THE FATHER AND DAUGHTER,
A Tale, in Prose.
By MRS. OPIE.
Thy sweet reviving smiles might cheer despair,
On the pale lips detain the parting breath,
And bid hope blossom in the shades of death.
MRS. BARBAULD.
_NINTH EDITION._
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR
LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, BROWN, & GREEN,
PATERNOSTER-ROW.
1824.
Printed by Richard Taylor,
Shoe Lane, London.
[Illustration: ----"_she saw that he had drawn the shape of a coffin
and was then writing on the lid the name of Agnes._"----]
DEDICATION.
TO
DR. ALDERSON OF NORWICH.
DEAR SIR,
In dedicating this Publication to you, I follow in some measure the
example of those nations who devoted to their gods the first fruits of
the genial seasons which they derived from their bounty.
To you I owe whatever of cultivation my mind has received; and the first
fruits of that mind to you I dedicate.
Besides, having endeavoured in "THE FATHER AND DAUGHTER" to exhibit a
picture of the most perfect parental affection, to whom could I dedicate
it with so much propriety as to you, since, in describing a good father,
I had only to delineate my own?
Allow me to add, full of gratitude for years of tenderness and
indulgence on your part, but feebly repaid even by every possible
sentiment of filial regard on mine, that the satisfaction I shall
experience if my Publication be favourably received by the world, will
not proceed from the mere gratification of my self-love, but from the
conviction I shall feel that my success as an Author is productive of
pleasure to you.
AMELIA OPIE.
_Berners Street_,
1800.
THE FATHER AND DAUGHTER.
BY MRS. OPIE.
TO THE READER.
It is not without considerable apprehension that I offer myself as an
avowed Author at the bar of public opinion,--and that apprehension is
heightened by its being the general custom to give indiscriminately the
name of NOVEL to every thing in Prose that comes in the shape of a
Story, however simple it be in its construction, and humble in its
pretensions.
By this means, the following Publication is in danger of being tried by
a standard according to which it was never intended to be made, and to
be criticized for wanting those merits which it was never meant to
possess.
I therefore beg leave to say, in justice to myself, that I know "THE
FATHER AND DAUGHTER" is wholly devoid of those attempts at strong
character, comic situation, bustle, and variety of incident, which
constitute a NOVEL, and that its highest pretensions are, to be a
SIMPLE, MORAL TALE.
THE FATHER AND DAUGHTER.
A TALE.
The night was dark,--the wind blew keenly over the frozen and rugged
heath, when Agnes, pressing her moaning child to her bosom, was
travelling on foot to her father's habitation.
"Would to God I had never left it!" she exclaimed, as home and all its
enjoyments rose in fancy to her view:--and I think my readers will be
ready to join in the exclamation, when they hear the poor wanderer's
history.
Agnes Fitzhenry was the only child of a respectable merchant in a
country town, who, having lost his wife when his daughter was very
young, resolved for her sake to form no second connection. To the
steady, manly affection of a father, Fitzhenry joined the fond anxieties
and endearing attentions of a mother; and his parental care was amply
repaid by the love and amiable qualities of Agnes. He was not rich; yet
the profits of his trade were such as to enable him to bestow every
possible expense on his daughter's education, and to lay up a
considerable sum yearly for her future support: whatever else he could
spare from his own absolute wants, he expended in procuring comforts and
pleasures for her.--"What an excellent father that man is!" was the
frequent exclamation among his acquaintance--"And what an excellent
child he has! well may he be proud of her!" was as commonly the answer
to it.
Nor was this to be wondered at:--Agnes united to extreme beauty of face
and person every accomplishment that belongs to her own sex, and a great
degree of that strength of mind and capacity for acquiring knowledge
supposed to belong exclusively to the other.
For this combination of rare qualities Agnes was admired;--for
her sweetness of temper, her willingness to oblige, her seeming
unconsciousness of her own merits, and her readiness to commend the
merits of others,--for these still rarer qualities, Agnes was beloved:
and she seldom formed an acquaintance without at the same time securing
a friend.
Her father thought he loved her (and perhaps he was right) as never
father loved a child before; and Agnes thought she loved him as child
never before loved father.--"I will not marry, but live single for my
father's sake," she often said;--but she altered her determination when
her heart, hitherto unmoved by the addresses of the other sex, was
assailed by an officer in the guards who came to recruit in the town in
which she resided.
Clifford, as I shall call him, had not only a fine figure and graceful
address, but talents rare and various, and powers of conversation so
fascinating, that the woman he had betrayed forgot her wrongs in his
presence, and the creditor, who came to dun him for the payment of debts
already incurred, went away eager to oblige him by letting him incur
still more.
Fatal perversion of uncommon abilities! This man, who might have taught
a nation to look up to him as its best pride in prosperity and its best
hope in adversity, made no other use of his talents than to betray
the unwary of both sexes, the one to shame, the other to pecuniary
difficulties; and he whose mind was capacious enough to have imagined
schemes to aggrandize his native country, the slave of sordid
selfishness, never looked beyond his own temporary and petty benefit,
and sat down contented with the achievements of the day, if he had
overreached a credulous tradesman, or beguiled an unsuspecting woman.
