Books: Nature and Art
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Mrs Inchbald >> Nature and Art
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As he advanced, in spite of the thick fog, he discerned the
appearance of a female stealing away on his approach. His eye was
fixed on this object; and regardless where he placed his feet, he
soon shrunk back with horror, on perceiving they had nearly trod
upon a new-born infant, lying on the ground!--a lovely male child,
entered on a world where not one preparation had been made to
receive him.
"Ah!" cried Henry, forgetting the person who had fled, and with a
smile of compassion on the helpless infant, "I am glad I have found
you--you give more joy to me than you have done to your hapless
parents. Poor dear," continued he, while he took off his coat to
wrap it in, "I will take care of you while I live--I will beg for
you, rather than you shall want; but first, I will carry you to
those who can, at present, do more for you than myself."
Thus Henry said and thought, while he enclosed the child carefully
in his coat, and took it in his arms. But proceeding to walk his
way with it, an unlucky query struck him, WHERE HE SHOULD GO.
"I must not take it to the dean's," he cried, "because Lady
Clementina will suspect it is not nobly, and my uncle will suspect
it is not lawfully, born. Nor must I take it to Lord Bendham's for
the self-same reason, though, could it call Lady Bendham mother,
this whole village, nay, the whole country round, would ring with
rejoicings for its birth. How strange!" continued he, "that we
should make so little of human creatures, that one sent among us,
wholly independent of his own high value, becomes a curse instead of
a blessing by the mere accident of circumstances."
He now, after walking out of the wood, peeped through the folds of
his coat to look again at his charge. He started, turned pale, and
trembled to behold what, in the surprise of first seeing the child,
had escaped his observation. Around its little throat was a cord
entwined by a slipping noose, and drawn half way--as if the
trembling hand of the murderer had revolted from its dreadful
office, and he or she had heft the infant to pine away in nakedness
and hunger, rather than see it die.
Again Henry wished himself joy of the treasure he had found; and
more fervently than before; for he had not only preserved one
fellow-creature from death, but another from murder.
Once more he looked at his charge, and was transported to observe,
upon its serene brow and sleepy eye, no traces of the dangers it had
passed--no trait of shame either for itself or its parents--no
discomposure at the unwelcome reception it was likely to encounter
from a proud world! He now slipped the fatal string from its neck;
and by this affectionate disturbance causing the child to cry, he
ran (but he scarcely knew whither) to convey it to a better nurse.
He at length found himself at the door of his dear Rebecca--for so
very happy Henry felt at the good luck which had befallen him, that
he longed to bestow a part of the blessing upon her he loved.
He sent for her privately out of the house to speak to him. When
she came, "Rebecca," said he (looking around that no one observed
him), "Rebecca, I have brought you something you will like."
"What is it?" she asked.
"You know, Rebecca, that you love deserted birds, strayed kittens,
and motherless lambs. I have brought something more pitiable than
any of these. Go, get a cap and a little gown, and then I will give
it you."
"A gown!" exclaimed Rebecca. "If you have brought me a monkey, much
as I should esteem any present from YOU, indeed I cannot touch it."
"A monkey!" repeated Henry, almost in anger: then changing the tone
of his voice, exclaimed in triumph,
"It is a child!"
On this he gave it a gentle pinch, that its cry might confirm the
pleasing truth he spoke.
"A child!" repeated Rebecca in amaze.
"Yes, and indeed I found it."
"Found it!"
"Indeed I did. The mother, I fear, had just forsaken it."
"Inhuman creature!"
"Nay, hold, Rebecca! I am sure you will pity her when you see her
child--you then will know she must have loved it--and you will
consider how much she certainly had suffered before she left it to
perish in a wood."
"Cruel!" once more exclaimed Rebecca.
"Oh! Rebecca, perhaps, had she possessed a home of her own she
would have given it the best place in it; had she possessed money,
she would have dressed it with the nicest care; or had she been
accustomed to disgrace, she would have gloried in calling it hers!
But now, as it is, it is sent to us--to you and me, Rebecca--to take
care of."
Rebecca, soothed by Henry's compassionate eloquence, held out her
arms and received the important parcel; and, as she kindly looked in
upon the little stranger,
"Now, are not you much obliged to me," said Henry, "for having
brought it to you? I know no one but yourself to whom I would have
trusted it with pleasure."
