medicine, and management."--This he did in detail, as he found Agnes
had a mind capacious enough to understand his system; and promising to
answer her letters immediately, whenever she wrote to him for advice,
he took an affectionate farewell of her; and Agnes and her father,
accompanied by a man whom the doctor had procured for the purpose, set
off for ----.
Fanny was waiting at the cottage with little Edward to receive
them,--but the dejected countenance of Agnes precluded all necessity of
asking concerning the state of Fitzhenry. Scarcely could the caresses of
her child, and the joy which he expressed at seeing her, call a smile to
her lips; and as she pressed him to her bosom, tears of bitter
disappointment mingled with those of tenderness.
In a day or two after, Agnes, in compliance with the doctor's desire,
hired a small tenement very near the house in which they formerly lived;
and in the garden of which, as it was then empty, they obtained leave to
walk. She also procured a person to sleep in the room with her father,
instead of the man who came with them; and he carried back a letter from
her to the doctor, informing him that she had arranged every thing
according to his directions.
It was a most painfully pleasing sight to behold the attention of Agnes
to Fitzhenry. She knew that it was not in her power to repair the
enormous injury which she had done him, and that all she could now do
was but a poor amends; still it was affecting to see how anxiously she
watched his steps whenever he chose to wander alone from home, and what
pains she took to make him neat in his appearance, and cleanly in his
person. Her child and herself were clothed in coarse apparel, but she
bought for her father everything of the best materials; and, altered as
he was, Fitzhenry still looked like a gentleman.
Sometimes he seemed in every respect so like himself, that Agnes,
hurried away by her imagination, would, after gazing on him some
minutes, start from her seat, seize his hand, and, breathless with hope,
address him as if he were a rational being,--when a laugh of vacancy, or
a speech full of the inconsistency of phrensy, would send her back on
her chair again, with a pulse quickened, and a cheek flushed with the
fever of disappointed expectation.
However, he certainly was pleased with her attentions,--but, alas! he
knew not who was the bestower of them: he knew not that the child, whose
ingratitude or whose death he still lamented in his ravings in the dead
of night, was returned to succour, to soothe him, and to devote herself
entirely to his service. He heard her, but he knew her not; he saw her,
but in her he was not certain that he beheld his child: and this was the
pang that preyed on the cheek and withered the frame of Agnes: but she
persisted to hope, and patiently endured the pain of to-day, expecting
the joy of to-morrow; nor did her hopes always appear ill-founded.
The first day that Agnes led him to the garden once his own, he ran
through every walk with eager delight; but he seemed surprised and angry
to see the long grass growing in the walks, and the few flowers that
remained choked up with weeds,--and began to pluck up the weeds with
hasty violence.
"It is time to go home," said Agnes to him just as the day began to
close in; and Fitzhenry immediately walked to the door which led into
the house, and, finding it locked, looked surprised: then, turning to
Agnes, he asked her if she had not the key in her pocket; and on her
telling him that that was not his home, he quitted the house evidently
with great distress and reluctance, and was continually looking back at
it, as if he did not know how to believe her.
On this little circumstance poor Agnes lay ruminating the whole night
after, with joyful expectation; and she repaired to the garden at
day-break, with a gardener whom she hired, to make the walks look as
much as possible as they formerly did. But they had omitted to tie up
some straggling flowers;--and when Agnes, Fanny and the cottager,
accompanied Fitzhenry thither the next evening, though he seemed
conscious of the improvement that had taken place, he was disturbed at
seeing some gilliflowers trailing along the ground; and suddenly turning
to Agnes he said, "Why do you not bind up these?"
To do these little offices in the garden, and keep the parterre in
order, was formerly Agnes's employment. What delight, then, must these
words of Fitzhenry, so evidently the result of an association in his
mind between her and his daughter, have excited in Agnes! With a
trembling hand and a glowing cheek she obeyed; and Fitzhenry, with
manifest satisfaction, saw her tie up every straggling flower in the
garden, while he eagerly followed her and bent attentively over her.
At last, when she had gone the whole round of the flower-beds, he
exclaimed, "Good girl! good girl!" and putting his arms round her waist,
suddenly kissed her cheek.
