CHAP. II.
We quitted London a few days after the ceremony was performed, and I now had leisure to repent of my weakness and timidity. My introduction to my husband’s family was humiliating and painful to the last degree of suffering sensibility. I was not only anintruder, but I was an usurper of the rights I claimed; and I felt that, in my assumed title ofMrs. Flintwas contained a reproach, which covered me with confusion every time I heard it pronounced. My only consolation sprang from the resolution of devoting my life to the man, whom I had thus deceived. He was fond of me, and I studied incessantly to make him contented with his wife. I foolishly began to think thatI should contribute to the slender stock of domestic comfort which I found at Farefield Hall. Mr. Percival Flint, and his amiable sister Mary appeared to treat me as one destined to enlarge their, and their father’s happiness: even Miss Flint seemed reconciled to the youngmother-in-law, who had, in no instance abridged her in her authority. I was fond of flowers, and already began to enjoy the amusement of the garden. Mr. Percival one morning entered my dressing room, where Lucretia and myself were at our needle work, my husband having taken his darling Mary with him in his airing; his hands were filled with some rare and beautiful plants, and I found that this was a tribute to my peculiar taste. My thanks followed, and Percival withdrew, in order to see the plants properly disposed of. “You have converted,” observed Miss Flint with a malicious laugh, “our grave and solemn book-worm into a useful being. What athousand pities it is! that Percival had not seen you before his father:” as the business is now managed he must remain the “despairing shepherd;” for I think the public cruelty prohibits the son-in-law from marrying the mother-in-law, who in many cases might console the poor widow. “My countenance marked how little this levity pleased me.” “Dear me!” pursued she, “you need not look so offended, or be displeased with so harmless a joke; you cannot help Percival’s playing the fool, nor prevent people’s thinking, that the father at seventy is not altogether so handsome as the son at twenty-three or four: you might be tempted to acknowledge this truth yourself were it not for this unlucky relationship; you could not in conscience deny that he is much better qualified to succeedMr. Duncan, thanhis father.”—I heard no more; for yielding to terror and surprise I fainted, and my successive fits alarmed the family; and, as Isupposed, moved to pity the cruel insulter, who had brought them on me. She was very assiduous and attentive to me during the few days of my convalescence; and with much humility begged my pardon, saying that she had never entertained the slightest suspicion prejudicial to me; but that having heard of a disappointment of a tender kind, which for a time had injured my health and spirits, she frankly confessed that she had attributed my choice of her father to that cause; believing that no woman with my beauty, and at my age, would prefer for an husband a man old enough for her grandfather. “I neither intended to reproach you or that choice, nor to hurt your feelings by naming the gentleman in question,” added she. “I simply wished to establish between us a confidence and friendship which I conceived might be useful to us both. I have my secrets, my dear Harriet; and my heart has suffered like your own, the pangs ofunrequited, nay,abusedlove.” She proceeded to inform me of Mr. Howard’s perfidy, who, after having gained her affections, had voluntarily given himself up to the arts of her sister, who with a pretty face, and the years of a child had basely supplanted her in the opinion of a man, whom she well knew was necessary to her happiness; and who had from her very cradle shown the greatest cunning and address in rendering every one subservient to her will; and she warned me at the same time of her absolute power over my husband.
