The story of Miss Wilmot: Family misfortunes: A father's death: A brother's disappointment: Intelligence that astonishes me: Wakefield characterized: The death of Miss Wilmot's mother; and the dread of fatal consequences: Piety and compassion of a bishop: Deep designs of Wakefield: The good faith and affection of a poor adherent

'My father was an officer in the army, in which, though he served all his life, he only attained the rank of major. He was twice married, the second time to my mother at the age of thirty, by whom he had five children, who, except my brother and myself, did not arrive at maturity. Being reduced to the income of half-pay, they retired into their native county, where they lived with such strict oeconomy that they contrived to educate us better perhaps than the children of people of much larger fortune.

'My brother was the eldest child, and I the youngest, so that there was an interval of fifteen years between us. My father had been well educated, loved letters, and undertook to be my brother's instructor himself to the age of fourteen. At this period my brother was admitted a chorister at the cathedral of ——, at which city my parents had fixed their residence. They were respected by all the inhabitants, whose wealth, birth, and pride, did not place them at too great a distance; and it was a severe mortification to be unable to provide better for their son; but there was no remedy.

'The disappointments of my father's life had given him a melancholy cast, with an aptitude to be dissatisfied; and this propensity was strongly communicated to my brother. The danger of a war between England and Spain called my father up to town, in the hope of being once more put on actual service. But in this his hopes again were frustrated; and expence without benefit was incurred. Early, however, in the American war, he obtained his wishes; unhappily obtained them, for, having been long unused to the baneful severity of camps, he and many more brave men were carried off, by the damps of the climate to which he was sent. This happened when I was but nine years old; and my mother was left with what little their economy had collected, and such scanty provision as is made for officers widows.

'My brother, however, who was truly affectionate, and active in efforts to protect us, afforded my mother some aid. From being a chorister, he had gained admission into the grammar-school; of which, while he remained there, he was the pride and boast. Immediately after our father's death, from the recommendation of his own merit and the misfortunes of the family, he was appointed a Latin usher in the same school; in which station he remained five years. The difference of our age made him consider himself something rather like a father than a brother to me: he loved me tenderly, took every method to improve and provide for me, and expected in return something like parental obedience. The manners of my mother were of the mild and pleasing kind, with which qualities she endeavoured to familiarize me, and the behaviour of the whole family gained general approbation and esteem.

'My brother was deeply smitten with the love of letters: his poetical essays were numerous, many of them were sent up to London and readily admitted into periodical publications.

'Anxious to place his family in that rank which he had been taught to suppose it deserved, for my father and mother were both, though not noble, well born, he did not rest satisfied with these attempts: he wrote a tragedy, and, by the advice of people who pretended to have a knowledge of such affairs, determined to go to London, that he might, if possible, get it on the stage. From this my mother would fain have dissuaded him, but his arguments and importunity at length prevailed. He was then but nine and twenty, and I fourteen.

'I could ill describe to you the state of anxiety and suspence in which his various literary efforts involved him, while he remained in London: but in about two years he returned to the country, despairing of that pleasure, profit, and fame, which hope had delusively taught him to consider as his due. This was the period at which he once more became an usher of the school where you were educated. This too was the period at which my misfortunes began.

'And now, Mr. Trevor, I am coming to events in which you, without any knowledge or interference of your own, may be said to be a partaker.'

She paused a moment: and I, with amazement, doubt, and increasing ardour, requested she would proceed.

'The name of Wakefield must certainly be familiar to you?'

'It is: I am sorry to say it is the name my mother at present bears.'

'If you feel sorrow, Mr. Trevor, what must my feelings be? Mine! who, had there been truth or honour in man, ought to have borne that name myself. Mine! who, when I first heard of your mother's marriage, should not have felt so severe a pang had a dagger been struck to my heart. Mine! who from that moment, or rather from the fatal and guilty moment when I confided in an unprincipled man, have never known that cheerfulness and peace, which once were the inmates of my bosom!'

'You astonish me, madam! Wakefield?'

'Wakefield! Him have I to thank for loss of self-respect, a brother's love, and perhaps a parent's life! I was my mother's companion, consolation, and pride. How can I estimate a mother's grief? She died within a year. Have I not reason to believe her days were shortened by her daughter's guilt?'

