If the dean had loved his wife but moderately, seeing all her faults clearly as he did, he must frequently have quarrelled with her: if he had loved her with tenderness, he must have treated her with a degree of violence in the hope of amending her failings. But having neither personal nor mental affection towards her sufficiently interesting to give himself the trouble to contradict her will in anything, he passed for one of the best husbands in the world. Lady Clementina went out when she liked, stayed at home when she liked, dressed as she liked, and talked as she liked without a word of disapprobation from her husband, and all—because he cared nothing about her.
Her vanity attributed this indulgence to inordinate affection; and observers in general thought her happier in her marriage than the beloved wife who bathes her pillow with tears by the side of an angry husband, whose affection is so excessive that he unkindly upbraids her because she is—less than perfection.
The dean’s wife was not so dispassionately considered by some of his acquaintance as by himself; for they would now and then hint at her foibles: but this great liberty she also conceived to be the effect of most violent love, or most violent admiration: and such would have been her construction had they commended her follies—had they totally slighted, or had they beaten her.
Amongst those acquaintances, the aforesaid bishop, by far the most frequent visitor, did not come merely to lounge an idle hour, but he had a more powerful motive; the desire of fame, and dread of being thought a man receiving large emolument for unimportant service.
The dean, if he did not procure him the renown he wished, still preserved him from the apprehended censure.
The elder William was to his negligent or ignorant superiors in the church such as an apt boy at school is to the rich dunces—William performed the prelates’ tasks for them, and they rewarded him—not indeed with toys or money, but with their countenance, their company, their praise. And scarcely was there a sermon preached from the patrician part of the bench, in which the dean did not fashion some periods, blot out some uncouth phrases, render some obscure sentiments intelligible, and was the certain person, when the work was printed, to correct the press.
This honourable and right reverend bishop delighted in printing and publishing his works; or rather the entire works of the dean, which passed for his: and so degradingly did William, the shopkeeper’s son, think of his own homiest extraction, that he was blinded, even to the loss of honour, by the lustre of this noble acquaintance; for, though in other respects he was a man of integrity, yet, when the gratification of his friend was in question, he was a liar; he not only disowned his giving him aid in any of his publications, but he never published anything in his own name without declaring to the world “that he had been obliged for several hints on the subject, for many of the most judicious corrections, and for those passages in page so and so (naming the most eloquent parts of the work) to his noble and learned friend the bishop.”
The dean’s wife being a fine lady—while her husband and his friend pored over books or their own manuscripts at home, she ran from house to house, from public amusement to public amusement; but much less for the pleasure ofseeingthan for that of being seen. Nor was it material to her enjoyment whether she were observed, or welcomed, where she went, as she never entertained the smallest doubt of either; but rested assured that her presence roused curiosity and dispensed gladness all around.
One morning she went forth to pay her visits, all smiles, such as she thought captivating: she returned, all tears, such as she thought no less endearing.
Three ladies accompanied her home, entreating her to be patient under a misfortune to which even kings are liable: namely, defamation.
Young Henry, struck with compassion at grief of which he knew not the cause, begged to know “what was the matter?”
“Inhuman monsters, to treat a woman thus!” cried his aunt in a fury, casting the corner of her eye into a looking-glass, to see how rage became her.
“But, comfort yourself,” said one of her companions: “few people will believe you merit the charge.”
“But few! if only one believe it, I shall call my reputation lost, and I will shut myself up in some lonely hut, and for ever renounce all that is dear to me!”
“What! all your fine clothes?” said Henry, in amazement.
“Of what importance will my best dresses be, when nobody would see them?”
“You would see them yourself, dear aunt; and I am sure nobody admires them more.”
“Now you speak of that,” said she, “I do not think this gown I have on becoming—I am sure I look—”
The dean, with the bishop (to whom he had been reading a treatise just going to the press, which was to be published in the name of the latter, though written by the former), now entered, to inquire why they had been sent for in such haste.
“Oh, Dean! oh, my Lord Bishop!” she cried, resuming that grief which the thoughts of her dress had for a time dispelled—“My reputation is destroyed—a public print has accused me of playing deep at my own house, and winning all the money.”
“The world will never reform,” said the bishop: “all our labour, my friend, is thrown away.”
“But is it possible,” cried the dean, “that any one has dared to say this of you?”
“Here it is in print,” said she, holding out a newspaper.
The dean read the paragraph, and then exclaimed, “I can forgive a falsehoodspoken—the warmth of conversation may excuse it—but towriteandprintan untruth is unpardonable, and I will prosecute this publisher.”
“Still the falsehood will go down to posterity,” said Lady Clementina; “and after ages will think I was a gambler.”
“Comfort yourself, dear madam,” said young Henry, wishing to console her: “perhaps after ages may not hear of you; nor even the present age think much about you.”
The bishop now exclaimed, after having taken the paper from the dean, and read the paragraph, “It is a libel, a rank libel, and the author must be punished.”
“Not only the author, but the publisher,” said the dean.
“Not only the publisher, but the printer,” continued the bishop.
“And must my name be bandied about by lawyers in a common court of justice?” cried Lady Clementina. “How shocking to my delicacy!”
“My lord, it is a pity we cannot try them by the ecclesiastical court,” said the dean, with a sigh.
“Or by the India delinquent bill,” said the bishop, with vexation.
“So totally innocent as I am!” she vociferated with sobs. “Every one knows I never touch a card at home, and this libel charges me with playing at my own house; and though, whenever I do play, I own I am apt to win, yet it is merely for my amusement.”
“Win or not win, play or not play,” exclaimed both the churchmen, “this is a libel—no doubt, no doubt, a libel.”
Poor Henry’s confined knowledge of his native language tormented him so much with curiosity upon this occasion, that he went softly up to his uncle, and asked him in a whisper, “What is the meaning of the word libel?”
“A libel,” replied the dean, in a raised voice, “is that which one person publishes to the injury of another.”
“And what can the injured person do,” asked Henry, “if the accusation should chance to be true?”
“Prosecute,” replied the dean.
“But, then, what does he do if the accusation be false?”
“Prosecute likewise,” answered the dean.
“How, uncle! is it possible that the innocent behave just like the guilty?”
“There is no other way to act.”
“Why, then, if I were the innocent, I would do nothing at all sooner than I would act like the guilty. I would not persecute—”
“I saidprosecute,” cried the dean in anger. “Leave the room; you have no comprehension.”
“Oh, yes, now I understand the difference of the two words; but they sound so much alike, I did not at first observe the distinction. You said, ‘the innocent prosecute, but theguilty persecute.’” He bowed (convinced as he thought) and left the room.
