Atkinson's not appearing the whole of one day. The captain tried to
reconcile me to it by saying that Mr. Atkinson was confined to his
cabin, that he was not quite well, but a day or two would restore him. I
begged to be taken in to see him, but this was not granted. A day, and
then another came, and another, and no Atkinson was visible, and I saw
apparent solicitude in the faces of all the officers, who nevertheless
strove to put on their best countenances before me, and to be more than
usually kind to me. At length, by the desire of Atkinson himself, as I
have since learned, I was permitted to go into his cabin and see him. He
was sitting up, apparently in a state of great exhaustion; but his face
lighted up when he saw me, and he kissed me, and told me that he was
going a great voyage, far longer than that which we had passed together,
and he should never come back; and though I was so young, I understood
well enough that he meant this of his death, and I cried sadly; but he
comforted me, and told me that I must be his little executrix, and
perform his last will, and bear his last words to his mother and his
sisters, and to his cousin Jenny, whom I should see in a short time, and
he gave me his blessing, as a father would bless his child, and he sent
a last kiss by me to all his female relations, and he made me promise
that I would go and see them when I got to England, and soon after this
he died. But I was in another part of the ship when he died, and I was
not told it till we got to shore, which was a few days after. But they
kept telling me that he was better and better, and that I should soon
see him, but that it disturbed him to talk with anyone. Oh, what a grief
it was when I learned that I had lost an old shipmate, that had made an
irksome situation so bearable by his kind assiduities, and to think that
he was gone, and I could never repay him for his kindness!
When I had been a year and a half in England, the captain, who had made
another voyage to India and back, thinking that time alleviated a little
the sorrow of Atkinson's relations, prevailed upon my friends who had
the care of me in England to let him introduce me to Atkinson's mother
and sisters. Jenny was no more; she had died in the interval, and I
never saw her. Grief for his death had brought on a consumption, of
which she lingered about a twelvemonth, and then expired. But in the
mother and the sisters of this excellent young man I have found the most
valuable friends I possess on this side the great ocean. They received
me from the captain as the little protege of Atkinson, and from them I
have learned passages of his former life, and this in particular--that
the illness of which he died was brought on by a wound of which he never
quite recovered which he got in the desperate attempt, when he was
quite a boy, to defend his captain against a superior force of the enemy
which had boarded him, and which, by his premature valour, inspiriting
the men, they finally succeeded in repulsing. This was that Atkinson
who, from his pale and feminine appearance, was called Betsy. This was
he whose womanly care of me got him the name of a woman, who, with more
than female attention, condescended to play the handmaid to a little
unaccompanied orphan that fortune had cast upon the care of a rough
sea-captain and his rougher crew.
[Illustration]
_THE CHANGELING._
MARY LAMB.
My name, you know, is Withers; but as I once thought I was the daughter
of Sir Edward and Lady Harriet Lesley, I shall speak of myself as Miss
Lesley, and call Sir Edward and Lady Harriet my father and mother during
the period I supposed them entitled to those beloved names. When I was a
little girl, it was the perpetual subject of my contemplation that I was
an heiress, and the daughter of a baronet; that my mother was the
Honourable Lady Harriet; that we had a nobler mansion, infinitely finer
pleasure-grounds, and equipages more splendid than any of the
neighbouring families. I am ashamed to confess what a proud child I once
was. How it happened I cannot tell, for my father was esteemed the
best-bred man in the country, and the condescension and affability of my
mother were universally spoken of.
Alas! I am a changeling, substituted by my mother for the heiress of the
Lesley family. It was for my sake she did this naughty deed; yet, since
the truth has been known, it seems to me as if I had been the only
sufferer by it; remembering no time when I was not Harriet Lesley, it
seems as if the change had taken from me my birthright.
Lady Harriet had intended to nurse her child herself, but being seized
with a violent fever soon after its birth, she was not only unable to
nurse it but even to see it, for several weeks. I was not quite a month
old at this time when my mother was hired to be Miss Lesley's nurse. She
had once been a servant in the family; her husband was then at sea.
