The Father and Daughter 3

The Father and Daughter 3

O Vanity! thou hast much to answer for!--I am convinced that, were we to

trace up to their source all the most painful and degrading events of

our lives, we should find most of them to have their origin in the

gratified suggestions of vanity.

 

It is not my intention to follow Agnes through the succession of

mortifications, embarrassments, and contending feelings, which preceded

her undoing (for, secure as she thought herself in her own strength, and

the honour of her lover, she became at last a prey to her seducer); it

is sufficient that I explain the circumstances which led to her being in

a cold winter's night, houseless and unprotected, a melancholy wanderer

towards the house of her father.

 

Before the expiration of the month, Clifford had triumphed over the

virtue of Agnes; and soon after he received orders to join his regiment,

as it was going to be sent on immediate service.--"But you will return

to me before you embark, in order to make me your wife?" said the

half-distracted Agnes; "you will not leave me to shame as well as

misery?" Clifford promised every thing she wished; and Agnes tried to

lose the pangs of parting, in anticipation of the joy of his return. But

on the very day when she expected him, she received a letter from him,

saying that he was under sailing orders, and to see her again before the

embarkation was impossible.

 

To do Clifford justice, he in this instance told truth; and, as he

really loved Agnes as well as a libertine can love, he felt the

agitation and distress which his letter expressed; though, had he

returned to her, he had an excuse ready prepared for delaying the

marriage.

 

Words can but ill describe the situation of Agnes on the receipt of this

letter.--The return of Clifford was not to be expected for months at

least; and perhaps he might never return!--The thought of his danger was

madness:--but, when she reflected that she should in all probability be

a mother before she became a wife, in a transport of frantic anguish she

implored heaven in mercy to put an end to her existence.--"O my dear,

injured father!" she exclaimed, "I, who was once your pride, am now your

disgrace!--and that child whose first delight it was to look up in your

face, and see your eyes beaming with fondness on her, can now never dare

to meet their glance again."

 

But, though Agnes dared not presume to write to her father till she

could sign herself the wife of Clifford, she could not exist without

making some secret inquiries concerning his health and spirits; and,

before he left her, Clifford recommended a trusty messenger to her for

the purpose.--The first account which she received was, that Fitzhenry

was well; the next, that he was dejected; the three following, that his

spirits were growing better,--and the last account was, that he was

married.----

 

"Married!" cried Agnes rushing into her chamber, and shutting the door

after her, in a manner sufficiently indicative to the messenger of

the anguish she hastened from him to conceal;--"Married!--Clifford

abroad,--perhaps at this moment a corpse,--and my father married!--What,

then, am I? A wretch forlorn! an outcast from society!--no one to love,

no one to protect and cherish me! Great God! wilt thou not pardon me if

I seek a refuge from my suffering in the grave?"

 

Here nature suddenly and powerfully impressed on her recollection that

she was about to become a parent; and, falling on her knees, she sobbed

out, "What am I, did I ask?--I am a mother, and earth still holds me by

a tie too sacred to be broken!"

 

Then by degrees she became calmer, and rejoiced, fervently rejoiced, in

her father's second marriage, though she felt it as too convincing a

proof how completely he had thrown her from his affections. She knew

that the fear of a second family's diminishing the strong affection

which he bore to her was his reason for not marrying again, and now it

was plain that he married in hopes of losing his affection for her.

Still this information removed a load from her mind, by showing her that

Fitzhenry felt himself capable of receiving happiness from other hands

than hers; and she resolved, if she heard that he was happy in his

change of situation, never to recall to his memory the daughter whom it

was so much his interest to forget.

 

The time of Agnes's confinement now drew near,--a time which fills with

apprehension even the wife, who is soothed and supported by the tender

attentions of an anxious husband, and the assiduities of affectionate

relations and friends, and who knows that the child with which she is

about to present them will at once gratify their affections and their

pride. What then must have been the sensations of Agnes at a moment so

awful and dangerous as this!--Agnes, who had no husband to soothe her by

his anxious inquiries, no relations or friends to cheer her drooping

soul by the __EXPRESSION__s of sympathy, and whose child, instead of being

welcomed by an exulting family, must be, perhaps, a stranger even to its

nearest relations!

 

But in proportion to her trials seemed to be Agnes's power of rising

superior to them; and, after enduring her sufferings with a degree of

fortitude and calmness that astonished the mistress of the house, whom

compassion had induced to attend on her, she gave birth to a lovely

boy.--From that moment, though she rarely smiled, and never saw any one

but her kind landlady, her mind was no longer oppressed by the deep

gloom under which she had before laboured; and when she had heard from

Clifford, or of her father's being happy, and clasped her babe to her

bosom, Agnes might almost be pronounced cheerful.

 

After she had been six months a mother, Clifford returned; and, in the

transport of seeing him safe, Agnes forgot for a moment that she had

been anxious and unhappy. Now again was the subject of the marriage

resumed; but just as the wedding day was fixed, Clifford was summoned

away to attend his expiring father, and Agnes was once more doomed to

the tortures of suspense.

