The Children of the Abbey: A Tale. Regina Maria Roche
of his horse’s feet, and saw him enter the house! Vainly I endeavored to resume my work; my hands trembled, and I sunk back on my chair, to indulge the delightful idea of an interview with him, which I believed to be inevitable. My severe task-mistress soon awakened me from me delightful dream; she came to tell me: “I must confine myself to my own and the housekeeper’s room, which, to a virtuous, discreet maiden, such as I appeared to be, she supposed would be no hardship, while her nephew, who was a young, perhaps rather a wild young man, remained in the house: when he again left it, which would soon be the case, I should regain my liberty.” My heart sunk within me at her words, but, when the first shock was over; I consoled myself by thinking I should be able to elude her vigilance. I was, however, mistaken; she and the housekeeper were perfect Arguses. To be in the same house with Marlowe, yet without his knowing it, drove me almost distracted.
I at last thought of an expedient, which, I hoped, would effect the discovery I wanted. I had just finished a piece of work, which my mistress was delighted with. It was an enormous flower-basket, mounted on the back of a cat, which held beneath its paw a trembling mouse. The raptures the old lady expressed at seeing her own design so ably executed encouraged me to ask permission to embroider a picture of my own designing, for which I had the silks lying by me. She complied, and I set about it with alacrity. I copied my face and figure as exactly as I could, and, in mourning drapery and a pensive attitude, placed the little image by a rustic grave, in the church-yard of my native village, at the head of which, half embowered in trees, appeared the lovely cottage of my departed parents. These well-known objects, I thought, would revive, if indeed she was absent from it, the idea of poor Fanny in the mind of Marlowe. I presented the picture to my mistress, who was pleased with the present, and promised to have it framed. The next day while I sat at dinner, the door suddenly opened, and Marlowe entered the room. I thought I should have fainted. My companion dropped her knife and fork with great precipitation, and Marlowe told her he was very ill, and wanted a cordial from her. She rose with a dissatisfied air, to comply with his request. He, taking this opportunity of approaching a little nearer, darted a glance of pity and tenderness, and softly whispered—"To-night, at eleven o’clock, meet me in the front parlor.”
You may conceive how tardily the hours passed till the appointed time came, when, stealing to the parlor, I found Marlowe expecting me. He folded me to his heart, and his tears mingled with mine, as I related my melancholy tale. “You are now, my Fanny!” he cried, “entirely mine; deprived of the protection of your tender parents I shall endeavor to fulfil the sacred trust they reposed in my honor, by securing mine to you, as far as lies in my power. I was not mistaken,” continued he, “in the idea I had formed of the treatment I should receive from my flinty-hearted relations on leaving you. Had I not promised to drop all correspondence with you, I must have relinquished all hopes of their favor. Bitter, indeed,” cried he, while a tear started in his eye, “is the bread of dependence. Ill could my soul submit to the indignities I received; but I consoled myself throughout them, by the idea of future happiness with my Fanny. Had I known her situation (which, indeed, it was impossible I should, as my uncle’s spy attended me wherever I went), no dictate of prudence would have prevented my flying to her aid!” “Thank Heaven, then, you were ignorant of it,” said I. “My aunt,” he proceeded, “showed me your work, lavishing the highest encomiums on it. I glanced my eye carelessly upon it, but, in a moment, how was that careless eye attracted by the well known objects presented to it! this, I said to my heart, can only be Fanny’s work. I tried to discover from my aunt whether my conjectures were wrong, but without success. When I retired to dress, I asked my servant if there had been any addition to the family during my absence; he said a young woman was hired to do fine works, but she never appeared among the servants.”