"Much obliged to you," repeated Rebecca, with a very serious face,
"if I did but know what to do with it--where to put it--where to
hide it from my father and sisters."
"Oh! anywhere," returned Henry. "It is very good--it will not cry.
Besides, in one of the distant, unfrequented rooms of your old
abbey, through the thick walls and long gallery, an infant's cry
cannot pass. Yet, pray be cautious how you conceal it; for if it
should be discovered by your father or sisters, they will take it
from you, prosecute the wretched mother, and send the child to the
parish."
"I will do all I can to prevent them," said Rebecca; "and I think I
call to mind a part of the house where it MUST be safe. I know,
too, I can take milk from the dairy, and bread from the pantry,
without their being missed, or my father much the poorer. But if--"
That instant they were interrupted by the appearance of the stern
curate at a little distance. Henry was obliged to run swiftly away,
while Rebecca returned by stealth into the house with her innocent
burthen.
CHAPTER XXVI.
There is a word in the vocabulary more bitter, more direful in its
import, than all the rest. Reader, if poverty, if disgrace, if
bodily pain, even if slighted love be your unhappy fate, kneel and
bless Heaven for its beneficent influence, so that you are not
tortured with the anguish of--REMORSE.
Deep contrition for past offences had long been the punishment of
unhappy Agnes; but, till the day she brought her child into the
world, REMORSE had been averted. From that day, life became an
insupportable load, for all reflection was torture! To think,
merely to think, was to suffer excruciating agony; yet, never before
was THOUGHT so intrusive--it haunted her in every spot, in all
discourse or company: sleep was no shelter--she never slept but her
racking dreams told her--"she had slain her infant."
They presented to her view the naked innocent whom she had longed to
press to her bosom, while she lifted up her hand against its life.
They laid before her the piteous babe whom her eyeballs strained to
behold once more, while her feet hurried her away for ever.
Often had Agnes, by the winter's fire, listened to tales of ghosts--
of the unceasing sting of a guilty conscience; often had she
shuddered at the recital of murders; often had she wept over the
story of the innocent put to death, and stood aghast that the human
mind could premeditate the heinous crime of assassination.
From the tenderest passion the most savage impulse may arise: in
the deep recesses of fondness, sometimes is implanted the root of
cruelty; and from loving William with unbounded lawless affection,
she found herself depraved so as to become the very object which
could most of all excite her own horror!
Still, at delirious intervals, that passion, which, like a fatal
talisman, had enchanted her whole soul, held out the delusive
prospect that "William might yet relent;" for, though she had for
ever discarded the hope of peace, she could not force herself to
think but that, again blest with his society, she should, at least
for the time that he was present with her, taste the sweet cup of
"forgetfulness of the past," for which she so ardently thirsted.
"Should he return to me," she thought in those paroxysms of
delusion, "I would to HIM unbosom all my guilt; and as a remote, a
kind of unwary accomplice in my crime, his sense, his arguments,
ever ready in making light of my sins, might afford a respite to my
troubled conscience."
While thus she unwittingly thought, and sometimes watched through
the night, starting with convulsed rapture at every sound, because
it might possibly be the harbinger of him, HE was busied in
carefully looking over marriage articles, fixing the place of
residence with his destined bride, or making love to her in formal
process. Yet, Agnes, vaunt!--he sometimes thought on thee--he could
not witness the folly, the weakness, the vanity, the selfishness of
his future wife, without frequently comparing her with thee. When
equivocal words and prevaricating sentences fell from her lips, he
remembered with a sigh thy candour--that open sincerity which dwelt
upon thy tongue, and seemed to vie with thy undisguised features, to
charm the listener even beyond the spectator. While Miss Sedgeley
eagerly grasped at all the gifts he offered, he could not but call
to mind "that Agnes's declining hand was always closed, and her
looks forbidding, every time he proffered such disrespectful tokens
of his love." He recollected the softness which beamed from her
eyes, the blush on her face at his approach, while he could never
discern one glance of tenderness from the niece of Lord Bendham:
and the artificial bloom on her cheeks was nearly as disgusting as
the ill-conducted artifice with which she attempted gentleness and
love.