But, to accomplish even these paltry triumphs, great knowledge of the
human heart was necessary,--a power of discovering the prevailing foible
in those on whom he had designs, and of converting their imagined
security into their real danger. He soon discovered that Agnes, who was
rather inclined to doubt her possessing in an uncommon degree the good
qualities which she really had, valued herself, with not unusual
blindness, on those which she had not. She thought herself endowed with
great power to read the characters of those with whom she associated,
when she had even not discrimination enough to understand her own: and,
while she imagined that it was not in the power of others to deceive
her, she was constantly in the habit of deceiving herself.
Clifford was not slow to avail himself of this weakness in his intended
victim; and, while he taught her to believe that none of his faults had
escaped her observation, with hers he had made himself thoroughly
acquainted.--But not content with making her faults subservient to his
views, he pressed her virtues also into his service; and her affection
for her father, that strong hold, secure in which Agnes would have
defied the most violent assaults of temptation, he contrived should be
the means of her defeat.
I have been thus minute in detailing the various and seducing powers
which Clifford possessed, not because he will be a principal figure in
my narrative,--for, on the contrary, the chief characters in it are the
Father and Daughter,--but in order to excuse as much as possible the
strong attachment which he excited in Agnes.
"Love," says Mrs. Inchbald, whose knowledge of human nature can be
equalled only by the humour with which she describes its follies, and
the unrivalled pathos with which she exhibits its distresses--"Love,
however rated by many as the chief passion of the heart, is but a poor
dependent, a retainer on the other passions--admiration, gratitude,
respect, esteem, pride in the object; divest the boasted sensation
of these, and it is no more than the impression of a twelvemonth,
by courtesy, or vulgar error, called love[1]."--And of all these
ingredients was the passion of Agnes composed. For the graceful person
and manner of Clifford she felt admiration; and her gratitude was
excited by her observing that, while he was an object of attention to
every one wherever he appeared, his attentions were exclusively directed
to herself; and that he who, from his rank and accomplishments, might
have laid claim to the hearts even of the brightest daughters of fashion
in the gayest scenes of the metropolis, seemed to have no higher
ambition than to appear amiable in the eyes of Agnes, the humble toast
of an obscure country town. While his superiority of understanding, and
brilliancy of talents, called forth her respect, and his apparent
virtues her esteem; and when to this high idea of the qualities of the
man was added a knowledge of his high birth and great expectations, it
is no wonder that she also felt the last-mentioned, and often perhaps
the greatest, excitement to love, "pride in the object."
[Footnote 1: Nature and Art, vol. i. p. 142.]
When Clifford began to pay those marked attentions to Agnes, which ought
always on due encouragement from the woman to whom they are addressed to
be followed by an offer of marriage, he contrived to make himself as
much disliked by the father as admired by the daughter: yet his
management was so artful, that Fitzhenry could not give a sufficient
reason for his dislike; he could only declare its existence; and for the
first time in her life Agnes learned to think her father unjust and
capricious.
Thus, while Clifford ensured an acceptance of his addresses from Agnes,
he at the same time secured a rejection of them from Fitzhenry; and this
was the object of his wishes, as he had a decided aversion to marriage,
and knew besides that marrying Agnes would disappoint all his ambitious
prospects in life, and bring on him the eternal displeasure of his
father.
At length, after playing for some time with her hopes and fears,
Clifford requested Fitzhenry to sanction with his approbation his
addresses to his daughter; and Fitzhenry, as he expected, coldly and
firmly declined the honour of his alliance. But when Clifford mentioned,
as if unguardedly, that he hoped to prevail on his father to approve the
marriage after it had taken place, if not before, Fitzhenry proudly told
him that he thought his daughter much too good to be smuggled into the
family of any one; while Clifford, piqued in his turn at the warmth of
Fitzhenry's expressions, and the dignity of his manner, left him,
exulting secretly in the consciousness that he had his revenge,--for he
knew that the heart of Agnes was irrecoverably his.
Agnes heard from her lover that his suit was rejected, with agonies as
violent as he appeared to feel.--"What!" exclaimed she, "can that
affectionate father, who has till now anticipated my wishes, disappoint
me in the wish nearest to my heart?" In the midst of her first agitation
her father entered the room, and, with "a countenance more in sorrow
than in anger" began to expostulate with her on the impropriety of the
connection which she was desirous of forming. He represented to her the
very slender income which Clifford possessed; the inconvenience to which
an officer's wife is exposed; and the little chance which there is for a
man's making a constant and domestic husband who has been brought up in
an idle profession, and accustomed to habits of intemperance, expense,
and irregularity:----
"But above all," said he, "how is it possible that you could ever
condescend to accept the addresses of a man whose father, he himself
owns, will never sanction them with his approbation?"
Alas! Agnes could plead no excuse but that she was in love, and she had
too much sense to urge such a plea to her father.
"Believe me," he continued, "I speak thus from the most disinterested
consideration of your interest; for, painful as the idea of parting with
you must be to me, I am certain I should not shrink from the bitter
trial, whenever my misery would be your happiness (Here his voice
faltered); but, in this case, I am certain that by refusing my consent
to your wishes I ensure your future comfort; and in a cooler moment you
will be of the same opinion."
