Patience - Barbara Hofland (red novels txt) 📗
- Author: Barbara Hofland
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evidently unable to controul his feelings.
Francis, accustomed to submission, resigned to death, and happy in the
belief, that his full and free forgiveness of Stancliffe was understood
by him, and would eventually have a happy effect upon him, gave himself
every chance of recovery his deplorable case admitted. As even the
shortest removal might be fatal, he remained many days on the same spot
with pillows placed under him, and his sister seated in silence near
him, with her eyes continually bent upon him; yet fearful of looking too
tenderly, lest she should disturb that placid fortitude which was his
only medium for recovery, and perhaps his best preparative for removal.
Dora well knew that her young patient could learn from her no new
lesson; she was aware that his humble spirit communed with God, and was
at rest, and earnestly did her own heart ascend to heaven and seek for
peace also; but, alas! she could not find it now—her outward calmness
was the result of effort rising out of necessity and affliction, for new
and terrible emotions still continued to agitate her—she still beheld
her husband as the murderer of her brother—that brother, whose love to
herself, her child, and even her husband—whose misfortunes, gentleness,
and goodness, rendered him an object of such singular interest and
affection.
When she reflected on the bitter sorrow Stancliffe had evinced, she
wept and forgave him; but she could not but feel aware that there was no
reliance on a man who suffered himself to be governed by his
passions—that he had destroyed all the esteem with which she had so
long compelled herself to regard him, and that although he must ever
retain a certain hold upon her affections, as well as a claim upon her
duty, it was utterly impossible for her either to regain past feelings,
or establish new ones, of that nature which alone render married life
happy, and without which a wife is a creature whose affections, hopes,
and virtues, are blighted in the bud, and who sustains existence as a
withered plant that decays by slow degrees, unblessing and unblest.
Whilst Dora pursued these sad thoughts by the side of her sick brother,
it will be concluded that those of Stancliffe were also of an afflictive
nature—he had indeed been wrung to the heart with the touching
forgiveness of the poor boy, and called down the bitterest curses on his
own head if ever he should again indulge a thought against him; and with
such resolutions he soothed his conscience. The enquiries of the medical
gentleman as to the cause of Frank’s distressing situation, the
surmises of his servants, and the perpetual guesses of Mrs. Judith,
harrassed him exceedingly; and as he never stooped to inconvenience,
although he had so recently bent under the severer inflictions of
remorse, or considered for a moment what was due to the dreadful
situation of his wife, in the course of the following day he declared an
intention of prosecuting his intended journey to Ireland.
This information was whispered to Dora just at the time when the
physician was urging her to send for Harriett, and Frank by a look of
intreaty was seconding the request. Conscious that Stancliffe had said
truly “that he could do no good to Frank,” and fearful that in this
season of his affliction he might be tempted to throw himself too much
upon the pity of Harriett for his own good name in her family, and
perhaps in her kindness find consolation beyond what she could desire,
she considered his removal as equally happy for them all, and stealing
out on tiptoe, she repaired to the house to inform him so.
Stancliffe could not see his wife without extreme confusion—he covered
his face with his hands, and traversed the breakfast-room, where she
found him, with hasty steps, and the air of one who was agitated even to
illness. The heart of Dora was penetrated with the sincerest pity, and
she was even astonished at the tenderness she was still sensible of
towards him, as with haste she poured into his ear every thing she could
conceive most likely to comfort and re-assure him, which consisted, (in
her opinion,) in a detail of every favourable symptom the invalid
discovered.
Whilst she yet spoke, she was sent for by the person who was with him,
and who was alarmed—Dora flew out in answer to the summons, yet she
stopped a moment, saying, “good bye, Everton,” and held out her
hand—she could not part in coldness; and hurried and distressed as she
was at the moment, she thought he would follow her to say farewell.
Stancliffe took his hand from his forehead, and waived it as he looked
at her, but he did no more; and before she reached the door which led to
her destination, she heard him order a coach by which to depart.
The circumstance which had excited alarm for poor Frank passed over, and
when he found Mr. Stancliffe was gone, it was evident that he was
easier, since he knew that Dora could now remain with him unblamed, or
uncalled by other duties; and when her spirits were a little recovered
from the shock they received from such a parting, she wrote a few lines
to Harriett, which she sent by her own servant, as an escort to her,
with whom she could return by an early coach.
The affectionate sister, alarmed and grieved, lost all her late personal
fears, and hastened to the house of mourning; she travelled in the
night, and arrived just as the medical men were about to pay their
morning visit.
“‘Tis well you are arrived,” said Dr. C—“Miss Hemingford, since your
sister has left home so suddenly.”
“My sister is at home, sir; it is Mr. Stancliffe who is gone to
Ireland.”
“They are both gone, I assure you, they sailed together some hours ago,
I saw them take boat.”