The pain of recollection was agonizing. She burst into a flood of tears: nor could every effort she made keep down the deep sobs that for some minutes impeded speech. I used every endeavour to appease and calm her mind: she seemed sensibly touched by that sympathy which intensely pervaded me; and, as soon as she could recover herself, thus continued.

'The kind part you take in my affliction, Mr. Trevor, affords me greater relief than any that perhaps I have felt for years. It is true the faithful Mary, good creature, has almost shed tear for tear: but she herself is the daughter of misfortune, and from her, though grateful, it is something like expected. You are a man; you perhaps have been accustomed to the society of those whose pleasure is the most exquisite when they can most contribute to the miseries of woman: that you should be virtuous enough to contemn such instruction, does more than sooth feelings like mine: and I think we esteem benefits the more the less we expect them.'

'But where, madam, did you first meet with Mr. Wakefield?'

'In the city of —— where he was bred, under his father, to the profession of the law. From what I have seen of you, and from what I have heard of your talents and understanding, I should have expected you to have been the child of extraordinary parents; otherwise, I do not much wonder at your mother's conduct, superior as she was to Mr. Wakefield in years; for, of all the men I ever saw, he is the most deceitful, plausible, and dangerous. Neither man nor woman are safe with him; and his arts are such as to over-reach the most cautious. He has words at will; and his wit and invention, which are extraordinary, are employed to entrap, humiliate, degrade and ruin all with whom he has intercourse. His ambition is to gratify his desires, by triumphing over the credulity of the unsuspecting, whom he contemns for their want of his own vices. It was he that, after having seduced me, placed me in the family of the bishop, laid the plan that I should pass for his lordship's niece, by various falsehoods cajoled me to acquiesce (the chief of which was, that the project was but to save appearances, till he could make me his wife) left me in that unworthy prelate's power, then, returning to the country, plotted the marriage with your mother, and, by his intimate knowledge of the weakness or vice of each character, which he seems to catch instinctively, adapted his scheme with such cunning to the avarice of his uncle as to gain his concurrence and aid.

'It was my clandestine departure at this period, and the rumours and suspicions to which it gave birth, that again drove my brother from the country. For some months neither he nor my mother knew what was become of me.

'At length her decline, and the extreme affliction of dying and never hearing of me more, occasioned her to prevail on my brother to advertise me in all the papers. This he did, by inserting the initials of my name, and such other tokens as he knew must be intelligible to me, should I read the advertisement; informing me at the same time of the dying state of my mother.

'His plan so far succeeded as to come to my knowledge. I read the paper, was seized with horror at the information, and immediately wrote in answer. It was too late! My mother was dead! and I left in that state of distraction to which by a single moment's weakness I had been thus fatally conducted!

'Grief, despondency, and resentment, took firm possession of my brother's mind. He wrote me a dreadful letter of the state of his feelings; and, though he forebore explicitly to accuse me of my mother's death, I could perceive the thought pervaded his mind. After her funeral, he came up to London; but refused all intercourse with me, once excepted. A few days only after that on which the bishop introduced you to me, he came, knocked at the door, inquired if I were at home, and sent up his name.

'Of all the moments of my life, that was the most awful! A death-like coldness seized me! The sound of my brother's name was horror! I know not what I said to the servant, but the feelings of Mr. Wilmot were too racking for delay: he was presently before me, dressed in deep mourning; I motionless and dead; he haggard, the image of despair; so changed in form that, but for the sharp and quick sighted suspicions of guilt, had I met him, I should have passed him without suspecting him to be my brother.

'I can tell you but little of what passed. His sentences were incoherent, but half finished, and bursting with passion that was neither grief nor rage, nor reproach nor pardon, though a mixture of them all. The chief impression that he left upon my mind was, that he should soon be freed from the torment of existence: not by the course of nature; he complained, with agony, that labour, disappointment, injustice, and contamination itself could not kill him; but die he would!

'From that day to this, I have never seen or heard word of him more. The deep despair with which he uttered his last resolution has kept me in a state of uninterrupted terror. I daily read all the papers I can buy or borrow with the excruciating dread, every paragraph I come to, of catching his name, and, Oh! insufferable horror! reading an account of his death!

