This resolution he punctually put in practice. All day Clifford was stationed at a window opposite to the inn, or in the book-keeper's office; but night came, the coach was ready to set off, and still no Agnes appeared. However, Clifford, having secured a place, got in with the other passengers, and went six miles or more before he gave up the hope of hearing the coachman ordered to stop, in the soft voice of Agnes.
At last, all expectation failed him; and, complaining of a violent headache, he desired to be set down, sprang out of the carriage, and relieved the other passengers from a very restless and disagreeable companion: and Clifford, in a violent attack of fever, was wandering on the road to London, in hopes of meeting Agnes, at the very time when his victim was on the road to her native place, in company with her unhappy father.
By the time Clifford reached London he was bordering on a state of delirium; but had recollection enough to desire his confidential servant to inform his father of the state in which he was, and then take the road to——, and ask at every inn on the road whether a lady and child (describing Agnes and little Edward) had been there. The servant obeyed; and the anxious father, who had been informed of the cause of his son's malady, soon received the following letter from Wilson, while he was attending at his bedside:
"My Lord,"Sad news of Miss Fitzhenry and the child; and reason to fear they both perished with cold. For, being told at one of the inns on this road that a young woman and child had been found frozen to death last night, and carried to the next town to be owned, I set off for there directly: and while I was taking a drap of brandy to give me spirits to see the bodies, for a qualm came over me when I thought of what can't be helped, and how pretty and good-natured and happy she once was, a woman came down with a silk wrapper and a shawl that I knew belonged to the poor lady, and said the young woman found dead had those things on. This was proof positive, my lord,—and it turned me sick. Still it is better so than self-murder; so my master had best know it, I think; and humbly hoping your lordship will think so too, I remain your lordship's"Most humble servant to command,"J. Wilson."P.S. If I gain more particulars shall send them."
"My Lord,
"Sad news of Miss Fitzhenry and the child; and reason to fear they both perished with cold. For, being told at one of the inns on this road that a young woman and child had been found frozen to death last night, and carried to the next town to be owned, I set off for there directly: and while I was taking a drap of brandy to give me spirits to see the bodies, for a qualm came over me when I thought of what can't be helped, and how pretty and good-natured and happy she once was, a woman came down with a silk wrapper and a shawl that I knew belonged to the poor lady, and said the young woman found dead had those things on. This was proof positive, my lord,—and it turned me sick. Still it is better so than self-murder; so my master had best know it, I think; and humbly hoping your lordship will think so too, I remain your lordship's
"Most humble servant to command,"J. Wilson.
"P.S. If I gain more particulars shall send them."
Dreadful as the supposed death of Agnes and her child appeared to the father of Clifford, he could not be sorry that so formidable a rival to his future daughter-in-law was no longer to be feared; and as Clifford, in the ravings of his fever, was continually talking of Agnes as self-murdered, and the murderer of her child, and of himself as the abandoned cause; and as that idea seemed to haunt and terrify his imagination, he thought with his son's servant that he had better take the first opportunity of telling Clifford the truth, melancholy as it was. And taking advantage of a proper opportunity, he had done so before he received this second letter from Wilson:
"My Lord,"It was all fudge;—Miss Fitzhenry is alive, and alive like, at——. She stopped at an inn on the road and parted with her silk coat and shawl for some things she wanted, and a hussey of a chambermaid stole them and went off in the night with them and her little by-blow:—but justice overtakes us sooner or later. I suppose his honour, my master, will be cheery at this;—but, as joy often distracts as much as grief, they say, though I never believed it, I take it you will not tell him this good news hand-over-head,—and am"Your Lordship's"Most humble to command,"J. Wilson."P.S. I have been to——, and have heard for certain Miss F. and her child are there."
"My Lord,
"It was all fudge;—Miss Fitzhenry is alive, and alive like, at——. She stopped at an inn on the road and parted with her silk coat and shawl for some things she wanted, and a hussey of a chambermaid stole them and went off in the night with them and her little by-blow:—but justice overtakes us sooner or later. I suppose his honour, my master, will be cheery at this;—but, as joy often distracts as much as grief, they say, though I never believed it, I take it you will not tell him this good news hand-over-head,—and am
"Your Lordship's"Most humble to command,"J. Wilson.
"P.S. I have been to——, and have heard for certain Miss F. and her child are there."
His lordship was even more cautious than Wilson wished him to be; for he resolved not to communicate the glad tidings to Clifford, cautiously or incautiously, as he thought there would be no chance of his son's fulfilling his engagements with Miss Sandford, if he knew Agnes was living: especially as her flight and her supposed death had proved to Clifford how necessary she was to his happiness. Nay, he went still further; and resolved that Clifford should never know, if he could possibly help it, that the report of her death was false.
How to effect this was the difficulty; but wisely conceiving that Wilson was not inaccessible to a bribe, he offered him so much a-year, on condition of his suffering his master to remain convinced of the truth of the story that Agnes and her child had perished in the snow, and of intercepting all letters which he fancied came from Agnes; telling him at the same time, that if ever he found he had violated the conditions, the annuity should immediately cease.
