delirium; but had recollection enough to desire his confidential
servant to inform his father of the state in which he was, and then take
the road to ----, and ask at every inn on the road whether a lady and
child (describing Agnes and little Edward) had been there. The servant
obeyed; and the anxious father, who had been informed of the cause of
his son's malady, soon received the following letter from Wilson, while
he was attending at his bedside:
"My Lord,
"Sad news of Miss Fitzhenry and the child; and reason to
fear they both perished with cold. For, being told at one
of the inns on this road that a young woman and child had
been found frozen to death last night, and carried to the
next town to be owned, I set off for there directly: and
while I was taking a drap of brandy to give me spirits to
see the bodies, for a qualm came over me when I thought of
what can't be helped, and how pretty and good-natured and
happy she once was, a woman came down with a silk wrapper
and a shawl that I knew belonged to the poor lady, and said
the young woman found dead had those things on. This was
proof positive, my lord,--and it turned me sick. Still it
is better so than self-murder; so my master had best know
it, I think; and humbly hoping your lordship will think so
too, I remain your lordship's
"Most humble servant to command,
"J. WILSON.
"P.S. If I gain more particulars shall send them."
Dreadful as the supposed death of Agnes and her child appeared to the
father of Clifford, he could not be sorry that so formidable a rival to
his future daughter-in-law was no longer to be feared; and as Clifford,
in the ravings of his fever, was continually talking of Agnes as
self-murdered, and the murderer of her child, and of himself as the
abandoned cause; and as that idea seemed to haunt and terrify his
imagination, he thought with his son's servant that he had better take
the first opportunity of telling Clifford the truth, melancholy as it
was. And taking advantage of a proper opportunity, he had done so before
he received this second letter from Wilson:
"My Lord,
"It was all fudge;--Miss Fitzhenry is alive, and alive
like, at ----. She stopped at an inn on the road and
parted with her silk coat and shawl for some things she
wanted, and a hussey of a chambermaid stole them and went
off in the night with them and her little by-blow:--but
justice overtakes us sooner or later. I suppose his
honour, my master, will be cheery at this;--but, as joy
often distracts as much as grief, they say, though I never
believed it, I take it you will not tell him this good news
hand-over-head,--and am
"Your Lordship's
"Most humble to command,
"J. WILSON.
"P.S. I have been to ----, and have heard for certain Miss
F. and her child are there."
His lordship was even more cautious than Wilson wished him to be; for he
resolved not to communicate the glad tidings to Clifford, cautiously or
incautiously, as he thought there would be no chance of his son's
fulfilling his engagements with Miss Sandford, if he knew Agnes was
living: especially as her flight and her supposed death had proved to
Clifford how necessary she was to his happiness. Nay, he went still
further; and resolved that Clifford should never know, if he could
possibly help it, that the report of her death was false.
How to effect this was the difficulty; but wisely conceiving that Wilson
was not inaccessible to a bribe, he offered him so much a-year, on
condition of his suffering his master to remain convinced of the truth
of the story that Agnes and her child had perished in the snow, and of
intercepting all letters which he fancied came from Agnes; telling him
at the same time, that if ever he found he had violated the conditions,
the annuity should immediately cease.
To this Wilson consented; and, when Clifford recovered, he made his
compliance with the terms more easy, by desiring Wilson, and the
friends to whom his connection with Agnes had been known, never to
mention her name in his presence again, if they valued his health and
reason, as the safety of both depended on his forgetting a woman of whom
he had never felt the value sufficiently till he had lost her for ever.
Soon after, he married;--and the disagreeable qualities of his wife made
him recollect, with more painful regret, the charms and virtues of
Agnes. The consequence was that he plunged deeper than ever into
dissipation, and had recourse to intoxication in order to banish care
and disagreeable recollections;--and, while year after year passed away
in fruitless expectation of a child to inherit the estate and the
long-disputed title, he remembered, with agonizing regrets, the beauty
of his lost Edward; and reflected that, by refusing to perform his
promises to the injured Agnes, he had deprived himself of the heir that
he so much coveted, and of a wife who would have added dignity to the
title which she bore, and been the delight and ornament of his family.
