Before the Belfields had quitted us, it was stipulated that we should,
with submission to the will of a higher power, all meet for six weeks
every other summer at Stanley Grove, and pass a month together every
intermediate year, either at the Priory, or at Beechwood.
I passed through London, and spent three days in Cavendish-square, my
friends having kindly postponed their departure for the country on my
account. Lady Belfield voluntarily undertook whatever was necessary for
the internal decoration of the Priory; while Sir John took on himself
the friendly office of arranging for me all preliminaries with Mr.
Stanley, whose largeness of heart and extreme disinterestedness, I knew
I durst not trust, without some such check as I placed in the hands of
our common friend.
As soon as all personal concerns were adjusted, Lady Belfield said, "I
have something to communicate, in which, I am persuaded, you will take a
lively interest. On my return to town, I found, among my visiting
tickets, several of Lady Melbury's. The porter told me she had called
every day for the last week, and seemed very impatient for my return.
Finding she was still in town, I went to her immediately. She was not at
home, but came to me within an hour. She expressed great joy at seeing
me. She looked more beautiful than ever, at least the blush of conscious
shame, which mingled with her usual sweetness, rendered her more
interesting.
"She was at a loss how to begin. With a perplexed air she said, 'Why did
you stay so long? I have sadly wanted you. Where is Sir John? I have
wanted counselors--comforters--friends. I have never had a friend.'
"I was affected at an opening so unexpected. Sir John came in. This
increased her confusion. At length, after the usual compliments, she
thus addressed him: 'I am determined to conquer this false shame. There
is not a worse symptom in human nature than that we blush to own what we
have not been afraid to do. From you, Sir John, I heard the first
remonstrance which ever reached my ears. You ought to be informed of its
effect. You can not have forgotten our conversation in my coach, after
we had quitted the scene which filled you with contempt for me, and me
with anguish for the part I had acted. You reasonably supposed that my
remorse would last no longer than the scene which had inspired it. You
left me alone. My lord dined abroad. I was abandoned to all the horrors
of solitude. I wanted somebody to keep me from myself. Mrs. Stokes
dying! her husband dead! the sweet flower-girl pining for want--and I
the cause of all! The whole view presented such a complication of misery
to my mind, and of guilt to my heart, as made me unsupportable to
myself.
"'It was Saturday! I was of course engaged to the opera. I was utterly
unfit to go, but wanted courage to frame an excuse. Fortunately Lady
Bell Finley, whom I had promised to chaperon, sent to excuse herself.
This set my person at liberty, but left my mind upon the rack. Though I
should have rejoiced in the company even of my own chambermaid, so much
did I dread being left to my own thoughts, yet I resolved to let no one
in that night. I had scarcely passed a single evening out of the giddy
circle for several years. For the first time in my life I was driven to
look into myself. I took a retrospect of my past conduct--a confused and
imperfect one indeed. This review aggravated my distress. Still I
pursued my distracting self-inquisition. Not for millions would I pass
such another night!
"'I had done as wrong things before, but they had never been thus
brought home to me. My extravagance must have made others suffer, but
their sufferings had not been placed before my eyes. What was not seen,
I had hoped might not be true. I had indeed heard distant reports of the
consequences of my thoughtless expense, but they might be invented--they
might be exaggerated. At the flower-maker's I _witnessed_ the ruin I had
made--I _saw_ the fruits of my unfeeling vanity--I _beheld_ the
calamities I had caused. O how much mischief would such actual
observation prevent! I was alone. I had no dependant to qualify the
deed, no sycophant to divert my attention to more soothing objects.
Though Sir John's honest expostulation had touched me to the quick, yet
I confess, had I found any of my coterie at home, had I gone to the
opera, had a joyous supper succeeded, all together would have quite
obliterated the late mortifying scene. I should, as I have often done
before, have soon lost all sense of the Stokes's misery, and of my own
crime.'"
"Here," pursued Lady Belfield, "the sweet creature looked so contrite,
that Sir John and I were both deeply affected."
"'You are not accustomed, Sir John,' resumed she, with a faint smile,
'to the office of a confessor, nor I to that of a penitent. But I make
it a test to myself of my own sincerity to tell you the whole truth.
"'I wandered from room to room, fancying I should be more at ease in any
other than that in which I was. I envied the starving tenant of the
meanest garret. I envied Mrs. Stokes herself. Both might have pitied the
pangs which rent my heart as I roamed through the decorated apartments
of our spacious house. In the gayest part of London I felt the
dreariness of a desert. Surrounded with magnificence, I endured a sense
of want and woe, of which a blameless beggar can form no idea.
