Nature and Art Part 12

"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 s.e.x, 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 pet.i.tion 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."