CHAPTER XLVII.

Before the Belfields had quitted us, it was stipulated that we should, with submission to the will of a higher power, all meet for six weeks every other summer at Stanley Grove, and pa.s.s a month together every intermediate year, either at the Priory, or at Beechwood.

I pa.s.sed through London, and spent three days in Cavendish-square, my friends having kindly postponed their departure for the country on my account. Lady Belfield voluntarily undertook whatever was necessary for the internal decoration of the Priory; while Sir John took on himself the friendly office of arranging for me all preliminaries with Mr.

Stanley, whose largeness of heart and extreme disinterestedness, I knew I durst not trust, without some such check as I placed in the hands of our common friend.

As soon as all personal concerns were adjusted, Lady Belfield said, "I have something to communicate, in which, I am persuaded, you will take a lively interest. On my return to town, I found, among my visiting tickets, several of Lady Melbury's. The porter told me she had called every day for the last week, and seemed very impatient for my return.

Finding she was still in town, I went to her immediately. She was not at home, but came to me within an hour. She expressed great joy at seeing me. She looked more beautiful than ever, at least the blush of conscious shame, which mingled with her usual sweetness, rendered her more interesting.

"She was at a loss how to begin. With a perplexed air she said, 'Why did you stay so long? I have sadly wanted you. Where is Sir John? I have wanted counselors--comforters--friends. I have never had a friend.'

"I was affected at an opening so unexpected. Sir John came in. This increased her confusion. At length, after the usual compliments, she thus addressed him: 'I am determined to conquer this false shame. There is not a worse symptom in human nature than that we blush to own what we have not been afraid to do. From you, Sir John, I heard the first remonstrance which ever reached my ears. You ought to be informed of its effect. You can not have forgotten our conversation in my coach, after we had quitted the scene which filled you with contempt for me, and me with anguish for the part I had acted. You reasonably supposed that my remorse would last no longer than the scene which had inspired it. You left me alone. My lord dined abroad. I was abandoned to all the horrors of solitude. I wanted somebody to keep me from myself. Mrs. Stokes dying! her husband dead! the sweet flower-girl pining for want--and I the cause of all! The whole view presented such a complication of misery to my mind, and of guilt to my heart, as made me unsupportable to myself.

"'It was Sat.u.r.day! I was of course engaged to the opera. I was utterly unfit to go, but wanted courage to frame an excuse. Fortunately Lady Bell Finley, whom I had promised to chaperon, sent to excuse herself.

This set my person at liberty, but left my mind upon the rack. Though I should have rejoiced in the company even of my own chambermaid, so much did I dread being left to my own thoughts, yet I resolved to let no one in that night. I had scarcely pa.s.sed a single evening out of the giddy circle for several years. For the first time in my life I was driven to look into myself. I took a retrospect of my past conduct--a confused and imperfect one indeed. This review aggravated my distress. Still I pursued my distracting self-inquisition. Not for millions would I pa.s.s such another night!

"'I had done as wrong things before, but they had never been thus brought home to me. My extravagance must have made others suffer, but their sufferings had not been placed before my eyes. What was not seen, I had hoped might not be true. I had indeed heard distant reports of the consequences of my thoughtless expense, but they might be invented--they might be exaggerated. At the flower-maker's I _witnessed_ the ruin I had made--I _saw_ the fruits of my unfeeling vanity--I _beheld_ the calamities I had caused. O how much mischief would such actual observation prevent! I was alone. I had no dependant to qualify the deed, no sycophant to divert my attention to more soothing objects.

Though Sir John's honest expostulation had touched me to the quick, yet I confess, had I found any of my coterie at home, had I gone to the opera, had a joyous supper succeeded, all together would have quite obliterated the late mortifying scene. I should, as I have often done before, have soon lost all sense of the Stokes's misery, and of my own crime.'"

"Here," pursued Lady Belfield, "the sweet creature looked so contrite, that Sir John and I were both deeply affected."

"'You are not accustomed, Sir John,' resumed she, with a faint smile, 'to the office of a confessor, nor I to that of a penitent. But I make it a test to myself of my own sincerity to tell you the whole truth.

"'I wandered from room to room, fancying I should be more at ease in any other than that in which I was. I envied the starving tenant of the meanest garret. I envied Mrs. Stokes herself. Both might have pitied the pangs which rent my heart as I roamed through the decorated apartments of our s.p.a.cious house. In the gayest part of London I felt the dreariness of a desert. Surrounded with magnificence, I endured a sense of want and woe, of which a blameless beggar can form no idea.

