Patience, Barbara Hofland [readict books TXT] 📗

went last night.”

Poor Dora started, she even trembled, as her father cast his eye upon

her—she rose, sat down again, and felt at the very core of her heart,

how unworthy it was of her husband to compel her to bear the evils from

which he had flown himself, conscious as he must be, even in despite of

the vanity and self-love to which he was subject, that she had in no way

been accessory to them, and yet that all the personal evil produced had

fallen on her alone.

But contempt and indignation, though they would arise for a moment, were

never cherished or acted upon by Dora, and when she felt them, it only

rendered her the more vigilant in guarding her expressions, and exerting

that patient forbearance, which, if it could not retrieve the past,

would yet soften its effects on the future. Though her heart was very

full, she compelled herself to speak by enquiring after her mother and

her sisters—the answer was laconic, but satisfactory.

“Your mother is not half such a fool as she was; she is willing to grow

old, and let the girls play off instead of herself. Kate is very well

married, and wonderfully improved, which she honestly imputes to your

good example. Louisa is rather cross, but she is active, and makes a

very fair housekeeper; by the way, how does Harriet go on?”

“Extremely well, she comes home for good at Midsummer, if you think

proper.”

“We shall see—perhaps I may take her back, or I may leave her a year

for the benefit of your good example;—that it is good, I have had

more proof in some respects than I wished—every thing that has been

done (by a principal at least,) has been done by you; either Everton is

swallowed up by his new concern, or he is sunk in idleness—we never see

any thing from him, no not a line.”

“He prefers exertion to writing.”

“Yet he has lost much for want of exertion, he declined taking a

journey last spring twelvemonth, which would have put a fortune in his

hands—to be sure it was not lost, for the young man who married Kate,

took it, and re-established, through some letters you copied, an

invaluable connection—ah, child! you have been lucky to us, though we

lost your property by a marriage that I doubt has been unlucky to you;

but here is a letter from Kate for you, and she has sent you a bag of

finery too of some kind. Dora opened the letter and read:

DEAR SISTER,

I never think of you now, but to reproach myself for a

thousand instances of bad conduct towards you, which I

intreat you to forgive. I grieve to hear many things of

Stancliffe, which prove him unworthy of goodness like yours.

Mrs. Masterman, in her letters to friends in this place,

describes his conduct in so many little particulars

indicative of a thorough knowledge of your domestic concerns,

that I fear it is but too true; and that now she is no longer

near you, things are still worse. My excellent husband has

just given me a hundred pound bill for English purchases;

but pray, my dear Dora, use it in any way most conducive to

your own comfort, not forgetting that I must insist on buying

my little nephew a new frock. Mama looks very well

considering—we were all sadly lost for want of company when

we first came, but that is now got over, for my own part, I

can truly say I regret nothing in England but you, whom I

used so ill, from pride and envy of that fortune which has

hitherto, I fear, done little for your happiness. Pray, my

dear sister, write to me fully and confidentially; for you

will perceive that your delicacy in speaking so kindly of

Everton, has not availed in hiding your situation from us; we

all feel for you deeply and sincerely. I am happy to say,

that my father is much improved in his temper, and if he

could see Frank, would be the happiest of men, for every

thing prospers with him, and he is looked up to by every body

as the father of the British interest in this place—you were

the first person who gave me a true idea of him; but indeed

all your words and actions are present to my mind, and when I

am a mother, they shall not be lost to my child. Mr. Noble,

my excellent husband—(God knows, a much better than I

deserve,) desires his best regards to you, and intreats you

to consider him in every respect your friend and brother—my

father will introduce you to his relations in–-, if you

desire it; and now my beloved, respected sister, I must say

farewell, &c. &c.

Dora could not peruse this letter without tears of joy, and feelings of

true sisterly regard for the writer, whose sins of unkindness had been

long blotted from her memory; but the predominant sensation it excited,

was anger towards the woman who had traduced the character of her

husband, in a quarter where he had been highly respected, and might be

much injured, for errors which she considered to have arisen entirely

from her own malignant influence; and she warmly commented to her father

on this part of her sister’s letter, observing, “that the baseness and

cruelty of that woman towards poor Everton, was absolutely shocking.”

“Then he did not lie in bed all day when there was any press of

business? but did he not compel you, (in fact,) to exertions improper

for your situation, and which have entailed weakness on your child? can

you deny writing all the foreign letters in your dressing-room, when, in

his mad pettishness, he had kicked out the foreign clerk? is it not true

that he left you in the very hour of pain and danger? were you not

obliged to cut up your own clothes for baby linen, because you had no

money till Mrs. Aylmer sent you a present? and was not even that taken

from you to help the purchase of a gig, into which you never set your

foot? and”—

“Because she took possession of it,” cried Dora, eagerly; “it was

bought to please her;—wicked woman, to tell such stories! she knows

that she ordered every thing—did every thing—he left me at her

instigation, slighted me at her bidding.”

