A Simple Story

by Mrs. Inchbald

  CHAPTER I.

  Not any event, throughout life, can arrest the reflection of athoughtful mind more powerfully, or leave so lasting an impression, asthat of returning to a place after a few years absence, and observing anentire alteration, in respect to all the persons who once formed theneighbourhood. To find that many, who but a few years before were leftin their bloom of youth and health, are dead--to find that children leftat school, are married and have children of their own--that some, whowere left in riches, are reduced to poverty--that others, who were inpoverty are become rich--to find, those once renowned for virtue, nowdetested for vice--roving husbands, grown constant--constant husbands,become rovers--the firmest friends, changed to the most implacableenemies--beauty faded. In a word, every change to demonstrate, that,

  "All is transitory on this side the grave."

  Guided by a wish, that the reflecting reader may experience thesensation, which an attention to circumstances like these, must excite;he is desired to imagine seventeen years elapsed, since he has seen orheard of any of those persons who in the foregoing volumes have beenintroduced to his acquaintance--and then, supposing himself at the periodof those seventeen years, follow the sequel of their history.

  To begin with the first female object of this story. The beautiful, thebeloved Miss Milner--she is no longer beautiful--no longer beloved--nolonger--tremble while you read it!--no longer--virtuous.

  Dorriforth, the pious, the good, the tender Dorriforth, is become ahard-hearted tyrant. The compassionate, the feeling, the just LordElmwood, an example of implacable rigour and injustice.

  Miss Woodley is grown old, but less with years than grief.

  The boy, Rushbrook, is become a man, and the apparent heir of LordElmwood's fortune; while his own daughter, his only child by his onceadored Miss Milner, he refuses ever to see again, in vengeance to hermother's crimes.

  The least wonderful change, is, the death of Mrs. Horton. ExceptSandford, who remains much the same as heretofore.

  We left Lady Elmwood in the last volume at the summit of humanhappiness; a loving and beloved bride. We begin this volume, and findher upon her death-bed.

  At thirty-five, her "Course was run"--a course full of perils, of hopes,of fears, of joys, and at the end, of sorrows; all exquisite of theirkind, for exquisite were the feelings of her susceptible heart.

  At the commencement of this story, her father is described in the lastmoments of his life, with all his cares fixed upon her, his onlychild--how vain these cares! how vain every precaution that was taken forher welfare! She knows, she reflects upon this; and yet, impelled bythat instinctive power which actuates a parent, Lady Elmwood on _her_dying day has no worldly thoughts, but that of the future happiness ofan only child. To every other prospect in her view, "Thy will be done"is her continual exclamation; but where the misery of her daughterpresents itself, the expiring penitent would there combat the will ofHeaven.

  To detail the progression by which vice gains a predominancy in theheart, may be a useful lesson; but it is one so little to thesatisfaction of most readers, that the degrees of misconduct by whichLady Elmwood fell, are not meant to be related here; but instead ofpicturing every occasion of her fall, to come briefly to the events thatfollowed.

  There are, nevertheless, some articles under the former class, whichought not to be entirely omitted.

  Lord Elmwood, after four years enjoyment of the most perfect happinessthat marriage could give, after becoming the father of a beautifuldaughter, whom he loved with a tenderness almost equal to his love ofher mother, was under the indispensable necessity of leaving them bothfor a time, in order to rescue from the depredation of his own steward,his very large estates in the West Indies. His voyage was tedious; hisresidence there, from various accidents, prolonged from time to time,till near three years had at length passed away. Lady Elmwood, at firstonly unhappy, became at last provoked; and giving way to that irritabledisposition which she had so seldom governed, resolved, in spite of hisinjunctions, to divert the melancholy hours caused by his absence, bymixing in the gay circles of London.

  Lord Elmwood at this time, and for many months before, had been detainedabroad by a severe and dangerous illness, which a too cautious fear ofher uneasiness, had prompted him to conceal; and she received hisfrequent apologies for not returning, with a suspicion and resentmentthey were calculated, but not intended, to inspire.

