LETTER LXXIII.
_From Miss Cowley to Miss Hardcastle._
_January 29._
Although in the calculation of months and weeks, I have contrived to
beguile the lagging hours which are still between me and my promised
bliss, I have not yet been able to find an expedient for the day,
without scribbling to you. It seems to be the aliment necessary for my
existence; and notwithstanding I could match an hungry school boy, in my
appetite for my pudding, I could sooner console myself for the absence
of my dinner, than of the use of my right hand, as the agent of my
fondest, sweetest employment. I have written a volume to Horace; and he
will know as much of the occurrences at Farefield, as will content him.
He will know that I am in health and in hope. Say not a word of my
having been so ill. The old bard says, “men are deceivers ever.” A woman
therefore, may _for once deceive_, when in that deceit, she spares to a
beloved object the useless anxiety arising from past danger and past
pains.
Yesterday our “busy-heads” went to Wenland place, in order to give their
opinion of certain alterations and improvements projected by the new
tenant Malcolm. I was ordered to stay at home by my despotical doctor,
and Lady Maclairn promised to take _good_ care of me.
They departed after breakfast, meaning to dine at Mr. Wilson’s, and left
us to a danger, as bad as cold rooms. I soon found it impossible to
evade the topic I so much dreaded for her; she at once led to the
subject by saying, that she had still secrets to communicate to her only
comforter, but that she feared my sensibility. I desired her to proceed.
“Some time before my sister’s death,” continued she, “I received this
sealed parcel from her hands. It is, as you see, addressed to myself. I
hesitated when she offered it to my acceptance. She observed my
reluctance.” “Make yourself perfectly easy,” said Miss Flint, “it
contains nothing but papers essentially necessary for your future
security. I cannot die, without telling you that they are _necessary_.
You do not know your brother, Harriet, so well as I do; and I must tell
you, what steps I have taken to secure you from his future tyranical
power. I shall die, however, without bitterness of spirit. I once loved
Flamall; I do not accuse him here; nor will I accuse him _hereafter_;
for my own envy, my own implacable spirit, my own stubborn and hard
heart prepared the way for the influence of his inordinate purposes, and
more deliberate mischiefs. As a father, he has been equally base and
cruel. Philip has informed me of the measures he pursued, in order to
gratify his ambition in regard to his son’s marriage with Miss Cowley.
Let it suffice, that they were such as did not surprise me. I
immediately wrote to Mr. Flamall. You will find a copy of my letter
amongst those papers. He knows, that I have, by a full and ample
confession of my crimes, so implicated them with those which he has
committed, as must ruin him in this world, if discovered; and as
inevitably destroy his hopes of a better, if he do not repent. Should he
ever dare to disturb the comforts of my son, by a declaration of his
real affinity to him; should he ever dare farther to invade on your
peace; he knows what must be the consequence. Actions, which will be
recognisable in a court of justice, will determine his fate, and crush
with ignominy his worthy and unoffending child. Obdurate as he is in
sin, nature is not extinguished in his bosom. He loves his son, and, I
am certain, would sooner die himself, than see him disgraced in the
world: time may soften to him his present disappointment. I have urged
to Philip every possible measure, in order to effect a reconciliation
between him and his _uncle_ Flamall. He may, if he be wise, live on good
terms with his son, and if he be not lost to conscience, he may find
employment, for his remaining term of grace.” “You weep, my dear
Harriet,” continued my poor Lucretia; I cannot. How many bitter tears of
yours will swell my account; for I was born for your sorrow! and the
ruin of the innocent! Can you give comfort to the broken and contrite of
heart? Can you say you forgive me? “As freely,” answered I eagerly, “as
I hope for mercy and pardon. I have also sinned, I have also erred.”
