_----And yet I breathed!
But not the breath of human life!
A serpent round my heart was wreathed,
And stung my every thought to strife.
Alike all time! Abhorred all place!
Shuddering I shrunk from nature's face,
Where every line that charmed before,
The blackness of my bosom wore._
Lord Byron.
From long and dangerous faintings, I revived almost to frenzy. I shed no
tears. These are the expression of a milder form of suffering. One
horrible image filled my soul; one sense of anguish so strong, so
terrible, that every other feeling,--every faculty of mind and body was
benumbed in its grasp. Vainly did my awful duties summon me to their
performance. I was incapable of action, almost of thought. My eye
wandered over surrounding objects, but saw them not. The words which
were spoken to me conveyed no meaning to my mind.
At length the form of my early friend seemed to flit before me. She
spoke; and though I could not follow the meaning of her words, the
sounds were those of kindness. The familiar voice, long associated with
so many kindly thoughts, reached the heart, waking a milder tone of
feeling; and resting my throbbing head upon her breast, I found relief
in a passionate burst of tears. Little did I think how small was the
share which friendship or compassion could claim in this visit of my
friend to the house of mourning! Little did I guess that its chief
motive was to rescue the gifts of my prodigality from being confounded
with the property of a bankrupt!
She did not long remain with me; for friends more sympathising than she
are soon weary of witnessing the unrestrained indulgence of grief. Yet
she did not leave me abruptly. She was too much accustomed to follow the
smooth path of conciliation, that she continued to pursue it even when
it no longer promised advantage; and she satisfied me with some
plausible excuse for going, and with a promise of speedy return.
The tears which for many hours I continued to shed relieved my oppressed
spirit; and by degrees I awoke to a full sense of my altered state. From
the proudest security of affluence,--from a fearless confidence in
myself, and in all around me, one fatal stroke had dashed me for ever. A
darker storm had burst upon me, and wrought a ruin more deep, more
irretrievable. That tie, which not the hardest heart resigns without
pain, had been torn from mine with force sudden and terrible; and a pang
unutterable had been added to that misfortune which turns love, and
reverence, and gratitude into anguish. What could be added to those
horrors, except that conscience should rise in her fury to remind me
that, when my presence might have soothed my father's sorrows, I had
been absent with an injurious purpose; and that the arrows of misfortune
had been rendered mortal by the rebellion of his child? This last
incurable pang the mercy of Heaven has saved me. I learned that my
father died ignorant of my intended flight.
Miss Arnold, I found, had quitted our house for that of her brother, as
soon as our last and worst disaster was discovered by the domestics. Of
all the summer friends who had amused my prosperity, not one approached
to comfort my affliction. Even my servants, chosen without regard to
their moral character, and treated with reference to its improvement;
corrupted by the example of dissipation; undisciplined and
uninstructed,--repaid the neglect of my domestic duties by a hardened
carelessness of my wants and will. After the first transports of grief
had subsided, I observed this desertion; and I felt it with all the
jealousy of misfortune. Not three days were passed since a crowd of
obsequious attendants had anticipated my commands; now I could scarcely
obtain even the slight service which real necessity required.
The remains of my unfortunate father still lay near me; and, unable to
overcome my horror of passing the chamber of death, I remained entirely
secluded in my apartment. The first intruder upon this seclusion was the
person who came to seal my father's repositories of papers and money.
Having performed his office elsewhere, he entered my apartment with
little ceremony; and, telling me that he understood my father had
intrusted me with jewels of value, informed me, that it was necessary to
prevent access to them for the present. Accustomed as I was to receive
all outward testimonies of respect, the intrusion of a stranger at such
a time appeared to me a savage outrage. I was ignorant of all the forms
of business; and his errand assumed the nature of the most insulting
suspicion. Had all the jewels of the earth lain at my feet he might have
borne them away unresisted by me; but the proud spirit which grief had
bowed almost to the dust roused itself at once to repel insult; and,
pointing to the casket, I haughtily commanded him to do his office
quickly and begone. By this sally of impatience, a few trinkets of value
which I might have justly claimed as my own were lost to me, being
contained in the casket which I thus suffered to be appropriated.
