Mary hesitated, and my curiosity was rouzed--"What was the lady"s name?"
"Miss Lydia Wilmot."
"Wilmot? Wilmot? Surely, not Miss Wilmot, the niece of the bishop of ----?"
"No, no," said Mary, ""a"s not his niece, "a has better blood in her veins; thof mayhap "a may have had her failings. G.o.d help us! who is without "em? A bishop? Lord ha" mercy on us! No Christian soul could have believed there was so much wickedness in the world!"
My impatience increased, and I eagerly demanded--"Did she ever live with the bishop?"
Poor Mary knew not what to answer; I perceived her confusion. "Go, Mary," said I, "and tell Miss Wilmot that Mr. Trevor presents his compliments to her, and will be glad to speak to her the moment she is at leisure."
After a little hesitation Mary went, continued up stairs some time, and at last returned with--"Miss Wilmot"s compliments: she should be glad to see me."
I hurried to her apartment. My conjectures were too well founded to be false: it was the same Miss Wilmot to whom I had been introduced by the bishop, the sister of the guide of my studies and the friend of my youth. Her embarra.s.sment was considerable, she sunk on the sopha as she curtsied, pointed to a chair, and faintly requested I would sit down.
I exerted myself to a.s.sume the tone that should tranquilize her feelings; and by asking and answering my own questions, and endeavouring myself to sustain the conversation, brought her with some little difficulty to join in it.
I was burning to interrogate her concerning the bishop, but was restrained by the fear of wounding her sensibility. I inquired after her brother, but him I found she had not lately seen. I forebore to be minute, but it appeared that they knew not the place of each other"s abode. I sat with her an hour; but, notwithstanding my impatience, perceiving she evaded the subject I wished to introduce, and turned the discourse on the common place occurrences of the day. I was too respectful of her delicacy to violate it, and left her with an invitation to drink tea with me the following afternoon, which she accepted.
I saw Mary again in the interim, had some discourse with her, and, by several phrases which she once more let fall, was involved in greater perplexity. A person of my family had _a ruinated_ Miss Wilmot of all hope; she never could have justice and right done her now; that was _impossable_. But mayhap all things _was_ for the best. The base man had shewn that he was not worth having. She was sorry, both on her ladyship"s account and mine; but there was no help for it. G.o.d send him a good end! but she feared it! Such wickedness could never prosper.
This language was totally incomprehensible!--"A person of my family?
The base man? Sorry on my account?" What did she mean?
Mary was afraid she had said too much--"I dare not tell you, dear good Sir," continued she; "only don"t you be _cunsarned_; it is no blame of yours; you will know soon enough."
In this uncertainty she left me, impatiently hoping some farther explanation from Miss Wilmot; of which I was not disappointed. The afternoon came, Mary announced her mistress, we were left alone, and I could no longer forbear expressing my desire of knowing her history.
At first she felt some reluctance, but, when I informed her how much Mary had already told, she sighed deeply, and said, "I find, Sir, it is in vain to think of concealment; I will, therefore, since you desire it, relate the few events that are remarkable in my unfortunate life. I fear they are more blameable than extraordinary; for, from what I hear and see in this great city, mine are no uncommon misfortunes. I even fear I am hitherto less wretched and guilty than thousands. G.o.d only knows for what I am reserved!"
CHAPTER IV
_The story of Miss Wilmot: Family misfortunes: A father"s death: A brother"s disappointment: Intelligence that astonishes me: Wakefield characterized: The death of Miss Wilmot"s mother; and the dread of fatal consequences: Piety and compa.s.sion of a bishop: Deep designs of Wakefield: The good faith and affection of a poor adherent_
"My father was an officer in the army, in which, though he served all his life, he only attained the rank of major. He was twice married, the second time to my mother at the age of thirty, by whom he had five children, who, except my brother and myself, did not arrive at maturity. Being reduced to the income of half-pay, they retired into their native county, where they lived with such strict oeconomy that they contrived to educate us better perhaps than the children of people of much larger fortune.
"My brother was the eldest child, and I the youngest, so that there was an interval of fifteen years between us. My father had been well educated, loved letters, and undertook to be my brother"s instructor himself to the age of fourteen. At this period my brother was admitted a chorister at the cathedral of ----, at which city my parents had fixed their residence. They were respected by all the inhabitants, whose wealth, birth, and pride, did not place them at too great a distance; and it was a severe mortification to be unable to provide better for their son; but there was no remedy.
