Arthur Mervyn Part 28

The suddenness of this transition; the levity with which he related and commented on his recent dangers and evils, excited the astonishment of his companion, to whom he not only communicated the history of his disease, but imparted many anecdotes of a humorous kind. Some of these my companion repeated. I heard them with regret and dissatisfaction.

They betokened a mind vitiated by intercourse with the thoughtless and depraved of both s.e.xes, and particularly with infamous and profligate women.

My companion proceeded to mention that Wallace's exhilaration lasted but for a short time, and disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared. He was seized with deadly sickness, and insisted upon leaving the carriage, whose movements shocked his stomach and head to an insupportable degree.

His companion was not void of apprehensions on his own account, but was unwilling to desert him, and endeavoured to encourage him. His efforts were vain. Though the nearest house was at the distance of some hundred yards, and though it was probable that the inhabitants of this house would refuse to accommodate one in his condition, yet Wallace could not be prevailed on to proceed; and, in spite of persuasion and remonstrance, left the carriage and threw himself on the gra.s.sy bank beside the road.

This person was not unmindful of the hazard which he incurred by contact with a sick man. He conceived himself to have performed all that was consistent with duty to himself and to his family; and Wallace, persisting in affirming that, by attempting to ride farther, he should merely hasten his death, was at length left to his own guidance.

These were unexpected and mournful tidings. I had fondly imagined that his safety was put beyond the reach of untoward accidents. Now, however, there was reason to suppose him to have perished by a lingering and painful disease, rendered fatal by the selfishness of mankind, by the want of seasonable remedies, and exposure to inclement airs. Some uncertainty, however, rested on his fate. It was my duty to remove it, and to carry to the Hadwins no mangled and defective tale. Where, I asked, had Wallace and his companion parted?

It was about three miles farther onward. The spot, and the house within view from the spot, were accurately described. In this house it was possible that Wallace had sought an asylum, and some intelligence respecting him might be gained from its inhabitants. My informant was journeying to the city, so that we were obliged to separate.

In consequence of this man's description of Wallace's deportment, and the proofs of a dissolute and thoughtless temper which he had given, I began to regard his death as an event less deplorable. Such a one was unworthy of a being so devoutly pure, so ardent in fidelity and tenderness, as Susan Hadwin. If he loved, it was probable that, in defiance of his vows, he would seek a different companion. If he adhered to his first engagements, his motives would be sordid, and the disclosure of his latent defects might produce more exquisite misery to his wife than his premature death or treacherous desertion.

The preservation of this man was my sole motive for entering the infected city, and subjecting my own life to the hazards from which my escape may almost be esteemed miraculous. Was not the end disproportioned to the means? Was there arrogance in believing my life a price too great to be given for his?

I was not, indeed, sorry for the past. My purpose was just, and the means which I selected were the best my limited knowledge supplied. My happiness should be drawn from reflecting on the equity of my intentions. That these intentions were frustrated by the ignorance of others, or my own, was the consequence of human frailty. Honest purposes, though they may not bestow happiness on others, will, at least, secure it to him who fosters them.

By these reflections my regrets were dissipated, and I prepared to rejoice alike, whether Wallace should be found to have escaped or to have perished. The house to which I had been directed was speedily brought into view. I inquired for the master or mistress of the mansion, and was conducted to a lady of a plain and housewifely appearance.

My curiosity was fully gratified. Wallace, whom my description easily identified, had made his appearance at her door on the evening of the day on which he left the city. The dread of _the fever_ was descanted on with copious and rude eloquence. I supposed her eloquence on this theme to be designed to apologize to me for her refusing entrance to the sick man. The peroration, however, was different. Wallace was admitted, and suitable attention paid to his wants.

Happily, the guest had nothing to struggle with but extreme weakness.

Repose, nouris.h.i.+ng diet, and salubrious airs restored him in a short time to health. He lingered under this roof for three weeks, and then, without any professions of grat.i.tude, or offers of pecuniary remuneration, or information of the course which he determined to take, he left them.

These facts, added to that which I had previously known, threw no advantageous light upon the character of Wallace. It was obvious to conclude that he had gone to Malverton, and thither there was nothing to hinder me from following him.

Perhaps one of my grossest defects is a precipitate temper. I choose my path suddenly, and pursue it with impetuous expedition. In the present instance, my resolution was conceived with unhesitating zeal, and I walked the faster that I might the sooner execute it. Miss Hadwin deserved to be happy. Love was in her heart the all-absorbing sentiment.

A disappointment there was a supreme calamity. Depravity and folly must a.s.sume the guise of virtue before it can claim her affection. This disguise might be maintained for a time, but its detection must inevitably come, and the sooner this detection takes place the more beneficial it must prove.

I resolved to unbosom myself, with equal and unbounded confidence, to Wallace and his mistress. I would choose for this end, not the moment when they were separate, but that in which they were together. My knowledge, and the sources of my knowledge, relative to Wallace, should be unfolded to the lady with simplicity and truth. The lover should be present, to confute, to extenuate, or to verify the charges.

