Books: Nature and Art
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Mrs Inchbald >> Nature and Art
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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
reproach YOU rather than HERSELF."
"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 that
HIMSELF should 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."
CHAPTER XXII.
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 you have 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 to PROMISE 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 by MY change 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.
CHAPTER XXIII.
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 marry HIM as 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 termed
PRUDENCE, 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."
CHAPTER XXIV.
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,
and SHE banished 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 of HER
expectations. 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
conduct KNOWN is 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."
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 say I WOULD NEVER SEE
YOU AGAIN. I shall keep my word."
CHAPTER XXV.
When the dean's family had been at Anfield about a month--one misty
morning, such as portends a sultry day, as Henry was walking swiftly
through a thick wood, on the skirts of the parish, he suddenly
started on hearing a distant groan, expressive, as he thought, both
of bodily and mental pain. He stopped to hear it repeated, that he
might pursue the sound. He heard it again; and though now but in
murmurs, yet, as the tone implied excessive grief, he directed his
course to that part of the wood from which it came.
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