At this moment Dora appeared, for she had been so fearful that Harriett
should, in the impetuosity of her anxiety, enter the room suddenly where
Frank still lay, that she had been watching for her some time.
“Here comes my sister,” said Harriett, exultingly.
The doctor explained—he perceived “that Mrs. Stancliffe had only seen
Mr. S. on board, and returned with the boat;” all he knew was, “that he
saw Mr. Stancliffe and a lady, who was wrapped in a large cloak and a
veil, and the master of the vessel, who was following them, said, as he
passed, that such and such packages belonged to the gentleman and his
wife, pointing to the persons in question—thence had arisen his
mistake.”
Dora’s heart died within her as she heard this; but she struggled hard
with her sensations, and kissing Harriett, begged her to sit down whilst
she went with the gentleman to visit Frank—on her return, she found, to
her great surprise, that she had left the house and had taken the
servant with her.
Dora concluded that some mistake in the luggage had occasioned this
sudden movement; and as she had taken no breakfast, expected her return
every minute; but nearly two hours had elapsed when a coach stopped, out
of which Harriett came, looking more dead than alive. At the sight of
her sister, she burst into a passion of hysterical weeping, and clinging
around her, called her “my poor Dora, my dear deserted sister.”
“For heaven’s sake compose yourself, Harriett, you are overpowered with
grief and fasting, my dear,” said Dora.
“Oh! no, no! I was sure from what Dr. C. said, there was something
particular in Stancliffe’s being with a lady so soon in the morning—and
I knew what a bad man he was, but never, never would I have given
you an uneasy hour by telling of his faults, if he had not thus
wickedly, openly, insulted you, deserted you—at such a time too!—Oh!
it is infamous.”
Dora sunk on a chair—she had thought her cup of suffering was full
before, but she felt of how much more it had been capable—twice she
opened her lips to speak, but no sound issued thence.
“I know what you would say,” cried Harriett, “for you always excuse for
him; but William has enquired at the right places, and ‘tis all plain
enough—yesterday morning two passengers, as Mr. and Mrs. Hemingford,
were entered on the Crocodile; and this morning, Mr. and Mrs. Stancliffe
took possession of them—the mistake in the name in the first place, is
not surprising—the second explains itself, he has taken some woman
with him as his wife.”
The extraordinary confusion of Stancliffe, the circumstance of his great
rage at Frank being excited by a letter found in his own pocket, never
referred to as one of business, tended to confirm this most disgraceful
and distressing fact; yet slowly would Dora admit its possibility even
to her own mind, for to her it appeared utterly improbable that any
human being could rush from the commission of one crime for which he had
evidently suffered so much, to another from which he was likely to
suffer not less. Reflection on her husband’s temper, his late habits of
estrangement, and the possibility that the connection had been long, and
the influence powerful, which finally produced this denouement, obliged
her at length to conclude that it was but too true.
Dora crept with slow and trembling steps to her chamber, oppressed to
the inmost soul, bowed down to the dust by the guilt of another—the
reality of this sensation, the shame, the confusion of face, the intense
sorrow of heart it inflicts, have been felt too often to need insisting
upon. The tears, the groans—the unuttered prayers of her soul, told of
grief which, as it was unseen, is also indescribable—would that there
were fewer hearts capable of conceiving it.
But Dora, whilst she felt as a woman and a wife, bent also to that
heavenly Father who saw it good to afflict her; and her ‘tribulation yet
worked patience,’ the hour of evening saw her again at the bed-side of
poor Frank, from which she dismissed Harriett to that repose she needed,
with an affectionate assurance “that her spirits were better,” and an
injunction to secrecy on those circumstances “which amounted even yet
only to surmise.”
Every day saw Frank gain some little accession of strength, but even
when permitted to be removed to his own bed, he was still forbidden to
speak; nor was one word allowed to be uttered in his presence which
could be supposed capable of exciting pain or pleasure. Harriett, with
warm affection and the purest good-will, was yet found incapable of
retaining her thoughts within the discipline required. Dora therefore
appointed her to manage her house and take care of Mrs. Judith, as a
charge more within her powers; and she not only undertook these, but
instituted herself a correspondent to Mrs. Aylmer, whom she judged a
friend, the situation of her illused sister at this critical period
imperatively called for.
Harriett possessed in common with many young ladies of the present
period, the power of writing a good letter, and she had reason to
congratulate herself upon her eloquence, for in a very few days after
she had forwarded her clandestine epistle, Mrs. Aylmer, with all the
anxiety of a mother depicted in her countenance, appeared in person to
prove she had not been applied to as a friend in vain.
Dora’s first emotion on hearing of this arrival, was shame and sorrow,
and a dread of meeting that beloved countenance in which she had never
yet read reproach. The moment she beheld her, dissipated for a time this
embarrassment, and as she was pressed to her maternal bosom, she felt
that there is
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