Charlotte Smith- Collected Poetical Works

by Charlotte Smith

  “Such was the power of these generous motives over the heart of my mother, that they appeared to counteract the effects of her illness, and she had nearly completed her task, when the bookseller who had advanced her money upon it, impatient at the delay that had occurred, came down hither, a week since, with the rudest threats demanded the completion of her engagement, declaring that he would prosecute her if it was not fulfilled by a day which he named. — The menaces of such a man were what my mother had been so little accustomed to, and the misery of being in his power appeared so insupportable, that her fortitude sunk under it at once. — He left her, repeating his threats as he departed; but before he quitted the house, he took an opportunity of telling the people who belonged to it, that they would do well not to trust their lodgers, for to his certain knowledge they would not be paid.

  “The precaution thus given and from a man who was supposed to know, had an immediate effect on the behaviour of the people. The woman, whose manners are coarse and brutal came the next day abruptly into my mother’s room, and demanded what was due for our lodgings, which amounted to about sixteen guineas; my mother, who had not as much in the world that she could then command, assured her creditor that she would satisfy her in a very few days; but the woman appearing to be very discontented, I entreated my mother to let me to to Mr. Ramsay and Mr. Shrimshine, the two persons who kept our property in their hands under pretence of being our trustees, in hopes of prevailing upon them to afford us, at least as much as assistance as should prevent our being turned into the street; my mother reluctantly consented, and with my little brother and sister, whose helpless ages might, I thought, have some effect on the callous hearts of these men, I set forth on this expedition, in which I expended in coach hire more than half the money we had in the house; I will tell you, when I am better able than I now am, what passed when I at length procured admission to these worthy guardians of orphans. I obtained nothing from them; and on my return I found, that during my absence the woman of the house had brought in a lawyer’s clerk, and a sheriff’s officer, and had taken an inventory of my mother’s books, the musical instruments that belonged to my sister, and what little plate and linen we had, and had given my mother notice, that the ruffian to whom this inventory was given would remain in the house in order to take care that none of the effects were removed, to the money due to Mrs. Capern, the landlady, was paid. Oh! Chevalier, represent to yourself what must be the effect of such a circumstance on my mother’s spirits — she has changed for the worse every hour since it happened; I know we shall lose her,” added Angelina, in an agony of sorrow; “we shall lose her; I perceive that she thinks so herself, and it was some conversation she has been holding with Madame de Touranges, while I stood unseen by her bed side, that obliged me to come down stairs to weep at liberty, and conceal from her the agony of my soul.”

  During this mournful narrative, D’Alonville was so divided between his love for the beautiful sufferer, his apprehensions for her mother, and indignation against her oppressors, that he no longer remembered that the world contained her other beings, and that De Touranges was waiting for his return in anxiety, as painfully acute, as what he himself had suffered; nor could he advert to the situation of his friend, till he had given Angelina an hasty detail of what had befallen him since he tore himself from her, and related briefly those extraordinary circumstances which had been the cause of his returning to England, more fortunate in regard to the pecuniary circumstances, than when he left it. “Think, Angelina,” said he, “think what must be my transports, when I reflect that those events give me an opportunity of shewing my gratitude as well as my affection — Gratitude to your dear mother, who, when I was a stranger and a wanderer, received me into her house, and granted me her confidence, and affection for you , my Angelina, whose lovely image, amidst the strange scenes I have passed through, was at once my torment and my delight; for if for a moment I indulged my imagination with dwelling on your perfections, and thought you honoured me with your affection; if my fond fancy wandered awhile in the delightful regions of hope, I was awakened from the delicious visions by the immediate pressures of the evils around me; and when I reflected how very improbable it was that I should ever return to England, and, if I did, how little pretensions I could have to claim the happiness I once dared to aspire to; how many more fortunate men, who were of your own country, and could offer you the affluence you have a right to, would probably surround you; my heart sunk in despondence, and I blamed myself for having, perhaps, injured your peace, by awakening in your bosom solicitude for so unfortunate a being.”

  Angelina, while he thus spoke, could only weep. She was unable to express what her heart would have dictated — but it became time to think of informing Mrs. Denzil of D’Alonville’s arrival — an event so unexpected, and which she knew would give her mother so much satisfaction.

  D’Alonville now thought of his friends. Gabrielle, however, was not in the house; she had been there the greater part of the day with Madame de Touranges, supporting the failing spirits of Angelina, but she had now been gone some time to attend on her little boy.

