The Father and Daughter 12

The Father and Daughter 12

But Agnes soon after began to wonder at an obvious change in Fanny. At

first, when Agnes returned from visiting her father, Fanny used to

examine her countenance: and she could learn from that, without asking a

single question, whether Fitzhenry seemed to show any new symptoms of

amendment, or whether his insanity still appeared incurable. If the

former, Fanny, tenderly pressing her hand, would say, "Thank God!" and

prepare their dinner or supper with more alacrity than usual: if the

latter, Fanny would say nothing; but endeavour, by bringing little

Edward to her, or by engaging her in conversation, to divert the gloom

which she could not remove: and Agnes, though she took no notice of

these artless proofs of affection, observed and felt them deeply; and as

she drew near the house, she always anticipated them as one of the

comforts of her home.

 

But, for some days past, Fanny had discontinued this mode of welcome so

grateful to the feelings of Agnes, and seemed wholly absorbed in her

own. She was silent, reserved, and evidently oppressed with some anxiety

which she was studious to conceal. Once or twice, when Agnes came

home rather sooner than usual, she found her in tears; and when she

affectionately asked the reason of them, Fanny pleaded mere lowness of

spirits as the cause.

 

But the eye of anxious affection is not easily blinded. Agnes was

convinced that Fanny's misery had some more important origin; and,

secretly fearing that it proceeded from her, she was on the watch for

something to confirm her suspicions.

 

One day, as she passed through the room where Fanny kept her school,

Agnes observed that the number of her scholars was considerably

diminished; and when she asked Fanny where the children whom she missed

were, there was a confusion and hesitation in her manner, while she

made different excuses for their absence, which convinced Agnes that she

concealed from her some unwelcome truth.

 

A very painful suspicion immediately darted across her mind, the truth

of which was but too soon confirmed. A day or two after, while again

passing through the school-room, she was attracted by the beauty of a

little girl, who was saying her lesson; and, smoothing down her curling

hair, she stooped to kiss her ruddy cheek: but the child, uttering a

loud scream, sprang from her arms, and, sobbing violently, hid her face

on Fanny's lap. Agnes, who was very fond of children, was much hurt by

symptoms of a dislike so violent towards her, and urged the child to

give a reason for such strange conduct: on which the artless girl owned

that her mother had charged her never to touch or go near Miss

Fitzhenry, because she was the most wicked woman that ever breathed.

 

Agnes heard this new consequence of her guilt with equal surprise

and grief; but, on looking at Fanny, though she saw grief in her

countenance, there was no surprise in it; and she instantly told her she

was convinced that the loss of her scholars was occasioned by her having

allowed her to reside with her. Fanny, bursting into tears, at last

confessed that her suspicions were just; while to the shuddering Agnes

she unfolded a series of persecutions which she had undergone from her

employers, because she had declared her resolution of starving, rather

than drive from her house her friend and benefactress.

 

Agnes was not long in forming her resolution; and the next morning,

without saying a word to Fanny on the subject, she went out in search

of a lodging for herself and child--as gratitude and justice forbade her

to remain any longer with her persecuted companion.

 

But after having in vain tried to procure a lodging suitable to the low

state of her finances, or rather to her saving plan, she hired a little

cottage on the heath above the town, adjoining to that where she had

been so hospitably received in the hour of her distress; and having

gladdened the hearts of the friendly cottager and his wife by telling

them that she was coming to be their neighbour, she went to break the

unwelcome tidings to Fanny.

 

Passionate and vehement indeed was her distress at hearing that her

young lady, as she still persisted to call her, was going to leave her:

but her expostulations and tears were vain; and Agnes, after promising

to see Fanny every day, took possession that very evening of her humble

habitation.

 

But her intention in removing was frustrated by the honest indignation

and indiscretion of Fanny. She loudly raved against the illiberality

which had robbed her of the society of all that she held dear; and, as

she told every one that Agnes left her by her own choice and not at her

desire, those children who had been taken away because Agnes resided

with her were not sent back to her on her removal. At last the number of

her scholars became so small, that she gave up school-keeping, and

employed herself in shawl-working only; while her leisure time was spent

in visiting Agnes, or in inveighing, to those who would listen to her,

against the cruelty that had driven her young lady from her house.

 

Fanny used to begin by relating the many obligations which her mother

and she had received from Agnes and her father, and always ended with

saying, "Yet to this woman, who saved me and mine from a workhouse, they

wanted me to refuse a home when she stood in need of one! They need not

have been afraid of her being too happy! Such a mind as hers can never

be happy under the consciousness of having been guilty; and could she

ever forget her crime, one visit to her poor father would make her

remember it again."

 

Thus did Fanny talk, as I said before, to those who would listen to her;

and there was one auditor who could have listened to her for ever on

this subject, and who thought Fanny looked more lovely while expressing

her affection for her penitent mistress, and pleading her cause with a

cheek flushed with virtuous indignation, and eyes suffused with the

tears of artless sensibility, than when, attended by the then happy

Agnes, she gave her hand in the bloom of youth and beauty to the man of

her heart.

 

This auditor was a respectable tradesman who lived in Fanny's

neighbourhood, to whom her faithful attachment to Agnes had for some

time endeared her; while Fanny, in return, felt grateful to him for

entering with such warmth into her feelings, and for listening so

patiently to her complaints; and it was not long before he offered her

his hand.

