Part 7

I shall not attempt to describe his rage and astonishment when he heard of the elopement of Agnes. But these feelings were soon followed by those of terror for her safety and that of his child; and his agitation for some moments was so great as to deprive him of the power of considering how he should proceed, in order to hear some tidings of the fugitives, and endeavour to recall them.

It was evident that Agnes had escaped the night before, because a servant, sitting up for a gentleman who lodged in the house, was awakened from sleep by the noise which she made in opening the door; and, running into the hall, she saw the skirt of Agnes's gown as she shut it again; and looking to see who was gone out, she saw a lady, who she was almost certain was Miss Fitzhenry, running down the street with great speed. But to put its being Agnes beyond all doubt, she ran up to her room, and, finding the door open, went in, and could see neither her nor her child.

To this narration Clifford listened with some calmness; but when Mrs. Askew told him that Agnes had taken none of her clothes with her, he fell into an agony amounting to phrensy, and exclaiming, "Then it must be so--she has destroyed both herself and the child!" his senses failed him, and he dropped down insensible on the sofa. This horrible probability had occurred to Mrs. Askew; and she had sent servants different ways all night, in order to find her if she were still in existence, that she might spare Clifford, if possible, the pain of conceiving a suspicion like her own.

Clifford was not so fortunate as to remain long in a state of unconsciousness, but soon recovered to a sense of misery and unavailing remorse. At length he recollected that a coach set off that very night for her native place, from the White-horse Cellar, and that it was possible that she might have obtained a lodging the night before, where she meant to stay till the coach was ready to set off the following evening. He immediately went to Piccadilly, to see whether places for a lady and child had been taken,--but no such passengers were on the list. He then inquired whether a lady and child had gone from that inn the night before in the coach that went within a few miles of the town of ----. But, as Agnes had reached the inn just as the coach was setting off, no one belonging to it, but the coachman, knew that she was a passenger.

"Well, I flatter myself," said Clifford to Mrs. Askew, endeavouring to smile, "that she will make her appearance here at night, if she do not come to-day; and I will not stir from this spot till the coach set off, and will even go in it some way, to see whether it do not stop to take her up on the road."

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."

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."

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 the _slang_ of 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 still _greater_ proof 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 is _my 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 a _gentlewoman_.

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.