'From the day she left us, Sir, we saw no more of our dear child for two years; but sad was the tale that reached us before she had been gone a month. Think of her wrongs, Sir. The man who had taken her to be parted but by death, left her the very next day after he had robbed scores of honest sighing hearts of the chance of proving the sincerity of their love by a life of cherishing and devotion.'
'God forgive him!' said David, 'for I fear I never can.'
'The gallows pardon him, for I never would,' cried I, in an ecstasy of vengeance and regret. 'And what became of the deserted wife?'
Bessum, who had for nearly an hour stifled the feelings to which she was all that time hankering to give vent, finding this either too seasonable or powerful an occasion to resist, burst into tears, while David, as a counterpoise to the grief which he had heretofore monopolized, evinced a well-timed symptom of stoicism, by folding up his handkerchief at least three times as small as the usual dimensions to which laundresses or common consent have established, time out of mind, a limit; and then thrusting it into the salt-box pocket of his coat, as being the last place, at that particular crisis, to which, under the influence of his senses, he certainly must have intended its destination.
'I shall make short work of the rest on't, I promise you, Sir,' sobbed the tender-hearted foster-mother; 'it be n't much use to dwell upon the finish.'
'End it at once,' said I, impatient of farther melancholy detail.
'Twenty-four hours had not passed, Sir, after the heartless fellow had become a husband, before he was aboard ship, and on his way to the East Indies. He had completed his bargain; he had married our blessed child, and received his wages for the job. He took her to the house of one of his relations, near London, and without telling her whither he was going, or when, if ever, he should return, left her as I have described. Fancy her sufferings, Sir; think what she felt, when she found herself a widow before she was fairly a wife. Oh, my heart bleeds when I recollect her wrongs! Well, Sir, she pined and fretted till those with whom she lived would fain have got rid of her; and it was not long before they had their wish.'
'And did the poor child die of her distress?' said I; 'alas! so young!'
'Not just then, Sir; you'll scarcely think that the worst of her troubles had yet to come, but so it was. As fate would have it, she was one day met and followed home by a gentleman who, she couldn't help observing, appeared so struck with her, that though he did not offer to speak to her, seemed determined upon finding where she lived. Every day, for more than a week, did he watch the house nearly all day long; and when at last she went out of doors, he made the best of the opportunity, and began in the most woful manner to tell her how much he loved her, and what he was suffering on her account; and to beg and pray of her not to be angry with him for what he couldn't help. Well, Sir, he spoke so mild and respectful, and seemed so truly miserable, that the wretched widow couldn't for the life of her speak harshly to him, and so she made no answer at all. He told her that he saw she had something on her mind that distressed her, and said he was certain he could make her happy, and that not even her displeasure should make him cease from the attempt. And sure enough, to her, poor thing, he seemed to be as good as his word; for though she forbade him to approach her in any way again, still he hovered about the house as much as ever, and wrote such letters, telling of his misery and anxiety on her account, that, tired out by the ill treatment of those to whose tender mercies she was abandoned; sinking under the pangs of her desertion, and beset by the arts and entreaties of a fine young man, who seemed to speak so fairly for her comfort and good; in an evil hour, the poor deluded and distracted creature flew to his arms for that protection which in vain was pledged her by a husband.
'I have already told you, that in my opinion she never had a thought of any love for the man she had married; it is not to be wondered at, then, that one who at least professed to be all that a husband should be, found no great difficulty or delay in gaining her affections and confidence in return. In short, her young heart, that had never before known the feeling, was now fixed upon this man with all the fondness and devotion of a first love. It was no hard matter for him, therefore, to persuade her to whatever he liked; and the first advice he gave her for her good was, to take a house in the neighborhood of one of the parks, which he made his home; eating, drinking, and riding about at her expense. For twelve or fourteen months, this was a life of uninterrupted happiness for our poor Harri. She had quiet or company, as she liked, and the society of one whom she loved to madness. She didn't trouble herself about what folks called the meanness of a man in a profession being clothed and kept by a woman; so long as there was the money, what mattered which had it, or which laid it out? This was the argument of a doating girl; and the best proof that it was a sufficient one is, that she was content. The first sign of an interruption to the joys that alas! are always too dearly bought at the sacrifice she had made, was the news of the arrival in England of her husband; and within two days after that, his appearance at her house. Here was a fine to do indeed! She was alone in her drawing-room, and no one else in the house but the two maid servants. In vain did she resist, and entreat him. By main force he carried her out of the house, put her into a hackney-coach, without bonnet or shawl, and drove away with her to the house of his mother. That man was born to be her torment and ruin. He had left her when he ought most to have been in her company, and he returned when his desertion had driven her, in misery and despair, to seek for happiness in the expectation of which with him he had deceived her; to disturb the comfort his heartlessness had neglected to afford her. Don't fancy that he loved her, Sir; 'twas no such thing, as I shall soon make clear to you. However, not six hours after she had been taken away, the dear child was home again, and in the arms of the man for whom she would have risked her life. Here was devotion, Sir. She got out of a one pair of stairs' window, by letting herself down with the bed clothes, as far as they would reach, and by jumping the rest; and just as she had been taken from her home, without a bit of out-door covering, off she set, in the cold and wet of a December night, and had to walk for full a mile and a half, before she got the coach that carried her home. Did her husband love her, Sir? Day after day he rode or walked past the house, and sent letters to her; but never once offered to seek out the man who kept his wife from him. Can he have loved her, Sir, to leave her in the quiet possession of another, and take himself off again to the Indies? So much for the husband, and now for the lover, as he called himself.