Such were the miserable feelings of Clifford,--such the corroding cares
that robbed his mind of its energy, and his body of health and vigour.
Though courted, caressed, flattered, and surrounded by affluence and
splendour, he was disappointed and self-condemned. And while Agnes, for
the first time condemning him unjustly, attributed his silence and
neglect of her and her offspring to a degree of indifference and
hard-heartedness at which human nature shudders, Clifford was feeling
all the horrors of remorse, without the consolations of repentance.
I have before observed, that one idea engrossed the mind and prompted
the exertions of Agnes;--and this was the probable restoration of her
father to reason.--"Could I but once more hear him call me by my name,
and bless me with his forgiveness, I should die in peace; and something
within me tells me that my hopes will not be in vain: and who knows but
we may pass a contented, if not a happy life together, yet?--So toil on,
toil on, Agnes, and expect the fruit of thy labours."
These words she was in the habit of repeating not only to Fanny and her
next-door neighbours (whom she had acquainted with her story), but to
herself as she sat at work or traversed the heath. Even in the dead of
night she would start from a troubled sleep, and repeating these words,
they would operate as a charm on her disturbed mind; and as she spoke
the last sentence, she would fall into a quiet slumber, from which she
awoke the next morning at day-break to pursue with increased alacrity
the labours of the day.
Meanwhile Agnes and her exemplary industry continued to engage the
attention and admiration of the candid and liberal in the town of ----.
Mr. Seymour, who did not venture to inquire concerning her of Fanny
while she lived at her house, now often called there to ask news of
Agnes and her employments; and his curiosity was excited to know to what
purpose she intended to devote the money earned with so much labour, and
hoarded with such parsimonious care.
But Fanny was as ignorant on this subject as himself; and the only new
information which she could give him was, that Agnes had begun to employ
herself in fancy-works, in order to increase her gains; and that it was
her intention soon to send little Edward (then four years old) to town
to offer artificial flowers, painted needle-books, work-bags, &c. at the
doors of the opulent and humane.
Nor was it long before this design was put in execution; and Mr. Seymour
had the satisfaction of buying all the lovely boy's first cargo himself,
for presents to his daughters. The little merchant returned to his
anxious mother, bounding with delight, not at the good success of his
first venture, for its importance he did not understand, but at the
kindness of Mr. Seymour, who had met him on the road, conducted him to
his house, helped his daughters to load his pockets with cakes, and put
in his basket, in exchange for his merchandize, tongue, chicken, and
other things to carry home to his mother.
Agnes heard the child's narration with more pleasure than she had for
some time experienced.--"They do not despise me, then," said she; "they
even respect me too much to offer me pecuniary aid, or presents of any
kind but in a way that cannot wound my feelings."
But this pleasure was almost immediately checked by the recollection,
that he whose wounded spirit would have been soothed by seeing her once
more an object of delicate attention and respect, and for whose sake
alone she could now ever be capable of enjoying them, was still
unconscious of her claims to it, and knew not that they were so
generally acknowledged. In the words of Jane de Montfort she could have
said,
"He to whose ear my praise most welcome was,
Hears it no more!"
"But I will hope on," Agnes used to exclaim as these thoughts occurred
to her; and again her countenance assumed the wild expression of a
dissatisfied but still expecting spirit.
Three years had now elapsed since Agnes first returned to her native
place. "The next year," said Agnes to Fanny with unusual animation,
"cannot fail of bringing forth good to me. You know that, according to
the rules of the new bedlam, a patient is to remain five years in the
house: at the end of that time, if not cured, he is to be removed to the
apartments appropriated to incurables, and kept there for life, his
friends paying a certain annuity for his maintenance; or he is, on their
application, to be returned to their care--"--"And what then?" said
Fanny, wondering at the unusual joy that animated Agnes's countenance.
"Why then," replied she, "as my father's time for being confined expires
at the end of the next year, he will either be cured by that time, or he
will be given up to my care; and then, who knows what the consequences
may be!"--"What indeed!" returned Fanny, who foresaw great personal
fatigue and anxiety, if not danger, to Agnes in such a plan, and was
going to express her fears and objections; but Agnes, in a manner
overpoweringly severe, desired her to be silent, and angrily withdrew.