“Yes,” replied she, with quickness; “but the snare was laid for you; and
you only stumbled. _I_ boldly invited the danger, and made an
acquaintance with guilt and perfidy; see to what purpose? to languish
with a mother’s yearnings, to behold and bless that child, who would
shrink from me as a monster, did he know me; to dread the future, and to
mourn, too late, the wretchedness annexed to a life of guilt. Promise
me,” added she, “to be still my Philip’s mother. Let me die in the hope,
that, you will never forego the title.” “Never,” answered I, sensible
only to her condition, “never, whilst it depends on me to preserve it;
he is mine in affection, and nothing can cancel his rights to my love.”
“May Heaven reward you,” exclaimed she, in an agony. “May that child’s
children bless and revere you——My poor boy will not be surprised at the
tenor of my last will,” continued she thoughtfully. “He is rich; and I
have explained my intentions, in regard to my brother and Mary. It
required very few arguments to prove, that they had not been justly
treated. But let me not think of their wrongs! I wrote him word, that it
was essentially necessary to my peace to consider them. His last letter
was a cordial to my sinking soul; he urges me even to omit his name, if
it interfered with my kind purposes; that he possessed _more_ than he
wanted of the goods of fortune. Judge, adds he, when I tell you that my
brother has frequently realized fourteen thousand pounds annually from
his estates: Judge whether, my dear, I may say maternal friend and
sister, needs bequeath me more _than her blessing and her love_.” “I
wear at my heart this precious letter,” added she, taking it from her
bosom; “but you must take it with the papers. His picture may yet
remain, I mean it should moulder into dust with me.”—She paused—“I
think,” pursued she, as though collecting herself, “that I may hope to
stand acquitted before my Maker for the last and only compensation I can
make to some, whom I have injured; perhaps _strict_ justice would exact
more _sacrifices_. But I am a mother, Harriet; the guilty mother, of an
innocent child, now a worthy member of society. Something is surely due
to him; and thy merciful Maker will not weigh this consideration in the
balance of offended justice. Such has been my state of mind for some
time past, that had it not been for Philip, I would have fearlessly met
every stigma with which this world could have branded me, for the hopes
of meeting with a reconciled God. It becomes not me to say, that I
think, in this instance of my conduct, I have acted right. But
conscience has at least been my guide; I have done for the best. Will
not that prudence, which will protect the honour of your family, and the
happiness of mine, sanction your secresy in regard to the birth of thy
poor——!” She could not go on. Again I soothed her to composure, I
solemnly repeated my promise, my dear Miss Cowley, that I would preserve
our secret from every danger of a disclosure. “This engagement now
distresses me,” continued Lady Maclairn, “I fear I have been wrong; but
what could I do, in a moment of such difficulty? I was unequal to the
trial; I could not see her die miserable.”—
I placed before Lady Maclairn the wonderful interference of Providence,
which had removed the guilty, to secure the innocent. I urged to her the
purity of her intentions, and the humanity which pointed out to her the
line of conduct she had pursued, and had engaged to pursue. “Repose on
your merciful Maker,” added I, “for an acquittal, where you mean to do
for the best; patiently wait the end, when this darkness shall be
removed; and you will, I trust, find, that having lived to promote the
happiness of others, to have contributed to the comfort and security of
your family has not been to live in vain. Be assured, my dear friend,
that your sufferings will have their place with a Being “who knoweth
what is in man; and with a Father, who loveth his children, you may
reasonably hope for acceptance and favour.”” “You are my comforter,”
replied she, meekly raising her eyes to Heaven; “I have not outlived
this first of all human hopes. My weakness, not my will, has betrayed me
from the paths of rectitude. But it is difficult for me, to conceal my
feelings. I dare not even break the seal, which confines my knowledge to
what I already know of the wretched life and conduct of my brother; I
sometimes think I shall lose my senses, in reflecting on his end, and
the enormities of his conduct. Oh, it is dreadful, Miss Cowley, to
follow him to that tribunal before which he must appear!——Leave me for a
while,” added she, sobbing, “leave me to my God, to my Almighty
supporter”——I obeyed, too much affected to resist. I took the papers
with me. She has acted prudently in not reading them. She begs they may
be forwarded to you, and that the whole transaction may remain in your
hands. You are allowed to read them. What will you say to the letter
marked No. 4? The one she burned was the answer to it; but I dare not
pursue this horrid subject. My eyes would betray me, and the doctor
would be angry; for he has made me promise not to harrass my spirits,
and to check my friend’s sorrows. I am going to her! and we will be
wise. The return of the vagrants renders this necessary.