To this Wilson consented; and, when Clifford recovered, he made his compliance with the terms more easy, by desiring Wilson, and the friends to whom his connection with Agnes had been known, never to mention her name in his presence again, if they valued his health and reason, as the safety of both depended on his forgetting a woman of whom he had never felt the value sufficiently till he had lost her for ever.
Soon after, he married;—and the disagreeable qualities of his wife made him recollect, with more painful regret, the charms and virtues of Agnes. The consequence was that he plunged deeper than ever into dissipation, and had recourse to intoxication in order to banish care and disagreeable recollections;—and, while year after year passed away in fruitless expectation of a child to inherit the estate and the long-disputed title, he remembered, with agonizing regrets, the beauty of his lost Edward; and reflected that, by refusing to perform his promises to the injured Agnes, he had deprived himself of the heir that he so much coveted, and of a wife who would have added dignity to the title which she bore, and been the delight and ornament of his family.
Such were the miserable feelings of Clifford,—such the corroding cares that robbed his mind of its energy, and his body of health and vigour. Though courted, caressed, flattered, and surrounded by affluence and splendour, he was disappointed and self-condemned. And while Agnes, for the first time condemning him unjustly, attributed his silence and neglect of her and her offspring to a degree of indifference and hard-heartedness at which human nature shudders, Clifford was feeling all the horrors of remorse, without the consolations of repentance.
I have before observed, that one idea engrossed the mind and prompted the exertions of Agnes;—and this was the probable restoration of her father to reason.—"Could I but once more hear him call me by my name, and bless me with his forgiveness, I should die in peace; and something within me tells me that my hopes will not be in vain: and who knows but we may pass a contented, if not a happy life together, yet?—So toil on, toil on, Agnes, and expect the fruit of thy labours."
These words she was in the habit of repeating not only to Fanny and her next-door neighbours (whom she had acquainted with her story), but to herself as she sat at work or traversed the heath. Even in the dead of night she would start from a troubled sleep, and repeating these words, they would operate as a charm on her disturbed mind; and as she spoke the last sentence, she would fall into a quiet slumber, from which she awoke the next morning at day-break to pursue with increased alacrity the labours of the day.
Meanwhile Agnes and her exemplary industry continued to engage the attention and admiration of the candid and liberal in the town of——.
Mr. Seymour, who did not venture to inquire concerning her of Fanny while she lived at her house, now often called there to ask news of Agnes and her employments; and his curiosity was excited to know to what purpose she intended to devote the money earned with so much labour, and hoarded with such parsimonious care.
But Fanny was as ignorant on this subject as himself; and the only new information which she could give him was, that Agnes had begun to employ herself in fancy-works, in order to increase her gains; and that it was her intention soon to send little Edward (then four years old) to town to offer artificial flowers, painted needle-books, work-bags, &c. at the doors of the opulent and humane.
Nor was it long before this design was put in execution; and Mr. Seymour had the satisfaction of buying all the lovely boy's first cargo himself, for presents to his daughters. The little merchant returned to his anxious mother, bounding with delight, not at the good success of his first venture, for its importance he did not understand, but at the kindness of Mr. Seymour, who had met him on the road, conducted him to his house, helped his daughters to load his pockets with cakes, and put in his basket, in exchange for his merchandize, tongue, chicken, and other things to carry home to his mother.
Agnes heard the child's narration with more pleasure than she had for some time experienced.—"They do not despise me, then," said she; "they even respect me too much to offer me pecuniary aid, or presents of any kind but in a way that cannot wound my feelings."
But this pleasure was almost immediately checked by the recollection, that he whose wounded spirit would have been soothed by seeing her once more an object of delicate attention and respect, and for whose sake alone she could now ever be capable of enjoying them, was still unconscious of her claims to it, and knew not that they were so generally acknowledged. In the words of Jane de Montfort she could have said,
"He to whose ear my praise most welcome was,Hears it no more!"
"But I will hope on," Agnes used to exclaim as these thoughts occurred to her; and again her countenance assumed the wild expression of a dissatisfied but still expecting spirit.
Three years had now elapsed since Agnes first returned to her native place. "The next year," said Agnes to Fanny with unusual animation, "cannot fail of bringing forth good to me. You know that, according to the rules of the new bedlam, a patient is to remain five years in the house: at the end of that time, if not cured, he is to be removed to the apartments appropriated to incurables, and kept there for life, his friends paying a certain annuity for his maintenance; or he is, on their application, to be returned to their care—"—"And what then?" said Fanny, wondering at the unusual joy that animated Agnes's countenance. "Why then," replied she, "as my father's time for being confined expires at the end of the next year, he will either be cured by that time, or he will be given up to my care; and then, who knows what the consequences may be!"—"What indeed!" returned Fanny, who foresaw great personal fatigue and anxiety, if not danger, to Agnes in such a plan, and was going to express her fears and objections; but Agnes, in a manner overpoweringly severe, desired her to be silent, and angrily withdrew.
Soon after, Agnes received a proof of being still dear to her friend Caroline; which gave her a degree of satisfaction amounting even to joy.
Mr. Seymour, in a letter to his daughter, had given her an account of all the proceedings of Agnes, and expressed his surprise at the eagerness with which she laboured to gain money, merely, as it seemed, for the sake of hoarding it, as she had then, and always would have, only herself and child to maintain; as it was certain that her father would be allowed to continue, free of all expenses, an inhabitant of an asylum which owed its erection chiefly to his benevolent exertions.