  Angelina still trembled; and the traces of tears were upon her cheeks; but as there was no other persons who could be trusted with the commission it was now necessary to execute, she endeavoured to collect all her presence of mind. It was indeed only of agreeable tiding she was to speak; and Mrs. Denzil, long accustomed to sorrow, received the intelligence of D’Alonville’s being in the house with a degree of delight long unfelt, and which acted life balm to her wounded heart.

  Madame de Touranges flew down to him. He briefly related all he knew; for on her strong mind he did not fear the effects of too sudden joy. While they were yet in the first earnestness of discourse so interesting to both, a loud ring was heard at the gate. — It was De Touranges, attended by St. Remi, who could no longer restrain his impatience, or prevent his setting out in search of Mrs. Denzil’s lodgings, which he had with great difficulty found.

  This unexpected meeting between a mother and a son, who, since their last parting had seen such vicissitudes of fortune; who had so often deplored that they should meet no more, could not be otherwise than very affecting. Angelina left them together, and at her mother’s request accompanied D’Alonville to the room where illness had now for some days confined her. A ray of satisfaction animated those eyes from which their native spirit had long been flown. D’Alonville threw himself on his knees by her bed side— “My dear young friend,” said she, giving him her hand, “I was afraid that, frightened away for ever, any thing like pleasure would return to me no more; but for once destiny seems to relax of its severity — You see me quite an invalid, Chevalier — and changed in circumstances as well as in health. — There,” added she, pointing to Angelina, “has been my support; without her I know not how I should have endured the complicated misery to which I have been exposed.”

  Mrs. Denzil stopped as if exhausted; and D’Alonville took that opportunity to give her, in the most animated terms, assurances of his passionate attachment to her daughter; and the undiminished gratitude with which he recollected the former kindness and partiality she had shewn him. He briefly related what had happened in regard to his brother; and reserved a more minute detail of the circumstances of his perilous journey through France, till they were all more calm. While he was thus restored to what might have been called happiness, had it not been of too tumultuous a nature; while he enjoyed the exquisite delight of seeing in the soft, yet speaking countenance of Angelina, that the joy his return gave to her mother, rendered him more dear to her than ever; and while he ventured to propose that union of their future destinies on which his existence depended, De Touranges was restored to the mother, wife, and child, whom he had so much regretted as lost. D’Alonville and St. Remi returned to London at a late hour, and the former lost not a moment in endeavouring, with the assistance of a lawyer, of which Ellesmere had some knowledge, to remove the cause of Mrs. Denzil’s present uneasiness; — b
ut with anguish of mind, Angelina bade him remark that her mother every day became more languid; — a transient and temporary relief was given her; she no longer saw herself surrounded by the terrific satellites of the law; and she hoped that her Angelina would find a protection, in a man of whose heart she had the highest opinion, and whose manners were particularly pleasing to her, — but the mortifications she had suffered; the difficulties with which she had so long contended, had shaken her frame severely; and the anxiety that still remained for a family unprovided for, (two of whom were yet very young), together with the chicanery of the man in whose power their whole property was placed, kept her mind in such continual perturbation, that there appeared very little hope of her being restored to health; — yet she exerted all her fortitude to resist the effects of the pain, which arose alike from recollection of the past, and dread of the future, and that weariness and disgust, which inevitably overwhelm the spirits of one who, thro’ a long course of time, has experienced unmerited adversity. Ten years had passed since Mrs. Denzil, with a mind too keenly susceptible, had undergone its severest persecution; — already acutely sensible of all its inconveniences, she saw it rapidly approaching her children in despite of all her endeavours to save them, while they were yet in infancy and early youth; she could do more to remedy the injustice of fortune, than now, when at those ages when young persons should be introduced to the world in which they are to make their future way, they looked up to her for light, — and she saw only heavier clouds gathering around them and darkening every future prospect of their lives.

  In proportion as she proceeded in this rugged path, the way became more difficult — many of her friends who had occasionally relieved her from the thorns and flints with which her path was strewn, became tired by the length and dreariness of the journey, and fell off one by one, — some yet persevered, and scattered a transient flower in her path, but even among these, she fancied that weariness and reluctance were too visible; yet while her support became more doubtful, her difficulties encreased.

  The persons who had undertaken to protect her children as their trustees, had been so far from executing their trustees, had been so far from executing their charge, that they had plunged them in tenfold difficulties. If they did not participate, they connived at the unblushing plunder yearly committed on the property of these children, and were deaf alike to pity and to justice. — If Mrs. Denzil remained passive, they seemed to believe they might continue in the same career of injustice and neglect; — if she entreated, they answered her with cold contempt — if she remonstrated, with anger and resentment.

