Nature and Art Part 11

CHAPTER XXV.

When the dean's family had been at Anfield about a month--one misty morning, such as portends a sultry day, as Henry was walking swiftly through a thick wood, on the skirts of the parish, he suddenly started on hearing a distant groan, expressive, as he thought, both of bodily and mental pain. He stopped to hear it repeated, that he might pursue the sound. He heard it again; and though now but in murmurs, yet, as the tone implied excessive grief, he directed his course to that part of the wood from which it came.

As he advanced, in spite of the thick fog, he discerned the appearance of a female stealing away on his approach. His eye was fixed on this object; and regardless where he placed his feet, he soon shrunk back with horror, on perceiving they had nearly trod upon a new-born infant, lying on the ground!--a lovely male child, entered on a world where not one preparation had been made to receive him.

"Ah!" cried Henry, forgetting the person who had fled, and with a smile of compa.s.sion on the helpless infant, "I am glad I have found you--you give more joy to me than you have done to your hapless parents. Poor dear," continued he, while he took off his coat to wrap it in, "I will take care of you while I live--I will beg for you, rather than you shall want; but first, I will carry you to those who can, at present, do more for you than myself."

Thus Henry said and thought, while he enclosed the child carefully in his coat, and took it in his arms. But proceeding to walk his way with it, an unlucky query struck him, _where he should go_.

"I must not take it to the dean's," he cried, "because Lady Clementina will suspect it is not n.o.bly, and my uncle will suspect it is not lawfully, born. Nor must I take it to Lord Bendham's for the self-same reason, though, could it call Lady Bendham mother, this whole village, nay, the whole country round, would ring with rejoicings for its birth.

How strange!" continued he, "that we should make so little of human creatures, that one sent among us, wholly independent of his own high value, becomes a curse instead of a blessing by the mere accident of circ.u.mstances."

He now, after walking out of the wood, peeped through the folds of his coat to look again at his charge. He started, turned pale, and trembled to behold what, in the surprise of first seeing the child, had escaped his observation. Around its little throat was a cord entwined by a slipping noose, and drawn half way--as if the trembling hand of the murderer had revolted from its dreadful office, and he or she had heft the infant to pine away in nakedness and hunger, rather than see it die.

Again Henry wished himself joy of the treasure he had found; and more fervently than before; for he had not only preserved one fellow-creature from death, but another from murder.

Once more he looked at his charge, and was transported to observe, upon its serene brow and sleepy eye, no traces of the dangers it had pa.s.sed--no trait of shame either for itself or its parents--no discomposure at the unwelcome reception it was likely to encounter from a proud world! He now slipped the fatal string from its neck; and by this affectionate disturbance causing the child to cry, he ran (but he scarcely knew whither) to convey it to a better nurse.

He at length found himself at the door of his dear Rebecca--for so very happy Henry felt at the good luck which had befallen him, that he longed to bestow a part of the blessing upon her he loved.

He sent for her privately out of the house to speak to him. When she came, "Rebecca," said he (looking around that no one observed him), "Rebecca, I have brought you something you will like."

"What is it?" she asked.

"You know, Rebecca, that you love deserted birds, strayed kittens, and motherless lambs. I have brought something more pitiable than any of these. Go, get a cap and a little gown, and then I will give it you."

"A gown!" exclaimed Rebecca. "If you have brought me a monkey, much as I should esteem any present from _you_, indeed I cannot touch it."

"A monkey!" repeated Henry, almost in anger: then changing the tone of his voice, exclaimed in triumph,

"It is a child!"

On this he gave it a gentle pinch, that its cry might confirm the pleasing truth he spoke.

"A child!" repeated Rebecca in amaze.

"Yes, and indeed I found it."

"Found it!"

"Indeed I did. The mother, I fear, had just forsaken it."

"Inhuman creature!"

"Nay, hold, Rebecca! I am sure you will pity her when you see her child--you then will know she must have loved it--and you will consider how much she certainly had suffered before she left it to perish in a wood."

"Cruel!" once more exclaimed Rebecca.

"Oh! Rebecca, perhaps, had she possessed a home of her own she would have given it the best place in it; had she possessed money, she would have dressed it with the nicest care; or had she been accustomed to disgrace, she would have gloried in calling it hers! But now, as it is, it is sent to us--to you and me, Rebecca--to take care of."

Rebecca, soothed by Henry's compa.s.sionate eloquence, held out her arms and received the important parcel; and, as she kindly looked in upon the little stranger,

"Now, are not you much obliged to me," said Henry, "for having brought it to you? I know no one but yourself to whom I would have trusted it with pleasure."

"Much obliged to you," repeated Rebecca, with a very serious face, "if I did but know what to do with it--where to put it--where to hide it from my father and sisters."

"Oh! anywhere," returned Henry. "It is very good--it will not cry.

Besides, in one of the distant, unfrequented rooms of your old abbey, through the thick walls and long gallery, an infant's cry cannot pa.s.s.