Insulted as I thought, and persecuted in my only place of refuge, I
became desirous to quit my dismal abode. I imagined, that whatever
impropriety there might be in the continuance of Juliet's residence in
my desolate habitation, there could be no reason to deter me from taking
refuge with my friend;--my gentle, my affectionate friend, who had ever
rejoiced in my prosperity, and gloried in my accomplishments, and loved
even my faults. Checking the tears which gushed from my eyes at the
thought that a father's roof must shelter me no more, I announced my
intention to my friend in a short billet:--'Come to me, dearest Juliet,'
I said, 'come and take me from this house of misery, I only stipulate,
that you will not ask me to join your brother's family circle. I wish to
see no human being except yourself,--for who is there left me to love
but you?--Your own ELLEN PERCY.'
The servant whom I despatched with this note brought back for answer,
that Miss Arnold was not at home. I had been accustomed to find every
one, but especially Miss Arnold, ever ready to attend my pleasure; and
even the easiest lessons of patience were yet new to the spoiled child
of prosperity. My little disappointment was aggravated by the
captiousness with which the unfortunate watch for instances of
coldness and neglect. 'Not at home! Ah,' thought I, 'what pleasure
should I have found in idle visiting or amusement, while she was
wretched?' Still I never doubted, that the very hour of her return
would bring her to welcome and to comfort her desolate friend. I
waited impatiently,--listened to every sound; and started at every
footstep which echoed through my dreary dwelling. But the cheerless
evening closed in, and brought no friend. I passed the hours, now in
framing her excuse, now in reproaching her unkindness, till the night
was far spent; then laid my weary head upon my pillow, and wept myself
to sleep.
The morning came, and I rose early, that I might be ready to accompany
my friend without delay. But I took my comfortless meal alone. Alone I
passed the hour in which Juliet and I had been accustomed to plan the
pastime of the day. The hour came at which my gay equipage was wont to
attend our call. Just then I heard a carriage stop at the door, and my
sad heart gave one feeble throb of pleasure; for I doubted not that
Juliet was come. It was the hearse which came to bear my father to his
grave.--Juliet, and all things but my lost father, were for a time
forgotten.
But as the paroxysm of sorrow subsided, I again became sensible to this
unkind delay. My billet had now been so long despatched without
obtaining a reply even of cold civility, that I began to doubt the
faithfulness of my messenger, I refused to believe that my note had ever
reached Miss Arnold; and I endeavoured to shut my eyes against the
indifference which even in that case was implied in her leaving me so
long to solitary affliction. I was going once more to summon the bearer
of my melancholy billet, that I might renew my enquiries in regard to
its delivery, when the long expected answer was at length brought to me.
I impatiently tore it open, anxious to learn what strong necessity had
compelled my friend to substitute for her own presence this colder form
of welcome. No welcome, even of the coldest form, was there. With many
expressions of condolence, and some even of affection, she informed me
of her sorrow 'that she could not receive my visit. I must be aware,'
she said, 'that one whose good name was her only dowry should guard the
frail treasure with double care. Grieved as she was to wound me, she was
obliged to say, that the publicity of my elopement appeared to her
brother an insuperable bar to the continuance of our intimacy.
Resistance to his will,' she said, 'was impossible, even if that will
had been less reasonable than, with grief, she confessed it to be. But
though she must withhold all outward demonstrations of regard, she would
ever remain my grateful and obedient servant.'
I sat motionless as the dead, whilst I deciphered these inhuman words.
The icebolt had struck me to the heart. For a time I was stunned by the
blow, and a dull stupor overpowered all recollection. Then, suddenly the
anguish of abused affection,--the iron fangs of ingratitude,--entered
into my soul; and all that grief, and all that indignation can inflict,
burst in bitterness upon the wounded spirit. I gazed wildly on the cruel
billet, while, twisting it in the grasp of agony, I wrenched it to atoms;
then, raising to heaven an eye of blasphemy, I dared to insult the Father
of Mercies with a cry for vengeance.
But the transport of passion quickly subsided into despair. I threw
myself upon the ground; longing that the earth would open and shelter me
from the baseness of mankind. I closed my eyes, and wished in bitterness
of soul that it were for ever. Sometimes, as memory recalled some kinder
endearment of my ill-requited affection, I would start as beneath the
sudden stab of murder; then bow again my miserable head, and remain in
the stillness of the grave.
