Patience by Barbara Hofland (ebook offline reader .TXT) đź“–
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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
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