But Caroline, to whom the mind of Agnes was well known, and who had often contemplated with surprise and admiration her boldness in projecting, her promptness in deciding, and her ability in executing the projects which she had formed; and above all that sanguine temper which led her to believe probable, what others only conceived to be possible,—found a reason immediately for the passion of hoarding which seemed to have taken possession of her friend; and, following the instant impulse of friendship and compassion, she sent Agnes the following letter, in which was inclosed a bank note to a considerable amount.
"I have divined your secret, my dear Agnes. I know why you are so anxious to hoard what you gain with such exemplary industry. In another year your father will have been the allotted time under the care of the medical attendants in your part of the world; and you are hoarding that you may be able, when that time comes, to procure for him elsewhere the best possible advice and assistance. Yes, yes, I know I am right:—therefore, lest your own exertions should not, in the space of a twelvemonth, be crowned with sufficient success, I conjure you, by our long friendship, to appropriate the inclosed to the purport in question; and should the scheme which I impute to you be merely the creature of my own brain, as it is a good scheme, employ the money in executing it.
"To silence all your scruples, I assure you that my gift is sanctioned by my husband and my father, who join with me in approbation of your conduct, and in the most earnest wishes that you may receive the reward of it in the entire restoration of your afflicted parent. Already have the candid and enlightened paid you their tribute of recovered esteem.
"It is theslangof the present day, if I may be allowed this vulgar but forcible expression, to inveigh bitterly against society for excluding from its circle, with unrelenting rigour, the woman who has once transgressed the salutary laws of chastity; and some brilliant and persuasive, but in my opinion mistaken, writers of both sexes have endeavoured to prove that many an amiable woman has been for ever lost to virtue and the world, and become the victim of prostitution, merely because her first fault was treated with ill-judging and criminal severity.
"This assertion appears to me to be fraught with mischief; as it is calculated to deter the victim of seduction from penitence and amendment, by telling her that she would employ them in her favour in vain. And it is surely as false as it is dangerous. I know many instances, and it is fair to conclude that the experience of others is similar to mine, of women restored by perseverance in a life of expiatory amendment to that rank in society, which they had forfeited by one false step, while their fault has been forgotten in their exemplary conduct as wives and mothers.
"But it is not to be expected that society should open its arms to receive its prodigal children till they have undergone a long and painful probation,—till they have practised the virtues of self-denial, patience, fortitude, and industry. And she whose penitence is not the mere result of wounded pride and caprice, will be capable of exerting all these virtues, in order to regain some portion of the esteem which she has lost. What will difficulties and mortifications be to her? Keeping her eye steadily fixed on the end which she has in view, she will bound lightly over them all; nor will she seek the smiles of the world, till, instead of receiving them as a favour, she can demand them as a right.
"Agnes, my dear Agnes, do you not know the original of the above picture? You, by a life of self-denial, patience, fortitude, and industry, have endeavoured to atone for the crime which you committed against Society; and I hear her voice saying, 'Thy sins are forgiven thee!' and ill befall the hand that would uplift the sacred pall which penitence and amendment have thrown over departed guilt!"
Such was the letter of Caroline:—a letter intended to speak peace and hope to the heart of Agnes; to reconcile the offender to herself, and light up her dim eye with the beams of self-approbation. Thus did she try to console her guilty and unhappy friend in the hour of her adversity and degradation. But Caroline had given a stillgreaterproof of the sincerity of her friendship:—she had never wounded the feelings, or endeavoured to mortify the self-love of Agnes in the hour of her prosperity and acknowledged superiority: she had seen her attractions, and heard her praises, without envy; nor ever with seeming kindness but real malignity related to her, in the accents of pretended wonder and indignation, the censures which she had incurred, or the ridicule which she had excited,—but in every instance she had proved her friendship a memorable exception to what are sarcastically termed the friendships of women.
"Yes,—she has indeed divined my secret," said Agnes when she had perused the letter, while tears of tenderness trickled down her cheeks, "and she deserves to assist me in procuring means for my poor father's recovery—an indulgence which I should be jealous of granting to any one else, except you, Fanny," she added, seeing on Fanny's countenance an expression of jealousy of this richer friend; "and on the strength of this noble present," looking with a smile at her darned and pieced, though neat, apparel, "I will treat myself with a new gown."—"Not before it was wanted," said Fanny peevishly.—"Nay," replied Agnes with a forced smile, "surely I am well dressed enough for a runaway daughter. 'My father loved to see me fine,' as poor Clarissa says, and had I never left him, I should not have been forced to wear such a gown as this: but, Fanny, let me but see him once more capable of knowing me, and of loving me, if it be possible for him to forgive me," added she in a faltering voice, "and I will then, if he wishes it, be fine again, though I work all night to make myself so."
"My dear, dear lady," said Fanny sorrowfully, "I am sure I did not mean any thing by what I said; but you have such a way with you, and talk so sadly!—Yet, I can't bear, indeed I can't, to see such a lady in a gown not good enough for me; and then to see my young master no better dressed than the cottager's boys next door;—and then to hear them call master Edward little Fitzhenry, as if he was not their betters;—I can't bear it,—it does not signify talking, I can't bear to think of it."