She had been nursing Miss Lesley a few days, when a girl who had the
care of me brought me into the nursery to see my mother. It happened
that she wanted something from her own home, which she despatched the
girl to fetch, and desired her to leave me till her return. In her
absence she changed our clothes; then, keeping me to personate the child
she was nursing, she sent away the daughter of Sir Edward to be brought
up in her own poor cottage.
When my mother sent away the girl, she affirmed she had not the least
intention of committing this bad action; but after she was left alone
with us, she looked on me, and then on the little lady baby, and she
wept over me, to think she was obliged to leave me to the charge of a
careless girl, debarred from my own natural food, while she was nursing
another person's child.
The laced cap and the fine cambric robe of the little Harriet were lying
on the table ready to be put on. In these she dressed me, only just to
see how pretty her own dear baby would look in missy's fine clothes.
When she saw me thus adorned, she said to me:
'Oh, my dear Ann, you look as like missy as anything can be! I am sure
my lady herself, if she were well enough to see you, would not know the
difference!'
She said these words aloud, and while she was speaking a wicked thought
came into her head--how easy it would be to change these children! On
which she hastily dressed Harriet in my coarse raiment. She had no
sooner finished the transformation of Miss Lesley into the poor Ann
Withers than the girl returned, and carried her away, without the least
suspicion that it was not the same infant that she had brought thither.
[Illustration: "The girl carried her away without the least suspicion
that it was not the same infant."]
It was wonderful that no one discovered that I was not the same child.
Every fresh face that came into the room filled the nurse with terror.
The servants still continued to pay their compliments to the baby in the
same form as usual, crying:
'How like it is to its father!'
Nor did Sir Edward himself perceive the difference, his lady's illness
probably engrossing all his attention at the time, though, indeed,
gentlemen seldom take much notice of very young children.
When Lady Harriet began to recover, and the nurse saw me in her arms
caressed as her own child, all fears of detection were over; but the
pangs of remorse then seized her. As the dear sick lady hung with tears
of fondness over me, she thought she should have died with sorrow for
having so cruelly deceived her.
When I was a year old, Mrs. Withers was discharged, and because she had
been observed to nurse me with uncommon care and affection, and was seen
to shed many tears at parting from me, to reward her fidelity Sir Edward
settled a small pension on her, and she was allowed to come every Sunday
to dine in the housekeeper's room, and see her little lady.
When she went home, it might have been expected she would have neglected
the child she had so wickedly stolen, instead of which she nursed it
with the greatest tenderness, being very sorry for what she had done.
All the ease she could ever find for her troubled conscience was in her
extreme care of this injured child, and in the weekly visits to its
father's house she constantly brought it with her. At the time I have
the earliest recollection of her she was become a widow, and with the
pension Sir Edward allowed her, and some plain work she did for our
family, she maintained herself and her supposed daughter. The doting
fondness she showed for her child was much talked of. It was said she
waited upon it more like a servant than a mother, and it was observed
its clothes were always made, as far as her slender means would permit,
in the same fashion, and her hair cut and curled in the same form, as
mine. To this person, as having been my faithful nurse, and to her
child, I was always taught to show particular civility, and the little
girl was always brought into the nursery to play with me. Ann was a
little delicate thing, and remarkably well behaved, for, though so much
indulged in every other respect, my mother was very attentive to her
manners.
As the child grew older my mother became very uneasy about her
education. She was so very desirous of having her well behaved that she
feared to send her to school, lest she should learn ill manners among
the village children, with whom she never suffered her to play, and she
was such a poor scholar herself that she could teach her little or
nothing. I heard her relate this her distress to my own maid, with tears
in her eyes, and I formed a resolution to beg of my parents that I might
have Ann for a companion, and that she might be allowed to take lessons
with me of my governess.
My birthday was then approaching, and on that day I was always indulged
in the privilege of asking some peculiar favour.
'And what boon has my annual petitioner to beg to-day?' said my father,
as he entered the breakfast-room on the morning of my birthday.
Then I told him of the great anxiety expressed by Nurse Withers
concerning her daughter; how much she wished it was in her power to give
her an education that would enable her to get her living without hard
labour. I set the good qualities of Ann Withers in the best light I
could, and in conclusion I begged she might be permitted to partake with
me in education, and become my companion.
