Patience - Barbara Hofland (red novels txt) 📗

decidedly so in those qualities which lead to explanation, it was no

wonder that the event which chastized him took place; but as his

antagonist was a man of much feeling, it was softened to him as far as

possible, since he had lost no time in procuring for him the friendly

offices of an English gentleman then passing through Dublin, from a tour

to the Irish lakes, and who, on learning his name, entered with

increased interest into the offices of humanity.

This gentleman, our readers will perceive, was Arthur Sydenham, the

playmate in childhood, and the friend in youth, to the illused and now

deserted Dora; of whom he had thought much too often for his happiness,

but not for his virtue, for his manhood at this time displayed the

promise of his youth; and although a more than ordinary degree of

thoughtfulness was remarked in him, and strangers wondered “why any

shade of melancholy should rest on the mind of one so happily situated,

and so highly gifted;” his parents, sisters, and friends, could scarcely

desire him to be other than they found him.

Of the character and manners of Mr. Stancliffe, Sydenham knew nothing,

beyond the folly and madness which had led to his present situation, and

which was loudly spoken of, and of course gave him a pang beyond what

his compassion could inflict for the husband, by compelling him to feel

for the wife. Indeed the offender himself, when reduced to weakness, and

stretched on the bed of pain, was fully aware that his conduct had been

most reprehensible; and as he could not tell the world how many causes

had combined to awaken the irritation which in fact amounted to madness,

and thence produced such terrible results, (since these causes were

combined with the crimes which he shrunk from exposing) it was evident

that he must continue to suffer the penalties he had drawn upon himself,

and be denied even that pity generally accorded to the suffering.

In the frame of mind produced by such reflections, and in a state of

extreme bodily weakness from the loss of blood, (a circumstance which

drew reflections on the state to which he had reduced poor Frank, of the

most heart-rending nature) he was found by Sydenham. So cheering and

consolatory was the voice of kindness in such a moment, to one who was a

“stranger in a strange land,” and conscious of meriting punishment

beyond what he suffered, that it unlocked all the sluices of feeling,

and presented him to Sydenham in the light of an erring but most

interesting man, whose person and manners were indeed well calculated to

impress even the heart of Dora, young and inexperienced as she had been

at the time of her marriage, and also unhappily situated in her family.

Stancliffe confirmed this impression by speaking most handsomely of his

adversary, alluding to remote causes for his own awakened irritation,

and wishing for the assistance of his wife as the only person on whose

care and skill he could rely for his recovery; yet observing, “that as

she was engaged in nursing her sick brother, he could not blame her if

she did not obey his summons.”

As Stancliffe uttered the last words, he was evidently in great

confusion, and uttered them with difficult respiration; but as the

feelings of his hearer were also awakened into a state of solicitude,

and almost alarm, it passed unnoticed. Sydenham endeavoured to fulfil

the wishes of the medical attendants in soothing the mind of the wounded

man; and either from his kindness, his reasoning, or the weakness of the

patient, it was certain he left him at least more tranquil than he found

him.

A very short time had sufficed to cool the guilty passion of Stancliffe

for the poor girl who was its victim, and whom at length he had taken

away more in consequence of a preconcerted plan than the dictates of

vicious love; since the consequence of his rage towards the innocent

object of his suspicion, had nearly destroyed every sensation save that

of fear for the consequences. He left home under an alarm of spirits, an

agitation of nerves, which rendered him incapable of rejoicing in the

success of his enterprise; and his eyes had been so forcibly opened to

the wickedness of his own conduct, and the difficulties with which it

had environed him, that he could not close them to it—if he endeavoured

to forget his own thoughts by conversation, he was compelled to find

that the few ideas, and the ignorance of his companion, soon exhausted

his hopes of relief from that quarter; and in the present state of his

mind, the poor girl appeared much more deficient than she really was; he

cursed his blindness for having tied himself to a fool, and lamented

that his success afforded no triumph, his sin no pleasure.

Wine was the next resource—and good wine and gay companions may be had

in Dublin in perfection; but their stimulating powers were little likely

to aid in tranquillizing a mind already too much excited, and which was

the more affected from the novelty of the application. Hitherto, when

out of humour with himself and the world, or fatigued with business, he

had shut himself up in his chamber, to indulge disgust or exclude

intrusion; and intoxication was never his resource, which was certainly

the worst an irritable man like him could adopt. He awoke a fever in his

frame which threw him into a state little short of delirium, led him

again to play, where, although he lost no sum of importance, because he

played only for that which he had about him, he yet injured himself

irreparably by forfeiting his bond, and thereby subjecting himself to

complete dependance on Mr. Hemingford, a state most galling to his proud

and irritable spirit, and which in a cooler moment he would never have

incurred. The ill-humour arising from this incident led to that

provocation which produced the challenge.

