The Young Duchess; or, Memoirs of a Lady of Quality — page 121: what you’re looking at

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

THE YOUNG DUCHESS; OR, MEMOIRS OF A LADY OF QUALITY. 107 or the proprieties of life: the first false step having been taken by compulsion, she scrupled not to take the second when her inclination prompted. It was your damnable iniquity which ad blunted her conscience— your tremendous crime which threw its dark shadow over her soul. She listened to the tender language which Rupert Pringle breathed in her ears ; and while still pen- sioned from your purse, she received him to her arms asa paramour. Oh! you can well under- stand how it reyolts against my soul to be com- pelled to mention these facts! how it makes my blood run cold in my veins and my flesh creep upon my bones! But still 1 feel the necessity of proving to you that I know everything.” ‘‘And it is of your own mother that you are thus speaking,” said the Squire reproachfully. ‘You at least ought to be anxious to avoid such a topic! Come—let it cease—and stifle this bitter ill-will which you seem to cherish towards me! You cannot have yet done aught to revenge yourself against me ? you are only contemplating a vengeance? Tell me, is it not so ?” ‘ Listen,” said Stephen impatiently. ‘ You compelled Rupert Pringle to fly from this neigh- bourhood, and Adelaide Clarke accompanied him. They went to London, and for some months dwelt together in the utmost seclusion, for they dreaded lest they should be followed by your horrible ven- geance. At length Rupert Pringle deserted Ade- laide Clarke, suddenly married another woman, and fled with her, no one’ knew whither. Some months afterwards I was born ; and a mercy would it have been for me if heaven had decreed I should perish at my birth: for then—for then But no matter! It has been ordained otherwise, and my destiny must be fulfilled!” He paused for a moment, while an expression of unutterable sadness appeared upon his counte- nance ; and then he continued in the following manner :— ‘Deserted by the man whom she had loved— with an infant at het breast—having no friend or relation in the world—and with all her own little means completely exhausted, my mother scarcely dared look her position in the face; for it seemed as if before her stood a gaunt spectre pointing towards self-destruction as the only means of relief. But she had not the courage to die!—or at least she could have made up her mind to sui- cide ; but she must have taken me with her, and that would have been murder—a crime from which her soul recoiled. All this she has told me. Well, she determined to live on. By the kindness of some neighbour, she obtained needlework; and by dint of continuous toil she earned a pittance which sufficed for her support. At length, when I was upwards of a year old, and no longer draw- ing my own nourishment from her maternal bosom, my poor mother determined to make larger efforts on my behalf. She applied for the situation of a nursery-governess i “Why these recapitulations ?” asked the Squire, in a voice which seemed to implore Ashbarne to cut his narrative short. ‘Because I tell you again and again,” he re- sponded fiercely, ‘‘that I mrst prove to you how I know everything! Well then, as I was saying, my poor mother obtained the situation of a nur- sery-governess, at the same time making a re- quisite provision for me with a poor but honest family. My existence was as a matter of course to be kept unknown at the establishment which my poor mother entered; and for six months she led a happy and contented life—her secret was unsuspected—she again felt the value of a good repute—she once more appreciated the benefit of honest principles. She was loved and respected by the family which she had thus entered. But all of a sudden her position was changed—her hopes were blighted—and you, John Ponsford, were the vindictive fiend who brought so much desolation upon her soul! You called at that house—you saw her—you were not generous enough to pass her by as if unrecognised! No! —but ou revenged yourself upon the unfortu- nate being for having abandoned you for the sake of your rival Rupert Pringle! And so you pro- claimed that she was a mother without being a wife — she was disgraced and expelled almost with execration from the bosom of that family. It was you who did this!—you who having first dragged her down into the vortex of dishonour, afterwards made it her reproach! — you who having rendered her criminal, would not, even for her soul’s sake, permit her to enjoy the bene- fits of reformation and atonement!” — There was another pause, during which the re- gards of Stephen Ashborne were riveted with a sinister fierceness upon that man who stood pale, trembling, and full of anxiety before him. Yes— and not only full of anxiety, but likewise under the influence of that awful curiosity to which Ashborne had himself ere now alluded. “Then followed a period of deep wretchedness for my mother,” he presently resumed. “She has explained to me all she felt—she has told me all her painful struggles—and it has even seemed to me that the bitterness of the tears which she must have shed over me, has infused itself into the tears which I have shed when thinking of all her wrongs! For with what unrelenting malevo- lence did you pursue her! Need I tell you that after awhile, when recovering from the fearful shock which your vindictiveness occasioned her, she procured another situation? Passing as a widow, she became a companion to an elderly and highly respectable lady. ‘Time went on:—again did she think that there might yet be happiness for her in this world—and again was she disap- pointed! Yes—for her evil genius still, you were the fiend prepared sooner or later to step in and blight all her prospects! You did it—and again through you, was she expelled ignominiously from a comfortable home. Oh, my poor mother! She has told me how she thought her heart must have broken then—or that she must have perished as 4 distracted suicide! And it was through you— yes, through you, John Ponsford, that she endured those worlds of mental agony! Do you remember that somewhile after that second demonstration of your fiend-like malevolence, my poor mother met you—and she implored and entreated that you would for the future leave her unmolested ? And what was your answer? Oh, cowardly wretch that you are! monster of iniquity that you must have been, to trample so recklessly upon the un- fortunate being who almost grovelled at your feet! — you hurled the name of Rupert Pringle at her, and you vowed your vengeance should be eternal !” Squire Ponsford bent down his eyes: he could COMO oO = SS