“So—h, so—h,” said Mr. Hemingford, “my poor girl, I see how the matter

stood—this is the man, who, without pity or consideration, without

remembering that the industry of thirty years of my life had been

helping his fortune, could take advantage of errors that injured myself

alone, to drive me an exile from my native land, and my only son—send

me forth with a constitution injured by toil and sorrow, to lay down my

grey hairs in a foreign grave—may God”—

“Father! father, do not curse him! he is my husband; him to whom you

gave me willingly, nay, thankfully—he will repent—he has

repented—do not curse him! are we not all liable to error? have we not

all need of mercy and forgiveness?”

Mr. Hemingford sat down and covered his face with his hands—his bosom

heaved with convulsive sobs, and the anguish of remembered sorrow

combined with newly awakened anger to agitate him to excess. The words

of Dora had fallen not less distinctly on his ear than his heart, which

they filled with self-reproach, though conscious that she meant it not;

at length he replied slowly and in a voice which faultered with extreme

emotion:

“True, we have all need of forgiveness, child—we ought to ask it of

you, who have been unfairly dealt by, ever since you were born:—Dora,

Dora, ‘tis a sad thing for a man to get into difficulties, it blunts his

conscience, confuses his faculties, fills his poor wandering brain with

a thousand schemes, and habituates him to think on things he would have

scorned to entertain for a moment in his prosperity.”

“Very true, my dear father, heaven preserve us in the day of trouble

from the temptations trouble brings.”

“Think what it is, Dora, for a man to labour for thirty years, acting

liberally, living handsomely, held respectably by all men, being at last

brought to the test, convicted of poverty, and condemned to spend the

latter years, the natural resting years of life, in misery and

obscurity?—perhaps eating the bread of charity from those hands he

helped to fill—surely such a prospect might shake the stoutest heart,

and confuse the clearest head—such a prospect haunted me for years.”

“Thank God, it is over, my dear father.”

“It is not over, its evils survive in you, Dora—had I trusted you with

all I thought and wished, and one half of what I feared, all would have

been well—but the woman to whom I was tied had given me no great

opinion of your sex, dear heart, and my spirits were cowed as no honest

man’s should be:—I also felt very ill at that time; I did not deem

myself equal to do that which I have done—altogether, Stancliffe was my

master—I thank him, he has taught me how to govern—the tables are now

turned, and it was time.”—

Dora brought her boy to its grandfather, anxious to divert the tenor of

his thoughts—he smiled upon it very kindly, but left the house soon,

saying, “that he must go to Change, and had indeed a great deal of

business to get through, since his whole stay must be as short as

possible.”

In the present state of anxiety under which she suffered, his daughter

could not desire his stay to be protracted; yet this was the first time

when she could feel the comfort, the protection, and the confidence, his

presence ought to have afforded her.

CHAP. X.

Mr. Hemingford did not return at the hour he had himself appointed for

dinner; and as he was wont to be very exact, Dora became extremely

uneasy, for she justly dreaded that other circumstances might transpire

as to the conduct of her husband, which might tend to irritate his mind;

and when at length she sate down with Mrs. Judy and Frank, she was in a

state of extreme disorder, which she was anxious to conceal from both.

“Where can your papa be gone?” cried the old lady, “I think all men are

alike; ‘tis well for me I have had nothing to do with them—there is

Stancliffe, now, the most particular creature in the world, he will

order half a dozen fid-fads to be got for his dinner, all to be done to

a minute, and it is ten to one if he comes when poor Dolly has been

fidgetting about them for hours. I’ll tell Mr. Hemingford when he comes;

I’ll say to him, says I,”—

“Dear Mrs. Judith, pray say nothing to my father.”

“Say nothing—dear! that will be very rude; but if you desire it, I’ll

do any thing, that is, nothing. All I fear is, not to speak to a

stranger will be indecent, and as Milton says, ‘The want of decency is

want of sense,’ but what do you say, my dear Frank?”

“I hear my father’s step,” said Frank, and in a moment afterwards Mr.

Hemingford entered, not indeed to take his place at his daughter’s

table, but to beckon her out of the room and precede her to her

dressing-room in silence, but with a countenance so full of trouble as

to prove it the herald of misfortune.

“Dora, child, sit down, I must speak with you.”

Dora obeyed, unable to reply,