After this modern star-chamber, which was left sitting, had agreed on its mode of vengeance, and the writer of the libel was made acquainted with his danger, he waited, in all humility, upon Lady Clementina, and assured her, with every appearance of sincerity,
“That she was not the person alluded to by the paragraph in question, but that the initials which she had conceived to mark out her name, were, in fact, meant to point out Lady Catherine Newland.”
“But, sir,” cried Lady Clementina, “what could induce you to write such a paragraph upon Lady Catherine? Sheneverplays.”
“We know that, madam, or we dared not to have attacked her. Though we must circulate libels, madam, to gratify our numerous readers, yet no people are more in fear of prosecutions than authors and editors; therefore, unless we are deceived in our information, we always take care to libel the innocent—we apprehend nothing from them—their own characters support them—but the guilty are very tenacious; and what they cannot secure by fair means, they will employ force to accomplish. Dear madam, be assured I have too much regard for a wife and seven small children, who are maintained by my industry alone, to have written anything in the nature of a libel upon your ladyship.”
About this period the dean had just published a pamphlet in his own name, and in which that of his friend the bishop was only mentioned with thanks for hints, observations, and condescending encouragement to the author.
This pamphlet glowed with the dean’s love for his country; and such a country as he described, it was impossiblenotto love. “Salubrious air, fertile fields, wood, water, corn, grass, sheep, oxen, fish, fowl, fruit, and vegetables,” were dispersed with the most prodigal hand; “valiant men, virtuous women; statesmen wise and just; tradesmen abounding in merchandise and money; husbandmen possessing peace, ease, plenty; and all ranks liberty.” This brilliant description, while the dean read the work to his family, so charmed poor Henry, that he repeatedly cried out,
“I am glad I came to this country.”
But it so happened that a few days after, Lady Clementina, in order to render the delicacy of her taste admired, could eat of no one dish upon the table, but found fault with them all. The dean at length said to her,
“Indeed, you are too nice; reflect upon the hundreds of poor creatures who have not a morsel or a drop of anything to subsist upon, except bread and water; and even of the first a scanty allowance, but for which they are obliged to toil six days in the week, from sun to sun.”
“Pray, uncle,” cried Henry, “in what country do these poor people live?”
“In this country,” replied the dean.
Henry rose from his chair, ran to the chimney-piece, took up his uncle’s pamphlet, and said, “I don’t remember your mentioning them here.”
“Perhaps I have not,” answered the dean, coolly.
Still Henry turned over each leaf of the book, but he could meet only with luxurious details of “the fruits of the earth, the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fishes of the sea.”
“Why, here is provision enough for all the people,” said Henry; “why should they want? why do not they go and take some of these things?”
“They must not,” said the dean, “unless they were their own.”
“What, uncle! does no part of the earth, nor anything which the earth produces, belong to the poor?”
“Certainly not.”
“Why did not you say so, then, in your pamphlet?”
“Because it is what everybody knows.”
“Oh, then, what you have said in your pamphlet is only what—nobody knows.”
There appeared to the dean, in the delivery of this sentence, a satirical acrimony, which his irritability as an author could but ill forgive.
An author, it is said, has more acute feelings in respect to his works than any artist in the world besides.
Henry had some cause, on the present occasion, to think this observation just; for no sooner had he spoken the foregoing words, than his uncle took him by the hand out of the room, and, leading him to his study, there he enumerated his various faults; and having told him “it was for all those, too long permitted with impunity, and not merely for thepresentimpertinence, that he meant to punish him,” ordered him to close confinement in his chamber for a week.
In the meantime, the dean’s pamphlet (less hurt by Henry’s critique thanhehad been) was proceeding to the tenth edition, and the author acquiring literary reputation beyond what he had ever conferred on his friend the bishop.
The style, the energy, the eloquence of the work was echoed by every reader who could afford to buy it—some few enlightened ones excepted, who chiefly admired the author’sinvention.
The dean, in the good humour which the rapid sale of his book produced, once more took his nephew to his bosom; and although the ignorance of young Henry upon the late occasions had offended him very highly, yet that self-same ignorance, evinced a short time after upon a different subject, struck his uncle as productive of a most rare and exalted virtue.
Henry had frequently, in his conversation, betrayed the total want of all knowledge in respect to religion or futurity, and the dean for this reason delayed taking him to church, till he had previously given him instructionswhereforehe went.
A leisure morning arrived, on which he took his nephew to his study, and implanted in his youthful mind the first unconfused idea of the Creator of the universe!
The dean was eloquent, Henry was all attention; his understanding, expanded by time to the conception of a God—and not warped by custom from the sensations which a just notion of that God inspires—dwelt with delight and wonder on the information given him—lessons which, instilled into the head of a senseless infant, too often produce, throughout his remaining life, an impious indifference to the truths revealed.
Yet, with all that astonished, that respectful sensibility which Henry showed on this great occasion, he still expressed his opinion, and put questions to the dean, with his usual simplicity, till he felt himself convinced.
“What!” cried he—after being informed of the attributes inseparable from the Supreme Being, and having received the injunction to offer prayers to Him night and morning—“What! am I permitted to speak to Power Divine?”
“At all times,” replied the dean.
“How! whenever I like?”
“Whenever you like,” returned the dean.
“I durst not,” cried Henry, “make so free with the bishop, nor dare any of his attendants.”
“The bishop,” said the dean, “is the servant of God, and therefore must be treated with respect.”
“With more respect than his Master?” asked Henry.
The dean not replying immediately to this question, Henry, in the rapidity of inquiry, ran on to another:—
“But what am I to say when I speak to the Almighty?”
“First, thank Him for the favours He has bestowed on you.”
“What favours?”
“You amaze me,” cried the dean, “by your question. Do not you live in ease, in plenty, and happiness?”
“And do the poor and the unhappy thank Him too, uncle?”
“No doubt; every human being glorifies Him, for having been made a rational creature.”
“And does my aunt and all her card-parties glorify Him for that?”
The dean again made no reply, and Henry went on to other questions, till his uncle had fully instructed him as to the nature and the form ofprayer; and now, putting into his hands a book, he pointed out to him a few short prayers, which he wished him to address to Heaven in his presence.
Whilst Henry bent his knees, as his uncle had directed, he trembled, turned pale, and held, for a slight support, on the chair placed before him.
His uncle went to him, and asked him “What was the matter.”
“Oh!” cried Henry, “when I first came to your door with my poor father’s letter, I shook for fear you would not look upon me; and I cannot help feeling even more now than I did then.”
The dean embraced him with warmth—gave him confidence—and retired to the other side of the study, to observe his whole demeanour on this new occasion.
