ANNA ST. IVES:
A NOVEL.
ANNA ST. IVES:
A NOVEL.
BY THOMAS HOLCROFT.
VOLUME VI.
LONDON: PRINTED FOR SHEPPERSON AND REYNOLDS, NO. 137, OXFORD-STREET.
M. DCC. XCII.
ANNA ST. IVES:
A NOVEL.
LETTER XCIX.
ABIMELECH HENLEY TO SIR ARTHUR ST. IVES, BARONET.
Wenbourne-Hill.
Most onnurable Sir, my ever onnurd Master,
I DO hear of strange queerums and quicksets, that have a bin trap laid for your ever gracious onnur, and for the mercifool lovin kindness of sweet missee. Whereof I be all in a quandary, for it do seem I wus within an ames ace of a havin bin chouse flickur'd meself. Whereby I paradventerd before to tell your noble onnur my poor thofts on this here Mr. Clifton match marriage, which is all against the grain. And this I do hope your ever onnurable onnur will pry into, and see with your own eyes.
Whereof I have a bin ruminatin of many thinks lately, and of the ups and downs of life, so that I should sing oh be joyfool if as your onnur would but turn them in your thofts, as I have done. Whereby my son has a bin down with me; and I do find that sooth and trooth he be verily a son of my own begettin; and thof I say it a man may be proud of sitch a son; and as your ever gracious onnur wus most mercifoolly pleased to sifflicate, a wus born a gentleman, for a has his head fool and fool of fine notions.
Whereby if your onnurable onnur will but a be pleased to lend a mercifool ear to me, why mayhap I should a be willin to come down with the kole to your onnur's heart's content. Why not? For I have a talked matters over with my son, and a has said a many glorious thinks of your onnur and of sweet mercifool missee, all a witch a learned from me. For why? He is my own son, and of the issue of my loins, and I did always giv'n the best of advice. A had his whole feedin and breedin from me, and as a wus always fain to be a man of learnin why I taught him his letters meself; whereof I have now reason to be proud of 'n.
But that is not whereof of a what I wus a goin to think to say. I wus about to paradventer to proposal to your onnur that, if thinks might behappen to come to pass in the manner of mercifool lovin kindness and gracious condysension, the wherewithalls should a be forth cummin to the tune of fifty thousand pounds: that is with the betokenin of all proper securities of parchments and deeds and doosoors to be first signed and stipilated, as heretofore have bin on like future occasions. Take me ritely, your onnur; I mean for the twenty thousand pounds. For why? I meself will be so all bountifool as to come down on the nail head with thirty thousand for my son. And then we shall see who will be a better gentleman, as your onnurable onnur wus most graciously pleased to kappaishus him?
Whereby Wenbourne Hill would then be in all its glory; and mayhap your ever gracious onnur might in sitch a case again go on with your improofments. And who can say but the wildurness might a begin to flourish? So that if your noble onnur will but think of that, why thinks may behappen to begin to take a new turn, and there may be mirth and merry days again at Wenbourne Hill. For I do know in your heart your onnur do lamentation the loss of all your fine taste, and elegunt ideers, and plans, and alterations; all of a witch have a bin so many years a carryin on and a compassin at Wenbourne Hill.
Whereof I umbelly condysend to intreat your noble onnur would a give these thinks a thinkin. For why? The lawyers might a then be stoptt, and a spoke might a behappen to be put in the wheel of the foreclosures; witch if not, as your noble onnur already knows, may not a turn out to be altogether quite so agreeable, unless your ever gracious and onnurable onnur should be so all mercifool as to rite to me; whereof I could then give them the whys and the wherefores, and all thinks would be smooth and smilin.
I besiege your most noble onnur to ponderate mercifooly of these thinks, and of a dockin of the entail, and of a settin of the deeds of the lawyers to work. Whereby every think may in sitch a case be made safe and secure▪ not forgettin Wenbourne Hill; and the willdurness, and mayhap the hermuttidge, and the grotto. For why, your noble onnur? Where one fifty thousand pound be a forth cummin from, another may a behappen to be found. But that's a nether here nor there, a savin and exceptin the death and mortality of man, and the resurrection of the just and of the repentin sinner in all grace and glory.
And so I most umbelly remain, with the thanks givin of goodness, your onnur's most faithfool umbel sarvent everlastin to command,
ABIMELECH HENLEY.
LETTER C.
ANNA WENBOURNE ST. IVES TO LOUISA CLIFTON.
London, Grosvenor-Street.
NO; I will not attempt to console my Louisa, for I will not suppose even at the present moment that she yields to grief, or is in need of consolation. She will not repine at what is not to be remedied, nor debilitate her mind by dwelling on her own causes of discontent, instead of awakening it to the numerous sources of happiness, which by increasing the happiness of others incite it to activity. These are truths too deeply engraven on the heart of Louisa to be forgotten, and it is scarcely necessary to revive them even at this serious moment.
With respect to myself, my friend shall be my judge; my whole conduct shall be submitted to her, with an injunction not to indulge any partialities in my favour, but to censure, advise, and instruct me whenever she finds opportunity. Such, Louisa, has been our intercourse; and we have mutual reason to congratulate each other on its effects.
I have just had a conversation with Sir Arthur. He has received a letter from Abimelech, which he shewed me. Of all the proofs Frank has yet given of energy, this relative to his father is perhaps the strongest. You know the character of Abimelech. Could you think it possible? He is willing not only to raise twenty thousand pounds for Sir Arthur, but to pay down thirty more for his son! He begins to be vain of this son, and has even some slight perception that there may be other good qualities beside that of getting and hoarding money.
But his cunning is still predominant. Having conceived the possibility of this marriage, the accomplishment of it is now become his ruling passion, and has for a moment subjected avarice itself. He neglects no motive which he thinks may influence Sir Arthur, not even threatening; though his language is couched in all the art of apparent kindness and adulation. His letter however has produced its effect on my father, as you will perceive by the following dialogue, which was begun by Sir Arthur.
What think you of this proposal, Anna?
I ought rather to ask what are your thoughts on the subject, sir.
I can scarcely tell. I own it does not seem to me quite so unreasonable as I should once have supposed it; that is as far as relates to me. But if you should have conceived any partiality for Mr. Clifton, I should then—
Excuse me, sir, for interrupting you, but Mr. Clifton is at present wholly out of the question. Were it in my power, which I fear it is not, to do him any service, I should be as desirous of doing it now as ever; but I can never more think of him as a husband.
Are you so very determined?
I am; and I hope, sir, my determination is not offensive to you?
I cannot say at present that it is; for not to mention that I think very well of young Mr. Henley, I own the affair of the anonymous letter was a very improper and strange proceeding. Your aunt Wenbourne and Lord Fitz-Allen indeed seem to doubt it; but, according to the account which you and Mr. Henley give, I think they have no foundation for their doubts.
The behaviour of Mr. Clifton, without the letter, would have been quite sufficient to have fixed my determination.
What behaviour?
The proof he gave of deceit and depravity of principle, by the manner in which he endeavoured to seduce me.
When was that?
The very day on which Frank arrived.
Endeavoured to seduce you?
Yes.
Are you certain of the truth of what you say?
He proceeded too far, and explained himself too openly for me to be mistaken.
Seduce you!—Then you have entirely given up all thoughts of him?
All thoughts of marrying him I have most certainly.
And what is your opinion of Mr. Henley?
What can it be, sir? Are there two opinions concerning him? And if I were blind to his virtues, for whose safety he has been so often and so ardently active, who should do him justice?
I own, Anna, I have often thought you had some love for him, and I am tempted to think so still.
Love in the sense in which you understand it I have carefully suppressed, because till now I supposed it incompatible with duty and virtue; but I acknowledge I begin to doubt; and even to suppose that his view of the subject has been more rational and true than mine; and he thinks it is our duty to form a union, for which he owns he has an ardent wish.
Yes, he has honestly told me all that passed between you; and his sincerity pleased me—But every branch of our family would certainly be against such a match.
I suppose so.
The world too would consider me as having dishonoured myself, were I to consent.
I believe it would.
And would exclaim against the bad example—What ought to be done?
My opinion has been that the world would have cause to make this complaint; but I now think, or rather imagine myself convinced that I was in an error. It appears evident to my mind, at present, that we ought to consider whether an action be in itself good or bad, just or unjust, and totally to disregard both our own prejudices, and the prejudices of the world. Were I to pay false homage to wealth and rank, because the world tells me it is right that I should do so, and to neglect genius and virtue, which my judgment tells me would be an odious wrong, I should find but little satisfaction in the applause of the world, opposed to selfcondemnation.
Mr. Henley is a very good young man; a very good young man indeed; and I believe I should even be willing to think of him for a son, if it should not be opposed by the other branches of the family.
But that it surely will.
I am afraid so—Lord Fitz-Allen is half reconciled to us again, and I would avoid breaking with him if possible. Your aunt has a good opinion of Mr. Henley.
But a better of Mr. Clifton.
Yes, so I suppose. I must talk to Edward. Mr. Henley has been his friend.
But Edward does not understand friendship. When he says friend he means acquaintance; and he finds him the most agreeable acquaintance, who tells him least truth; which certainly is not Mr. Henley. I have observed him lately to be rather fond of the company of Mr. Clifton, whom he thinks a better companion.
I own Mr. Henley is very obstinate in his opinions.
If his opinions be true, would you not have him persist in the truth.
But why should he be more certain that what he says is truth than other people?
Because he has examined with more industry and caution, has a stronger mind, and a greater love of enquiry. He does not endeavour to make his principles accord with his practice, but regulates his practice by his principles.
But still I ask what proof he has of being more in the right than other people?
I wonder, sir, that you can put such a question! He has surely given both you and me sufficient proofs of superiority; and though you should doubt the arguments you cannot doubt the facts.
I own he is a very extraordinary young gentleman.
Ah, sir! The word gentleman shews the bent of your thoughts. Can you not perceive it is a word without a meaning? Or, if it have a meaning, that he who is the best man is the most a gentleman?
I know your notions, child, and mine differ a little on these matters. However I do not think you quite so much in the wrong as I used to do; and perhaps there is something in what you say. Many men of low fortunes have made their way to the highest honours; and for what I know he may do the same.
He may and certainly will deserve the highest respect: but if you flatter yourself, sir, that he will seek or accept the titles and distinctions which men have invented to impose on each other's folly, and obtain their own artful purposes, I ought to warn you that you will be mistaken. His whole life will be devoted to the discovery and spreading of truth; and, individual acts of benevolence excepted, his wealth, should he acquire any, will all be dedicated to that sole object.
I am afraid these are strange whims, Anna!
I hope yet to shew you, sir, they are noble duties; which it is the excess of guilt to neglect.
It puzzles me to conceive by what means his father could have become so rich!
He has all his life been rapacious after money. His faculties are strong, but perverted. What would have been wisdom is degenerated into cunning. He has made himself acquainted with usurers, and they have made him acquainted with spendthrifts. He has traded in annuities, and profited by the eagerness of youth to enjoy: and, since I must be sincere, he has encouraged you, sir, to pursue plans of expence with a view solely to his own profit.
Well, well; should this marriage take place, it will all return into the family.
That should be no motive, sir, with either you or me.
I do not know that. You understand your own reasons, and I mine; and if they should but answer the same end there will be no harm.
I was going to reply, but Sir Arthur left me; being unwilling to hear arguments which he took it for granted he should not understand.
Frank came in soon after, and I repeated to him what had been said. Louisa, I must tell you the truth and the whole truth. Since I have begun to imagine I might indulge my thoughts in dwelling on▪ his exalted qualities and uncommon virtues, my affection for them has greatly increased: and they never appeared to me more lovely than in the struggles and checks which his joy received, at the hope of our union, by the recollection of the loss of Mr. Clifton. He like me is astonished at the powers of your brother's mind, and at their perversion; and he fears that this attempt, having failed, will but serve to render that perversion more obdurate, nay perhaps more active. He seems even to dread lest I am not secure; which his desire to guard and caution me against would not suffer him to repress or conceal. His tenderness and ecstasy, and indeed, Louisa, they were both very strong, were mingled with regret equally vivid: and Mr. Clifton! Mr. Clifton! repeatedly burst from him.
While I was relating what had passed between me and Sir Arthur to Frank, and now again since I have been writing it to you, I accused myself of coldness, and of shrinking from or rather of half delivering the truth, lest Sir Arthur should think me a forward girl, or lest I should think myself capable of too sudden a change. But of the degree of that change do you, my friend, judge. I have at all times endeavoured to shew you my naked heart, and often have violently struggled against every disguise. I never concealed from myself that I thought more highly of Frank Henley than of Mr. Clifton; but I imagined principle taught me to prefer what principle now warns me to shun. I am more and more convinced of the error of marrying a bad man in order to make him good. I was not entirely ignorant of this before, and therefore flattered myself the good might be effected previous to marriage. I forgot, when passion has a purpose to obtain, how artful it is in concealment.
I have another quarrel with myself, for having been so desirous of proving to my own conviction that the world's prejudices and the prejudices of my family ought to be respected, while that opinion accorded with my practice; and of being now so equally alert to prove the reverse. Such are the deceptions which the mind puts upon itself! For indeed I have been very desirous of acting with sincerity in both instances. I can only say that I feel more certain at present; for before I had doubts, and now I have none. If you suspect me to be influenced by inclination, tell me so without reserve.
All good be with my friend! May she profit by my mistakes!
A. W. ST. IVES.
LETTER CI.
COKE CLIFTON TO GUY FAIRFAX.
Rose-Bank.
YOU will perceive, Fairfax, I have changed the scene, and am now in the country. I have a long narrative to detail, and am sitting in an old hall with gloom and leisure enough to make it as tedious and as dull as you could wish. My poor mother has taken her last leave of us, and lies now a corpse in the room under me. I could be melancholy, or mad, or I know not what—But 'tis no matter—She brought me here unasked to make the journey of this world, and now I am obliged to jog on. Not that I think I should much care if it were shortened, nor how soon; except that I would live to have my revenge; and that I will have, little troubling myself though the next minute were certain to be my last. It rankles at my heart, and lies there corroding, biting, festering, night and day.
I have quarrelled with my sister, and I am sure shall never forgive her; nor will she forgive me, so that we shall easily balance our accounts. This Anna St. Ives is her supreme favourite. But no wonder—No wonder—It would be strange if she were not! Still to be so ready to give up a brother, and write me such a letter as she did on the death of my mother! If I do not make her repent it Heaven renounce me!
But I consider the whole world as my enemies at this moment; you perhaps, Fairfax, excepted. I say perhaps, for I do not know how soon you may turn upon and yelp at me with the rest.