Soon after, Agnes received a proof of being still dear to her friend
Caroline; which gave her a degree of satisfaction amounting even to joy.
Mr. Seymour, in a letter to his daughter, had given her an account of
all the proceedings of Agnes, and expressed his surprise at the
eagerness with which she laboured to gain money, merely, as it seemed,
for the sake of hoarding it, as she had then, and always would have,
only herself and child to maintain; as it was certain that her father
would be allowed to continue, free of all expenses, an inhabitant of an
asylum which owed its erection chiefly to his benevolent exertions.
But Caroline, to whom the mind of Agnes was well known, and who had
often contemplated with surprise and admiration her boldness in
projecting, her promptness in deciding, and her ability in executing the
projects which she had formed; and above all that sanguine temper
which led her to believe probable, what others only conceived to be
possible,--found a reason immediately for the passion of hoarding which
seemed to have taken possession of her friend; and, following the
instant impulse of friendship and compassion, she sent Agnes the
following letter, in which was inclosed a bank note to a considerable
amount.
"I have divined your secret, my dear Agnes. I know why you are so
anxious to hoard what you gain with such exemplary industry. In another
year your father will have been the allotted time under the care of the
medical attendants in your part of the world; and you are hoarding that
you may be able, when that time comes, to procure for him elsewhere
the best possible advice and assistance. Yes, yes, I know I am
right:--therefore, lest your own exertions should not, in the space of a
twelvemonth, be crowned with sufficient success, I conjure you, by our
long friendship, to appropriate the inclosed to the purport in question;
and should the scheme which I impute to you be merely the creature of my
own brain, as it is a good scheme, employ the money in executing it.
"To silence all your scruples, I assure you that my gift is sanctioned
by my husband and my father, who join with me in approbation of your
conduct, and in the most earnest wishes that you may receive the reward
of it in the entire restoration of your afflicted parent. Already have
the candid and enlightened paid you their tribute of recovered esteem.
"It is the _slang_ of the present day, if I may be allowed this vulgar
but forcible expression, to inveigh bitterly against society for
excluding from its circle, with unrelenting rigour, the woman who has
once transgressed the salutary laws of chastity; and some brilliant and
persuasive, but in my opinion mistaken, writers of both sexes have
endeavoured to prove that many an amiable woman has been for ever lost
to virtue and the world, and become the victim of prostitution, merely
because her first fault was treated with ill-judging and criminal
severity.
"This assertion appears to me to be fraught with mischief; as it
is calculated to deter the victim of seduction from penitence and
amendment, by telling her that she would employ them in her favour
in vain. And it is surely as false as it is dangerous. I know many
instances, and it is fair to conclude that the experience of others
is similar to mine, of women restored by perseverance in a life of
expiatory amendment to that rank in society, which they had forfeited by
one false step, while their fault has been forgotten in their exemplary
conduct as wives and mothers.
"But it is not to be expected that society should open its arms to
receive its prodigal children till they have undergone a long and
painful probation,--till they have practised the virtues of self-denial,
patience, fortitude, and industry. And she whose penitence is not the
mere result of wounded pride and caprice, will be capable of exerting
all these virtues, in order to regain some portion of the esteem which
she has lost. What will difficulties and mortifications be to her?
Keeping her eye steadily fixed on the end which she has in view, she
will bound lightly over them all; nor will she seek the smiles of the
world, till, instead of receiving them as a favour, she can demand them
as a right.
"Agnes, my dear Agnes, do you not know the original of the above
picture? You, by a life of self-denial, patience, fortitude, and
industry, have endeavoured to atone for the crime which you committed
against Society; and I hear her voice saying, 'Thy sins are forgiven
thee!' and ill befall the hand that would uplift the sacred pall which
penitence and amendment have thrown over departed guilt!"
