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Page 50
Leaving Mary for a moment, let us return to Repton. Here discord,
having once entered, was making sad ravages, and all were suffering
from it. It was but too true that the eldest of the Adamses had
deserted; his mother clinging with a parent's fondness to her
child, concealed him, and thus offended Charles Adams beyond all
reconciliation. The third lad, who was walking the London hospitals,
and exerting himself beyond his strength, was everything that a youth
could be; but his declining health was represented to his uncle, by
one of those whom his mother's pride had insulted, as a cloak for
indolence. In short, before another year had quite passed, the family
of the once rich and fashionable Dr. Adams had shared the fate of
all dependents--worn out the benevolence, or patience, or whatever it
really is, of their "best friends." Nor was this the only consequence
of the physician's neglect of a duty due alike to God and society; his
brother had really done so much for the bereaved family, as to give
what the world called "just grounds" to Mrs. Charles Adams's repeated
complaints, "that now her husband was ruining his industrious family
to keep the lazy widow of his spend-thrift brother and her favourite
children in idleness. Why could she not live upon the 'fine folk'
she was always throwing in her face?" The daughter, too, of whose
approaching union the fond father had been so proud, was now, like
her cousin whom she had wronged by her mean suspicions, deserted; the
match broken off after much bickering; one quarrel having brought on
another, until they separated by mutual consent. Her temper and her
health were both materially impaired; and her beauty was converted
into hardness and acidity.
Oh! how utterly groundless is the idea, that in our social state,
where one human being must so much depend upon another, any man,
neglecting his positive duties, can be called only "his own enemy."
What misery had not Dr. Adams's neglect entailed, not alone on his
immediate family, but on that of his brother. Besides, there were
ramifications of distress; he died even more embarrassed than
his brother had at first believed, and some trades-people were
consequently embarrassed; but the deep misery fell upon his children.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Dr. Adams had left Repton with her younger children,
to be the dependants of Mary in London.
It was not until a fatal disease had seized upon her mother, that
Mary ventured to appeal again to her uncle's generosity. "My second
brother," she said, "has out of his small means remitted her five
pounds. My eldest brother seems altogether to have disappeared from
amongst us; finding that his unhappy presence had occasioned so fatal
a separation between his mother and you--a disunion which I saw was
the effect of many small causes, rather than one great one--he left
us, and we cannot trace him. This has broken my poor mother's heart;
he was the cherished one of all her children. My youngest brother has
been for the last month an inmate of one of the hospitals which my
poor father attended for so many years, and where his word was law. My
sister Rosa, she upon whom my poor father poured, if possible, more
of his affection than he bestowed upon me--my lovely sister, of whom,
even in our poverty, I was so proud--so young, only upon the verge of
womanhood--has, you already know, left us. Would to God it had been
for her grave, rather than her destroyer!--a fellow-student of that
poor youth, who, if he dreamt of her dishonour, would stagger like a
spectre from what will be his death-bed to avenge her. Poverty is one
of the surest guides to dishonour; those who have not been tempted
know nothing of it. It is one thing to see it, another to feel it.
Do not think her altogether base, because she had not the strength
of a heroine. I have been obliged to resign my situation to attend
my mother, and the only income we have is what I earn by giving
lessons on the harp and piano. I give, for _two shillings_, the same
instruction for which my father paid half a guinea a lesson; if I did
not I should have no pupils. It is more than a month since my mother
left her bed; and my youngest sister, bending beneath increased
delicacy of health, is her only attendant. I know her mind to be so
tortured, and her body so convulsed by pain, that I have prayed to
God to render her fit for Heaven, and take her from her sufferings.
Imagine the weight of sorrow that crushed me to my knees with such a
petition as that. I know all you have done, and yet I ask you now, in
remembrance of the boyish love that bound you and my father together,
to lessen her bodily anguish by the sacrifice of a little more;
that she, nursed in the lap of luxury, may not pass from life with
starvation as her companion. My brother's gift is expended; and during
the last three weeks I have earned but twelve shillings; my pupils
are out of town. Do, for a moment remember what I was, and think how
humbled I must be to frame this supplication; but it is a child that
petitions for a parent, and I know I have never forfeited your esteem.
In a few weeks, perhaps in a few days, my brother and my mother will
meet my poor father face to face. Oh! that I could be assured that
reproach and bitterness for the past do not pass the portals of the
grave. Forgive me this, as you have already forgiven me much. Alas! I
know too well that our misfortunes drew misfortunes upon others. I was
the unhappy but innocent cause of much sorrow at the Grange; but, oh!
do not refuse the _last_ request that I will ever make." The letter
was blotted by tears.
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