Forgive me, Fairfax. I am all venom, all viper, and cannot forbear to hiss even at my friend. But let my enemies beware! They shall find I can sting!—These cursed gnawings of heart will not let me begin my story.
I told you I was determined to deny the anonymous letter. I have been very industrious with uncle Fitz-Allen and aunt Wenbourne; and have been equally careful to titilate the vanity of the coxcomb Edward, who is highly flattered with the attention I have paid him, and will I am certain become my warm partisan.
They had all heard the story, but were all ready enough to gape and swallow my tale; which considering it was wholly invention was not ill composed. I begin to hate myself, to hate her, to hate the whole world, for being obliged to submit to such a damned expedient. But I will not recede. I will have my revenge! Were the devil himself waiting to devour me I would on; or were he engaged against me, I would over-reach him!
I concerted my measures, and learning that this lad of mine, who wrote the letter for me, was down at Wenbourne-Hill, I sent my man to inveigle him to come to me, at an inn where I purposely stopped, in my way to Rose-Bank. How durst they suborn my servant?—But—! I will stab and not curse!
My valet executed his commission, and prevailed on the lad to come; though with some difficulty, for he is a stubborn dog; and had not the valet followed my directions, and told him it was to do his old master a service, he would have been foiled. But I took him up at Paris, destitute and in some danger of starving, which he has not forgotten.
This Henley however is a greater favourite with him than I am; as I soon found by his discourse.
I began by sounding him, to try if it were possible to prevail on him to assert he had written the letter at the instigation of Henley, instead of me; but I soon found it was in vain, and durst not proceed to let him see my drift.
I then persuaded him that they had totally mistaken my purpose in writing the letter; that I had done it with a very friendly design; that I had myself a very great esteem for Henley, and that I meant nothing but good to Anna; but that there were some reasons, which I could not explain to him, that had occasioned me to write the letter.
As my next purpose, after that of making him an evidence in my favour, was to send him entirely out of the way, if I failed in the first attempt, I began to remind him of the condition in which I had found him in Paris, which he was ready enough to acknowledge, and seemed indeed afraid of acting ungratefully. I prompted and strengthened his fears, and at last told him that, since I found he was a good lad and meant well, though he was mistaken and had done me an injury, I would give him an opportunity of shewing his gratitude.
I then pretended that I had a packet of the utmost consequence to be delivered to my friend in Paris; meaning you, Fairfax; which I durst not trust to any but a sure hand: and as I knew him to be an honest lad, I expected he would not refuse to set off with it immediately. It was an affair almost of life and death! And, that I might impress his mind with ideas which would associate and beget suitable images, I began to talk of the decease of my mother, of my own affliction at the misunderstanding with Anna, of my very great friendship for Henley, and of the fatal consequences that would attend the miscarriage of the packet.
Still I found him reluctant. He seemed half to suspect me; and yet I made a very clever tale of it. He talked of Henley and his aunt; and he had likewise a dread of Paris. His aunt I find has been maintained by Henley, she being lame and disabled; and as sending him out of the way was a preliminary step absolutely necessary, I gave him a thirty pound bank-note, desired him to go to his aunt and give her ten pounds, and to keep the rest to secure him against any accidents, of which he seemed afraid, in a strange country; with a promise that he should have as much more, if he performed his commission faithfully, on his return.
I further enquired the direction of the aunt, telling him I would undertake to provide for her: and so I must, for she too must be sent out of the way.
At last, by repeating my professions and again reminding him of my taking him up at Paris, I was successful. Though I had more trouble in gaining the compliance of this lout than would have been sufficient, were I prime minister, and did I bribe with any thing like the same comparative liberality, to gain ten worthy members of parliament, though five knights of the shire had been of the number.
He wanted to return to Wenbourne-Hill for his necessaries and trifling property; and this reminded me not only of the danger of doing that but of his passing through London. Accordingly I told him to keep the ten pounds meant for his aunt to buy himself what things he wanted, which I promised to replace to her, and informed him I now recollected that he must take the nearest road to Dover, which I pretended lay through Guildford, Bletchingly, and Tunbridge, leaving London on the left.
The importance, hurry and command I assumed did not give him time to reflect; and the injunctions I gave were such as I do not imagine he would have disobeyed. But for my own security, pretending a fear that he might mistake his way, I sent my valet with him; privately ordering the valet not to part till he saw him safe on board the packet-boat.
And now, Fairfax, it is not impossible but the wise uncle, who has an excellent scent at discovery and no small opinion of his own acuteness, may find out that Henley himself was the forger of this letter; that it was a collusion between him and the lad, that he has himself removed moved both the lad and the aunt, and that his charity is a farce. I say such an event is possible. You may be sure that the idea shall be wholly his own, and that I will allow him all the just praise which he will graciously bestow upon his penetration.
My directions to the lad w ere to bring the packet immediately to you; which packet you will find to be blank paper, for I had no time for any thing more, except a short note of which the following is a copy.
AN event which I have not leisure to relate occasions me to send you this by a special messenger. You will most probably receive a letter express from me before he arrives, but if not detain him carefully. Hint not a word of the matter, but make a pretext of urgent business concerning me, for the issue of which he must wait. At all events do not let him escape, till you hear further from
C. CLIFTON.
I was obliged to pretend extreme hurry to the lad, but I gave my valet private instructions to take him round, and use as much delay as he conveniently could. Meanwhile I will send the letter I am now writing away express, that you may be fully prepared; for this is a point of infinite consequence. If you are not in Paris the express is to follow you; and you will be kind enough to take measures that the lad may follow the express. He is ordered to wait your commands, which I told him might possibly detain him a month, or even more; though it might happen that the business would be transacted in a week.
Not that I can hope the real business can now possibly be so soon finished.
You will take care to make your account agree with mine; and circumstances oblige me to require of you, Fairfax, to condescend to get the lad's favour, and not make his stay irksome. You may command me to ten times this amount, as you know.
This is a melancholy scene, and a gloomy house, and a dismal country; and I myself am fretful, and moody, and mad, and miserable. I shall soon get into action, and then it will wear off.
I will have her; ay, by the infernals will I! And on my own terms. I know she is rejoicing now in her Henley. Eternal curses bite him! But I will haunt her! I will appear to her in her dreams, and her waking hours shall not want a glimpse of me. I know she hates me. So be it! If she did not I could not so readily digest my vengeance. But I know she does! And she shall have better cause! I never yet submitted to be thus baffled. She is preparing an imaginary banquet, and I will be there a real guest. I will meet her at Philippi!
I wish I were away from this place! I wish I were in my mother's coffin!
I hate to meet this insolent sister of mine. We have had a battle, and I was in such a frantic rage that I could neither find ideas nor words; while she was cool, cutting, insolent, impudent—! I never in my life had so strong an inclination to wring a hussey's neck round.
But I will get away as fast as I can. I am resolved however to turn her out of the house first. She shall feel me too, before I have done. Brother with her is no tie, nor shall sister be to me. Her mother has made but a small provision for her, and has recommended her to my mercy. She had better have taught her a little humility—
Plagues and pestilence! Why do I worry myself about her? I have quite causes enough of distraction without that. I must not turn her out of doors neither, now I remember. If I did she would fly to her friend, and would make her if possible as great a fury as herself.
Why do I say would make? Do I not know that I am her abhorrence? I loved her, Fairfax, better than ever I loved woman; and would have loved her more, have loved her entirely, infinitely, heart and soul, if she had not wronged me. From the first I was overlooked by her, catechised, reprimanded, treated like a poor ignoramus; while her Henley—! If I write any more I shall go mad!—Dash through the window, or do some desperate act!—
C. CLIFTON.
LETTER CII.
SIR ARTHUR ST. IVES TO ABIMELECH HENLEY.
London, Grosvenor Street.
MR. HENLEY,
SIR, I have received your letter, which I must acknowledge is far more satisfactory and in a more proper style than your last, at which I cannot but own I was exceedingly surprised.
With respect to your son, I must say that he is a young gentleman of very great merit; and though a marriage into the family of St. Ives is a thing that he certainly has no right to expect, yet I cannot deny that your proposal deserves some consideration; inasmuch as you now come forward like a man, and have likewise a recollection of propriety.
Neither do I forget, good sir, what you have hinted concerning Wenbourne-Hill, which is far from disagreeable to me. And though there are many impediments, for which I cannot altogether answer just at present, yet I think it very probable that this affair should end in something like the manner you desire. I accordingly expect, Mr. Henley, you will have the kindness to stop proceedings relative to the foreclosures.
In return for which I assure you, on my honour, I will do every thing that becomes a gentleman to bring the affair to a proper conclusion. And as I have a very great respect for your son, and think very highly of his parts, and learning, and all that, I find when things come to be considered that he perhaps may make my daughter more happy, and the match may have other greater conveniences than perhaps one that might seem to the other branches of my family more suitable.
But I know that for the present it will be opposed by Lord Fitz-Allen; and though I do not think proper to be governed by him or any man, yet I could rather wish not to come to an open rupture with so near a relation.
It will perhaps be thought derogatory by some other branches of the family. But my daughter has a very high opinion of the good qualities of your son; and she reminds me continually that he has done us many signal services, which I assure you, Mr. Henley, I am very willing to remember.
When things shall be in a proper train, I imagine it will be our best way of proceeding to pay off all mortgages on Wenbourne-Hill, together with the sum for the docking of the entail to my son Edward, and to settle the estate in reversion on our children and their issue; my rental being made subject to the payment of legal interest to your son for the fifty thousand pounds. But we will consider further on these things when matters are ripe.
In the mean time, be pleased to send me up one thousand pounds for present current expences, which you will place to account. And now I hope, good sir, we shall from this time be upon proper terms: in expectation of which I remain with all friendly intentions,
A. ST. IVES.
LETTER CIII.
ANNA WENBOURNE ST. IVES TO LOUISA CLIFTON.
London, Grosvenor-Street.
OH that I could write to my Louisa as formerly, with flattering and generous hopes in favour of a brother! Would it were possible! I am already weary of accusation, though I fear this is but its beginning. I cannot help it, but I have strong apprehensions. Not that I will be the slave of fear, or sink before danger should it happen to come.
The lad that copied the anonymous letter has left Wenbourne-Hill! Is run away! No one knows whither! He went the very day on which your brother left London, to be present with you at Mrs. Clifton's funeral; and Clifton now denies, with pretended indignation, having had any knowledge whatever of this letter!—Oh how audacious is he in error! Had the same energy but a worthy object, how excellent would be its effects!
It is a strange circumstance! And what is more strange and indeed alarming, Frank has been to enquire for the lad's aunt, and she is gone! No one can tell what is become of her, except that she went away in a hackney-coach, after having as the people suppose received a present; because she discharged all her little debts contracted during the absence of Frank, and bought herself some necessaries.
What can this sudden and unaccountable removal of these two people mean? They had both apparently the strongest motives to the contrary; and Frank has a very good opinion of the lad, and not a bad one of the aunt.
This is not all. We were yesterday invited to dine with Lord Fitz-Allen; that is I and Sir Arthur, not Frank Henley, as you will suppose. I had a dislike to the visit, though I did not suspect it would have been half so disagreeable. My brother and my aunt Wenbourne were likewise invited; we found them there.
Ever since the scene with Mr. Clifton I have been constantly denied to him, and positively refused all his applications for an interview; conceiving it to be just not to let him imagine there was any doubt on my mind, relative to his proceedings and their motives. We had scarcely sat down to table before he came in, as if by accident. This was a subterfuge. To what will not error and the abandonment of the passions submit?
After apologies for dropping in and disturbing so much good company, and a repetition of—I am very glad to see you, sir; you do my table honour, and other like marked compliments from Lord Fitz-Allen, Clifton seated himself and endeavoured to assume his former gaiety and humour. But it could not be—His heart was too ill at ease. His eye was continually glancing toward me, and there as often met that steady regard which he knew not how to support, and by which he was as continually disconcerted. I did not affect to frown, and to smile would have been guilt. I put no reproof into my look, except the open-eyed sobriety of fortitude, springing from a consciousness of right. But this was insupportable. He talked fast, for he wanted to talk away his sensations, as well as to convince his observers that he was quite at his ease. I know not how far he was successful, for they laughed as much when he failed, or more perhaps, than they would have done had his wit preserved its usual brilliancy. His manner told them he intended to be jocular, and that was their cue to join chorus.
Lord Fitz-Allen was very marked in his attentions to him, which were returned with no less ardour. Clifton indeed evidently laid himself out to please the whole table; but me least, because with me he had least hope; and because he found his efforts produced no alteration in that uniform seriousness on which I had determined.
As soon as the dessert was served up the servants withdrew, and not one of them afterward came in till rung for; which I imagine had been preconcerted. Looks then became more grave, and the conversation soon dwindled into silence. At last Lord Fitz-Allen, after various hems and efforts, for he has some fear of me, or rather of what he supposes the derogatory sufferance of contradiction, addressed himself to me.
I am sorry to hear, niece, there is a misunderstanding between you and Mr. Clifton; and as you happen now to be both together, I think it is a proper opportunity for explanation. You know, Miss St. Ives, that an alliance with the family of Clifton has always met my approbation; and I suppose you will not deny me the favour of listening with patience—Why don't you speak, niece?
You desired me to listen, sir, and I am silent—Let Mr. Clifton proceed.
Clifton after some stammering hesitation began—I know, madam, you have been prejudiced against me, and have been told very strange things; very unaccountable things. I cannot tell what answer to make, till I know perfectly of what I am accused. All I request is to be suffered to face my accusers, and let Lord Fitz-Allen, or Sir Arthur, or this good lady [My aunt Wenbourne] or your brother, nay or yourself, though you think so ill of me, be my judge. I am told something of an anonymous letter; I know not very well what; but if any good evidence can be brought of my having written, or caused to be written, or had any concern whatever in the writing of such a letter, I solemnly pledge myself to renounce the blessing I so ardently seek without a murmur.
Lord Fitz-Allen exclaimed nothing could be more gentleman-like. My aunt Wenbourne owned it was a very proper proposal. Edward thought there could be no objection to it. Sir Arthur was silent.
His insidious appeal to justice, and being brought face to face with his accusers, revived the full picture of the flight of the lad, the removal of the aunt, and the whole chain of craft and falsehood connected with these circumstances. It was with difficulty I repressed feelings that were struggling into indignation—I addressed myself to Mr. Clifton.
Then, sir, you coolly and deliberately deny all knowledge of the letter in question?
I have told you, madam, that I will suffer Lord Fitz-Allen, yourself, any person to pass sentence, after having examined witnesses.
Answer me in an open direct manner, Mr. Clifton, without ambiguity. Were you not the author of that letter?
