The Young Duchess; or, Memoirs of a Lady of Quality — page 387: 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. added Ponsford, with an ironical smile, “it be still in the Bank of England—which I think you will scarcely venture to assert.” ‘‘No !—I confess at once,” answered the stock- broker, ‘‘that I took possession of the money on hearing that Hester Sergeant was dead.” ‘‘And now that she happens to be alive,” said Ponsford, coolly, “‘ you will of course refund the money ?” “You can scarcely mean this, Mr. Ponsford!” exclaimed Warren. “ What! surely such a secret is worth its purchase-money ?—and have not I kept it faithfully ?” ‘So far as I am concerned, it will cease to be a secret—or at least I shall care not to whose ears it may become known; for this very day shall I embrace my poor daughter—my long neglected child !” | “But Lady Amesbury ?” interjected Warren. ‘Surely, surely you must reflect that she has a reputation to lose?” ‘She has acknowledged her daughter,” re- joined Ponsford; ‘and she will allow the world to think or say what it likes.” “ But your own daughter—I mean, Miss Pons- ford—the lovely Pamela your heiress !—you would not have her penetrating into the mysteries of her father’s past life? No, no, Mr. Pons- ford !” “My daughter Pamela knows everything,” in- terjected the Squire. ‘And now, Mr. Warren, I have borne with you long enough. The part you have played is infamous; and in order to punish you for it, I shall insist upon the immediate pro- duction of the money for which you are re- sponsible.” The stockbroker, who had gradually felt the ground slipping away from under his feet, and who had seen each successive straw of hope float away from him as he tried to clutch it, now looked agitated and excited: he bit his lip—he played nervously with his watch-chain—and he revolved in his mind the various details of his predicament, to ascertain if everything was indeed lost. “ But still, Mr. Ponsford,” he said, after a long pause, “‘you are not so mad as to invoke the public gaze to settle itself upon all the minute peculiarities of this case. Surely, surely, I say, for the girl’s own sake, even though you and her mother may prove so reckless of public opi- nion “My poor daughter, sir,” interrupted Ponsford, proudly, “cannot suffer in the world’s opinion. It is only the vilest prejudice that makes the ille- gitimacy of birth a crime against the individual. Sustained by her own approving conscience — knowing that despite all the sufferings and tempta- tions to which she was exposed by your iniquity, she maintained her honour undefiled, her good name immaculate, her character stainless———” Ponsford stopped short, because he was suddenly seized with astonishment at the manner in which Warren was gazing upon him. “What on earth are you talking of?” asked the stockbroker, astonished and bewildered, and also looking as if he were ready to burst forth into a fit of ironical laughter. “Ts there anything strange in what I have been saying ?” demanded Ponsford: “is it astonishing that 1 should experience a certain degree of pride in pronouncing this eulogy upon the poor girl who 7g 373 — ae so well deserves it! Ah, sir, when I think of al that might have happened as the result of your villany—when I reflect that Hester might have succumbed to the temptations which naturally rose up around her—when through your base dishonesty she was thrown penniless upon the world—and when the maddening thought occurs to me that she might have been plunged into the abysm of crime--she might have fallen deep down into tae vortex of pollutions and abominations Oh! when I think of all this, Mr. Warren, my blood tingles in my veins, but at thesame time my flesh creeps shudderingly upon my bones!” “Oh,” said the stockbroker, with a half astou- nished, half mocking expression of countenance. ‘“‘ And therefore,” continued Ponsford, who had warmed so completely with his subject that he failed to notice the semi-ironical aspect of his lis- tener, “ when I reflect that this poor girl of mine, abandoned by her parents—plundered by the man who ought to have acted as it were her guardian and her friend—thrown adrift upon the world - ex- posed to heaven knows what amount of temptations —harassed by sufferings which I tremble even now to allow my imagination to depict—when I reflect, I say, that Hester, my child, thus situated, should have come forth from the ordeal pure, and chaste, and uncontaminated—fit to prove the comfort of her mother, if God should spare her life—I may well feel proud of her, and I may even rejoice at being enabled to present her to my Pamela as a sister!” . “Ha!” said Mr. Warren curtly. ‘But what if it were all the very reverse of this pleasant and agreeable picture ?” ‘‘Oh, mention it not! But do you, sir, go down upon your knees and thank heaven that the black turpitude of your conduct did not prove the cause of adding another victim to the painted and flaunting band of daughters of crime that render the streets of this huge metropolis odious and loath- some! Ah! and if this had happened, it would not have been the only consequence of your vil- lany! Forif I had only found a daughter, merely to learn that she was lost and degraded—a pol- luted and abandoned one—it would have proved to me a blow which I could not have recovered | Ab, then you might have laughed at me, villain that you are! and you might have held me in defiance! You might have rejoiced in the plunder of the young girl!—you might have chuckled in the certainty of impunity! Nay, more— you might have added insult to injury: for you might have told me to go and hide my diminished head But what means this strange look on your part ?” suddenly demanded Ponsford, again struck by tbe sinister mocking expression which the stockbroker’s countenance had assumed. “What does it mean?” said Warren, with in- solence in his tone, and with a still more unmis- takable expression of that sinister aspect. Ponsford was now more than startled—he was almost affrighted; and he experienced a revul- sion of feeling which filled him with a species of presentiment that he was about to hear something terrible. ‘Speak, speak,” he said, in a hoarse voice: ‘‘why do you look at me in this manner ?” ‘““Perhaps it would be as well,” replied the stockbroker, with an air of assurance, “if we were to drop the subject altogether. But don’t GOMiGOOOkSReonn