Not so Harding: he was restless and worried, and felt that he would give the world to be able to recall the curse which he had rashly uttered against the poor woman. Helpless as she was and in distress, why did his passion conquer his judgment? Why did he add to the bitterness of refusal the sting of malediction? However, it was useless to regret that which was past—and, wearied and mortified with his reflection, he at length followed his better half into that profound slumber, which the length and subject of his harangue had so comfortably ensured her.
The morning came, and brightly beamed the sun—that is, as brightly as it ever beams in London. The office-hour arrived; and Mr. Harding proceeded, not by Charlotte-street, to Somerset-house, such was his dread of seeing the ominous woman. It is impossible to describe the effect produced upon him by the apprehension of encountering her: if he heard a female voice behind him in the street, he trembled, and feared to look round, lest he should behold Martha. In turning a corner he proceeded carefully and cautiously, lest he should come upon her unexpectedly; in short, wherever he went, whatever he did, his actions, his movements, his very words, were controlled and constrained by the horror of beholding her again.
The malediction she had uttered rang incessantly in his ears; nay, such possession had it taken of him, that he had written the words down, and sealed the document which contained them. ‘Thrice you shall see me before you die. My visitings will be dreadful, but the third will be the last.’
‘Calais’ was not more deeply imprinted on our Queen’s heart, than these lines upon that of Mr. Harding; but he was ashamed of the strength of his feelings, and placed the paper wherein he had recorded them at the very bottom of his desk.
Meanwhile Frederick Langdale was unremitting in his attentions to Maria; but, as is too often the case, the bright sunshine of their loves was clouded. Her health, always delicate, now appeared more so, and at times her anxious parents felt a solicitude upon her account, new to them; for decided symptoms of consumption had shown themselves, which the faculty, although they spoke of them lightly to the fond mother and to the gentle patient, treated with such care and caution, as gave alarm to those who could see the progress of the fatal disease, which was unnoticed by Maria herself, who anticipated parties, and pleasure, and gaieties, in the coming spring, which the doctors thought it but too probable she might never enjoy.
That Mr. Langdale’s ‘punctilio,’ or Mrs. Langdale’s excessive desire for apparent juvenility, should have induced the postponement of Maria’s marriage, was, indeed, a melancholy circumstance. The agitation, the surprise, the hope deferred, which weighed upon the sweet girl’s mind, and that doubting dread of something unexpected, which lovers always feel, bore down her spirits, and injured her health; whereas, had the marriage been celebrated, the relief she would have experienced from all her apprehensions, added to the tour of France and Italy, which the happy couple were to make immediately after their union, would have restored her health, while it ensured her happiness. This, however, was not to be.
It was now three months since poor Mr. Harding’s rencontre with Martha; and habit, and time, and constant avocation, had conspired to free his mind from the dread she at first inspired. Again he smiled and joked, again he enjoyed society, and again dared to take the nearest road to Somerset House; nay, he had so far recovered from the unaccountable terror he had originally felt, that he went to his desk, and selecting the paper wherein he had set down the awful denunciation of the hag, deliberately tore it into bits, and witnessed its destruction in the fire, with something like real satisfaction, and a determination never more to think upon so silly an affair.
Frederick Langdale was, as usual, with his betrothed, and Mrs. Harding enjoying the egotism of the lovers, (for, as I said before, lovers think their conversation the most charming in the world, because they talk of nothing but themselves) when his curricle was driven to the door to convey him to Tattersall’s, where his father had commissioned him to look at a horse, or horses, which he intended to purchase; for Frederick was, of all things in the world, the best possible judge of a horse.
To this sweeping dictum, pronounced by the young gentleman himself, Mr. Harding, however, was not willing to assent; and therefore, in order to have the full advantage of two heads, which, as the proverb says, are better than one, the worthy father-in-law elect, proposed accompanying the youth to the auctioneer’s yard at Hyde-Park Corner, it being one of those few privileged days when the labourers in our public offices make holiday. The proposal was hailed with delight by the young man, who, in order to show due deference to Mr. Harding, gave him the reins, and bowing their adieus to the ladies at the window, away they went, the splendid cattle of Mr. Langdale prancing and curvetting, fire flaming from their eyes, and smoke breathing from their nostrils.
The charioteer, however, soon found that the horses were somewhat beyond his strength, even putting his skill wholly out of the question, and in turning into Russell-street, proposed surrendering the reins to Frederick. By some misunderstanding of words in the alarm which Harding felt, Frederick did not take the reins which he (perfectly confounded) tendered to him in great agitation. They slipped over the dashing iron between the horse, who thus freed from restraint, reared wildly in the air, and plunging forward, dashed the vehicle against a post, and precipitated Frederick and Harding on the curbstone; the off-horse kicked desperately as the carriage became entangled and impeded, and struck Frederick a desperate blow on the head. Harding, whose right arm and collar-bone were broken, raised himself on his left hand, and saw Frederick weltering in his blood, apparently lifeless before him. The infuriated animals again plunged forward with the shattered remnant of the carriage, and as this object was removed from his sight, the wretched father-in-law beheld, looking upon the scene with a fixed and unruffled countenance—Martha, the Gipsy.