"'I went into the library: I took up a book which my lord had left on
the table. It was a translation from a Roman classic. I opened it at the
speech of the tragedian to Pompey: '_The time will come that thou shalt
mourn deeply, because thou didst not mourn sooner!_' I was struck to the
heart. 'Shall a pagan,' said I, 'thus forcibly reprove me; and shall I
neglect to search for truth at the fountain?'
"'I knew my lord would not come home from his club till the morning. The
struggle in my soul between principle and pride was severe; but after a
bitter conflict, I resolved to employ the night in writing him a long
letter. In it I ingenuously confessed the whole state of my mind, and
what had occasioned it. I implored his permission for my setting out
next morning for Melbury Castle. I entreated him to prevail on his
excellent aunt, Lady Jane, whom I had so shamefully slighted, to
accompany me. I knew she was a character of that singular class who
would be glad to revenge herself for any ill-treatment by doing me a
service. Her company would be at once a pledge to my lord of the purity
of my intentions, and to myself a security against falling into worse
society. I assured him that I had no safeguard but in flight. An
additional reason which I alleged for my absence was, that as I had
promised to give a grand masquerade in a fortnight, the evading this
expense would nearly enable me to discharge the debt which sat so heavy
on my conscience.
"'I received a note from him as soon as he came home. With his usual
complaisance he complied with my request. With his usual nonchalance, he
neither troubled me with reproaches, nor comforted me with approbation.
"'As he knew that Lady Jane usually rose about the hour he came home
from St. James's street, he obligingly went to her at once. I had not
been in bed. He came to my dressing-room, and informed me that his aunt
had consented at the first word. I expressed my gratitude to them both,
saying that I was ready to set out that very day.'
"'You must wait till to-morrow,' said he. 'There is no accounting for
the oddities of some people. Lady Jane told me she could not possibly
travel on a Sunday. I wondered where was the impossibility. Sunday, I
assured her, was the only day for traveling in comfort, as the road was
not obstructed by wagons and carts. She replied, with a gravity which
made me laugh, 'That she should be ashamed to think that a person of her
rank and education should be indebted, for her being able to trample
with more convenience on a divine law, to the piety of the vulgar who
durst not violate it.' Did you ever hear any thing so whimsical,
Matilda?' I said nothing, but my heart smote me. Never will I repeat
this offense.
"'On the Monday we set out. I had kept close the preceding day, under
pretense of illness. This I also assigned as an excuse in the cards sent
to my invited guests, pleading the necessity of going into the country
for change of air. Shall I own I dreaded being shut up in a barouche,
and still more in the lonely castle, with Lady Jane? I looked for
nothing every moment but 'the thorns and briars of reproof.' But I soon
found that the woman whom I thought was a Methodist, was a most
entertaining companion. Instead of austerity in her looks and reproach
in her language, I found nothing but kindness and affection, vivacity
and elegance. While she soothed my sorrows, she strengthened my better
purposes. Her conversation gradually revived in my mind tastes and
principles which had been early sown in it, but which the world seemed
completely to have eradicated.
"'In the neighborhood of the castle, Lady Jane carried me to visit the
abodes of poverty and sickness. I envied her large but discriminating
liberality, and the means she had of gratifying it, while I shed tears
at the remembrance of my own squandered thousands. I had never been
hard-hearted, but I had always given to importunity, rather than to want
or merit. I blushed, that while I had been absurdly profuse to cases of
which I knew nothing, my own village had been perishing with a
contagious sickness.
"'While I amused myself with drawing, my aunt often read to me some
rationally entertaining book, occasionally introducing religious reading
and discourse, with a wisdom and moderation which increased the effect
of both. Knowing my natural levity and wretched habits, she generally
waited till the proposal came from myself. At first when I suggested it,
it was to please her: at length I began to find a degree of pleasure in
it myself.
"'You will say I have not quite lost my romance. A thought struck me,
that the first use I made of my pencil should serve to perpetuate at
least one of my offenses. You know I do not execute portraits badly.
With a little aid from fancy, which I thought made it allowable to bring
separate circumstances into one piece, I composed a picture. It
consisted of a detached figure in the background of poor Stokes, seen
through the grate of his prison on a bed of straw: and a group, composed
of his wife in the act of expiring, Fanny bending over a wreath of
roses, withered with the tears she was shedding, and myself in the
horrors in which you saw me,
Spectatress of the mischief I had made.
"'Wherever I go, this picture shall always be my companion. It hangs in
my closet. My dear friends,' added she, with a look of infinite
sweetness, 'whenever I am tempted to contract a debt, or to give in to
any act of vanity or dissipation which may lead to debt, if after having
looked on this picture I can pursue the project, renounce me, cast me
off forever!