But all these impediments were only observed as trials of his
fortitude--his prudence could overcome his aversion, and thus he
valued himself upon his manly firmness.
'Twas now, that William being rid, by the peevishness of Agnes, most
honourably of all future ties to her, and the day of his marriage
with Miss Sedgeley being fixed, that Henry, with the rest of the
house, learnt what to them was news. The first dart of Henry's eye
upon his cousin, when, in his presence, he was told of the intended
union, caused a reddening on the face of the latter: he always
fancied Henry saw his thoughts; and he knew that Henry in return
would give him HIS. On the present occasion, no sooner were they
alone, and Henry began to utter them, than William charged him--"Not
to dare to proceed; for that, too long accustomed to trifle, the
time was come when serious matters could alone employ his time; and
when men of approved sense must take place of friends and confidants
like him."
Henry replied, "The love, the sincerity of friends, I thought, were
their best qualities: these I possess."
"But you do not possess knowledge."
"If that be knowledge which has of late estranged you from all who
bear you a sincere affection; which imprints every day more and more
upon your features the marks of gloomy inquietude; am I not happier
in my ignorance?"
"Do not torment me with your ineffectual reasoning."
"I called at the cottage of poor Agnes the other day," returned
Henry: "her father and mother were taking their homely meal alone;
and when I asked for their daughter, they wept and said--Agnes was
not the girl she had been."
William cast his eyes on the floor.
Henry proceeded--"They said a sickness, which they feared would
bring her to the grave, had preyed upon her for some time past.
They had procured a doctor: but no remedy was found, and they
feared the worst."
"What worst!" cried William (now recovered from the effect of the
sudden intelligence, and attempting a smile). "Do they think she
will die? And do you think it will be for love? We do not hear of
these deaths often, Henry."
"And if SHE die, who will hear of THAT? No one but those interested
to conceal the cause: and thus it is, that dying for love becomes a
phenomenon."
Henry would have pursued the discourse farther; but William,
impatient on all disputes, except where his argument was the better
one, retired from the controversy, crying out, "I know my duty, and
want no instructor."
It would be unjust to William to say he did not feel for this
reported illness of Agnes--he felt, during that whole evening, and
part of the next morning--but business, pleasures, new occupations,
and new schemes of future success, crowded to dissipate all
unwelcome reflections; and he trusted to her youth, her health, her
animal spirits, and, above all, to the folly of the gossips' story
of DYING FOR LOVE, as a surety for her life, and a safeguard for his
conscience.
CHAPTER XXVII.
The child of William and Agnes was secreted, by Rebecca, in a
distant chamber belonging to the dreary parsonage, near to which
scarcely any part of the family ever went. There she administered
to all its wants, visited it every hour of the day, and at intervals
during the night viewed almost with the joy of a mother its health,
its promised life--and in a short the found she loved her little
gift better than anything on earth, except the giver.
Henry called the next morning, and the next, and many succeeding
times, in hopes of an opportunity to speak alone with Rebecca, to
inquire concerning her charge, and consult when and how he could
privately relieve her from her trust; as he now meant to procure a
nurse for wages. In vain he called or lurked around the house; for
near five weeks all the conversation he could obtain with her was in
the company of her sisters, who, beginning to observe his
preference, his marked attention to her, and the languid, half-
smothered transport with which she received it, indulged their envy
and resentment at the contempt shown to their charms, by watching
her steps when he was away, and her every look and whisper while he
was present.
For five weeks, then, he was continually thwarted in his expectation
of meeting her alone: and at the end of that period the whole
design he had to accomplish by such a meeting was rendered abortive.
Though Rebecca had with strictest caution locked the door of the
room in which the child was hid, and covered each crevice, and every
aperture through which sound might more easily proceed; though she
had surrounded the infant's head with pillows, to obstruct all noise
from his crying; yet one unlucky night, the strength of his voice
increasing with his age, he was heard by the maid, who slept the
nearest to that part of the house.
Not meaning to injure her young mistress, the servant next morning
simply related to the family what sounds had struck her ear during
the night, and whence they proceeded. At first she was ridiculed
"for supposing herself awake when in reality she must be dreaming."