I am sorry, madam, to see you so desirous to find me guilty; and I would even criminate myself to give you pleasure, but that I know I must then neither hope for your favour nor the countenance of this good company. I assure you, Lord Fitz-Allen, I assure you, Sir Arthur, and you, madam, and all, upon my honour I am incapable of what is attributed to me.
Do not appeal to my uncle and aunt, Mr. Clifton, but turn this way. Let your eyes be fixed here. Listen while I read the letter; and then, without once shrinking from yourself, or me, repeat as you have done, though in an equivocal manner, upon your honour you are not the author.
I took the letter from my pocket and began to read. When I came to the following passage I again repeated—Look at me, Mr. Clifton—
She will never have the man they mean for her, I can assure you of that; and what is more, he will never have her.
I proceeded to the end, and then added—Once more, Mr. Clifton, look at me and repeat—Upon my honour I was not the inventor and author of those words.
Louifa—! He did look—! I hope I never shall see man look so again!—He stared and forced his eyes to do their office, and repeated—
Upon my honour I was not the inventor and author of those words.
—He stabbed me to the heart, Louisa!—Can he do this?—Then what can he not do? He even felt a complacency at the victory he had obtained, and turning round to Lord Fitz-Allen and the company again repeated—
Upon my honour I am not the inventor and author of those words.
Lord Fitz-Allen almost crowed with exultation. I am mistaken, niece, said he, if you do not find there are other people who can write anonymous letters: people of no honour; upstarts, mongrels, mushrooms, low contemptible fellows, that would fully the mouth of a Fitz-Allen to mention.
The tone of this lordly uncle was so high, Louisa, and his passions so arrogant, loud, and obstinate, that it was with difficulty I could recover the fortitude requisite to assert truth and put falsehood to the blush. I again turned to my opponent.
Mr. Clifton, I feel at present you are a dangerous man. But I do not fear you. Observe, sir, I do not fear you—[I turned to my uncle] Sir, Mr. Clifton caused this letter to be written. But, if there were no such letter in existence, I have another proof, stronger, more undeniable, of which I imagine you will not doubt when I inform you that no third person was concerned. It was addressed to myself. It was a strenuous, bold, unprincipled effort to seduce me. Let the gentleman again look me in the face and tell me I am guilty of falsehood.
I spoke with firmness, and Lord Fitz-Allen's features relaxed, and his eye began to enquire with pain and apprehension. His great fear was of being convicted of want of penetration. Clifton perceived the feelings of the company turn upon him with suspicion; but his art, must I add? his hypocrisy did not fail him. He transformed the confusion he felt into a look of contrition, and with as much ardour as if it had been real replied—
It is that fatal error which has ruined me, madam, in your good opinion, and has occasioned you to credit every accusation against me, however improbable. I confess my guilt. Not guilt of heart, madam; for honour be my witness, my views were as pure as the words in which they were uttered. I was at that time dependant on the will of a mother, whom I loved, and whose memory I revere. My passions were impatient, and I wished to remove impediments to my happiness which now no longer exist. I do not pretend to palliate what is unpardonable, and what I myself condemn as severely as you do; except that I abjure all dishónourable intentions, and meant as I said to be your husband. The strongest proof I can give that this was my meaning I now offer, in the presence of this noble and good company. I require no conditions, I ask for no fortune except yourself, which is the only blessing I covet in this life. I will joyfully attend you to the altar whenever you and your worthy relations shall consent; next week, to-morrow, to-day, this moment; and should think myself the most favoured, the most happy man on earth!
The offer is the offer of a gentleman, Sir Arthur, said Lord Fitz-Allen. If Mr. Clifton had been guilty of any indecorum, niece, [Turning to me] you could not require more honourable amends. This is acting with that dignity which characterizes a man of family, Mrs. Wenbourne; and as it is impossible for Miss St. Ives to see it in any other point of view, here the affair will naturally end, and there is no more to be said.
I immediately answered—If, sir, by the affair ending here, you understand any further intercourse between me and Mr. Clifton, I must not suffer you to continue in such an error. We are and ever must remain separate. Habit and education have made us two such different beings, that it would be the excess of folly to suppose marriage could make us one.
Miss St. Ives—[My uncle collected all his ideas of rank and grandeur] Miss St. Ives, you must do me the honour to consider me as the head of our family, and suffer me to remind you of the respect and obedience which are due to that head. The proposal now made you I approve. It is made by a man of family, and I must take the liberty to lay my injunctions upon you to listen to it in a decorous and proper manner.
I answered—I am sorry, sir, that our ideas of propriety are so very opposite. But whether my judgment be right or wrong, as I am the person to be married to Mr. Clifton, and not your Lordship, my judgment as well as yours must and ought to be consulted.
Lord Fitz-Allen could scarcely restrain his anger within the bounds of his own decorum. He burst into exclamations—Exceedingly well, miss!—Very proper behaviour to a person of my rank, and your uncle!—You hear, Sir Arthur!—You hear, Mrs. Wenbourne! You all hear!—But your motives and inclinations are known, miss: I am sorry that it would dishonour the tongue of Fitz-Allen to repeat them: and I cannot help telling you, Sir Arthur, that you have been exceedingly to blame to admit such a fellow to any familiarity with a woman of rank and my niece; a fellow better entitled to be her footman than her—I will not permit the word to pass my lips.
I felt the cowardice of suffering worth and virtue to be insulted without a defender, from the fear that I myself should be involved in the insult, and replied—
The gentleman, sir, to whom you have twice alluded in terms of so much contempt, were he present would smile at your mistake. But there are more people at this table than myself who have been witnesses how little he deserves to be spoken of in the language of opprobrium.
Mr. Clifton appeared eager to be the first to acknowledge Mr. Henley was a very worthy person. Edward muttered something to the same tune; and Sir Arthur seemed very willing to have spoken out, but wanted the courage. He began at Turnham Green, but could get no further. Lord Fitz-Allen answered—
What tell you me of Turnham-Green, Sir Arthur? I was stopped once myself, by a highwayman, and my footman fired at him, and sent him packing; but I did not for that reason come home and marry my footman to my daughter.
The full image of Frank and his virtues pervaded my mind, my heart swelled, my thoughts burst from my lips, and I exclaimed—Oh, sir, that you had a thousand daughters, and that each of them were worthy of such a footman for a husband!
Had you beheld this uncle of mine, Louisa!—The daughters of the peer Fitz-Allen married to footmen! The insult was almost agony. The only antidote to the pain which his countenance excited was the absurdity and ridicule of the prejudice. But I perceived how vain it was to expect that in this company the voice of justice should be heard, and I rose. My aunt rose at the same time, to retire with me; but, recollecting myself, I turned and thus addressed Lord Fitz-Allen and Mr. Clifton, alternately:
That I may not be liable to any just blame from your lordship, or you, sir, for want of being explicit, you must permit me to repeat—I never will again admit of the addresses of Mr. Clifton. I have an abhorrence of the errors in which he is now indulging. He himself has told me what a mad and vicious act it would be to marry a husband in whom I could not confide, and I never can confide in him. My persuasion at this moment of his hypocrisy is such that, could I prevail on myself to the debasement of putting him to the trial, by pretending to accept his hand, I am convinced he would refuse. I read his heart. He seeks an opportunity to revenge imaginary injuries; for I never did, do not, nor ever can wish him any thing but good. I think I would lay down my life, without hesitation, to render him all of which his uncommon powers are capable: but I perceive the impossibility of its being effected by me, and I here ultimately and determinedly renounce all thought of him, or of so dangerous an attempt.
Mr. Clifton eagerly started up, and with a momentary softening of countenance, a pleading voice, and something like the tone of returning virtue exclaimed—Hear me, madam!—I conjure you, hear me! My appeal is to the benevolence, the dignity of your heart! Remember the virtuous plan you had formed—!
The combat in his mind was violent but short. Truth made a struggle to gain the mastery, and hope raised up a transient prospect of success, which was as quickly overclouded by anger and despair, and he stopped abruptly. At least his voice and features were so impassioned that, if these were not his sensations, I have no clue to the human heart. Perceiving him pause and doubt, I replied—
It cannot be, Mr. Clifton! You this moment feel it cannot! You have begun a course of fraud, and which the whole arrangement of to-day is only meant as so much pitiful machinery to effect. You are conscious, Mr. Clifton, you are conscious, Lord Fitz-Allen, that our meeting was not, as you have both pretended, accidental. And I here call upon you—you, Mr. Clifton, to tell for what purpose or where you have sent the lad who wrote the letter, and to what place you have removed his aunt? Such an artifice is vile, sir! And to challenge your accusers to stand forward, and with a look such as you assumed to affirm,
Upon your honour you were not the inventor and author of the letter,
is so much more vile that I shudder for you! Your own proceedings have conjured up a train of recollections that speak a concerted plan of perfidy. You mean mischief! But I once more tell you, sir, I do not fear you! I will not fear you! My fears indeed are strong, but they are for yourself. Beware! The more guilt you have committed, the more you will be driven to commit. Turn back! You are in a dreadful path! It is unworthy of you, Mr. Clifton! It is unworthy of you!
I instantly withdrew, and was followed by Mrs. Wenbourne, who began to express something like blame of the positive manner in which I had spoken, and the high language I had used to Lord Fitz-Allen; but it was too feeble to incite an answer in my then state of mind. I requested she would order her carriage, and set me down. She asked if I would not first pay my respects to my uncle. I answered yes, when my uncle should be more deserving of respect. She said I was a strange young lady. I replied I sincerely hoped there were many young ladies stranger even than I.
She took offence at these retorts upon her words, and I perceived that, though the spirit of my answer was right, the manner was wrong; and explained and apologised as became me. She was appeased, and when the carriage came again asked if I would not go with her to take leave. I answered I imagined my uncle would be glad to wave the ceremony; and, as I thought he had acted very improperly, curtsying and taking leave would but be practising the customary hypocrisy of our manners, which I hoped I should on all occasions have the firmness to oppose.
Accordingly my aunt went herself; and his lordship, still preserving his dignity, pretended to forbid me his presence, till I better understood what was due to the relationship and rank in which he stood. This my aunt reported, and I returned no answer, but left her to make her own reflections.
Thus ended this painful interview—Tell me, what ought I to think? What can be the purport of a conduct so very wrong? Such a string of falsehoods! How different would the behaviour of Mr. Clifton have been, had not conscious criminality oppressed and chained up his faculties! Such persistence in duplicity must have some end in view. Could I consent to marriage, which is now utterly impossible, he has certainly no such meaning. If he had he could not have written, he could not have acted as he has done; and even less in this last instance since his writing than before, for he could not but know that, though he could appear this generous man of honour to Lord Fitz-Allen, he must stand detected by me. It was not possible he should suppose otherwise.
Well! Let him mean me all the harm he pleases; only let me find some opportunity of convincing him what a depraved, unmanly, trivial turn his mind has taken, and let me but give it a different bent, and I will willingly suffer all he shall have the power to inflict. I do not find myself, Louisa, disposed to stand in that dread of baseness and violence which they generally inspire. Virtue is not a passive but an active quality; and its fortitude is much more potent than the rash vehemence of vice.
Adieu, dear Louisa. Peace and felicity guard you!
A. W. ST. IVES.
LETTER CIV.
COKE CLIFTON TO GUY FAIRFAX.
London, Dover Street.
THANK you, Fairfax, for your speed and precautions, which I must request you not to slacken. Do not let the lad escape you: his appearance here would be ruin. Let but my grand scheme be completed, and then I care not though the legions of hell were to rise, and mow and run a tilt at me. I would face their whole fury. The scene would delight me. Let them come all! I burn to turn upon and rend them! The more desperate the more grateful.
I told you, Fairfax, she hated me! I have it now from her own mouth! She feels I am become her foe! My hand is already upon her! My deepest darkest thoughts of vengeance do not exceed her imagination.
And yet she fears me not! Her words, her looks, her gestures are all cool, firm defiance! She is a miracle, Fairfax! A miracle! But I will overmatch her. A heroine! She would have unhorsed Orlando himself, had she lived in the times of the knights Paladin.
I am an insufferable booby, an eternal lunatic, for having first thought of quarrelling with her. But it is too late! I might have foreseen the advantages I give a woman like her. She openly, magnanimously tells me what my intents are, and then spurns at them. She keeps her anger under indeed, but does not repress its energy; a proof of the subjection in which she holds her passions. She once endeavoured to teach me this art, would I but have listened. But that is past!
I could not have thought it was in woman! The poor, wailing, watery-eyed beings I had before encountered would not suffer me to suppose a female could possess the high courage of the daring, noble mind. Never but one short moment did I overtop her: nor are there any means but those I then used. Inspire her with the dread of offending what she thinks principle, and she becomes a coward!
But I will rouse! I will soar above her, will subdue her, will have her prostrate in humble submission, or perish! In the presence of witnesses I feel I cannot succeed; but singly, face to face, passion to passion, and being to being, distinct and eminent as she stands above all woman-kind, I will yet prove to her she is not the equal of the man Clifton.
She herself has even thrown the gauntlet. I have had such a scene with her! A public exhibition! I cannot relate the manner of it. I dare not trust my brain with the full reminiscence.
Why did I quarrel with her? She meant me well—Tortures!—I am a lunatic to tease myself with such recollections. This is a damned, wrong▪ headed, ignorant, blundering, vile world▪ and I cannot see my way in it. I should have had no suspicion that it is all this but for her.
That Henley shall never have her! I'll murder him first! Though the bottomless pit were to gape and swallow me, he shall not have her! The contemptible buzzard, Sir Arthur, is now completely veered about. But in vain! It shall not be! By hell it shall not!
This fellow, this Henley must some how or other be disposed of. The contempt of the arrogant peer, her uncle, will harm him but little; for the lord, with all his dignity, is no match for the plebeian.
Neither will his lordship hastily seek another combat with his niece. The only advantage I have, in so insignificant an ally, is that of hereafter making suspicion alight on Henley, and not on me; for I mean to carry them both off, Henley and Anna. I know not where or how I shall yet dispose of them, but there is no other mode of accomplishing vengeance. They must be confined too. I care not how desperate the means! I will not retract! They shall be taught the danger of raising up an enemy like me! I will have them at my feet! Will separate them! Will glut my revenge, and do the deed that shall prevent their ever meeting more, except perhaps to reproach each other with the madness of having injured, aggravated, and defied a Clifton!
My whole days are dedicated to this single object. I have been riding round the skirts of this shapeless monster of a city, on all sides, in search of lonely tenantless houses; some two of which I mean to provide with inhabitants. I have met with more than one that are not ill situated.