Agnes shook her head, and turned away in tears.
"Nay, hear me, my child," resumed Fitzhenry, "you know that I am no
tyrant; and if, after time and absence have been tried in order to
conquer your unhappy passion, it remain unchanged, then, in defiance
of my judgement, I will consent to your marriage with Mr. Clifford,
provided his father consent likewise:--for, unless he do, I never
will:--and if you have not pride and resolution enough to be the
guardian of your own dignity, I must guard it for you; but I am sure
there will be no need of my interference: and Agnes Fitzhenry would
scorn to be clandestinely the wife of any man."
Agnes thought so too,--and Fitzhenry spoke this in so mild and
affectionate a manner, and in a tone so expressive of suppressed
wretchedness, which the bare idea of parting with her had occasioned
him, that, for the moment, she forgot every thing but her father, and
the vast debt of love and gratitude which she owed him; and throwing
herself into his arms she protested her entire, nay cheerful,
acquiescence in his determination.
"Promise me, then," replied Fitzhenry, "that you will never see Mr.
Clifford more, if you can avoid it: he has the tongue of Belial, and
if----"
Here Agnes indignantly interrupted him with reproaches for supposing her
so weak as to be in danger of being seduced into a violation of her
duty; and so strong were the terms in which she expressed herself, that
her father entreated her pardon for having thought such a promise
necessary.
The next day Clifford did not venture to call at the house, but he
watched the door till he saw Agnes come out alone. Having then joined
her, he obtained from her a full account of the conversation which she
had had with Fitzhenry; when, to her great surprise, he drew conclusions
from it which she had never imagined possible.
He saw, or pretended to see, in Fitzhenry's rejection of his offers, not
merely a dislike of her marrying him, but a design to prevent her
marrying at all; and as a design like this was selfish in the last
degree, and ought to be frustrated, he thought it would be kinder in her
to disobey her father then, and marry the man of her heart, than, by
indulging his unreasonable wishes on this subject once, to make him
expect that she would do so again, and continue to lead a single
life;--because, in that case, the day of her marrying, when it came at
last, would burst on him with tenfold horrors.
The result of this specious reasoning, enforced by tears, caresses and
protestations, was, that she had better go off to Scotland immediately
with him, and trust to time, necessity, and their parents' affection, to
secure their forgiveness.
Agnes the first time heard these arguments, and this proposal, with the
disdain which they merited; but, alas! she did not resolve to avoid all
opportunity of hearing them a second time: but, vain of the resolution
she had shown on this first trial, she was not averse to stand another,
delighted to find that she had not overrated her strength, when she
reproached Fitzhenry for his want of confidence in it.
The consequence is obvious:--again and again she heard Clifford argue
in favour of an elopement; and, though she still retained virtue
sufficient to withhold her consent, she every day saw fresh reason to
believe he argued on good grounds, and to think that that parent whose
whole study, till now, had been her gratification, was, in this instance
at least, the slave of unwarrantable selfishness.----
At last, finding that neither time, reflection, nor even a temporary
absence, had the slightest effect on her attachment, but that it gained
new force every day, she owned that nothing but the dread of making
her father unhappy withheld her from listening to Clifford's
proposal:--'Twas true, she said, pride forbade it; but the woman who
could listen to the dictates of pride, knew nothing of love but the
name.
This was the moment for Clifford to urge more strongly than ever that
the elopement was the most effectual means of securing her father's
happiness, as well as her own; till at last her judgement became the
dupe of her wishes; and, fancying that she was following the dictates
of filial affection, when she was in reality the helpless victim of
passion, she yielded to the persuasions of a villain; and set off with
him for Scotland.
When Fitzhenry first heard of her flight, he sat for hours absorbed in a
sort of dumb anguish, far more eloquent than words. At length he burst
into exclamations against her ingratitude for all the love and care that
he had bestowed on her; and the next moment he exclaimed with tears of
tenderness, "Poor girl! she is not used to commit faults; how miserable
she will be when she comes to reflect! and how she will long for my
forgiveness! and, O yes! I am sure I shall long as ardently to forgive
her!"--Then his arms were folded in fancy round his child, whom he
pictured to himself confessing her marriage to him, and upon her knees
imploring his pardon.
But day after day came, and no letter from the fugitives, acknowledging
their error, and begging his blessing on their union,--for no union had
taken place.
When Clifford and Agnes had been conveyed as fast as four horses could
carry them one hundred miles towards Gretna-green, and had ordered fresh
horses, Clifford started as he looked at his pocket-book, and, with
well-dissembled consternation, exclaimed, "What can we do? I have
brought the wrong pocket-book, and have not money enough to carry us
above a hundred and odd miles further on the North road!"--Agnes was
overwhelmed with grief and apprehension at this information, but did not
for an instant suspect that the fact was otherwise than as Clifford
stated it to be.