"'You know Lady Jane's vein of humor. One day, as we were conversing
together, I confessed that at the very time I was the object of general
notice, and my gayety the theme of general envy, I had never known
happiness. 'I do not wonder at it,' said she. 'Those who greedily pursue
admiration, would be ashamed to sit down with so quiet a thing as
happiness.' 'My dear Lady Jane,' said I, 'correct me, counsel me,
instruct me: you have been too lenient, too forbearing.' 'Well,' said
she, with a cheerful tone, 'as you appoint me your physician, as you
disclose your case, and ask relief, I will give you a prescription,
which, though the simplest thing in the world, will, I am certain, go a
great way toward curing you. As you are barely six-and-twenty, your
disease, I trust, is not inveterate. If you will be an obedient patient,
I will answer for your recovery.'
"'I assured her of my willing adoption of any remedy she might
prescribe, as I was certain she would consider my weakness, and adapt
her treatment, not so much to what my case absolutely required as to
what my strength was able to bear.
"'Well, then,' said she--'but pray observe I am no quack. I do not
undertake to restore you instantaneously. Though my medicine will work
surely, it will work slowly. You know,' added she, smiling, 'the success
of all alteratives depends on the punctuality with which they are taken,
and the constancy with which they are followed up. Mine must be taken
two or three times a day, in small quantities at first, the dose to be
enlarged as you are able to bear it. I can safely assert, with the
advertising doctors, that it may be used full or fasting, in all
weathers, and all seasons; but I can not add with them that _it requires
no confinement_.'
"'I grew impatient, and begged she would come to the point.
"'Softly, Matilda,' said she, 'softly. I must first look into my
receipt-book, for fear I should mistake any of my ingredients. This
book,' said she, opening it, 'though written by no charlatan, contains a
cure for all diseases. It exhibits not only general directions, but
specified cases.' Turning over the leaves as she was speaking, she at
length stopped, saying, 'here is your case, my dear, or rather your
remedy.' She then read very deliberately: 'COMMUNE WITH YOUR OWN
HEART--AND IN YOUR CHAMBER--AND BE STILL.'
"'I now found her grand receipt-book was the Bible. I rose and embraced
her. 'My dear aunt,' said I, 'do with me whatever you please. I will be
all obedience. I pledge myself to take your alterative regularly,
constantly. Do not spare me. Speak your whole mind.'
"'My dear Matilda,' said she, 'ever since your marriage, your life has
been one continued opposition to your feelings. You have lived as much
below your understanding as your principles. Your conduct has been a
system of contradictions. You have believed in Christianity, and acted
in direct violation of its precepts. You knew that there was a day of
future reckoning, and yet neglected to prepare for it. With a heart full
of tenderness, you have been guilty of repeated acts of cruelty. You
have been faithful to your husband, without making him respectable or
happy. You have been virtuous, without the reputation or the peace which
belongs to virtue. You have been charitable without doing good, and
affectionate without having ever made a friend. You have wasted those
attentions on the worthless which the worthy would have delighted to
receive, and those talents on the frivolous which would have been
cherished by the enlightened. You have defeated the use of a fine
understanding by the want of common prudence, and robbed society of the
example of your good qualities by your total inability to resist and
oppose. Inconsideration and vanity have been the joint cause of your
malady. At your age I trust it is not incurable. As you have caught it
by keeping infected company, there is no possible mode of cure but by
avoiding the contagious air they breathe. You have performed your
quarantine with admirable patience. Beware, my dearest niece, of
returning to the scene where the plague rages, till your antidote has
taken its full effect.'
"'I will _never_ return to it, my dear Lady Jane,' cried I, throwing
myself into her arms. 'I do not mean that I will never return to town.
My duty to my lord requires me to be where he is, or where he wishes me
to be. My residence will be the same, but my society shall be changed.'
"'You please me entirely,' replied she. 'In resorting to religion, take
care that you do not dishonor it. Never plead your piety to God as an
apology for your neglect of the relative duties. If the one is soundly
adopted, the others will be correctly performed. There are those who
would delight to throw such a stigma on real Christianity, as to be able
to report that it had extinguished your affections, and soured your
temper. Disappoint them, my sweet niece: while you serve your Maker more
fervently, you must be still more patient with your husband. But while
you bear with his faults, you must not connive at them. If you are in
earnest, you must expect some trials. He who prepares these trials for
you, will support you under them, will carry you through them, will make
them instruments of his glory, and of your own eternal happiness.'
