Nature and Art Part 16

This was impossible, he said--"No private confessions before a magistrate! All must be done openly."

She urged again and again the same request: it was denied more peremptorily than at first. On which she said--"Then, sir, forgive me, since you force me to it, if I speak before Mr. Rymer and these men what I would for ever have kept a secret if I could. One of your family is my child's father."

"Any of my servants?" cried the dean.

"No."

"My nephew?"

"No; one who is nearer still."

"Come this way," said the dean; "I _will_ speak to you in private."

It was not that the dean, as a magistrate, distributed partial decrees of pretended justice--he was rigidly faithful to his trust: he would not inflict punishment on the innocent, nor let the guilty escape; but in all particulars of refined or coa.r.s.e treatment he would alleviate or aggravate according to the rank of the offender. He could not feel that a secret was of equal importance to a poor as to a rich person; and while Agnes gave no intimation but that her delicacy rose from fears for herself, she did not so forcibly impress him with an opinion that it was a case which had weighty cause for a private conference as when she boldly said, "a part of _his_ family, very near to him, was concerned in her tale."

The final result of their conversation in an adjoining room was--a charge from the dean, in the words of Mr. Rymer, "to hush the affair up," and his promise that the infant should be immediately taken from her, and that "she should have no more trouble with it."

"I have no trouble with it," replied Agnes: "my child is now all my comfort, and I cannot part from it."

"Why, you inconsistent woman, did you not attempt to murder it?"

"That was before I had nursed it."

"'Tis necessary you should give it up: it must be sent some miles away; and then the whole circ.u.mstance will be soon forgotten."

"_I_ shall never forget it."

"No matter; you must give up the child. Do not some of our first women of quality part with their children?"

"Women of quality have other things to love--I have nothing else."

"And would you occasion my son and his new-made bride the shame and the uneasiness--"

Here Agnes burst into a flood of tears; and being angrily asked by the dean "why she blubbered so--"

"_I_ have had shame and uneasiness," she replied, wringing her hands.

"And you deserve them: they are the sure attendants of crimes such as yours. If you allured and entrapped a young man like my son--"

"I am the youngest by five years," said Agnes.

"Well, well, repent," returned the dean; "repent, and resign your child.

Repent, and you may yet marry an honest man who knows nothing of the matter."

"And repent too?" asked Agnes.

Not the insufferable ignorance of young Henry, when he first came to England, was more vexatious or provoking to the dean than the rustic simplicity of poor Agnes's uncultured replies. He at last, in an offended and determined manner, told her--"That if she would resign the child, and keep the father's name a secret, not only the child should be taken care of, but she herself might, perhaps, receive some favours; but if she persisted in her imprudent folly, she must expect no consideration on her own account; nor should she be allowed, for the maintenance of the boy, a sixpence beyond the stated sum for a poor man's unlawful offspring." Agnes, resolving not to be separated from her infant, bowed resignation to this last decree; and, terrified at the loud words and angry looks of the dean, after being regularly discharged, stole to her home, where the smiles of her infant, and the caresses she lavished on it, repaid her for the sorrows she had just suffered for its sake.

Let it here be observed that the dean, on suffering Agnes to depart without putting in force the law against her as he had threatened, did nothing, as it were, _behind the curtain_. He openly and candidly owned, on his return to Mr. Rymer, his clerk, and the two constables who were attending, "that an affair of some little gallantry, in which he was extremely sorry to say his son was rather too nearly involved, required, in consideration of his recent marriage, and an excellent young woman's (his bride's) happiness, that what had occurred should not be publicly talked of; therefore he had thought proper only to reprimand the hussy, and send her about her business."

The curate a.s.sured the dean, "that upon this, and upon all other occasions, which should, would, or _could_ occur, he owed to his judgment, as his superior, implicit obedience."

The clerk and the two constables most properly said, "his honour was a gentleman, and of course must know better how to act than they."

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

The pleasure of a mother which Agnes experienced did not make her insensible to the sorrow of a daughter.

Her parents had received the stranger child, along with a fabricated tale she told "of its appertaining to another," without the smallest suspicion; but, by the secret diligence of the curate, and the nimble tongues of his elder daughters, the report of all that had pa.s.sed on the subject of this unfortunate infant soon circulated through the village; and Agnes in a few weeks had seen her parents pine away in grief and shame at her loss of virtue.

She perceived the neighbours avoid, or openly sneer at _her_; but that was little--she saw them slight her aged father and mother upon her account; and she now took the resolution rather to perish for want in another part of the country than live where she was known, and so entail an infamy upon the few who loved her. She slightly hoped, too, that by disappearing from the town and neighbourhood some little reward might be allowed her for her banishment by the dean's family. In that she was deceived. No sooner was she gone, indeed, than her guilt was forgotten; but with her guilt her wants. The dean and his family rejoiced at her and her child's departure; but as this mode she had chosen chanced to be no specified condition in the terms proposed to her, they did not think they were bound to pay her for it; and while she was too fearful and bashful to solicit the dean, and too proud (forlorn as she was) to supplicate his son, they both concluded she "wanted for nothing;" for to be poor, and too delicate to complain, they deemed incompatible.

To heighten the sense of her degraded, friendless situation, she knew that Henry had not been unmindful of his promise to her, but that he had applied to his cousin in her and his child's behalf; for he had acquainted her that William's answer was--"all obligations on _his_ part were now undertaken by his father; for that, Agnes having chosen (in a fit of malignity upon his marriage) to apprise the dean of their former intercourse, such conduct had for ever cancelled all attention due from him to her, or to her child, beyond what its bare maintenance exacted."