But I want agents! Desperados! Hungry and old traders in violence! I care not where I go for them; have them I will, though I seek them in the purlieus of infamy and detestation. To succed by any other means is impossible. She will not admit me in the same apartment with herself, nor I believe in the same world, had she the power to exclude me.
I met her indeed at Lord Fitz-Allen's, where the scene above-mentioned passed; but it was a plan concerted with his lordship, which she easily detected, and publicly reproached him with his duplicity. I gloried to hear her; for she had not injured him. A poor compound of pride and selfishness! Incapable of understanding the worth of such a niece! But she made him feel his own insignificance.
Henley and she are now never asunder. I have mentioned the maid Laura to you. She tells me they have long conversations in the morning, long walks in the afternoon, and at night they have neither of them the power to rise and separate. But I will come upon them! My spirit at present is haunting them, never leaves them, girds at and terrifies them at every instant, during their amorous dalliance! I know it does! They cannot get quit of me! I am with them, weighing them down, convulsing them! They feel they are in my gripe!—Hah! The thought is heart's ease.
When there is no company, and when Sir Arthur is not sitting with them, this maid, Laura, has that honour. Whence it appears that even these immaculate souls have some dread of scandal.
And who is it inspires that dread? It is I! They seem to have discovered that all circumstances, all incidents wear a double face; and that I am the malignant genius who can make which he pleases the true one—Yes! I am with them! I send the Incubus that hagrides them in their dreams! They gasp and would awake, but cannot!
Why could she not have bestowed all this affection upon me? Why could she not? I once thought a woman might have loved me!—But it seems I was mistaken—The things that go by the general name of woman might; but when I came to woman herself, she could not, though she tried.
Would I were any where but in this infernal gloom! It is a detestable country! This town is one everlasting fog, and its inhabitants are as cloudy as its skies! Every man broods over some solitary scheme of his own, avoids human intercourse, and hates to communicate the murk of his mind. I am in a wilderness. I fly the herd, and the herd flies me. We pass and scowl enmity at each other, for I begin to look with abhorrence on the face of man. There is not a single gleam of cheerfulness around me. The sun has not once shone since the day of my disappointment, which was itself thick darkness.
Would I could getrid of myself!—I am going to take a ride, and make a second examination of a large lonely house beyond Knightsbridge. It lies to the left, and is at a sufficient distance from the road. I think it will suit my purpose. I must not have far to convey them; and Laura informs me their walks are most frequently directed through Hyde-Park, and among the fields at the back of Brompton.
I must be as quiet and appear as little myself as possible; for which reason I ride without a servant. And though I have been industrious in reading advertisements, and getting intelligence of empty houses, I have not ventured to enquire personally. Laura attends them in their walks; but she is secure.
They must both be seized at the same time, and in a manner that shall frustrate all research. It will then be concluded they have gone off together. He is a powerful fellow, a dangerous fellow, and I must be well provided. He shall never have her, Fairfax! I would die upon the wheel, hang like a negro, and parch alive in the sun ere he should have her!
C. CLIFTON
P. S.
All society is become odious to me, but chiefly that society which I am obliged to frequent. This uncle Fitz-Allen, aunt Wenbourne, and brother Edward are three such poor beings, and the censures they pass on a woman who is of an order so much above them are so vapid, so selfish, or so absurd, that it is nauseating to sit and listen to them. Yet these are the animals I am obliged to court! Hypocrisy is a damned trade, Fairfax; and I will have full vengeance for having been forced upon such a practice. The only present relief I have is to make the arrogant peer foam with the idea of his relationship to a gardener's son. This would be an exquisite pleasure, but that it is millions of times more maddening to me than to him!
LETTER CV.
ANNA WENBOURNE ST. IVES TO LOUISA CLIFTON.
London, Grosvenor Street.
ABIMELECH is come up to town. I am obliged very respectfully to call him Mr. Henley when Sir Arthur hears me, in compliance to his feelings: and he has hinted that hereafter, when his name is written, it must be tagged with an esquire.
The old miser [Well, Louisa, let it be the old gentleman] is so eager in pursuit of his project that he can take no rest, and is unwilling Sir Arthur should take any. He has a prodigious quantity of cunning! Whatever he may know of the theory of the passions as a general subject, no person certainly knows better how to work upon the passions of Sir Arthur: at least no person who will condescend to take such an advantage. His discourse is such a continued mixture of Wenbourne-Hill, his money, mortgages, grottos, groves, the wherewithals, and the young gentleman his son, that laughter scarcely can hold to hear him. Were the thing practicable, he would render Frank Henley himself ridiculous.
It is pleasant to remark what a check the presence of this favourite son is upon his loquacity. He never suspects the possibility of there being a mortal superior to himself at other times; whereas he has then a latent consciousness of his own ridicule. The effect which the absence of Frank has produced, with the favour he is in with me, and the resolute manner in which he conquered his father when he last went down to Wenbourne-Hill, have made a total change in the old man's behaviour to this formerly neglected but now half adored son. Were habits so inveterate capable of being eradicated, Frank would yet teach him virtue; but the task is too difficult.
He is certainly in a most delicious trance. His son to be married to the daughter of his master! That master a baronet! And the estates of that baronet to be his own, as he supposes, to all eternity. For the avaricious dreams of selfishness are satisfied with nothing less. These are joys that swell and enlarge even his narrow heart, into something that endeavours to mimic urbanity.
Whenever Sir Arthur mentions Lord Fitz-Allen, or the family consent, honest Aby in a moment conjures up Wenbourne-Hill, a hermitage, and a wilderness; and for the first day, if he found that dose not strong enough to produce its effect, foreclosures were added to the mixture. Your own heart, Louisa, will tell you what Frank's feelings were at such a mean menace; and, though to stop his garrulity entirely was not in the power of man, he determined to silence him on that subject. But the cunning Abimelech turned even this incident to advantage, by taking care to inform Sir Arthur of Frank's generosity.
Thus, Louisa, things are at present in a train which some months ago I should indeed very little have expected. But such are the energies of virtue! How changed at present do all surrounding objects seem! To me they were never dark; but they were not always pleasant. They are now all cheerfulness and perspicacity. We have the most charming walks and the most delightful conversations, Louisa; and on subjects so expansive, so sublime—! Often do I say—
Why is my friend not with us? Why does she not come and bear her part in discussion? She whose mind is so penetrating and whose thoughts are so grand?
But we shall meet! Days and years of happiness are before us! The prospect is rapture! Yes, Louisa, we shall meet, and I hope quickly!
A. W. ST. IVES.
LETTER CVI.
COKE CLIFTON TO GUY FAIRFAX.
London, Dover Street.
JOIN chorus and rejoice with me, Fairfax, for I feel something like a transient hilarity of heart. I think I am half in a temper to tell my tale as it ought to be told. Time was when it would have been pregnant with humour.
The very master-devil that I wanted has appeared to me, and we have signed and consigned ourselves over to the great work of mutual vengeance! Be patient and you shall hear the manner of it.
Two nights ago I was at the theatre. The king was there; Garrick played; the crowd was great, and no places were to be procured. During the first act I and two more stood elbowing each other at the door of one of the front boxes, the seats of which were all full. The person who was next me was hard-favoured, had a look of audacious impudence, with that mixture of dress which forms the vulgar genteel, and spoke the brogue.
The act being over the audience rose, and my gentleman, with the nonchalance assurance of his character, a total disregard of the feelings and convenience of others, and an entire complaisance for his own, stepped forward into the second seat from the door, on which there were previously four people, its full compliment. But he had noticed they were not all so athletic as himself, and was determined to make them sit close.
The persons next him, observing his redoubtable look, hesitated for a moment, but at length began to remonstrate. They addressed him two or three times without his deigning to appear to hear them; till, either encouraged by his silence or warmed by vexation, they spoke loud enough to call the attention of the people around them.
The Hibernian then sat himself down, threw his arm over the railing of the box, and his body in a careless posture, and very coolly answered—
Pray now be asy, and don't disturb the good company.
A squabble ensued, and the Irishman continued to answer them with the utmost contempt. In a short time two of them gained courage enough to threaten to turn him out; to which he replied—
Oh! By the sweet Jasus but I should be glad to see the pretty boy that would dare to lay a little finger upon me!
After another wrangle, and treating their reasonings and half menaces with the most contemptuous disregard, a gentleman from the next box interfered, and observed it certainly was very improper behaviour. The Irishman turned round, surveyed him from head to foot, and answered—
I find you have all got your quarrelling tackle on board to night; and so as I must fight somebody, and as you, mister, appear to be the most of a gintleman, why I will talk to you when the play is over. For which raison sit down, and make all yourselves asy.
The beginning of the second act and the impatience of the house to hear their favourite soon imposed silence, and the Irishman kept his seat.
I was so much diverted by the complete impudence of the fellow, that though one of the box-keepers had found me a place, I determined to return, and see how this petty brawl was to end. Accordingly I took care to be round in time, before the curtain dropped; till which the hero of it had kept quiet possession of his usurped seat.
The moment the audience rose he turned about, and with a look which I imagine no man but himself could assume, first on this side of him and next on that, addressed his opponents with—
Now if any of you are still disordered in the body, and want to lose a little blood, why follow me.
The two persons that sat next to him were both Jews, and one of them who appeared to have the most spirit had a knotted crab-stick in his hand, and insisted that the Irishman should not leave the company, till he had first given satisfaction for the insult he had committed on them all. The Hibernian replied—
All? Is it all together you mane, or one after another? Perhaps you don't understand the tools of a gintleman, and want to box me! Faith and I should have no great objection to that either, with any half dozen of you, one down and t'other come on. But you must use no unlawful weapons, my sweet fillow.
So saying, he wrested the Jew's crabstick from him, laid hold of it at each end, and snapped it in two across the railing of the box; adding with infinite composure of countenance—
This is an improper plaything for you, master Jackey, and you might do yourself a damage with it. Here is half a crown for you. Take it, man, and buy yoursilf a genteel bit of rattan, to beat the little pug dogs away, when they bark after you in the street.
Insolent as the fellow was, there was no resisting his humour, and the laugh was general. The vexed Israelite endeavoured to persist, and the Irishman drew a dirty letter out of his pocket, from the back of which he tore the direction, and giving it to the angry Jew, said—
If you have any stomach for a good breakfast tomorrow morning, I shall be at home; and the hot rolls and butter will be ready at ten.
He then strode over the seats and went into the lobby, where he was followed by the crowd.
My curiosity was highly excited, and I requested the Jew to let me read his address.
Imagine, Fairfax, my surprise at seeing the name of Mac Fane! That is, of the gambler and bully who some time ago had been attempting to plunder brother Edward; and who had been so successfully opposed by the family knight-errant, Henley! Among the busy conjectures of my fermenting brain concerning the instruments I might happen to want, should things as they have done come to an extremity, the supposed qualifications of this hero had more than once passed in review. The behaviour to which I had this evening been a witness perfectly confirmed all my former conjectures, which I instantly recollected; I therefore determined not to lose sight of him.
Before I knew who he was I had been glad to see the squabble continued, because it drew out the strong traits of this very eccentric genius; but I grew impatient to put an end to it the moment I had made the discovery.
The thing was not difficult. His character was too desperate and determined not to inspire fear; and the humour of his phraseology and brogue made the laugh always on his side. The passions of his opponents counteracting each other died away. The farce was going to begin, and he advised them to
go, and not lose full eighteen pennyworth out of their five shillings.
Finding the morsel was too hard for their digestion, they took his advice and returned quietly to their seats: while he several times traversed the lobby, and looked first into one box and then into another, to let them see that there he was.
My resolution was formed, and I soon found an opportunity of falling into conversation with him; and as I took care that my tone should answer the intended purpose, he presently invited me to adjourn, and take what he called a bottle and a bird at the Shakespeare.
The proposal exactly suited me, and away we went.
He called for a private room, which I should have done if he had not, though with a very different view. My appearance made him hope he had caught a gudgeon. He presently began to turn the discourse upon various kinds of gaming. Billiards, tennis, hazard, and pass-dice, were each of them mentioned; and, to encourage him, I gave him to understand I knew them all. He then talked of cards, and asked if I had any objection to take a hand at picquet;
just to pass away an hour before supper.
I answered none.
Accordingly the waiter was rung for, and the cards were presently upon the table.
He proposed playing for a trifle; from one guinea to five; not more;
becase as why, he was tied up from deep play. He had lost five thousand pounds within six weeks, and they had had a pretty pigeon of him!
— [Had you but seen the form and features of this pigeon, Fairfax!]
For which raison he must take care and not be plucked any more. It was the misfortune of his timper not to know when to stop; and there was not so unlucky a fillow in the three kingdoms. He was always the bubble, play at what he would, and every snap-jack knew him to be his mark.
Such was the lesson which this fellow had got by rote, and had been retailing to all comers for years. But I have observed of gamblers that they cannot forbear rehearsing their own cant even in the company of each other, and when they are convinced every soul that hears them knows they are lying.
I however had my purpose to serve, and we sat down to our game. The stakes were five guineas a side. According to custom, I won the three or four first games; and he pretended to curse, and fret, and again ran over his bead-roll of being pigeoned, plucked bare, bubbled, done up, and the whole catalogue of like genteel phrases.
The first game he won he proposed, as luck was perhaps taking a turn in his favour, to double the stakes, and I indulged him. He suffered me to win the following game. I say suffered, cheating being taken into the account; for I am certain that at the fair game I am his master. But that is no matter.
The three following games were all his own, and he then began to repeat the remainder of his part.
By the blissed Jasus he would not believe his own eyes! Three games together!
The fellow swore, with one of the deepest oaths his memory could furnish, such a thing had never happened to him before in his whole life!
But now that he was in luck, he would as soon play for a hundred guineas as for a thirteener.
He endeavoured to provoke me to increase the stake; and, by the supper not coming up, I am convinced the waiter and he understood each other, and that the signal had been given. I refused to play for a greater sum, and we continued till he had won fifty guineas, he incessantly swearing—
By the blissed crook! By the hind leg of the holy lamb! By Saint Peter's pretty beard!
and by all manner of oaths, some of them of the most whimsical and others of the most horrible kind, that he had never been a winner so much before in all his life. From the first ten guineas that he won to the last it was still the same tune.
I then rang the bell and ordered supper, thinking the sum sacrificed quite sufficient; though not more than enough to serve my purpose.
While we were eating, he endeavoured by all the arts he knew to excite the passion of gaming in me; and he is a tolerable adept. But my mind was too intent upon another subject. I watched the moment when he was at the height of his hopes, which I had purposely encouraged to produce my intended effect, and then asked him if he did not know Captain St, Ives?