Surprise, joy, and emotion difficult to be defined, overcame the
irritable frame of Agnes, and she fell senseless to the ground. But the
care of Fanny soon recovered her again;--and the first question that she
asked was, how her father (whom she saw in great agitation running round
the garden) behaved when he saw her fall.
"He raised you up," replied Fanny, "and seemed so distressed! he would
hold the salts to your nose himself, and would scarcely suffer me to do
anything for you: but, hearing you mutter 'Father! dear father!' as you
began to come to yourself, he changed colour, and immediately began to
run round the garden, as you now see him."
"Say no more, say no more, my dear friend," cried Agnes; "it is enough.
I am happy, quite happy;--it is clear that he knew me;--and I have again
received a father's embrace!--Then his anxiety too while I was ill!--Oh!
there is no doubt now that he will be quite himself in time."
"Perhaps he may," replied Fanny;--"but----"
"But! and perhaps!" cried Agnes pettishly;--"I tell you he will, he
certainly will recover; and those are not my friends who doubt it." So
saying, she ran hastily forward to meet Fitzhenry, who was joyfully
hastening towards her, leaving Fanny grieved and astonished at her
petulance. But few are the tempers proof against continual anxiety and
the souring influence of still renewed and still disappointed hope; and
even Agnes, the once gentle Agnes, if contradicted on this one subject,
became angry and unjust.
But she was never conscious of having given pain to the feelings of
another, without bitter regret and an earnest desire of healing the
wound which she had made; and when, leaning on Fitzhenry's arm, she
returned towards Fanny, and saw her in tears, she felt a pang severer
than that which she had inflicted, and said every thing that affection
and gratitude could dictate, to restore her to tranquillity again. Her
agitation alarmed Fitzhenry; and, exclaiming "Poor thing!" he held the
smelling-bottle, almost by force, to her nose, and seemed terrified lest
she was going to faint again.
"You see, you see!" said Agnes triumphantly to Fanny; and Fanny, made
cautious by experience, declared the conviction that her young lady must
know more of all matters than she did.
But month after month elapsed, and no circumstances of a similar nature
occurred to give new strength to the hopes of Agnes; however, she had
the pleasure to see that Fitzhenry not only seemed to be attached to
her, but pleased with little Edward.
She had indeed taken pains to teach him to endeavour to amuse her
father,--but sometimes she had the mortification of hearing, when fits
of loud laughter from the child reached her ear, "Edward was only
laughing at grandpapa's odd faces and actions, mamma:" and having at
last taught him that it was wicked to laugh at such things, because his
grandfather was not well when he distorted his face, her heart was
nearly as much wrung by the pity which he expressed; for, whenever these
occasional slight fits of phrensy attacked Fitzhenry, little Edward
would exclaim, "Poor grandpapa! he is not well now;--I wish we could
make him well, mamma!" But, on the whole, she had reason to be tolerably
cheerful.
Every evening, when the weather was fine, Agnes, holding her father's
arm, was seen taking her usual walk, her little boy gamboling before
them; and never, in their most prosperous hours, were they met with
curtsies more low, or bows more respectful, than on these occasions; and
many a one grasped with affectionate eagerness the meagre hand of
Fitzhenry, and the feverish hand of Agnes; for even the most rigid
hearts were softened in favour of Agnes, when they beheld the ravages
which grief had made in her form, and gazed on her countenance, which
spoke in forcible language the sadness yet resignation of her mind. She
might, if she had chosen it, have been received at many houses where she
had formerly been intimate; but she declined it, as visiting would have
interfered with the necessary labours of the day, with her constant
attention to her father, and with the education of her child. "But when
my father recovers," said she to Fanny, "as he will be pleased to find
that I am not deemed wholly unworthy of notice, I shall have great
satisfaction in visiting with him."
To be brief:--Another year elapsed, and Agnes still hoped; and Fitzhenry
continued the same to every eye but hers:--she every day fancied that
his symptoms of returning reason increased, and no one of her friends
dared to contradict her. But in order, if possible, to accelerate his
recovery, she had resolved to carry him to London, to receive the best
advice that the metropolis afforded, when Fitzhenry was attacked by an
acute complaint which confined him to his bed. This event, instead of
alarming Agnes, redoubled her hopes. She insisted that it was the crisis
of his disorder, and expected that health and reason would return
together. Not for one moment therefore would she leave his bedside; and
she would allow herself neither food nor rest, while with earnest
attention she gazed on the fast sinking eyes of Fitzhenry, eager to
catch in them an expression of returning recognition.