 

To so advantageous an offer, and to a man so amiable, Fanny could make

no objection; especially as Agnes advised her accepting the proposal.

But Fanny declared to her lover that she would not marry him, unless he

would promise that Agnes and her child should, whenever they chose, have

a home with her. To this condition he consented; telling Fanny he loved

her the better for making it; and Agnes had soon the satisfaction of

witnessing the union of this worthy couple.

 

But they tried in vain to persuade Agnes to take up her residence with

them. She preferred living by herself. To her, solitude was a luxury;

as, while the little Edward was playing on the heath with the cottager's

children, Agnes delighted to brood in uninterrupted silence over the

soothing hope, the fond idea, that alone stimulated her to exertion, and

procured her tranquillity. All the energies of her mind and body were

directed to one end; and while she kept her eye steadfastly fixed on the

future, the past lost its power to torture, and the present had some

portion of enjoyment.

 

But were not these soothing reveries sometimes disturbed by the pangs

of ill-requited love? and could she, who had loved so fondly as to

sacrifice to the indulgence of her passion every thing that she held

most dear, rise superior to the power of tender recollection, and at

once tear from her heart the image of her fascinating lover? It would be

unnatural to suppose that Agnes could entirely forget the once honoured

choice of her heart, and the father of her child; or that, although

experience had convinced her of its unworthiness, she did not sometimes

contemplate, with the sick feelings of disappointed tenderness, the idol

which her imagination had decked in graces all its own.

 

But these remembrances were rare. She oftener beheld him as he appeared

before the tribunal of her reason--a cold, selfish, profligate,

hypocritical deceiver, as the unfeeling destroyer of her hopes and

happiness, and as one who, as she had learned from his own lips, when he

most invited confidence, was the most determined to betray. She saw him

also as a wretch so devoid of the common feelings of nature and

humanity, that, though she left her apartments in London in the dead of

night, and in the depth of a severe winter, an almost helpless child in

her arms, and no visible protector near, he had never made a single

inquiry concerning her fate, or that of his offspring.

 

At times the sensations of Agnes bordered on phrensy, when in this

heartless, unnatural wretch she beheld the being for whom she had

resigned the matchless comforts of her home, and destroyed the happiness

and reason of her father. At these moments, and these only, she used to

rush wildly forth in search of company, that she might escape from

herself: but more frequently she directed her steps to the abode of the

poor; to those who, in her happier hours, had been supported by her

bounty, and who now were eager to meet her in her walks, to repay her

past benefactions by a "God bless you, lady!" uttered in a tone of

respectful pity.

 

When her return was first known to the objects of her benevolence, Agnes

soon saw herself surrounded by them; and was, in her humble apparel and

dejected state, followed by them with more blessings and more heart-felt

respect than in the proudest hour of her prosperity.

 

"Thank God!" ejaculated Agnes, as she turned a glistening eye on her

humble followers, "there are yet those whose eyes mine may meet with

confidence. There are some beings in the world towards whom I have done

my duty." But the next minute she recollected that the guilty flight

which made her violate the duty which she owed her father, at the same

time removed her from the power of fulfilling that which she owed the

indigent; for it is certain that our duties are so closely linked

together, that, as the breaking one pearl from a string of pearls

hazards the loss of all, so the violation of one duty endangers the

safety of every other.

 

"Alas!" exclaimed Agnes, as this melancholy truth occurred to her, "it

is not for me to exult; for, even in the squalid, meagre countenances of

these kind and grateful beings, I read evidences of my guilt--They

looked up to me for aid, and I deserted them!"

 

In time, however, these acute feelings wore away; and Agnes, by entering

again on the offices of benevolence and humanity towards the distressed,

lost the consciousness of past neglect in that of present usefulness.

 

True, she could no longer feed the hungry or clothe the naked, but she

could soften the pangs of sickness by expressing sympathy in its

sufferings. She could make the nauseous medicine more welcome, if not

more salutary, by administering it herself; for, though poor, she was

still superior to the sufferers whom she attended: and it was soothing

to them to see "such a lady" take so much trouble for those so much

beneath her--and she could watch the live-long night by the bed of the

dying, join in the consoling prayer offered by the lips of another, or,

in her own eloquent and impassioned language, speak peace and hope to

the departing soul.

 

These tender offices, these delicate attentions, so dear to the heart of

every one, but so particularly welcome to the poor from their superiors,

as they are acknowledgements of the relationship between them, and

confessions that they are of the same species as themselves, and heirs

of the same hopes, even those who bestow money with generous profusion

do not often pay. But Agnes was never content to give relief

unaccompanied by attendance: she had reflected deeply on the nature of

the human heart, and knew that a participating smile, a sympathizing

tear, a friendly pressure of the hand, the shifting of an uneasy pillow,

and patient attention to an unconnected tale of twice-told symptoms,

were, in the esteem of the indigent sufferer, of as great a value as

pecuniary assistance.

 

Agnes, therefore, in her poverty, had the satisfaction of knowing that

she was as consoling to the distressed, if not as useful, as she was in

her prosperity; and, if there could be a moment when she felt the glow

of exultation in her breast, it was when she left the habitation of

indigence or sorrow, followed by the well-earned blessings of its inhabitants.