Impudent as the fellow is, his countenance for a moment was fixed, his mouth open, and his eye struggling to get rid of alarm, that it might begin its enquiries. I followed up my blow by adding—
You won three thousand guineas of him I think, Mr. Mac Fane, which I am told were never paid—
The fellow put his hand into a sidepocket, which he had in the body of his coat. I instantly suspected he had a small pair of pistols there, and my suspicions were afterward confirmed. He drew it back, having satisfied himself that they were actually forth-coming, and then recovered himself so far as to ask—
Pray, sir, are you acquainted with Captain St. Ives?—
I am, sir, answered I—I likewise know Mr. Henley.
You do, sir? said the astonished Mac Fane.
I do, sir. I am intimate with Sir Arthur St. Ives, and he is the son of his gardener: a low fellow that acts as the baronet's man of all work; his steward, his overseer, and his cash-keeper.
This contempt thrown on the character of Henley gave the Irishman some relief. By the holy poker, said Mac Fane, but I always thought he was a spalpeen, and no gintleman!
I think you have no great cause to like him much, sir, continued I, from the account that I have heard.
His choler began to rise, and his eyes assumed an uncommon ferocity. Like him! Sweet Jasus snatch me out of the world if I don't pay off an old score with him yet, before I die.
I thought as much, sir, answered I.
Sir! Replied he, again staring with reviving alarm and suspicion—
I continued.—To tell you the truth, Mr. Mac Fane, that is the very subject which brought you and I into company this evening. I suspected your hate of Henley, and to be sincere I hate him too.
Had you seen the fellow's face brighten, Fairfax, and after brightening begin to flame, you would not have readily forgotten the picture.
But I am rather surprised to meet you in public, sir, added I.
What do you mane by that, sir?
I thought you deemed it prudent to keep out of the way, on account of that affair?
I felt some gratification in playing thus upon his fears—He now once more put his hand into his side-pocket, and pulling out his pistols laid them before him. By Jasus, sir, I don't very well know what you would be at! But when I understand the full tote of your questions, I shall know how to give an answer.
I could not very well digest this oblique menace; but to have quarrelled with such a rascal would in every sense have been madness. You have a wellmounted pair of pistols there, said I, Mr. Mac Fane. I'll bet you the fifty guineas, double or quit, I break this china plate at the first shot, ten paces distant.
By the great grumbler, answered he, but I'll bet you don't! immediately delivering me one pistol, and taking up and unlocking the other himself. Accordingly I placed the plate against the wall, fired, and was not far from the centre. Upon my honour and soul, sir, said Mac Fane, but I find you are a good shot, and I shall be glad to be better acquainted with you.
Having convinced him that I could hit a mark as well as himself, I returned to the subject of Henley; and though I could not bring him to be explicit, I learned from him that he was acquainted with Henley's aversion to prosecute, but does not know on what that aversion is founded. Beside which he confides in a want of witnesses, as I could perceive: except that he has some fear of his accomplice, Webb; a man in whose company this very Mac Fane once attempted to rob Sir Arthur, and whom I suspect he would impeach, but that it would ruin all his gambling views. For he has found means of associating with that whole class of young fools of fortune, whose perverted education leads them to take pleasure in the impudence and humour of such a fellow, as well as in seeing each other stripped and ruined by turns; but who would never admit him as a companion, did they know he had been guilty of an act so desperate as that of going on the highway. Scarcely any thing short of this can expel such a fellow from such society.
But though he thinks himself secure in consequence of the lenity of Henley, he hates him as sincerely as if he were pursuing him to the gallows. The loss of the three thousand guineas is one great motive; and another is that he felt he was out-braved by Henley, whom he could not terrify, but who on the contrary terrified him.
I found he had even formed a scheme of petty vengeance, which was to waylay Henley with some bruising fellows of his acquaintance, for he is acquainted with daring villains of all descriptions, one of whom was to insult, provoke him to fight, and beat him, while Mac Fane himself should keep at some distance, disguised.
It was with some difficulty I could persuade him to desist from this plan, and join in projects of my own. But at last however he was convinced that to rob him of his mistress, and awaken him from all his dreams of imaginary bliss to the torture I am preparing, would be more effectual revenge than a paltry beating. Not to mention that I firmly believe, instead of being beaten, he would conquer the best prize-fighter they could bring; for he is really a powerful and extraordinary fellow.
But you will perceive, Fairfax, I was obliged to inform him of a part of my own views; and that I might fix him I determined to bid high. I told him I had Henley and another person to secure; and that if he would aid me himself and provide other assistants to act under his directions, without seeing or being informed of me, I would give him a thousand guineas as soon as all this should be perfectly accomplished. And, as an earnest of my generosity, I put down the fifty guineas; saying that the wager I had made with him was not a fair one, for that it was fifty guineas to a straw in my favour: he had no chance of winning.
He was quite satisfied with my offer, strengthened as it was by the gratification of his own passions. I told him what a puissant hero Henely is, and of the necessity of coming upon him by surprise. I told him I had seen a house, as before described, beyond Knightsbridge, which pleased me; but that I could not find another near enough, in which to secure Henley.
The geography of the place I mentioned seemed to start an idea in his mind, and he told me, if I would meet him in two days at the same tavern, he would in the mean time not only make preparations and procure assistants, but perhaps bring me further intelligence. As the fellow's brain seemed busy, I did not wish to rob him of the self-satisfaction of invention, and we accordingly parted, making the appointment he proposed.
Of all existing beings, he perhaps was the only one who could in a country like this become the proper instrument of my revenge. And yet, Fairfax, he is a hateful fellow! His language, his looks, his manners, his passions, are all hateful! Courage excepted, there is not a single trait in him but what is abominable! He delights in talking of hocking men, chalking them, and cutting them down! Every time his anger rises against any one, these are its attendant ideas. Such a fellow must come to some tragical end. He can never die of old age, and scarcely of disease. Nothing but the lead and steel in which he delights can end him.
So it is, and I have no remedy. But he shall be to me no more than an implement, with which I will carve the coming banquet.
How minute are the chances and events on which we depend! A few slight alterations of incident, and how different would have been the train of my thoughts! She might have been happy with me, for I loved her, Fairfax. I loved her. I feel it more and more; and were but circumstances a little more savourable, I believe I should turn about and take a contrary path.
But it cannot be! The barrier is insurmountable! An adamantine wall, reaching to the skies! I remember what she said, at her proud uncle's table—
I have an abhorrence, Mr. Clifton, of the errors in which you are now indulging.
—Abhorrence was the word, Fairfax!—It has been at my tongue's end ever since—And when she talked of my errors she meant me.—
I ultimately and determinedly renounce all thought of him!
—This was her language! I knew before which way her heart went; and can I suppose, now she has got a fair excuse, that she will not profit by it? Oh no! I am not so ill read as that in the passions. But I have said the word—They shall never come together!—They never never shall!
C. CLIFTON.
LETTER CVII.
COKE CLIFTON TO GUY FAIRFAX.
London, Dover Street.
I HAVE received your dissuasive epistle, Fairfax. It found me moody and did not contribute to make me merry. To own the truth, no ghost need rise to tell me the methods I use are inclined to the violent. Can you find me better? Nay can you find any other? I care not for consequences; I brave them all.
Time was that I could have been happy with her! Ay and should, but for this fiend Henley. He sleeps securely! Let him sleep on! I will soon awaken him!
I thought I should have been tortured but by one chief passion, and that the love of vengeance would have enveloped me wholly: but they are all devouring me by turns. I certainly hate her, and him I abhor. Yet pictures of imaginary happiness, that might have been, are continually rising, and vanishing in gloomy regret. He too, at the very moment that I could murder him, I am obliged to admire!
Still he shall not have her! Though death overtake him, her and me, he shall not have her! But what is death? A thing to covet, not to dread. 'Tis existence only that is hateful!—Would that my bones were now mouldering!—Why have I brains and nerves and sensibilities?—Oh that I were in the poisonous desert, where I might gulp mephitic winds and drop dead; or in a moment be buried in tornados of burning sand! Would that my scull were grinning there, and blanching; rather than as it is consciously parching, scorched by fires itself has kindled!
I spent all yesterday with that Irish scoundrel. Malignity is his element, and mischief his delight! I suspect by his assiduity that he is poor just at present; for a more industrious demon black Cocytus does not yield. He is already provided with associates, and has found another principal agent for the great work. It is a strange expedient! But these are strange fellows l And yet it is a lucky one; superior to any that I had projected.
When I mentioned the Knightsbridge road at our first interview, Mac Fane recollected that an intimate of his had just set up what was to him a new trade, in the neighbourhood; that of being the keeper of a madhouse. He determined to go and propose the business to him; and as the fellow was preparing to advertise for lunatics, but had not yet got a single patient, there was a complete opening for such a plan.
He proposed taking me to see this intended guardian of maniacs, and his house; and I ordered a post-chaise for that purpose, that I might hide myself in one corner of it, and not let a living soul detect me with such a companion.
As we were going, I enquired if this keeper were an Irishman? He took offence, and retorted—
What did I mane by an Irishman? Becase he is a rogue you think he is an Irishman! By the holy carpenter you need not come to Ireland for that kind of ware! You have a viry pritty breed of rogues of your own! But he is not Irish. He is one of your own sulky English bugs.
The description was not inapplicable, for I think I never beheld a more lowering, black-browed, evil-eyed fellow, since the hour I first saw light. He had all the gloom of the most irrascible bulldog, but without his generous courage. He seemed more proper to make men mad than cure them of madness. But he had two excellent qualities for my purpose; poverty and a disposition to all ill.
I am got into excellent company! But I care not! I will on! All this seems as if it were but the prologue to the tragedy. But be it that, or be it what it will—I care nothing for myself; and I have little cause to care more for them. She never had any mercy on me; and least this last interview, when I was pleading before her pompous uncle.
I have been obliged to hold consultations with these Satanic rascals, to concert ways and means. The most secure we have been able to devise, relative to Henley, is to have a straight waistcoat, to come upon him suddenly, and to encrust him in it before he shall know what we are about. This with a gag will make him safe. But there must not be less than four fellows, and those stout ones. Nothing must be left to chance.
Three more must be provided for the lady, of whom Mac Fane himself proposes to be one. But he means to keep out of sight of Henley, till he is in cuftody.
I have various preparations yet to make. Mac Fane is to go and hire me the empty house tomorrow. It is furnished; but it must be aired, for I would not have her die a paltry catch-cold death. I would treat her like a gentlewoman in every respect but one; and in that I will have as little compassion on her as she has had on me.
It might have been otherwise! I came to her a generous lover! I saw her and was amazed at her beauties, captivated by her enchanting manners, soothed by her unvaried sweetness! But this sweetness she has turned to gall! I adored her, and was prepared eternally to adore! But injury followed injury in such quick succession that apathy itself called aloud for vengeance!
I own it is true what she said at her uncle's, that I had made a resolution not to marry her. But what were my resolutions? She herself could not but feel she had the power to break them all. But she had not the will, Fairfax! It rankles there! She hates me, and what is more damnable she loves another!
I must turn my thoughts again to this detested mad-house man, and the scenery around it. All the avenues must be examined, and all the bye-paths and open roads that lead toward both houses inspected, that Mac Fane and his emissaries may make no blunder. I will if possible keep out of the action, but I will be near at hand.
I have a secret wish, the moment all is over, to fly the odious scene; for horribly odious it will be: but it would have the appearance of cowardice. It must end tragically! Not even the poor creatures who stand in the place of her natural guardians, tame as they are, can suffer such an insult. Yet which of them dare look me in the face, and call himself my enemy? And, after injuring her, shall I hesitate at trampling upon them?
I must steel my heart, Fairfax, when I go to the encounter; must recapitulate all my wrongs. I have them noted down severally as they occurred! I need but read to rage! What do I talk?—Read?—Can I forget them? No; night nor day! They are my familiars. They wake with me, sleep with me, walk with me, ride with me, glower with me, curse with me—but never smile with me. They are become my dearest intimates. I cherish and hug them to my heart! Their biting is my only pleasure!
I cannot forget this keeper. He is a foul-faced fellow! Has a wry look; a dogged, dungeon hue; of the deepest dusk and progeny of Beelzebub! I wonder by whom, where, and why such fellows are begotten!
There are horrid villians in the world! Villains by trade; that never felt the strong impulse of high-minded passion; that could breakfast in an hospital, dine in a slaughter-house, and sup in the sanguinary field of battle, listening to the groans of the mangled; or toss them on the points of forks, to smelt in a heap! I have heard her talk something of these depraved natures, and of the times when they are all to be humanised. Can you conjecture when, Fairfax? Yet she said they should be, and I was half inclined to believe her.
C. CLIFTON.
P. S.
I meant to notice that passage in your letter in which you mention Beaunoir; but I forgot it till this moment. So you are at last inclined to think Anna St. Ives must be something more than you every day meet, from the rapturous description of that rodomontade Count? After all I have written, your faith wanted the seal of such a lunatic? Had you forgotten that the time was when I would have married her? And did that say nothing?
The Count is preparing for England? Let him come! I remember one of his crazy phrases and claims was that he would be her champion, should ever base knight attempt to do her harm. Nor have I forgotten his intended visit, received by Henley. May the winds set fair and blow him quickly over! Should he have any such frolics in his brain, we shall not be long in coming to terms.
This Mac Fane is incessantly importuning me to play, and what is strange has several times excited the desire in me. I took up the dice box, after we had been to the mad-house, and threw half a dozen casts at hazard; but I soon found it was in vain, and checked myself. I know I have the command of my own temper in that respect.
I have been reading over this tedious homily, and find it most ineffably dull. But what is to be done? My gaiety is gone. My high spirits are converted into black bile. My thoughts are hellebore and deadly night-shade, and hilarity is for ever poisoned.
LETTER CVIII.
ANNA WENBOURNE ST. IVES TO LOUISA CLIFTON.
London, Grosvenor-Street.
HAVE I been unjust to the brother of my friend? Or had my words the power over him to turn him from a guilty purpose?—Well; rather, ay infinitely rather let me be a false accuser than he culpable! He seeks me no more, offers not to molest me, and I hope has forgotten me; at least has seen the error of endeavouring to accomplish a purpose so criminal by means so base. I expected storms, but a sweet calm has succeeded that seems to portend tranquillity and happiness.
With respect to me and Frank, our union appears to be hastening to a conclusion. Sir Arthur, impelled forward by his hopes and fears, proceeds though reluctantly to act contrary to the wishes of my arrogant uncle. Mrs. Wenbourne is dissatisfied; but her opposition is feeble, for Edward is reconciled to the match; having no other motive but the acquisition of a sum of money for his consent to dock the entail; and of the manner in which this sum will be squandered we have already had sufficient proof.