"How, then," answered Agnes in a solemn tone, and grasping her hand as she spoke, "How can I bear to think of the guilt which has thus reduced so low both me and my child? O! would to God my boy could exchange situation with the children whom you think his inferiors! I have given him life, indeed, but not one legal claim to what is necessary to the support of life, except the scanty pittance which I might, by a public avowal of my shame, wring from his father."
"I would beg my bread with him through the streets before you should do that," hastily exclaimed Fanny; "and, for the love of God, say no more on this subject!—He ismy child, as well as yours," she continued, snatching little Edward to her bosom, who was contentedly playing with his top at the door; and Agnes, in contemplating the blooming graces of the boy, forgot that he was an object of compassion.
The next year passed away as the former had done; and at the end of it, Fitzhenry being pronounced incurable, but perfectly quiet and harmless, Agnes desired, in spite of the advice and entreaties of the governors, that he might be delivered up to her, that she might put him under the care of Dr. W——.
Luckily for Agnes, the assignees of her father recovered a debt of a hundred pounds, which had long been due to him; and this sum they generously presented to Agnes, in order to further the success of her last hope.
On the day fixed for Fitzhenry's release, Agnes purchased a complete suit of clothes for him, such as he used to wear in former days, and dressed herself in a manner suited to her birth, rather than her situation; then set out in a post-chaise, attended by the friendly cottager, as it was judged imprudent for her to travel with her father alone, to take up Fitzhenry at the bedlam, while Fanny was crying with joy to see her dear lady looking like herself again, and travelling like agentlewoman.
But the poor, whom gratitude and affection made constantly observant of the actions of Agnes, were full of consternation, when some of them heard, and communicated to the others, that a post-chaise was standing at Miss Fitzhenry's door. "O dear! she is going to leave us again; what shall we do without her?" was the general exclamation; and when Agnes came out to enter her chaise, she found it surrounded by her humble friends lamenting and inquiring, though with cautious respect, whether she ever meant to come back again. "Fanny will tell you every thing," said Agnes, overcome with grateful emotion at observing the interest which she excited. Unable to say more, she waved her hand as a token of farewell to them, and the chaise drove off.
"Is miss Fitzhenry grownrichagain?" was the general question addressed to Fanny; and I am sure it was a disinterested one, and that, at the moment, they asked it without a view to their profiting by her change of situation, and merely as anxious for her welfare;—and when Fanny told them whither and wherefore Agnes was gone, could prayers, good wishes and blessings have secured success to the hopes of Agnes, her father, even as soon as she stopped at the gate of the bedlam, would have recognised and received her with open arms. But when she arrived, she found Fitzhenry as irrational as ever, though delighted to hear that he was going to take a ride with "the lady" as he always called Agnes; and she had the pleasure of seeing him seat himself beside her with a look of uncommon satisfaction. Nothing worth relating happened on the road. Fitzhenry was very tractable, except at night, when the cottager, who slept in the same room with him, found it difficult to make him keep in bed, and was sometimes forced to call Agnes to his assistance: at sight of her he always became quiet, and obeyed her implicitly.
The skilful and celebrated man to whom she applied received her with sympathizing kindness, and heard her story with a degree of interest and sensibility peculiarly grateful to the afflicted heart. Agnes related with praiseworthy ingenuousness the whole of her sad history, judging it necessary that the doctor should know the cause of the malady for which he was to prescribe.
It was peculiarly the faculty of Agnes to interest in her welfare those with whom she conversed; and the doctor soon experienced a more than ordinary earnestness to cure a patient so interesting from his misfortunes, and recommended by so interesting a daughter. "Six months," said he, "will be a sufficient time of trial; and in the mean while you shall reside in a lodging near us." Fitzhenry then became an inmate of the doctor's house; Agnes took possession of apartments in the neighbourhood; and the cottager returned to——.
The ensuing six months were passed by Agnes in the soul-sickening feeling of hope deferred: and, while the air of the place agreed so well with her father that he became fat and healthy in his appearance, anxiety preyed on her delicate frame, and made the doctor fear that, when he should be forced to pronounce his patient beyond his power to cure, she would sink under the blow, unless the hope of being still serviceable to her father should support her under its pressure. He resolved, therefore, to inform her, in as judicious and cautious a manner as possible, that he saw no prospect of curing the thoroughly-shattered intellect of Fitzhenry.
"Ican do nothing for your father," said he to Agnes (when he had been under his care six months), laying great stress on the wordI;——(Agnes, with a face of horror, started from her seat, and laid her hand on his arm)——"butyoucan do a great deal."
"Can I? can I?" exclaimed Agnes, sobbing convulsively.—"Blessed hearing! But the means—the means?"
"It is very certain," he replied, "that he experiences great delight when he sees you, and sees you too employed in his service;—and when he lives with you, and sees you again where he has been accustomed to see you——"
"You advise his living with me, then?" interrupted Agnes with eagerness.
"I do, most strenuously," replied the doctor.
"Blessings on you for those words!" answered Agnes: "they said you would oppose it. You are a wise and a kind-hearted man."
"My dear child," rejoined the doctor, "when an evil can't be cured, it should at least be alleviated."