As he beheld his features varying between the passions of humble fear and fervent hope, his face sometimes glowing with the rapture of thanksgiving, and sometimes with the blushes of contrition, he thus exclaimed apart:—
“This is the true education on which to found the principles of religion. The favour conferred by Heaven in granting the freedom of petitions to its throne, can never be conceived with proper force but by those whose most tedious moments during their infancy werenotpassed in prayer. Unthinking governors of childhood! to insult the Deity with a form of worship in which the mind has no share; nay, worse, has repugnance, and by the thoughtless habits of youth, prevent, even in age, devotion.”
Henry’s attention was so firmly fixed that he forgot there was a spectator of his fervour; nor did he hear young William enter the chamber and even speak to his father.
At length closing his book and rising from his knees, he approached his uncle and cousin, with a sedateness in his air, which gave the latter a very false opinion of the state of his youthful companion’s mind.
“So, Mr. Henry,” cried William, “you have been obliged, at last, to say your prayers.”
The dean informed his son “that to Henry it was no punishment to pray.”
“He is the strangest boy I ever knew!” said William, inadvertently.
“To be sure,” said Henry, “I was frightened when I first knelt; but when I came to the words,Father,which art in Heaven, they gave me courage; for I know how merciful and kind afatheris, beyond any one else.”
The dean again embraced his nephew, let fall a tear to his poor brother Henry’s misfortunes; and admonished the youth to show himself equally submissive to other instructions, as he had done to those which inculcate piety.
The interim between youth and manhood was passed by young William and young Henry in studious application to literature; some casual mistakes in our customs and manners on the part of Henry; some too close adherences to them on the side of William.
Their different characters, when boys, were preserved when they became men: Henry still retained that natural simplicity which his early destiny had given him; he wondered still at many things he saw and heard, and at times would venture to give his opinion, contradict, and even act in opposition to persons whom long experience and the approbation of the world had placed in situations which claimed his implicit reverence and submission.
Unchanged in all his boyish graces, young William, now a man, was never known to infringe upon the statutes of good-breeding; even though sincerity, his own free will, duty to his neighbour, with many other plebeian virtues and privileges, were the sacrifice.
William inherited all the pride and ambition of the dean—Henry, all his father’s humility. And yet, so various and extensive is the acceptation of the word pride, that, on some occasions, Henry was proud even beyond his cousin. He thought it far beneath his dignity ever to honour, or contemplate with awe, any human being in whom he saw numerous failings. Nor would he, to ingratiate himself into the favour of a man above him, stoop to one servility, such as the haughty William daily practised.
“I know I am called proud,” one day said William to Henry.
“Dear cousin,” replied Henry, “it must be only, then, by those who do not know you; for to me you appear the humblest creature in the world.”
“Do you really think so?”
“I am certain of it; or would you always give up your opinion to that of persons in a superior state, however inferior in their understanding? Would else their weak judgment immediately change yours, though, before, you had been decided on the opposite side? Now, indeed, cousin, I have more pride than you; for I never will stoop to act or to speak contrary to my feelings.”
“Then you will never be a great man.”
“Nor ever desire it, if I must first be a mean one.”
There was in the reputation of these two young men another mistake, which the common retailers of character committed. Henry was said to be wholly negligent, while William was reputed to be extremely attentive to the other sex. William, indeed, was gallant, was amorous, and indulged his inclination to the libertine society of women; but Henry it was wholovedthem. He admired them at a reverential distance, and felt so tender an affection for the virtuous female, that it shocked him to behold, much more to associate with, the depraved and vicious.
In the advantages of person Henry was still superior to William; and yet the latter had no common share of those attractions which captivate weak, thoughtless, or unskilful minds.
About the time that Henry and William quitted college, and had arrived at their twentieth year, the dean purchased a small estate in a village near to the country residence of Lord and Lady Bendham; and, in the total want of society, the dean’s family were frequently honoured with invitations from the great house.
Lord Bendham, besides a good estate, possessed the office of a lord of the bed-chamber to his Majesty. Historians do not ascribe much importance to the situation, or to the talents of nobles in this department, nor shall this little history. A lord of the bed-chamber is a personage well known in courts, and in all capitals where courts reside; with this advantage to the inquirer, that in becoming acquainted with one of those noble characters, he becomes acquainted with all the remainder; not only with those of the same kingdom, but those of foreign nations; for, in whatever land, in whatever climate, a lord of the bed-chamber must necessarily be the self-same creature: one wholly made up of observance, of obedience, of dependence, and of imitation—a borrowed character—a character formed by reflection.
The wife of this illustrious peer, as well as himself, took her hue, like the chameleon, from surrounding objects: her manners were not governed by her mind but were solely directed by external circumstances. At court, humble, resigned, patient, attentive: at balls, masquerades, gaming-tables, and routs, gay, sprightly, and flippant; at her country seat, reserved, austere, arrogant, and gloomy.
Though in town her timid eye in presence of certain personages would scarcely uplift its trembling lid, so much she felt her own insignificance, yet, in the country, till Lady Clementina arrived, there was not one being of consequence enough to share in her acquaintance; and she paid back to her inferiors there all the humiliating slights, all the mortifications, which in London she received from those to whomshewas inferior.
Whether in town or country, it is but justice to acknowledge that in her own person she was strictly chaste; but in the country she extended that chastity even to the persons of others; and the young woman who lost her virtue in the village of Anfield had better have lost her life. Some few were now and then found hanging or drowned, while no other cause could be assigned for their despair than an imputation on the discretion of their character, and dread of the harsh purity of Lady Bendham. She would remind the parish priest of the punishment allotted for female dishonour, and by her influence had caused many an unhappy girl to do public penance in their own or the neighbouring churches.
But this country rigour in town she could dispense withal; and, like other ladies of virtue, she there visited and received into her house the acknowledged mistresses of any man in elevated life. It was not, therefore, the crime, but the rank which the criminal held in society, that drew down Lady Bendham’s vengeance. She even carried her distinction of classes in female error to such a very nice point that the adulterous concubine of an elder brother was her most intimate acquaintance, whilst the less guilty unmarried mistress of the younger she would not sully her lips to exchange a word with.
Lord and Lady Bendham’s birth, education, talents, and propensities, being much on the same scale of eminence, they would have been a very happy pair, had not one great misfortune intervened—the lady never bore her lord a child, while every cottage of the village was crammed with half-starved children, whose father from week to week, from year to year, exerted his manly youth, and wasted his strength in vain, to protect them from hunger; whose mother mourned over her new-born infant as a little wretch, sent into the world to deprive the rest of what already was too scanty for them; in the castle, which owned every cottage and all the surrounding land, and where one single day of feasting would have nourished for a mouth all the poor inhabitants of the parish, not one child was given to partake of the plenty. The curse of barrenness was on the family of the lord of the manor, the curse of fruitfulness upon the famished poor.