I understand Lord Fitz-Allen affects to credit a report of a very ridiculous, though as some would think it of a very injurious nature; which is that there was a collusion between Frank Henley and Mac Fane respecting my brother's gambling affair. The circumstances necessary to render this probable are so violent as immediately to expose its absurdity, and to make it matter of amazement how such an assertion could be invented, or circulated.
What could be Frank's motive?—My wise uncle has his answer ready—
That of imposing upon the family in order to marry me.
And what Mac Fane's? "A bribe" is a short phrase, and soon said.
I imagine it to be some dream of my uncle's, who has an aptitude for this kind of invention; and who having once put a few incidents together that seem to agree, persuades himself with great facility that the fable he has created is fact. Petty calumny like this is wholly incapable of moving Frank Henley.
The restless crafty Abimelech has prevailed on Sir Arthur to go down with him to Wenbourne-Hill. He well knows how much his own power will be increased by the old habits of Sir Arthur, and the ease with which they can be revived by this his interested abettor. Not but I am well convinced, when once every thing shall be settled, and he have no longer any thing to fear from the opposition of Sir Arthur, he will be as little a friend to improving as any of us. Various hints which have dropped from him would have proved this to Sir Arthur, had he not been blind enough to suppose that, he being a baronet, honest Aby is bound ever to remain his most obedient slave and steward; forgetting the proofs he has received that Abimelech at present is more inclined to command than to obey; and that when he parts with money he must have what he calls the whys and the wherefores.
His confidence in Frank however is now so entire that he has entrusted the transaction of certain money business to him, necessary on the present occasion, which he came up purposely to negotiate himself, but which he is now convinced can be done full as prudently and safely by his son. But a few months ago, Frank tells me, he petitioned this father in vain for thirty pounds, who now commits thousands to his keeping.
Not but it is from a conviction that there is no propensity in Frank to waste one of those guineas of which he is so enamoured. Without the least love of money, Frank is a rigid economist. The father indulges no false wants because it would be expensive; the son has none to indulge. Habits which in the one are the fruits of avarice, in the other are the offspring of wisdom.
Abimelech has some confused suspicion that Frank acts from higher motives than himself, and such as he does not understand; but still he hopes they are all founded on his own favourite basis, the love of hoarding. Nor can he very well persuade himself that this love is not the grand mover with all men of sense, among whom he now ranks his son high.
But ah, Louisa, how different are the views of this worthy, this heavenlygifted son! He is anxiously studious to discover how he may apply the wealth that may revert to him most to benefit that society from which it first sprang. The best application of riches is one of our frequent themes; because it will be one of our first duties. The diffusion of knowledge, or more properly of truth, is the one great good to which wealth, genius, and existence ought all to be applied. This noble purpose gives birth to felicity which is in itself grand, inexhaustible, and eternal.
How ineffable is the bliss of having discovered a friend like Frank Henley, who will not only pursue this best of purposes himself, but will through life conduct me in the same path, will aid my efforts to promote the great work, and, by a combination of those powers we happen to possess, will add energy to effort, and perhaps render it fifty fold more pervading and effective!
Husband and wife, parent and child are ties which at present claim, or rather extort a part of our attention. But oh how poor how insignificant are they, when compared to the claims of eternal justice; which bind man to man in equal and impartial benevolence over the face of the whole earth, and render the wandering Arab, who is in need of aid or instruction from me, as truly my brother as the one my mother gave me.
I seem now but beginning the journey of life; and to have found a companion, guide, and consoler like Frank Henley is surely no common felicity! May the fates grant my Louisa just such another!
A. W. ST. IVES.
P. S.
You do not think, Louisa, no I am sure you cannot think that all the ardour I felt for the recovery of a mind like Mr. Clifton's is lost. Far, far otherwise! I still hope to see him even more than my fondest reveries have imagined! But I am not the agent; or at least this is not the moment; or which is still more probable no agent now is wanted. His mind has been obliged to enquire, and though passion may for a time suppress truth, its struggles will be incessant; must be so in a mind of such activity, and must at last be victorious. The grand enemy of truth is the torpid state of error; for the beginning of doubt is always the beginning of discovery. Let us then continue to love this man of wonderful genius; not for what he is, but what he shall be.
LETTER CIX.
FRANK HENLEY TO OLIVER TRENCHARD.
London, Grosvenor-Street.
OH, Oliver, how fair is the prospect before me! How fruitful of felicity, how abundant in bliss! Yes, my friend, jointly will we labour, your most worthy father, you, I, Anna, her friend, and all the converts we can make to truth, to promote the great end we seek! We will form a little band which will daily increase, will swell to a multitude, ay till it embrace the whole human species!
Surely, Oliver, to be furnished with so many of the means of promulgating universal happiness is no small blessing. My feelings are all rapture! And yet if I know my heart, it is not because I have gained a selfish solitary good; but because I live in an age when light begins to appear even in regions that have hitherto been thick darkness; and that I myself am so highly fortunate as to be able to contribute to the great the universal cause; the progress of truth, the extirpation of error, and the general perfection of mind! I and those dear friends I have named; who are indeed dear because of their ardent and uniform love of virtue!
Neither, Oliver, are all our hopes of Clifton lost. Anna thinks, and so do I, that he has heard too much ever to forget it all: or rather that he has a mind so penetrating, and so eternally busy, that, having been once led to enquire, it is scarcely in the power of accident wholly to impede the progress of enquiry. And should accident be favourable, that progress would indeed be rapid! By his intercourse with Anna his mind is become impregnated with the seeds of truth; and surely the soil is too rich for these seeds not to spring, bud, and bear a plenteous harvest. Ay, Oliver, fear not. It is not the beauty of the picture that seduces, but the laws of necessity, which declare the result for which we hope to be inevitable.
My present state of happiness meets some slight check from incidental circumstances, not in my power to guide. My father and Sir Arthur are doing what I believe to be a right thing, but from wrong motives. The prodigal Edward, from a very different avarice of enjoyment, is eager to dock the entail. The sum he is to receive will soon be squandered, and he will then be as eager to imagine himself treated with injustice; and will conceive himself left half to perish with want, if his accustomed dissipation be not supplied. But that it must not be. If we can teach him better we will; if not he must be left to repine and accuse, and we must patiently suffer the error which we cannot cure.
Lord Fitz-Allen indulges himself in thinking as much ill of me as he can, and in speaking all he thinks. But this is indeed a trifle. I know that the mistakes of his mind, situated as he is, are incurable; and to grieve or feel pain for what cannot be avoided is neither the act of wisdom nor of virtue.
F. HENLEY.
LETTER CX.
FRANK HENLEY TO OLIVER TRENCHARD.
London, Grosvenor Street.
I DID not intend to have written again so soon, but an incident has occurred which perplexes all reasoning upon it, and again engenders doubt. It relates to Clifton.
I last night attended Anna to Covent-Garden playhouse, where about eight o'clock I was obliged to leave her, having an appointment with some gentlemen in the city relative to my father's money affairs at that hour; which having settled it was agreed I should return in the carriage for Anna, before the play was ended, to conduct her home. Accordingly having met my men of business, whom on Friday next I am to meet again to receive eight thousand pounds, I drove back to Covent Garden.
It was then about ten o'clock. The coachman stopped at the Piazza. I alighted; but, as I was stepping out of the carriage, whom should I see but the gambler and highwayman, Mac Fane, linked arm in arm with Mr. Clifton! I was struck with amazement, as well I might be. A thousand confused doubts succeeded to each other, which I had neither time nor indeed power to unravel.
However it seemed to me almost impossible that Mr. Clifton should know the man, and suffer himself to be seen in public with such a character. For certainly a want of self-respect is not one of the habitual mistakes of Mr. Clifton. I stopped some little time in this state of perplexity, but at last concluded it would be highly culpable in me to leave Mr. Clifton ignorant of the character of his acquaintance. They had gone toward King-Street, and I hastened after them.
I soon came up with them, and addressing myself to Mr. Clifton, said—
Sir, it is incumbent on me to inform you of a particular of which I imagine you are ignorant. The name of the man you are in company with is Mac Fane. You have heard his history. He is the gambler who endeavoured to defraud Captain St. Ives of three thousand pounds.
I have before acquainted thee, Oliver, of the ferocious character of this Mac Fane; of which I have now had further proofs. I had scarcely finished my phrase before he replied, with one of his accustomary oaths—
You're a scoundrel and a liar
—and immediately made a blow at me.
Being previously on my guard and watchful of his motions, I stepped quickly back, and he missed me and reeled. This was in King-Street, where I overtook them.
I turned back, intending not to notice his insult; but he was too much enraged to suffer me to escape, unless I had thought proper to run. He is a very muscular fellow, and confident of his own strength. No man could be more determined than I was to avoid so absurd a contest, had it been possible; but it was not. He made several blows at me, two or three of which took effect, before I returned one of them. But finding that I must be obliged to beat him in order to get rid of him, and that there was absolutely no other mode, I began my task with all necessary determination.
The mob collected apace, and we were presently surrounded by passengers, waiters, chairmen, footmen, hackneycoachmen and link-boys. It was a strange disgusting situation; but it did not admit of a remedy. This fellow, Mac Fane, has studied the whole school of assault, and is a practised pugilist. When I was a boy thou knowest, Oliver, and before thy worthy father had taught me better, I was myself vain of my skill and prowess. I was not therefore the novice which he expected to have found. Not to mention, Oliver, that energy of mind, if it be real and true energy, is itself, without any such contemptible knowledge, sufficient to overcome the strongest efforts of tyranny.
Of this I presently made Mr. Mac Fane sensible. After the very first onset, he felt himself cowed; which increased his rage so much that he endeavoured to have recourse to the most malignant and cruel expedients, to obtain victory. This obliged me to give him several hard and very dangerous blows, which I should otherwise have been cautious of doing, and the effects of which he will for some time continue to feel.
He fought however with great obstinacy, and in a manner which proved how much his ambition was wounded by being conquered. The mob, as in all such cases, chose different sides; but much the greatest part was for me. They several times saw the malicious and evil intentions of Mac Fane; and he once received a blow for them, from one of the assistants, which made him more guarded.
It is delightful to the philosopher to perceive how, even in error, justice struggles to shew itself. Those rules which are the laws of honour to the mob originate in this noble principle: and never is the infraction of justice more dangerous than at such moments, when the mind is awakened to full exertion.
Still it was a painful and degrading situation! Wert thou ever at the mercy of a mob? Didst thou ever feel the littleness of thy own faculties, when exerted to make a confused multitude act rationally, at the very time that thou thyself wert apparently acting like a fool, or a madman? If so, Oliver, thou canst conceive something of the contempt which I felt for myself, during this scene. Can a general, thinkest thou, if he be really a fit person to be a general, feel otherwise in the heat of battle? For I am mistaken if armies of the best disciplined men, brought into action, do not more or less become a mob. And added to this sense of imbecility, what must the general's feelings be the next morning, when he goes to view the wretched scene of his own making? Does he go to view it, thinkest thou, or does he shun the sight? If he go he is a fiend; and if he stay away he is worse!
The battle being ended and the rage of Mr. Mac Fane, though perhaps increased, obliged to restrain itself, there stood I, surrounded by my applauding admirers, suffering a thousand ridiculous interrogatories, and confined to the spot for the want of clothes! My hat and coat I had committed to one person, and my watch and purse to another; taking it for granted the latter would have been stolen from me if I had not, as was actually the fact, for my breeches pockets were turned inside out. I had rightly concluded that the chances were more favourable in trusting to a person I should select, than to the honesty of a mob in the confines of Covent-Garden.
I was fortunate: the whole of my moveables again made their appearance; and it gave me great pleasure, because I had trusted my purse and watch to a poor fellow. The consciousness of his own honesty was a greater pleasure to him than the recompense he received from me; though I thought it my duty to reward him liberally. Beside he had seen me ill treated, and had conceived an affection for me, or more properly for the justice of my cause, and he rejoiced exultingly in my victory.
I escaped from the shouts and congratulations of my greasy well-meaning companions as fast as I could; and after a further delay of stepping into a coffeehouse, to wash and adjust my appearance as well as circumstances would permit, I joined Anna, who began to be alarmed, the play being over and the house almost empty.
I saw no more of Clifton. But that affords me no clue. If he were before unacquainted with Mac Fane, he would hasten from such a companion with vexation and contempt: and if the contrary, his chagrin at being seen by me would equally induce him to shun us. Mind, as I have always remarked, Oliver, and as I have before reasoned with thee relative to him, is slow in ridding itself of the habits of prejudice, even when prejudice itself seems to have ceased.
'Tis true that conjectures disadvantageous to Clifton have, when Anna and I were considering this incident, intruded themselves forcibly upon us: but they were only conjectures, and I hope ill founded. Indeed they are improbable; for Clifton could not knowingly league himself with a man like Mac Fane, except for purposes too black or too desperate for even passions so violent as his to entertain.
I know mind to be capable of astonishing mistakes; nor can I pretend, when I recollect the proofs on record, to say what are the boundaries of error; nor indeed what are the boundaries of probability. But I think Clifton could not make himself the associate of Mac Fane!
I should pronounce more boldly still, but that I cannot conceive how it was possible for a character so legible and gross, as that of this gambler, to impose for a moment on Coke Clifton; acquainted as he is with the world, and accustomed to detect and satirize what he understands to be absurdity! I can only say, if he be proceeding in error so flagrant and deep as this, he is a man much to be feared, but more to be pitied.
F. HENLEY.
LETTER CXI.
COKE CLIFTON TO GUY FAIRFAX.
London, Dover Street.
AGAIN and again, Fairfax, this is an infernal world! A vile, disgusting, despicable, besotted ass of a world! Existence in it is not worth accepting; and the sooner we spurn it from us the better we shall assert our claim to the dignity and wisdom of which it is destitute.
How do I despise the blundering insolent scoundrel with whom I am linked! How despicable am I to myself!
I last night met the fellow again at the Shakespeare. Of all his dirty qualities, not one of them is so tormenting as his familiar impudence! There is no repressing it except by cutting his throat; a business at which he is always alert. Nothing delights him so much as to talk of extinguishing men, treading out their souls, feeding upon their life-time, and other strange revolting phrases, all of the same sanguinary sort.
Having consulted with him concerning the seizure of Anna and Frank, and concluded that the affair should be ended as speedily as possible, I wished to have shaken him off and retired: but the thing was impracticable. I do not choose that my own carriage should attend me on these expeditions; and as it was a rainy night, I knew the difficulty of getting a coach. I therefore staid an hour till the entertainment should be begun, and the Piazza probably more clear.