As I before observed, Agnes piqued herself on her knowledge of
characters, and she judged of them frequently by the rules of
physiognomy; she had studied voices too, as well as countenances:--was
it possible, then, that Agnes, who had from Clifford's voice and
countenance pronounced him all that was ingenuous, honourable, and
manly, could suspect him capable of artifice? could she, retracting her
pretensions to penetration, believe she had put herself in the power of
a designing libertine? No;--vanity and self-love forbade this salutary
suspicion to enter her imagination; and, without one scruple, or one
reproach, she acceded to the plan which Clifford proposed, as the only
one likely to obviate their difficulties, and procure them most speedily
an opportunity of solemnizing their marriage.
Deluded Agnes! You might have known that the honourable lover is as
fearful to commit the honour of his mistress, even in appearance, as she
herself can be; that his care and anxiety to screen her even from the
breath of suspicion are ever on the watch; and that therefore, had
Clifford's designs been such as virtue would approve, he would have put
it out of the power of accident to prevent your immediate marriage, and
expose your fair fame to the whisper of calumny.
To London they set forward, and were driven to an hotel in the Adelphi,
whence Clifford went out in search of lodgings; and, having met with
convenient apartments at the west end of the town, he conducted to them
the pensive and already repentant Agnes.--"Under what name and title,"
said Agnes, "am I to be introduced to the woman of the house?"--"As my
intended wife," cried her lover, pressing her to his bosom;--"and in a
few days,--though to me they will appear ages,--you will give me a right
to call you by that tender name."--"In a few days!" exclaimed Agnes,
withdrawing from his embrace; "cannot the marriage take place
to-morrow?" "Impossible!" replied Clifford; "you are not of age,--I
can't procure a license;--but I have taken these lodgings for a
month,--we will have the banns published, and be married at the
parish-church."
To this arrangement, against which her delicacy and every feeling
revolted, Agnes would fain have objected in the strongest manner: but,
unable to urge any reasons for her objection, except such as seemed to
imply distrust of her own virtue, she submitted, in mournful silence, to
the plan: with a heart then for the first time tortured with a sense
of degradation, she took possession of her apartment; and Clifford
returned to his hotel, meditating with savage delight on the success of
his plans, and on the triumph which, he fancied, awaited him.
Agnes passed the night in sleepless agitation, now forming and now
rejecting schemes to obviate the danger which must accrue to her
character, if not to her honour, by remaining for a whole month exposed
to the seductions of a man whom she had but too fatally convinced of his
power over her heart; and the result of her reflections was, that she
should insist on his leaving town, and not returning till he came to
lead her to the altar. Happy would it have been for Agnes, had she
adhered to this resolution; but vanity and self-confidence again
interfered:--"What have I to fear?" said Agnes to herself;--"am I so
fallen in my own esteem that I dare not expose myself even to a shadow
of temptation?--No;--I will not think so meanly of my virtue:--the
woman that is afraid of being dishonoured is half overcome already; and
I will meet with boldness the trials which I cannot avoid."
O Vanity! thou hast much to answer for!--I am convinced that, were we to
trace up to their source all the most painful and degrading events of
our lives, we should find most of them to have their origin in the
gratified suggestions of vanity.
It is not my intention to follow Agnes through the succession of
mortifications, embarrassments, and contending feelings, which preceded
her undoing (for, secure as she thought herself in her own strength, and
the honour of her lover, she became at last a prey to her seducer); it
is sufficient that I explain the circumstances which led to her being in
a cold winter's night, houseless and unprotected, a melancholy wanderer
towards the house of her father.
Before the expiration of the month, Clifford had triumphed over the
virtue of Agnes; and soon after he received orders to join his regiment,
as it was going to be sent on immediate service.--"But you will return
to me before you embark, in order to make me your wife?" said the
half-distracted Agnes; "you will not leave me to shame as well as
misery?" Clifford promised every thing she wished; and Agnes tried to
lose the pangs of parting, in anticipation of the joy of his return. But
on the very day when she expected him, she received a letter from him,
saying that he was under sailing orders, and to see her again before the
embarkation was impossible.
To do Clifford justice, he in this instance told truth; and, as he
really loved Agnes as well as a libertine can love, he felt the
agitation and distress which his letter expressed; though, had he
returned to her, he had an excuse ready prepared for delaying the
marriage.
Words can but ill describe the situation of Agnes on the receipt of this
letter.--The return of Clifford was not to be expected for months at
least; and perhaps he might never return!--The thought of his danger was
madness:--but, when she reflected that she should in all probability be
a mother before she became a wife, in a transport of frantic anguish she
implored heaven in mercy to put an end to her existence.--"O my dear,
injured father!" she exclaimed, "I, who was once your pride, am now your
disgrace!--and that child whose first delight it was to look up in your
face, and see your eyes beaming with fondness on her, can now never dare
to meet their glance again."
