If the plot of my piece, for the invention of which they so highly praised me, had been indeed my own, all would have been well; but unhappily I borrowed from a source which made my drama end far differently from what I intended it should. In the catastrophe I lost not only the name I personated in the piece, but with it my own name also, and all my rank and consequence in the world fled from me for ever. My father presented me with a beautiful writing-desk for the use of my new authorship. My silver standish was placed upon it; a quire of gilt paper was before me. I took out a parcel of my best crow quills, and down I sate in the greatest form imaginable.
I conjecture I have no talent for invention. Certain it is that, when I sat down to compose my piece, no story would come into my head but the story which Ann had so lately related to me. Many sheets were scrawled over in vain; I could think of nothing else. Still the babies and the nurse were before me in all the minutiæ of description Ann had given them. The costly attire of the lady baby, the homely garb of the cottage infant, the affecting address of the fond mother to her own offspring, then the charming équivoque in the change of the children – it all looked so dramatic. It was a play ready-made to my hands. The invalid mother would form the pathetic, the silly exclamations of the servants the ludicrous, and the nurse was nature itself. It is true I had a few scruples that it might, should it come to the knowledge of Ann, be construed into something very like a breach of confidence. But she was at home, and might never happen to hear of the subject of my piece, and if she did, why, it was only making some handsome apology. To a dependent companion to whom I had been so very great a friend, it was not necessary to be so very particular about such a trifle.
Thus I reasoned as I wrote my drama, beginning with the title, which I called 'The Changeling,' and ending with these words: 'The curtain drops, while the lady clasps the baby in her arms, and the nurse sighs audibly.' I invented no new incident; I simply wrote the story as Ann had told it to me, in the best blank verse I was able to compose.
By the time it was finished the company had arrived. The casting the different parts was my next care. The Honourable Augustus M – , a young gentleman of five years of age, undertook to play the father. He was only to come in and say: 'How does my little darling do to-day?' The three Miss – s were to be the servants; they, too, had only single lines to speak.
As these four were all very young performers, we made them rehearse many times over, that they might walk in and out with proper decorum; but the performance was stopped before their entrances and their exits arrived. I complimented Lady Elizabeth, the sister of Augustus, who was the eldest of the young ladies, with the choice of the lady mother, or the nurse. She fixed on the former. She was to recline on a sofa, and, affecting ill-health, speak some eight or ten lines, which began with, 'Oh, that I could my precious baby see!' To their cousin, Miss Emily – , was given the girl who had the care of the nurse's child. Two dolls were to personate the two children, and the principal character of the nurse I had the pleasure to perform myself. It consisted of several speeches, and a very long soliloquy during the changing of the children's clothes.
The elder brother of Augustus, a gentleman of fifteen years of age, refused to mix in our childish drama, yet condescended to paint the scenes, and our dresses were got up by my own maid.
When we thought ourselves quite perfect in our several parts, we announced it for representation. Sir Edward and Lady Harriet, with their visitors, the parents of my young troop of comedians, honoured us with their presence. The servants were also permitted to go into a music-gallery, which was at the end of a ball-room we had chosen for our theatre.
As author and principal performer, standing before a noble audience, my mind was too much engaged with the arduous task I had undertaken to glance my eyes towards the music-gallery, or I might have seen two more spectators there than I expected. Nurse Withers and her daughter Ann were there; they had been invited by the housekeeper to be present at the representation of Miss Lesley's play.
In the midst of the performance, as I, in character of the nurse, was delivering the wrong child to the girl, there was an exclamation from the music-gallery of:
'Oh, it's all true! it's all true!'
This was followed by a bustle among the servants, and screams as of a person in an hysteric fit. Sir Edward came forward to inquire what was the matter. He saw it was Mrs. Withers who had fallen into a fit. Ann was weeping over her, and crying out:
'Oh, Miss Lesley, you have told all in the play!'
Mrs. Withers was brought out into the ball-room. There, with tears and in broken accents, with every sign of terror and remorse, she soon made a full confession of her so long-concealed guilt.