'This is a very serious request indeed, Harriet,' said Sir Edward. 'Your
mother and I must consult together on the subject.'
The result of this conversation was favourable to my wishes. In a few
weeks my foster-sister was taken into the house, and placed under the
tuition of my governess.
To me, who had hitherto lived without any companions of my own age,
except occasional visitors, the idea of a play-fellow constantly to
associate with was very pleasant, and, after the first shyness of
feeling her altered situation was over, Ann seemed as much at her ease
as if she had always been brought up in our house. I became very fond of
her, and took pleasure in showing her all manner of attentions, which so
far won on her affections that she told me she had a secret entrusted to
her by her mother, which she had promised never to reveal as long as her
mother lived, but that she almost wished to confide it to me, because I
was such a kind friend to her; yet, having promised never to tell it
till the death of her mother, she was afraid to tell it to me. At first
I assured her that I would never press her to the disclosure, for that
promises of secrecy were to be held sacred; but whenever we fell into
any confidential kind of conversation, this secret seemed always ready
to come out. Whether she or I were most to blame, I know not, though I
own I could not help giving frequently hints how well I could keep a
secret. At length she told me what I have before related--namely, that
she was in truth the daughter of Sir Edward and Lady Lesley, and I the
child of her supposed mother.
When I was first in possession of this wonderful secret, my heart burned
to reveal it. I thought how praiseworthy it would be in me to restore to
my friend the rights of her birth; yet I thought only of becoming her
patroness, and raising her to her proper rank. It never occurred to me
that my own degradation must necessarily follow. I endeavoured to
persuade her to let me tell this important affair to my parents. This
she positively refused. I expressed wonder that she should so faithfully
keep this secret for an unworthy woman, who in her infancy had done her
such an injury.
'Oh,' said she, 'you do not know how much she loves me, or you would not
wonder that I never resent that. I have seen her grieve and be so very
sorry on my account that I would not bring her into more trouble for any
good that could happen to myself. She has often told me that, since the
day she changed us, she has never known what it is to have a happy
moment, and when she returned home from nursing you, finding me very
thin and sickly, how her heart smote her for what she had done; and then
she nursed and fed me with such anxious care that she grew much fonder
of me than if I had been her own, and that on the Sundays when she used
to bring me here it was more pleasure to her to see me in my father's
own house than it was to her to see you, her real child. The shyness you
showed towards her while you were very young, and the forced civility
you seemed to affect as you grew older, always appeared like ingratitude
towards her who had done so much for you. My mother has desired me to
disclose this after her death, but I do not believe I shall ever mention
it then, for I should be sorry to bring any reproach even on her
memory.'
In a short time after this important discovery, Ann was sent home to
pass a few weeks with her mother, on the occasion of the unexpected
arrival of some visitors to our house. They were to bring children with
them, and these I was to consider as my own guests.
In the expected arrival of my young visitants, and in making
preparations to entertain them, I had little leisure to deliberate on
what conduct I should pursue with regard to my friend's secret.
Something must be done, I thought, to make her amends for the injury she
had sustained, and I resolved to consider the matter attentively on her
return. Still my mind ran on conferring favours. I never considered
myself as transformed into the dependent person. Indeed, Sir Edward at
this time set me about a task which occupied the whole of my attention.
He proposed that I should write a little interlude, after the manner of
the French 'Petites Pieces,' and to try my ingenuity, no one was to see
it before the representation, except the performers, myself, and my
little friends, who, as they were all younger than I, could not be
expected to lend me much assistance. I have already told you what a
proud girl I was. During the writing of this piece, the receiving of my
young friends, and the instructing them in their several parts, I never
felt myself of so much importance. With Ann my pride had somewhat
slumbered. The difference of our rank left no room for competition; all
was complacency and good-humour on my part, and affectionate gratitude,
tempered with respect, on hers. But here I had full room to show
courtesy, to affect those graces, to imitate that elegance of manners,
practised by Lady Harriet to their mothers. I was to be their
instructress in action and in attitudes, and to receive their praises
and their admiration of my theatrical genius. It was a new scene of
triumph for me, and I might then be said to be in the very height of my
glory.
