Henry rose early in the morning, and flew to the curate's house, with
more than even his usual thirst of justice, to clear injured innocence,
to redeem from shame her whom he loved. With eager haste he told that he
had found the mother, whose fall from virtue Rebecca, overcome by
confusion and threats, had taken on herself.
Rebecca rejoiced, but her sisters shook their heads, and even the father
seemed to doubt.
Confident in the truth of his story, Henry persisted so boldly in his
affirmations, that if Mr. Rymer did not entirely believe what he said, he
secretly hoped that the dean and other people might; therefore he began
to imagine he could possibly cast from _his_ family the present stigma,
whether or no it belonged to any other.
No sooner was Henry gone than Mr. Rymer waited on the dean to report what
he had heard; and he frankly attributed his daughter's false confession
to the compulsive methods he had adopted in charging her with the
offence. Upon this statement, Henry's love to her was also a solution of
his seemingly inconsistent conduct on that singular occasion.
The dean immediately said, "I will put the matter beyond all doubt; for I
will this moment send for the present reputed mother; and if she
acknowledges the child, I will instantly commit her to prison for the
attempt of putting it to death."
The curate applauded the dean's sagacity; a warrant was issued, and Agnes
brought prisoner before the grandfather of her child.
She appeared astonished at the peril in which she found herself.
Confused, also, with a thousand inexpressible sensations which the dean's
presence inspired, she seemed to prevaricate in all she uttered. Accused
of this prevarication, she was still more disconcerted; said, and unsaid;
confessed herself the mother of the infant, but declared she did not
know, then owned she _did_ know, the name of the man who had undone her,
but would never utter it. At length she cast herself on her knees before
the father of her betrayer, and supplicated "he would not punish her with
severity, as she most penitently confessed her fault, so far as is
related to herself."
While Mr. and Mrs. Norwynne, just entered on the honeymoon, were sitting
side by side enjoying with peace and with honour conjugal society, poor
Agnes, threatened, reviled, and sinking to the dust, was hearing from the
mouth of William's father the enormity of those crimes to which his son
had been accessory. She saw the mittimus written that was to convey her
into a prison--saw herself delivered once more into the hands of
constables, before her resolution left her, of concealing the name of
William in her story. She now, overcome with affright, and thinking she
should expose him still more in a public court, if hereafter on her trial
she should be obliged to name him--she now humbly asked the dean to hear
a few words she had to say in private, where she promised she "would
speak nothing but the truth."
This was impossible, he said--"No private confessions before a
magistrate! All must be done openly."
She urged again and again the same request: it was denied more
peremptorily than at first. On which she said--"Then, sir, forgive me,
since you force me to it, if I speak before Mr. Rymer and these men what
I would for ever have kept a secret if I could. One of your family is my
child's father."
"Any of my servants?" cried the dean.
"No."
"My nephew?"
"No; one who is nearer still."
"Come this way," said the dean; "I _will_ speak to you in private."
It was not that the dean, as a magistrate, distributed partial decrees of
pretended justice--he was rigidly faithful to his trust: he would not
inflict punishment on the innocent, nor let the guilty escape; but in all
particulars of refined or coarse treatment he would alleviate or
aggravate according to the rank of the offender. He could not feel that
a secret was of equal importance to a poor as to a rich person; and while
Agnes gave no intimation but that her delicacy rose from fears for
herself, she did not so forcibly impress him with an opinion that it was
a case which had weighty cause for a private conference as when she
boldly said, "a part of _his_ family, very near to him, was concerned in
her tale."
The final result of their conversation in an adjoining room was--a charge
from the dean, in the words of Mr. Rymer, "to hush the affair up," and
his promise that the infant should be immediately taken from her, and
that "she should have no more trouble with it."
"I have no trouble with it," replied Agnes: "my child is now all my
comfort, and I cannot part from it."
"Why, you inconsistent woman, did you not attempt to murder it?"
"That was before I had nursed it."
"'Tis necessary you should give it up: it must be sent some miles away;
and then the whole circumstance will be soon forgotten."
"_I_ shall never forget it."
"No matter; you must give up the child. Do not some of our first women
of quality part with their children?"
"Women of quality have other things to love--I have nothing else."
"And would you occasion my son and his new-made bride the shame and the
uneasiness--"
Here Agnes burst into a flood of tears; and being angrily asked by the
dean "why she blubbered so--"
"_I_ have had shame and uneasiness," she replied, wringing her hands.
"And you deserve them: they are the sure attendants of crimes such as
yours. If you allured and entrapped a young man like my son--"
"I am the youngest by five years," said Agnes.
"Well, well, repent," returned the dean; "repent, and resign your child.
Repent, and you may yet marry an honest man who knows nothing of the
matter."
"And repent too?" asked Agnes.
Not the insufferable ignorance of young Henry, when he first came to
England, was more vexatious or provoking to the dean than the rustic
simplicity of poor Agnes's uncultured replies. He at last, in an
offended and determined manner, told her--"That if she would resign the
child, and keep the father's name a secret, not only the child should be
taken care of, but she herself might, perhaps, receive some favours; but
if she persisted in her imprudent folly, she must expect no consideration
on her own account; nor should she be allowed, for the maintenance of the
boy, a sixpence beyond the stated sum for a poor man's unlawful
offspring." Agnes, resolving not to be separated from her infant, bowed
resignation to this last decree; and, terrified at the loud words and
angry looks of the dean, after being regularly discharged, stole to her
home, where the smiles of her infant, and the caresses she lavished on
it, repaid her for the sorrows she had just suffered for its sake.
Let it here be observed that the dean, on suffering Agnes to depart
without putting in force the law against her as he had threatened, did
nothing, as it were, _behind the curtain_. He openly and candidly owned,
on his return to Mr. Rymer, his clerk, and the two constables who were
attending, "that an affair of some little gallantry, in which he was
extremely sorry to say his son was rather too nearly involved, required,
in consideration of his recent marriage, and an excellent young woman's
(his bride's) happiness, that what had occurred should not be publicly
talked of; therefore he had thought proper only to reprimand the hussy,
and send her about her business."
The curate assured the dean, "that upon this, and upon all other
occasions, which should, would, or _could_ occur, he owed to his
judgment, as his superior, implicit obedience."
The clerk and the two constables most properly said, "his honour was a
gentleman, and of course must know better how to act than they."