Self-control: A Novel

by Mary Brunton

'Consider all this, and you will at once perceive the reasons which induce me to conceal myself from you for a time. Engagements formed under circumstances now so materially changed I cannot consider as binding. You, I fear, may think otherwise, and be hurried on by your generous nature to tempt a fate which that very turn of mind would render insupportable. My own part in this fate I think I can bear. The share which would fall upon you, I own would crush me to the dust. My spirits are not yet what they have been. I am weary of struggling with a perverse heart, ever leading me aside from duty. I will not lend it arms by exposing myself to entreaties and arguments to which I cannot yield without betraying my best friend to anguish unpitied and hopeless; anguish which would bear with double pressure on myself.

'A stain is fallen on my good name, and "the glory has departed from me." Be it so! He who doth all things well hath chosen my lot, and his choice shall be mine. I trust I shall be enabled to act as becomes one who is degraded in the public eye. I have sometimes shrunk from the approbation of the world—that little circle I mean which we are apt to call the world. Now I will hide me from its censure; and shall find in the duties which peculiarly belong to the fallen—the duties of humility, of charity and of devotion—enough to make life still no unpleasing pilgrimage. A good name has been justly likened to a jewel—precious, not necessary. But if you, my dear friend, covet fame for me, look forward to the time when an assembled universe shall behold my acquittal, when a Judge, before whom the assembled universe is as nothing, shall proclaim me for his own.'

This letter Laura accompanied with another, in which she begged Mrs De Courcy's assistance in reconciling her son to the change in his prospects. Both were inclosed by Mr Douglas to a friend in London, who was directed to forward them by post; thus avoiding any trace of the quarter from whence they came.

Her lot thus chosen, Laura began to make arrangements for entering on a mode of life befitting her situation. Fearing that the shaft of slander should glance aside from herself to the friends who still clung to her, she steadily resisted Mrs Douglas's warm invitations to make the parsonage her home. Her father's little farm at Glenalbert had been annexed to one of larger size. The cottage remained untenanted, and thither Laura determined to retire. Her fortune, however far from affluent, she thought would suffice to support the humble establishment which she meant to retain. One servant was sufficient for her who had been accustomed to make few claims on the assistance of others. To obviate the impropriety of living alone while yet extreme youth made even nominal protection valuable, she invited an elderly widow lady, poor, but respectable, to preside in her household. In necessary preparations for her removal to Glenalbert, in affectionate assiduities to the friends with whom she resided, in compensating to her own poor for her long, though involuntary neglect of their claims, Laura sought a refuge from painful reflection; and, if a sigh arose at the review of her altered prospects, she called to mind her deliverance, and regret was exchanged for thankfulness. The vain might have bewailed a seclusion thus untimely, thus permanent; the worldly-minded might have mourned the forfeiture of earthly prosperity; any spirit unsupported by religion must have sunk under unmerited disgrace, embittered by keen sense of shame and constitutional timidity. Laura was a Christian, and she could even at times rejoice that the spirit of vanity was mortified, the temptations of the world withdrawn; even where the blow was more painful, she humbly believed that it was necessary, and thankfully owned that it was kind.

The arrangements for her new establishment were soon completed, and the time came when Laura was to begin her life of seclusion. The day before her intended removal she completed her twentieth year; and Mrs Douglas would have assembled a little group of friends to celebrate the occasion, but Laura steadily opposed it. 'Let not one who is suspected,' said she, 'assume the boldness of innocence! yet since the suspicion wrongs me I will not wear the melancholy of guilt. Give the children a holiday for my sake, and I shall be as playful and as silly as the youngest of them.' The holiday was granted; and Laura, amidst the joyful noisy little company that soon assembled round her, forgot that she was an outcast.

She was busily searching every corner for the hidden handkerchief, the little rogue who had concealed it in his shoe laughing the while and clapping his hands in delight, when she started at the voice of a stranger in the lobby; who was announcing that he had a letter for Mrs Douglas, which he could deliver to no person but herself. The next moment the stranger was shewn in to the room, and Laura with amazement beheld her American attendant. The amazement on his part was still greater. He started, he trembled, he at first shrunk from Laura, then eagerly advancing towards her, 'Bless my soul, Madam!' he exclaimed, 'are you alive? Then Mary's words are true, and the angels watch over you.'