If the plot of my piece, for the invention of which they so highly
praised me, had been indeed my own, all would have been well; but
unhappily I borrowed from a source which made my drama end far
differently from what I intended it should. In the catastrophe I lost
not only the name I personated in the piece, but with it my own name
also, and all my rank and consequence in the world fled from me for
ever. My father presented me with a beautiful writing-desk for the use
of my new authorship. My silver standish was placed upon it; a quire of
gilt paper was before me. I took out a parcel of my best crow quills,
and down I sate in the greatest form imaginable.
I conjecture I have no talent for invention. Certain it is that, when I
sat down to compose my piece, no story would come into my head but the
story which Ann had so lately related to me. Many sheets were scrawled
over in vain; I could think of nothing else. Still the babies and the
nurse were before me in all the minutiae of description Ann had given
them. The costly attire of the lady baby, the homely garb of the cottage
infant, the affecting address of the fond mother to her own offspring,
then the charming _equivoque_ in the change of the children--it all
looked so dramatic. It was a play ready-made to my hands. The invalid
mother would form the pathetic, the silly exclamations of the servants
the ludicrous, and the nurse was nature itself. It is true I had a few
scruples that it might, should it come to the knowledge of Ann, be
construed into something very like a breach of confidence. But she was
at home, and might never happen to hear of the subject of my piece, and
if she did, why, it was only making some handsome apology. To a
dependent companion to whom I had been so very great a friend, it was
not necessary to be so very particular about such a trifle.
[Illustration: "Many sheets were scrawled over in vain. I could think of
nothing else."]
Thus I reasoned as I wrote my drama, beginning with the title, which I
called 'The Changeling,' and ending with these words: 'The curtain
drops, while the lady clasps the baby in her arms, and the nurse sighs
audibly.' I invented no new incident; I simply wrote the story as Ann
had told it to me, in the best blank verse I was able to compose.
By the time it was finished the company had arrived. The casting the
different parts was my next care. The Honourable Augustus M----, a young
gentleman of five years of age, undertook to play the father. He was
only to come in and say: 'How does my little darling do to-day?' The
three Miss ----s were to be the servants; they, too, had only single
lines to speak.
As these four were all very young performers, we made them rehearse many
times over, that they might walk in and out with proper decorum; but the
performance was stopped before their entrances and their exits arrived.
I complimented Lady Elizabeth, the sister of Augustus, who was the
eldest of the young ladies, with the choice of the lady mother, or the
nurse. She fixed on the former. She was to recline on a sofa, and,
affecting ill-health, speak some eight or ten lines, which began with,
'Oh, that I could my precious baby see!' To their cousin, Miss Emily
----, was given the girl who had the care of the nurse's child. Two
dolls were to personate the two children, and the principal character of
the nurse I had the pleasure to perform myself. It consisted of several
speeches, and a very long soliloquy during the changing of the
children's clothes.
The elder brother of Augustus, a gentleman of fifteen years of age,
refused to mix in our childish drama, yet condescended to paint the
scenes, and our dresses were got up by my own maid.
When we thought ourselves quite perfect in our several parts, we
announced it for representation. Sir Edward and Lady Harriet, with their
visitors, the parents of my young troop of comedians, honoured us with
their presence. The servants were also permitted to go into a
music-gallery, which was at the end of a ball-room we had chosen for our
theatre.
As author and principal performer, standing before a noble audience, my
mind was too much engaged with the arduous task I had undertaken to
glance my eyes towards the music-gallery, or I might have seen two more
spectators there than I expected. Nurse Withers and her daughter Ann
were there; they had been invited by the housekeeper to be present at
the representation of Miss Lesley's play.
In the midst of the performance, as I, in character of the nurse, was
delivering the wrong child to the girl, there was an exclamation from
the music-gallery of:
'Oh, it's all true! it's all true!'