In vain had Henry explained to him, by a second application, the predicament in which poor Agnes was involved before she consented to reveal her secret to his father. William was happy in an excuse to rid himself of a burthen, and he seemed to believe, what he wished to be true--that she had forfeited all claim to his farther notice.

Henry informed her of this unkind reception of his efforts in her favour in as gentle terms as possible, for she excited his deepest compa.s.sion.

Perhaps our _own_ misfortunes are the cause of our pity for others, even more than _their_ ills; and Henry's present sorrows had softened his heart to peculiar sympathy in woe. He had unhappily found that the ardour which had hurried him to vindicate the reputation of Rebecca was likely to deprive him of the blessing of her ever becoming his proved an offender instead of his wife; for the dean, chagrined that his son was at length nephew, submitted to the temptation of punis.h.i.+ng the latter, while he forgave the former. He sent for Henry, and having coldly congratulated him on his and Rebecca's innocence, represented to him the impropriety of marrying the daughter of a poor curate, and laid his commands on him, "never to harbour such an intention more." Henry found this restriction so severe that he would not promise obedience; but on his next attempt to visit Rebecca he met a positive repulse from her father, who signified to him, "that the dean had forbidden him to permit their farther acquaintance;" and the curate declared "that, for his own part, he had no will, judgment, or faculties, but that he submitted in all things to the superior clergy."

At the very time young Henry had received the proposal from Mr. Rymer of his immediate union with his daughter, and the dean had made no objection Henry waived the happiness for the time present, and had given a reason why he wished it postponed. The reason he then gave had its weight; but he had another concealed, of yet more import. Much as he loved, and looked forward with rapture to that time when every morning, every evening, and all the day, he should have the delight of Rebecca's society, still there was one other wish nearer his heart than this one desire which for years had been foremost in his thoughts, and which not even love could eradicate. He longed, he pined to know what fate had befallen his father. Provided he were living, he could conceive no joy so great as that of seeing him! If he were dead, he was anxious to pay the tribute of filial piety he owed, by satisfying his affectionate curiosity in every circ.u.mstance of the sad event.

While a boy he had frequently expressed these sentiments to both his uncle and his cousin; sometimes they apprised him of the total improbability of accomplis.h.i.+ng his wishes; at other times, when they saw the disappointment weigh heavy on his mind, they bade him "wait till he was a man before he could hope to put his designs in execution." He did wait. But on the very day he arrived at the age of twenty-one, he made a vow--"that to gain intelligence of his father should be the first important act of his free will."

Previously to this time he had made all the inquiries possible, whether any new adventure to that part of Africa in which he was bred was likely to be undertaken. Of this there appeared to be no prospect till the intended expedition to Sierra Leone was announced, and which favoured his hope of being able to procure a pa.s.sage, among those adventurers, so near to the island on which his father was (or had been) prisoner, as to obtain an opportunity of visiting it by stealth.

Fearing contention, or the being dissuaded from his plans if he communicated them, he not only formed them in private, but he kept them secretly; and, his imagination filled with the kindness, the tenderness, the excess of fondness he had experienced from his father, beyond any other person in the world, he had thought with delight on the separation from all his other kindred, to pay his duty to him, or to his revered memory. Of late, indeed, there had been an object introduced to his acquaintance, from whom it was bitter to part; but his designs had been planned and firmly fixed before he knew Rebecca; nor could he have tasted contentment even with her at the expense of his piety to his father.

In the last interview he had with the dean, Henry, perceiving that his disposition towards him was not less harsh than when a few days before he had ordered him on board a vessel, found this the proper time to declare his intentions of accompanying the fleet to Sierra Leone. His uncle expressed surprise, but immediately gave him a sum of money in addition to that he had sent him before, and as much as he thought might defray his expenses; and, as he gave it, by his willingness, his look, and his accent, he seemed to say, "I foresee this is the last you will ever require."

Young William, though a very dutiful son, was amazed when he heard of Henry's project, as "the serious and settled resolution of a man."

Lady Clementina, Lord and Lady Bendham, and twenty others, "wished him a successful voyage," and thought no more about him.

It was for Rebecca alone to feel the loss of Henry; it was for a mind like hers alone to know his worth; nor did this last proof of it, the quitting her for one who claimed by every tie a preference, lessen him in her esteem. When, by a message from him, she became acquainted with his design, much as it interfered with her happiness, she valued him the more for this observance of his duty; the more regretted his loss, and the more anxiously prayed for his return--a return which he, in the following letter, written just before his departure, taught her to hope for with augmented impatience.

"MY DEAR REBECCA,

"I do not tell you I am sorry to part from you--you know I am--and you know all I have suffered since your father denied me permission to see you.

"But perhaps you do not know the hopes I enjoy, and which bestow on me a degree of peace; and those I am eager to tell you.

"I hope, Rebecca, to see you again; I hope to return to England, and overcome every obstacle to our marriage; and then, in whatever station we are placed, I shall consider myself as happy as it is possible to be in this world. I feel a conviction that you would be happy also.

"Some persons, I know, estimate happiness by fine houses, gardens, and parks; others by pictures, horses, money, and various things wholly remote from their own species; but when I wish to ascertain the real felicity of any rational man, I always inquire _whom he has to love_.