As there is no sitting in his company without some species of gaming, for his whole conversation, that subject excepted, consists of oaths, duels, and the impudent scoundrels he has put out of the world, I took a few throws at hazard with him; and, as I was very careful to call for fresh dice and to watch his motions, I was a winner; hazard perhaps being the fairest of all games, if the dice be not foul. He ran over his usual litany of being pigeoned, and about ten o'clock I left play, and determined to sally forth; being apprehensive of engaging too deeply at the game, if I staid longer.
The moment we had descended the stairs he impudently laid hold of my arm. My blood boiled, Fairfax! Yet I was obliged to submit.
This was not all! The precautions I had taken were but a kind of presentiment of the vexation that was preparing for me. Just as we quitted the door of the tavern, who should bolt upon us but the hated Henley! I shook with the broad shame! My teeth gnashed curses! How willingly could I have pistoled him, Mac Fane, every being that eyed me, and still more willingly myself!
But there was nothing for it but to walk on, and seem not to see him. He however would not suffer me to depart without a double dose of damnation! The same infernal officiousness, with which from the first moment he saw me to the last he has been seized, came upon him; and though I hurried through the Piazza to escape, like a perjurer from the pillory, he pursued us purposely to inform me I was in company with a rascal, and to warn me of my danger.
I never can recollect my own situation, without an impulse to snatch up the first implement that would deprive me of a consciousness so detestable!
The irascible fury of the bully rid me of my tormentor; he immediately assaulted Henley, and I hastened away from two beings so almost equally abhorrent, but from causes so opposite.
On the following evening, having another appointment with the gambling rascal, I took care to have a coach waiting, and to go muffled up and disguised as much as possible. But for once my caution was superfluous. No Mac Fane appeared.
Not knowing what had happened, and it being night, and I thus properly equipped, I resolved to drive to his lodgings. Being there I sent up my name, and was admitted to the bedchamber of this doughty exterminator of men. If the temper of my mind were not obnoxious to all cheerfulness, I could almost have laughed, the bully was so excellently beaten, mortified, and enraged! His head was bound up, his eyes were plaistered, his thumb sprained, his body of all colours, and his mind as hotly fevered as Alexander's itself could have been, had Alexander been vanquished at the battle of Issus!
His impatience to have Henley in his power is now almost phrensy; and it will be phrensy itself when he comes to find, as find he will, that though he can tie the hands of Henley his conquest must end there, and that the prisoner will still defy and contemn his jailor. So would I have him. Henley, though I hate, I cannot but respect and admire. The other is a creature I detest myself for ever having known!
Yet who but he could have gratified the unabating burning passion of my heart? I feel, Fairfax, as if I had taken my leave of hope, joy, and human intercourse! I have a quarrel with the whole race, for having been forced into existence and into misery! I have suffered an accumulation of disgrace, for which I can never pardon myself! And shall I permit the authors of it to live undisturbed in their insult and triumph over me? No, by hell, come of me what will! Lower I cannot be in my own esteem than I already am: tremble those who made me so!
Beating has but rendered this rascal more impatient and active. Every thing is prepared. The house is hired, aired, and provided with a proper guardian. The madman keeper has all his implements ready. We have now only to watch and catch them at a proper distance from all succour, to which in their amorous walks they have frequently strayed.
Though even you, Fairfax, seem to disapprove my conduct, I care not. Not to give yourself further trouble with what you call such positive prudes might be a very good maxim for you, who love your ease too much ever to be sensible of the boiling emotions of a soul like mine! You are Guy Fairfax; I am Coke Clifton. Not but I should have imagined the swelling volumes of injuries I have communicated would have lighted up a sympathetic flame of retributive vengeance even in you, which not all your phlegm could have quenched. But no matter—Though heaven, earth, and hell were to face me frowning, I would on! My purpose is fixed: let it but be accomplished, and consequences to myself will be the least of all my cares.
C. CLIFTON.
LETTER CXII.
COKE CLIFTON TO GUY FAIRFAX.
London, Dover Street.
SINCE the world began, never yet had scoundrel wight so many damning accessary incidents to contend with, as I have had during the whole progress of this affair! All hell seems busy to blacken me!—I have done the deed—They are secure—But the hour of exultation itself is embittered, and the legitimate triumph of vengeance made to wear the face of baseness—I have them; but as I tell you there is an event, that happened the very moment preceding the seizure, which seems to have been contrived by the most malignant of the fiends of darkness, purposely to steep me in guilt indelible!
After our myrmidons had been three days in vain upon the watch, on Friday last Anna and Henley sallied forth, about two in the afternoon, to take one of their amorous rambles. As usual they were followed by Laura, who had sent me word of their intention, which she had learnt at breakfast time. Henley it seems had previously been into the city.
A scout was on the watch, and when they appeared soon brought the intelligence. All was in readiness. The keeper with three stout fellows in one party, and Mac Fane with four more in another. The earliness of their setting out denoted they intended to lengthen their walk. The great danger was that it should have been directed to Kensington Gardens, as it has been several times lately; but in this instance fortune was on our side.
They went into the park, passed the gardens, walked beside the wall, crossed the Kensington road, and strayed exactly as we could have wished into the fields inclining toward Brompton.
I was on horseback, and by the help of a pocket telescope kept them in view, without the danger of being seen, while they were in the park; but as soon as they had left it I thought it necessary to spur on, and be ready to prevent any blunders. I crossed the road down the lane at the turnpike, passed them, and saw them arm in arm. The sight was insupportable!
From what afterward happened they must have seen me too, though I imagined myself under cover of the hedge.
You know my determination not to be robbed; and indeed robbery at such a time, and in such a place, was a thing I had little reason to expect. But a fellow, who was lying in ambush at the turn of the lane, calculated differently. He imagined nobody to be near, and suddenly presented himself and his pistol, with a demand of my money.
I made a blow at him with the butt end of my whip, which missed his head, but fell on his shoulder. My horse started, he fired and missed, but sprung suddenly forward, and seized hold of the bridle. He had another pistol which he was preparing, imagining I should be more intimidated when I found him so desperate. All this happened immediately after I had passed Anna and Henley; and the latter perhaps having seen the fellow, and certainly having heard the pistol, flew in an instant, leaped the hedge, and just as the robber was again presenting his pistol made a blow, and knocked it out of his hand.
The pistol went off, and the fellow took to his heels. Henley, instead of pursuing him, stayed to enquire with much earnestness whether I had received any hurt.
At this very damning speck of time, Fairfax, the keeper and his scoundrels who had been dogging them came up. There were four of them: two before and two behind. The undaunted Henley severally knocked down the two fellows in front, and in an instant would undoubtedly have been far enough out of all reach; but, in the very act of striking the second rascal, he received a blow from a bludgeon, dealt by the blood-hound keeper, which levelled him with the earth.
Never did my heart feel a twinge like that moment! I thought he was dead! He lay motionless; notwithstanding which the infernal keeper continued his occupation with unconcern, turned the unresisting body over, slipped on the straight waistcoat, and bound down his arms.
At length he gave a groan! The instant I heard it I galloped off, full speed. It was too much for heart to endure!
I soon afterward heard him shout for aid more than once, but to this they presently put a stop, by forcing a gag into his mouth. They were not very far distant from the house where he was to be confined, and to which he was immediately hurried away.
There he at present remains. His morning dialogues, his noon-day walks, and his nightly raptures are ended. They are things past, never more to return! Of that torment at least I have rid myself; and others compared to that are bliss ineffable! I had sworn it should not be! They might have read the oath largely written on my brow, and ought instinctively to have known it to be the decree of fate!
No, Fairfax! I never asked a favour from him; never by my own consent received one! Not all the tortures of all the tyrants the earth ever beheld should have extorted a consent so degrading! His repeated interference was but a repetition of insult, and as such deserves only to be remembered. I asked not life at his hands; and giving life, instead of a blessing, he did but give torture! The gift was detestable and the giver! Had I perished, he might have been safe and I at rest. I asked not charity of him. No! On any terms I abhor existence; but on those, darkness and hell are not so hateful! It has ulcerated my heart, which not even vengeance itself I find has now the power to heal. For life I am made miserable; but it shall not be a single misery!
While the keeper was acting his part of this gloomy drama, Mac Fane, as you may well imagine, was not idle. He and his unhallowed scoundrels presently made seizure of the lovely Anna. She stood confused and half terrified at the sudden flight of her enamorato! She was more confused, more terrified at the sudden appearance of her ravishers! I charged the scoundrels on their lives to use her tenderly! But what know such hell-hounds of tenderness?
She made I find a brave and by them unexpected resistance: but there were too many of them, and it was in vain! Mac Fane himself is amazed at her beauty; and harangues in his coarse and uncouth jargon on the energy and dignity of her deportment, in a manner which shews that even he was awed.
They were obliged however forcibly to stop her cries. This I imagined would be the case, and I had provided them with a white cambric handkerchief. But what will not the touch of such unconsecrated rascals defile?
Yes, Fairsax, they laid their prophane hands on her, clasped her in their loathsome arms, polluted her with their foul fingers! The embrace of a Clifton she might perhaps pardon; but this violation she never can!
Well then, let her add this injury to the rest! I know her to be my enemy; sworn, rooted, and irrevocable! And why should I tag regret to my sum of wretchedness? No! I will at least enjoy a moment of triumph, however transitory! Let her despise me, but she shall remember me too!
Give me but this brief bliss, and there I would wish existence to end! That excepted, pleasure there is none for me; and of pain I am weary. Yes! I will glut my soul with this solitary, short rapture; and contemn the storms that may succeed! I fear them not, shall glory in them, and be glad to find foes, if such should arise, with whom contention will not be disgrace! I wish and seek them. Their appearance would give me employment, and employment would give me ease, and ease would be heaven!
C. CLIFTON.
LETTER CXIII.
COKE CLIFTON TO GUY FAIRFAX.
London, Dover-Street.
ALARM has sounded her horn. The family is all confusion, all doubt, hurry, fruitless enquiry, and indecision. The absence of Anna and Henley at dinner threw Mrs. Clarke into consternation; for Sir Arthur is down at Wenbourne-Hill, with old Henley and his son Edward. Each is indulging his dreams of improvement, marriage, docking of entails, and other projects, to which I have put an eternal stop.
Finding the evening advance, and that the two prisoners did not appear, the housekeeper sent to the aunt, Wenbourne. She heard the story and was amazed. She knew nothing of them.
Ten o'clock came, and terror increased. A messenger was dispatched to Lord Fitz-Allen; and he could not at first tell whether to be sorry or glad, for he did not an instant forget to hope that it was some rascally act on the part of Henley.
He sent for the housekeeper. She came, and he interrogated her. The answers she gave did not please him, for the tendency of all his questions was to the disadvantage and crimination of Henley, whom she pertinaciously defended. She affirmed so positively, and so violently, that it could not be any plan or evil intention of his, that the proud lord was half angry but half obliged to doubt.
I took care to be in the way, expecting as it happened that a message would be sent to me. I immediately attended his lordship, and learned all that I have been relating. I condoled with him, and pretended to pity the family; not neglecting to lead his thoughts into the channel that would best serve my purpose, and to recapitulate every circumstance I could remember, or invent, that should induce him to believe Henley and Anna had eloped; but affecting candour, and pretending to argue against the possibility of such a supposition.
The effect I intended was produced. He was fully convinced of Henley's being a low, selfish, contemptible scoundrel; and Anna a forward, disobedient, insolent miss.
I offered my services to pursue them, and pressed his acceptance of them violently; but was careful to counteract the offer, by shewing the impossibility of their being overtaken, and by exciting him rather to wish for their escape, that Anna might be flagrantly disgraced, and his penetration and authority vindicated to the whole world.
I did not neglect, before the departure of Mrs. Clarke, to display all my eagerness, by sending round to numerous inns and stable-keepers, to enquire whether any post-chaise had been hired, that should any way accord with the circumstances. Other messengers were dispatched, by my advice, to the different turnpikes; and a third set sent off to various watch-houses, to enquire whether any intelligence could be obtained of accidental deaths, or other mischances.
In short, I was very diligent to hurry the legs of the servants and the brains of their governors into every direction, but the right; and thus for a little while in some sort diverted myself, with the vagaries of the fools upon whom I was playing. One chop-fallen runner trod upon the heels of another, each with a repetition of his diversified nothings; till his lordship thought proper to recollect it was time for his dignity to retire, and not further disturb itself on personages and circumstances so derogatory.
In the morning I was careful to be with him again. I breakfasted with him, and reiterated the same string of doubts, conjectures, alarms, and insinuations.
Mrs. Clarke returned. She had been up all night, and her looks testified the distress of her mind. She proposed sending an express after Sir Arthur; of the propriety of which I endeavoured to make the uncle doubt; but she was too zealous, and her oratory had too much passion, to be counteracted without danger. I therefore, when I saw resistance vain, became the most eager adviser of the measure.
There is no merit in imposing upon stupidity so gross as that of this supercilious blockhead. Mrs. Clarke would be much more to be feared, but that what she may say will be much less regarded. Her affection for Anna is extreme, and a high proof of the excellent qualities of her mistress.
Nor was she one whit less enthusiastic in her praise of Henley. Notwithstanding the forbidding frowns and reproofs of his lordship, she ran over his whole history; and dwelt particularly on an act of benevolence done by him to her niece; that being a circumstance that had come immediately within her knowledge. She spoke with such a fervour and overflow of heart that she once or twice moved me.
She perceived something of the ridiculous compunction I felt, and fell on her knees, wrung my hand, and adjured me, in a tone of very extraordinary emphasis, to save her dear her precious young lady. I scarcely could recover myself sufficiently to ask her which way it was in my power to save her; and to turn the conversation, by exclaiming to the peer—
Ah! Had she but allowed me the happiness and honour of being her protector, I think no man would have dared to do her harm.
The old housekeeper however continued, and began to denounce impending and inevitable evil on the persecutors of Henley and Anna. I have no doubt she glanced at me, and that her mistress had informed her of the triumph gained over me. Why ay! I should indeed have been the scoff of the very rabble, had I not taken vengeance for my wrongs!
Yet her denunciations seemed prophetic: or rather were feeble descriptions of the excruciating pangs by which I am hourly gnawn!
I grew weary of the dull farce, and put an end to it as speedily as I conveniently could; leaving his sage lordship with the full conviction that the sudden disappearance of Henley, and his niece, could no otherwise be accounted for but by wilful elopement.
I am now preparing for a very different visit. A visit of vengeance! I expect no pleasure, no gratification but that alone! To prove the danger of injury done to me, to punish the perpetrators, to exult at their lamentations, and to look down with contempt at all menace, or retribution, is now my last remaining hope! Let me but enjoy this and all other expectation I willingly relinquish!—I am going—I have them in my grasp!—They shall feel me now!
C. CLIFTON.
LETTER CXIV.