No ray of consolation cheered me. The world, which had so lately
appeared bright with pleasure,--the worthy habitation of beings
benevolent and happy, was now involved in the gloom, and peopled with
the unsightly shapes of darkness. While my mind glanced towards the
selfishness of Lord Frederick, and the treachery of Lady St
Edmunds,--while it dwelt upon the desertion of her who, for seven years,
had shared my heart and all else that I had to bestow, the human kind
appeared to me tainted with the malignity of fiends, and I alone born to
be the victim of their craft,--the sport of their cruelty!
How often has the same merciless aspersion been cast upon their
fellow-creatures by those who, like me, have repelled the friendship of
the virtuous? How often, and how unjustly, do they who choose their
associate for the hour of sunshine, complain when he shrinks from the
bitter blast? Oh that my severe experience could warn unwary beings like
myself! Oh that they would learn from my fate to shun the fellowship of
the unprincipled! Even common reason may teach them to despair of
awakening real regard in her whom infinite benefits cannot attach,--nor
infinite excellence delight,--nor infinite forgiveness constrain. She
wants the very stamina of generous affection; and is destined to wind
her way through all the heartless schemes and cowardly apostasies of
selfishness.
From the stupor of despair, I was roused by the entrance of the stranger
who had before intruded. In the jealous reserve of an anguish too mighty
to be profaned by exposure, I rose from my dejected posture; and, with
frozen steadiness, enquired, 'what new indignity I had now to bear?'
The stranger, awed as it seemed by something in my look and manner,
informed me, not without respectful hesitation, that he was commissioned
by the creditors to tell me I know not what of forms and rights, of
willingness to allow me all reasonable accommodation, and such property
as I might justly claim, and to remind me of the propriety of appointing
a friend to watch over my further interests. One word only of the speech
was fitted to arrest my attention. 'Friend!' I repeated, with a smile
such as wrings the heart more than floods of womanly tears. 'Any one may
do the office of a friend! Ay, even one of those kindly souls who drove
my father to desperation,--who refused him the poor boon of delay, when
delay might have retrieved all! Any of them can insult and renounce me.
This is the modern office of a friend, is it not?'
The stranger, gazing on me with astonishment, proceeded to request, that
I would name an early day for removing from my present habitation; since
the creditors only waited for my departure, to dismiss the servants, and
to bring my father's house, with all that it contained, to public sale.
He added, that he was commissioned by them to present me with a small
sum for my immediate occasions.
To be thus forcibly expelled from the home, where, till now, I could
command; to be offered as an alms a pittance from funds which I had
considered as my hereditary right; to be driven forth to the cold world
with all my wounds yet bleeding, stung me as instances of severe
injustice and oppression. My spirit, sore with recent injury, writhed
under the rude touch. Already goaded almost to frenzy, I told the
stranger, that 'had I recollected the rights of his employers, I would
not have owed the shelter even of a single night to those whose
barbarous exactions had destroyed my father; nor would I ever be
indebted to their charity, so long as the humanity of the laws would
bestow a little earth to cover me.'
I pulled the bell violently, and gave orders that a hackney-coach should
be procured for me. It came almost immediately; and, without uttering
another word,--without raising my eyes,--without one expression of
feeling, except the convulsive shudderings of my frame, and the cold
drops that stood upon my forehead, I passed the apartment where my
father perished,--the spot where my mother poured upon me her last
blessing,--and cast myself upon the wide world without a friend or home.
I ordered the carriage to an obscure street in the city; a narrow, dark,
and airless lane. I had once in my life been obliged to pass through
it, and it had impressed my mind as a scene of all that is dismal in
poverty and confinement. This very impression made me now choose it for
my abode; and I felt a strange and dreary satisfaction in adding this
consummation to the horrors of my fate. As the carriage proceeded, I
became sensible to the extreme disorder of my frame. Noise and motion
were torture to nerves already in the highest state of irritation. Fever
throbbed in every vein, and red flashes of light seemed to glare before
my heavy eyes. A hope stole upon my mind that all was near a close. I
felt a gloomy satisfaction in the thought, that surely my death would
reach the heart of my false friend; that surely when she knew that I had
found refuge in the grave from calumny and unkindness, she would wish
that she had spared me the deadly pang; and would lament that she had
doubled the burden which weighed me to the earth.