The strangers assembled to see our childish mimicry of passion were witnesses to a highly-wrought dramatic scene in real life. I intended that they should see the curtain drop without any discovery of the deceit. Unable to invent any new incident, I left the conclusion imperfect as I found it. But they saw a more strict poetical justice done; they saw the rightful child restored to its parents, and the nurse overwhelmed with shame, and threatened with the severest punishment.
'Take this woman,' said Sir Edward, 'and lock her up till she be delivered into the hands of justice.'
Ann, on her knees, implored mercy for her mother. Addressing the children, who were gathered round her, 'Dear ladies,' said she, 'help me – on your knees help me – to beg forgiveness for my mother!' Down the young ones all dropped; even Lady Elizabeth bent on her knee. 'Sir Edward, pity her distress! Sir Edward pardon her!'
All joined in the petition except one, whose voice ought to have been loudest in the appeal. No word, no accent came from me. I hung over Lady Harriet's chair, weeping as if my heart would break. But I wept for my own fallen fortunes, not for my mother's sorrow.
I thought within myself: 'If in the integrity of my heart, refusing to participate in this unjust secret, I had boldly ventured to publish the truth, I might have had some consolation in the praises which so generous an action would have merited; but it is through the vanity of being supposed to have written a pretty story that I have meanly broken my faith with my friend, and unintentionally proclaimed the disgrace of my mother and myself.'
While thoughts like these were passing through my mind, Ann had obtained my mother's pardon. Instead of being sent away to confinement and the horrors of a prison, she was given by Sir Edward into the care of the housekeeper, who had orders from Lady Harriet to see her put to bed and properly attended to, for again this wretched woman had fallen into a fit.
Ann would have followed my mother, but Sir Edward brought her back, telling her that she should see her when she was better. He then led her towards Lady Harriet, desiring her to embrace her child. She did so, and I saw her, as I had phrased it in the play, 'clasped in her mother's arms.'
This scene had greatly affected the spirits of Lady Harriet. Through the whole of it, it was with difficulty she had been kept from fainting, and she was now led into the drawing-room by the ladies. The gentlemen followed, talking with Sir Edward of the astonishing instance of filial affection they had just seen in the earnest pleadings of the child for her supposed mother.
Ann, too, went with them, and was conducted by her whom I had always considered as my own particular friend. Lady Elizabeth took hold of her hand, and said:
'Miss Lesley, will you permit me to conduct you to the drawing-room?'
I was left weeping behind the chair where Lady Harriet had sate, and, as I thought, quite alone. A something had before twitched my frock two or three times, so slightly I had scarcely noticed it. A little head now peeped round, and looking up in my face, said:
'She is not Miss Lesley!'
It was the young Augustus. He had been sitting at my feet, but I had not observed him. He then started up, and taking hold of my hand with one of his, with the other holding fast by my clothes, he led, or rather dragged, me into the midst of the company assembled in the drawing-room. The vehemence of his manner, his little face as red as fire, caught every eye. The ladies smiled, and one gentleman laughed in a most unfeeling manner. His elder brother patted him on the head, and said:
'You are a humane little fellow. Elizabeth, we might have thought of this.'
Very kind words were now spoken to me by Sir Edward, and he called me Harriet, precious name now grown to me. Lady Harriet kissed me, and said she would never forget how long she had loved me as her child. These were comfortable words, but I heard echoed round the room:
'Poor thing! she cannot help it! I am sure she is to be pitied! Dear Lady Harriet, how kind, how considerate you are!'
Ah! what a deep sense of my altered condition did I then feel!
'Let the young ladies divert themselves in another room,' said Sir Edward; 'and Harriet, take your new sister with you, and help her to entertain your friends.'
Yes, he called me Harriet again, and afterwards invented new names for his daughter and me, and always called us by them, apparently in jest; yet I knew it was only because he would not hurt me with hearing our names reversed. When Sir Edward desired us to show the children into another room, Ann and I walked towards the door. A new sense of humiliation arose. How could I go out at the door before Miss Lesley? I stood irresolute. She drew back. The elder brother of my friend Augustus assisted me in this perplexity. Pushing us all forward, as if in a playful mood, he drove us indiscriminately before him, saying:
'I will make one among you to-day.'