This lord and lady, with an ample fortune, both by inheritance and their sovereign’s favour, had never yet the economy to be exempt from debts; still, over their splendid, their profuse table, they could contrive and plan excellent schemes “how the poor might live most comfortably with a little better management.”
The wages of a labouring man, with a wife and half a dozen small children, Lady Bendham thought quite sufficient if they would only learn a little economy.
“You know, my lord, those people never want to dress—shoes and stockings, a coat and waistcoat, a gown and a cap, a petticoat and a handkerchief, are all they want—fire, to be sure, in winter—then all the rest is merely for provision.”
“I’ll get a pen and ink,” said young Henry, one day, when he had the honour of being at their table, “and see what therestamounts to.”
“No, no accounts,” cried my lord, “no summing up; but if you were to calculate, you must add to the receipts of the poor my gift at Christmas—last year, during the frost, no less than a hundred pounds.”
“How benevolent!” exclaimed the dean.
“How prudent!” exclaimed Henry.
“What do you mean by prudent?” asked Lord Bendham. “Explain your meaning.”
“No, my lord,” replied the dean, “do not ask for an explanation: this youth is wholly unacquainted with our customs, and, though a man in stature, is but a child in intellects. Henry, have I not often cautioned you—”
“Whatever his thoughts are upon the subject,” cried Lord Bendham, “I desire to know them.”
“Why, then, my lord,” answered Henry, “I thought it was prudent in you to give a little, lest the poor, driven to despair, should take all.”
“And if they had, they would have been hanged.”
“Hanging, my lord, our history, or some tradition, says, was formerly adopted as a mild punishment, in place of starving.”
“I am sure,” cried Lady Bendham (who seldom spoke directly to the argument before her), “I am sure they ought to think themselves much obliged to us.”
“That is the greatest hardship of all,” cried Henry.
“What, sir?” exclaimed the earl.
“I beg your pardon—my uncle looks displeased—I am very ignorant—I did not receive my first education in this country—and I find I think so differently from every one else, that I am ashamed to utter my sentiments.”
“Never mind, young man,” answered Lord Bendham; “we shall excuse your ignorance for once. Only inform us what it was you just now calledthe greatest hardship of all.”
“It was, my lord, that what the poor receive to keep them from perishing should pass under the name ofgiftsandbounty. Health, strength, and the will to earn a moderate subsistence, ought to be every man’s security from obligation.”
“I think a hundred pounds a great deal of money,” cried Lady Bendham; “and I hope my lord will never give it again.”
“I hope so too,” cried Henry; “for if my lord would only be so good as to speak a few words for the poor as a senator, he might possibly for the future keep his hundred pounds, and yet they never want it.”
Lord Bendham had the good nature only to smile at Henry’s simplicity, whispering to himself, “I had rather keep my—” his last word was lost in the whisper.
In the country—where the sensible heart is still more susceptible of impressions; and where the unfeeling mind, in the want of other men’s wit to invent, forms schemes for its own amusement—our youths both fell in love: if passions, that were pursued on the most opposite principles, can receive the same appellation. William, well versed in all the licentious theory, thought himself in love, because he perceived a tumultuous impulse cause his heart to beat while his fancy fixed on a certain object whose presence agitated yet more his breast.
Henry thought himself not in love, because, while he listened to William on the subject, he found their sensations did not in the least agree.
William owned to Henry that he loved Agnes, the daughter of a cottager in the village, and hoped to make her his mistress.
Henry felt that his tender regard for Rebecca, the daughter of the curate of the parish, did not inspire him even with the boldness to acquaint her with his sentiments, much less to meditate one design that might tend to her dishonour.
While William was cautiously planning how to meet in private, and accomplish the seduction of the object of his passion, Henry was endeavouring to fortify the object ofhischoice with every virtue. He never read a book from which he received improvement that he did not carry it to Rebecca—never heard a circumstance which might assist towards her moral instruction that he did not haste to tell it her; and once when William boasted
“He knew he was beloved by Agnes;”
Henry said, with equal triumph, “he had not dared to take the means to learn, nor had Rebecca dared to give one instance of her partiality.”
Rebecca was the youngest, and by far the least handsome daughter of four, to whom the Reverend Mr. Rymer, a widower, was father. The other sisters were accounted beauties; and she, from her comparative want of personal charms, having been less beloved by her parents, and less caressed by those who visited them, than the rest, had for some time past sought other resources of happiness than the affection, praise, and indulgence of her fellow-creatures. The parsonage house in which this family lived was the forlorn remains of an ancient abbey: it had in later times been the habitation of a rich and learned rector, by whom, at his decease, a library was bequeathed for the use of every succeeding resident. Rebecca, left alone in this huge ruinous abode, while her sisters were paying stated visits in search of admiration, passed her solitary hours in reading. She not merely read—she thought: the choicest English books from this excellent library taught her tothink; and reflection fashioned her mind to bear the slights, the mortifications of neglect, with a patient dejection, rather than with an indignant or a peevish spirit.
This resignation to injury and contumely gave to her perfect symmetry of person, a timid eye, a retiring manner, and spread upon her face a placid sweetness, a pale serenity indicating sense, which no wise connoisseur in female charms would have exchanged for all the sparkling eyes and florid tints of her vain and vulgar sisters. Henry’s soul was so enamoured of her gentle deportment, that in his sight she appeared beautiful; while she, with an understanding competent to judge of his worth, was so greatly surprised, so prodigiously astonished at the distinction, the attention, the many offices of civility paid her by him, in preference to her idolised sisters, that her gratitude for such unexpected favours had sometimes (even in his presence, and in that of her family) nearly drowned her eyes with tears. Yet they were only trifles, in which Henry had the opportunity or the power to give her testimony of his regard—trifles, often more grateful to the sensible mind than efforts of high importance; and by which the proficient in the human heart will accurately trace a passion wholly concealed from the dull eye of the unskilled observer.
The first cause of amazement to Rebecca in the manners of Henry was, that he talked withheras well as with her sisters; no visitor else had done so. In appointing a morning’s or an evening’s walk, he proposedhergoing with the rest; no one had ever required her company before. When he called and she was absent, he asked where she was; no one had ever missed her before. She thanked him most sincerely, and soon perceived that, at those times when he was present, company was more pleasing even than books.
Her astonishment, her gratitude, did not stop here. Henry proceeded in attention; he soon selected her from her sister to tell her the news of the day, answered her observations the first; once gave her a sprig of myrtle from his bosom in preference to another who had praised its beauty; and once—never-to-be-forgotten kindness—sheltered her from a hasty shower with hisparapluie, while he lamented to her drenched companions,
“That he had butoneto offer.”