When the carriage reached the place of its destination, the coachman
again applied to me for instructions; and I directed him to stop at any
house where lodgings could be obtained. After several ineffectual
enquiries, he drew up to the door of a miserable shop, where he was told
that a single room was to be hired. 'Would you please to look into my
little place yourself, madam?' said a decent-looking woman, who advanced
to meet me. 'It is clean, though it be small, and I should be very happy
that it would suit.'
'Any thing will suit me,' answered I.
'You, ma'am!' cried the woman in a tone of extreme surprise; then
placing herself just opposite to me, she seemed hesitating whether or
not she should allow me to pass. Indeed the contrast of my appearance
with the accommodation which I sought might well have awakened
suspicion. My mourning, in the choice of which I had taken no share, was
in material the most expensive, and in form of the highest fashion. The
wildness of despair was probably impressed on my countenance; and my
tall figure, lately so light and so elastic, bent under sickness and
dejection. The woman surveyed me with a curiosity, which in better days
I would have ill endured; but perceiving me ready to sink to the ground,
she relaxed her scrutiny, while she offered me a seat, which I eagerly
accepted. She then went to the door, upon pretence of desiring the
coachman to wait till I should ascertain whether her lodgings were such
as I approved; and they entered on a conversation in which I heard my
own name repeated. When she returned to me, she poured forth a torrent
of words, the meaning of which I was unable to follow, but which seemed
intended to apologise for some suspicion. Never imagining that my
character could be the cause of hesitation, I fancied that the poor
woman doubted of my ability to pay for my accommodation; and drawing out
my purse, I put into her hands all that remained of an affluence which
had so lately been the envy of thousands. 'It is but a little,' said I,
'but it will outlast me.'
I now desired to be shown to my apartment; and laboriously followed my
landlady up a steep miserable stair, into a chamber, low, close, and
gloomy. In a sort of recess, shaded by a patched curtain of faded
chintz, stood a bed, which, only a few days before, no degree of fatigue
could have induced me to occupy. Worn out, and heartbroken as I was, I
yet recoiled from it for a moment. 'But it matters not,' thought I, 'I
shall not occupy it long;' so I laid myself down without undressing, and
desired that I might be left alone.
I was now, indeed, alone. In the wilfulness of desperation, I had myself
severed the few and slender ties which might still have bound me to
mankind; and I felt a sullen pleasure in the thought that my retreat was
inscrutable alike to feeble compassion and to idle curiosity. The widow,
whose roof afforded my humble shelter, and her daughter, a sickly,
ignorant, but industrious creature, at first persecuted me with
attentions; vainly trying to bribe, with such delicacies as they could
procure, the appetite which turned from all with the loathing of
disease. They urged me to send for my friends, and for medical advice.
They tried, though ignorant of my real distemper, to soothe me with
words of rude comfort. All was in vain. I seldom looked up, or returned
any other answer than a faint gesture of impatience; and, weary of my
obstinate silence, they at last desisted from their assiduities, nor
ever intruded on my solitude, except to bring relief to the parching
thirst which consumed me.
Day after day passed on in the same dreary quiet. Night, and the
twilight of my gloomy habitation, succeeded each other, unnoticed by me.
Disease was preying on my constitution,--hopeless and indignant
rejection rankled in my mind. My ceaseless brooding over injury and
misfortune was only varied by the dreary consolation that all would soon
be lost in the forgetfulness of the grave.
And could a rational and immortal creature turn on the grave a hope in
which religion had no part? Could a being, formed for hope and for
enjoyment, lose all that the earth has to offer, without reaching
forward an eager grasp towards joys less transient? When the meteors
which I had so fondly pursued were banished for ever, did no ray from
the Fountain of Light descend to cheer my dark dwelling?--No. They who
have tasted that the Lord is good, return in their adversity with double
eagerness to taste his goodness. But I had lived without God in my
prosperity, and my sorrow was without consolation. In the sunshine of my
day I had refused the guiding cloud; and the pillar of fire was
withdrawn from my darkness. I had forgotten Him who filleth heaven and
earth,--and the heavens and the earth were become one dreary blank to
me. The tumult of feeling, indeed, unavoidably subsided; but it was into
a calm,--frozen, stern, and cheerless as the long night-calm of a polar
sea.
