To say that I grieved at such weakness, in one whom I had so earnestly desired to love and honor with more than filial affection, would be superfluous: but my surprise would have instantly ceased, had I known who this Wakefield was; with whom my mother had to contend.
Reproach from me however, in word or look, had I been so inclined, she was destined never to receive. The career of pain and pleasure with her was nearly over. On the same day that I made the enquiries I have been repeating, a letter arrived; written not by her, but at her request; which informed me that, if I meant to see her alive, I must use all possible speed: for that she had been suddenly seized with dangerous and intolerable pains; which according to the description given in the letter, were such as I found from enquiry belong to the iliac passion; and that she was then lying at the last extremity.
Two such imperious mandates, requiring my presence in my native county, were not to be disobeyed; and I departed with the utmost diligence. At the last stage, after a journey of unremitted expedition, I ordered the chaise to drive to the house of the late Thornby; where on enquiry I was informed that my mother lay.
I found her in a truly pitiable condition. Quicksilver had been administered, but in vain; and she was so thoroughly exhausted that the sight of me produced but very little emotion. Her medical attendant pronounced she could not survive four-and-twenty hours; and advised that, if there were any business to be settled between us, it should be proceeded upon immediately.
Had this advice been given to persons of certain habits, assuredly, it would not have been neglected; and, perhaps it ought not to have been by me: but, whether I was right or wrong, I could not endure to perplex and disturb the mind of a mother in her last agonies. The consequence was, she expired without hearing a word from me, concerning her husband, Thornby, or the property to which I was heir; and without making any mention whatever herself of the disposal of this property. I was indeed ignorant of what degree of information she could afford me. Her conduct had been so weak that to remind her of it, at such a moment, would, as I supposed, have been to inflict a severe degree of torment.
This, as the reader will learn in time, was not the only shaft by which my tranquillity was to be assaulted. My mother though she was, there was yet another death infinitely more heart-rending hanging over my head. The recollection is anguish that cannot end! Cannot did I say? Absurd mortal. Live for the living; and grieve not for the dead: unless grief could bid them rise from their graves.
I must proceed; and not suffer my feelings thus to anticipate my tale.
Knowing that Wakefield was no other than Belmont, the reader will not be surprised that he should think proper to elude, under these circumstances, the discovery which a meeting must have produced. My mother, actuated by a conviction that death was inevitable, had sent for me without his privity: so that I afterward learned he was in the house, when I drove up to the door: and, seeing me put my head out of the chaise, immediately made his escape through the garden.
A man less fertile in expedients would have found it difficult to forge a plausible pretext, to evade being present and meeting me at the funeral: but he, by pursuing what wore the face of being, and what I believe actually was, very rational conduct, dexterously shunned the rencontre. The following letter, which he wrote to me, will explain by what means.
'Sir,