He had never joined in our sports before.
My luckless play, that sad instance of my duplicity, was never once mentioned to me afterwards, not even by any one of the children who had acted in it, and I must also tell you how considerate an old lady was at the time about our dresses. As soon as she perceived things growing very serious, she hastily stripped off the upper garments we wore to represent our different characters. I think I should have died with shame if the child had led me into the drawing-room in the mummery I had worn to represent a nurse. This good lady was of another essential service to me, for, perceiving an irresolution in everyone how they should behave to us, which distressed me very much, she contrived to place Miss Lesley above me at table, and called her Miss Lesley, and me Miss Withers, saying at the same time in a low voice, but as if she meant I should hear her,
'It is better these things should be done at once, then they are over.'
My heart thanked her, for I felt the truth of what she said.
My poor mother continued very ill for many weeks. No medicine could remove the extreme dejection of spirits she laboured under. Sir Edward sent for Dr. Wheelding, the clergyman of the parish, to give her religious consolation. Every day he came to visit her, and he would always take Miss Lesley and me into the room with him.
My heart was softened by my own misfortunes, and the sight of my penitent, suffering mother. I felt that she was now my only parent. I strove, earnestly strove, to love her; yet ever when I looked in her face, she would seem to me to be the very identical person whom I should have once thought sufficiently honoured by a slight inclination of the head, and a civil, 'How do you do, Mrs Withers?' One day, as Miss Lesley was hanging over her with her accustomed fondness, Dr. Wheelding reading in a Prayer-Book, and, as I thought, not at that moment regarding us, I threw myself on my knees, and silently prayed that I, too, might be able to love my mother.
Dr. Wheelding had been observing me. He took me into the garden, and drew from me the subject of my petition.
'Your prayers, my good young lady,' said he, 'I hope, are heard. Sure I am they have caused me to adopt a resolution which, as it will enable you to see your mother frequently, will, I hope, greatly assist your pious wishes. I will take your mother home with me to superintend my family. Under my roof doubtless Sir Edward will often permit you to see her. Perform your duty towards her as well as you possibly can. Affection is the growth of time. With such good wishes in your young heart, do not despair that in due time it will assuredly spring up.'
With the approbation of Sir Edward and Lady Harriet, my mother was removed in a few days to Dr. Wheelding's house. There she soon recovered! there she at present resides. She tells me she loves me almost as well as she did when I was a baby, and we both wept at parting when I went to school.
THE INQUISITIVE GIRL.
ANON
Dr. Hammond was a physician in great practice in the West of England. He resided in a small market-town, and his family consisted of one son named Charles, and two daughters, Louisa and Sophy.
Sophy possessed many amiable qualities, and did not want for sense, but every better feeling was lost in her extreme inquisitiveness. Her faculties were all occupied in peeping and prying about, and, provided she could gratify her own curiosity, she never cared how much vexation she caused to others.
This propensity began when she was so very young that it had become a habit before her parents perceived it. She was a very little creature when she was once nearly squeezed to death between two double doors as she was peeping through the keyhole of one of them to see who was in the drawing-room; and another time she was locked up for several hours in a closet in which she had hid herself for the purpose of overhearing what her mother was saying to one of the servants.
When Sophy was eleven and her sister about sixteen years old their mother died. Louisa was placed at the head of her father's house, and the superintendence of Sophy's education necessarily devolved on her. The care of such a family was a great charge for a young person of Miss Hammond's age, and more especially as her father was obliged to be so much from home that she could not always have his counsel and advice even when she most needed it. By this means she fell into an injudicious mode of treating her sister.
If Louisa received a note she carefully locked it up, and never spoke of its contents before Sophy. If a message was brought to her she always went out of the room to receive it, and never suffered the servant to speak in her sister's hearing. When any visitors came Louisa commonly sent Sophy out of the room, or if they were intimate friends she would converse with them in whispers; in short, it was her chief study that everything which passed in the family should be a secret from Sophy. Alas! this procedure, instead of repressing Sophy's curiosity, only made it the more keen; her eyes and ears were always on the alert, and what she could not see, hear, or thoroughly comprehend she made out by guesses.
