Tranquillity, said I? That my throbbing heart gainsays. You cannot see me just now, but the palpitating heart infects my fingers, and the unsteady pen will speak to you eloquently.
I wonder how far sympathy possesses you. No doubt--let me see: ten minutes after four,--no doubt you are sound asleep. Care has fled away to some other head. Those invisible communicants, those aerial heralds whose existence, benignity, and seasonable succour are parts, thou knowest, of my creed, are busy in the weaving of some beatific dream. At their bidding the world of thy fancy is circumscribed by four white walls, a Turkey-carpeted floor, and a stuccoed ceiling. Didst ever see such before? Was't ever, in thy wakeful season, in the same apartment? Never! And, what is more, and which I desire thee to note well, thou art not hereafter to enter it except in dreams.
A poor taper burns upon the toilet,--just bright enough to give the cognizance of something in woman's shape and in negligent attire scribbling near it. Thou needst not tap her on the shoulder; she need not look up and smile a welcome to the friendly vision. She knows that thou art here; for is not thy hand already in hers, and is not thy cheek already wet with her tears? for thy poor girl's eyes are as sure to overflow with joy as with sorrow.
And will it be always thus, my dear friend? Will thy love screen me forever from remorse? will my mother's reproaches never intrude amidst the raptures of fondness and poison my tranquillity?
What will she say when she discovers the truth? My conscience will not allow me to dissemble. It will not disavow the name or withhold the duties of a wife. Too well do I conceive what she will say,--how she will act.
I need not apprehend expulsion from her house. Exile will be a voluntary act:--"You shall eat, drink, lodge, and dress as well as ever. I will not sever husband from wife, and I find no pleasure in seeing those whom I most hate perishing with want. I threatened to abandon you, merely because I would employ every means of preventing your destruction; but my revenge is not so sordid as to multiply unnecessary evils on your head. I shall take from you nothing but my esteem,--my affection,--my society. I shall never see you but with agony; I shall never think of you without pain. I part with you forever, and prepare myself for that grave which your folly and ingratitude have dug for me.
"You have said, Jane, that, having lost my favour, you will never live upon my bounty. That will be an act of needless and perverse cruelty in you. It will be wantonly adding to that weight with which you have already sunk me to the grave. Besides, I will not leave you an option. While I live, my watchful care shall screen you from penury in spite of yourself. When I die, my testament shall make you my sole successor. What I have shall be yours,--at least, while you live.
"I have deeply regretted the folly of threatening you with loss of property. I should have known you better than to think that a romantic head like yours would find any thing formidable in such deprivations. If other considerations were feeble, this would be chimerical.
"Fare you well, Jane, and, when you become a mother, may your tenderness never be requited by the folly and ingratitude which it has been my lot to meet with in the child of my affections!"
Something like this has my mother already said to me, in the course of an affecting conversation, in which I ventured to plead for you. And have I, then, resolved to trample on such goodness?