It may well be imagined what effect a story like this would produce, on the mind of Olivia: corroborated as it was, though not proved in every incident, by the circumstances which she herself had witnessed from the crescent, by those which she gathered on enquiry from other people, by her own experience of my rash impetuosity, and these all heightened by the conjectures of an active imagination, and a heart not wholly uninterested. She hoped indeed that I had not actually killed two men: but she had the most dreadful doubts.
The impression it made upon her did not escape the penetration of the aunt; and she determined to quit Bath, and take Olivia with her, the very next day. Terrified by the possibility that the predictions of Hector and Andrews should be fulfilled, Olivia ventured secretly to instruct her maid to search the book in the pump room, and find my address, and afterward to send her with the twenty-pound bank-bill: hoping that this temporary resource might have some small chance of preventing the fatal consequences which she feared.
Had they returned to London, by the aid of Miss Wilmot and Mary, she might have made further enquiries: but the cautious aunt directed her course to Scarborough.
I was excessively reduced by the fever. According to the physician and apothecary, my life had been in extreme danger; and eight weeks elapsed before I was able to quit Bath. The expences I had incurred amounted to between eight and nine and twenty pounds. I was fully determined to bestow the ten pounds I had originally intended on Clarke. Thus, after distributing such small gifts among the servants as custom and my notion of the manners of a gentleman demanded, the only choice I had was, either to sell my cloaths, or, with four and sixpence in my pocket, to undertake a journey to London on foot.
I preferred the latter, sent my trunk to the waggon, returned for the last time to my lodging, inclosed a ten pound note in a letter, in which I expressed my sense of the worth of Clarke, and my sorrow for the evil I had done him, and, sending it by the maid-servant, I followed, and watched her to his dwelling.
CHAPTER V
The pain of parting: The prospect before me: Poor men have their affections and friendships
During my recovery, I had conversed freely on my own affairs, with Clarke and his wife. They gradually became acquainted with my whole history; and discovered so much interest in the pictures I drew, and entered so sympathetically and with such unaffected marks of passion into all my feelings, that I found not only great ease but considerable delight, in narrating my fears, hopes, and mishaps.
Clarke had a strong understanding; and was not entirely illiterate. His wife was active, cleanly, and kind. Their children were managed with great good sense: the three eldest were put out, two to service, and the other an apprentice; and, large as their family was, they had, by labour and economy, advanced a considerable step from the extreme poverty to which such persons are too often subject.
When I went to take leave of them, I could perceive, not only that they were both very much affected, but that Clarke had something more on his imagination. He had a great respect for my gentility, and learning; and was always afraid of being too familiar. At some moments, he felt as it were the insolence of having fought with me: at others a gleam of exultation broke forth, at his having had that honour. He had several times expressed an earnest wish that he might be so happy as to see me again; and, when I assured him that he should hear from me, his feelings were partly doubt, and partly strong delight.