Joseph Wilmot, or, The Memoirs of a Man-Servant — page 356: what you’re looking at

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

had left behind her. He displayed no excitement : no ejaculation of rage escaped his lips: no tear trickled from his eye. It appeared as if his entire being had all in a moment become changed by the magic touch of an enchanter’s wand. His sister had eloped against his consent: his daughter had now followed that example :—it seemed as if those who were nearest and dearest, were destined to abandon and desert him,—not merely abandon and desert him, but act in defiance of all his wishes and plans. Thus was it that in a single moment his heart grew steeled against his daughter whom he had so fondly loved and who was once all in all to him! The very next morning he quitted Heseltine Hall, and repaired to the Con- tinent,— leaving behind him a letter for his daughter when she should call, to the effect that he cast her off for ever. He travelled alone— without a single attendant—over the greater part of Europe,—wandering like an unquiet spirit from place to place, shunning scciety, and gradually acquiring those cynical habits which hare since become as it were his second nature. Thus he remained a year abroad; and during this interval numerous were the letters which followed him from England,—the addresses being in the well known handwriting of his daughter. He read not one of them: they were consigned to the flames the moment they successively came to hand. At length, at the end of that year, matters of business recalled him into Westmoreland: and a few days after his arrival at the Hall, he received another letter, the direction of which was in the handwriting of his daughter—but the envelope had the broad black rim of deep mourning. He eould not resist the impulse which prompted him toopen it. It was a long letter, couched in terms of deepest pathos and frenzied affliction, as well as of most imploring entreaty. Her husband Mr. Bentinck had just died,—died of a broken heart at the misery which his fatal love had entailed upon his adored wife and infant offspring; for within a few weeks previous to her husband’s death, the unhappy Mrs. Bentinck had become a mother. During the year of their married life, they had experienced the utmost privations. Ben- tinck had lost his curacy at Kendal: vainly had he endeavoured to procure fresh preferment; and it was by the precarious occupation of giving classical lessons and writing for theological maga- zines, that he had procured a pittance. His health had rapidly sunk under the weight of those sor- rows which that ill-starred marriage had brought down upon himself and his adored wife; and it was in a wretched garret in London that he had breathed his last. Now that he was gone, the afflicted widow besought her father’s forgiveness, and implored that if this should be denied her, he would at least allow her the wherewithal to save herself and her innocent offspring from starva- tion or the workhouse.” Mrs. Leslie ceased speaking for a few minutes, during which she was profoundly affected ; and the tears were trickling down my own cheeks. “I now come, Joseph,” she at length resumed, in a low and solemn voice, “to one of the saddest phases of my uncle’s conduct. He himself—seated as he was an hour back in that very chair which you occupy—wept convulsively as he reached this point of his narrative. He admits that his heart yearnec at the time towards the daughter whom —$$—$ A JOSEPH WiLMOT; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A MAN-SERVANT. 343 he had once loved so tenderly, and who was then plunged in such bitter, bitter affliction: but that yearning too soon passed away—and all his impla- eability revived. He enclosed a bank-note for fifty pounds in a letter, with but a few accompany- ing lines, to the effect that it was the last succour she need ever expect at his hands, and that thence- forth her letters would be consigned unread to the flames, as all her previous ones had been with the single exception of that mourning epistle to which this cruel missive was the response. Having trans- acted the business which brought him to England, Sir Matthew Heseltine returned to the Continent, where he remained two years, wandering about from place to place like an unquiet spirit, as be- fore. During this interval several letters in the same well-known handwriting reached him: but he read them not—and at length he received no more. He returned to England, and settled him- self once again at Heseltine Hall—seeing but little company, and sinking deeper and deeper into those cynical habits which now characterize him. He learnt by some indirect means, that his daugh- ter had married again, and that her second hus- band was a man of wealth and eminence in the city of London. Still he made no overture on his own part towards a_ reconciliation; and as letters from his daughter had for some time been discontinued, he supposed that as she was now in a state of independence, her own pride prevented her from again appealing to her father for forgiveness. About four or five years after this second return of my uncle from the Continent to Heseltine Hall, the death of my mother threw me upon his hands; and here my own history ought properly to be interwoven in the narrative which [ am reciting. But as you are already acquainted with it, I pass on to other matters. It was soon after the time (as I have this day learnt) when I was first brought an orphan to Heseltine Hall, that Sir Matthew again heard of his daughter ; and to be particular in dates, the inci- dent I am about to mention occurred thirteen years ago. Her husband suddenly failed in business, and under circumstances reflecting con- siderable dishonour upon himself. Sir Matthew’s daughter wrote to her father, explaining what had occurred, and expressing the earnest heartfelt hope that as eight years had then elapsed since she had quitted the paternal roof, his anger against her had become sofiened down. Sir Matthew opened this letter amongst a number of others, without observing the handwriting of the address; and having once opened it, he perused its contents from beginning to end. Thence did he become acquainted with the fresh sources of affliction which his unhappy daughter was doomed to experience: but the circumstances of her second marriage, as they thus turned out, proved but little calculated to soften or subdue the implacability engendered by her first matrimonial alliance. He wrote to her in a brief and peremptory manner,—sternly refusing to afford the slightest assistance either to her husband or herself, and as cruelly for- bidding her to trouble him with any corre- spondence for the future. But every additional circumstance of this nature tended to sour the temper and confirm the cynicism of Sir Mat- thew Heseltine. into a morbid condition. "When he looked back upon three elopements,—that of his sister first of His mind fell more and more — _—_—_ —-.—-- COUM ELOOO S (CO) iin