Such was the letter of Caroline:--a letter intended to speak peace and
hope to the heart of Agnes; to reconcile the offender to herself, and
light up her dim eye with the beams of self-approbation. Thus did she
try to console her guilty and unhappy friend in the hour of her
adversity and degradation. But Caroline had given a still _greater_
proof of the sincerity of her friendship:--she had never wounded the
feelings, or endeavoured to mortify the self-love of Agnes in the hour
of her prosperity and acknowledged superiority: she had seen her
attractions, and heard her praises, without envy; nor ever with seeming
kindness but real malignity related to her, in the accents of pretended
wonder and indignation, the censures which she had incurred, or the
ridicule which she had excited,--but in every instance she had proved
her friendship a memorable exception to what are sarcastically termed
the friendships of women.
"Yes,--she has indeed divined my secret," said Agnes when she had
perused the letter, while tears of tenderness trickled down her cheeks,
"and she deserves to assist me in procuring means for my poor father's
recovery--an indulgence which I should be jealous of granting to any one
else, except you, Fanny," she added, seeing on Fanny's countenance an
expression of jealousy of this richer friend; "and on the strength of
this noble present," looking with a smile at her darned and pieced,
though neat, apparel, "I will treat myself with a new gown."--"Not
before it was wanted," said Fanny peevishly.--"Nay," replied Agnes with
a forced smile, "surely I am well dressed enough for a runaway daughter.
'My father loved to see me fine,' as poor Clarissa says, and had I never
left him, I should not have been forced to wear such a gown as this:
but, Fanny, let me but see him once more capable of knowing me, and of
loving me, if it be possible for him to forgive me," added she in a
faltering voice, "and I will then, if he wishes it, be fine again,
though I work all night to make myself so."
"My dear, dear lady," said Fanny sorrowfully, "I am sure I did not mean
any thing by what I said; but you have such a way with you, and talk so
sadly!--Yet, I can't bear, indeed I can't, to see such a lady in a gown
not good enough for me; and then to see my young master no better
dressed than the cottager's boys next door;--and then to hear them call
master Edward little Fitzhenry, as if he was not their betters;--I can't
bear it,--it does not signify talking, I can't bear to think of it."
"How, then," answered Agnes in a solemn tone, and grasping her hand as
she spoke, "How can I bear to think of the guilt which has thus reduced
so low both me and my child? O! would to God my boy could exchange
situation with the children whom you think his inferiors! I have given
him life, indeed, but not one legal claim to what is necessary to the
support of life, except the scanty pittance which I might, by a public
avowal of my shame, wring from his father."
"I would beg my bread with him through the streets before you should do
that," hastily exclaimed Fanny; "and, for the love of God, say no more
on this subject!--He is _my child_, as well as yours," she continued,
snatching little Edward to her bosom, who was contentedly playing with
his top at the door; and Agnes, in contemplating the blooming graces of
the boy, forgot that he was an object of compassion.
The next year passed away as the former had done; and at the end of it,
Fitzhenry being pronounced incurable, but perfectly quiet and harmless,
Agnes desired, in spite of the advice and entreaties of the governors,
that he might be delivered up to her, that she might put him under the
care of Dr. W----.
Luckily for Agnes, the assignees of her father recovered a debt of a
hundred pounds, which had long been due to him; and this sum they
generously presented to Agnes, in order to further the success of her
last hope.
On the day fixed for Fitzhenry's release, Agnes purchased a complete
suit of clothes for him, such as he used to wear in former days, and
dressed herself in a manner suited to her birth, rather than her
situation; then set out in a post-chaise, attended by the friendly
cottager, as it was judged imprudent for her to travel with her father
alone, to take up Fitzhenry at the bedlam, while Fanny was crying with
joy to see her dear lady looking like herself again, and travelling like
a _gentlewoman_.
But the poor, whom gratitude and affection made constantly observant of
the actions of Agnes, were full of consternation, when some of them
heard, and communicated to the others, that a post-chaise was standing
at Miss Fitzhenry's door. "O dear! she is going to leave us again; what
shall we do without her?" was the general exclamation; and when Agnes
came out to enter her chaise, she found it surrounded by her humble
friends lamenting and inquiring, though with cautious respect, whether
she ever meant to come back again. "Fanny will tell you every thing,"
said Agnes, overcome with grateful emotion at observing the interest
which she excited. Unable to say more, she waved her hand as a token of
farewell to them, and the chaise drove off.
