ELIZABETH INCHBALD
A Simple Story
The maiden name of Mrs. Inchbald, actress, novelist, dramatist, and society favourite, was Elizabeth Simpson, and she was the daughter of a farmer living near Bury St. Edmunds, where she was born on October 15, 1753. At the age of eighteen she ran away to London, under the influence of romantic expectations, which were realised by a sudden marriage with Joseph Inchbald, the actor. After seventeen years on the stage, without attaining conspicuous success, Mrs. Inchbald retired, and devoted herself to the writing of novels and plays and the collection of theatrical literature. Her first novel, written in 1791, was "A Simple Story." With "Nature and Art," a tale written later, it has kept a place among the fiction that is reprinted for successive generations. In later years Mrs. Inchbald lived quietly on her savings, retaining a flattering social position by her beauty and cleverness. She died on August 1, 1821.
I.--The Priest's Ward
Dorriforth, bred at St. Omer's in all the scholastic rigour of that college, was, by education and the solemn vows of his order, a Roman Catholic priest. He was about thirty, and refusing to shelter himself from the temptations of the layman by the walls of a cloister, but finding that shelter in his own prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance, had lived in London near five years, when a gentleman with whom he had contracted a most sincere friendship died, and left him the sole guardian of his daughter, who was then eighteen.
It is in this place proper to remark that Mr. Milner was a member of the Church of Rome, but his daughter had been educated in her dead mother's religion at a boarding-school for Protestants, whence she had returned with her little heart employed in all the endless pursuits of personal accomplishments, and her mind left without one ornament, except such as nature gave.
She had been visiting at Bath when her father died. Therefore, Mr. Dorriforth, together with Miss Woodley, the middle-aged niece of the widow lady, Mrs. Horton, who kept his house, journeyed midway to meet her. But when the carriage stopped at the inn-gate, and her name was announced, he turned pale--something like a foreboding of disaster trembled at his heart--and Miss Woodley was obliged to be the first to welcome his lovely charge--lovely beyond description.
But the natural vivacity, the gaiety which report had given to Miss Milner, were softened by her recent sorrow to a meek sadness. The instant Dorriforth was introduced to her as her "guardian, and her deceased father's most beloved friend," she burst into tears, and kneeling before him, promised ever to obey him as a father. She told him artlessly she had expected him to be elderly and plain. He was somewhat embarrassed, but replied that she should find him a plain man in all his actions; and in the conversation which followed, in which she had somewhat lightly referred to his faith, begged that religion should not be named between them, for, as he had resolved never to persecute her, in pity she should be grateful, and not persecute him.
Among the many visitors who attended her levées during the following weeks was Lord Frederick Lawnly, whose intimacy with her Dorriforth beheld with alternate pain and pleasure. He wished to see his charge married, yet he trembled for her happiness under the care of a young nobleman immersed in all the vices of the town. His uneasiness made him desire her to forbid Lord Frederick's visits, who, alarmed, confounded, and provoked, remonstrated passionately.