Читать книгу Japhet, in Search of a Father - Фредерик Марриет - Страница 9

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My vanity receives a desperate wound, but my heart remains unscathed—An anomaly in woman, one who despises beauty.

The next evening I left Timothy in charge, and repaired to her house; it was very respectable in outward appearance, as well as its furniture. I was not, however, shown up into the first floor, but into the room below.

"Miss Judd will come directly, sir," said a tall, meagre, puritanical-looking maid, shutting the door upon me. In a few minutes, during which my pulse beat quick (for I could not but expect some disclosure; whether it was to be one of love or murder, I hardly knew which), Miss Aramathea Judd, for such was her christian name, made her appearance, and sitting down on the sofa, requested me to take a seat by her.

"Mr. Newland," said she, "I wish to—and I think I can entrust you with a secret most important to me. Why I am obliged to do it, you will perfectly comprehend when you have heard my story. Tell me, are you attached to me?"

This was a home question to a forward lad of sixteen. I took her by the hand, and when I looked down on it, I felt as if I was. I looked up into her face, and felt that I was not. And, as I now was close to her, I perceived that she must have some aromatic drug in her mouth, as it smelt strongly—this gave me the supposition that the breath which drew such melodious tones, was not equally sweet, and I felt a certain increased degree of disgust.

"I am very grateful, Miss Judd," replied I; "I hope I shall prove that I am attached when you confide in me."

"Swear then, by all that's sacred, you will not reveal what I do confide."

"By all that's sacred I will not," replied I, kissing her hand with more fervour than I expected from myself.

"Do me then the favour to excuse me one minute."

She left the room, and in a very short time, there returned, in the same dress, and, in every other point the same person, but with a young and lively face of not more, apparently, than twenty-two or twenty-three years old. I started as if I had seen an apparation. "Yes," said she, smiling, "you now see Aramathea Judd without disguise; and you are the first who has seen that face for more than two years. Before I proceed further, again I say, may I trust you—swear!"

"I do swear," replied I, and took her hand for the book, which this time I kissed with pleasure, over and over again. Like a young jackass as I was, I still retained her hand, throwing as much persuasion as I possibly could in my eyes. In fact, I did enough to have softened the hearts of three bonnet-makers. I began to feel most dreadfully in love, and thought of marriage, and making my fortune, and I don't know what; but all this was put an end to by one simple short sentence, delivered in a very decided but soft voice, "Japhet, don't be silly."

I was crushed, and all my hopes crushed with me. I dropped her hand, and sat like a fool.

"And now hear me. I am, as you must have already found out, an impostor; that is, I am what is called a religious adventuress—a new term, I grant, and perhaps only applicable to a very few. My aunt was considered, by a certain sect, to be a great prophetess, which I hardly need tell you, was all nonsense; nevertheless, there are hundreds who believed in her, and do so now. Brought up with my aunt, I soon found out what fools and dupes may be made of mankind by taking advantage of their credulity. She had her religious inspirations, her trances, and her convulsions, and I was always behind the scenes: she confided in me, and I may say that I was her only confidant. You cannot, therefore, wonder at my practising that deceit to which I have been brought up from almost my infancy. In person I am the exact counterpart of what my aunt was at my age, equally so in figure, although my figure is now disguised to resemble that of a woman of her age. I often had dressed myself in my aunt's clothes, put on her cap and front, and then the resemblance was very striking. My aunt fell sick and died, but she promised the disciples that she would re-appear to them, and they believed her. I did not. She was buried, and by many her return was anxiously expected. It occurred to me about a week afterwards that I might contrive to deceive them. I dressed in my aunt's clothes, I painted and disguised my face as you have seen, and the deception was complete, even to myself, as I surveyed my countenance in the glass. I boldly set off in the evening to the tabernacle, which I knew they still frequented—came into the midst of them, and they fell down and worshipped me as a prophetess risen from the dead; deceived, indeed, by my appearance, but still more deceived by their own credulity. For two years I have been omnipotent with them; but there is one difficulty which shakes the faith of the new converts, and new converts I must have, Japhet, as the old ones die, or I should not be able to fee my physician. It is this: by habit I can almost throw myself into a stupor or a convulsion, but to do that effectually, to be able to carry on the deception for so long a time, and to undergo the severe fatigue attending such violent exertion, it is necessary that I have recourse to stimulants—do you understand?"