  One of them proposed various means of settling the affairs; the other counteracted these designs. One insisted on throwing them into chancery; the other protested against it. One recommended arbitration; the other could not agree as to the arbitrators; and the only thing in which they concurred, seemed to be in the design of depriving her family of their subsistence from year to year, and embittering her life by the pressure of actual indigence, and the more alarming apprehensions of that which was to come.

  Thus harassed by pecuniary difficulties, driven about the world without any certain home, she experienced, from day to day, the truth of the adage, “That the ruin of the poor, is their poverty;” for she was made liable to much greater expences, than would have happened in a settled establishment; perplexed by creditors, and sickening from the sad conviction that her power of supporting her family by her literary exertions must every year decline, while her friends became more and more weary of her long continued sorrows; the health and fortitude of Mrs. Denzil, such together — To one born to affluence, and long accustomed to its conveniences, it is hard to contend at once with sickness and indigence; yet the bitterest ingredients of the cup she was thus compelled to drink, were the cruel reflections that were ever present to her mind on the future fate of her children, when her own troubles should be at an end.

  “If, while I live,” said she, “they are thus exposed to injustice, what will become of them, when these feeble hands can no longer find for them their daily support; when they shall be left to the scorn and neglect of the world, confounded among those outcasts of fortune, who are compelled to appeal to its reluctant and casual bounty!”

  This idea perpetually present, empoisoned every moment of Mrs. Denzil’s existence. Medicine, could she have afforded to have called in its aid, has no power to heal the wounds of a broken heart; and a very short time would probably have terminated her painful existence, if the arrival of D’Alonville had not arrested a while the heavy hand of disease. — The fears of Angelina, however, still remained in all their force. She fancied that her mother became worse from day to day, and neither the presence, or the consoling attentions of her lover could appease her apprehensions. She had probably learned from observation to agree in opinion with Gray, who observes, “that a man can never have but one mother as long as he lives.”

  CHAPTER XVI.

  “Wants of their own demand their care.” How few

  “Feel their own wants and succour others too.”

  CRABBE.

  EVERY place where the oppressed heart has received the additional load of sorrow, becomes hateful to the unhappy sufferer: and change of situation seems for a while to afford relief. Mrs. Denzil was now eager to quit her lodgings at Wandsworth, and go farther into the country; but the season of the year, as it was mid-winter, was unfavourable to her removal; and while she positively refused any assistance from D’Alonville, she felt how impossible it was to remove such a family, unless she could procure justice from those of whom she had a right to demand it. — Nor could she resolve to abandon her unfortunate French friends, for though the arrival of De Touranges had relieved his mother and his wife from the most severe and insupportable of their sorrow, Mrs. Denzil understood that he had exhausted all his pecuniary resources, and that their situation was rendered more distressing, rather than relieved by his arrival; for it was probable, that even indigence itself would fail of subduing the high and imperious spirit of the Marquis, who, accustomed from his earliest infancy to every luxury and indulgence that illustrious birth and high affluence gave him a right to enjoy, had not yet learned, nor seemed ever likely to learn, the hard lesson of humbling his spirit to his fortune; nor could he think, without feeling all the torments of mortified pride, that his mother and wife were reduced in a foreign country to avail themselves of talents acquired as matters of amusement of pleasure, to procure a subsistence for themselves and for his child, the sole remaining branch of a family so noble, and heir to a fortune which was equal to that of the proudest British peer, whose bounty or caprice might contribute to their existence.

  These reflections empoisoned the happiness De Touranges ought to have enjoyed from being restored so unexpectedly to his family; and the prejudice he had from his earliest days imbibed against the English nation, had rather acquired force by the cruel necessity he was under of being obliged to it.

  But Mrs. Denzil, herself a veteran in calamity, and who had gone through, and not without many severe struggles, the hard task of learning to submit to adversity, and all its train of humiliation, was only impressed with a deeper sense of compassion for the unfortunate family of De Touranges, and grew more solicitous to serve and assist them though her power to do so became every day less.

  The generous attention shewn them be D’Alonville, greatly raised him in her esteem — from his hands De Touranges did not scruple to receive assistance, while the Abbé de St. Remi, divided between his admiration of D’Alonville’s generosity, and his fears that it might incommode himself, would accept of nothing, but went to reside in the most economical manner, with two other Catholic priests, who inhabited a very small lodging in the neighbourhood of Hampstead.