But steadfastly persisting in what she had said, and Rebecca's
blushes, confusion, and eagerness to prove the maid mistaken, giving
suspicion to her charitable sisters, they watched her the very next
time she went by stealth to supply the office of a mother; and
breaking abruptly on her while feeding and caressing the infant,
they instantly concluded it was her OWN; seized it, and, in spite of
her entreaties, carried it down to their father.
That account which Henry had given Rebecca "of his having found the
child," and which her own sincerity, joined to the faith she had in
his word, made her receive as truth, she now felt would be heard by
the present auditors with contempt, even with indignation, as a
falsehood. Her affright is easier conceived than described.
Accused, and forced by her sisters along with the child before the
curate, his attention to their representation, his crimson face,
knit brow, and thundering voice, struck with terror her very soul:
innocence is not always a protection against fear--sometimes less
bold than guilt.
In her father and sisters she saw, she knew the suspicions, partial,
cruel, boisterous natures by whom she was to be judged; and timid,
gentle, oppressed, she fell trembling on her knees, and could only
articulate,
"Forgive me."
The curate would not listen to this supplication till she had
replied to this question, "Whose child is this?"
She replied, "I do not know."
Questioned louder, and with more violence still, "how the child came
there, wherefore her affection for it, and whose it was," she felt
the improbability of the truth still more forcibly than before, and
dreaded some immediate peril from her father's rage, should she dare
to relate an apparent lie. She paused to think upon a more probable
tale than the real one; and as she hesitated, shook in every limb--
while her father exclaimed,
"I understand the cause of this terror; it confirms your sisters'
fears, and your own shame. From your infancy I have predicted that
some fatal catastrophe would befall you. I never loved you like my
other children--I never had the cause: you were always unlike the
rest--and I knew your fate would be calamitous; but the very worst
of my forebodings did not come to this--so young, so guilty, and so
artful! Tell me this instant, are you married?"
Rebecca answered, "No."
The sisters lifted up their hands!
The father continued--"Vile creature, I thought as much. Still I
will know the father of this child."
She cast up her eyes to Heaven, and firmly vowed she "did not know
herself--nor who the mother was."
"This is not to be borne!" exclaimed the curate in fury. "Persist
in this, and you shall never see my face again. Both your child and
you I'll turn out of my house instantly, unless you confess your
crime, and own the father."
Curious to know this secret, the sisters went up to Rebecca with
seeming kindness, and "conjured her to spare her father still
greater grief, and her own and her child's public infamy, by
acknowledging herself its mother, and naming the man who had undone
her."
Emboldened by this insult from her own sex, Rebecca now began to
declare the simple truth. But no sooner had she said that "the
child was presented to her care by a young man who had found it,"
than her sisters burst into laughter, and her father into redoubled
rage.
Once more the women offered their advice--"to confess and be
forgiven."
Once more the father raved.
Beguiled by solicitations, and terrified by threats, like women
formerly accused of witchcraft, and other wretches put to the
torture, she thought her present sufferings worse than any that
could possibly succeed; and felt inclined to confess a falsehood, at
which her virtue shrunk, to obtain a momentary respite from
reproach; she felt inclined to take the mother's share of the
infant, but was at a loss to whom to give the father's. She thought
that Henry had entailed on himself the best right to the charge; but
she loved him, and could not bear the thought of accusing him
falsely.
While, with agitation in the extreme, she thus deliberated, the
proposition again was put,
"Whether she would trust to the mercy of her father by confessing,
or draw down his immediate vengeance by denying her guilt?"
She made choice of the former--and with tears and sobs "owned
herself the mother of the boy."
But still--"Who is the father?"
Again she shrunk from the question, and fervently implored "to be
spared on that point."
Her petition was rejected with vehemence; and the curate's rage
increased till she acknowledged,
"Henry was the father."
"I thought so," exclaimed all her sisters at the same time.
"Villain!" cried the curate. "The dean shall know, before this hour
is expired, the baseness of the nephew whom he supports upon
charity; he shall know the misery, the grief, the shame he has
brought on me, and how unworthy he is of his protection."
"Oh! have mercy on him!" cried Rebecca, as she still knelt to her
father: "do not ruin him with his uncle, for he is the best of
human beings."
"Ay, ay, we always saw how much she loved him," cried her sisters.