Subdued by conscience, and uncertain of the extent of the information which Miss Flint had gained, with the knowledge of Mr. Duncan’s name, I accepted of her apology; and still further tutored by my brother, passively yielded to an authority, with which I was unable to contend. I tamely witnessed the treatment whichpoor Miss Mary received from her enraged and implacable sister, and finally saw the innocent girl ruined in her father’s love. My husband was incensed by some letters of Mr. Howard’s, which fell into Lucretia’s hands; these were incautiously preserved by the fond girl, and they were certainly such, as Mr. Howard had done much more wisely not to have written. I endeavoured to soften my husband’s resentment; and I should have succeeded; for he loved his daughter Mary, even, if I may be allowed to speak, to a degree of weakness; and he was wretched because she was unhappy. He spoke to my brother on the subject, and discovered an inclination to unity and forgiveness, requesting him to employ his influence with Lucretia to give up to a sister a man whom she could not win for herself; adding, that notwithstanding Mr. Howard had so highly offended him, he would pass over every thing for the sake of peace, and to contentpoor Mary. My brother instead of executing this commission, sternly warned me to take care of what I was doing. “Were you any thing but what you are,” said he, “you would perceive the danger of your interfering with this virago; let her alone: in time you will see her your slave instead of your tyrant. Trust not to the fondness of your husband; you see what she has effected with her father in regard to her sister. Judge of her power by this proof of it, and avoid offending her: you will ruin yourself, and serve no one.”
I believe it is not useless to mention here, that on my marriage taking place my brother took his degree as barrister, and quitting his house in Red Lion Square, took apartments in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Whether his former clients forgot him, or he them, I know not; but so it was; he resided almost constantly at the Hall, and became useful to Mr. Flint in return forthe hospitality he found. Confined principally to the care of amusing and nursing my husband, whose health rapidly declined under the perpetual vexations he endured, I could not help perceiving that my influence was sedulously watched; and every time he expressed the regrets he experienced from being prevented seeing his child, I was suspected of having produced those relentings of nature in her favour, and was reproached by Mr. Flamall for my folly in being blind to my own interest; and I was told that I had nothing to do but to attend to my husband. I perfectly understood this language, and Idid attend to my husband; but it was not to deceive, or insult him. He was too weak to be advised by me; and unhappily feeling at times the state of abject slavery, to which his own weakness had reduced him, he vented his resentments in peevish complaints, and angry reproaches, that I was too passive and indifferent to defend himagainst his tormentor; then, weeping like an infant, he would beg me not to leave him, for that I was his only comfort.
One day he mentioned the disposition he had made of his property, adding, that his children would think of him when he was dead, although they had abandoned him whilst living. “As to you, my poor Harriet,” said he, “I have taken care to leave you enough for your ambition, though I can never repay you for the loss of your health, which will be destroyed by your attendance on me. You will find, besides your jointure, a legacy of three thousand pounds, with which you may settle yourself comfortably when they send you from hence: this sum is in your brother’s hands, and he may perhaps recollect when you shew him the bond, that he is in arrears for the interest ever since your marriage. He was a needy man, my Harriet, when I lent him the money, and Iwarn you not to trust him with your affairs when I am gone, although he is your brother.” That very evening he was seized with convulsions. I pass over an interval of suffering which was terminated by his death.
I will not attempt to describe my astonishment on hearing the deceased Mr. Flint’s will read. Let it suffice that its contents were such as astonished every one. My name only appeared in it, as having been provided for at my marriage; and as it was necessary to specify that the jointure which had so provided for me, was to revert to Miss Flint at my decease, on failure of issue. I retired to my apartment overwhelmed with grief and confusion. Mr. and Mrs. Howard might be said to have haunted my imagination; I had witnessed their distress on hearing thisunjustwill read; they were continually before me; and innocent as I was, I felt mysoul agonised by the internal conviction which pressed upon me, that all was not honourable, yet a suspicion of my brother reached only to another enigma. What was become of the bond? This question was on my lips more than once; but Philip had succeeded in making himself more the object of my dread than confidence. To retire from the Hall; to assert the independence which I had so dearly purchased; to share with the Howards their father’s bounty, were the purposes of my mind, and its support. In the mean time I was treated with unusual respect and attention by Miss Flint, who repeatedly assured me, that the object of her father’s affections would always have claims on her own; that she could not bear to see me so depressed by an event which was to be expected in the common course of nature; and that if I thought I had not been sufficiently considered for the sacrifices of health and pleasure,she was certain that her father’s omission resulted from his firm persuasion that we should always share the same abode and domestic comforts. I blushed, and replied, that I had every reason to be contented with Mr. Flint’s generosity and affection. “Had the provision allotted me,” added I with more spirit, “been only a fourth part of what it is, I should have been satisfied; for I seek only independence.” She looked disappointed, and changed the subject of conversation.