During the rest of the day these images occupied the chief place in my thoughts. The road was miry and dark, and my journey proved to be more tedious and fatiguing than I expected. At length, just as the evening closed, the well-known habitation appeared in view. Since my departure, winter had visited the world, and the aspect of nature was desolate and dreary. All around this house was vacant, negligent, forlorn. The contrast between these appearances and those which I had noticed on my first approach to it, when the ground and the trees were decked with the luxuriance and vivacity of summer, was mournful, and seemed to foretoken ill. My spirits drooped as I noticed the general inactivity and silence.

I entered, without warning, the door that led into the parlour. No face was to be seen or voice heard. The chimney was ornamented, as in summer, with evergreen shrubs. Though it was now the second month of frost and snow, fire did not appear to have been lately kindled on this hearth.

This was a circ.u.mstance from which nothing good could be deduced. Had there been those to share its comforts who had shared them on former years, this was the place and hour at which they commonly a.s.sembled. A door on one side led, through a narrow entry, into the kitchen. I opened this door, and pa.s.sed towards the kitchen.

No one was there but an old man, squatted in the chimney-corner. His face, though wrinkled, denoted undecayed health and an unbending spirit.

A homespun coat, leathern breeches wrinkled with age, and blue yarn hose, were well suited to his lean and shrivelled form. On his right knee was a wooden bowl, which he had just replenished from a pipkin of hasty pudding still smoking on the coals; and in his left hand a spoon, which he had, at that moment, plunged into a bottle of mola.s.ses that stood beside him.

This action was suspended by my entrance. He looked up and exclaimed, "Heyday! who's this that comes into other people's houses without so much as saying 'by your leave'? What's thee business? Who's thee want?"

I had never seen this personage before. I supposed it to be some new domestic, and inquired for Mr. Hadwin.

"Ah!" replied he, with a sigh, "William Hadwin. Is it him thee wants?

Poor man! He is gone to rest many days since."

My heart sunk within me at these tidings. "Dead!" said I; "do you mean that he is dead?"--This exclamation was uttered in a tone of some vehemence. It attracted the attention of some one who was standing without, who immediately entered the kitchen. It was Eliza Hadwin. The moment she beheld me she shrieked aloud, and, rus.h.i.+ng into my arms, fainted away.

The old man dropped his bowl; and, starting from his seat, stared alternately at me and at the breathless girl. My emotion, made up of joy, and sorrow, and surprise, rendered me for a moment powerless as she. At length he said, "I understand this. I know who thee is, and will tell her thee's come." So saying, he hastily left the room.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

In a short time this gentle girl recovered her senses. She did not withdraw herself from my sustaining arm, but, leaning on my bosom, she resigned herself to pa.s.sionate weeping. I did not endeavour to check this effusion, believing that its influence would be salutary.

I had not forgotten the thrilling sensibility and artless graces of this girl. I had not forgotten the scruples which had formerly made me check a pa.s.sion whose tendency was easily discovered. These new proofs of her affection were, at once, mournful and delightful. The untimely fate of her father and my friend pressed with new force upon my heart, and my tears, in spite of my fort.i.tude, mingled with hers.

The attention of both was presently attracted by a faint scream, which proceeded from above. Immediately tottering footsteps were heard in the pa.s.sage, and a figure rushed into the room, pale, emaciated, haggard, and wild. She cast a piercing glance at me, uttered a feeble exclamation, and sunk upon the floor without signs of life.

It was not difficult to comprehend this scene. I now conjectured, what subsequent inquiry confirmed, that the old man had mistaken me for Wallace, and had carried to the elder sister the news of his return.

This fatal disappointment of hopes that had nearly been extinct, and which were now so powerfully revived, could not be endured by a frame verging to dissolution.

This object recalled all the energies of Eliza, and engrossed all my solicitude. I lifted the fallen girl in my arms; and, guided by her sister, carried her to her chamber. I had now leisure to contemplate the changes which a few months had made in this lovely frame. I turned away from the spectacle with anguish, but my wandering eyes were recalled by some potent fascination, and fixed in horror upon a form which evinced the last stage of decay. Eliza knelt on one side, and, leaning her face upon the bed, endeavoured in vain to smother her sobs. I sat on the other motionless, and holding the pa.s.sive and withered hand of the sufferer.

I watched with ineffable solicitude the return of life. It returned at length, but merely to betray symptoms that it would speedily depart forever. For a time my faculties were palsied, and I was made an impotent spectator of the ruin that environed me. This pusillanimity quickly gave way to resolutions and reflections better suited to the exigencies of the time.

The first impulse was to summon a physician; but it was evident that the patient had been sinking by slow degrees to this state, and that the last struggle had begun. Nothing remained but to watch her while expiring, and perform for her, when dead, the rites of interment. The survivor was capable of consolation and of succour. I went to her and drew her gently into another apartment. The old man, tremulous and wonder-struck, seemed anxious to perform some service. I directed him to kindle a fire in Eliza's chamber. Meanwhile I persuaded my gentle friend to remain in this chamber, and resign to me the performance of every office which her sister's condition required. I sat beside the bed of the dying till the mortal struggle was past.