The worst consequence of Louisa's conduct was that as Sophy had no friend and companion in her sister, who treated her with such constant suspicion and reserve, she necessarily was induced to find a friend and companion amongst the servants, and she selected the housemaid Sally, a good-natured, well-intentioned girl, but silly and ignorant and inquisitive like herself, and it may be easily supposed how much mischief these two foolish creatures occasioned, not only in the family, but also amongst their neighbours.
It happened soon after that, for an offence which was the cause of very great vexation to her brother, and was the occasion of his being for a time deprived of the friendship of Sir Henry and Lady Askham, two of Dr. Hammond's nearest and most intimate neighbours, her father ordered Sophy, as a still further punishment, to be locked up in her own room till the Sunday following. This was on Friday, and Sophy had two days of solitude and imprisonment before her. The first day she passed very dismally, but yet not unprofitably, for she felt truly ashamed and sorry for her fault, and made many good resolutions of endeavouring to cure herself of her mischievous propensity. The second day she began to be somewhat more composed, and by degrees she was able to amuse herself with watching the people in the street, which was overlooked by the windows of her apartment, and she began, almost unconsciously to herself, to indulge in her old habit of trying to find out what everybody was doing, and in guessing where they were going.
She had not long been engaged in watching her neighbours before her curiosity was excited by the appearance of a servant on horseback, who rode up to the door, and, after giving a little three-cornered note to Dr. Hammond's footman, rode off. The servant she knew to be Mrs. Arden's, an intimate friend of her father, and the note she conjectured was an invitation to dinner, and the guessing what day the invitation was for, and who were to be the company, and whether she was included in the invitation, was occupying her busy fancy, when she saw her sister going out of the house with the three-cornered note in her hand, and cross the street to Mr. McNeal's stocking shop, which was opposite. Almost immediately afterwards Mr. McNeal's shopman came out of the shop, and, running down the street, was presently out of sight, but soon returned with Mr. McNeal himself. She saw Louisa reading the note to Mr. McNeal, and in a few minutes afterwards returned home. Here was matter of wonder and conjecture. Sophy forgot all her good resolutions, and absolutely wearied herself with her useless curiosity.
At length the term of her imprisonment was over, and Sophy was restored to the society of her family. At first she kept a tolerable guard over herself. Once she saw her father and sister whispering, and did not, though she longed much to do it, hold her breath that she might hear what they were saying. Another time she passed Charles's door when it was ajar and the little study open, and she had so much self-command that she passed by without peeping in, and she began to think she was cured of her faults. But in reality this was far from being the case, and whenever she recollected Mrs. Arden's mysterious note she felt her inquisitive propensities as strong as ever. Her eyes and ears were always on the alert, in hopes of obtaining some clue to the knowledge she coveted, and if Mrs. Arden's or Mr. McNeal's names were mentioned she listened with trembling anxiety in the hope of hearing some allusion to the note.
At last, when she had almost given up the matter in despair, an unlooked-for chance put her in possession of a fragment of this very note to which she attached so much importance.
One day Louisa wanted to wind a skein of silk, and in looking for a piece of paper to wind it upon she opened her writing-box, and took out Mrs. Arden's note. Sophy knew it again in an instant from its three-cornered shape. She saw her sister tear the note in two, throw one-half under the grate, and fold the other part up to wind her silk upon. Sophy kept her eye on the paper that lay under the grate in the greatest anxiety, lest a coal should drop upon it and destroy it, when it seemed almost within her grasp. Louisa was called out of the room, and Sophy, overpowered by the greatness of the temptation, forgot all the good resolutions she had so lately made, and at the risk of setting fire to her sleeve, snatched the paper from amongst the ashes, and concealed it in her pocket. She then flew to her own room to examine it at her case. The note had been torn lengthway of the paper, and that part of it of which Sophy had possessed herself contained the first half of each line of the note. Bolting her door for fear of interruption, she read, with trembling impatience, as follows:
'Will you
be kind enough to go to
Mr. McNeal, and tell him
he has made a great mistake
the last stockings he sent;
(charging them as silk) he has cheated
of several pounds. – I am sorry to say
that he has behaved very ill
And Mr. Arden tells me that
it must end in his being hanged
I am exceedingly grieved
but fear this will be the end.'