"The disappointments of my father"s life had given him a melancholy cast, with an apt.i.tude to be dissatisfied; and this propensity was strongly communicated to my brother. The danger of a war between England and Spain called my father up to town, in the hope of being once more put on actual service. But in this his hopes again were frustrated; and expence without benefit was incurred. Early, however, in the American war, he obtained his wishes; unhappily obtained them, for, having been long unused to the baneful severity of camps, he and many more brave men were carried off, by the damps of the climate to which he was sent. This happened when I was but nine years old; and my mother was left with what little their economy had collected, and such scanty provision as is made for officers widows.
"My brother, however, who was truly affectionate, and active in efforts to protect us, afforded my mother some aid. From being a chorister, he had gained admission into the grammar-school; of which, while he remained there, he was the pride and boast. Immediately after our father"s death, from the recommendation of his own merit and the misfortunes of the family, he was appointed a Latin usher in the same school; in which station he remained five years. The difference of our age made him consider himself something rather like a father than a brother to me: he loved me tenderly, took every method to improve and provide for me, and expected in return something like parental obedience. The manners of my mother were of the mild and pleasing kind, with which qualities she endeavoured to familiarize me, and the behaviour of the whole family gained general approbation and esteem.
"My brother was deeply smitten with the love of letters: his poetical essays were numerous, many of them were sent up to London and readily admitted into periodical publications.
"Anxious to place his family in that rank which he had been taught to suppose it deserved, for my father and mother were both, though not n.o.ble, well born, he did not rest satisfied with these attempts: he wrote a tragedy, and, by the advice of people who pretended to have a knowledge of such affairs, determined to go to London, that he might, if possible, get it on the stage. From this my mother would fain have dissuaded him, but his arguments and importunity at length prevailed.
He was then but nine and twenty, and I fourteen.
"I could ill describe to you the state of anxiety and suspence in which his various literary efforts involved him, while he remained in London: but in about two years he returned to the country, despairing of that pleasure, profit, and fame, which hope had delusively taught him to consider as his due. This was the period at which he once more became an usher of the school where you were educated. This too was the period at which my misfortunes began.
"And now, Mr. Trevor, I am coming to events in which you, without any knowledge or interference of your own, may be said to be a partaker."
She paused a moment: and I, with amazement, doubt, and increasing ardour, requested she would proceed.
"The name of Wakefield must certainly be familiar to you?"
"It is: I am sorry to say it is the name my mother at present bears."
"If you feel sorrow, Mr. Trevor, what must my feelings be? Mine! who, had there been truth or honour in man, ought to have borne that name myself. Mine! who, when I first heard of your mother"s marriage, should not have felt so severe a pang had a dagger been struck to my heart. Mine! who from that moment, or rather from the fatal and guilty moment when I confided in an unprincipled man, have never known that cheerfulness and peace, which once were the inmates of my bosom!"
"You astonish me, madam! Wakefield?"
"Wakefield! Him have I to thank for loss of self-respect, a brother"s love, and perhaps a parent"s life! I was my mother"s companion, consolation, and pride. How can I estimate a mother"s grief? She died within a year. Have I not reason to believe her days were shortened by her daughter"s guilt?"
The pain of recollection was agonizing. She burst into a flood of tears: nor could every effort she made keep down the deep sobs that for some minutes impeded speech. I used every endeavour to appease and calm her mind: she seemed sensibly touched by that sympathy which intensely pervaded me; and, as soon as she could recover herself, thus continued.
"The kind part you take in my affliction, Mr. Trevor, affords me greater relief than any that perhaps I have felt for years. It is true the faithful Mary, good creature, has almost shed tear for tear: but she herself is the daughter of misfortune, and from her, though grateful, it is something like expected. You are a man; you perhaps have been accustomed to the society of those whose pleasure is the most exquisite when they can most contribute to the miseries of woman: that you should be virtuous enough to contemn such instruction, does more than sooth feelings like mine: and I think we esteem benefits the more the less we expect them."
"But where, madam, did you first meet with Mr. Wakefield?"