ANNA WENBOURNE ST. IVES TO LOUISA CLIFTON.
WHERE I am, what is to become of me, or whether I am ever to see my Louisa more, are things of which I am utterly ignorant. I write not with an expectation that my friend should read, but to memorandum events of which perhaps the world will never hear; and which, should this paper by any accident be preserved, it will scarcely believe.
This vile Clifton—[Surely I ought never again to call him my Louisa's brother]—This perverse man has grown desperate in error! The worst of my forebodings have not equalled his intents! His plan has long been mischief! Hypocrisy, violence, rape, no means are too foul!—Such things are incomprehensible!
I am confined in a lone house, somewhere behind Knightsbridge. I was seized I know not how by a band of ruffians, and conveyed hither. Every kind of despicable deceit appears to have been practised. Frank was decoyed from me. He flew once again to save the life, as he thought, of this base minded man. I know not what is become of him, but have no doubt that he like me is somewhere suffering imprisonment, if he be permitted yet to live.
No thoughts are so tragical, no suspicions so horrid as not to be justified, by deductions and appearances which are but too probable. Yet I will not sink under difficulties, nor be appalled at the sight of danger; be it death, or what else it may. That I am in a state of jeopardy my seizure and imprisonment prove. That Frank is still in greater peril, if still in existence, I have just cause to conclude. There were pistols fired, and one after he leaped the hedge; I know not at whom directed, nor what its fate!—I would if possible ward off apprehension. I know it to be folly, and I will endeavour to steel my heart against this as well as other mistakes. If he be dead, or if he be to die, grief will not revive or make him invulnerable. His own virtue must preserve him, or nothing can; and in that I will confide.
That evil is meant to me it would be absurd to doubt; but of what nature, where it is to begin, or where end, that time must disclose. For I will not permit myself to imagine the trifling indignities, or violence I have hitherto encountered, an evil worthy of complaint.
'Tis true my arms are bruised, and I was rudely dealt with by the vile men who seized me: and that there should be such men is an evil. But to me it is none; or not worth a thought. If I would firmly meet what is to come, I must not weakly bewail what is past.
I am not immortal, neither is my strength infinite; but the powers I have I will use. We are oftener vanquished because we are fearful than because we are feeble. Our debility takes birth in our cowardice, and true fortitude is not to be abashed by trifling dangers.
I meant to write a narrative, but these reflections are forced upon me by my situation. I will proceed.
I was brought here, on Friday *****, by several men of vulgar but ferocious countenances; and my maid Laura with me. I made all the resistance in my power; and the men, without any regard to what I suffered in body or mind, twisted my arms behind me, so that I imagined one of them had been dislocated, and forced a handkerchief into my mouth; handling, tossing, and griping me, without any respect whatever to decency or pain, till they had conveyed me from the fields, in which I was walking with Frank Henley, to the place where I am.
I scarcely can guess at the distance; but they hurried me away with great violence, crossing several gates, and forcing apertures through hedges, for the space I believe of not more than half an hour: it might be much less.
They brought me to a house walled round; into which having been admitted by an old woman, they hurried me forward up stairs, and shut me into a room decently furnished, with a fire in it and a bed-chamber adjoining; but with the windows barred up, and in which every precaution had evidently been taken to render escape impracticable.
Laura was shut up with me; and there was a slip of paper on the table, on which was written—
Laura is allowed to fetch whatever you may want. Let her ring the bell, and the door will be opened.
—The hand-writing was Mr. Clifton's.
Among other necessaries, there was a book-case, furnished with the works of some of the best authors; and a writingdesk, with pens, ink, and paper.
The same old woman that opened the gate for the men, who brought me, constantly comes to open the door for Laura, when I ring. But this she does with great caution. A chain, similar to what is common for street-doors, is hung on the outside; which she puts up, and looks to see that I am not near, every time she opens the door. The first time she came I stood just behind Laura, and in a morose tone she bade me go back, or she would lock the door again.
After Laura had been several times down stairs, I enquired what discoveries she had made; and, as she informs me, the house appears to have no inhabitants but this old woman and ourselves. The old woman resides in the kitchen. The doors and windows are all secured; and the same care is taken to prevent escape below stairs as above.
The food that has been brought us was good, and well dressed, but almost cold. Laura says she is sure it cannot be dressed in the house, which is most probable.
I communicate but few of my thoughts to Laura, because I fear I have good reason to be suspicious of her. I have long remarked her partiality in favour of Mr. Clifton, intermixed with some contradictory appearances, which I could not solve at the time, but which I now believe to have been aukward attempts to conceal that partiality, and to mislead me; which she in part effected.
The base designs of Mr. Clifton, from the nature of them, cannot have been very recent; and nothing perhaps was more necessary, to carry them into execution, than the seducing of the woman who by her situation could give him the best intelligence.
Since I have begun to doubt her, I have purposely cross-questioned her occasionally, and she has answered with hesitation and incoherency. If however I can perceive the least hope that this letter should be conveyed to the post-office, by any person who may visit the house, and whom she may see but I cannot, I will trust it to her. The trust indeed is nothing, for it cannot increase my peril. The persecution of Mr. Clifton must prove most pernicious to himself. Unless he can deprive me of conscious innocence, it can injure me but little.
Among other ambiguous circumstances respecting Laura, she scarcely seems to repine at her confinement: though she has several times affected uneasiness, which while she acted it she evidently did not feel. Beside she is permitted to stay below, and run about the house; which, whatever caution of bars and bolts may have been used, she would not be suffered to do, as I should suppose, were she really in my interest.
About an hour ago we heard the yard bell ring and the gate open, and she was eager to go down. I encouraged her, and she rung for our turnkey. She had seen me writing, and, without being spoken to, took upon her to suppose it was a letter to my Louisa, and told me she
did believe
she could get it conveyed to the post. I am persuaded this is preconcerted officiousness. But as I said, I have nothing to lose, and there is a bare possibility of hope.
When she came up stairs again, she told me that the person who had rung at the bell was some man of the neighbourhood, who had brought the old woman various trifling articles, and whom she had ordered to return at five o'clock, with tea and sugar.
If contrary to all expectation this should come to hand, Louisa, write to my father; inform him of all you know: and especially write to Mr. Clifton. It will be ineffectual, but write. If there be truth in woman, I would rejoice to suffer much more mischief than he has the power to inflict, could I but by that means restore him to a sense of his own worth; or rather of the worth of virtue!
Why do I talk of mischief, and his power to inflict? I hope to shew him he has no power over me; and that the strength of men, and the force of walls, locks, and bars are feeble, when but resolutely opposed by the force of truth, actuating the will of weak and despised woman!—Injury?—Poor depraved, mistaken man! It is himself he injures! Every effort he makes is but a new assault upon his own peace! It is heaping coals of fire upon his own head; which it has long been the wish of my heart to exstinguish!
Had I but any reason to believe Frank Henley in safety, I would not suffer a single sigh to escape me. But I know too well Mr Clifton dare not permit him to be at liberty, while he keeps me confined. Surely nothing can be attempted against his life? And yet I sometimes shake with horror! There is a reason which I know not whether I dare mention; yet if Mr. Clifton should think proper to lay snares to intercept and read my letters, he ought to be informed of this dangerous circumstance. I know not, Louisa, whether I am addressing myself to you or him; but Frank Henley at the time that I was seized, and he likewise as I suppose, had bank-bills in his possession to the amount of eight thousand pounds!
He had been that very morning into the city, to receive the money on his father's account; and intended as we returned to leave them with Sir Arthur's banker.
If men such as those who seized on me were employed for the same violent purpose against him, and if they should discover a sum which would to them be so tempting, who can say that his life would be safe? Frank Henley, the preserver of Clifton, the preceptor of truth, and the friend of man; the benevolent, magnanimous, noble-minded Frank, whose actions were uniform in goodness, whose heart was all affection, and whose soul all light—and murdered!
Why do I indulge a thought so unhuman, so impossible? It could not be!—No, no; it could not be! A supposition so extravagant is guilt—Yet though I who cannot aid him ought not to encourage such doubts, let those who can be warned, and be active!
I am addressing myself to vacancy! No one hears me! No one will read what I write!
I will be calm. It is my situation, it is confinement, the bars I see and the bolts I hear that inspire these gloomy thoughts. They are unfounded, and certainly unavailing—He may have escaped! He may at this instant be in search of me! Hurrying, enquiring, despairing, and distracted; in much deeper distress than I am: for were I but sure of his safety, I could almost defy misfortune! Let not the world lose him! Oh! If any human creature should in time read this, let him hear, let him shudder, let him beware!
Pardon, Louisa! I do not address myself to you! Too well I know my friend to doubt her! No cold delay, no unfeeling negligence, no rash phrensy is to be feared from her!—Alas! What I am writing she will never read! It cannot be! The man I have to encounter is too practised in deceit, or I should not have been where I am!
Well then, may he himself read! And while he reads, thus let his conscience speak—
There is a man whose worth and virtues are such, that the loss of him would be a loss to the whole human race. From this man I received a thousand acts of kindness: for which I returned ten thousand insults. I repulsed him, scorned him, struck him; and he, disregarding the innumerable injuries I had done him, but a few hours after plunged headlong down the dreadful abyss, to snatch me from the grave. I was dead and he gave me life. In return I have robbed him of what men prize even more than life, of liberty. But if I have put him in jeopardy, if I suffer him to remain in the power of hardened and wicked men, and if he perish, mercy cannot pardon me, justice cannot punish, and charity itself must hold me in abhorrence.
A. W. ST. IVES.
LETTER CXV.
COKE CLIFTON. TO GUY FAIRFAX.
London, Dover-Street.
MY actions are now become one continued chain of artifice. But were that all, and were not the objects of this artifice of a nature so new and so painful, it would afford me amusement, and not be any cause of vexation.
As it is I feel apprehensions which are wholly different from any I ever felt before. To deceive in countries where deception is a pastime, authorised, practised, and applauded, is I find something very opposite to what would seem the same thing, in this gloomy land of apathy and phlegm. There it is a sport and a pleasure. Here it is a business of serious danger and general detestation. But no matter!
I am obliged to watch times and seasons, for I have little doubt that I myself am watched. That old housekeeper I am sure suspects me; and her affection for her mistress is so full, so restless, that it cannot but sharpen her intellects, and make her employ every engine she can imagine for discovery. I walked up to Fozard's as I often do for my horse, and I saw one of Sir Arthur's servants pass the yard, soon after I entered it. I have little doubt but he was dogging me.
I got on horseback and rode slowly down toward Pimlico, and over Westminster bridge, but I saw no more of him.
As soon as I was out of town I mended my pace, and gradually increased it to a full gallop. Passing through Vauxhall, I crossed the Thames again at Battersea-bridge, rode through Chelsea, and presently gained the Brompton road.
My first visit was to the keeper. The fellow has a strange look! A villainous physiognomy! I enquired after his prisoner and found he was safe. The house is well secured; not modern, but in the style of the last century; strong and heavy, and before this affair was thought of had been fitted up for the purposes of confinement, but is now still better fortified. It has a garden, which is surrounded by a high wall, in which the prisoner is suffered to exercise himself; but not without the very necessary precaution of confining his arms in the strait waistcoat, securing the doors, and attentively watching his motions.
I ordered the fellow to see that Henley wanted for nothing, to let a boy he has wait upon him, and to keep out of his way himself, for two reasons of my own. I do not wish Henley to suffer the insults of such a vulgar and narrowsouled rascal: my revenge is of a nobler kind. Neither am I quite certain that this keeper, hardened, obdurate, and pitiless as he is, could withstand Henley's oratory. At least I would not willingly have him subjected to the temptation: though the fellow is so averse to any sense of human pity that I think the danger is very small.
He was offended however at my thinking proper to direct him, and surlily told me he understood his trade.
Here I met Mac Fane, by appointment. He cannot forget the disgrace of Covent-garden, and spoke of Henley with a degree of malignity that would want but little encourageing to become dangerous. I am to pay him the thousand pounds in a few days, and our place of rendezvous is then to be once more at the Shakespeare.
I was glad to escape from the company of these new inmates of mine, these first-born of Beelzebub, and to fly to my other prisoner. I say fly, for I set out with eagerness enough; but every step I took I felt my ardour abate. The houses are more than half a mile apart, and I thought proper to go thither on foot, and not to take any common path, but to cross the fields, as the securest mode.
Laura knew I was to be there, and had her tale ready. She presently came down. I enquired after her mistress, and if her account be true, this heroic woman has not shed a tear, but has behaved with all her apparent customary calm. She is a divine creature!
As I rode along, I made a thousand determinations that all should be that day ended. I cursed myself, pledged my honour, used every method which might have shewn me how much I doubted my own resolution, to prove to myself how irrevocably determined I was! The little remaining firmness I had left wholly died away at the relation of Laura.
I must stay till the calm dignity of her mind shall begin to decline. The nature of her confinement, the fears she cannot but have for her Henley, the recollection of her friends and father, and her apprehensions of me must all quickly contribute to produce this effect.
I do not pretend to deny that I feel a reluctance to a first interview: but I am determined the first shall be the only one. I know myself, and know when once I am heated it will not then be Anna St. Ives, a miracle though she be, that can over-awe or conquer me. I have the stubbornness of woman, and the strength of man. I am reckless of what is to follow, but the thing shall be! There is not a particlè in my frame that does not stand pledged to the deed, by honour and oath! It is the only event for which I care, or for which I live.
Nor shall I live long when once it is over. I foresee I shall not. But that is not a painful, no, it is a satisfactory thought! I would even present her the pistol, would she but dispatch me the moment my revenge is gratified. I would then sleep, and forget all that is, and all that might have been.
She has been writing. I knew it would be one source of amusement to her, and I provided her with implements. Laura asked and she owned it was a letter to my sister, which she could wish were sent. But that must not be. She means to give it to Laura; I of course shall be the next receiver.
This girl, Laura, acts her part ill. She is not half sorrowful enough. I wonder Anna does not remark it; and Laura says she does not, though that is no very good proof. The complexion of her letter I think will tell me how far she does or does not confide in her maid. I know she holds suspicion in contempt; and yet I think my high opinion of her discrimination would find some abatement, were I certain that she did not suspect this shallow girl.
My soul burns to have it over! And yet like a coward I refrain. But I will not long submit to such contemptible qualms. I will not continue to be diffident of myself; for it is that only by which I am withheld. Not a single wrong is forgotten! I repeat them in my sleep! Ay, Fairfax, such sleep as I have is nothing but a repetition of them; and a rehearsal of the revenge by which they are to be appeased! I will return tomorrow, or perhaps next day; and then—! You shall then hear more from
C. CLIFTON.
END OF VOLUME VI.