"'I went into the library: I took up a book which my lord had left on the table. It was a translation from a Roman cla.s.sic. I opened it at the speech of the tragedian to Pompey: '_The time will come that thou shalt mourn deeply, because thou didst not mourn sooner!_' I was struck to the heart. 'Shall a pagan,' said I, 'thus forcibly reprove me; and shall I neglect to search for truth at the fountain?'

"'I knew my lord would not come home from his club till the morning. The struggle in my soul between principle and pride was severe; but after a bitter conflict, I resolved to employ the night in writing him a long letter. In it I ingenuously confessed the whole state of my mind, and what had occasioned it. I implored his permission for my setting out next morning for Melbury Castle. I entreated him to prevail on his excellent aunt, Lady Jane, whom I had so shamefully slighted, to accompany me. I knew she was a character of that singular cla.s.s who would be glad to revenge herself for any ill-treatment by doing me a service. Her company would be at once a pledge to my lord of the purity of my intentions, and to myself a security against falling into worse society. I a.s.sured him that I had no safeguard but in flight. An additional reason which I alleged for my absence was, that as I had promised to give a grand masquerade in a fortnight, the evading this expense would nearly enable me to discharge the debt which sat so heavy on my conscience.

"'I received a note from him as soon as he came home. With his usual complaisance he complied with my request. With his usual nonchalance, he neither troubled me with reproaches, nor comforted me with approbation.

"'As he knew that Lady Jane usually rose about the hour he came home from St. James's street, he obligingly went to her at once. I had not been in bed. He came to my dressing-room, and informed me that his aunt had consented at the first word. I expressed my grat.i.tude to them both, saying that I was ready to set out that very day.'

"'You must wait till to-morrow,' said he. 'There is no accounting for the oddities of some people. Lady Jane told me she could not possibly travel on a Sunday. I wondered where was the impossibility. Sunday, I a.s.sured her, was the only day for traveling in comfort, as the road was not obstructed by wagons and carts. She replied, with a gravity which made me laugh, 'That she should be ashamed to think that a person of her rank and education should be indebted, for her being able to trample with more convenience on a divine law, to the piety of the vulgar who durst not violate it.' Did you ever hear any thing so whimsical, Matilda?' I said nothing, but my heart smote me. Never will I repeat this offense.

"'On the Monday we set out. I had kept close the preceding day, under pretense of illness. This I also a.s.signed as an excuse in the cards sent to my invited guests, pleading the necessity of going into the country for change of air. Shall I own I dreaded being shut up in a barouche, and still more in the lonely castle, with Lady Jane? I looked for nothing every moment but 'the thorns and briars of reproof.' But I soon found that the woman whom I thought was a Methodist, was a most entertaining companion. Instead of austerity in her looks and reproach in her language, I found nothing but kindness and affection, vivacity and elegance. While she soothed my sorrows, she strengthened my better purposes. Her conversation gradually revived in my mind tastes and principles which had been early sown in it, but which the world seemed completely to have eradicated.

"'In the neighborhood of the castle, Lady Jane carried me to visit the abodes of poverty and sickness. I envied her large but discriminating liberality, and the means she had of gratifying it, while I shed tears at the remembrance of my own squandered thousands. I had never been hard-hearted, but I had always given to importunity, rather than to want or merit. I blushed, that while I had been absurdly profuse to cases of which I knew nothing, my own village had been perishing with a contagious sickness.

"'While I amused myself with drawing, my aunt often read to me some rationally entertaining book, occasionally introducing religious reading and discourse, with a wisdom and moderation which increased the effect of both. Knowing my natural levity and wretched habits, she generally waited till the proposal came from myself. At first when I suggested it, it was to please her: at length I began to find a degree of pleasure in it myself.

"'You will say I have not quite lost my romance. A thought struck me, that the first use I made of my pencil should serve to perpetuate at least one of my offenses. You know I do not execute portraits badly.

With a little aid from fancy, which I thought made it allowable to bring separate circ.u.mstances into one piece, I composed a picture. It consisted of a detached figure in the background of poor Stokes, seen through the grate of his prison on a bed of straw: and a group, composed of his wife in the act of expiring, f.a.n.n.y bending over a wreath of roses, withered with the tears she was shedding, and myself in the horrors in which you saw me,

Spectatress of the mischief I had made.