  To violent anger, succeeded a degree of indifference still morefatal--Lady Elmwood's heart was not formed for such a state--there, whereall the tumultuous passions harboured by turns, one among them soonfound the means to occupy all vacancies: a passion, commencinginnocently, but terminating in guilt. The dear object of her fondest,her truest affections, was away; and those affections, painted the timeso irksome that was past; so wearisome, that, which was still to come;that she flew from the present tedious solitude, to the dangeroussociety of one, whose whole mind depraved by fashionable vices, couldnot repay her for a moment's loss of him, whose absence he supplied. Or,if the delirium gave her a moment's recompence, what were hersufferings, her remorse, when she was awakened from the fleeting joy, bythe arrival of her husband? How happy, how transporting would have beenthat arrival a few months before! As it would then have been felicityunbounded, it was now--language affords no word that can describe LadyElmwood's sensations, on being told her Lord was arrived, and thatnecessity alone had so long delayed his return.

  Guilty, but not hardened in her guilt, her pangs, her shame were themore excessive. She fled from the place at his approach; fled from hishouse, never again to return to a habitation where he was the master.She did not, however, elope with her paramour, but escaped to shelterherself in the most dreary retreat; where she partook of no one comfortfrom society, or from life, but the still unremitting friendship of MissWoodley. Even her infant daughter she left behind, nor would allowherself the consolation of her innocent, though reproachful smiles--sheleft her in her father's house, that she might be under his protection;parted with her, as she thought, for ever, with all the agonies withwhich mothers part from their infant children: and yet, even a mothercan scarce conceive how much more sharp those agonies were, onbeholding--the child sent after her, as the perpetual outcast of itsfather.

  Lord Elmwood's love to his wife had been extravagant--the effect of hishate was the same. Beholding himself separated from her by a barriernever to be removed, he vowed in the deep torments of his revenge, neverto be reminded of her by one individual object; much less, by one sonear to her as her child. To bestow upon that child his affections,would be, he imagined, still, in some sort, to divide them with themother. Firm in his resolution, the beautiful Matilda, was, at the ageof six years, sent out of her father's house, and received by her motherwith all the tenderness, but with all the anguish, of those parents, whobehold their offspring visited by the punishment due only to their ownoffences.

  While this rigid act was executing by Lord Elmwood's agents at hiscommand, himself was engaged in an affair of still weightierimportance--that of life or death:--he determined upon his own death, orthe death of the man who had wounded his honour and destroyed hishappiness. A duel with his old antagonist was the result of thisdetermination; nor was the Duke of Avon (who before the decease of hisfather and eldest brother, was Lord Frederick Lawnly) averse from givinghim all the satisfaction he required. For it was no other than he, whosepassion for Lady Elmwood had still subsisted, and whose address ingallantry left no means unattempted for the success of his designs;--noother than he, (who, next to Lord Elmwood, had been of all her lovers,the most favoured,) to whom Lady Elmwood sacrificed her own and herhusband's future peace, and thus gave to his vanity a prouder triumph,than if she had never bestowed her hand in marriage on another. Thistriumph however was but short--a month only, after the return of LordElmwood, the Duke was called upon to answer for his conduct, and wasleft where they met, so defaced with scars, as never again to endangerthe honour of a husband. As Lord Elmwood was inexorable to allaccommod
ation, their engagement continued for a long space of time; norcould any thing but the assurance that his opponent was slain, have atlast torn him from the field, though he himself was dangerously wounded.

  Yet even during the period of his danger, while for days he lay in thecontinual expectation of his own death, not all the entreaties of hisdearest, most intimate, and most respected friends, could prevail uponhim to pronounce forgiveness of his wife, or to suffer them to bring hisdaughter to him, for his last blessing.

  Lady Elmwood, who was made acquainted with the minutest circumstance asit passed, appeared to wait the news of her husband's decease withpatience; but upon her brow, and in every lineament of her face wasmarked, that his death was an event she would not for a day survive: andshe would have left her child an orphan, to have followed Lord Elmwoodto the tomb. She was prevented the trial; he recovered; and from theample vengeance he had obtained upon the irresistible person of theDuke, in a short time seemed to regain his usual tranquillity.

  He recovered, but Lady Elmwood fell sick and languished--possessed ofyouth to struggle with her woes, she lingered on, till ten years declinebrought her to that period, with which the reader is now going to bepresented.