CHAP. XII.
January 29.
January 29.
January 29.
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, asthe 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, mayfor 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 takegoodcare 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 onceled 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 arenecessary. 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 himhereafter; for my own envy, my own implacable spirit, my own stubborn and hard heart prepared the way for the influence of his inordinatepurposes, 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 unoffendingchild. 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 hisuncleFlamall. 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 snarewas laid for you; and you only stumbled.Iboldly 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 andMary. 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 possessedmorethan 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 morethan 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.â€â€”She paused—“I think,†pursued she, as though collecting herself, “that I may hope to stand acquittedbefore my Maker for the last and only compensation I can make to some, whom I have injured; perhapsstrictjustice would exact moresacrifices. 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 couldnot 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.â€â€”
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, tohave 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.â€â€ “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 supporterâ€â€”—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.
Yours,Rachel Cowley.
Yours,Rachel Cowley.
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 renderanorphanand abeggar. 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 messageto 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; forhimself, 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.â€
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, whichalthough theygovern, cannotblind 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 shunnedthat, 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 hearof 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!
Rachel Cowley.
Rachel Cowley.
Rachel Cowley.
Rachel Cowley.
LETTER LXXV.From Miss Cowley to Miss Hardcastle.
I am, my dear friend, so powerfully impressed by the perusal of Miss Flint’sconfession, as her legacy to Lady Maclairn may with truth be called, that I cannot divert my mind from the subject. What a scene of iniquity have I sent you! and how rejoiced am I, that I prevailed on Lady Maclairn not to tear open those wounds afresh by reading a detailed account of actions and artifices which her brother employed to defraud Mr. Flint’s children of their rights. Surely, my Lucy, the death of Flamall was “a consummation devoutly to be wished.†To be removed from the indignation of the injured, to be spared from the abhorrenceof the virtuous; to be saved from the constant dread of living an object amenable to the most vigorous laws of his country; to be freed from the horrors of his dying bed! But how momentary is this delusion of feeling! My reason and my faith point out this disembodied spirit in its next state of existence. With trembling awe I follow it to the tribunal of an all-wise, omnipotent, and pure Judge. There do I contemplate this forlorn and sullied soul, as rushing uncalled into the presence of that Being, whose merciful purposes he has counteracted; and whose laws he has insulted. Nature stands appalled, at the magnitude of offences like these; and humanity must deplore the sinner thus cut off in the midst of his sins.
I cannot however help being of opinion that, useful as the contemplation of a Flamall’s life may be to beings who fearlessly follow the impulse of every disorderlypassion,we, my beloved Lucy, shall not be unwise, to direct our thoughts from such shocking depravity of creatures like ourselves. I wish so to do; and yet not lose the lesson of wisdom as applicable to myself. In what, I would ask you, consisted the difference between Miss Flint and Rachel Cowley at two years of age. The general lineaments of our minds have a near affinity. What has produced the moral differences which from that period have discriminated us? Education, and the habits resulting from our respective situations: in the one instance, the soil was left uncultured; in the other, it was judiciously cultivated. Lucretia had been overlooked by her mother in the early period of her life. Indolence and indulgence were this mother’s faults. She found, in cultivating the docile and mild Percival, a gratification of her own taste, and an object of amusement, as well as for exclusive tenderness.This mother wanted firmness, and the vigilance necessary for her duty. When passion had taken its root, this unhappy creature was consigned over to the care and tuition of a schoolmistress. I mean not to be illiberal; for I believe many women in that class of life are not only accomplished women, but conscientiously disposed to be useful to their pupils; but I cannot think that in a large school, either the temper, or peculiar moral defects of a girl are likely to meet with that nice and accurate observation which are necessary for their correction. I will however admit that in this seminary Miss Flint acquired the outward habits of decorum, and that knowledge, which, with experience, and a different temper, might have conducted her, as it does multitudes of our sex, in the common routine of private and domestic life. She then returned to her parents, slenderly furnished by the gifts of nature, with a spirit unsubdued,and a mind without any fixed principle of action, beyond a confidence in herself. She was next a candidate for favour in the world; and she proudly conceived that no one would dare refuse it; but she found a rival, even in the cradle, and under the parental roof. Is it to be expected, that from such a disposition, and under such circumstances, envy and malice could be long a stranger to her? The mother perceived their baneful influence; and she opposed to their growth, nothing but remedies which relieved herself from trouble and vexation. Sheflatteredinstead ofreproving, and gave to her daughter an authority which she knew she would abuse. Uncontrouled and domineering over those about her; irritated by the neglect of those whom she could not subjugate to her imperious will, she became soured, disappointed, and vindictive; and she finished by becoming the fit instrument in the hands of a Flamall, for the ruin ofthe innocent, and the perpetration of injustice, cruelty, and deceit.
