The Father and Daughter 13

The Father and Daughter 13

Had Agnes been capable of exulting in a consciousness of being revenged,

another source of exultation might have been hers, provided she had

ever deigned to inquire concerning her profligate seducer, whom she

wrongfully accused of having neglected to make inquiries concerning her

and her child. Agnes, two months after her return from London, saw in

the paper an account of Clifford's marriage; and felt some curiosity to

know what had so long retarded an union which, when she left town, was

fixed for the Monday following; and Fanny observed an increased degree

of gloom and abstraction in her appearance all that day. But, dismissing

this feeling from her mind as unworthy of it, from that moment she

resolved, if possible, to recall Clifford to her imagination, as one

who, towards her, had been guilty not of perfidy and deceit only, but of

brutal and unnatural neglect.

 

In this last accusation, however, as I said before, she was unjust. When

Clifford awoke the next morning after his last interview with Agnes, and

the fumes of the wine he had drunk the night before were entirely

dissipated, he recollected, with great uneasiness, the insulting manner

in which he had justified his intended marriage, and the insight into

the baseness of his character which his unguarded confessions had given

to her penetration.

 

The idea of having incurred the contempt of Agnes was insupportable.

Yet, when he recollected the cold, calm, and dignified manner in which

she spoke and acted when he bade her adieu, he was convinced that he had

taught her to despise him; and, knowing Agnes, he was also certain that

she must soon cease to love the man whom she had once learned to

despise.

 

"But I will go to her directly," exclaimed he to himself, ringing his

bell violently; "and I will attribute my infernal folly to drunkenness."

He then ordered his servant to call a coach, finding himself too

languid, from his late intemperance, to walk; and was just going to step

into it when he saw Mrs. Askew pale and trembling, and heard her, in a

faltering voice, demand to see him in private for a few minutes.

 

I shall not attempt to describe his rage and astonishment when he heard

of the elopement of Agnes. But these feelings were soon followed by

those of terror for her safety and that of his child; and his agitation

for some moments was so great as to deprive him of the power of

considering how he should proceed, in order to hear some tidings of the

fugitives, and endeavour to recall them.

 

It was evident that Agnes had escaped the night before, because a

servant, sitting up for a gentleman who lodged in the house, was

awakened from sleep by the noise which she made in opening the door;

and, running into the hall, she saw the skirt of Agnes's gown as she

shut it again; and looking to see who was gone out, she saw a lady, who

she was almost certain was Miss Fitzhenry, running down the street with

great speed. But to put its being Agnes beyond all doubt, she ran up to

her room, and, finding the door open, went in, and could see neither her

nor her child.

 

To this narration Clifford listened with some calmness; but when Mrs.

Askew told him that Agnes had taken none of her clothes with her, he

fell into an agony amounting to phrensy, and exclaiming, "Then it must

be so--she has destroyed both herself and the child!" his senses

failed him, and he dropped down insensible on the sofa. This horrible

probability had occurred to Mrs. Askew; and she had sent servants

different ways all night, in order to find her if she were still in

existence, that she might spare Clifford, if possible, the pain of

conceiving a suspicion like her own.

 

Clifford was not so fortunate as to remain long in a state of

unconsciousness, but soon recovered to a sense of misery and unavailing

remorse. At length he recollected that a coach set off that very night

for her native place, from the White-horse Cellar, and that it was

possible that she might have obtained a lodging the night before, where

she meant to stay till the coach was ready to set off the following

evening. He immediately went to Piccadilly, to see whether places for a

lady and child had been taken,--but no such passengers were on the list.

He then inquired whether a lady and child had gone from that inn the

night before in the coach that went within a few miles of the town

of ----. But, as Agnes had reached the inn just as the coach was setting

off, no one belonging to it, but the coachman, knew that she was a

passenger.

 

"Well, I flatter myself," said Clifford to Mrs. Askew, endeavouring to

smile, "that she will make her appearance here at night, if she do not

come to-day; and I will not stir from this spot till the coach set off,

and will even go in it some way, to see whether it do not stop to take

her up on the road."

 

This resolution he punctually put in practice. All day Clifford was

stationed at a window opposite to the inn, or in the book-keeper's

office; but night came, the coach was ready to set off, and still no

Agnes appeared. However, Clifford, having secured a place, got in with

the other passengers, and went six miles or more before he gave up the

hope of hearing the coachman ordered to stop, in the soft voice of

Agnes.