It may be readily conceived that the unhappy creature who had left her

humble home in the hope of becoming a grand lady, and perhaps honourably

so, partook largely of these miseries; and as he was conveyed to the

nearest house where he could be accommodated after his wound, she was

left in a most distressing state of anxiety, which was only exchanged

for the knowledge of a misfortune which left her exposed to every

possible evil. He had revealed her real claims upon him to the surgeon,

but from the moment of Sydenham’s visit became anxious to the utmost to

keep her very existence a secret from him; and such was his solicitude,

that it greatly increased the illness under which he laboured, and for

some days placed him in considerable danger.

During those days, the attendance of Sydenham was unremitting, and

conceiving, from something that occurred, that he was in want of money,

he readily supplied pecuniary aid, and had been receiving warm thanks

for it at the very time Dora arrived: his relief from this source, and

his amendment, gave him the spirits he evinced by his warm praises of

Sydenham; but when they had subsided, he sunk into extreme dejection,

and a state of nervous inquietude so great, as to threaten the return of

all those bad symptoms from which he had so lately escaped.

In truth, the sight of his wife, calm and gentle as she was, awoke in

him so many painful remembrances, and so many fears for the future, that

he bitterly repented having sent for her; and he soon began to shew

towards her, that ill-humour which was in him the unfailing

accompaniment of self-reproach. He was in continual fear that she should

learn more respecting his conduct than he apprehended she knew; and when

from the nurse he found that she was informed by the mistress of the

house of the visits of Alice, and that she termed herself “his wife,”

the persuasion that Dora despised and hated him, took such full

possession of his mind, that every action of her life only tended to

confirm it:—every time she began to speak he expected it was to

reproach him, and he was almost angry that she did not, that he might in

her words find some excuse for the temper he indulged, and he imputed

her silence only to the excess of her contempt. Although considerably

better, he positively refused to part with the nurse, and manifested a

kind of horror at the idea of being alone with his wife for a moment,

and never ceased wishing for Sydenham.

Sydenham now came seldom, but his visits had ever a most salutary

effect; during the whole time he stayed, Stancliffe was calm if not

cheerful, and even after he was gone, his mind would for some time

retain the impression, and seem as if struggling with himself, and

endeavouring to make himself worthy the friendship of one whom he loved

and admired. At these times he would fix his eyes swimming in tears on

Dora, take her hand, and lament that he had spoken so hastily, but

exclaim, “you must hate me, I know you do, Dora!” In her extreme

anxiety to guard his health, she generally evaded any answer that could

have a tendency to increase his agitation, and never failed to speak

soothingly and kindly. She would say, with a smile, “I came here to do

you good, not to dispute with you, my dear:”—or “get well, my love, and

then we will talk about these things;” but she made no violent

protestations of that she could not feel—the pity and anxiety to do him

good, which were the governing motives of her conduct, appeared in every

word and action; reproach was alike distant from her thoughts and her

eye, and her attention to his every comfort was unremitting, but she

could go no farther at the present period.

The power to continue her awful and wearisome duties soon became much

more difficult; for although her friends blamed her for loving her

husband too well, it was an object of no little care to her to nurse the

love she still felt in her heart, and keep the flame, so long and so

cruelly damped, from utter extinction. Perceiving how much better he was

always made, in every sense of the word, by the visits of Mr. Sydenham,

and fearful lest his pleasant and varied conversation should in time

prove not less desirable to herself, she determined to seize the

opportunity of his stay for getting the little air which had hitherto

been denied to her; and as both the gentlemen approved her proposal, for

several successive days she took a short turn in the Phoenix park,

always avoiding all conversation with her hostess. One morning on her

return, however, this person way-laid her as she passed through the

hall, and so pressed her to enter the adjoining parlour, that she could

not refuse, being indeed apprehensive that she wished for payment of

their lodgings.

Yet the moment of her entrance Mrs. Macgillan vanished, but as speedily

returned, leading, or rather dragging, a young woman in a dirty white

gown, whose whole appearance bespoke wretchedness, if not want, and who

advanced with a reluctance seldom exhibited by those who beg, in a

country where eloquence is indigenous. The landlady pushed her forward,

and then retired, saying, as she shut the door, “I’ve done my duty to

the poor cratur any how—God help the mother of her, say I.”

These words struck Dora as applying to her for whom the speaker had

already evinced so much pity, though under a mistaken idea, and who was

the last person on earth whom she would willingly have seen—she tried

to pass, but the young woman by an effort, stepped between