"In the city of ---- where he was bred, under his father, to the profession of the law. From what I have seen of you, and from what I have heard of your talents and understanding, I should have expected you to have been the child of extraordinary parents; otherwise, I do not much wonder at your mother"s conduct, superior as she was to Mr.
Wakefield in years; for, of all the men I ever saw, he is the most deceitful, plausible, and dangerous. Neither man nor woman are safe with him; and his arts are such as to over-reach the most cautious. He has words at will; and his wit and invention, which are extraordinary, are employed to entrap, humiliate, degrade and ruin all with whom he has intercourse. His ambition is to gratify his desires, by triumphing over the credulity of the unsuspecting, whom he contemns for their want of his own vices. It was he that, after having seduced me, placed me in the family of the bishop, laid the plan that I should pa.s.s for his lordship"s niece, by various falsehoods cajoled me to acquiesce (the chief of which was, that the project was but to save appearances, till he could make me his wife) left me in that unworthy prelate"s power, then, returning to the country, plotted the marriage with your mother, and, by his intimate knowledge of the weakness or vice of each character, which he seems to catch instinctively, adapted his scheme with such cunning to the avarice of his uncle as to gain his concurrence and aid.
"It was my clandestine departure at this period, and the rumours and suspicions to which it gave birth, that again drove my brother from the country. For some months neither he nor my mother knew what was become of me.
"At length her decline, and the extreme affliction of dying and never hearing of me more, occasioned her to prevail on my brother to advertise me in all the papers. This he did, by inserting the initials of my name, and such other tokens as he knew must be intelligible to me, should I read the advertis.e.m.e.nt; informing me at the same time of the dying state of my mother.
"His plan so far succeeded as to come to my knowledge. I read the paper, was seized with horror at the information, and immediately wrote in answer. It was too late! My mother was dead! and I left in that state of distraction to which by a single moment"s weakness I had been thus fatally conducted!
"Grief, despondency, and resentment, took firm possession of my brother"s mind. He wrote me a dreadful letter of the state of his feelings; and, though he forebore explicitly to accuse me of my mother"s death, I could perceive the thought pervaded his mind. After her funeral, he came up to London; but refused all intercourse with me, once excepted. A few days only after that on which the bishop introduced you to me, he came, knocked at the door, inquired if I were at home, and sent up his name.
"Of all the moments of my life, that was the most awful! A death-like coldness seized me! The sound of my brother"s name was horror! I know not what I said to the servant, but the feelings of Mr. Wilmot were too racking for delay: he was presently before me, dressed in deep mourning; I motionless and dead; he haggard, the image of despair; so changed in form that, but for the sharp and quick sighted suspicions of guilt, had I met him, I should have pa.s.sed him without suspecting him to be my brother.
"I can tell you but little of what pa.s.sed. His sentences were incoherent, but half finished, and bursting with pa.s.sion that was neither grief nor rage, nor reproach nor pardon, though a mixture of them all. The chief impression that he left upon my mind was, that he should soon be freed from the torment of existence: not by the course of nature; he complained, with agony, that labour, disappointment, injustice, and contamination itself could not kill him; but die he would!
"From that day to this, I have never seen or heard word of him more.
The deep despair with which he uttered his last resolution has kept me in a state of uninterrupted terror. I daily read all the papers I can buy or borrow with the excruciating dread, every paragraph I come to, of catching his name, and, Oh! insufferable horror! reading an account of his death!
"My state of being seems wholly changed! I am no longer the same creature! My faculties, which formerly compared to those of my brother I thought slow even to stupidity, are now awakened to such keenness of discernment that the world is multiplied upon me a million fold!
Sometimes it is all intelligence, though of a dark and terrific hue; at other moments objects swarm so thick that they dance confusion, and give me a foretaste of madness, to which I have now a constant fear that I shall be driven. My own deep shame, the loss of the man whom like an idiot I dearly loved, my mother"s death, my brother"s letter, and particularly his last visit, have altogether given such an impetuosity to my thoughts as I want the power to repel. Whither they will hurry me G.o.d only knows. At one interval I imagine the earth contains nothing but evil! At another, strange to tell! all is good!
all is wise! all harmonious! and I reproach my own extreme folly for wanting happiness under so perfect a system!
"Nay, there are times in which I persuade myself I have been guilty of no crime! that there is no such thing as crime! and that the distinctions of men are folly, invented by selfishness and continued by ignorance!