'My state of being seems wholly changed! I am no longer the same creature! My faculties, which formerly compared to those of my brother I thought slow even to stupidity, are now awakened to such keenness of discernment that the world is multiplied upon me a million fold! Sometimes it is all intelligence, though of a dark and terrific hue; at other moments objects swarm so thick that they dance confusion, and give me a foretaste of madness, to which I have now a constant fear that I shall be driven. My own deep shame, the loss of the man whom like an idiot I dearly loved, my mother's death, my brother's letter, and particularly his last visit, have altogether given such an impetuosity to my thoughts as I want the power to repel. Whither they will hurry me God only knows. At one interval I imagine the earth contains nothing but evil! At another, strange to tell! all is good! all is wise! all harmonious! and I reproach my own extreme folly for wanting happiness under so perfect a system!

'Nay, there are times in which I persuade myself I have been guilty of no crime! that there is no such thing as crime! and that the distinctions of men are folly, invented by selfishness and continued by ignorance!

'Indeed, I know not whither my thoughts do not range. At one moment, I seem as if I were actually free to penetrate the bowels of the earth, dive into the deep, transport myself with a wish from planet to planet, or from sun to sun, endure all extremes, overcome them, master all resistance, and be myself omnipotent! The very next instant, perhaps, I doubt if I have really any existence! if waking and dreaming be not the same thing! and whether either of them are definable or intelligible! At this very moment, I know not whither my thoughts are wandering! or whether I ought not to snatch up this or the other weapon of death, and instantly strike you breathless, for having dared to listen to my shame!'

While she spoke, her eyes sparkled, and flashed with that wildness which her tongue with such rapid imagery pictured forth. Had it continued, the tumult might have been dangerous; perhaps fatal; but fortunately the firmness and intrepidity of my mind were equal to the scene. With a cool and collected benevolence of look, and with a determined though not severe tone of voice I said: 'My dear Miss Wilmot, be calm; pause a moment; recollect yourself; I am your friend, I hope you will never find another man your foe.'

The idea suggested an opposite association to her active thoughts; in an instant the fire vanished, her eyes were suffused, her features relaxed, and she again burst into tears and sobs. I was careful not to interrupt the tide of passion; it gave relief; and she presently became more calm. Desirous as I was of hearing particulars concerning the bishop, I gladly listened when, after a sufficient pause, she thus resumed her tale.

'You must not wonder, Mr. Trevor, that I do not tell my story in a connected manner. Whenever I think on the subject, the incidents I have related press upon my mind, produce sensations I cannot command, and for a time obliterate less momentous circumstances.

'The part which the bishop acted in this tragic drama is what I have yet to relate. Mr. Wakefield's father, who let me here remark was an unprincipled man and died insolvent, happened professionally, as a lawyer, to have certain temporalities, in the county where he resided, to manage for the bishop. This brought his son acquainted with the character of the prelate. The relationship in which I stood to him'—I interrupted her.

'To whom, madam?'

'The bishop.'

'I understood he was no relation of yours?'

'He is and is not.'

'Pray explain.'

'He is by marriage, twice removed; not the least by blood. His late lady, a widow when he married her, was the half-sister of my father's first wife; so that by the courtesy of custom he is called my uncle. He is too artful not to have a shelter for his proceedings.—' She continued:

'An adept which as I have before said Mr. Wakefield is, in reading the weak and vicious inclinations of the human heart, he hoped not only to have rid himself of importunity from me, but, by rendering me subservient to this unholy bishop's vile propensities, to have played a deeper game. This is his delight. The pleasure he receives in making other men's follies, passions, and vices, administer to his own, is the greatest he knows. Were he but the cunningest man on earth, he would think himself the greatest.

'His character sympathized with that of the bishop, who was happy to find so artful and so active an agent. It was not till I had been in the prelate's family some time that the whole of their design was explained to me. The bishop frequently used strange, and to me unintelligible expressions; disgusting from any man, but from him inexpressively offensive and odious; yet the full import of them I did not so much as suspect.

'Nor did he omit to make the solemnity of his supposed character an abettor to his hypocrisy. Feelings of compassion, moral affection, and Christian forgiveness were assumed. When I first entered his house he gave me to understand that he was acquainted with my crime; this, after mentioning it as a serious sin, affecting pity, he qualified away, and, as people in all such situations must, talked an incoherent jargon; that God hated and loved such sinners; that religion was all powerful, but that man was frail; that Christ died to save us, and therefore though we should fall, as perhaps the best of us were subject to back slidings, his mercy was all sufficient.

