imbibed the romantic and extravagant, conjectured we were in the power of some giant; nay, such was her disgust to Father Anthony, that she sometimes apprehended he was a magician, and would one day or other devour us. I had a very different idea; and fancied our retreat a hallowed circle to seclude us from the wicked, while Father Anthony was our guardian genius.⁸ Frequently we by agreement interrogated Alice, who though fond to the common degree of an old nurse of both, but more especially Ellen, resisted those little arts nature herself inspires. Our mamma we now and then ventured to sound, but her gravity always disconcerted us, and we retreated from a vain attempt.

She once absented herself fourteen days, and left us to our own conjectures, in a spot truly chearless. Part of the time we spent in searching once more for a door, and the rest in childish lamentations for her loss; which Alice still assured us would be but a temporary one. Inflexible in the discharge of her duty, she still persisted in locking our apartment every day after dinner, at which time all who had occasion, doubtless, passed in and out of the Recess.

Being deprived of my customary resource, books, to amuse a part of our melancholy leisure, we mutually agreed to invent tales from the many whole- length pictures, which ornamented the best room, and to take them as they came alternately. Ellinor readily invented a ludicrous story upon the portrait of an old man, which made us both laugh heartily. I turned my eyes to consider what I should say about the next; they rested on the figure of a man of noble mien; his dress I then knew no name for, but have since found to be armour; a page held his helmet, and his hair, of a pale brown, fell over his shoulders. He was surrounded with many emblems of martial merit, and his eyes, which seemed bent on me, were full of a tender sweetness. A sentiment of veneration, mingled with surprising softness, pierced my soul at once; my tongue faltered with a nameless idea, and I rested my head against the shoulder of my sister. That dear girl turned to me with quickness, and the beam of her eye was like that of the picture. I surveyed her over and over, and found in every feature the strongest resemblance; when she frowned, she had all his dignity; when she smiled, all his sweetness. An awe, I could not conquer, made me unable to form any tale on that subject, and I directed my attention towards the next. It represented a lady in the flower of youth, drest in mourning, and seeming in every feature to be marked by sorrow; a black veil half shaded a coronet she wept over. If the last picture awakened veneration, this seemed to call forth a thousand melting sensations; the tears rushed involuntarily into our eyes, and, clasping, we wept upon the bosoms of each other. “Ah! who can these be?” cried we both together. “Why do our hearts thus throb before inanimate canvas? surely every thing we behold is but part of one great mystery; when will the day come, destined to clear it up?” We walked arm in arm round, and moralized on every portrait, but none interested us like these; we were never weary of surveying or talking about them; a young heart is frequently engrossed by a favorite idea, amid all the glare of the great world; nor is it then wonderful ours were thus possessed when entombed alive in such a narrow boundary. I knew not why, but we lived in the presence of these pictures as if they understood us, and blushed when we were guilty of the slightest folly.

The moment our mamma returned, we flew into her arms, and interrupted her tender caresses with importunate enquiries concerning these favorite pictures. She regarded us with astonishment—her eyes filled with tears, and she bade us leave her to recover herself alone. Shortly after she summoned Alice, and held with her a conversation which restored her tranquillity; but she carefully avoided our enquiries, endeavouring to diversify our hours by music, drawing, poetry, geography, and every ornamental branch of education. Whenever we verged toward an hint about the retreat—“wait, my dear girls,” she would say, “the appointed hour—alas, one may follow it, when you will wish yourselves still uninformed.”—Impressed with an undefinable melancholy, our years passed on ’till womanhood approached.

Pardon me if I linger over these scenes; I have but few such to relate, and they are all of my life upon which my heart dares to pause. How are we born to invent our own miseries! We start forward from the goal of youth, fearless and impatient, nor know the heights and depths through which we must labor; oppressed in turn by every element, and often overwhelmed with that most insupportable of all burthens, our own dissatisfied souls. How have I wept the moment I quitted the Recess—a moment I then lived but in the hope of! To be always erring, is the weakness of humanity, and to be always repenting, its punishment.—Alas! could we learn wisdom without experience, mankind would perhaps be too happy.

Father Anthony in time ingratiated himself with us, by his continual remonstrances against our being shut up in a place which bounded our ideas so much that he despaired of making us comprehend half of what he taught us. We seconded his advice with endless entreaties. Our mamma, who was persuasion itself in her own person, was not proof against it in that of another. “Alas, my children,” would she often say, “by what fatality do you so passionately desire to leave a home you will hereafter remember with a pleasure full of regret? In vain you would return to it—you will lose a taste for the tranquil enjoyments this solitude offers, without perhaps finding any to supply them. Yet far be the selfish weakness from my heart of punishing you, even for your welfare. You shall see this admired world. May it ever please you as it will at first sight!”

We embraced her with youthful transport, and then each other—“We shall go at last,” exclaimed both together, “we shall see many more like ourselves!”

“What say you, children?” cried she; “ah! you will see few indeed like yourselves.”

The next day was appointed for our enfranchisement. We packed and unpacked our little luggage fifty times over for mere employment ’till the appointed hour came; when we were summoned to the chamber of our only friend, who was walking about apparently agitated with a secret.

“Are you grieved, mamma,” cried I, “that we are going to be happy?”

“Ah no, Matilda! I am grieved, because I think you are just ceasing to be so. In this peaceful solitude I could supply to you every lost relation—the adopted children of my heart, I stood between you and a fate at once distinguished, obscure, and affecting.—Alas, why do you wrest yourselves and your secret from me? Why do you oblige me to tell you, you must never more call me any thing but Mrs. Marlow?”