"Is miss Fitzhenry grown _rich_ again?" was the general question
addressed to Fanny; and I am sure it was a disinterested one, and that,
at the moment, they asked it without a view to their profiting by her
change of situation, and merely as anxious for her welfare;--and when
Fanny told them whither and wherefore Agnes was gone, could prayers,
good wishes and blessings have secured success to the hopes of Agnes,
her father, even as soon as she stopped at the gate of the bedlam, would
have recognised and received her with open arms. But when she arrived,
she found Fitzhenry as irrational as ever, though delighted to hear that
he was going to take a ride with "_the lady_" as he always called Agnes;
and she had the pleasure of seeing him seat himself beside her with a
look of uncommon satisfaction. Nothing worth relating happened on the
road. Fitzhenry was very tractable, except at night, when the cottager,
who slept in the same room with him, found it difficult to make him
keep in bed, and was sometimes forced to call Agnes to his assistance:
at sight of her he always became quiet, and obeyed her implicitly.
The skilful and celebrated man to whom she applied received her with
sympathizing kindness, and heard her story with a degree of interest and
sensibility peculiarly grateful to the afflicted heart. Agnes related
with praiseworthy ingenuousness the whole of her sad history, judging it
necessary that the doctor should know the cause of the malady for which
he was to prescribe.
It was peculiarly the faculty of Agnes to interest in her welfare those
with whom she conversed; and the doctor soon experienced a more than
ordinary earnestness to cure a patient so interesting from his
misfortunes, and recommended by so interesting a daughter. "Six months,"
said he, "will be a sufficient time of trial; and in the mean while you
shall reside in a lodging near us." Fitzhenry then became an inmate of
the doctor's house; Agnes took possession of apartments in the
neighbourhood; and the cottager returned to ----.
The ensuing six months were passed by Agnes in the soul-sickening
feeling of hope deferred: and, while the air of the place agreed so well
with her father that he became fat and healthy in his appearance,
anxiety preyed on her delicate frame, and made the doctor fear that,
when he should be forced to pronounce his patient beyond his power to
cure, she would sink under the blow, unless the hope of being still
serviceable to her father should support her under its pressure. He
resolved, therefore, to inform her, in as judicious and cautious a
manner as possible, that he saw no prospect of curing the
thoroughly-shattered intellect of Fitzhenry.
"_I_ can do nothing for your father," said he to Agnes (when he had
been under his care six months), laying great stress on the word
_I_;----(Agnes, with a face of horror, started from her seat, and laid
her hand on his arm)----"but _you_ can do a great deal."
"Can I? can I?" exclaimed Agnes, sobbing convulsively.--"Blessed
hearing! But the means--the means?"
"It is very certain," he replied, "that he experiences great delight
when he sees you, and sees you too employed in his service;--and when he
lives with you, and sees you again where he has been accustomed to see
you----"
"You advise his living with me, then?" interrupted Agnes with eagerness.
"I do, most strenuously," replied the doctor.
"Blessings on you for those words!" answered Agnes: "they said you would
oppose it. You are a wise and a kind-hearted man."
"My dear child," rejoined the doctor, "when an evil can't be cured, it
should at least be alleviated."
"You think it can't be cured, then?" again interrupted Agnes.
"Not absolutely so:--I know not what a course of medicine, and living
with you as much in your old way as possible, may do for him. Let him
resume his usual habits, his usual walks, live as near your former
habitation as you possibly can; let him hear his favourite songs, and be
as much with him as you can contrive to be; and if you should not
succeed in making him rational again, you will at least make him happy."
"Happy!--I make him happy, now!" exclaimed Agnes, pacing the room in an
agony:--"I made him happy once!--but now!----"
"You must hire some one to sleep in the room with him," resumed the
doctor.
"No, no," cried Agnes impatiently;--"no one shall wait on him but
myself;--I will attend him day and night."
"And should your strength be worn out by such incessant watching, who
would take care of him then?--Remember, you are but mortal."--Agnes
shook her head, and was silent.--"Besides, the strength of a man may
sometimes be necessary; and, for his sake as well as yours, I must
insist on being obeyed."
"You shall be obeyed," said Agnes mournfully.