From the supineness of sickness and despair, I was at last forced to
momentary exertion. My landlady renewed her entreaties that I would send
for my friends; enforcing her request by informing me that my little
fund was nearly exhausted. Disturbed with her importunity, and careless
of providing against difficulties from which I expected soon to escape,
I commanded her to desist. But my commands were no longer indisputable.
The woman probably fearing, from the continuance of my disorder, that my
death might soon involve her in trouble and expense, persisted in her
importunity. Finding me obstinately determined to persevere in
concealment, she proceeded to hint not obscurely, that it would be
necessary to consider of some means of supply, or to provide myself with
another abode. Only a few days were past since an insinuation like this
would have driven me indignant from a palace; but now the depression of
sickness was added to that of sorrow, and I only answered, that when I
could no longer repay her trouble, I would release her from it.
Dissatisfied, however, with an assurance which she foresaw that I might
be unable to fulfil, the widow proceeded to enquire whether I retained
any properly which could be converted into money; and mentioned a ring
which she observed me to wear. Dead as I was to all earthly affection, I
firmly refused to part with this ring, for it had been my mother's. I
had drawn it a hundred times from her slender hand, and she thought it
best employed as a toy for her little Ellen, while yet its quickly
shifting rays made its only value to me. 'No!' said I, as the woman
urged me to dispose of it, 'this shall go with me to the grave, in
memory that one heart had human feeling towards me.' The landlady,
however, venturing a tedious remonstrance against this resolution, the
dying fire again gave a momentary flash. 'Be silent,' I cried. 'Speak to
me no more till I am penniless; then tell me so at once, and I will that
instant leave your house, though I die at the threshold!' Highly
offended by this haughty command, the woman immediately retired, leaving
me for the rest of that day in total solitude.
An evil was now ready to fall upon me, for which I was wholly unprepared
either by experience or reflection. Unaccustomed as I was to approach
the abodes of poverty, the very form of want was new to me; and since I
had myself been numbered with the poor, my thoughts had chiefly dwelt
upon my past misfortunes, or taken refuge from the anticipation of
future distress in the prospect of dissolution. But, in spite of my
wishes and my prophecies, abstinence, and the strength of my
constitution, prevailed over my disorder. My heavy eyes were this night
visited by a deep and refreshing sleep, from which I awoke not till a
mid-day sun glanced through the smoke a dull ray upon the chimney crags
that bounded my horizon.
I looked up with a murmur of regret that I was restored to
consciousness. 'Why,' thought I, 'must the flaring light revisit those
to whom it brings no comfort?' and I closed my eyes in thankless
impatience of my prolonged existence. Oh, where is the _human_
physician, whose patience would endure to have his every prescription
questioned, and vilified, and rejected! whose pitying hand would offer
again and again the medicine which in scorn we dash from our lips!--No!
Such forbearance dwells with one Being alone; and such perverseness we
reserve for the infallible Physician.
I presently became sensible that my fever had abated. With a deep
feeling of disappointment I perceived that death had eluded my desires;
and that I must return to the thorny and perplexing path where the
serpent lurked to sting, and tigers prowled for prey. While my thoughts
were thus engaged, a footstep crossed my chamber; but, lost in my gloomy
reverie, I suffered it, ere I raised my eyes, to approach close to my
bed. I was roused by a cry of strong and mingled feeling. 'Miss
Mortimer!' I exclaimed; but she could not speak. She threw herself upon
my bed, and wept aloud. The voice of true affection for a moment touched
my heart; but I remembered that the words of kindness had soothed only
to deceive; and stern recollection of my wrongs steeled me against
better thoughts.
'Why are you come hither, Miss Mortimer?' said I, coldly withdrawing
myself from her arms.
'Unkind Ellen!' returned my weeping friend; 'could I know that you were
in sorrow and not seek you? May I not comfort,--or, if that cannot be,
may I not mourn with you?'
'I do not mourn--I want no comfort--leave me.'
'Oh say not so, dearest child. You are not forbidden to feel. Let us
weep together under the chastisement, and trust together that there is
mercy in it.'
'Mercy! no. I have been dashed without pity to the earth, and there will
I lie till it open to receive me.'