"'Lord Melbury's complaisance to my wishes,' replied I, 'has been
unbounded. As he never controlled my actions when they required control,
I trust he will be equally indulgent now they will be less censurable.
Alas! we have too little interfered with each other's concerns--we have
lived too much asunder--who knows but I may recall him?' My tears would
not let me go on--'nor will they now,' added she, wiping her fine eyes.
"Sir John and I were too much touched to attempt to answer her: at
length she proceeded.
"'By adhering to Lady Jane's directions, I have begun to get acquainted
with my own heart. Little did I suspect the evil that was in it. Yet I
am led to believe that the incessant whirl in which I have lived, my
total want of leisure for reflection, my excessive vanity and complete
inconsiderateness, are of themselves causes adequate to any effects
which the grossest vices would have produced.
"'Last week my lord made us a visit at the castle. I gave him a warm
reception; but he seemed rather surprised at the cold one which I gave
to a large cargo of new French novels and German plays, which he had
been so good as to bring me. I did not venture to tell him that I had
changed my course of study. Lady Jane charged me to avoid giving him the
least disgust by any unusual gravity in my looks, or severity in my
conversation. I exerted myself to such good purpose that he declared he
wanted neither cards nor company. I tried to let him see, by my change
of habits rather than by dry documents, or cold remonstrances, the
alteration which had taken place in my sentiments. He was pleased to see
me blooming and cheerful. He told Lady Jane he never saw me so pleasant.
He did not know I was so agreeable a woman, and was glad he had this
opportunity of getting acquainted with me. As he has great expectations
from her, he was delighted at the friendship which subsisted between
us.
"'He brought us up to town. As it was now empty, the terrors of the
masquerade no longer hung over me, and I cheerfully complied with his
wishes. I drove immediately to Mrs. Stokes's with such a portion of my
debt, as my retirement had enabled me to save. I feasted all the way on
the joy I should have in surprising her with this two hundred pounds.
How severe, but how just was my punishment, when on knocking at the
door, I found she had been dead these two months! No one could tell what
was become of her daughter. This shock operated almost as powerfully on
my feelings as the first had done. But if it augmented my self-reproach,
it confirmed my good resolutions. My present concern is how to discover
the sweet girl, whom, alas, I have helped to deprive of both her
parents.'
"Here I interrupted her," continued Lady Belfield, "saying, 'You have
not far to seek: Fanny Stokes is in this house. She is appointed
governess to our children.'
"Poor Lady Melbury's joy was excessive at this intelligence, and she
proceeded: 'That a too sudden return to the world might not weaken my
better purposes, I was preparing to request my lord's permission to go
back to the castle, when he prevented me, by telling me that he had had
an earnest desire to make a visit to the brave patriots in Spain, and to
pass the winter among them, but feared he must give it up, as the state
of the continent rendered it impossible for me to accompany him.
"'This filled my heart with joy. I encouraged him to make the voyage,
assured him I would live under Lady Jane's observation, and that I would
pass the whole winter in the country.'
"'Then you shall pass it with us at Beechwood, my dear Lady Melbury,'
cried Sir John and I, both at once; 'we will strengthen each other in
every virtuous purpose. We shall rejoice in Lady Jane's company.'
"She joyfully accepted the proposal, not doubting her lord's consent;
and kindly said, that she should be doubly happy in a society at once so
rational and so elegant.
"It was settled that she should spend with us the three months that
Fanny Stokes and little Caroline are to pass at Stanley Grove. She
desired to see Fanny, to whom she behaved with great tenderness. She
paid her the two hundred pounds, assuring her she had no doubt of being
able to discharge the whole debt in the spring.
"I received a note from her the next day, informing me of her lord's
cheerful concurrence, as well as that of Lady Jane. She added, that when
she went up to dress, she had found on her toilette, her diamond
necklace, which her dear aunt had redeemed and restored to her, as a
proof of her confidence and affection. As Lady Melbury has forever
abolished her coterie, I have the most sanguine hope of her
perseverance. All her promises would have gone for nothing, without this
practical pledge of her sincerity."
When Lady Belfield had finished her little tale, I expressed, in the
strongest terms, the delight I felt at the happy change in this charming
woman. I could not forbear observing to Sir John, that as Lady Melbury
had been the "glass of fashion," while her conduct was wrong, I hoped
she would not lose all her influence by its becoming right. I added with
a smile, "in that case, I shall rejoice to see the fine ladies turn
their talent for drawing to the same moral account with this fair
penitent. Such a record of their faults as she has had the courage to
make of hers, hanging in their closets, and perpetually staring them in
the face, would be no unlikely means to prevent a repetition,
especially if the picture is to be as visible as the fault had been."