From a man whose understanding and person they admire, how dear, how impressive on the female heart is every trait of tenderness! Till now, Rebecca had experienced none; not even of the parental kind: and merely from the overflowings of a kind nature (not in return for affection) had she ever loved her father and her sisters. Sometimes, repulsed by their severity, she transferred the fulness of an affectionate heart upon birds, or the brute creation: but now, her alienated mind was recalled and softened by a sensation that made her long to complain of the burthen it imposed. Those obligations which exact silence are a heavy weight to the grateful; and Rebecca longed to tell Henry “that even the forfeit of her life would be too little to express the full sense she had of the respect he paid to her.” But as modesty forbade not only every kind of declaration, but every insinuation purporting what she felt, she wept through sleepless nights from a load of suppressed explanation; yet still she would not have exchanged this trouble for all the beauty of her sisters.
Old John and Hannah Primrose, a prudent hardy couple, who, by many years of peculiar labour and peculiar abstinence, were the least poor of all the neighbouring cottagers, had an only child (who has been named before) called Agnes: and this cottage girl was reckoned, in spite of the beauty of the elder Miss Rymers, by far the prettiest female in the village.
Reader of superior rank, if the passions which rage in the bosom of the inferior class of human kind are beneath your sympathy, throw aside this little history, for Rebecca Rymer and Agnes Primrose are its heroines.
But you, unprejudiced reader, whose liberal observations are not confined to stations, but who consider all mankind alike deserving your investigation; who believe that there exists, in some, knowledge without the advantage of instruction; refinement of sentiment independent of elegant society; honourable pride of heart without dignity of blood; and genius destitute of art to render it conspicuous—you will, perhaps, venture to read on, in hopes that the remainder of this story may deserve your attention, just as the wild herb of the forest, equally with the cultivated plant in the garden, claims the attention of the botanist.
Young William saw in young Agnes even more beauty than was beheld by others; and on those days when he felt no inclination to ride, to shoot, or to hunt, he would contrive, by some secret device, the means to meet with her alone, and give her tokens (if not of his love) at least of his admiration of her beauty, and of the pleasure he enjoyed in her company.
Agnes listened, with a kind of delirious enchantment, to all her elevated and eloquent admirer uttered; and in return for his praises of her charms, and his equivocal replies in respect to his designs towards her, she gave to him her most undisguised thoughts, and her whole enraptured heart.
This harmless intercourse (as she believed it) had not lasted many weeks before she loved him: she even confessed she did, every time that any unwonted mark of attention from him struck with unexpected force her infatuated senses.
It has been said by a celebrated writer, upon the affection subsisting between the two sexes, “that there are many persons who, if they had never heard of the passion of love, would never have felt it.” Might it not with equal truth be added, that there are many more, who, having heard of it, and believing most firmly that they feel it, are nevertheless mistaken? Neither of these cases was the lot of Agnes. She experienced the sentiment before she ever heard it named in the sense with which it had possessed her—joined with numerous other sentiments; for genuine love, however rated as the chief passion of the human heart, is but a poor dependent, a retainer upon other passions; admiration, gratitude, respect, esteem, pride in the object. Divest the boasted sensation of these, and it is not more than the impression of a twelve-month, by courtesy, or vulgar error, termed love.
Agnes was formed by the rarest structure of the human frame, and destined by the tenderest thrillings of the human soul, to inspire and to experience real love: but her nice taste, her delicate thoughts, were so refined beyond the sphere of her own station in society, that nature would have produced this prodigy of attraction in vain, had not one of superior education and manners assailed her affections; and had she been accustomed to the conversation of men in William’s rank of life, she had, perhaps, treated William’s addresses with indifference; but, in comparing him with her familiar acquaintance, he was a miracle! His unremitting attention seemed the condescension of an elevated being, to whom she looked up with reverence, with admiration, with awe, with pride, with sense of obligation—and all those various passions which constitute true, and never-to-be-eradicated, love.
But in vain she felt and even avowed with her lips what every look, every gesture, had long denoted; William, with discontent, sometimes with anger, upbraided her for her false professions, and vowed, “that while one tender proof, which he fervently besought, was wanting, she did but aggravate his misery by less endearments.”
Agnes had been taught the full estimation of female virtue; and if her nature could have detested any one creature in a state of wretchedness, it would have been the woman who had lost her honour; yet, for William, what would not Agnes forfeit? The dignity, the peace, the serenity, the innocence of her own mind, love soon encouraged her to fancy she could easily forego; and this same overpowering influence at times so forcibly possessed her, that she even felt a momentary transport in the contemplation “of so precious a sacrifice to him.” But then she loved her parents, and their happiness she could not prevail with herself to barter even forhis. She wished he would demand some other pledge of her attachment to him; for there was none but this, her ruin in no other shape, that she would deny at his request. While thus she deliberated, she prepared for her fall.
Bred up with strict observance both of his moral and religious character, William did not dare to tell an unequivocal lie even to his inferiors; he never promised Agnes he would marry her; nay, even he paid so much respect to the forms of truth, that no sooner was it evident that he had obtained her heart, her whole soul entire—so that loss of innocence would be less terrifying than separation from him—no sooner did he perceive this, than he candidly told her he “could never make her his wife.” At the same time he lamented “the difference of their births, and the duty he owed his parents’ hopes,” in terms so pathetic to her partial ear, that she thought him a greater object of compassion in his attachment even than herself; and was now urged by pity to remove the cause of his complainings.
One evening Henry accidentally passed the lonely spot where William and she constantly met; he observed his cousin’s impassioned eye, and her affectionate yet fearful glance. William, he saw, took delight in the agitation of mind, in the strong apprehension mixed with the love of Agnes. This convinced Henry that either he or himself was not in love; for his heart told him he would not have beheld such emotions of tenderness, mingled with such marks of sorrow, upon the countenance of Rebecca, for the wealth of the universe.
The first time he was alone with William after this, he mentioned his observation on Agnes’s apparent affliction, and asked “why her grief was the result of their stolen meetings.”
“Because,” replied Williams, “her professions are unlimited, while her manners are reserved; and I accuse her of loving me with unkind moderation, while I love her to distraction.”
“You design to marry her, then?”
“How can you degrade me by the supposition?”
“Would it degrade you more to marry her than to make her your companion? To talk with her for hours in preference to all other company? To wish to be endeared to her by still closer ties?”
“But all this is not raising her to the rank of my wife.”
“It is still raising her to that rank for which wives alone were allotted.”
“You talk wildly! I tell you I love her; but not enough, I hope, to marry her.”
“But too much, I hope, to undo her?”
“That must be her own free choice—I make use of no unwarrantable methods.”
“What are the warrantable ones?”
“I mean, I have made her no false promises; offered no pretended settlement; vowed no eternal constancy.”
“But you have told her you love her; and, from that confession, has she not reason to expect every protection which even promises could secure?”