This was followed by a bustle among the servants, and screams as of a
person in an hysteric fit. Sir Edward came forward to inquire what was
the matter. He saw it was Mrs. Withers who had fallen into a fit. Ann
was weeping over her, and crying out:
'Oh, Miss Lesley, you have told all in the play!'
Mrs. Withers was brought out into the ball-room. There, with tears and
in broken accents, with every sign of terror and remorse, she soon made
a full confession of her so long-concealed guilt.
The strangers assembled to see our childish mimicry of passion were
witnesses to a highly-wrought dramatic scene in real life. I intended
that they should see the curtain drop without any discovery of the
deceit. Unable to invent any new incident, I left the conclusion
imperfect as I found it. But they saw a more strict poetical justice
done; they saw the rightful child restored to its parents, and the nurse
overwhelmed with shame, and threatened with the severest punishment.
'Take this woman,' said Sir Edward, 'and lock her up till she be
delivered into the hands of justice.'
Ann, on her knees, implored mercy for her mother. Addressing the
children, who were gathered round her, 'Dear ladies,' said she, 'help
me--on your knees help me--to beg forgiveness for my mother!' Down the
young ones all dropped; even Lady Elizabeth bent on her knee. 'Sir
Edward, pity her distress! Sir Edward pardon her!'
All joined in the petition except one, whose voice ought to have been
loudest in the appeal. No word, no accent came from me. I hung over Lady
Harriet's chair, weeping as if my heart would break. But I wept for my
own fallen fortunes, not for my mother's sorrow.
I thought within myself: 'If in the integrity of my heart, refusing to
participate in this unjust secret, I had boldly ventured to publish the
truth, I might have had some consolation in the praises which so
generous an action would have merited; but it is through the vanity of
being supposed to have written a pretty story that I have meanly broken
my faith with my friend, and unintentionally proclaimed the disgrace of
my mother and myself.'
While thoughts like these were passing through my mind, Ann had obtained
my mother's pardon. Instead of being sent away to confinement and the
horrors of a prison, she was given by Sir Edward into the care of the
housekeeper, who had orders from Lady Harriet to see her put to bed and
properly attended to, for again this wretched woman had fallen into a
fit.
Ann would have followed my mother, but Sir Edward brought her back,
telling her that she should see her when she was better. He then led
her towards Lady Harriet, desiring her to embrace her child. She did so,
and I saw her, as I had phrased it in the play, 'clasped in her mother's
arms.'
This scene had greatly affected the spirits of Lady Harriet. Through the
whole of it, it was with difficulty she had been kept from fainting, and
she was now led into the drawing-room by the ladies. The gentlemen
followed, talking with Sir Edward of the astonishing instance of filial
affection they had just seen in the earnest pleadings of the child for
her supposed mother.
Ann, too, went with them, and was conducted by her whom I had always
considered as my own particular friend. Lady Elizabeth took hold of her
hand, and said:
'Miss Lesley, will you permit me to conduct you to the drawing-room?'
I was left weeping behind the chair where Lady Harriet had sate, and, as
I thought, quite alone. A something had before twitched my frock two or
three times, so slightly I had scarcely noticed it. A little head now
peeped round, and looking up in my face, said:
'She is not Miss Lesley!'
It was the young Augustus. He had been sitting at my feet, but I had not
observed him. He then started up, and taking hold of my hand with one of
his, with the other holding fast by my clothes, he led, or rather
dragged, me into the midst of the company assembled in the
drawing-room. The vehemence of his manner, his little face as red as
fire, caught every eye. The ladies smiled, and one gentleman laughed in
a most unfeeling manner. His elder brother patted him on the head, and
said:
'You are a humane little fellow. Elizabeth, we might have thought of
this.'
Very kind words were now spoken to me by Sir Edward, and he called me
Harriet, precious name now grown to me. Lady Harriet kissed me, and said
she would never forget how long she had loved me as her child. These
were comfortable words, but I heard echoed round the room:
'Poor thing! _she_ cannot help it! I am sure _she_ is to be pitied! Dear
Lady Harriet, how kind, how considerate you are!'
Ah! what a deep sense of my altered condition did I then feel!