I perceived that the house had no inhabitant besides the two females and the old man. I went in search of the latter, and found him crouched, as before, at the kitchen-fire, smoking his pipe. I placed myself on the same bench, and entered into conversation with him.

I gathered from him that he had, for many years, been Mr. Hadwin's servant. That lately he had cultivated a small farm in this neighbourhood for his own advantage. Stopping one day in October, at the tavern, he heard that his old master had lately been in the city, had caught _the fever_, and after his return had died with it. The moment he became sick, his servants fled from the house, and the neighbours refused to approach it. The task of attending his sick-bed was allotted to his daughters, and it was by their hands that his grave was dug and his body covered with earth. The same terror of infection existed after his death as before, and these hapless females were deserted by all mankind.

Old Caleb was no sooner informed of these particulars, than he hurried to the house, and had since continued in their service. His heart was kind, but it was easily seen that his skill extended only to execute the directions of another. Grief for the death of Wallace and her father preyed upon the health of the eldest daughter. The younger became her nurse, and Caleb was always at hand to execute any orders the performance of which was on a level with his understanding. Their neighbours had not withheld their good offices, but they were still terrified and estranged by the phantoms of pestilence.

During the last week Susan had been too weak to rise from her bed; yet such was the energy communicated by the tidings that Wallace was alive, and had returned, that she leaped upon her feet and rushed down-stairs.

How little did that man deserve so strenuous and immortal an affection!

I would not allow myself to ponder on the sufferings of these women. I endeavoured to think only of the best expedients for putting an end to these calamities. After a moment's deliberation I determined to go to a house at some miles' distance; the dwelling of one who, though not exempt from the reigning panic, had shown more generosity towards these unhappy girls than others. During my former abode in this district, I had ascertained his character, and found him to be compa.s.sionate and liberal.

Overpowered by fatigue and watching, Eliza was no sooner relieved, by my presence, of some portion of her cares, than she sunk into profound slumber. I directed Caleb to watch the house till my return, which should be before midnight, and then set out for the dwelling of Mr.

Ellis.

The weather was temperate and moist, and rendered the footing of the meadows extremely difficult. The ground, that had lately been frozen and covered with snow, was now changed into gullies and pools, and this was no time to be fastidious in the choice of paths. A brook, swelled by the recent _thaw_, was likewise to be pa.s.sed. The rail which I had formerly placed over it by way of bridge had disappeared, and I was obliged to wade through it. At length I approached the house to which I was going.

At so late an hour, farmers and farmers' servants are usually abed, and their threshold is intrusted to their watch-dogs. Two belonged to Mr.

Ellis, whose ferocity and vigilance were truly formidable to a stranger; but I hoped that in me they would recognise an old acquaintance, and suffer me to approach. In this I was not mistaken. Though my person could not be distinctly seen by starlight, they seemed to scent me from afar, and met me with a thousand caresses.

Approaching the house, I perceived that its tenants were retired to their repose. This I expected, and hastened to awaken Mr. Ellis, by knocking briskly at the door. Presently he looked out of a window above, and, in answer to his inquiries, in which impatience at being so unseasonably disturbed was mingled with anxiety, I told him my name, and entreated him to come down and allow me a few minutes' conversation. He speedily dressed himself, and, opening the kitchen door, we seated ourselves before the fire.

My appearance was sufficiently adapted to excite his wonder; he had heard of my elopement from the house of Mr. Hadwin, he was a stranger to the motives that prompted my departure, and to the events that had befallen me, and no interview was more distant from his expectations than the present. His curiosity was written in his features, but this was no time to gratify his curiosity. The end that I now had in view was to procure accommodation for Eliza Hadwin in this man's house. For this purpose it was my duty to describe, with simplicity and truth, the inconveniences which at present surrounded her, and to relate all that had happened since my arrival.

I perceived that my tale excited his compa.s.sion, and I continued with new zeal to paint to him the helplessness of this girl. The death of her father and sister left her the property of this farm. Her s.e.x and age disqualified her for superintending the harvest-field and the thres.h.i.+ng-floor; and no expedient was left but to lease the land to another, and, taking up her abode in the family of some kinsman or friend, to subsist, as she might easily do, upon the rent. Meanwhile her continuance in this house was equally useless and dangerous, and I insinuated to my companion the propriety of immediately removing her to his own.

Some hesitation and reluctance appeared in him, which I immediately ascribed to an absurd dread of infection. I endeavoured, by appealing to his reason as well as to his pity, to conquer this dread. I pointed out the true cause of the death of the elder daughter, and a.s.sured him the youngest knew no indisposition but that which arose from distress. I offered to save him from any hazard that might attend his approaching the house, by accompanying her hither myself. All that her safety required was that his doors should not be shut against her when she presented herself before them.