The Greatest Regency Romance Novels. Maria EdgeworthЧитать онлайн книгу.
as she said, indeed, there was no probability of my doing so; and therefore I attempted, through her persuasions, to make a virtue of necessity, and forget both him and all that passed between us. I should in the end, perhaps, have accomplished this point; but, oh! I had a remembrancer within, which I did not presently know of. In fine, I had but too much reason to believe I was pregnant; a thing which, though a natural consequence of the folly I had been guilty of, never once entered my head.
'Mademoiselle Grenouille seemed now terribly alarmed, on my communicating to her my suspicions on this score: she cried 'twas very unlucky!—then paused, and asked what I would do, if it should really be as I feared. I replied, that I knew not what course to take, for if my father should know it I was utterly undone: I added, that he was a very austere man; and, besides, I had a mother-in-law, who would not fail to say every thing she could to incense him against me.
'"I see no recourse you have, then," said she, "but by taking physick to cause an abortion. You must pretend you are a little disordered, and send for an apothecary; the sooner the better, for if it should become visible, all would infallibly be known, and we should both be ruined."
'I was not so weak as not to see, that if any discovery were made, her share in the intrigue must come out, and she would be directly turned out of doors; and that, whatever concern she pretended for me, it was chiefly on her own account: however, as I saw no other remedy, was resolved to take her advice.
'Thus, by having been guilty of one crime, I was ensnared to commit another of a yet fouler kind: one was the error of nature, this an offence against nature. The black design, however, succeeded not: I took potion after potion, yet still retained the token of my shame; which at length became too perspicuous for me to hope it would not be taken notice of by all who saw me.
'I was almost distracted, and Mademoiselle Grenouille little less so. I was one day alone in my chamber, pondering on my wretched state, and venting some part of the anguish of my mind in tears, when she came in; "What avails all this whimpering?" said she; "you do but hasten what you would wish to avoid. The governess already perceives you are strangely altered; she thinks you are either in a bad state of health, or some way disordered in your mind, and talks of writing to your father to send for you home." "Oh Heaven!" cried I. "Home, did you say?—No; I will never go home! The grave is not so hateful to me, nor death so terrible, as my father's presence."—"I pity you from my soul," said she: "but what can you do? There will be no staying for you here, after your condition is once known, and it cannot be concealed much longer." These words, the truth of which I was very well convinced of, drove me into the last despair: I raved, I tore my hair, I swore to poison, drown, or stab myself, rather than live to have my shame exposed to the severity of my father, and reproaches of my kindred.'
'"Come, come," resumed she, "there is no need of such desperate remedies; you had better go to London, and have recourse to Wildly: who knows, as you are a gentleman's daughter, and will have a fortune, but you may persuade him to marry you? If not, you can oblige him to take care of you in your lying-in, and to keep the child: and when you are once got rid of your burden, some excuse or other may be found for your elopement."
'"But how shall I get to London?" resumed I; "how find out my undoer in a place I know nothing of, nor ever have been at? Of whom shall I enquire? I am ignorant of what family he is, or even where he lives."—"As to that," replied she, "I will undertake to inform myself of every thing necessary for you to know; and, if you resolve to go, I will set about it directly." I then told her, I would do any thing rather than be exposed; on which she bid me assume as chearful a countenance as I could, and depend on her bringing me some intelligence of Wildly before I slept.
'The method she took to make good her promise was, it seems, to send a person whom she could confide in to the seat of Lord ——, to enquire among the servants, where Mr. Wildly, who had lately been a guest there, might be found. She told me that the answer they gave the man was, that they knew not where he lodged, but that he might be heard of at any of the coffee-houses about St. James's. As I was altogether a stranger in London, this information gave me but little satisfaction; but Mademoiselle Grenouille, whose interest it was to hurry me away, assured me that she knew that part of the town perfectly well, having lived there several months on her first arrival in England—that there were several great coffee-houses there, frequented by all the gentlemen of fashion, and that nothing would be more easy than to find Mr. Wildly at one or other of them. My heart, however, shuddered at the thoughts of this enterprize; yet her persuasions, joined to the terrors I was in of being exposed, and the certainty that a discovery of my condition was inevitable, made me resolve to undertake it.
'Nothing now remained but the means how I should get away, so as to avoid the pursuit which might, doubtless, be made after me; which, after some consultation, was thus contrived and executed.
'A flying-coach set out from H—— every Monday at two o'clock in the morning; Mademoiselle Grenouille engaged the same man who had enquired at Lord ——'s for Mr. Wildly, to secure a place for me in it. The Sunday before I was to go, I pretended indisposition to avoid going to church: I passed that time in packing up the best of my things in a large bundle; for I had no opportunity of taking a box or trunk with me. My greatest difficulty was how to get out of bed from Miss Bab, who still lay with me; I thought, however, that if she happened to awake while I was rising, I would tell her I was not very well, and was only going into the next room, to open the window for a little air: but I stood in no need of this precaution, she was in a sound sleep, and I left my bed, put on the cloaths I was to travel in, and stole out of the room, without her perceiving any thing of the matter. I went out by the same way by which I had fulfilled my first fatal appointment with Mr. Wildly. At a little distance from the garden-door, I found the friend of Mademoiselle Grenouille, who waited for me with a horse and pillion; he took my bundle before, and me behind him, and then we made the best of our way towards H——, where we arrived time enough for the coach. I alighted at the door of the inn, and he rode off directly to avoid being seen by any body, who might describe him, in case an enquiry should be made.
'I will not trouble you with the particulars of my journey, nor how I was amazed on entering this great metropolis; I shall only tell you, that it being dark when we came in, I lay that night at the inn, and the next morning, following the directions Mademoiselle Grenouille had given me, took a hackney-coach, and ordered the man to drive into any of the streets about St. James's, and stop at the first house where he should see a bill upon the door for ready-furnished lodgings. It happened to be in Rider Street; the woman at first seemed a little scrupulous of taking me, as I was a stranger, and had no recommendation; but on my telling her I would pay her a fortnight beforehand, we agreed on the rate of twelve shillings a week.
'The first thing I did was to send a porter to the coffee-houses; where he easily heard of him, but brought me the vexatious intelligence that he was gone to Tunbridge; and it was not known when he would return. This was a very great misfortune to me, and the more so as I had very little money: I thought it best, however, to follow him thither, which I did the same week.
'But oh! my dear Betsy, how unlucky every thing happened; he had left that place the very morning before I arrived, and gone for London. I had nothing now to do but return; but was so disordered with the fatigues I had undergone, that I was obliged to stay four days to compose myself. When I came back, I sent immediately to the coffee-house: but how shall I express the distraction I was in, when I was told he had lain but one night in town, and was gone to Bath.
'This second disappointment was terrible indeed; I had but half-a-crown remaining of the little stock I brought from the boarding-school, and had no way to procure a supply but by selling my watch, which I did to a goldsmith in the neighbourhood, for what he was pleased to give me, and then set out for Bath by the first coach.
'Here I had the good fortune to meet him; he was strangely surprized at the sight of me in that place, but much more so when I told him what had brought me there: he seemed extremely concerned at the accident. But when I mentioned marriage, he plainly told me I must not think of such a thing; that he was not in circumstances to support a family; that, having lost the small fortune left him by his friends at play, he was obliged to have recourse, for his present subsistence, to the very means by which he had been undone: in short, that he was a gamester.