"You think it can't be cured, then?" again interrupted Agnes.
"Not absolutely so:—I know not what a course of medicine, and living with you as much in your old way as possible, may do for him. Let him resume his usual habits, his usual walks, live as near your former habitation as you possibly can; let him hear his favourite songs, and be as much with him as you can contrive to be; and if you should not succeed in making him rational again, you will at least make him happy."
"Happy!—I make him happy, now!" exclaimed Agnes, pacing the room in an agony:—"I made him happy once!—but now!——"
"You must hire some one to sleep in the room with him," resumed the doctor.
"No, no," cried Agnes impatiently;—"no one shall wait on him but myself;—I will attend him day and night."
"And should your strength be worn out by such incessant watching, who would take care of him then?—Remember, you are but mortal."—Agnes shook her head, and was silent.—"Besides, the strength of a man may sometimes be necessary; and, for his sake as well as yours, I must insist on being obeyed."
"You shall be obeyed," said Agnes mournfully.
"Then now," rejoined he, "let me give you my advice relative to diet, medicine, and management."—This he did in detail, as he found Agnes had a mind capacious enough to understand his system; and promising to answer her letters immediately, whenever she wrote to him for advice, he took an affectionate farewell of her; and Agnes and her father, accompanied by a man whom the doctor had procured for the purpose, set off for——.
Fanny was waiting at the cottage with little Edward to receive them,—but the dejected countenance of Agnes precluded all necessity of asking concerning the state of Fitzhenry. Scarcely could the caresses of her child, and the joy which he expressed at seeing her, call a smile to her lips; and as she pressed him to her bosom, tears of bitter disappointment mingled with those of tenderness.
In a day or two after, Agnes, in compliance with the doctor's desire, hired a small tenement very near the house in which they formerly lived; and in the garden of which, as it was then empty, they obtained leave to walk. She also procured a person to sleep in the room with her father, instead of the man who came with them; and he carried back a letter from her to the doctor, informing him that she had arranged every thing according to his directions.
It was a most painfully pleasing sight to behold the attention of Agnes to Fitzhenry. She knew that it was not in her power to repair the enormous injury which she had done him, and that all she could now do was but a poor amends; still it was affecting to see how anxiously she watched his steps whenever he chose to wander alone from home, and what pains she took to make him neat in his appearance, and cleanly in his person. Her child and herself were clothed in coarse apparel, but she bought for her father everything of the best materials; and, altered as he was, Fitzhenry still looked like a gentleman.
Sometimes he seemed in every respect so like himself, that Agnes, hurried away by her imagination, would, after gazing on him some minutes, start from her seat, seize his hand, and, breathless with hope, address him as if he were a rational being,—when a laugh of vacancy, or a speech full of the inconsistency of phrensy, would send her back on her chair again, with a pulse quickened, and a cheek flushed with the fever of disappointed expectation.
However, he certainly was pleased with her attentions,—but, alas! he knew not who was the bestower of them: he knew not that the child, whose ingratitude or whose death he still lamented in his ravings in the dead of night, was returned to succour, to soothe him, and to devote herself entirely to his service. He heard her, but he knew her not; he saw her, but in her he was not certain that he beheld his child: and this was the pang that preyed on the cheek and withered the frame of Agnes: but she persisted to hope, and patiently endured the pain of to-day, expecting the joy of to-morrow; nor did her hopes always appear ill-founded.
The first day that Agnes led him to the garden once his own, he ran through every walk with eager delight; but he seemed surprised and angry to see the long grass growing in the walks, and the few flowers that remained choked up with weeds,—and began to pluck up the weeds with hasty violence.
"It is time to go home," said Agnes to him just as the day began to close in; and Fitzhenry immediately walked to the door which led into the house, and, finding it locked, looked surprised: then, turning to Agnes, he asked her if she had not the key in her pocket; and on her telling him that that was not his home, he quitted the house evidently with great distress and reluctance, and was continually looking back at it, as if he did not know how to believe her.
On this little circumstance poor Agnes lay ruminating the whole night after, with joyful expectation; and she repaired to the garden at day-break, with a gardener whom she hired, to make the walks look as much as possible as they formerly did. But they had omitted to tie up some straggling flowers;—and when Agnes, Fanny and the cottager, accompanied Fitzhenry thither the next evening, though he seemed conscious of the improvement that had taken place, he was disturbed at seeing some gilliflowers trailing along the ground; and suddenly turning to Agnes he said, "Why do you not bind up these?"
To do these little offices in the garden, and keep the parterre in order, was formerly Agnes's employment. What delight, then, must these words of Fitzhenry, so evidently the result of an association in his mind between her and his daughter, have excited in Agnes! With a trembling hand and a glowing cheek she obeyed; and Fitzhenry, with manifest satisfaction, saw her tie up every straggling flower in the garden, while he eagerly followed her and bent attentively over her.
At last, when she had gone the whole round of the flower-beds, he exclaimed, "Good girl! good girl!" and putting his arms round her waist, suddenly kissed her cheek.
Surprise, joy, and emotion difficult to be defined, overcame the irritable frame of Agnes, and she fell senseless to the ground. But the care of Fanny soon recovered her again;—and the first question that she asked was, how her father (whom she saw in great agitation running round the garden) behaved when he saw her fall.