“I cannot answer for her expectations; but I know if she should make me as happy as I ask, and I should then forsake her, I shall not break my word.”
“Still she will be deceived, for you will falsify your looks.”
“Do you think she depends on my looks?”
“I have read in some book,Looks are the lover’s sole dependence.”
“I have no objection to her interpreting mine in her favour; but then for the consequences she will have herself, and only herself, to blame.”
“Oh! Heaven!”
“What makes you exclaim so vehemently?”
“A forcible idea of the bitterness of that calamity which inflicts self-reproach! Oh, rather deceive her; leave her the consolation to reproachyourather thanherself.”
“My honour will not suffer me.”
“Exert your honour, and never see her more.”
“I cannot live without her.”
“Then live with her by the laws of your country, and make her and yourself both happy.”
“Am I to make my father and my mother miserable? They would disown me for such a step.”
“Your mother, perhaps, might be offended, but your father could not. Remember the sermon he preached but last Sunday, upon—the shortness of this life—contempt of all riches and worldly honours in balance with a quiet conscience; and the assurance he gave us,that the greatest happiness enjoyed upon earth was to be found under a humble roof,with heaven in prospect.”
“My father is a very good man,” said William; “and yet, instead of being satisfied with a humble roof, he looks impatiently forward to a bishop’s palace.”
“He is so very good, then,” said Henry, “that perhaps, seeing the dangers to which men in exalted stations are exposed, he has such extreme philanthropy, and so little self-love, he would rather thathimselfshould brave those perils incidental to wealth and grandeur than any other person.”
“You are not yet civilised,” said William; “and to argue with you is but to instruct, without gaining instruction.”
“I know, sir,” replied Henry, “that you are studying the law most assiduously, and indulge flattering hopes of rising to eminence in your profession: but let me hint to you—that though you may be perfect in the knowledge how to administer the commandments of men, unless you keep in view the precepts of God, your judgment, like mine, will be fallible.”
The dean’s family passed this first summer at the new-purchased estate so pleasantly, that they left it with regret when winter called them to their house in town.
But if some felt concern in quitting the village of Anfield, others who were left behind felt the deepest anguish. Those were not the poor—for rigid attention to the religion and morals of people in poverty, and total neglect of their bodily wants, was the dean’s practice. He forced them to attend church every Sabbath; but whether they had a dinner on their return was too gross and temporal an inquiry for his spiritual fervour. Good of the soul was all he aimed at; and this pious undertaking, besides his diligence as a pastor, required all his exertion as a magistrate—for to be very poor and very honest, very oppressed yet very thankful, is a degree of sainted excellence not often to be attained, without the aid of zealous men to frighten into virtue.
Those, then, who alone felt sorrow at the dean’s departure were two young women, whose parents, exempt from indigence, preserved them from suffering under his unpitying piety, but whose discretion had not protected them from the bewitching smiles of his nephew, and the seducing wiles of his son.
The first morning that Rebecca rose and knew Henry was gone till the following summer, she wished she could have laid down again and slept away the whole long interval. Her sisters’ peevishness, her father’s austerity, she foresaw, would be insupportable now that she had experienced Henry’s kindness, and he was no longer near to fortify her patience. She sighed—she wept—she was unhappy.
But if Rebecca awoke with a dejected mind and an aching heart, what were the sorrows of Agnes? The only child of doating parents, she never had been taught the necessity of resignation—untutored, unread, unused to reflect, but knowing how to feel; what were her sufferings when, on waking, she called to mind that “William was gone,” and with him gone all that excess of happiness which his presence had bestowed, and for which she had exchanged her future tranquillity?
Loss of tranquillity even Rebecca had to bemoan: Agnes had still more—the loss of innocence!
Hal William remained in the village, shame, even conscience, perhaps, might have been silenced; but, separated from her betrayer, parted from the joys of guilt, and left only to its sorrows, every sting which quick sensibility could sharpen, to torture her, was transfixed in her heart. First came the recollection of a cold farewell from the man whose love she had hoped her yielding passion had for ever won; next, flashed on her thoughts her violated person; next, the crime incurred; then her cruelty to her parents; and, last of all, the horrors of detection.
She knew that as yet, by wariness, care, and contrivance, her meetings with William had been unsuspected; but, in this agony of mind, her fears fore-boded an informer who would defy all caution; who would stigmatise her with a name—dear and desired by every virtuous female—abhorrent to the blushing harlot—the name of mother.
That Agnes, thus impressed, could rise from her bed, meet her parents and her neighbours with her usual smile of vivacity, and voice of mirth, was impossible: to leave her bed at all, to creep downstairs, and reply in a faint, broken voice to questions asked, were, in her state of mind, mighty efforts; and they were all to which her struggles could attain for many weeks.
William had promised to write to her while he was away: he kept his word; but not till the end of two months did she receive a letter. Fear for his health, apprehension of his death during this cruel interim, caused an agony of suspense, which, by representing him to her distracted fancy in a state of suffering, made him, if possible, still dearer to her. In the excruciating anguish of uncertainty, she walked with trembling steps through all weathers (when she could steal half a day while her parents were employed in labour abroad) to the post town, at six miles’ distance, to inquire for his long-expected, long-wished-for letter.
When at last it was given to her, that moment of consolation seemed to repay her for the whole time of agonising terror she had endured. “He is alive!” she said, “and I have suffered nothing.”
She hastily put this token of his health and his remembrance of her into her bosom, rich as an empress with a new-acquired dominion. The way from home, which she had trod with heavy pace, in the fear of renewed disappointment, she skimmed along on her return swift as a doe: the cold did not pierce, neither did the rain wet her. Many a time she put her hand upon the prize she possessed, to find if it were safe: once, on the road, she took it from her bosom, curiously viewed the seal and the direction, then replacing it, did not move her fingers from their fast grip till she arrived at her own house.
Her father and her mother were still absent. She drew a chair, and placing it near to the only window in the room, seated herself with ceremonious order; then gently drew forth her treasure, laid it on her knee, and with a smile that almost amounted to a laugh of gladness, once more inspected the outward part, before she would trust herself with the excessive joy of looking within.
At length the seal was broken—but the contents still a secret. Poor Agnes had learned to write as some youths learn Latin: so short a time had been allowed for the acquirement, and so little expert had been her master, that it took her generally a week to write a letter of ten lines, and a month to read one of twenty. But this being a letter on which her mind was deeply engaged, her whole imagination aided her slender literature, and at the end of a fortnight she had made out every word. They were these—
“Dr. Agnes,—I hope you have been well since we parted—I have been very well myself; but I have been teased with a great deal of business, which has not given me time to write to you before. I have been called to the bar, which engages every spare moment; but I hope it will not prevent my coming down to Anfield with my father in the summer.“I am, Dr. Agnes,“With gratitude for all the favours youhave conferred on me,“Yours, &c.“W. N.”