One day, after he had been sleeping some time, and she, as usual, was
attentively watching by him, Fitzhenry slowly and gradually awoke; and,
at last, raising himself on his elbow, looked round him with an
expression of surprise, and, seeing Agnes, exclaimed, "My child! are
you there? Gracious God! is this possible?"
Let those who have for years been pining away life in fruitless
expectation, and who see themselves at last possessed of the
long-desired blessing, figure to themselves the rapture of Agnes--"He
knows me! He is himself again!" burst from her quivering lips,
unconscious that it was too probable that restored reason was here the
forerunner of dissolution.
"O my father!" she cried, falling on her knees, but not daring to look
up at him--"O my father, forgive me, if possible!--I have been guilty,
but I am penitent."
Fitzhenry, as much affected as Agnes, faltered out, "Thou art restored
to me,--and God knows how heartily I forgive thee!" Then raising her to
his arms, Agnes, happy in the fullfilment of her utmost wishes, felt
herself once more pressed to the bosom of the most affectionate of
fathers.
"But surely you are not now come back?" asked Fitzhenry. "I have seen
you before, and very lately?"--"Seen me! O yes!" replied Agnes with
passionate rapidity;--"for these last five years I have seen you daily;
and for the last two years you have lived with me, and I have worked to
maintain you!"--"Indeed!" answered Fitzhenry:--"but how pale and thin
you are! you have worked too much:--Had you no _friends_, my child?"
"O yes! and, guilty as I have been, they pity, nay, they respect me, and
we may yet be happy! as Heaven restores you to my prayers!--True, I have
suffered much; but this blessed moment repays me;--this is the only
moment of true enjoyment which I have known since I left my home and
you!"
Agnes was thus pouring out the hasty effusions of her joy, unconscious
that Fitzhenry, overcome with affection, emotion, and, perhaps,
sorrowful recollections, was struggling in vain for utterance;--at
last,--"For so many years--and I knew you not!--worked for me;--attended
me!----Bless, bless her, Heaven!" he faintly articulated; and worn out
with illness, and choaked with contending emotions, he fell back on his
pillow, and expired!
That blessing, the hope of obtaining which alone gave Agnes courage to
endure contumely, poverty, fatigue, and sorrow, was for one moment her
own, and then snatched from her for ever!--No wonder, then, that, when
convinced her father was really dead, she fell into a state of
stupefaction, from which she never recovered;--and, at the same time,
were borne to the same grave, the Father and Daughter.
* * * * *
The day of their funeral was indeed a melancholy one:--They were
attended to the grave by a numerous procession of respectable
inhabitants of both sexes,--while the afflicted and lamenting poor
followed mournfully at a distance. Even those who had distinguished
themselves by their violence against Agnes at her return, dropped a tear
as they saw her borne to her long home. Mrs. Macfiendy forgot her beauty
and accomplishments in her misfortunes and early death; and the mother
of the child who had fled from the touch of Agnes, felt sorry that she
had ever called her the wickedest woman in the world.
But the most affecting part of the procession was little Edward
as chief mourner, led by Fanny and her husband, in all the happy
insensibility of childhood, unconscious that he was the pitiable hero
of that show, which, by its novelty and parade, so much delighted
him,--while his smiles, poor orphan! excited the tears of those around
him.
Just before the procession began to move, a post-chariot and four, with
white favours, drove into the yard of the largest inn in the town. It
contained Lord and Lady Mountcarrol, who were married only the day
before, and were then on their way to her ladyship's country seat.
His lordship, who seemed incapable of resting in one place for a minute
together, did nothing but swear at the postillions for bringing them
that road, and express an earnest desire to leave the town again as fast
as possible.