“Never more call you mamma!” sighed I, incoherently, “who then are our parents?”

“You have no father: he who gave you existence sleeps in the bosom of God.”

“Our mother—”

“Lives—but not for you—enquire no farther; let this specimen of knowledge teach you to fear it.—When the time requires it, I shall disclose your whole story;—weep no more, my lovely, my affecting girls; I have lost but a name; for my nature is unalterable. All who will see us know I never was married, which absolutely compelled me to this discovery. But I dare believe they will rely on my rectitude, and welcome you by whatever appellation I shall give you. Reasons you will hereafter know, induce me always to conceal a retreat, where alone I could have hid you, and both must, ere we leave it, solemnly promise never to disclose the secret.”

Chilled with this solemn preparation, our desire of liberty vanished; we felt like links struck from the chain of creation;⁹ and still with restless imaginations explored the remainder of a mystery which we wept by anticipation. “She lives, but not for you!” were words whose sound vibrated to my heart, while pleasure danced around me, and the doubt attending the future, often robbed the present of enjoyment.

After we had made at her knees the strict promise required, she muffled our faces, and taking my hand, as Alice did my sister’s, led us through many cold passages for some minutes; when unbinding our eyes, we found ourselves in a noble cloister. We flew into the garden it bordered, and how strong was the impression of the scene before us! from the mansion, which stood on a hill, spread a rich and fertile valley, mingled with thickets, half seen or clustered hamlets, while through the living landscape flowed a clear river,

——————and to the main

The liquid serpent drew his silver train.¹⁰

The sun was sinking, involved in swelling waves of gold and purple, upon whom we almost gazed ourselves blind: for though we had often read and heard of his effulgence, the author of universal being can alone display it. Imagination, Madam, may sometimes surpass the wonders of art, but those of nature leave all imagination far behind.

Mrs. Marlow led us through the Abbey, which might rather be called a palace: it was erected upon the ruins of a Monastery destroyed at the Reformation, and still was called by the name of St. Vincent. It had all the Gothic magnificence and elegance, and we learnt with pleasure that Mrs. Marlow, the sister of its owner, Lord Scrope,¹¹ was considered by every servant as its mistress. A noble apartment within hers was allotted for us, and the charms of the new world mingled with our melancholy reveries, alike destroying our repose. The rising of the sun, whose first beams gilt our windows, rouzed us entirely. Methinks, while I expatiate on these trifles, time seems suspended, and the scene still living before me. The rich dew-drops, those jewels with which nature decks her bosom, glittering to the rays that wandered over the grass: the various animals that seemed to derive a daily existence from the return of that glorious orb: the morning hymn of the winged creation,—all united to awaken our gratitude, and humble us before the author of our being. “Accept, oh God,” would we cry spontaneously, “the adoration of two hearts, who know no claim in this mighty universe but thee! oh deign to bless the desire of doing right with the power! and if only sorrow is our portion, sanctify it with resignation: so when time delivers us up to eternity, hope may be our conductor!”

We were delighted with a playful group of fawns and deer, with whom we longed to frolic, and stole through Mrs. Marlow’s chamber into the park, by a passage she had pointed out to us the day before. What was our surprize when we saw those with whom we had in idea mingled, were large fierce creatures, and that had they not run from us, we must from them; that every bird feared its natural protector, and that man lived in a continual warfare with every thing in creation, even to his own species!

I am tedious, and must have done with these puerilities, which yet on reflection yield the purest pleasures of our lives. Mrs. Marlow soon procured for us the best instructors in every art and science that remote residence afforded, and, by her own example, gave that elegant finish to our manners, precept never can. Extremely detached, by our situation, from society, we easily discerned Mrs. Marlow was willing we should be so, for she frequently expressed anxiety at the thoughts of Lord Scrope’s return; who, I understand, was sent ambassador to the Hague from Queen Elizabeth.¹² Our masters, our servants, and the various rustics who tenanted the estate, met in the chapel of St. Vincent’s Abbey once a week, and those were all our intercourse with society. On the evening of every Sunday we regularly went to the cell of Father Anthony, which was a cot¹³ raised by Lord Scrope (to whom he stood in the same relation as Mrs. Marlow) on the verge of a large wood which sheltered the mansion behind. Here, while we were indulged with all those simple repasts novelty gives charms to, our minds were enlarged by conversations on every thing sublime or instructive. If benevolence drew Mrs. Marlow abroad, she made us always her companions, and gave her alms but through our hands; ordering us ever to add some mite of our own, in proportion to our means. Avarice is rarely the vice of youth; at least, if I may judge by my own heart; for the chief joy of receiving, to me, was that of giving. Nor could Charity have descended to earth in a more lovely form, than that of Mrs. Marlow. At a tale of distress her eyes assumed a melting benignity rarely seen, and never described; while her approach gave that pleasure to every sufferer, one should feel at the visible presence of a guardian angel.

Three years elapsed in this manner, ere Lord Scrope returned; and when he did, he was so deeply engaged in politics, that the various presents he continually sent from London, made to us the only difference.

Still the sad sound,—“your mother lives—but not for you!” rung through ou...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chronology of Events in Sophia Lee’s Life
• Note on the Text
• The Recess; or, A Tale of Other Times
• Dedication
• Advertisement
• Volume I. Part I
• Part II
• Volume II. Part III
• Part IV
• Volume III. Part IV, continued
• Part V
• Part VI
• Emendations
• Notes to the Novel
• Bibliography