 

At last, all expectation failed him; and, complaining of a violent

headache, he desired to be set down, sprang out of the carriage, and

relieved the other passengers from a very restless and disagreeable

companion: and Clifford, in a violent attack of fever, was wandering on

the road to London, in hopes of meeting Agnes, at the very time when his

victim was on the road to her native place, in company with her unhappy

father.

 

By the time Clifford reached London he was bordering on a state of

delirium; but had recollection enough to desire his confidential

servant to inform his father of the state in which he was, and then take

the road to ----, and ask at every inn on the road whether a lady and

child (describing Agnes and little Edward) had been there. The servant

obeyed; and the anxious father, who had been informed of the cause of

his son's malady, soon received the following letter from Wilson, while

he was attending at his bedside:

 

"My Lord,

 

"Sad news of Miss Fitzhenry and the child; and reason to

fear they both perished with cold. For, being told at one

of the inns on this road that a young woman and child had

been found frozen to death last night, and carried to the

next town to be owned, I set off for there directly: and

while I was taking a drap of brandy to give me spirits to

see the bodies, for a qualm came over me when I thought of

what can't be helped, and how pretty and good-natured and

happy she once was, a woman came down with a silk wrapper

and a shawl that I knew belonged to the poor lady, and said

the young woman found dead had those things on. This was

proof positive, my lord,--and it turned me sick. Still it

is better so than self-murder; so my master had best know

it, I think; and humbly hoping your lordship will think so

too, I remain your lordship's

 

"Most humble servant to command,

 

"J. WILSON.

 

"P.S. If I gain more particulars shall send them."

 

Dreadful as the supposed death of Agnes and her child appeared to the

father of Clifford, he could not be sorry that so formidable a rival to

his future daughter-in-law was no longer to be feared; and as Clifford,

in the ravings of his fever, was continually talking of Agnes as

self-murdered, and the murderer of her child, and of himself as the

abandoned cause; and as that idea seemed to haunt and terrify his

imagination, he thought with his son's servant that he had better take

the first opportunity of telling Clifford the truth, melancholy as it

was. And taking advantage of a proper opportunity, he had done so before

he received this second letter from Wilson:

 

"My Lord,

 

"It was all fudge;--Miss Fitzhenry is alive, and alive

like, at ----. She stopped at an inn on the road and

parted with her silk coat and shawl for some things she

wanted, and a hussey of a chambermaid stole them and went

off in the night with them and her little by-blow:--but

justice overtakes us sooner or later. I suppose his

honour, my master, will be cheery at this;--but, as joy

often distracts as much as grief, they say, though I never

believed it, I take it you will not tell him this good news

hand-over-head,--and am

 

"Your Lordship's

"Most humble to command,

 

"J. WILSON.

 

"P.S. I have been to ----, and have heard for certain Miss

F. and her child are there."

 

His lordship was even more cautious than Wilson wished him to be; for he

resolved not to communicate the glad tidings to Clifford, cautiously or

incautiously, as he thought there would be no chance of his son's

fulfilling his engagements with Miss Sandford, if he knew Agnes was

living: especially as her flight and her supposed death had proved to

Clifford how necessary she was to his happiness. Nay, he went still

further; and resolved that Clifford should never know, if he could

possibly help it, that the report of her death was false.

 

How to effect this was the difficulty; but wisely conceiving that Wilson

was not inaccessible to a bribe, he offered him so much a-year, on

condition of his suffering his master to remain convinced of the truth

of the story that Agnes and her child had perished in the snow, and of

intercepting all letters which he fancied came from Agnes; telling him

at the same time, that if ever he found he had violated the conditions,

the annuity should immediately cease.

 

To this Wilson consented; and, when Clifford recovered, he made his

compliance with the terms more easy, by desiring Wilson, and the

friends to whom his connection with Agnes had been known, never to

mention her name in his presence again, if they valued his health and

reason, as the safety of both depended on his forgetting a woman of whom

he had never felt the value sufficiently till he had lost her for ever.

 

Soon after, he married;--and the disagreeable qualities of his wife made

him recollect, with more painful regret, the charms and virtues of

Agnes. The consequence was that he plunged deeper than ever into

dissipation, and had recourse to intoxication in order to banish care

and disagreeable recollections;--and, while year after year passed away

in fruitless expectation of a child to inherit the estate and the

long-disputed title, he remembered, with agonizing regrets, the beauty

of his lost Edward; and reflected that, by refusing to perform his

promises to the injured Agnes, he had deprived himself of the heir that he so much coveted, and of a wife who would have added dignity to the title which she bore, and been the delight and ornament of his family.