While he was gone into the stable, for the third time, to see whether
the horses were not sufficiently refreshed to go on, a waiter came in to
ask Lady Mountcarrol's commands, and at that moment the funeral passed
the window. The waiter (who was the very servant that at Mr. Seymour's
had refused to shut the door against Agnes) instantly turned away his
head, and burst into tears. This excited her ladyship's curiosity; and
she drew from him a short but full account of Agnes and her father.
He had scarcely finished his story when Lord Mountcarrol came in, saying
that the carriage was ready; and no sooner had his bride begun to relate
to him the story which she had just heard, than he exclaimed in a voice
of thunder, "It is as false as hell, madam! Miss Fitzhenry and her child
both died years ago." Then rushing into the carriage, he left Lady
Mountcarrol terrified and amazed at his manner. But when she was seating
herself by his side, she could not help saying that it was impossible
for a story to be false, which all the people in the inn averred to be
true; and, as he did not offer to interrupt her, she went through the
whole story of Agnes and her sufferings; but before she could proceed to
comment on them, the procession, returning from church, crossed the road
in which they were going, and obliged the postillions to stop.
Foremost came the little Edward, with all his mother's beauty in his
face. "Poor little orphan!" said Lady Mountcarrol, giving a tear to the
memory of Agnes: "See, my lord, what a lovely boy!" As she spoke, the
extreme elegance of the carriage attracted Edward's attention: and
springing from Fanny's hand, who in vain endeavoured to hold him back,
he ran up to the door to examine the figures on the pannel. At that
instant Lord Mountcarrol opened the door, lifted the child into the
chaise, and, throwing his card of address to the astonished mourners,
ordered the servants to drive on as fast as possible.
They did so in despite of Mr. Seymour and others, for astonishment had
at first deprived them of the power of moving; and the horses, before
the witnesses of this sudden and strange event had recovered their
recollection, had gone too far to allow themselves to be stopped.
The card with Lord Mountcarrol's name explained what at first had
puzzled and confounded as well as alarmed them; and Fanny, who had
fainted at sight of his lordship, because she knew him, altered as he
was, to be Edward's father, and the bane of Agnes, now recovering
herself, conjured Mr. Seymour to follow him immediately, and tell him
that Edward was bequeathed to her care.
Mr. Seymour instantly ordered post horses, and in about an hour after
set off in pursuit of the ravisher.
But the surprise and consternation of Fanny and the rest of the
mourners, was not greater than that of Lady Mountcarrol at sight of her
lord's strange conduct. "What does this outrage mean, my lord?" she
exclaimed in a faltering voice; "and whose child is that?"--"It is _my
child_, madam," replied he; "and I will never resign him but with life."
Then pressing the astonished boy to his bosom, he for some minutes
sobbed aloud,--while Lady Mountcarrol, though she could not help feeling
compassion for the agony which the seducer of Agnes must experience at
such a moment, was not a little displeased and shocked at finding
herself the wife of that Clifford, whose name she had so lately heard
coupled with that of villain.
But her attention was soon called from reflections so unpleasant by the
cries of Edward, whose surprise at being seized and carried away by a
stranger now yielded to terror, and who, bursting from Lord Mountcarrol,
desired to go back to his mamma, Fanny, and Mr. Seymour.
"What! and leave your own father, Edward?" asked his agitated
parent.--"Look at me,--I am your father;--but I suppose, your mother, as
well she might, taught you to hate me?"--"My mamma told me it was wicked
to hate any body: and I am sure I have no papa: I had a grandpapa, but
he is gone to heaven along with my mamma, Fanny says, and she is my
mamma now." And again screaming and stamping with impatience, he
insisted on going back to her.
But at length, by promises of riding on a fine horse, and of sending for
Fanny to ride with him, he was pacified. Then with artless readiness he
related his mother's way of life, and the odd ways of his grandpapa: and
thus, by acquainting Lord Mountcarrol with the sufferings and the
virtuous exertions of Agnes, he increased his horror of his own conduct,
and his regret at not having placed so noble-minded a woman at the head
of his family. But whence arose the story of her death he had yet to
learn.
In a few hours they reached the seat which he had acquired by his second
marriage; and there too, in an hour after, arrived Mr. Seymour and the
husband of Fanny.
