Oh, Sir, had I not indeed cause to dread this interview?-an
interview so
unspeakably painful and afflicting to us both! Mrs. Selwyn would have
immediately returned to Clifton; but I entreated her to wait some time,
in the hope that my unhappy father, when his first emotion was over,
would again bear me in his sight. However, he soon after sent his
servant to enquire how I did; and to tell Mrs. Selwyn he was much
indisposed, but would hope for the honour of seeing her to-morrow,
at any time she would please to appoint.
She fixed upon ten o’clock in the morning; and then, with a heavy
heart, I
got into the chariot. Those afflicting words, I can see her no
more! were never a moment absent from my mind.
Yet the sight of Lord Orville, who handed us from the carriage,
gave some
relief to the sadness of my thoughts. I could not, however, enter
upon the painful subject; but, begging Mrs. Selwyn to satisfy him,
I went to my own room.
As soon as I communicated to the good Mrs. Clinton the present
situation of
my affairs, an idea occurred to her which seemed to clear up all the
mystery of my having been so long disowned.
The woman, she says, who attended my ever-to-be-regretted mother in
her last
illness, and who nursed me the first four months of my life, soon
after being discharged from your house, left Berry Hill entirely,
with her baby, who was but six weeks older than myself. Mrs. Clinton
remembers, that her quitting the place appeared, at the time, very
extraordinary to the neighbours; but, as she was never heard of
afterwards, she was by degrees quite forgotten.
The moment this was mentioned, it struck Mrs. Selwyn, as well as
Mrs. Clinton
herself, that my father had been imposed upon; and that the nurse, who
said she had brought his child to him, had, in fact, carried her own.
The name by which I was known, the secrecy observed in regard to
my family,
and the retirement in which I lived, all conspired to render this
scheme, however daring and fraudulent, by no means impracticable; and,
in short, the idea was no sooner started, than conviction seemed to
follow it.
Mrs. Selwyn determined immediately to discover the truth or mistake
of this
conjecture; therefore, the moment she had dined, she walked to the
Hot Wells, attended by Mrs. Clinton.
I waited in my room till her return; and then heard the following
account of
her visit:
She found my poor father in great agitation. She immediately informed
him of
the occasion of her so speedy return, and of her suspicions of the
woman who had pretended to convey to him his child. Interrupting her
with quickness, he said he had just sent her from his presence; that
the certainty I carried in my countenance of my real birth, made him,
the moment he had recovered from a surprise which had almost deprived
him of reason, suspect, himself, the imposition she mentioned. He
had therefore sent for the woman, and questioned her with the utmost
austerity; she turned pale, and was extremely embarrassed; but still
she persisted in affirming, that she had really brought him the
daughter of Lady Belmont. His perplexity, he said, almost distracted
him: he had always observed, that his daughter bore no resemblance
to either of her parents; but, as he had never doubted the veracity
of the nurse, this circumstance did not give birth to any suspicion.