"Wicked, unfortunate girl!" said the clergyman (his rage now
subsiding, and tears supplying its place), "you have brought a
scandal upon us all: your sisters' reputation will be stamped with
the colour of yours--my good name will suffer: but that is trivial-
-your soul is lost to virtue, to religion, to shame--"
"No, INDEED!" cried Rebecca: "if you will but believe me."
"Do not I believe you? Have you not confessed?"
"You will not pretend to unsay what you have said," cried her eldest
sister: "that would be making things worse."
"Go, go out of my sight!" said her father. "Take your child with
you to your chamber, and never let me see either of you again. I do
not turn you out of my doors to-day, because I gave you my word I
would not, if you revealed your shame; but by to-morrow I will
provide some place for your reception, where neither I, nor any of
your relations, shall ever see or hear of you again."
Rebecca made an effort to cling around her father, and once more to
declare her innocence: but her sisters interposed, and she was
taken, with her reputed son, to the chamber where the curate had
sentenced her to remain, till she quitted his house for ever.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
The curate, in the disorder of his mind, scarcely felt the ground he
trod as he hastened to the dean's house to complain of his wrongs.
His name procured him immediate admittance into the library, and the
moment the dean appeared the curate burst into tears. The cause
being required of such "very singular marks of grief," Mr. Rymer
described himself "as having been a few moments ago the happiest of
parents; but that his peace and that of his whole family had been
destroyed by Mr. Henry Norwynne, the dean's nephew."
He now entered into a minute recital of Henry's frequent visits
there, and of all which had occurred in his house that morning, from
the suspicion that a child was concealed under his roof, to the
confession made by his youngest daughter of her fall from virtue,
and of her betrayer's name.
The dean was astonished, shocked, and roused to anger: he vented
reproaches and menaces on his nephew; and "blessing himself in a
virtuous son, whose wisdom and counsel were his only solace in every
care," sent for William to communicate with him on this unhappy
subject.
William came, all obedience, and heard with marks of amazement and
indignation the account of such black villainy! In perfect sympathy
with Mr. Rymer and his father, he allowed "no punishment could be
too great for the seducer of innocence, the selfish invader of a
whole family's repose."
Nor did William here speak what he did not think--he merely forgot
his own conduct; or if he did recall it to his mind, it was with
some fair interpretations in his own behalf; such as self-love ever
supplies to those who wish to cheat intruding conscience.
Young Henry being sent for to appear before this triumvirate, he
came with a light step and a cheerful face. But, on the charge
against him being exhibited, his countenance changed--yet only to
the expression of surprise! He boldly asserted his innocence,
plainly told the real fact, and with a deportment so perfectly
unembarrassed, that nothing but the asseverations of the curate,
"that his daughter had confessed the whole," could have rendered the
story Henry told suspected; although some of the incidents he
related were of no common kind. But Mr. Rymer's charge was an
objection to his veracity too potent to be overcome; and the dean
exclaimed in anger -
"We want not your avowal of your guilt--the mother's evidence is
testimony sufficient."
"The virtuous Rebecca is not a mother," said Henry, with firmness.
William here, like Rebecca's sisters, took Henry aside, and warned
him not to "add to his offence by denying what was proved against
him."
But Henry's spirit was too manly, his affection too sincere, not to
vindicate the chastity of her he loved, even at his own peril. He
again and again protested "she was virtuous."
"Let her instantly be sent for," said the dean, "and this madman
confronted with her." Then adding, that as he wished everything
might be conducted with secrecy, he would not employ his clerk on
the unhappy occasion: he desired William to draw up the form of an
oath, which he would administer as soon as she arrived.
A man and horse were immediately despatched to bring Rebecca:
William drew up an affidavit as his father had directed him--in
REBECCA'S NAME SOLEMNLY PROTESTING SHE WAS A MOTHER, AND HENRY THE
FATHER OF HER CHILD. And now, the dean, suppressing till she came
the warmth of his displeasure, spoke thus calmly to Henry:-
"Even supposing that your improbable tale of having found this
child, and all your declarations in respect to it were true, still
you would be greatly criminal. What plea can you make for not
having immediately revealed the circumstance to me or some other
proper person, that the real mother might have been detected and
punished for her design of murder?"
"In that, perhaps, I was to blame," returned Henry: "but whoever
the mother was, I pitied her."
"Compassion on such an occasion was unplaced," said the dean.
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