But, though Agnes dared not presume to write to her father till she
could sign herself the wife of Clifford, she could not exist without
making some secret inquiries concerning his health and spirits; and,
before he left her, Clifford recommended a trusty messenger to her for
the purpose.--The first account which she received was, that Fitzhenry
was well; the next, that he was dejected; the three following, that his
spirits were growing better,--and the last account was, that he was
married.----
"Married!" cried Agnes rushing into her chamber, and shutting the door
after her, in a manner sufficiently indicative to the messenger of
the anguish she hastened from him to conceal;--"Married!--Clifford
abroad,--perhaps at this moment a corpse,--and my father married!--What,
then, am I? A wretch forlorn! an outcast from society!--no one to love,
no one to protect and cherish me! Great God! wilt thou not pardon me if
I seek a refuge from my suffering in the grave?"
Here nature suddenly and powerfully impressed on her recollection that
she was about to become a parent; and, falling on her knees, she sobbed
out, "What am I, did I ask?--I am a mother, and earth still holds me by
a tie too sacred to be broken!"
Then by degrees she became calmer, and rejoiced, fervently rejoiced, in
her father's second marriage, though she felt it as too convincing a
proof how completely he had thrown her from his affections. She knew
that the fear of a second family's diminishing the strong affection
which he bore to her was his reason for not marrying again, and now it
was plain that he married in hopes of losing his affection for her.
Still this information removed a load from her mind, by showing her that
Fitzhenry felt himself capable of receiving happiness from other hands
than hers; and she resolved, if she heard that he was happy in his
change of situation, never to recall to his memory the daughter whom it
was so much his interest to forget.
The time of Agnes's confinement now drew near,--a time which fills with
apprehension even the wife, who is soothed and supported by the tender
attentions of an anxious husband, and the assiduities of affectionate
relations and friends, and who knows that the child with which she is
about to present them will at once gratify their affections and their
pride. What then must have been the sensations of Agnes at a moment so
awful and dangerous as this!--Agnes, who had no husband to soothe her by
his anxious inquiries, no relations or friends to cheer her drooping
soul by the expressions of sympathy, and whose child, instead of being
welcomed by an exulting family, must be, perhaps, a stranger even to its
nearest relations!
But in proportion to her trials seemed to be Agnes's power of rising
superior to them; and, after enduring her sufferings with a degree of
fortitude and calmness that astonished the mistress of the house, whom
compassion had induced to attend on her, she gave birth to a lovely
boy.--From that moment, though she rarely smiled, and never saw any one
but her kind landlady, her mind was no longer oppressed by the deep
gloom under which she had before laboured; and when she had heard from
Clifford, or of her father's being happy, and clasped her babe to her
bosom, Agnes might almost be pronounced cheerful.
After she had been six months a mother, Clifford returned; and, in the
transport of seeing him safe, Agnes forgot for a moment that she had
been anxious and unhappy. Now again was the subject of the marriage
resumed; but just as the wedding day was fixed, Clifford was summoned
away to attend his expiring father, and Agnes was once more doomed to
the tortures of suspense.
After a month's absence Clifford came back, but appeared to labour under
a dejection of spirits which he seemed studious to conceal from her.
Alarmed and terrified at an appearance so unusual, she demanded an
explanation, which the consummate deceiver gave at length, after many
entreaties on her part, and feigned reluctance on his. He told her that
his father's illness was occasioned by his having been informed that he
was privately married to her; that he had sent for him to inquire into
the truth of the report; and, being convinced by his solemn assurance
that no marriage had taken place, he had commanded him, unless he
wished to kill him, to take a solemn oath never to marry Agnes Fitzhenry
without his consent.
"And did you take the oath?" cried Agnes, her whole frame trembling with
agitation.--"What could I do?" replied he; "my father's life in evident
danger if I refused; besides the dreadful certainty that he would put
his threats in execution of cursing me with his dying breath;--and,
cruel as he is, Agnes, I could not help feeling that he was my
father."----"Barbarian!" exclaimed she, "I sacrificed my father to
you!--An oath! O God! have you then taken an oath never to be mine?"
and, saying this, she fell into a long and deep swoon.
When she recovered, but before she was able to speak, she found Clifford
kneeling by her; and, while she was too weak to interrupt him, he
convinced her that he did not at all despair of his father's consent to
his making her his wife, else, he should have been less willing to give
so ready a consent to take the oath imposed on him, even although his
father's life depended on it. "Oh! no," replied Agnes, with a bitter
smile; "you wrong yourself; you are too good a son to have been capable
of hesitating a moment;--there are few children so bad, so very bad as I
am!"--and, bursting into an agony of grief, it was long before the
affectionate language and tender caresses of Clifford could restore her
to tranquillity.
Another six months elapsed, during which time Clifford kept her hopes
alive, by telling her that he every day saw fresh signs of his father's
relenting in her favour.--At these times she would say, "Lead me to him;
let him hear the tale of my wretchedness; let me say to him, For your
son's sake I have left the best of fathers, the happiest of homes, and
have become an outcast from society!--then would I bid him look at
this pale cheek, this emaciated form, proofs of the anguish that is
undermining my constitution; and tell him to beware how, by forcing you
to withhold from me my right, he made you guilty of murdering the poor
deluded wretch, who, till she knew you, never lay down without a
father's blessing, nor rose but to be welcomed by his smile!"