“Dr. Agnes,—I hope you have been well since we parted—I have been very well myself; but I have been teased with a great deal of business, which has not given me time to write to you before. I have been called to the bar, which engages every spare moment; but I hope it will not prevent my coming down to Anfield with my father in the summer.
“I am, Dr. Agnes,“With gratitude for all the favours youhave conferred on me,“Yours, &c.“W. N.”
To have beheld the illiterate Agnes trying for two weeks, day and night, to find out the exact words of this letter, would have struck the spectator with amazement, had he also understood the right, the delicate, the nicely proper sensations with which she was affected by every sentence it contained.
She wished it had been kinder, even for his sake who wrote it; because she thought so well of him, and desired still to think so well, that she was sorry at any faults which rendered him less worthy of her good opinion. The cold civility of his letter had this effect—her clear, her acute judgment felt it a kind of prevarication topromise to write and then write nothing that was hoped for. But, enthralled by the magic of her passion, she shortly found excuses for the man she loved, at the expense of her own condemnation.
“He has only the fault of inconstancy,” she cried; “and that has been caused bymychange of conduct. Had I been virtuous still, he had still been affectionate.” Bitter reflection!
Yet there was a sentence in the letter, that, worse than all the tenderness left out, wounded her sensibility; and she could not read the line,gratitude for all the favours conferred on me, without turning pale with horror, then kindling with indignation at the commonplace thanks, which insultingly reminded her of her innocence given in exchange for unmeaning acknowledgments.
Absence is said to increase strong and virtuous love, but to destroy that which is weak and sensual. In the parallel between young William and young Henry, this was the case; for Henry’s real love increased, while William’s turbulent passion declined in separation: yet had the latter not so much abated that he did not perceive a sensation, like a sudden shock of sorrow, on a proposal made him by his father, of entering the marriage state with a young woman, the dependent niece of Lady Bendham; who, as the dean informed him, had signified her lord’s and her own approbation of his becoming their nephew.
At the first moment William received this intimation from his father, his heart revolted with disgust from the object, and he instantly thought upon Agnes with more affection than he had done for many weeks before. This was from the comparison between her and his proposed wife; for he had frequently seen Miss Sedgeley at Lord Bendham’s, but had never seen in her whole person or manners the least attraction to excite his love. He pictured to himself an unpleasant home, with a companion so little suited to his taste, and felt a pang of conscience, as well as of attachment, in the thought of giving up for ever his poor Agnes.
But these reflections, these feelings, lasted only for the moment. No sooner had the dean explained why the marriage was desirable, recited what great connections and what great patronage it would confer upon their family, than William listened with eagerness, and both his love and his conscience were, if not wholly quieted, at least for the present hushed.
Immediately after the dean had expressed to Lord and Lady Bendham his son’s “sense of the honour and the happiness conferred on him, by their condescension in admitting him a member of their noble family,” Miss Sedgeley received from her aunt nearly the same shock as William had done from his father.For she(placed in the exact circumstance of her intended husband)had frequently seen the dean’s son at Lord Bendham’s,but had never see in his whole person or manners the least attraction to excite her love.She pictured to herself an unpleasant home,with a companion so little suited to her taste; and at this moment she felt a more than usual partiality to the dean’s nephew, finding the secret hope she had long indulged of winning his affections so near being thwarted.
But Miss Sedgeley was too much subjected to the power of her uncle and aunt to have a will of her own, at least, to dare to utter it. She received the commands of Lady Bendham with her accustomed submission, while all the consolation for the grief they gave her was, “that she resolved to make a very bad wife.”
“I shall not care a pin for my husband,” said she to herself; “and so I will dress and visit, and do just as I like; he dare not be unkind because of my aunt. Besides, now I think again, it is not so disagreeable to marryhimas if I were obliged to marry into any other family, because I shall see his cousin Henry as often, if not oftener than ever.”
For Miss Sedgeley—whose person he did not like, and with her mind thus disposed—William began to force himself to shake off every little remaining affection, even all pity, for the unfortunate, the beautiful, the sensible, the doating Agnes; and determined to place in a situation to look down with scorn upon her sorrows, this weak, this unprincipled woman.
Connections, interest, honours, were powerful advocates. His private happiness William deemed trivial compared to public opinion; and to be under obligations to a peer, his wife’s relation, gave greater renown in his servile mind than all the advantages which might accrue from his own intrinsic independent worth.
In the usual routine of pretended regard and real indifference—sometimes disgust—between parties allied by what is falsely termedprudence, the intended union of Mr. Norwynne with Miss Sedgeley proceeded in all due form; and at their country seats at Anfield, during the summer, their nuptials were appointed to be celebrated.
William was now introduced into all Lord Bendham’s courtly circles. His worldly soul was entranced in glare and show; he thought of nothing but places, pensions, titles, retinues; and steadfast, alert, unshaken in the pursuit of honours, neglected not the lesser means of rising to preferment—his own endowments. But in this round of attention to pleasures and to study, he no more complained to Agnes of “excess of business.” Cruel as she had once thought that letter in which he thus apologised for slighting her, she at last began to think it was wondrous kind, for he never found time to send her another. Yet she had studied with all her most anxious care to write him an answer; such a one as might not lessen her understanding, which he had often praised, in his esteem.
Ah, William! even with less anxiety your beating, ambitious heart panted for the admiration of an attentive auditory, when you first ventured to harangue in public! With far less hope and fear (great as yours were) did you first address a crowded court, and thirst for its approbation on your efforts, than Agnes sighed for your approbation when she took a pen and awkwardly scrawled over a sheet of paper. Near twenty times she began, but to a gentleman—and one she loved like William—what could she dare to say? Yet she had enough to tell, if shame had not interposed, or if remaining confidence in his affection had but encouraged her.
Overwhelmed by the first, and deprived of the last, her hand shook, her head drooped, and she dared not communicate what she knew must inevitably render her letter unpleasing, and still more depreciate her in his regard, as the occasion of encumbrance, and of injury to his moral reputation.
Her free, her liberal, her venturous spirit subdued, intimidated by the force of affection, she only wrote—
“Sir,—I am sorry you have so much to do, and should be ashamed if you put it off to write to me. I have not been at all well this winter. I never before passed such a one in all my life, and I hope you will never know such a one yourself in regard to not being happy. I should be sorry if you did—think I would rather go through it again myself than you should. I long for the summer, the fields are so green, and everything so pleasant at that time of the year. I always do long for the summer, but I think never so much in my life as for this that is coming; though sometimes I wish that last summer had never come. Perhaps you wish so too; and that this summer would not come either.“Hope you will excuse all faults, as I never learnt but one month.“Your obedient humble servant,“A. P.”