 

After a month's absence Clifford came back, but appeared to labour under

a dejection of spirits which he seemed studious to conceal from her.

Alarmed and terrified at an appearance so unusual, she demanded an

explanation, which the consummate deceiver gave at length, after many

entreaties on her part, and feigned reluctance on his. He told her that

his father's illness was occasioned by his having been informed that he

was privately married to her; that he had sent for him to inquire into

the truth of the report; and, being convinced by his solemn assurance

that no marriage had taken place, he had commanded him, unless he

wished to kill him, to take a solemn oath never to marry Agnes Fitzhenry

without his consent.

 

"And did you take the oath?" cried Agnes, her whole frame trembling with

agitation.--"What could I do?" replied he; "my father's life in evident

danger if I refused; besides the dreadful certainty that he would put

his threats in execution of cursing me with his dying breath;--and,

cruel as he is, Agnes, I could not help feeling that he was my

father."----"Barbarian!" exclaimed she, "I sacrificed my father to

you!--An oath! O God! have you then taken an oath never to be mine?"

and, saying this, she fell into a long and deep swoon.

 

When she recovered, but before she was able to speak, she found Clifford

kneeling by her; and, while she was too weak to interrupt him, he

convinced her that he did not at all despair of his father's consent to

his making her his wife, else, he should have been less willing to give

so ready a consent to take the oath imposed on him, even although his

father's life depended on it. "Oh! no," replied Agnes, with a bitter

smile; "you wrong yourself; you are too good a son to have been capable

of hesitating a moment;--there are few children so bad, so very bad as I

am!"--and, bursting into an agony of grief, it was long before the

affectionate language and tender caresses of Clifford could restore her

to tranquillity.

 

Another six months elapsed, during which time Clifford kept her hopes

alive, by telling her that he every day saw fresh signs of his father's

relenting in her favour.--At these times she would say, "Lead me to him;

let him hear the tale of my wretchedness; let me say to him, For your

son's sake I have left the best of fathers, the happiest of homes, and

have become an outcast from society!--then would I bid him look at

this pale cheek, this emaciated form, proofs of the anguish that is

undermining my constitution; and tell him to beware how, by forcing you

to withhold from me my right, he made you guilty of murdering the poor

deluded wretch, who, till she knew you, never lay down without a

father's blessing, nor rose but to be welcomed by his smile!"

 

Clifford had feeling, but it was of that transient sort which never

outlived the disappearance of the object that occasioned it. To these

pathetic entreaties he always returned affectionate answers, and was

often forced to leave the room in order to avoid being too much softened

by them; but, by the time he had reached the end of the street, always

alive to the impressions of the present moment, the sight of some new

beauty, or some old companion, dried up the starting tear, and restored

to him the power of coolly considering how he should continue to deceive

his miserable victim.

 

But the time at length arrived when the mask that hid his villany from

her eyes fell off, never to be replaced. As Agnes fully expected to be

the wife of Clifford, she was particularly careful to lead a retired

life, and not to seem unmindful of her shame by exhibiting herself at

places of public amusement. In vain did Clifford paint the charms of the

Play, the Opera, and other places of fashionable resort. "Retirement,

with books, music, work, and your society," she used to reply, "are

better suited to my taste and situation; and never, but as your wife,

will I presume to meet the public eye."

 

Clifford, though he wished to exhibit his lovely conquest to the world,

was obliged to submit to her will in this instance. Sometimes, indeed,

Agnes was prevailed on to admit to her table those young men of

Clifford's acquaintance who were the most distinguished for their

talents and decorum of manners; but this was the only departure that he

had ever yet prevailed on her to make, from the plan of retirement which

she had adopted.

 

One evening, however, Clifford was so unusually urgent with her to

accompany him to Drury-lane to see a favourite tragedy, (alleging, as an

additional motive for her obliging him, that he was going to leave her

on the following Monday, in order to attend his father into the country,

where he should be forced to remain some time,) that Agnes, unwilling to

refuse what he called his parting request, at length complied; Clifford

having prevailed on Mrs. Askew, her kind landlady, to accompany them,

and having assured Agnes, that, as they should sit in the upper boxes,

she might, if she chose it, wear her veil down.--Agnes, in spite of

herself, was delighted with the representation,--but, as

 

"--hearts refin'd the sadden'd tint retain,

The sigh is pleasure, and the jest is pain,"

 

she was desirous of leaving the house before the farce began; yet, as

Clifford saw a gentleman in the lower boxes with whom he had business,

she consented to stay till he had spoken to him. Soon after she saw

Clifford enter the lower box opposite to her; and those who know what it

is to love, will not be surprised to hear that Agnes had more pleasure

in looking at her lover, and drawing favourable comparisons between him

and the gentlemen who surrounded him, than in attending to the farce.

 

She had been some moments absorbed in this pleasing employment, when

two gentlemen entered the box where she was, and seated themselves behind her.