CHAPTER CCXXV.
THE OLD HAG'S HISTORY.
"I must carry my recollection back between seventeen and eighteen years. Not that it requires any effort to call to mind the leading facts in this sad history; no—no—they are too well impressed upon my memory;—but there are certain details connected with my own position at the time which will need the fullest explanation, in order to show how one like me could have become the friend of Harriet Wilmot.
"At that epoch I kept a boarding-house—a fashionable boarding-house, in a fashionable street at the West End. I was not then ugly and withered as I am now: I had the remains of great beauty—for I was very beautiful when young! I was also of pleasant and agreeable manners, and knew well how to do the honours of a table. You will not therefore be surprised when I tell you that I was a great favourite with the persons who lodged at my establishment, and with the still more numerous visitors. It is true that this establishment was a boarding-house; and it was conducted to all outward appearances, in a most respectable manner. But it had its interior mysteries as well as many other dwellings in this metropolis. The fact is, that I was well known to a large circle of nobles and gentlemen who employed all their leisure time in intrigues and amours. Having been gay myself from fifteen to forty, I was deeply versed in the various modes of entrapping respectable young persons, and even ladies, in the meshes artfully spread to ensure a constant supply of new victims to the lust of those men of pleasure. Having changed my name and thrown a veil as it were over the past, I opened the boarding-house by means of the funds supplied by my patrons, and soon experienced great success. By paying all my tradesmen with the utmost punctuality, I acquired a good character in the neighbourhood; for your tradesmen can always make or mar you, their shops being the scandal-marts where all reports, favourable or unfavourable, are put into circulation; and as they consider that those who pay well must necessarily be respectable, regularity on that point is certain to ensure their advantageous opinion. Having thus founded the respectability of my establishment, the rest was easy enough. The calculations made by myself and patrons were these:—Boarding-houses are usually inhabited by ladies possessing incomes which, though derived from sources that are sure, are too small to enable them to set up in housekeeping for themselves. Elderly widows with their daughters,—young widows who, coming from the country or from abroad, are strangers in London, but who wish to marry again, and therefore seek that society which is most easily entered,—friendless orphans who possess small annuities,—aunts and their nieces,—grandmothers with their grand-daughters,—these are the class of ladies who principally support boarding-houses. Thus there is always a large proportion of young ladies in those establishments; and out of a dozen there are sure to be three or four very good-looking. There can now be no difficulty in understanding the motives which induced my patrons to place me at the head of a boarding-house.
"I must now record the plan of operations. In all boarding-houses the number of ladies preponderates greatly over that of gentlemen. My average was usually about twenty ladies and four or five gentlemen. Three times every week we had music and dancing in the evening; and as there was a lack of beaux, I of course supplied the deficiency by inviting 'some highly respectable gentlemen with whom I had the honour to be acquainted.' These were of course my patrons; and when they were at the house they always took care to treat me with a proper politeness, as if all they knew of me was highly to my credit and honour. They thus became constant visitors, and were enabled to improve their acquaintance with any of the young ladies whom they fancied. As they were very attentive also to the elderly ladies, and as good wine and negus were never spared upon those occasions, the mammas, aunts, and grandmammas were very fond of our evenings' entertainments, and considered the gentlemen whom I invited to be 'the most delightful creatures in the world.' Sometimes rubbers of whist would vary the amusements; and as my patrons were not only all rich, but had their own private purposes to serve in frequenting my house, they allowed the old ladies to cheat them without manifesting the least ill will; or else they actually played badly to enable the said old ladies to win. It was therefore impossible that they could have failed to become especial favourites; and of these advantages they availed themselves in their designs upon the young ladies.
"The lodgers in boarding-houses are always mean and avaricious. The smallness of their incomes does not permit them to indulge largely in their natural taste for dress; and yet nowhere do females maintain such desperate struggles to appear fine in their apparel. Thus the ladies in boarding-houses can easily be persuaded to accept of presents; and of these my patrons were by no means sparing. A gold chain was a certain passport to a young lady's favour; and a velvet or silk dress would secure the good opinion of the aunt or grandmamma, and even of the mamma. Moreover, when one of my patrons appeared particularly attentive to any young lady, she concluded of course that his intentions were honourable; and in a very short time she became his victim. In a word, my boarding-house, though ostensibly so respectable, was nothing more nor less than a brothel conducted with regard to outward decencies, and carefully hushing up scandals that occurred within.