"He raised you up," replied Fanny, "and seemed so distressed! he would hold the salts to your nose himself, and would scarcely suffer me to do anything for you: but, hearing you mutter 'Father! dear father!' as you began to come to yourself, he changed colour, and immediately began to run round the garden, as you now see him."
"Say no more, say no more, my dear friend," cried Agnes; "it is enough. I am happy, quite happy;—it is clear that he knew me;—and I have again received a father's embrace!—Then his anxiety too while I was ill!—Oh! there is no doubt now that he will be quite himself in time."
"Perhaps he may," replied Fanny;—"but——"
"But! and perhaps!" cried Agnes pettishly;—"I tell you he will, he certainly will recover; and those are not my friends who doubt it." So saying, she ran hastily forward to meet Fitzhenry, who was joyfully hastening towards her, leaving Fanny grieved and astonished at her petulance. But few are the tempers proof against continual anxiety and the souring influence of still renewed and still disappointed hope; and even Agnes, the once gentle Agnes, if contradicted on this one subject, became angry and unjust.
But she was never conscious of having given pain to the feelings of another, without bitter regret and an earnest desire of healing the wound which she had made; and when, leaning on Fitzhenry's arm, she returned towards Fanny, and saw her in tears, she felt a pang severer than that which she had inflicted, and said every thing that affection and gratitude could dictate, to restore her to tranquillity again. Her agitation alarmed Fitzhenry; and, exclaiming "Poor thing!" he held the smelling-bottle, almost by force, to her nose, and seemed terrified lest she was going to faint again.
"You see, you see!" said Agnes triumphantly to Fanny; and Fanny, made cautious by experience, declared the conviction that her young lady must know more of all matters than she did.
But month after month elapsed, and no circumstances of a similar nature occurred to give new strength to the hopes of Agnes; however, she had the pleasure to see that Fitzhenry not only seemed to be attached to her, but pleased with little Edward.
She had indeed taken pains to teach him to endeavour to amuse her father,—but sometimes she had the mortification of hearing, when fits of loud laughter from the child reached her ear, "Edward was only laughing at grandpapa's odd faces and actions, mamma:" and having at last taught him that it was wicked to laugh at such things, because his grandfather was not well when he distorted his face, her heart was nearly as much wrung by the pity which he expressed; for, whenever these occasional slight fits of phrensy attacked Fitzhenry, little Edward would exclaim, "Poor grandpapa! he is not well now;—I wish we could make him well, mamma!" But, on the whole, she had reason to be tolerably cheerful.
Every evening, when the weather was fine, Agnes, holding her father's arm, was seen taking her usual walk, her little boy gamboling before them; and never, in their most prosperous hours, were they met with curtsies more low, or bows more respectful, than on these occasions; and many a one grasped with affectionate eagerness the meagre hand of Fitzhenry, and the feverish hand of Agnes; for even the most rigid hearts were softened in favour of Agnes, when they beheld the ravages which grief had made in her form, and gazed on her countenance, which spoke in forcible language the sadness yet resignation of her mind. She might, if she had chosen it, have been received at many houses where she had formerly been intimate; but she declined it, as visiting would have interfered with the necessary labours of the day, with her constant attention to her father, and with the education of her child. "But when my father recovers," said she to Fanny, "as he will be pleased to find that I am not deemed wholly unworthy of notice, I shall have great satisfaction in visiting with him."
To be brief:—Another year elapsed, and Agnes still hoped; and Fitzhenry continued the same to every eye but hers:—she every day fancied that his symptoms of returning reason increased, and no one of her friends dared to contradict her. But in order, if possible, to accelerate his recovery, she had resolved to carry him to London, to receive the best advice that the metropolis afforded, when Fitzhenry was attacked by an acute complaint which confined him to his bed. This event, instead of alarming Agnes, redoubled her hopes. She insisted that it was the crisis of his disorder, and expected that health and reason would return together. Not for one moment therefore would she leave his bedside; and she would allow herself neither food nor rest, while with earnest attention she gazed on the fast sinking eyes of Fitzhenry, eager to catch in them an expression of returning recognition.
One day, after he had been sleeping some time, and she, as usual, was attentively watching by him, Fitzhenry slowly and gradually awoke; and, at last, raising himself on his elbow, looked round him with an expression of surprise, and, seeing Agnes, exclaimed, "My child! are you there? Gracious God! is this possible?"
Let those who have for years been pining away life in fruitless expectation, and who see themselves at last possessed of the long-desired blessing, figure to themselves the rapture of Agnes—"He knows me! He is himself again!" burst from her quivering lips, unconscious that it was too probable that restored reason was here the forerunner of dissolution.
"O my father!" she cried, falling on her knees, but not daring to look up at him—"O my father, forgive me, if possible!—I have been guilty, but I am penitent."
Fitzhenry, as much affected as Agnes, faltered out, "Thou art restored to me,—and God knows how heartily I forgive thee!" Then raising her to his arms, Agnes, happy in the fullfilment of her utmost wishes, felt herself once more pressed to the bosom of the most affectionate of fathers.
