Nature and Art

by Mrs. Inchbald

CHAPTER XXXII.

The pleasure of a mother which Agnes experienced did not make her insensible to the sorrow of a daughter.

Her parents had received the stranger child, along with a fabricated tale she told “of its appertaining to another,” without the smallest suspicion; but, by the secret diligence of the curate, and the nimble tongues of his elder daughters, the report of all that had passed on the subject of this unfortunate infant soon circulated through the village; and Agnes in a few weeks had seen her parents pine away in grief and shame at her loss of virtue.

She perceived the neighbours avoid, or openly sneer at her; but that was little—she saw them slight her aged father and mother upon her account; and she now took the resolution rather to perish for want in another part of the country than live where she was known, and so entail an infamy upon the few who loved her. She slightly hoped, too, that by disappearing from the town and neighbourhood some little reward might be allowed her for her banishment by the dean’s family. In that she was deceived. No sooner was she gone, indeed, than her guilt was forgotten; but with her guilt her wants. The dean and his family rejoiced at her and her child’s departure; but as this mode she had chosen chanced to be no specified condition in the terms proposed to her, they did not think they were bound to pay her for it; and while she was too fearful and bashful to solicit the dean, and too proud (forlorn as she was) to supplicate his son, they both concluded she “wanted for nothing;” for to be poor, and too delicate to complain, they deemed incompatible.

To heighten the sense of her degraded, friendless situation, she knew that Henry had not been unmindful of his promise to her, but that he had applied to his cousin in her and his child’s behalf; for he had acquainted her that William’s answer was—“all obligations on his part were now undertaken by his father; for that, Agnes having chosen (in a fit of malignity upon his marriage) to apprise the dean of their former intercourse, such conduct had for ever cancelled all attention due from him to her, or to her child, beyond what its bare maintenance exacted.”

In vain had Henry explained to him, by a second application, the predicament in which poor Agnes was involved before she consented to reveal her secret to his father. William was happy in an excuse to rid himself of a burthen, and he seemed to believe, what he wished to be true—that she had forfeited all claim to his farther notice.

Henry informed her of this unkind reception of his efforts in her favour in as gentle terms as possible, for she excited his deepest compassion. Perhaps our own misfortunes are the cause of our pity for others, even more than their ills; and Henry’s present sorrows had softened his heart to peculiar sympathy in woe. He had unhappily found that the ardour which had hurried him to vindicate the reputation of Rebecca was likely to deprive him of the blessing of her ever becoming his proved an offender instead of his wife; for the dean, chagrined that his son was at length nephew, submitted to the temptation of punishing the latter, while he forgave the former. He sent for Henry, and having coldly congratulated him on his and Rebecca’s innocence, represented to him the impropriety of marrying the daughter of a poor curate, and laid his commands on him, “never to harbour such an intention more.” Henry found this restriction so severe that he would not promise obedience; but on his next attempt to visit Rebecca he met a positive repulse from her father, who signified to him, “that the dean had forbidden him to permit their farther acquaintance;” and the curate declared “that, for his own part, he had no will, judgment, or faculties, but that he submitted in all things to the superior clergy.”

At the very time young Henry had received the proposal from Mr. Rymer of his immediate union with his daughter, and the dean had made no objection Henry waived the happiness for the time present, and had given a reason why he wished it postponed. The reason he then gave had its weight; but he had another concealed, of yet more import. Much as he loved, and looked forward with rapture to that time when every morning, every evening, and all the day, he should have the delight of Rebecca’s society, still there was one other wish nearer his heart than this one desire which for years had been foremost in his thoughts, and which not even love could eradicate. He longed, he pined to know what fate had befallen his father. Provided he were living, he could conceive no joy so great as that of seeing him! If he were dead, he was anxious to pay the tribute of filial piety he owed, by satisfying his affectionate curiosity in every circumstance of the sad event.

While a boy he had frequently expressed these sentiments to both his uncle and his cousin; sometimes they apprised him of the total improbability of accomplishing his wishes; at other times, when they saw the disappointment weigh heavy on his mind, they bade him “wait till he was a man before he could hope to put his designs in execution.” He did wait. But on the very day he arrived at the age of twenty-one, he made a vow—“that to gain intelligence of his father should be the first important act of his free will.”

Previously to this time he had made all the inquiries possible, whether any new adventure to that part of Africa in which he was bred was likely to be undertaken. Of this there appeared to be no prospect till the intended expedition to Sierra Leone was announced, and which favoured his hope of being able to procure a passage, among those adventurers, so near to the island on which his father was (or had been) prisoner, as to obtain an opportunity of visiting it by stealth.