“Sir,—I am sorry you have so much to do, and should be ashamed if you put it off to write to me. I have not been at all well this winter. I never before passed such a one in all my life, and I hope you will never know such a one yourself in regard to not being happy. I should be sorry if you did—think I would rather go through it again myself than you should. I long for the summer, the fields are so green, and everything so pleasant at that time of the year. I always do long for the summer, but I think never so much in my life as for this that is coming; though sometimes I wish that last summer had never come. Perhaps you wish so too; and that this summer would not come either.
“Hope you will excuse all faults, as I never learnt but one month.
“Your obedient humble servant,“A. P.”
Summer arrived, and lords and ladies, who had partaken of all the dissipation of the town, whom opera-houses, gaming-houses, and various other houses had detained whole nights from their peaceful home, were now poured forth from the metropolis, to imbibe the wholesome air of the farmer and peasant, and disseminate, in return, moral and religious principles.
Among the rest, Lord and Lady Bendham, strenuous opposers of vice in the poor, and gentle supporters of it in the rich, never played at cards, or had concerts on a Sunday, in the village, where the poor were spies—he, there, never gamed, nor drank, except in private, andshebanished from her doors every woman of sullied character. Yet poverty and idiotism are not the same. The poor can hear, can talk, sometimes can reflect; servants will tell their equals how they live in town; listeners will smile and shake their heads; and thus hypocrisy, instead of cultivating, destroys every seed of moral virtue.
The arrival of Lord Bendham’s family at Anfield announced to the village that the dean’s would quickly follow. Rebecca’s heart bounded with joy at the prospect. Poor Agnes felt a sinking, a foreboding tremor, that wholly interrupted the joy ofherexpectations. She had not heard from William for five tedious months. She did not know whether he loved or despised, whether he thought of or had forgotten her. Her reason argued against the hope that he loved her; yet hope still subsisted. She would not abandon herself to despair while there was doubt. She “had frequently been deceived by the appearance of circumstances; and perhaps he might come all kindness—perhaps, even not like her the less for that indisposition which had changed her bloom to paleness, and the sparkling of her eyes to a pensive languor.”
Henry’s sensations, on his return to Anfield, were the self-same as Rebecca’s were; sympathy in thought, sympathy in affection, sympathy in virtue made them so. As he approached near the little village, he felt more light than usual. He had committed no trespass there, dreaded no person’s reproach or inquiries; but his arrival might prove, at least to one object, the cause of rejoicing.
William’s sensations were the reverse of these. In spite of his ambition, and the flattering view of one day accomplishing all to which it aspired, he often, as they proceeded on their journey, envied the gaiety of Henry, and felt an inward monitor that told him “he must first act like Henry, to be as happy.”
His intended marriage was still, to the families of both parties (except to the heads of the houses), a profound secret. Neither the servants, nor even Henry, had received the slightest intimation of the designed alliance; and this to William was matter of some comfort.
When men submit to act in contradiction to their principles, nothing is so precious as a secret. In their estimation, to have their conductknownis the essential mischief. While it is hid, they fancy the sin but half committed; and to the moiety of a crime they reconcile their feelings, till, in progression, the whole, when disclosed, appears trivial. He designed that Agnes should receive the news from himself by degrees, and in such a manner as to console her, or at least to silence her complaints; and with the wish to soften the regret which he still felt on the prudent necessity of yielding her wholly up when his marriage should take place, he promised to himself some intervening hours of private meetings, which he hoped would produce satiety.
While Henry flew to Mr. Rymer’s house with a conscience clear, and a face enlightened with gladness—while he met Rebecca with open-hearted friendship and frankness, which charmed her soul to peaceful happiness—William skulked around the cottage of Agnes, dreading detection; and when, towards midnight, he found the means to obtain the company of the sad inhabitant, he grew so impatient at her tears and sobs, at the delicacy with which she withheld her caresses, that he burst into bitter upbraidings at her coyness, and at length (without discovering the cause of her peculiar agitation and reserve) abruptly left her vowing “never to see her more.”
As he turned away, his heart even congratulated him “that he had made so discreet a use of his momentary disappointment, as thus to shake her off at once without further explanation or excuse.”
She, ignorant and illiterate as she was, knew enough of her own heart to judge of his, and to know that such violent affections and expressions, above all, such a sudden, heart-breaking manner of departure, were not the effects of love, nor even of humanity. She felt herself debased by a ruffian—yet still, having loved him when she thought him a far different character, the blackest proof of the deception could not cause a sentiment formed whilst she was deceived.
She passed the remainder of the night in anguish: but with the cheerful morning some cheery thoughts consoled her. She thought “perhaps William by this time had found himself to blame; had conceived the cause of her grief and her distant behaviour, and had pitied her.”
The next evening she waited, with anxious heart, for the signal that had called her out the foregoing night. In vain she watched, counted the hours, and the stars, and listened to the nightly stillness of the fields around: they were not disturbed by the tread of her lover. Daylight came; the sun rose in its splendour: William had not been near her, and it shone upon none so miserable as Agnes.
She now considered his word, “never to see her more,” as solemnly passed: she heard anew the impressive, the implacable tone in which the sentence was pronounced; and could look back on no late token of affection on which to found the slightest hope that he would recall it.
Still, reluctant to despair—in the extremity of grief, in the extremity of fear for an approaching crisis which must speedily arrive, she (after a few days had elapsed) trusted a neighbouring peasant with a letter to deliver to Mr. Norwynne in private.
This letter, unlike the last, was dictated without the hope to please: no pains were taken with the style, no care in the formation of the letters: the words flowed from necessity; strong necessity guided her hand.
“Sir,—I beg your pardon—pray don’t forsake me all at once—see me one time more—I have something to tell you—it is what I dare tell nobody else—and what I am ashamed to tell you—yet pray give me a word of advice—what to do I don’t know—I then will part, if you please, never to trouble you, never any more—but hope to part friends—pray do, if you please—and see me one time more.“Your obedient,“A. P.”
“Sir,—I beg your pardon—pray don’t forsake me all at once—see me one time more—I have something to tell you—it is what I dare tell nobody else—and what I am ashamed to tell you—yet pray give me a word of advice—what to do I don’t know—I then will part, if you please, never to trouble you, never any more—but hope to part friends—pray do, if you please—and see me one time more.
“Your obedient,“A. P.”
These incorrect, inelegant lines produced this immediate reply
“TO AGNES PRIMROSE.“I have often told you, that my honour is as dear to me as my life: my word is a part of that honour—you heard me sayI would never see you again. I shall keep my word.”
“TO AGNES PRIMROSE.
“I have often told you, that my honour is as dear to me as my life: my word is a part of that honour—you heard me sayI would never see you again. I shall keep my word.”