Clifford had feeling, but it was of that transient sort which never
outlived the disappearance of the object that occasioned it. To these
pathetic entreaties he always returned affectionate answers, and was
often forced to leave the room in order to avoid being too much softened
by them; but, by the time he had reached the end of the street, always
alive to the impressions of the present moment, the sight of some new
beauty, or some old companion, dried up the starting tear, and restored
to him the power of coolly considering how he should continue to deceive
his miserable victim.
But the time at length arrived when the mask that hid his villany from
her eyes fell off, never to be replaced. As Agnes fully expected to be
the wife of Clifford, she was particularly careful to lead a retired
life, and not to seem unmindful of her shame by exhibiting herself at
places of public amusement. In vain did Clifford paint the charms of the
Play, the Opera, and other places of fashionable resort. "Retirement,
with books, music, work, and your society," she used to reply, "are
better suited to my taste and situation; and never, but as your wife,
will I presume to meet the public eye."
Clifford, though he wished to exhibit his lovely conquest to the world,
was obliged to submit to her will in this instance. Sometimes, indeed,
Agnes was prevailed on to admit to her table those young men of
Clifford's acquaintance who were the most distinguished for their
talents and decorum of manners; but this was the only departure that he
had ever yet prevailed on her to make, from the plan of retirement which
she had adopted.
One evening, however, Clifford was so unusually urgent with her to
accompany him to Drury-lane to see a favourite tragedy, (alleging, as an
additional motive for her obliging him, that he was going to leave her
on the following Monday, in order to attend his father into the country,
where he should be forced to remain some time,) that Agnes, unwilling to
refuse what he called his parting request, at length complied; Clifford
having prevailed on Mrs. Askew, her kind landlady, to accompany them,
and having assured Agnes, that, as they should sit in the upper boxes,
she might, if she chose it, wear her veil down.--Agnes, in spite of
herself, was delighted with the representation,--but, as
"--hearts refin'd the sadden'd tint retain,
The sigh is pleasure, and the jest is pain,"
she was desirous of leaving the house before the farce began; yet, as
Clifford saw a gentleman in the lower boxes with whom he had business,
she consented to stay till he had spoken to him. Soon after she saw
Clifford enter the lower box opposite to her; and those who know what it
is to love, will not be surprised to hear that Agnes had more pleasure
in looking at her lover, and drawing favourable comparisons between him
and the gentlemen who surrounded him, than in attending to the farce.
She had been some moments absorbed in this pleasing employment, when
two gentlemen entered the box where she was, and seated themselves
behind her.
"Who is that elegant, fashionable-looking man, my lord, in the lower box
just opposite to us?" said one of the gentlemen to the other.--"I mean,
he who is speaking to captain Mowbray."--"It is George Clifford, of the
guards," replied his lordship, "and one of the cleverest fellows in
England, colonel."
Agnes, who had not missed one word of this conversation, now became
still more attentive.
"Oh! I have heard a great deal of him," returned the colonel, "and as
much against him as for him."--"Most likely," said his lordship; "I dare
say that fellow has ruined more young men, and seduced more young women,
than any man of his age (which is only four-and-thirty) in the
kingdom."
Agnes sighed deeply, and felt herself attacked by a sort of faint
sickness.
"But it is to be hoped that he will reform now," observed the colonel:
"I hear he is going to be married to miss Sandford, the great city
heiress."--"So he is,--and Monday is the day fixed for the wedding."
Agnes started:--Clifford himself had told her he must leave her on
Monday for some weeks;--and in breathless expectation she listened to
what followed.
--"But what then?" continued his lordship: "He marries for money merely.
The truth is, his father is lately come to a long disputed barony, and
with scarcely an acre of land to support the dignity of it: so his son
has consented to marry an heiress, in order to make the family rich,
as well as noble. You must know, I have my information from the
fountain-head;--Clifford's mother is my relation, and the good woman
thought proper to acquaint me in form with the _advantageous_ alliance
which her hopeful son was about to make."
This _confirmation_ of the truth of a story, which she till now hoped
might be mere report, was more than Agnes could well bear; but, made
courageous by desperation, she resolved to listen while they continued
to talk on this subject. Mrs. Askew, in the mean while, was leaning over
the box, too much engrossed by the farce to attend to what was passing
behind her. Just as his lordship concluded the last sentence, Agnes saw
Clifford go out with his friend; and she who had but the minute before
gazed on him with looks of admiring fondness, now wished, in the
bitterness of her soul, that she might never behold him again!
"I never wish," said the colonel, "a match of interest to be a happy
one."--"Nor will this be so, depend on it," answered his lordship;
"for, besides that miss Sandford is ugly and disagreeable, she has a
formidable rival."--"Indeed!" cried the other;--"a favourite mistress, I
suppose?"
Here the breath of Agnes grew shorter and shorter; she suspected that
they were going to talk of her; and, under other circumstances, her nice
sense of honour would have prevented her attending to a conversation
which she was certain was not meant for her ear: but so great was the
importance of the present discourse to her future peace and well-being,
that it annihilated all sense of impropriety in listening to it.