Marlowe proceeded to say, “he could not bear I should longer continue in servitude, and that without delay he was resolved to unite his fate to mine.” I opposed this resolution a little; but soon, too self-interested, I fear, acquiesced in it. It was agreed I should inform his aunt my health would no longer permit my continuing in her family, and that I should retire to a village six miles off, where Marlowe undertook to bring a young clergyman, a particular friend of his, to perform the ceremony. Our plan, as settled, was carried into execution, and I became the wife of Marlowe. I was now, you will suppose, elevated to the pinnacle of happiness; I was so, indeed, but my own folly precipitated me from it. The secrecy I was compelled to observe mortified me exceedingly, as I panted to emerge from the invidious cloud which had so long concealed my beauty and accomplishments from a world that I was confident, if seen, would pay them the homage they merited. The people with whom I lodged had been obliged by Marlowe, and, therefore, from interest and gratitude, obeyed the injunction he gave them, of keeping my residence at their house a secret; they believed, or affected to believe, I was an orphan committed to his care, whom his uncle would be displeased to know he had taken under his protection. Three or four times a week I received stolen visits from Marlowe, when, one day (after a month had elapsed in this manner) standing at the parlor window, I saw Mrs. Wilson walking down the village. I started back, but too late to escape her observation; she immediately bolted into the room with all the eagerness of curiosity. I bore her first interrogatories tolerably well, but when she upbraided me for leaving the excellent service she had procured for me, for duplicity in saying I was going to another, and for my indiscretion in respect to Marlowe, I lost all command of my temper, and, remembering the inhumanity with which she had forced me into servitude, I resolved to mortify her completely, by assuming all the airs I had heretofore so ridiculously aspired to. Lolling in my chair, with an air of the most careless indifference, I bid her no longer petrify me with her discourse. This raised all the violence of rage, and she plainly told me, “from my conduct with Marlowe, I was unworthy her notice.” “Therefore,” cried I, forgetting every dictate of prudence, “his wife will neither desire nor receive it in future.” “His wife!” she repeated, with a look of scorn and incredulity. I produced the certificate of my marriage; thus, from an impulse of vanity and resentment, putting myself in the power of a woman, a stranger to every liberal feeling, and whose mind was inflamed with envy towards me. The hint I forced myself at parting to give her, to keep the affair secret, only determined her more strongly to reveal it. The day after her visit, Marlowe entered my apartment—pale, agitated, and breathless, he sunk into a chair. A pang, like conscious guilt, smote my heart, and I trembled as I approached him. He repulsed me when I attempted to touch his hand. “Cruel, inconsiderate woman!” he said, “to what dreadful lengths has your vanity hurried you; it has drawn destruction upon your own head as well as mine!” Shame and remorse tied my tongue; had I spoken, indeed, I could not have vindicated myself, and I turned aside and wept. Marlowe, mild, tender, and adoring, could not long retain resentment; he started from his chair, and clasped me to his bosom. “Oh, Fanny!” he cried, “though you have ruined me, you are still dear as ever to me.”
This tenderness affected me even more than reproaches, and tears and sighs declared my penitence. His expectations relative to his uncle were finally destroyed, on being informed of our marriage, which Mrs. Wilson lost no time in telling him. He burned his will, and immediately made another in favor of a distant relation. On hearing this intelligence, I was almost distracted; I flung myself at my husband’s feet, implored his pardon, yet declared I could never forgive myself. He grew more composed upon the increase of my agitation, as if purposely to soothe my spirits, assuring me, that, though his uncle’s favor was lost, he had other friends on whom he greatly depended. We set off for London, and found his dependence was not ill-placed; for, soon after his arrival, he obtained a place of considerable emolument in one of the public offices. My husband delighted in gratifying me, though I was often both extravagant and whimsical, and almost ever on the wing for admiration and amusement. I was reckoned a pretty woman, and received with rapture the nonsense and adulation addressed to me. I became acquainted with a young widow, who concealed a depraved heart under a specious appearance of innocence and virtue, and by aiding the vices of others, procured the means of gratifying her own; yet so secret were all her transactions, that calumny had not yet attacked her, and her house was the rendezvous of the most fashionable people. My husband, who did not dislike her manner, encouraged our intimacy, and at her parties I was noticed by a young nobleman, then at the head of the ton. He declared I was one of the most charming objects he had ever beheld, and, for such a declaration, I thought him the most polite I had ever known. As Lord T. condescended to wear my chains, I must certainly,