Yet, pray be cautious how you conceal it; for if it should be discovered by your father or sisters, they will take it from you, prosecute the wretched mother, and send the child to the parish."

"I will do all I can to prevent them," said Rebecca; "and I think I call to mind a part of the house where it _must_ be safe. I know, too, I can take milk from the dairy, and bread from the pantry, without their being missed, or my father much the poorer. But if--" That instant they were interrupted by the appearance of the stern curate at a little distance.

Henry was obliged to run swiftly away, while Rebecca returned by stealth into the house with her innocent burthen.

CHAPTER XXVI.

There is a word in the vocabulary more bitter, more direful in its import, than all the rest. Reader, if poverty, if disgrace, if bodily pain, even if slighted love be your unhappy fate, kneel and bless Heaven for its beneficent influence, so that you are not tortured with the anguish of--_remorse_.

Deep contrition for past offences had long been the punishment of unhappy Agnes; but, till the day she brought her child into the world, _remorse_ had been averted. From that day, life became an insupportable load, for all reflection was torture! To think, merely to think, was to suffer excruciating agony; yet, never before was _thought_ so intrusive--it haunted her in every spot, in all discourse or company: sleep was no shelter--she never slept but her racking dreams told her--"she had slain her infant."

They presented to her view the naked innocent whom she had longed to press to her bosom, while she lifted up her hand against its life. They laid before her the piteous babe whom her eyeb.a.l.l.s strained to behold once more, while her feet hurried her away for ever.

Often had Agnes, by the winter's fire, listened to tales of ghosts--of the unceasing sting of a guilty conscience; often had she shuddered at the recital of murders; often had she wept over the story of the innocent put to death, and stood aghast that the human mind could premeditate the heinous crime of a.s.sa.s.sination.

From the tenderest pa.s.sion the most savage impulse may arise: in the deep recesses of fondness, sometimes is implanted the root of cruelty; and from loving William with unbounded lawless affection, she found herself depraved so as to become the very object which could most of all excite her own horror!

Still, at delirious intervals, that pa.s.sion, which, like a fatal talisman, had enchanted her whole soul, held out the delusive prospect that "William might yet relent;" for, though she had for ever discarded the hope of peace, she could not force herself to think but that, again blest with his society, she should, at least for the time that he was present with her, taste the sweet cup of "forgetfulness of the past," for which she so ardently thirsted.

"Should he return to me," she thought in those paroxysms of delusion, "I would to _him_ unbosom all my guilt; and as a remote, a kind of unwary accomplice in my crime, his sense, his arguments, ever ready in making light of my sins, might afford a respite to my troubled conscience."

While thus she unwittingly thought, and sometimes watched through the night, starting with convulsed rapture at every sound, because it might possibly be the harbinger of him, _he_ was busied in carefully looking over marriage articles, fixing the place of residence with his destined bride, or making love to her in formal process. Yet, Agnes, vaunt!--he sometimes thought on thee--he could not witness the folly, the weakness, the vanity, the selfishness of his future wife, without frequently comparing her with thee. When equivocal words and prevaricating sentences fell from her lips, he remembered with a sigh thy candour--that open sincerity which dwelt upon thy tongue, and seemed to vie with thy undisguised features, to charm the listener even beyond the spectator.

While Miss Sedgeley eagerly grasped at all the gifts he offered, he could not but call to mind "that Agnes's declining hand was always closed, and her looks forbidding, every time he proffered such disrespectful tokens of his love." He recollected the softness which beamed from her eyes, the blush on her face at his approach, while he could never discern one glance of tenderness from the niece of Lord Bendham: and the artificial bloom on her cheeks was nearly as disgusting as the ill-conducted artifice with which she attempted gentleness and love.

But all these impediments were only observed as trials of his fort.i.tude--his prudence could overcome his aversion, and thus he valued himself upon his manly firmness.

'Twas now, that William being rid, by the peevishness of Agnes, most honourably of all future ties to her, and the day of his marriage with Miss Sedgeley being fixed, that Henry, with the rest of the house, learnt what to them was news. The first dart of Henry's eye upon his cousin, when, in his presence, he was told of the intended union, caused a reddening on the face of the latter: he always fancied Henry saw his thoughts; and he knew that Henry in return would give him _his_. On the present occasion, no sooner were they alone, and Henry began to utter them, than William charged him--"Not to dare to proceed; for that, too long accustomed to trifle, the time was come when serious matters could alone employ his time; and when men of approved sense must take place of friends and confidants like him."

Henry replied, "The love, the sincerity of friends, I thought, were their best qualities: these I possess."

"But you do not possess knowledge."

"If that be knowledge which has of late estranged you from all who bear you a sincere affection; which imprints every day more and more upon your features the marks of gloomy inquietude; am I not happier in my ignorance?"

"Do not torment me with your ineffectual reasoning."