"But surely you are not now come back?" asked Fitzhenry. "I have seen you before, and very lately?"—"Seen me! O yes!" replied Agnes with passionate rapidity;—"for these last five years I have seen you daily; and for the last two years you have lived with me, and I have worked to maintain you!"—"Indeed!" answered Fitzhenry:—"but how pale and thin you are! you have worked too much:—Had you nofriends, my child?"
"O yes! and, guilty as I have been, they pity, nay, they respect me, and we may yet be happy! as Heaven restores you to my prayers!—True, I have suffered much; but this blessed moment repays me;—this is the only moment of true enjoyment which I have known since I left my home and you!"
Agnes was thus pouring out the hasty effusions of her joy, unconscious that Fitzhenry, overcome with affection, emotion, and, perhaps, sorrowful recollections, was struggling in vain for utterance;—at last,—"For so many years—and I knew you not!—worked for me;—attended me!——Bless, bless her, Heaven!" he faintly articulated; and worn out with illness, and choaked with contending emotions, he fell back on his pillow, and expired!
That blessing, the hope of obtaining which alone gave Agnes courage to endure contumely, poverty, fatigue, and sorrow, was for one moment her own, and then snatched from her for ever!—No wonder, then, that, when convinced her father was really dead, she fell into a state of stupefaction, from which she never recovered;—and, at the same time, were borne to the same grave, the Father and Daughter.
The day of their funeral was indeed a melancholy one:—They were attended to the grave by a numerous procession of respectable inhabitants of both sexes,—while the afflicted and lamenting poor followed mournfully at a distance. Even those who had distinguished themselves by their violence against Agnes at her return, dropped a tear as they saw her borne to her long home. Mrs. Macfiendy forgot her beauty and accomplishments in her misfortunes and early death; and the mother of the child who had fled from the touch of Agnes, felt sorry that she had ever called her the wickedest woman in the world.
But the most affecting part of the procession was little Edward as chief mourner, led by Fanny and her husband, in all the happy insensibility of childhood, unconscious that he was the pitiable hero of that show, which, by its novelty and parade, so much delighted him,—while his smiles, poor orphan! excited the tears of those around him.
Just before the procession began to move, a post-chariot and four, with white favours, drove into the yard of the largest inn in the town. It contained Lord and Lady Mountcarrol, who were married only the day before, and were then on their way to her ladyship's country seat.
His lordship, who seemed incapable of resting in one place for a minute together, did nothing but swear at the postillions for bringing them that road, and express an earnest desire to leave the town again as fast as possible.
While he was gone into the stable, for the third time, to see whether the horses were not sufficiently refreshed to go on, a waiter came in to ask Lady Mountcarrol's commands, and at that moment the funeral passed the window. The waiter (who was the very servant that at Mr. Seymour's had refused to shut the door against Agnes) instantly turned away his head, and burst into tears. This excited her ladyship's curiosity; and she drew from him a short but full account of Agnes and her father.
He had scarcely finished his story when Lord Mountcarrol came in, saying that the carriage was ready; and no sooner had his bride begun to relate to him the story which she had just heard, than he exclaimed in a voice of thunder, "It is as false as hell, madam! Miss Fitzhenry and her child both died years ago." Then rushing into the carriage, he left Lady Mountcarrol terrified and amazed at his manner. But when she was seating herself by his side, she could not help saying that it was impossible for a story to be false, which all the people in the inn averred to be true; and, as he did not offer to interrupt her, she went through the whole story of Agnes and her sufferings; but before she could proceed to comment on them, the procession, returning from church, crossed the road in which they were going, and obliged the postillions to stop.
Foremost came the little Edward, with all his mother's beauty in his face. "Poor little orphan!" said Lady Mountcarrol, giving a tear to the memory of Agnes: "See, my lord, what a lovely boy!" As she spoke, the extreme elegance of the carriage attracted Edward's attention: and springing from Fanny's hand, who in vain endeavoured to hold him back, he ran up to the door to examine the figures on the pannel. At that instant Lord Mountcarrol opened the door, lifted the child into the chaise, and, throwing his card of address to the astonished mourners, ordered the servants to drive on as fast as possible.
They did so in despite of Mr. Seymour and others, for astonishment had at first deprived them of the power of moving; and the horses, before the witnesses of this sudden and strange event had recovered their recollection, had gone too far to allow themselves to be stopped.
The card with Lord Mountcarrol's name explained what at first had puzzled and confounded as well as alarmed them; and Fanny, who had fainted at sight of his lordship, because she knew him, altered as he was, to be Edward's father, and the bane of Agnes, now recovering herself, conjured Mr. Seymour to follow him immediately, and tell him that Edward was bequeathed to her care.
Mr. Seymour instantly ordered post horses, and in about an hour after set off in pursuit of the ravisher.
But the surprise and consternation of Fanny and the rest of the mourners, was not greater than that of Lady Mountcarrol at sight of her lord's strange conduct. "What does this outrage mean, my lord?" she exclaimed in a faltering voice; "and whose child is that?"—"It ismy child, madam," replied he; "and I will never resign him but with life." Then pressing the astonished boy to his bosom, he for some minutes sobbed aloud,—while Lady Mountcarrol, though she could not help feeling compassion for the agony which the seducer of Agnes must experience at such a moment, was not a little displeased and shocked at finding herself the wife of that Clifford, whose name she had so lately heard coupled with that of villain.