Yours,
RACHEL COWLEY.
P. S. Sedley will give you this.
LETTER LXXIV.
_From Miss Cowley to Miss Hardcastle._
Again I am permitted to take a better cordial than bark. Mrs. Heartley
has fully explained to us the mystery relative to the portraits in Miss
Flint’s possession. It appears that Mrs. Howard, apprehending that they
would be more pernicious to her brother, than consolatory, requested
Mrs. Heartley to secrete them from his search. She obeyed her dying
friend. “But,” added Mrs. Heartley, “my feelings at this juncture were
nearly as little under the control of my reason, as poor Percival’s. I
wrote a letter to Miss Flint, which was dictated by my sorrow, and the
romantic hope of touching her heart in favour of a child whom she had
contributed to render an _orphan_ and a _beggar_. I enclosed these
powerful pleaders,” continued Mrs. Heartley, taking up the miniatures,
and surveying them with emotion, “and my language was not less forcible.
Malcolm was employed to place my packet in her hands. He effected his
purpose; for she found it on her dressing table. The next morning he was
questioned, and he frankly owned, that he had, at my request, placed the
parcel where she had found it. You have been faithful, Sir, in the
performance of your commission, said Miss Flint, trembling and pale with
fury; “be so in delivering my message _to your Mrs. Heartley_. Tell her,
that her insolent and officious interference has failed, and that whilst
Miss Flint’s family have no better advocates than a kept mistress, she
wants no apology for renouncing it.” Malcolm bluntly told her, that she
must employ some one to deliver such a message who had never heard of
Mrs. Heartley; for himself, he begged leave to decline insulting his
best friend. I heard no more from Miss Flint; and I concluded that she
had destroyed the portraits in a similar manner as she had that of her
mother. Frustrated in my project, I was forced to conceal this
occurrence; and the pictures were supposed to be irrecoverably and
unaccountably lost.”
Although my conscience reproached me frequently when hearing the captain
bewail this loss, it never did so as to the motive from which I had
acted: but it is to be feared, that my zeal in the cause of the injured,
disqualified me for making a convert to justice and humanity. It is most
probable that I irritated where I wished to heal; and it is certain,
that I was from that time the object of Miss Flint’s implacable
resentment. “Poor woman!” continued Mrs. Heartley, with compassion, “she
was then under the miserable yoke of those passions, which although they
_govern_, cannot _blind us_. Neither her spirit of resentment, nor any
entrenchment from her prosperous fortune, could shield her from the
voice within her bosom. It spoke my language with tenfold energy, and
she hated me, because she knew I was in unison with her conscience. She
shunned me, as she would have shunned _that_, had she been able.” “Is it
not unaccountable,” added Mrs. Heartley, addressing me, “that any
rational being should fear to encounter the eyes of a fellow creature
under the circumstances of guilt, nay, even of folly, without
considering the power of conscience, from whose suggestions this very
dread arises. That Miss Flint was sensible of its power is certain. Nor
do I believe, with some, that it is possible for us to outlive its
authority. When I hear of such, who are said to be hardened by sin, and
become callous by guilt, I no more believe it, than I do those tales I
hear of the elixir for perpetuating our existence here for ever. I am
convinced that God will not be mocked by the creatures of his power, and
I have only to follow the bold and impious offender of his laws to his
hours of privacy, to learn, that he cannot evade that Being’s presence,
whose commands he insults.” I was more disposed to shorten this
conversation, than to dispute the truths it contained. Lady Maclairn’s
conscience wants no stimulants. Douglass entered, and we became
cheerful. You love the doctor, you say, prithee who does not? but no one
shall love him so well as Horace. You have heard of his gallantry three
or four nights he past in my antichamber!