My brother paid me a visit the following morning; and having in vain requested me to take an airing, grew angry. “Wherefore is it, Harriet,” said he with a petulant air, “that you affect to play the Ephesian Matron with me? It is impossible you can regret the death of a doating, childish old man, worn out by sufferings, at seventy and upwards? To what purpose this seclusion, this dejection,these perpetual tears? One would imagine you had already been entombed long enough! But there is no remedy for a romantic mind,” continued he with more tenderness. “Any other woman but yourself would have resented his want of generosity. You are poorly recompensed, my dear girl, for your watching, and for the loss of your beauty.” “I have enough for my wants,” answered I, “and much more than I deserved.” “I was not of that opinion,” replied he, “and soon after your marriage gave Mr. Flint to understand that I thought his widow was but slenderly provided for, unless further considered. He told me that he had thought as I did, and had acted accordingly. He added that you were the only comfort he had in this world; that he had to thank me for the blessing, and that I should find he had not forgotten my kindness. I have reason,” continued Philip, “to think that he kept his word, and destroyed the bondhe held against me; for it has not appeared.” I concealed my face in the sopha-cushion, otherwise he must have perceived my astonishment. “This consideration on his part,” continued he, “has been however repaid on mine, for I have been useful to him in my professional way, and never charged him sixpence.” I sighed profoundly—“Come,” cried he, assuming a more cheerful air, “let us now look forward to more pleasing prospects. You may yet bemistress here.”
I was now told of his intrigue with Miss Flint; of his unhappily being a married man; and of the worthlessness of his wife, who exercised over him an empire, in all things save that of bearing his name. In a word, Miss Flint’s critical situation was brought forward, and my agency was demanded as the only means of saving her fame, and the infant from the disgrace of an illegitimate birth. I listened to this discoursewith disgust, and even horror; but, suppressing my feelings, I told him with firmness, that I had gone already too far into concealments, not to discover the danger of the road; that I meant to quit the Hall, and had already formed my plans for my future life. “These,” added I, bursting into tears, “will not, nor can be subservient to your, or Miss Flint’s views.” “You will change your mind,” replied he sternly, “when I tell you, that, what you have refused to do from gratitude and affection to abrother, may be thought expedient to perform for your own safety. Miss Flint has known the particulars of your first marriage from the day you appeared here as her father’s wife. Moreover she insists upon it, that you have no legal proofs of Duncan’s death, nor any claim to your jointure, from its having been granted under a name and character to which you had no right. You will do well to reflect on her temper, and on your condition,under a prosecutionfor bigamy. My evidence, in your favour amounts simply to the Dutchman’s verbal attestation of being at Duncan’s funeral, and his letters and will written at Surinam. These with me are conclusive proofs; but I know not how far they would be so thought in a court at Doctor’s Commons; nor with what consequences at the best, your marrying when a widow under your maiden name may be attended.”—“My punishment is just,” exclaimed I, “I will avow the truth, I will not take Mr. Flint’s money. I will go where I may mourn my lost happiness anddie. I ask you only to provide me an asylum for the moment. I will not be a burden to you.”—Tenderness was next tried, my ruin involved his; the fate of a child who though yet unborn, was urged with many tears; Miss Flint’s generosity to me, her attachment to him were not omitted. I was conquered. “Do with me what you will,”said I mournfully, “only remember, Philip, who it was, that spread the toils with which my soul is encompassed; I cannot live to see you miserable.” He employed much sophistry to convince me that I was engaged in the performance of a meritorious work, inasmuch as it secured innocence from shame, and saved the reputation of Mr. Flint’s daughter: a woman who had respected my secret, and whose gratitude would bind her to me for life.