Miss Mortimer gazed on me in sorrowful amazement; then, wringing her
hands as in sudden anguish, 'Oh, Heaven!' she cried, 'is this my
Ellen?--Is this the joyous spirit that brought cheerfulness wherever it
came?--Is this the face that was bright with life and pleasure?
Loveliest, dearest, how hast thou lost the comfort which belongs even to
the lowest of mankind,--the hope which is offered even to the worst of
sinners?'
'Leave me, Miss Mortimer!' I cried, impatient of the self-reproach which
her sorrow awakened in my breast. 'I wish only to die in peace. Must
even this be denied me?'
'Ellen, my beloved Ellen, is that what you call peace?--Oh Thou who
alone canst, deign to visit this troubled soul with the peace of thy
children!' Miss Mortimer turned from me, and ceased to speak; but I saw
her wasted hand lifted as in prayer, and her sobs attested the fervency
of the petition. After a short silence, making a visible effort to
compose herself, she again addressed me. 'Do not ask me to leave you,
Ellen,' said she. 'I came hither, resolved not to return without you. If
you are too weak to-day for our little journey, I will nurse you here.
Nay, you must not forbid me. I will sit by you as still as death. Or,
make an effort, my love, to reach home with me, and I will not intrude
on you for a minute. You shall not even be urged to join my solitary
meals. It will be comfort enough for me to feel that you are near.'
I could not be wholly insensible to an invitation so affectionate; but I
struggled against my better self, and pronounced a hasty and peremptory
refusal. Miss Mortimer looked deeply grieved and disappointed; but hers
was that truly Christian spirit whose kindness no ingratitude could
discourage, whose meekness no perverseness could provoke. She might have
checked the untoward plant in its summer pride; but the lightning had
scathed it, and it was become sacred in her eyes.
Sparing the irritability of the wounded spirit, she forbore to fret it
by further urging her request. She rather endeavoured to soothe me by
every expression of tenderness and respect. She at last submitted so
far to my wayward humour, as to quit my apartment; aware, perhaps, that
the spirit which roused itself against opposition might yield to
solitary reflection. The voice of kindness, which I had expected never
more to hear, stirred in my breast a milder nature; and as my eye
followed the feeble step of Miss Mortimer, and read her wasted
countenance, my heart smote me for my resistance to her love. 'She has
risen from a sick-bed to seek me,' thought I; 'me, renounced as I have
been by all mankind,--bereft as I am of all that allured the perfidious.
Surely _this_ is not treachery.'
My reverie was suddenly interrupted by poor Fido, who made good his
entrance as Miss Mortimer left the room; and instantly began to express,
as he could, his recognition of his altered mistress. The sight of him
awakened at once a thousand recollections. It recalled to my mind my
former petulant treatment of my mother's friend, her invariable patience
and affection, and the remorse excited by our separation. My mother
herself rose to my view, such as she was when Fido and I had gamboled
together by her side,--such as she was when sinking in untimely decay. I
felt again the caress which memory shall ever hold dear and holy. I saw
again the ominous flush brighten her sunken cheek; knelt once more at
her feet to pray that we might meet again; and heard once more the
melancholy cry which spoke the pang of a last farewell. The stubborn
spirit failed. I threw my arms round my mother's poor old favourite, and
melted into tears. These tears were the first which I had shed since the
unkindness of my altered friend had turned my gentler affections into
gall;--and let those who would know the real luxury of grief turn from
the stern anguish of a proud heart to the mild regrets which follow
those who are gone beyond the reach of our gratitude and our love.
Miss Mortimer did not leave me long alone. She returned to bring me
refreshment better suited to my past habits and present weakness than to
her own very limited finances. As she entered, I hastily concealed my
tears; but when her accents of heartfelt affection mingled in my soul
with the recollections which were already there, the claim of my
mother's friend grew irresistible. A half confession of my late
ingratitude rose to my lips; but that to which Ellen, the favoured child
of fortune, might have condescended as an instance of graceful candour,
seemed an act of meanness in Ellen fallen and dependent. I pressed Miss
Mortimer's hand between mine. 'My best, my only friend!' said I; and
Miss Mortimer asked no more. It was sufficient for the generous heart
that its kindness was at last felt and accepted.