It was some time before the man's astonishment would permit him to declare his errand. At last when his curiosity had been partially satisfied, he was prevailed upon to enter his narrative. 'You may remember, Madam,' said he, addressing himself to Laura, 'it was the morning we expected my master, (though I told Mary, for a make-believe, that he would not come till evening,) that morning Mary took you out and left you; for which I was mortal angry with her, for my mind misgave me that some mischief would come of it. So she ran down to the place where she left you sitting, but you were not there. Then she looked all about, but she could see you nowhere. She was afraid to go among the canes, for fear of the rattlesnakes, so she ran home and told me. So I went with her, scolding her to be sure all the way. Well we sought and sought, till at last, half in the water, and half on the shore, we found your hat and then to be sure none of us never doubted that you had drowned yourself; and Mary cried and wrung her hands like a distracted creature, saying that my master was a wicked wretch that had broken your heart, and often and often she wished that we could find you to give you Christian burial, for she said she was sure your ghost would never let her rest in her bed. But we had no drags, nor anything to take you up with out of the water. Well, we were just in the midst of all our troubles when my master came. "Well, Robert," says he, in his hearty way, "Where is my angel?" I had not the heart to say a word; so with that Mary ran forward sobbing like a baby, and says she, just off hand, "Miss Montreville is in a watery grave, and I am sure, Sir, some heavy judgment will light on him that drove her to it." So my master stood for a moment thunderstruck, as it were, and then he flew upon us both like a tiger, and shook us till he scarce left breath in us, and swore that it was all a trick, and that he would make us produce you or he would have our lives. So I tried to pacify him the best I could; but Mary answered him, that it was all his own doing, and that he might seek you in the river where he would find your corpse. This put my master quite beside himself; and he catched her up, and flung her from him, just as if she had been a kitten; and then he flew down to the river side, and I followed him, and shewed him where we had found your hat; and explained to him how it was not our fault, for we had both been very civil and given you no disturbance at all, which you know Madam was true. So, close to the place where we found your hat we saw the print of your little shoe in the bank; and when my master saw it he grew quite distracted, crying out that he had murdered you, and that he would revenge you upon a wretch not fit to live (meaning himself, Madam), and so he would have leaped into the river; but by this time one of the servants he brought with him came up, and we forced him back to the house. Then he grew more quiet; and called for Mary, and gave her his purse with all his money, and bid her tell every thing about you, Madam; how you had behaved, and what you had said. So she told him, crying all the while, for she repented from her heart that ever she consented to have any hand in the business. And sometimes he would start away and gnash his teeth, and dash his head against the wall; and sometimes he would bid her go on, that he might run distracted at once and forget all. So she told him that you had written to one Mrs Douglas, in hopes that when you were dead he would take pity on you, (repeating your very words, Madam). Then he asked to see the letter, and he carried it into your room. And there we heard him groaning and speaking to himself, and throwing himself against the walls; and we thought it best to let him come to himself a little and not disturb him. So by and by he called for pen and ink, and I carried them to him, thinking if he wanted to write it was a sign he was growing more calm. Then he continued writing for some time, though now and again we heard him restless as before. At last he opened the door, and called me, "Robert," says he, quite calm and composed like, "if you deliver this packet as directed, you will earn three hundred pounds. But be sure to deliver it with your own hand." I was going to ask him something more about it, for I did not just know what he meant about the £300; but he pushed me out, and shut himself into the room. Then I bethought myself that there was something strange like in his look, and that he was pale, and somehow not like himself. So I went to the kitchen to consult with the rest what we had best do. So I had scarcely got there when I heard a pistol go off, and we all ran and burst open the door, and there we saw my master, Madam, laid out upon Miss Montreville's bed, and the pistol still in his hand; though he was stone dead, Madam, for I suppose the ball had gone right through his heart.'

Laura, dreadfully shocked, and no longer able to listen to this horrible relation, hastened out of the room, leaving Mrs Douglas to hear what yet remained to be told of the history of a man of pleasure!!! The servant proceeded to tell that he and his companions had conveyed their master's body to head-quarters, had seen it buried with military honours, and then had sailed in the first ship for Britain. That remembering the charge to deliver the packet with his own hand, he had come down to Scotland on purpose to execute his trust; and hoped that Mrs Douglas would fulfil his master's promise. He then delivered the packet, which Mrs Douglas opening in his presence, found to contain a bill for £300 in favour of Robert Lewson, not payable without her signature; the two letters which Laura had written during her exile; and the following lines, rendered almost illegible by the convulsive startings of the hand which traced them.

'The angel whom I have murdered, was an angel still. "The destroyer came," but found her not. It was her last wish that you should know her innocence. None can attest it like me. She was purer than heaven's own light. She loved you. There is another, too, whom she protests that she loved to the last—but it was me alone whom she loved with passion. In the anguish of her soul she called it "idolatry;" and the words of agony are true. But I, like a base fool, cast her love away for the heartless toyings of a wanton! And shall I, who might have been so blest, live now to bear the gnawings of this viper—this hell never to be escaped?