Lord Mountcarrol expected this visit, and received them courteously;
while Mr. Seymour was so surprised at seeing the once healthy and
handsome Clifford changed to an emaciated valetudinarian, and carrying
in his face the marks of habitual intemperance, that his indignation was
for a moment lost in pity. But recovering himself, he told his lordship
that he came to demand justice for the outrage which he had committed,
and in the name of the friend to whom Miss Fitzhenry had, in case of her
sudden death, bequeathed her child, to insist on his being restored to
her.
"We will settle that point presently," replied Lord Mountcarrol; "but
first I conjure you to tell me all that has happened since we parted, to
her whose name I have not for years been able to repeat, and whom, as
well as this child, I have also for years believed dead."
"I will, my lord," answered Mr. Seymour; "but I warn you, that if you
have any feeling it will be tortured by the narration."
"If I have any feeling!" cried his lordship: "but go on, sir; from you,
sir--from you, as--as _her friend_, I can bear any thing."
Words could not do justice to the agonies of Lord Mountcarrol, while Mr.
Seymour, beginning with Agnes's midnight walk to ----, went through a
recital of her conduct and sufferings, and hopes and anxieties, and
ended with the momentary recovery and death-scene of her father.
But when Lord Mountcarrol discovered that Agnes supposed his not
making any inquiries concerning her or the child proceeded from brutal
indifference concerning their fate, and that, considering him as a
monster of inhumanity, she had regarded him not only with contempt,
but abhorrence, and seemed to have dismissed him entirely from her
remembrance, he beat his breast, he cast himself on the floor in frantic
anguish, lamenting, in all the bitterness of fruitless regret, that
Agnes died without knowing how much he loved her, and without suspecting
that, while she was supposing him unnaturally forgetful of her and her
child, he was struggling with illness, caused by her desertion, and
with a dejection of spirits which he had never, at times, been able to
overcome; execrating at the same time the memory of his father, and
Wilson, whom he suspected of having intentionally deceived him.
To conclude--Pity for the misery and compunction of Lord Mountcarrol,
and a sense of the advantages both in education and fortune that would
accrue to little Edward from living with his father, prevailed on Mr.
Seymour and the husband of Fanny to consent to his remaining where he
was;--and from that day Edward was universally known as his lordship's
son,--who immediately made a will bequeathing him a considerable
fortune.
Lord Mountcarrol was then sinking fast into his grave, the victim of his
vices, and worn to the bone by the corroding consciousness that Agnes
had died in the persuasion of his having brutally neglected her.--That
was the bitterest pang of all! She had thought him so vile, that she
could not for a moment regret him!
His first wife he had despised because she was weak and illiterate, and
hated because she had brought him no children. His second wife was too
amiable to be disliked; but, though he survived his marriage with her
two years, she also failed to produce an heir to the title. And while he
contemplated in Edward the mind and person of his mother, he was almost
frantic with regret that he was not legally his son; and he cursed the
hour when with short-sighted cunning he sacrificed the honour of Agnes
to his views of family aggrandizement.
But, selfish to the last moment of his existence, it was a consciousness
of his own misery, not of that which he had inflicted, which prompted
his expressions of misery and regret; and he grudged and envied Agnes
the comfort of having been able to despise and forget him.
* * * * *
Peace to the memory of Agnes Fitzhenry!--and may the woman who, like
her, has been the victim of artifice, self-confidence, and temptation,
like her endeavour to regain the esteem of the world by patient
suffering, and virtuous exertion; and look forward to the attainment of
it with confidence!--But may she whose innocence is yet secure, and
whose virtues still boast the stamp of chastity, which can alone make
them current in the world, tremble with horror at the idea of listening
to the voice of the seducer, lest the image of a father, a mother, a
brother, a sister, or some other fellow-being, whose peace of mind has
been injured by her deviation from virtue, should haunt her path through
life; and she who might, perhaps, have contemplated with fortitude the
wreck of her own happiness, be doomed to pine with fruitless remorse at
the consciousness of having destroyed that of another.--For where is
the mortal who can venture to pronounce that his actions are of
importance to no one, and that the consequences of his virtues or his
vices will be confined to himself alone!
THE END.
Printed by Richard Taylor,
Shoe-Lane, London.