COLONEL MORDEN
[IN CONTINUATION.]
TUESDAY MORNING, SEPT. 12.
The good Mrs. Norton is arrived, a little amended in her spirits; owing
to the very posthumous letters, as I may call them, which you, Mr.
Belford, as well as I, apprehended would have had fatal effects upon her.
I cannot but attribute this to the right turn of her mind. It seems she
has been inured to afflictions; and has lived in a constant hope of a
better life; and, having no acts of unkindness to the dear deceased to
reproach herself with, is most considerately resolved to exert her utmost
fortitude in order to comfort the sorrowing mother.
O Mr. Belford, how does the character of my dear departed cousin rise
upon me from every mouth!--Had she been my own child, or my sister!--But
do you think that the man who occasioned this great, this extended ruin--
But I forbear.
The will is not to be looked into, till the funeral rites are performed.
Preparations are making for the solemnity; and the servants, as well as
principals of all the branches of the family, are put into close
mourning.
I have seen Mr. Melvill. He is a serious and sensible man. I have given
him particulars to go upon in the discourse he is to pronounce at the
funeral; but had the less need to do this, as I find he is extremely well
acquainted with the whole unhappy story; and was a personal admirer of my
dear cousin, and a sincere lamenter of her misfortunes and death. The
reverend Dr. Lewen, who is but very lately dead, was his particular
friend, and had once intended to recommend him to her favour and notice.
***
I am just returned from attending the afflicted parents, in an effort
they made to see the corpse of their beloved child. They had requested
my company, and that of the good Mrs. Norton. A last leave, the mother
said, she must take.
An effort, however, it was, and no more. The moment they came in sight
of the coffin, before the lid could be put aside, O my dear, said the
father, retreating, I cannot, I find I cannot bear it!--Had I--had I--had
I never been hard-hearted!--Then, turning round to his lady, he had but
just time to catch her in his arms, and prevent her sinking on the floor.
--O, my dearest Life, said he, this is too much!--too much, indeed!--Let
us--let us retire. Mrs. Norton, who (attracted by the awful receptacle)
had but just left the good lady, hastened to her--Dear, dear woman, cried
the unhappy parent, flinging her arms about her neck, bear me, bear me
hence!--O my child! my child! my own Clarissa Harlowe! thou pride of my
life so lately!--never, never more must I behold thee!
I supported the unhappy father, Mrs. Norton the sinking mother, into the
next parlour. She threw herself on a settee there; he into an
elbow-chair by her--the good woman at her feet, her arms clasped round
her waist. The two mothers, I as may call them, of my beloved cousin,
thus tenderly engaged! What a variety of distress in these woeful
scenes!
The unhappy father, in endeavouring to comfort his lady, loaded himself.
Would to God, my dear, said he, would to God I had no more to charge
myself with than you have!--You relented!--you would have prevailed upon
me to relent!
The greater my fault, said she, when I knew that displeasure was carried
too high, to acquiesce as I did!--What a barbarous parent was I, to let
two angry children make me forget that I was mother to a third--to such a
third!
Mrs. Norton used arguments and prayers to comfort her--O, my dear Norton,
answered the unhappy lady, you was the dear creature's more natural
mother!--Would to Heaven I had no more to answer for than you have!
Thus the unhappy pair unavailingly recriminated, till my cousin Hervey
entered, and, with Mrs. Norton, conducted up to her own chamber the
inconsolable mother. The two uncles, and Mr. Hervey, came in at the same
time, and prevailed upon the afflicted father to retire with them to his
--both giving up all thoughts of ever seeing more the child whose death
was so deservedly regretted by them.
Time only, Mr. Belford, can combat with advantage such a heavy
deprivation as this. Advice will not do, while the loss is recent.
Nature will have way given to it, (and so it ought,) till sorrow has in a
manner exhausted itself; and then reason and religion will come in
seasonably with their powerful aids, to raise the drooping heart.
I see here no face that is the same I saw at my first arrival. Proud and
haughty every countenance then, unyielding to entreaty; now, how greatly
are they humbled!--The utmost distress is apparent in every protracted
feature, and in every bursting muscle, of each disconsolate mourner.
Their eyes, which so lately flashed anger and resentment, now are turned
to every one that approaches them, as if imploring pity!--Could ever
wilful hard-heartedness be more severely punished?
The following lines of Juvenal are, upon the whole applicable to this
house and family; and I have revolved them many times since Sunday
evening:
Humani generis mores tibi nôsse volenti
Sufficit una domus: paucos consumere dies, &
Dicere te miserum, postquam illinc veneris, aude.
Let me add, that Mrs. Norton has communicated to the family the
posthumous letter sent her. This letter affords a foundation for future
consolation to them; but at present it has new pointed their grief, by
making them reflect on their cruelty to so excellent a daughter, niece,
and sister.* I am, dear Sir,
Your faithful, humble servant,
WM. MORDEN.
* This letter contains in substance--her thanks to the good woman for her
care of her in her infancy; for her good instructions, and the excellent
example she had set her; with self-accusations of a vanity and
presumption, which lay lurking in her heart unknown to herself, till her
calamities (obliging her to look into herself) brought them to light.
She expatiates upon the benefit of afflictions to a mind modest, fearful,
and diffident.
She comforts her on her early death; having finished, as she says, her
probatory course, at so early a time of life, when many are not ripened
by the sunshine of Divine Grace for a better, till they are fifty, sixty,
or seventy years of age.
I hope, she says, that my father will grant the request I have made to
him in my last will, to let you pass the remainder of your days at my
Dairy-house, as it used to be called, where once I promised myself to be
happy in you. Your discretion, prudence, and economy, my dear, good
woman, proceeds she, will make your presiding over the concerns of that
house as beneficial to them as it can be convenient to you. For your
sake, my dear Mrs. Norton, I hope they will make you this offer. And if
they do, I hope you will accept it for theirs.
She remembers herself to her foster-brother in a very kind manner; and
charges her, for his sake, that she will not take too much to heart what
has befallen her.
She concludes as follows:
Remember me, in the last place, to all my kind well-wishers of your
acquaintance; and to those I used to call My Poor. They will be God's
poor, if they trust in Him. I have taken such care, that I hope they
will not be losers by my death. Bid them, therefore, rejoice; and do you
also, my reverend comforter and sustainer, (as well in my darker as in my
fairer days,) likewise rejoice, that I am so soon delivered from the
evils that were before me; and that I am NOW, when this comes to your
hands, as I humbly trust, exulting in the mercies of a gracious God, who
has conducted an end to all my temptations and distresses; and who, I
most humbly trust, will, in his own good time, give us a joyful meeting
in the regions of eternal blessedness.