"'Wherever I go, this picture shall always be my companion. It hangs in my closet. My dear friends,' added she, with a look of infinite sweetness, 'whenever I am tempted to contract a debt, or to give in to any act of vanity or dissipation which may lead to debt, if after having looked on this picture I can pursue the project, renounce me, cast me off forever!

"'You know Lady Jane's vein of humor. One day, as we were conversing together, I confessed that at the very time I was the object of general notice, and my gayety the theme of general envy, I had never known happiness. 'I do not wonder at it,' said she. 'Those who greedily pursue admiration, would be ashamed to sit down with so quiet a thing as happiness.' 'My dear Lady Jane,' said I, 'correct me, counsel me, instruct me: you have been too lenient, too forbearing.' 'Well,' said she, with a cheerful tone, 'as you appoint me your physician, as you disclose your case, and ask relief, I will give you a prescription, which, though the simplest thing in the world, will, I am certain, go a great way toward curing you. As you are barely six-and-twenty, your disease, I trust, is not inveterate. If you will be an obedient patient, I will answer for your recovery.'

"'I a.s.sured her of my willing adoption of any remedy she might prescribe, as I was certain she would consider my weakness, and adapt her treatment, not so much to what my case absolutely required as to what my strength was able to bear.

"'Well, then,' said she--'but pray observe I am no quack. I do not undertake to restore you instantaneously. Though my medicine will work surely, it will work slowly. You know,' added she, smiling, 'the success of all alteratives depends on the punctuality with which they are taken, and the constancy with which they are followed up. Mine must be taken two or three times a day, in small quant.i.ties at first, the dose to be enlarged as you are able to bear it. I can safely a.s.sert, with the advertising doctors, that it may be used full or fasting, in all weathers, and all seasons; but I can not add with them that _it requires no confinement_.'

"'I grew impatient, and begged she would come to the point.

"'Softly, Matilda,' said she, 'softly. I must first look into my receipt-book, for fear I should mistake any of my ingredients. This book,' said she, opening it, 'though written by no charlatan, contains a cure for all diseases. It exhibits not only general directions, but specified cases.' Turning over the leaves as she was speaking, she at length stopped, saying, 'here is your case, my dear, or rather your remedy.' She then read very deliberately: 'COMMUNE WITH YOUR OWN HEART--AND IN YOUR CHAMBER--AND BE STILL.'

"'I now found her grand receipt-book was the Bible. I rose and embraced her. 'My dear aunt,' said I, 'do with me whatever you please. I will be all obedience. I pledge myself to take your alterative regularly, constantly. Do not spare me. Speak your whole mind.'

"'My dear Matilda,' said she, 'ever since your marriage, your life has been one continued opposition to your feelings. You have lived as much below your understanding as your principles. Your conduct has been a system of contradictions. You have believed in Christianity, and acted in direct violation of its precepts. You knew that there was a day of future reckoning, and yet neglected to prepare for it. With a heart full of tenderness, you have been guilty of repeated acts of cruelty. You have been faithful to your husband, without making him respectable or happy. You have been virtuous, without the reputation or the peace which belongs to virtue. You have been charitable without doing good, and affectionate without having ever made a friend. You have wasted those attentions on the worthless which the worthy would have delighted to receive, and those talents on the frivolous which would have been cherished by the enlightened. You have defeated the use of a fine understanding by the want of common prudence, and robbed society of the example of your good qualities by your total inability to resist and oppose. Inconsideration and vanity have been the joint cause of your malady. At your age I trust it is not incurable. As you have caught it by keeping infected company, there is no possible mode of cure but by avoiding the contagious air they breathe. You have performed your quarantine with admirable patience. Beware, my dearest niece, of returning to the scene where the plague rages, till your antidote has taken its full effect.'

"'I will _never_ return to it, my dear Lady Jane,' cried I, throwing myself into her arms. 'I do not mean that I will never return to town.

My duty to my lord requires me to be where he is, or where he wishes me to be. My residence will be the same, but my society shall be changed.'

