The Adventures of Hugh Trevor Part 57

Fatal insensibility to the warning voice of experience!

Incomprehensible blindness!

The poor bishop was unable to resist his destiny.

I had a foreboding of the mischief that might result from a stomach at once so debilitated and so overloaded. I wished to have spoken: I was tempted to exclaim--'Rash man, beware!' I could not keep my eyes away from him: till at length I suddenly remarked a strange appearance, that came over his face; and, almost at the same instant, he dropped from his chair in an apoplectic fit.

The description of his foaming mouth, distorted features, dead eyes, the whites of which only were to be seen, his writhings, his--

No! I must forbear. The picture I witnessed could give nothing but pain; mingled with disgust, and horror. If I suggest that poor oppressed nature made the most violent struggles, to empty and relieve herself, there will perhaps be more than sufficient of the scene of which I was a spectator conjured up in the imagination.

The bishop had been a muscular man, with a frame of uncommon strength; and the paroxysm, though extreme, did not end in death. Medical a.s.sistance was obtained, and he was borne away as soon as the crisis was over: but the festivity for which the company had met was disturbed. Many of them were struck with terror; dreading lest they had only been present at horrors that, soon or late, were to light upon themselves. They departed appalled by the scene they had witnessed, and haunted by images of a foreboding, black, and distracted kind.

From these Sir Barnard himself was not wholly free: though he had been less guilty of gormandizing than many of his a.s.sociates: and, for my own part, this incident left an impression upon me which I am persuaded will be salutary through life.

CHAPTER X

_A few reflections: A word concerning friends, and the duties of friendship: News of Thornby; or the equity of the dying: The decease of my mother: A curious letter on the obsequies of the dead: The real and the ideal being unlike to each other_

How different is the same man, at different periods of his existence!

How very unlike were the bowing well bred Earl of Idford, and the asthmatic tutor, of this day, to the Lord Sad-dog and his Jack; whom, but a few years before, I first met at college!

The president too at that time was, quite as much in form as in office, one of the pillars of the university. And the bishop! What a lamentable change had a short period produced!

Happy would it be for men did they recollect that change they must; and that, if they will but be sufficiently attentive to circ.u.mstances, they may change for the better.

Time kept rolling on; and I had variety of occupation. Neither my studies, my fashionable acquaintances, nor those whom I justly loved as my friends, were neglected. Mr. Evelyn continued for some time in town; attending to his anatomical and chymical studies. Wilmot had completed his comedy. It had been favourably received by the manager; and was to be the second new piece brought forward. Turl, with equal perseverance, was pursuing his own plans: and, though I heard nothing more from Olivia, my heart was at ease. I knew the motives on which she acted; and had her a.s.surance that, if I should be again defamed, I should now be heard in my own defence.

I was careful not to forget honest Clarke; nor was the kind-hearted Mary neglected. The good carpenter had sent for his wife and family up to town; and Mary was happy in the friendly attentions of Miss Wilmot, and in the orderly conduct and quick improvement of her son.

One of my pleasures, and duties as I conceived it to be, was to introduce Turl and Wilmot to such of my higher order of acquaintance as might afford both parties gratification. There is much frivolity among people of rank and fashion: but there is likewise some enquiry and sound understanding; and, where these qualities exist in any eminent degree, the friends I have named could not but be welcome.

It is the interest of men of all orders to converse with each other, to listen to their mutual pretensions with patience, to be slow to condemn, and to be liberal in the construction of what they at first suppose to be dangerous novelty.

Turl was peculiarly fitted to promote these principles: and Wilmot, in addition to the charms of an imagination finely stored, was possessed, as the reader may remember, of musical talents; and those of no inferior order. Days and weeks pa.s.sed not unpleasantly away: for hope and Olivia were ever present to my imagination, and of the ills which fortune had in reserve I was little aware.

While business and pleasure thus appeared to promote each other, it came to my knowledge that an advertis.e.m.e.nt had appeared in the papers: stating that, if Hugh Trevor, the grandson of the reverend **** rector of ***, were alive, by application at a place there named, he might hear of something very much to his advantage.

I cannot enumerate the conjectures that this intelligence immediately excited; for they were endless. I searched the papers, found the advertis.e.m.e.nt, and hastened to the place to which it directed me.

The information I there received was not precisely what my elevated hopes had taught me to expect: but it was of considerable moment. I learned that my grandfather's executor, Mr. Thornby, was dead; that his nephew, Wakefield, had taken possession of the property he had left; but that he had done this illegally: for the person who caused the advertis.e.m.e.nt to be put into the paper was an attorney, who had drawn and witnessed the will of Thornby, which will was in my favour; and which moreover stated that the property bequeathed to me was mine in right of a will of my grandfather's; which will Thornby had till that time kept concealed. Whether the testament he had produced, immediately after the death of the rector, were one that Thornby had forged, or one that my grandfather had actually made but had ordered his executor to destroy, did not at present appear. The account I gave of it in a preceding volume, and of the manner in which it was procured, was the substance of what I learned from the conversation of my mother and Thornby at the time.

A death-bed compunction had wrested from the deceased an avowal of his guilt; and the facts were explicitly stated, in the preamble of his will, in order to prevent the contest which he foresaw might probably take place, between me and his nephew. He seemed to have been painfully anxious to do justice at last; and save his soul, when he found it must take flight.

The business was urgent; and, if I meant to profit by that which was legally mine, it was necessary, as I was advised, immediately to go down and examine into all the circ.u.mstances on the spot.

