Nature and Art Part 15

"With a cord?--"

"A cord was round its neck."

"'Tis mine--the child is mine--'tis mine--my child--I am the mother and the murderer--I fixed the cord, while the ground shook under me--while flashes of fire darted before my eyes!--while my heart was bursting with despair and horror! But I stopped short--I did not draw the noose--I had a moment of strength, and I ran away. I left him living--he is living now--escaped from my hands--and I am no longer ashamed, but overcome with joy that he is mine! I bless you, my dear, my dear, for saving his life--for giving him to me again--for preserving _my_ life, as well as my child's."

Here she took her infant, pressed it to her lips and to her bosom; then bent to the ground, clasped Henry's knees, and wept upon his feet.

He could not for a moment doubt the truth of what she said; her powerful yet broken accents, her convulsive embraces of the child, even more than her declaration, convinced him she was its mother.

"Good Heaven!" cried Henry, "and this is my cousin William's child!"

"But your cousin does not know it," said she; "I never told him--he was not kind enough to embolden me; therefore do not blame _him_ for _my_ sin; he did not know of my wicked designs--he did not encourage me--"

"But he forsook you, Agnes."

"He never said he would not. He always told me he could not marry me."

"Did he tell you so at his first private meeting?"

"No."

"Nor at the second?"

"No; nor yet at the third."

"When was it he told you so?"

"I forget the exact time; but I remember it was on that very evening when I confessed to him--"

"What?"

"That he had won my heart."

"Why did you confess it?"

"Because he asked me and said it would make him happy if I would say so."

"Cruel! dishonourable!"

"Nay, do not blame him; he cannot help _not_ loving me, no more than I can help _loving_ him."

Henry rubbed his eyes.

"Bless me, you weep! I always heard that you were brought up in a savage country; but I suppose it is a mistake; it was your cousin William."

"Will not you apply to him for the support of your child?" asked Henry.

"If I thought he would not be angry."

"Angry! I will write to him on the subject if you will give me leave."

"But do not say it is by my desire. Do not say I wish to trouble him. I would sooner beg than be a trouble to him."

"Why are you so delicate?"

"It is for my own sake; I wish him not to hate me."

"Then, thus you may secure his respect. I will write to him, and let him know all the circ.u.mstances of your case. I will plead for his compa.s.sion on his child, but a.s.sure him that no conduct of his will ever induce you to declare (except only to me, who knew of your previous acquaintance) who is the father."

To this she consented; but when Henry offered to take from her the infant, and carry him to the nurse he had engaged, to this she would not consent.

"Do you mean, then, to acknowledge him yours?" Henry asked.

"Nothing shall force me to part from him again. I will keep him, and let my neighbours judge of me as they please."

Here Henry caught at a hope he feared to name before. "You will then have no objection," said he, "to clear an unhappy girl to a few friends, with whom her character has suffered by becoming, at my request, his nurse?"

"I will clear any one, so that I do not accuse the father."

"You give me leave, then, in your name, to tell the whole story to some particular friends, my cousin William's part in it alone excepted?"

"I do."

Henry now exclaimed, "G.o.d bless you!" with greater fervour than when he spoke it before; and he now hoped the night was nearly gone, that the time might be so much the shorter before Rebecca should be reinstated in the esteem of her father, and of all those who had misjudged her.

"G.o.d bless _you_!" said Agnes, still more fervently, as she walked with unguided steps towards her home; for her eyes never wandered from the precious object which caused her unexpected return.

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

Henry rose early in the morning, and flew to the curate's house, with more than even his usual thirst of justice, to clear injured innocence, to redeem from shame her whom he loved. With eager haste he told that he had found the mother, whose fall from virtue Rebecca, overcome by confusion and threats, had taken on herself.

Rebecca rejoiced, but her sisters shook their heads, and even the father seemed to doubt.

Confident in the truth of his story, Henry persisted so boldly in his affirmations, that if Mr. Rymer did not entirely believe what he said, he secretly hoped that the dean and other people might; therefore he began to imagine he could possibly cast from _his_ family the present stigma, whether or no it belonged to any other.

No sooner was Henry gone than Mr. Rymer waited on the dean to report what he had heard; and he frankly attributed his daughter's false confession to the compulsive methods he had adopted in charging her with the offence. Upon this statement, Henry's love to her was also a solution of his seemingly inconsistent conduct on that singular occasion.

The dean immediately said, "I will put the matter beyond all doubt; for I will this moment send for the present reputed mother; and if she acknowledges the child, I will instantly commit her to prison for the attempt of putting it to death."

The curate applauded the dean's sagacity; a warrant was issued, and Agnes brought prisoner before the grandfather of her child.

She appeared astonished at the peril in which she found herself.

Confused, also, with a thousand inexpressible sensations which the dean's presence inspired, she seemed to prevaricate in all she uttered. Accused of this prevarication, she was still more disconcerted; said, and unsaid; confessed herself the mother of the infant, but declared she did not know, then owned she _did_ know, the name of the man who had undone her, but would never utter it. At length she cast herself on her knees before the father of her betrayer, and supplicated "he would not punish her with severity, as she most penitently confessed her fault, so far as is related to herself."

While Mr. and Mrs. Norwynne, just entered on the honeymoon, were sitting side by side enjoying with peace and with honour conjugal society, poor Agnes, threatened, reviled, and sinking to the dust, was hearing from the mouth of William's father the enormity of those crimes to which his son had been accessory. She saw the mittimus written that was to convey her into a prison--saw herself delivered once more into the hands of constables, before her resolution left her, of concealing the name of William in her story. She now, overcome with affright, and thinking she should expose him still more in a public court, if hereafter on her trial she should be obliged to name him--she now humbly asked the dean to hear a few words she had to say in private, where she promised she "would speak nothing but the truth."