Despite her endeavors, her spiritual recovery was slow. A cry of agony still rang through her letters. But she had at least one pleasure that helped to soften her cares. This was her love for her child, which, always great, was increased by Imlay’s cruelty. The tenderness which he by his indifference repulsed, she now lavished upon Fanny. She seemed to feel that she ought to make amends for the fact that her child was, to all intents and purposes, fatherless. In the same letter from which the above passage is taken, there is this little outburst of maternal affection:—
“I grow more and more attached to my little girl, and I cherish this affection with fear, because it must be a long time before it can become bitterness of soul. She is an interesting creature. On ship-board how often, as I gazed at the sea, have I longed to bury my troubled bosom in the less troubled deep; asserting, with Brutus, ‘that the virtue I had followed too far was merely a name!’ and nothing but the sight of her—her playful smiles, which seemed to cling and twine round my heart—could have stopped me.”
It so happened that at one time she was obliged to leave her child with her nurse for about a month. Business called her to Tönsberg in Norway, and the journey would have been bad for Fanny, who was cutting her teeth. “I felt more at leaving my child than I thought I should,” she wrote to Imlay, “and whilst at night I imagined every instant that I heard the half-formed sounds of her voice, I asked myself how I could think of parting with her forever, of leaving her thus helpless.” Here indeed was a stronger argument against suicide than Christianity or its “aftershine.” This absence stimulated her motherly solicitude and heightened her sense of responsibility. In her appeals to Imlay to settle upon his future course in her regard, she now began to dwell upon their child as the most important reason to keep them together. On the 30th of July she wrote from Tönsberg:—
“I will try to write with a degree of composure. I wish for us to live together, because I want you to acquire an habitual tenderness for my poor girl. I cannot bear to think of leaving her alone in the world, or that she should only be protected by your sense of duty. Next to preserving her, my most earnest wish is not to disturb your peace. I have nothing to expect, and little to fear, in life. There are wounds that can never be healed; but they may be allowed to fester in silence without wincing.”
On the 7th of August she wrote again in the same strain:—
“This state of suspense, my friend, is intolerable; we must determine on something, and soon; we must meet shortly, or part forever. I am sensible that I acted foolishly, but I was wretched when we were together. Expecting too much, I let the pleasure I might have caught, slip from me. I cannot live with you, I ought not, if you form another attachment. But I promise you, mine shall not be intruded on you. Little reason have I to expect a shadow of happiness, after the cruel disappointments that have rent my heart; but that of my child seems to depend on our being together. Still, I do not wish you to sacrifice a chance of enjoyment for an uncertain good. I feel a conviction that I can provide for her, and it shall be my object, if we are indeed to part to meet no more. Her affection must not be divided. She must be a comfort to me, if I am to have no other, and only know me as her support. I feel that I cannot endure the anguish of corresponding with you, if we are only to correspond. No; if you seek for happiness elsewhere, my letters shall not interrupt your repose. I will be dead to you. I cannot express to you what pain it gives me to write about an eternal separation. You must determine. Examine yourself. But, for God’s sake! spare me the anxiety of uncertainty! I may sink under the trial; but I will not complain.”
He seems to have written to her regularly. At times she reproached him for not letting her hear from him, but at others she acknowledged the receipt of three and five letters in one morning. If these had been preserved, hers would not seem as importunate as they do now, for he gave her reason to suppose that he was anxious for a reunion, and wrote in a style which she told him she may have deserved, but which she had not expected from him. She also referred to his admission that her words tortured him; and there was talk of a trip together to Switzerland. But at the same time his proofs of indifference forced her to declare that she and pleasure had shaken hands. “How often,” she breaks out in her agony, “passing through the rocks, I have thought, ‘But for this child, I would lay my head on one of them, and never open my eyes again!’” The only particular in which he remained firm was his unwillingness to give a final decision in what, to her, was the one all-important matter. His vacillating behavior was heartless in the extreme. Her suspense became unbearable, and all her letters contained entreaties for him to relieve it. She was ready, once he said the word, to undertake to support her child and herself. But the fiat must come from him. Had it remained entirely with her she would have returned to him. But this she could not do unless he would receive her as his wife and promise loyalty to her. “I do not understand you,” she wrote on the 6th of September, in answer to one of his letters. “It is necessary for you to write more explicitly, and determine on some mode of conduct. I cannot endure this suspense. Decide. Do you fear to strike another blow? We live together, or eternally apart! I shall not write to you again till I receive an answer to this.”
Finally, after allowing her to suffer three months of acute agony, he summoned up resolution enough to write and tell her he would abide by her decision. Her business in the North had been satisfactorily settled, for which she was, alas! to receive but poor thanks; and the welfare of the child having now become the pivot of her actions, she returned to England. From Dover she sent him a letter informing him that she was prepared once more to make his home hers:—
You say I must decide for myself. I have decided that it was most for the interest of my little girl, and for my own comfort, little as I expect, for us to live together; and I even thought that you would be glad some years hence, when the tumult of business was over, to repose in the society of an affectionate friend, and mark the progress of our interesting child, whilst endeavoring to be of use in the circle you at last resolved to rest in, for you cannot run about forever.
From the tenor of your last letter, however, I am led to imagine that you have formed some new attachment. If it be so, let me earnestly request you to see me once more, and immediately. This is the only proof I require of the friendship you profess for me. I will then decide, since you boggle about a mere form.