Patience, Barbara Hofland [readict books TXT] 📗

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