But her attention was soon called from reflections so unpleasant by the cries of Edward, whose surprise at being seized and carried away by a stranger now yielded to terror, and who, bursting from Lord Mountcarrol, desired to go back to his mamma, Fanny, and Mr. Seymour.
"What! and leave your own father, Edward?" asked his agitated parent.—"Look at me,—I am your father;—but I suppose, your mother, as well she might, taught you to hate me?"—"My mamma told me it was wicked to hate any body: and I am sure I have no papa: I had a grandpapa, but he is gone to heaven along with my mamma, Fanny says, and she is my mamma now." And again screaming and stamping with impatience, he insisted on going back to her.
But at length, by promises of riding on a fine horse, and of sending for Fanny to ride with him, he was pacified. Then with artless readiness he related his mother's way of life, and the odd ways of his grandpapa: and thus, by acquainting Lord Mountcarrol with the sufferings and the virtuous exertions of Agnes, he increased his horror of his own conduct, and his regret at not having placed so noble-minded a woman at the head of his family. But whence arose the story of her death he had yet to learn.
In a few hours they reached the seat which he had acquired by his second marriage; and there too, in an hour after, arrived Mr. Seymour and the husband of Fanny.
Lord Mountcarrol expected this visit, and received them courteously; while Mr. Seymour was so surprised at seeing the once healthy and handsome Clifford changed to an emaciated valetudinarian, and carrying in his face the marks of habitual intemperance, that his indignation was for a moment lost in pity. But recovering himself, he told his lordship that he came to demand justice for the outrage which he had committed, and in the name of the friend to whom Miss Fitzhenry had, in case of her sudden death, bequeathed her child, to insist on his being restored to her.
"We will settle that point presently," replied Lord Mountcarrol; "but first I conjure you to tell me all that has happened since we parted, to her whose name I have not for years been able to repeat, and whom, as well as this child, I have also for years believed dead."
"I will, my lord," answered Mr. Seymour; "but I warn you, that if you have any feeling it will be tortured by the narration."
"If I have any feeling!" cried his lordship: "but go on, sir; from you, sir—from you, as—asher friend, I can bear any thing."
Words could not do justice to the agonies of Lord Mountcarrol, while Mr. Seymour, beginning with Agnes's midnight walk to——, went through a recital of her conduct and sufferings, and hopes and anxieties, and ended with the momentary recovery and death-scene of her father.
But when Lord Mountcarrol discovered that Agnes supposed his not making any inquiries concerning her or the child proceeded from brutal indifference concerning their fate, and that, considering him as a monster of inhumanity, she had regarded him not only with contempt, but abhorrence, and seemed to have dismissed him entirely from her remembrance, he beat his breast, he cast himself on the floor in frantic anguish, lamenting, in all the bitterness of fruitless regret, that Agnes died without knowing how much he loved her, and without suspecting that, while she was supposing him unnaturally forgetful of her and her child, he was struggling with illness, caused by her desertion, and with a dejection of spirits which he had never, at times, been able to overcome; execrating at the same time the memory of his father, and Wilson, whom he suspected of having intentionally deceived him.
To conclude—Pity for the misery and compunction of Lord Mountcarrol, and a sense of the advantages both in education and fortune that would accrue to little Edward from living with his father, prevailed on Mr. Seymour and the husband of Fanny to consent to his remaining where he was;—and from that day Edward was universally known as his lordship's son,—who immediately made a will bequeathing him a considerable fortune.
Lord Mountcarrol was then sinking fast into his grave, the victim of his vices, and worn to the bone by the corroding consciousness that Agnes had died in the persuasion of his having brutally neglected her.—That was the bitterest pang of all! She had thought him so vile, that she could not for a moment regret him!
His first wife he had despised because she was weak and illiterate, and hated because she had brought him no children. His second wife was too amiable to be disliked; but, though he survived his marriage with her two years, she also failed to produce an heir to the title. And while he contemplated in Edward the mind and person of his mother, he was almost frantic with regret that he was not legally his son; and he cursed the hour when with short-sighted cunning he sacrificed the honour of Agnes to his views of family aggrandizement.
But, selfish to the last moment of his existence, it was a consciousness of his own misery, not of that which he had inflicted, which prompted his expressions of misery and regret; and he grudged and envied Agnes the comfort of having been able to despise and forget him.
Peace to the memory of Agnes Fitzhenry!—and may the woman who, like her, has been the victim of artifice, self-confidence, and temptation, like her endeavour to regain the esteem of the world by patient suffering, and virtuous exertion; and look forward to the attainment of it with confidence!—But may she whose innocence is yet secure, and whose virtues still boast the stamp of chastity, which can alone make them current in the world, tremble with horror at the idea of listening to the voice of the seducer, lest the image of a father, a mother, a brother, a sister, or some other fellow-being, whose peace of mind has been injured by her deviation from virtue, should haunt her path through life; and she who might, perhaps, have contemplated with fortitude the wreck of her own happiness, be doomed to pine with fruitless remorse at the consciousness of having destroyed that of another.—For where is the mortal who can venture to pronounce that his actions are of importance to no one, and that the consequences of his virtues or his vices will be confined to himself alone!
Printed by Richard Taylor,Shoe-Lane, London.