"I do," replied I; "I have more than once thought you under the influence of them towards the evening. I'm afraid that you take more than is good for your health."

"Not more than I require for what I have to undergo to keep up the faith of my disciples; but there are many who waver, some who doubt, and I find that my movements are watched. I cannot trust the woman in this house. I think she is a spy set upon me, but I cannot remove her, as this house, and all which it contains, are not mine, but belong to the disciples in general. There is another woman, not far off, who is my rival; she calls me an impostor, and says that she is the true prophetess, and that I am not one. This will be rather difficult for her to prove," continued she, with a mocking smile. "Beset as I am, I require your assistance, for you must be aware that it is rather discreditable to a prophetess, who has risen from the dead, to be seen all day at the gin-shop, yet without stimulants now, I could not exist."

"And how can I assist you?"

"By sending me, as medicine, that which I dare no longer procure in any other way, and keeping the secret which I have imparted."

"I will do both with pleasure; but yet," said I, "is it not a pity, a thousand pities, that one so young—and if you will allow me to add, so lovely, should give herself up to ardent spirits? Why," continued I, taking her small white hand, "why should you carry on the deception; why sacrifice your health, and I may say your happiness—" What more I might have said I know not, probably it might have been an offer of marriage, but she cut me short.

"Why does everybody sacrifice their health, their happiness, their all, but for ambition and the love of power? It is true, as long as this little beauty lasts, I might be courted as a woman, but never should I be worshipped as—I may say—a god.—No, no, there is something too delightful in that adoration, something too pleasant in witnessing a crowd of fools stare, and men of three times my age, falling down and kissing the hem of my garment. This is, indeed, adoration! the delight arising from it is so great, that all other passions are crushed by it—it absorbs all other feelings, and has closed my heart even against love, Japhet. I could not, I would not debase myself, sink so low in my own estimation, as to allow so paltry a passion to have dominion over me; and, indeed, now that I am so wedded to stimulants, even if I were no longer a prophetess, it never could."

"But is not intoxication one of the most debasing of all habits?"

"I grant you, in itself, but with me and in my situation it is different. I fall to rise again, and higher. I cannot be what I am without I simulate—I cannot simulate without stimulants, therefore it is but a means to a great and glorious ambition."

I had more conversation with her before I left, but nothing appeared to move her resolution, and I left her lamenting, in the first place, that she had abjured love, because, notwithstanding the orris root, which she kept in her mouth to take away the smell of the spirits, I found myself very much taken with such beauty of person, combined with so much vigour of mind; and in the second, that one so young should carry on a system of deceit and self-destruction. When I rose to go away she put five guineas in my hand, to enable me to purchase what she required. "Add to this one small favour," said I, "Aramathea—allow me a kiss."

"A kiss," replied she, with scorn; "no, Japhet, look upon me, for it is the last time you will behold my youth; look upon me as a sepulchre, fair without but unsavoury and rottenness within. Let me do you a greater kindness, let me awaken your dormant energies, and plant that ambition in your soul, which may lead to all that is great and good—a better path and more worthy of a man than the one which I have partly chosen, and partly destiny has decided for me. Look upon me as your friend; although perhaps, you truly say, no friend unto myself. Farewell—remember that to-morrow you will send the medicine which I require."

I left her, and returned home: it was late. I went to bed, and having disclosed as much to Timothy as I could safely venture to do, I fell fast asleep, but her figure and her voice haunted me in my dreams. At one time, she appeared before me in her painted, enamelled face, and then the mask fell off, and I fell at her feet to worship her extreme beauty; then her beauty would vanish, and she would appear an image of loathsomeness and deformity, and I felt suffocated with the atmosphere impregnated with the smell of liquor. I would wake and compose myself again, glad to be rid of the horrid dream, but again would she appear, with a hydra's tail, like Sin in Milton's Paradise Lost, wind herself round me, her beautiful face gradually changing into that of a skeleton. I cried out with terror, and awoke to sleep no more, and effectually cured by my dream of the penchant which I felt towards Miss Aramathea Judd.