'But on this and every occasion, he was careful to say nothing open and direct, by which he should be detected. If ever he ventured so far as to excite serious questions from me, he was ever ready with evasive answers, and had something like reasoning to offer, in defence of his own manners and in ridicule of prudery. He began with caution, but when he had accustomed me to such discourse, and after I had heard it repeated even in the presence of his clerical companions, of which you, Mr. Trevor, were once a witness, my surprize wore away; the pain it gave me was diminished, and he became less and less reserved.

'Still however he did not venture openly to declare himself; and Mr. Wakefield was too busy, in wasting your mother's fortune and gratifying his own desires, to attend to those of the bishop. But his prodigality, which is excessive, after a time brought him to London; and the bishop imagined that, with his help, my scruples would at last be conquered.

'The trial was made; not by the cautious bishop, but by Mr. Wakefield. How such a proposition, coming from the man whom I had dearly loved, and whose wife in justice I considered myself to be, was received, you, who have a sense of the feelings of a highly injured and justly indignant heart, may conceive!

'Yet, impassioned determined and almost frantic as I was, it was with difficulty he could relinquish his plan. Till that hour, I never believed him so utterly devoid of principle; but he then laid bare his heart, hoping to make me a convert to its baseness. He exulted in the power we should obtain over this sensual prelate, and the sums which by these means we might extort. He looked with transport forward, to the opening which this would afford for projects still much deeper. The vices of the great, with which he might thus become intimate, afforded a field ample as his own vice could wish. Nor could all the impatience of indignation, with which I continually interrupted him, impede that flow which the subject inspired.

'At length, disgusted beyond sufferance, I abruptly left him, and sought relief from the racking sensations which he had excited. He then entered into a correspondence with me, till I threatened to shew his letters to the bishop. This induced him to desist, and for some time I heard from him no more. At last he wrote once again, informing me that you, Mr. Trevor, were come to London; characterizing you as ignorant of the world and easily deceived; telling me that you were intimate with the bishop; and advising me to promote a plan of marriage between us, which he had proposed to the prelate as the best way, in his own phrase, of making all things smooth!

'I hope the deep shame I felt, when the bishop introduced you and made the experiment, was sufficiently visible to convince you how repugnant my feelings were to such a crime!

'The bishop finding his first purpose thus defeated, and himself encumbered by a kind of claimant, which his acknowledging me as a niece had brought upon him, was determined at all events to rid himself of me. Immediately before he left town, he wrote me a letter, telling me that my loss of character was become too public for me to receive any further countenance, from a man under the moral and divine obligations which every bishop of the church of Christ must be; that he was going on a visit to his diocese; that he could not think of taking me, it was too flagrantly improper; and that he advised and expected I should immediately return to my relations; further hoping that I should see the enormity of my conduct, and reform.

'Oh! Mr. Trevor, what a world is this! Had he offered me money, I should have rejected it with disdain! but he had not even that much charity. I instantly quitted the house with a few shillings only in my pocket.

'Mary had lived with me and my mother for some years before my elopement: after my mother's death, my residence in the bishop's family being known, I sent for her up to town and hired her. Her artless affection made her my confidante; my situation required it; and, when she heard the bishop's letter read, the kind creature with honest anger instantly went and gave him warning.

'A quarter's wages was all her wealth; for the earnings of her labour she had constantly expended on her boy, for whom she seems to have more than a mother's affection. She has been my constant comforter. Seeing the tears in my eyes, as we left the bishop's house, with a look of mingled pity and indignation she exclaimed—"Do not grieve, dear madam; though I work my fingers to the bone, you shall not want."'

Miss Wilmot was proceeding with her narrative, when she was interrupted by the hasty entrance of Mary. 'Oh madam,' said she, 'the dear young lady and her maid are below. They were coming up stairs, but I told them that you had a gentleman with you! Whereof at which the young lady seemed a little in amaze; till I gave her to know that it was only a friend of your brother's, a person from our own honest country, and she would then a gone away, but as I said I was sure you would be glad to see her, and would go up a purpose to your own room. So do you go, madam, and I'll run down and tell her.'

Miss Wilmot immediately took her leave; and, though my curiosity was a little awakened, a sense of decorum would not suffer me to endeavour to see her visitor. I therefore shut the door, and, as soon as all was silent on the stairs, I took my hat and walked out; that by changing the scene I might dissipate a part of the melancholy which her story had produced.