"Yes, he has a favourite mistress," answered his lordship,--"a girl
who was worthy of a better fate."--"You know her then?" asked the
colonel.--"No," replied he,--"by name only; but when I was in the
neighbourhood of the town where she lived, I heard continually of her
beauty and accomplishments: her name is Agnes Fitz--Fitz--"--"Fitzhenry,
I suppose," said the other.--"Yes, that is the name," said his lordship:
"How came you to guess it?"--"Because Agnes Fitzhenry is a name which I
have often heard toasted: she sings well, does she not?"--"She does
every thing well," rejoined the other; "and was once the pride of her
father, and of the town in which she lived."
Agnes could scarcely forbear groaning aloud at this faithful picture of
what she once was.
"Poor thing!" resumed his lordship;--"that ever she should be the victim
of a villain! It seems he seduced her from her father's house, under
pretence of carrying her to Gretna-green; but, on some infernal plea or
other, he took her to London."
Here the agitation of Agnes became so visible as to attract Mrs. Askew's
notice; but as she assured her that she should be well presently, Mrs.
Askew again gave herself up to the illusion of the scene. Little did his
lordship think how severely he was wounding the peace of one for whom he
felt such compassion.
"You seem much interested about this unhappy girl," said the
colonel.--"I am so," replied the other, "and full of the subject too;
for Clifford's factotum, Wilson, has been with me this morning, and I
learned from him some of his master's tricks, which made me still more
anxious about his victim.--It seems she is very fond of her father,
though she was prevailed on to desert him, and has never known a happy
moment since her elopement; nor could she be easy without making
frequent but secret inquiries concerning his health."--"Strange
inconsistency!" muttered the colonel.--"This anxiety gave Clifford room
to fear that she might at some future moment, if discontented with him,
return to her afflicted parent before he was tired of her:--so what do
you think he did?"
At this moment Agnes, far more eager to hear what followed than the
colonel, turned round, and, fixing her eyes on her unknown friend with
wild anxiety, could scarcely help saying, What did Clifford do, my lord?
--"He got his factotum, the man I mentioned, to personate a messenger,
and to pretend that he had been to her native town, and then he gave her
such accounts as were best calculated to calm her anxiety: but the
master-stroke which secured her remaining with him was, his telling
the pretended messenger to inform her that her father was _married
again_,--though it is more likely, poor unhappy man, that he is dead,
than that he is married."
At the mention of this horrible probability, Agnes lost all
self-command, and, screaming aloud, fell back on the knees of the
astonished narrator, reiterating her cries with all the alarming
helplessness of phrensy.
"Turn her out! turn her out!" echoed through the theatre,--for the
audience supposed that the noise proceeded from some intoxicated and
abandoned woman; and a man in the next box struck Agnes a blow on the
shoulder, and, calling her by a name too gross to repeat, desired her to
leave the house, and act her drunken freaks elsewhere.
Agnes, whom the gentlemen behind were supporting with great kindness
and compassion, heard nothing of this speech save the injurious epithet
applied to herself; and alive only to what she thought the justice of
it, "Did you hear that?" she exclaimed, starting up with the look and
tone of phrensy--"Did you hear that?--O God! my brain is on
fire!"--Then, springing over the seat, she rushed out of the box,
followed by the trembling and astonished Mrs. Askew, who in vain tried
to keep pace with the desperate speed of Agnes.
Before Agnes, with all her haste, could reach the bottom of the stairs,
the farce ended and the lobbies began to fill. Agnes pressed forward,
when amongst the crowd she saw a tradesman who lived near her father's
house.--No longer sensible of shame, for anguish had annihilated it, she
rushed towards him, and, seizing his arm, exclaimed, "For the love of
God, tell me how my father is!" The tradesman, terrified and astonished
at the pallid wildness of her look, so unlike the countenance of
successful and contented vice that he would have expected to see her
wear, replied--"He is well, poor soul! but----"--"But unhappy, I
suppose?" interrupted Agnes:--"Thank God he is well:--but is he
married?"--"Married! dear me, no! he is--"--"Do you think he would
forgive me?" eagerly rejoined Agnes.--"Forgive you!" answered
the man--"How you talk! Belike he might forgive you, if--"--"I
know what you would say," interrupted Agnes again, "if I would
return--Enough,--enough:--God bless you! you have saved me from
distraction."
So saying, she ran out of the house; Mrs. Askew having overtaken her,
followed by the nobleman and the colonel, who with the greatest
consternation had found, from an exclamation of Mrs. Askew's, that the
object of their compassion was miss Fitzhenry herself.
But before Agnes had proceeded many steps down the street Clifford met
her, on his return from a neighbouring coffee-house with his companion;
and, spite of her struggles and reproaches, which astonished and alarmed
him, he, with Mrs. Askew's assistance, forced her into a hackney-coach,
and ordered the man to drive home.--No explanation took place during the
ride. To all the caresses and questions of Clifford she returned nothing
but passionate exclamations against his perfidy and cruelty. Mrs. Askew
thought her insane; Clifford wished to think her so; but his conscience
told him that, if by accident his conduct had been discovered to her,
there was reason enough for the frantic sorrow which he witnessed.