When Sophy had read these broken sentences she fancied that she fully comprehended the purport of the whole note, and she now saw the reason of her sister's hastening to Mr. McNeal's immediately on the receipt of the note, and of the hurry in which he had been summoned back to his shop. It appeared very clear to her that he had defrauded Mrs. Arden of a considerable sum of money, and that he was no longer that honest tradesman he had been supposed. The weight of this important discovery quite overburdened her, and, forgetful of her past punishment, and regardless of future consequences, she imparted the surprising secret to Sally. Sally was not one who could keep such a piece of news to herself; it was therefore soon circulated through half the town that Mr. McNeal had defrauded Mrs. Arden, and that Mr. Arden declared he would have him hanged for it. Several persons in consequence avoided Mr. McNeal's shop, who saw his customers forsaking him without being able to know why they did so. Thus the conduct of this inconsiderate girl took away the good name of an honest tradesman, on no better foundation than her own idle conjectures drawn from the torn fragments of a letter.
Mr. McNeal at length became informed of the injurious report that was circulated about him. He immediately went to Mrs. Arden to tell her of the report, and to ask her if any inadvertency of his own in regard to her dealings at his shop had occasioned her speaking so disadvantageously of him. Mrs. Arden was much astonished at what he told her, as she might well be, and assured him that she had never either spoken of him nor thought of him but as thoroughly an honourable and honest tradesman. Mrs. Arden was exceedingly hurt that her name should be attached to such a cruel calumny, and, on consulting with Sir Henry Askham, it was agreed that he and Mrs. Arden should make it their business to trace it back to its authors. They found no great difficulty in tracing it back to Sally, Dr. Hammond's servant. She was accordingly sent for to Mr. McNeal's, where Sir Henry Askham and Mr. Arden, with some other gentlemen, were assembled on this charitable investigation. Sally, on being questioned who had told her of the report replied, without hesitation, that she had been told by Miss Sophy, who had seen all the particulars in Mrs. Arden's handwriting.
Mr. Arden was greatly astonished at hearing this assertion, and felt confident that the whole must have originated from some strange blunder. He and the other gentlemen immediately proceeded to Dr. Hammond's, and having explained their business to him, desired to see Sophy. She, on being asked, confirmed what Sally had said, adding that to satisfy them she could show them Mrs. Arden's own words, and she accordingly produced the fragment of the note. Miss Hammond, the instant she saw the paper recollected it again, and winding off the silk from the other half of Mrs. Arden's note, presented it to Mr. Arden, who, laying the two pieces of paper together, read as follows:
'My Dear Miss Hammond, – Will you as soon as you receive this be kind enough to go to your opposite neighbour, Mr. McNeal, and tell him I find by looking at his bill he has made a great mistake as to the price of the last stockings he sent; and it seems to me (by not charging them as silk) he has cheated himself, as he'll see, of several pounds. – I am sorry to say of our new dog, that he has behaved very ill and worried two sheep, and Mr. Arden tells me that he very much fears it must end in his being hanged or he'll kill all the flock. I am exceedingly grieved, for he is a noble animal, but fear this will be the end of my poor dog. 'I am, dear Louisa, yours truly,
'Mary Arden.'
Thus by the fortunate preservation of the last half of the note the whole affair was cleared up, Mrs. Arden's character vindicated from the charge of being a defamer, and Mr. McNeal from all suspicion of dishonesty. And all their friends were pleased and satisfied. But how did Sophy feel? She did feel at last both remorse and humiliation. She had no one to blame but herself; she had no one to take her part, for even her father and her brother considered it due to public justice that she should make a public acknowledgment of her fault to Mr. McNeal, and to ask his pardon.