"'You please me entirely,' replied she. 'In resorting to religion, take care that you do not dishonor it. Never plead your piety to G.o.d as an apology for your neglect of the relative duties. If the one is soundly adopted, the others will be correctly performed. There are those who would delight to throw such a stigma on real Christianity, as to be able to report that it had extinguished your affections, and soured your temper. Disappoint them, my sweet niece: while you serve your Maker more fervently, you must be still more patient with your husband. But while you bear with his faults, you must not connive at them. If you are in earnest, you must expect some trials. He who prepares these trials for you, will support you under them, will carry you through them, will make them instruments of his glory, and of your own eternal happiness.'

"'Lord Melbury's complaisance to my wishes,' replied I, 'has been unbounded. As he never controlled my actions when they required control, I trust he will be equally indulgent now they will be less censurable.

Alas! we have too little interfered with each other's concerns--we have lived too much asunder--who knows but I may recall him?' My tears would not let me go on--'nor will they now,' added she, wiping her fine eyes.

"Sir John and I were too much touched to attempt to answer her: at length she proceeded.

"'By adhering to Lady Jane's directions, I have begun to get acquainted with my own heart. Little did I suspect the evil that was in it. Yet I am led to believe that the incessant whirl in which I have lived, my total want of leisure for reflection, my excessive vanity and complete inconsiderateness, are of themselves causes adequate to any effects which the grossest vices would have produced.

"'Last week my lord made us a visit at the castle. I gave him a warm reception; but he seemed rather surprised at the cold one which I gave to a large cargo of new French novels and German plays, which he had been so good as to bring me. I did not venture to tell him that I had changed my course of study. Lady Jane charged me to avoid giving him the least disgust by any unusual gravity in my looks, or severity in my conversation. I exerted myself to such good purpose that he declared he wanted neither cards nor company. I tried to let him see, by my change of habits rather than by dry doc.u.ments, or cold remonstrances, the alteration which had taken place in my sentiments. He was pleased to see me blooming and cheerful. He told Lady Jane he never saw me so pleasant.

He did not know I was so agreeable a woman, and was glad he had this opportunity of getting acquainted with me. As he has great expectations from her, he was delighted at the friendship which subsisted between us.

"'He brought us up to town. As it was now empty, the terrors of the masquerade no longer hung over me, and I cheerfully complied with his wishes. I drove immediately to Mrs. Stokes's with such a portion of my debt, as my retirement had enabled me to save. I feasted all the way on the joy I should have in surprising her with this two hundred pounds.

How severe, but how just was my punishment, when on knocking at the door, I found she had been dead these two months! No one could tell what was become of her daughter. This shock operated almost as powerfully on my feelings as the first had done. But if it augmented my self-reproach, it confirmed my good resolutions. My present concern is how to discover the sweet girl, whom, alas, I have helped to deprive of both her parents.'

"Here I interrupted her," continued Lady Belfield, "saying, 'You have not far to seek: f.a.n.n.y Stokes is in this house. She is appointed governess to our children.'

"Poor Lady Melbury's joy was excessive at this intelligence, and she proceeded: 'That a too sudden return to the world might not weaken my better purposes, I was preparing to request my lord's permission to go back to the castle, when he prevented me, by telling me that he had had an earnest desire to make a visit to the brave patriots in Spain, and to pa.s.s the winter among them, but feared he must give it up, as the state of the continent rendered it impossible for me to accompany him.

"'This filled my heart with joy. I encouraged him to make the voyage, a.s.sured him I would live under Lady Jane's observation, and that I would pa.s.s the whole winter in the country.'

"'Then you shall pa.s.s it with us at Beechwood, my dear Lady Melbury,'

cried Sir John and I, both at once; 'we will strengthen each other in every virtuous purpose. We shall rejoice in Lady Jane's company.'

"She joyfully accepted the proposal, not doubting her lord's consent; and kindly said, that she should be doubly happy in a society at once so rational and so elegant.

"It was settled that she should spend with us the three months that f.a.n.n.y Stokes and little Caroline are to pa.s.s at Stanley Grove. She desired to see f.a.n.n.y, to whom she behaved with great tenderness. She paid her the two hundred pounds, a.s.suring her she had no doubt of being able to discharge the whole debt in the spring.

"I received a note from her the next day, informing me of her lord's cheerful concurrence, as well as that of Lady Jane. She added, that when she went up to dress, she had found on her toilette, her diamond necklace, which her dear aunt had redeemed and restored to her, as a proof of her confidence and affection. As Lady Melbury has forever abolished her coterie, I have the most sanguine hope of her perseverance. All her promises would have gone for nothing, without this practical pledge of her sincerity."