Agnes, or, Beauty and Pleasure — page 398: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

LT A LLL LLL LL LLY, LLL LLL LLL LLL LLL LLL LLL LL LLL LLL LLL LLL LLL LLL ALLL ee ee ——™ 390 These were the circumstances under which the visit was now paid to Mr. Timperley. This man, having gone through many vicissitudes, and having risen to affluence — having indeed, by various meane, achieved for himself a considerable amount of prosperity—seemed destined to close his career in ignominy and by a violent death. Midway be- tween sixty and seventy years of age—at a time when, if his actions had been straightforward, or at all events less criminal than they were, he might have been reposing in the lap of luxury, in a com- fortable home, surrounded by all things that riches could purchase,—how different was it! There he wes, in a felon’s gaol, with the blackest charge and the direst penalty hanging over his head—know- ing himself to be guilty, 4nd having likewise the hideous certainty that his turpitude would be brought home to him! He was a man of too much sagacity, and he was too cunning as a law- yer, to buoy himself up with the hope that the evidence would break down against him, or that he could by any possible loophole escape from con- demnation. Death was therefore staring bim in the face: but still be persisted in the assertion of his innocence, because he was a man with more or Jess courage of a particular sort, and he was re- solved to look the world with hardibood in the face so long as he should remain a denizen of it. He knew that there was nothing to be gained by con- fession; and as he possessed little or no religious principle, it was not on ¢his account that he was at all likely to avow himself a culprit. On arriving at Newgate, Mrs. Timperley and the Hon. Mrs. Hardress were at once conducted to the cell in which the prisoner was confined. Boing as yet untried, he did not wear irons; and whereas iu ordinary cases the relations of a captive would have been compelled to speak to him through the iron bars of a grating, the rigidity of the goal discipline was now mitigated in consideration of the Honourable that was prefixed to Cicely’s name. Indeed this was the first time thet Mrs. Timperley herself had been enabled to see her husband in his own cell, except when she came with an order from one of the visiting magistrates to that effect. Timperley did not seem to have suffered very much from his two months’ imprisonment : —indeed there was but little alteration in his personal appear- ance since Cicely hed last seen him; and from the observations which we have just made concerning him, it may readily be supposed that there was no evidence of contrition, nor guilty terror, nor yielding weakness in his demeanour or his speech. Mrs. Timperley began to cry when Cicely affected to embrace the prisoner with much distress and afiliction; and he hastily whispered in her ear, “You and I understand each other well enough, Cicely! You must manage that I bave some private conversation with you presently.” “ It is for you to contrive it,” hastily respunded Mre. Hardress, speaking in the same low tone; “and whatever service I can render, yor may reckon upon me!” “Good!” said the prisoner. “Come, my dear,” he went on to exclaim, tow turning towards his wile; “don’t take on so. You know I have told you over and over again < “Yes,” she cried, starting up from the seat on which sie had ere now sunk down: “you have AGNRFS; OR, BEAUTY AND PLEASURE. assured me of your innocence—and I have never for a moment doubted it! You are the yictim of circumstances! But you must show the world that you know how to conquer its malignity—you must prove that a guiltless man cannot be ridden roughshod over by the law—and you must come out of this dreadful place in triumph, to return to your own comfortable house in the Fields!” ; Mrs. Timperley had spoken with great excite- ment and considerable volubility of utterance: her husband pretended to be very much affected by her discourse—while Cicely turned aside as if to conceal her tears, though not 80 much as a single drop trickled from her eyes. “For thirty-seven years have you and I been husband and wife,” continued Mrs. Timperley re- newing her impassioned address to the captive ; “and I don’t think that you can say that there has ever been a serious quarrel between us through any fault of mine. AudI must say that all things considered, you have been a very good husband to me. When we were poor we clung to one another; when we grew rich we together partook of the pleasures and recreations that wealth afforded. And now they want to take you from me! But they shall not! they shall not! Look, Cicely, look! there is a victim, and nota culprit! a martyr, and not a criminal!” Having thus spoken, Mrs. Timperley again threw herself distractedly upon the seat; and burying her face in her kerchief, she gave way to & paroxysm of passionate weeping and sobbing. “Cicely,” the lawyer now hastily whispered, “I have made everything over to my wife under a trusteeship—she will only havo a life interest ir my property—and at her death it is all to go to ou!” ‘Well, uncle—and what can I do for you?” asked the young lady, who was fully convinced that some signal service was required at her hands. ““T knew you would come at about the time your husband’s trial was fixed to take place,” he pro- ceeded; “and so I waited for you. There is a servics you can render me—a service which you ovly perhaps on the face of the earth would be willing to undertake on my behalf. I could not ask jer’’—and he glanced towards his wife, who was rocking herself to and fro, distracted with grief, and still holding the white kerchief up to her countenance. “Quick, uncle! explain yourself!” whispered Cicely. “TI cannot die upon the scaffold,” he responded: “neither do I choose to meet the ordeal of a trial. I am a doomed man—and the sooner I leave world to which nothing now of a hopeful character retains me, the better!” “Ah!” said Cicely: and a certain vagite sus~ picion which had before begun to float in her mind grew stronger and more palpable. “Well, perhaps you understand me,” proceeded Timpérléy. “ Poison, Cicely, poison! No matter of what kind, so long as it is certain and speedy! You understand, Cicely? you understand?” he added, with the deépest otwphasis, though be was speaking in the lowest possible whisper :—“ certain and speedy!” “T run a risk in undertaking such a task as this,” said Mrs. Hardress. “Mone, I will show you how. Disguise your+ Comichboo