"I must now proceed to the principal topic of my history. It was, as I said, between seventeen and eighteen years ago, that the Marquis of Holmesford, who was one of my best patrons, called upon me and said that he had seen a beautiful young woman enter a humble lodging-house in a street not far from my own; and he directed me to institute inquiries concerning her. I did so; and in due course ascertained that her name was Harriet Wilmot—that she lived with her father in poor lodgings—and that they were by no means well off. I managed to get acquainted with Harriet, and called upon her. Her father was very ill—dying, indeed, of a broken heart, through losses in business. It moreover appeared that he had arrived in London only a short time before, and with a small sum of ready money, which he embarked in a little speculation that totally failed. They were sorely pressed by penury when I thus sought them out; and as I then knew well how to offer assistance in a delicate manner that could give no offence, I was looked upon by the poor young woman as an angel sent to minister to the wants of her dying father. The Marquis supplied me liberally with the means of thus aiding them; and I called regularly every day.
"My plan was to instil into Harriet's mind elevated notions of the position which she ought to reach through the medium of her personal attractions. I told her of great lords who had fallen in love with females in obscure stations, and who had married them; and as I also supplied Harriet with clothes, I took good care that they should be of such a nature as was calculated to engender ideas of finery. But all my arts failed to corrupt the pure mind of Miss Wilmot: she listened to me with respect—never with interest;—she wore the garments that I gave her, because she had none others. I saw that it was no use to think of introducing the Marquis to her immediately; and such was the passion he had conceived for her, that he did not become lukewarm with delay.
"In three weeks after I first became acquainted with the Wilmots, the old man died. The purse of the Marquis supplied, through my agency, the means of respectable interment; and when the first week of mourning was over, I touched gently upon Harriet's situation. She threw herself into my arms, called me her benefactress and only friend, and thanked me for my kindness towards her deceased father and herself, in such sincere—such ardent—and yet such artless terms, that for the first time in my life I experienced a remorse at the treacherous part I was playing. Harriet declared that she could not possibly think of being a burden to me, and implored me to follow up my goodness towards her by procuring her a menial situation—as she was determined to go out to service. I told her I would consider what I could do for her; and I went away more than half resolved to gratify her wish and place her beyond the reach of the Marquis by obtaining for her a situation through the means of my tradesmen. But when I reached my own house, I found the Marquis waiting for me; and he was so liberal with his gold, and so useful to me as my best patron, that I did not dare offend him. I accordingly hushed my scruples, and communicated to him all that had just occurred. He directed me to get Harriet into my house on any terms, and leave the rest to him. I was over-persuaded; and the next day I went to Harriet, and said to her 'My dear child, I have been thinking of your wish to earn your own living; and I have a proposal to make to you. I require a young person to act as my housekeeper: will you take the place? You shall have your own room to yourself; and I will make you as comfortable as I can.' The tears of gratitude and the tokens of affection towards me, with which that friendless young woman met my offer, actually wrung my heart. I wept myself—yes, I wept myself! And I weep now, too, as all those memories return to me with overwhelming force.
"Harriet Wilmot thus entered my service. But the very same day that she came into my house, I was attacked with a sudden and malignant fever, which threw me upon a sick bed. For ten days I was insensible to all that was passing around me; and when I awoke from that mental darkness, I found Harriet by my bed-side. For ten days and ten nights had she watched near me, scarcely snatching a few moments' repose in the arm-chair. She was pale and wan with long vigils; but how her beautiful countenance lighted up with the animation of joy, when the physician declared that I should recover. And this same physician assured me that I owed my life more to the care of the faithful Harriet than to his skill. I was overwhelmed by this demonstration of so much gratitude on her part; and I determined to place her beyond the reach of danger the moment I was convalescent.
"But when I recovered, and was once more involved in the bustle and intrigues of my business, my good resolutions rapidly vanished—for the gold and the patronage of the Marquis of Holmesford were so necessary to me! The Marquis now became a more constant visitor than ever at the house; and he found opportunities to pay his attentions to Harriet. But she did not comprehend his hints; and he soon spoke more boldly. Then she grew alarmed: still, as she afterwards told me, she did not choose to annoy me by complaints; and she contented herself by shunning the Marquis as much as possible. At length, one evening, when inflamed with wine, he forced his way into her chamber, and declared his views in such unequivocal terms, that the poor creature could no longer support his importunities. She indignantly commanded him to leave her: he grew bolder, and attempted violence. She escaped from him, and quitted the house. From a lodging which she immediately took, she wrote me a letter, detailing the insults she had endured, reiterating all her former expressions of gratitude towards me, acquitting me of all blame in the transaction, but declaring that, as she supposed I could not prevent the Marquis from visiting at the house, she must respectfully but firmly decline remaining in my service. I hastened to her, and was not very urgent in my desire that she should return; for I remembered her goodness to me when I was ill, and my heart was softened in her favour. By means of one of my tradesmen she almost immediately obtained a situation as nursery-maid in a family residing at Lower Holloway. I kept this circumstance concealed from the Marquis of Holmesford, to whom I declared that I knew not whither she was gone; and it was impossible that he could now blame me, as he himself had driven her by his rashness from my house.