Some of the servants were gone for a surgeon, whilst others were endeavouring to stop the effusion of blood.
He faintly opened his eyes, and casting them on me with a look of infinite sweetness, addressed me in the following manner, in a voice hardly audible: “Whatever, my dear Frederick, was your motive for a conduct so precipitate and rash, be assured I heartily forgive you; and am certain, mistake and fatal misapprehension were the cause of my death!” Here he stopped. The horror and distraction of my thoughts were so great, that, had not my servants prevented, I should have plunged the fatal sword in my own breast! By force they wrested it from me; and I was doomed to bear a wretched existence! I threw myself at the feet of Lord Somerset, and entreated his pardon.
My agonies were so great that before I could inform him of the truth, I was again deprived of my senses. I remember no more, than that after having been a long time confined to my chamber, I recovered to endless remorse!
The excess of my grief threw me into a violent fever which continued a month; during which time my wife and lord Somerset breathed their last! The latter lived only three days after the fatal wound he had received from me. He had a paper drawn up in which he solemnly attested my innocence, and acquitted me of his death. I found he had been acquainted with my jealousy of lord Ashford, by the villain who was hired by that scandal to nobility; the servant who had informed me of his lordship’s visit’s to my wife, was the detested creature of this wretch; and these falsities had been invented merely to disturb our domestic harmony; to which the appearance of his comrade in iniquity the day I had been hunting had greatly added, joined also to his evasive conduct. These particulars lord Somerset had been informed of by a letter from the abandoned fellow, who had left the kingdom, as his vile employer soon after did. But though my grief on the death of my Edward was little short of madness, yet the fate of my unhappy wife, rent my heart-strings! that angelic sufferer, on recovering from her fainting, immediately fell into strong labour; and after continuing in the utmost agony for a whole day and night, expired with her unhappy infant ere she had given it birth.
She left her forgiveness for him who had destroyed her and her brother. I am unable to describe the melancholy situation in which I was involved.
Several times I was tempted to end my miserable being; but some remains of conscience being left, I dared not rush into the presence of my Maker, uncalled for. I was greatly assisted in my resolution of enduring life, by the worthy Mr. Harpur,
who on hearing of my melancholy situation, left his family and came to my house.
The world by his prudent management remained uninformed of my misfortunes; supposing my wife died of a fever in her lying-in, and Lord Somerset of an apoplectic fit. I wrote to lady Somerset the melancholy account of my folly and rashness, and intreated her pardon, as she valued the peace of my soul. But alas! she lived not to grant it me: her sorrow for the loss of her children, joined to her ill state of health soon brought her to the grave! Thus had the violence of my passions destroyed three persons dearer to me than the whole world. Mr. Harpur would have persuaded me to leave Trout-Hall, as the scene of my wretchedness, only aided the poignancy of my sufferings, but all his arguments were vain: I was resolved to dedicate my life to penitence on that mournful spot. I accordingly built a retreat in the park and never after left it except once a year, when I forsook my humble habitation, to spend a few hours in the house where my greatest misery was compleated. I generally distributed a large sum of money to the poor inhabitants of the neighbourhood on that day, and in the evening returned to my cottage. I hope my sincere repentance and sorrow for my crimes may have atoned for them to that power whose blessings I had so infinitely abused. For twenty years I lived uninterrupted by any mortal save the good Mr. Harpur, who sometimes came and spent half an hour at my solitary residence. Here I lived and enjoyed more content than I ever thought could have fallen to my lot, after the miseries of my former life. As my prayers for mercy and pardon, at the throne of Heaven, have been real and sincere, so I trust I shall be forgiven, and whenever it shall please the deity to call me hence, I shall rejoice to obey his summons, hoping I shall have peace in a better world, and my error totally obliterated.
One thing I should have mentioned, which is, that the twenty-fifth year of my retirement, I made Mr. Harpur a present of thirty thousand pounds, and left my estate to a distant branch of my family, the only surviving relations I had. I begged my worthy friend to have my remains deposited in a tomb that should be erected in my convent, as I was used to call my residence. This, I have no doubt he will see performed, and may the melancholy incidents of my life warn them who shall see this manuscript, against the blameable use of reason. Had I suffered mine to have had its proper influence, I had not been plunged in such uncommon distress.
“The History of Mr. Elliot, or The Fatal Mistake” (pg. [277], 284, 293)