Thus have we seen the fatal torrent of unchecked passions flow! but suppose this wretched victim of their fury had been in Mrs. Hardcastle’s hands. Oh Lucy, we want no supposition! We have seen atorrent, not less impetuous, directed by her wisdom, to the salutary purposes for which Heaven gave it strength and abundance; and instead of desolating all within its reach, it has been led to supply delight, and satisfaction! How often has her patient firmness subdued my angry passions? How often has she detected them before I knew their power! With what skill did she temper and mix the warm affections of my nature with the rougher elements which composed me. How sweet, how endearing was her notice of every little triumph I gained over myself; and with what discrimination did she effect that bond of love, which made herchildren useful to each other. Her Lucy’s gentleness was opposed to her Rachel’scourage; and Horace’s self-command was the only point to which emulation was recommended. Is it wonderful, that I have escaped the fate of a Miss Flint? Is it wonderful that I should love virtue, and reverence a faith thus exemplified? No, Lucy. But I have to fear, lest I should disgrace Mrs. Hardcastle. We may, and I hope we shall, live to be wives and mothers. Let us in that case, aim at being something better than mere teeming animals; and like some in that class, who, following their instinct, squeeze their offspring to death through fondness. I am persuaded that we are weak and fallible creatures; but I cannot for an instant admit, that an all-wise and merciful Being has exacted anyone duty, or enforced anyone command, without having bestowed upon us the faculties and capacity for fulfilling our obligations. Every mother whosemind is sound, is called upon to perform the duties of a mother; and without any better guide than her own reason and attention, she will soon perceive that something more is required, than merely watching over the preservation of her children. I am, and I wish to remain, a stranger to that humility which represses, as beyond me, all that is arduous and praise-worthy. I believe, that by applying my heart to wisdom, I may become wise; and the mother who diligently watches over the first openings of moral existence in the beings entrusted to her, will soon discover, that she has the necessary talents for governing them safely. Attention and experience will enlighten her; and should she never reach to the accomplishment of all she wishes, she will at least secure to herself the favour of God, and her own peace of mind. It pleases me, my Lucy, to look forward to that period, when, with the name of Hardcastle, I may be treadingin the same path of duty which our mother pursued in her road to Heaven. Will you wish me to suppress my hopes, that I may one day be able, with the pure joy of an accepted spirit in her abode of bliss, to point to her those inmates, whom her virtues trained for happiness? Yet why this tear? I cannot erase the blot it has made. Wherefore is it that my spirit faints? You must come and chide me; you will find me paler and thinner than when I last saw you; and, it may be, less the heroine, since there has been less to oppose me. But I hatesea voyages!
Oh sweet Valentine! hasten to us! hasten and bring to me my Lucy! thou shalt then be crowned as the harbinger of spring and Horace. Tell my “lily,†that we expect no tears nor sighs. She is desired to wear the same face she did with herlilac ribbands. We are all learning to be philosophers, except Malcolm, who is daily in danger of losing his good humour;and rates the work people for not being at Wenland, at the same time that they are here. I believe in my conscience that Miss Hardcastle and Miss Howard might sleep in the stable for him. But we do not mind hispouting; and your apartment, which was Miss Flint’s, is to be made worthy of the captain’s guests. Adieu, my dear girl; the good people here send their blessings with
Rachel Cowley’s.
Rachel Cowley’s.
Rachel Cowley’s.
Rachel Cowley’s.