At length they reached their lodgings, which were in Suffolk-street,
Charing-cross; and Agnes, having at length obtained some composure,
in as few words as possible related the conversation which she had
overheard. Clifford, as might be expected, denied the truth of what his
lordship had advanced; but it was no longer in his power to deceive the
awakened penetration of Agnes.--Under his assumed unconcern, she clearly
saw the confusion of detected guilt: and giving utterance in very strong
language to the contempt and indignation which she felt, while
contemplating such complete depravity, she provoked Clifford, who was
more than half intoxicated, boldly to avow what he was at first eager to
deny; and Agnes, who before shuddered at his hypocrisy, was now shocked
at his unprincipled daring.
"But what right have you to complain?" added he: "the cheat that I put
upon you relative to your father was certainly meant in kindness; and
though miss Sandford will have my hand, you alone will ever possess my
heart; therefore it was my design to keep you in ignorance of my
marriage, and retain you as the greatest of all my worldly
treasures.--Plague on this prating lord! he has destroyed the prettiest
arrangement ever made. However, I hope we shall part good friends."
"Great God!" cried Agnes, raising her tearless eyes to heaven,--"and
have I then forsaken the best of parents for a wretch like this!--But
think not, sir," she added, turning with a commanding air towards
Clifford, whose temper, naturally warm, the term 'wretch' had not
soothed, "think not, fallen as I am, that I will ever condescend to
receive protection and support, either for myself or child, from a man
whom I know to be a consummate villain. You have made me criminal, but
you have not obliterated my horror for crime and my veneration for
virtue,--and, in the fulness of my contempt, I inform you, sir, that we
shall meet no more."
"Not till to-morrow," said Clifford:--"this is our first quarrel, Agnes;
and the quarrels of lovers are only the renewal of love, you know:
therefore leaving the 'bitter, piercing air' to guard my treasure for me
till to-morrow, I take my leave, and hope in the morning to find you in
a better humour."
So saying he departed, secure, from the inclemency of the weather and
darkness of the night, that Agnes would not venture to go away before
the morning, and resolved to return very early in order to prevent her
departure, if her threatened resolution were any thing more than the
frantic expressions of a disappointed woman. Besides, he knew that at
that time she was scantily supplied with money, and that Mrs. Askew
dared not furnish her with any for the purpose of leaving him.
But he left not Agnes, as he supposed, to vent her sense of injury in
idle grief and inactive lamentation; but to think, to decide, and to
act.--What was the rigour of the night to a woman whose heart was torn
by all the pangs which convictions, such as those which she had lately
received, could give? She hastily therefore wrapped up her sleeping boy
in a pélisse, of which in a calmer moment she would have felt the want
herself, and took him in her arms: then, throwing a shawl over her
shoulders, she softly unbarred the hall door, and before the noise could
have summoned any of the family she was already out of sight.
So severe was the weather, that even those accustomed to brave in ragged
garments the pelting of the pitiless storm shuddered, as the freezing
wind whistled around them, and crept with trembling knees to the
wretched hovel that awaited them. But the winter's wind blew unfelt by
Agnes: she was alive to nothing but the joy of having escaped from a
villain, and the faint hope that she was hastening to obtain, perhaps, a
father's forgiveness.
"Thank Heaven!" she exclaimed, as she found herself at the rails along
the Green Park,--"the air which I breathe here is uncontaminated by his
breath!" when, as the watchman called half-past eleven o'clock, the
recollection that she had no place of shelter for the night occurred to
her, and at the same instant she remembered that a coach set off at
twelve from Piccadilly, which went within twelve miles of her native
place. She therefore immediately resolved to hasten thither, and, either
in the inside or on the outside, to proceed on her journey as far as her
finances would admit of, intending to walk the rest of the way. She
arrived at the inn just as the coach was setting off, and found, to her
great satisfaction, one inside place vacant.
Nothing worth mentioning occurred on the journey. Agnes, with her veil
drawn over her face, and holding her slumbering boy in her arms, while
the incessant shaking of her knee and the piteous manner in which she
sighed gave evident marks of the agitation of her mind, might excite in
some degree the curiosity of her fellow-travellers, but gave no promise
of that curiosity being satisfied, and she was suffered to remain
unquestioned and undisturbed.
At noon the next day the coach stopped, for the travellers to dine, and
stay a few hours to recruit themselves after their labours past, and to
fortify themselves against those yet to come. Here Agnes, who as she
approached nearer home became afraid of meeting some acquaintance,
resolved to change her dress, and to equip herself in such a manner as
should, while it screened her from the inclemency of the weather, at the
same time prevent her being recognised by any one. Accordingly she
exchanged her pélisse, shawl, and a few other things, for a man's great
coat, a red cloth cloak with a hood to it, a pair of thick shoes, and
some yards of flannel in which she wrapped up her little Edward; and,
having tied her straw bonnet under her chin with her veil, she would
have looked like a country-woman drest for market, could she have
divested herself of a certain delicacy of appearance and gracefulness
of manner, the yet uninjured beauties of former days.
When they set off again she became an outside passenger, as she could
not afford to continue an inside one; and covering her child up in the
red cloak which she wore over her coat, she took her station on the top
of the coach with seeming firmness, but a breaking heart.