I was the more surprised at what I had heard because it was but very lately that I had sent a remittance to my mother; which she had acknowledged, and which must have been received after her husband had taken possession of his uncle's effects. But, when I recollected the character that had been given me of Wakefield, as far as the transaction related to him, my surprise was of short duration.

With respect to my mother, I heard with no small degree of astonishment that she had been applied to, in order to discover where I might be found; and that she had returned evasive answers: which as it was supposed had been dictated by her husband; under whose control, partly from fear and partly from an old woman's doating, she was completely held.

To say that I grieved at such weakness, in one whom I had so earnestly desired to love and honor with more than filial affection, would be superfluous: but my surprise would have instantly ceased, had I known who this Wakefield was; with whom my mother had to contend.

Reproach from me however, in word or look, had I been so inclined, she was destined never to receive. The career of pain and pleasure with her was nearly over. On the same day that I made the enquiries I have been repeating, a letter arrived; written not by her, but at her request; which informed me that, if I meant to see her alive, I must use all possible speed: for that she had been suddenly seized with dangerous and intolerable pains; which according to the description given in the letter, were such as I found from enquiry belong to the iliac pa.s.sion; and that she was then lying at the last extremity.

Two such imperious mandates, requiring my presence in my native county, were not to be disobeyed; and I departed with the utmost diligence. At the last stage, after a journey of unremitted expedition, I ordered the chaise to drive to the house of the late Thornby; where on enquiry I was informed that my mother lay.

I found her in a truly pitiable condition. Quicksilver had been administered, but in vain; and she was so thoroughly exhausted that the sight of me produced but very little emotion. Her medical attendant p.r.o.nounced she could not survive four-and-twenty hours; and advised that, if there were any business to be settled between us, it should be proceeded upon immediately.

Had this advice been given to persons of certain habits, a.s.suredly, it would not have been neglected; and, perhaps it ought not to have been by me: but, whether I was right or wrong, I could not endure to perplex and disturb the mind of a mother in her last agonies.

The consequence was, she expired without hearing a word from me, concerning her husband, Thornby, or the property to which I was heir; and without making any mention whatever herself of the disposal of this property. I was indeed ignorant of what degree of information she could afford me. Her conduct had been so weak that to remind her of it, at such a moment, would, as I supposed, have been to inflict a severe degree of torment.

This, as the reader will learn in time, was not the only shaft by which my tranquillity was to be a.s.saulted. My mother though she was, there was yet another death infinitely more heart-rending hanging over my head. The recollection is anguish that cannot end! Cannot did I say? Absurd mortal. Live for the living; and grieve not for the dead: unless grief could bid them rise from their graves.

I must proceed; and not suffer my feelings thus to antic.i.p.ate my tale.

Knowing that Wakefield was no other than Belmont, the reader will not be surprised that he should think proper to elude, under these circ.u.mstances, the discovery which a meeting must have produced. My mother, actuated by a conviction that death was inevitable, had sent for me without his privity: so that I afterward learned he was in the house, when I drove up to the door: and, seeing me put my head out of the chaise, immediately made his escape through the garden.

A man less fertile in expedients would have found it difficult to forge a plausible pretext, to evade being present and meeting me at the funeral: but he, by pursuing what wore the face of being, and what I believe actually was, very rational conduct, dexterously shunned the rencontre. The following letter, which he wrote to me, will explain by what means.

'Sir,

'Persons of understanding have discovered that the obsequies of the dead may be performed with all due decorum, and the pain, as well as the very frequent hypocrisy, of a funeral procession, which is attended by friends and relations, avoided. They therefore with great good sense hire people to mourn; or send their empty carriages, with the blinds up: which perhaps is quite as wise, and no doubt as agreeable to the dead.

'He that would not render the duties of humanity, while they can succour those that are afflicted, may justly be called brutal; but, those duties being paid, what remains is more properly the business of carpenters, grave-diggers, and undertakers, than of men whose happiness is disturbed by useless but gloomy a.s.sociations; and who may find better employment for their time.

'I, for example, have business, at present, that calls me another way.

I therefore request you will give such orders, concerning the funeral, as you shall think proper: and, as I have no doubt you will agree with me that decency, and not unnecessary pomp, which cannot honor the dead, and does but satirise the living, will be most creditable to Mrs. Wakefield's memory, the expence, as it ought, will be defrayed by me.

I am, sir,

Your very obedient humble servant,

F. WAKEFIELD.'

Had such a letter been written by a man who had pretended fondness for his wife, it might perhaps have been construed unfeeling: if not insulting to her memory. But, as the case was notoriously the reverse, the honest contempt of all affectation, which it displayed, I could not but consider as an unexpected trait in the character of such a man as I supposed Wakefield to be.

There is a strange propensity in the imagination to make up ideal beings; and annex them to names that, when mentioned, have been usually followed with certain degrees of praise, or blame. These fanciful portraits are generally in the extreme: they are all virtue, or all vice: all perfection, or all deformity: though it is well known that no such unmixed mortals exist.

My mind having acquired the habit rather to doubt than to conclude that every thing which is customary must be right, funeral follies had not escaped my censure: but the thing which excited my surprise was that a man like Wakefield, who I concluded must have thought very little indeed, since he both thought and acted on other occasions so differently from me, should in any instance reason like myself; and some few others, whom I most admired.

Convinced however as I was that he now reasoned rightly, I wanted in this case the courage to act after his example. It would be a scandal to the country for a son, pretending to filial duty, to be absent from his mother's funeral. The reader will doubtless remember that town and country are two exceedingly distinct regions.