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The Adventures of Hugh Trevor

T >> Thomas Holcroft >> The Adventures of Hugh Trevor




'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.




CHAPTER V


_Anger unabated: More news of the bishop: Deliberation on the mode of
my revenge: The articles answered; and new assailing doubts: A visit
to Turl: Advice given and rejected: And former feelings revived_


The next morning, when I came to reflect on all that I had heard, I
was surprised with the degree in which, by my mother's marriage with
Wakefield, I appeared to be implicated in the history. The character
of Wakefield, his prodigality, and total want of principle, were all
of a dangerous cast. Not satisfied with beggaring my mother, he had
projected to marry me to his mistress. The recollection of him roused
resentment, and cunning and inventive as he was described to be, I
wished for an opportunity of punishing his baseness, teaching him his
own insignificance, and treating him with the contempt he deserved. If
attacked, I had not yet learned the philosophy of forbearance. Though
I have been hurried forward too fast to narrate every little incident
as it occurred, yet it cannot be imagined that I all this while
neglected to peruse the defence of the articles published in the
bishop's name. No: it was my very first employment, on my arrival in
town; and though considerable trouble had been bestowed to disfigure
the work, as written by me, yet in substance I found it to be the
same. The wrongs of Miss Wilmot quickened my feelings, and, angry as I
was with Wakefield, I felt emotions of ten fold bitterness against the
bishop.

Association easily conjured up the earl, the president, the tutor,
Themistocles, and the injustice and disgrace I had suffered at Oxford.
The fermentation was so great that I was determined, immediately,
to expose them to the broad shame that should drive them from human
society.

In this benevolent project I was confirmed by another piece of
intelligence. One of the rich sees of the kingdom had become vacant.
The king's _congè d'elire_ was issued, and God's holy vicar the Bishop
of ***** himself was translated. What could I conclude, but that the
defence which I had written had been the cause? I had been made the
stepping stone of vice! I remembered the proceeding of the despot,
Frederic of Prussia, with the immortal Voltaire: the orange had been
squeezed, and the rind thrown to rot in the highway!

My teeth gnashed with the abundance of my wrath, and the impotence
of my means. I had hitherto forborne to write from a perplexity of
different plans. At one moment I determined to address my foes in the
public papers; at another I would concentrate the story, and relate
the whole in a pamphlet. Now it should be a history; anon a satirical
novel; Asmodeus in London, in which I would draw the characters in
such perfection that, without mentioning names, the persons should be
visible to every eye. But then this would not be sufficiently serious.
Thousands might mistake that for fiction which I wished all the world
to know was fact. To give them the least shelter was cowardly to
myself, treacherous to society, and encouragement to the criminal.

At last, the pamphlet was the mode on which I determined: and it was
begun with all the enthusiasm that the accumulating circumstances
could not but inspire, in a being constituted like me. Eager after
every species of aggravation, my anger could never be hot enough; the
gall of my ink was milk to that of my heart. The bitterness of my
feelings was tormenting; words that could burn, contempt that could
kill, shame that could annihilate, these and nothing less could
satisfy me. Could the serpent revenge fly, how would it dart and
sting! Happily for man it can only crawl. That I had been treated
with great injustice was true: but of justice my notions were very
inadequate; of revenge I had more than enough for a nation.

While hot in the pursuit of this task, I was diverted from it by
the publication of an answer to the articles. The moment I saw it
advertised, not sufficiently habituated to the vice of indolence
myself to recollect that I had an idle footman below, I hurried to
the publisher's, purchased it, and returned with a greyhound speed to
devour its contents.

Disgusted as I was with the members of the church, and beginning even
to doubt of the perfect orthodoxy of the church itself, I still had
too high an opinion of my own arguments to imagine the wit of man
could overturn them.

My haste had been so great that I had not taken off the paper, in
which the pamphlet was wrapped; and in the shop I had read no more
than the title-page. What was my surprise when snatching it from my
pocket and opening it, I discovered, at the conclusion of a short
preface, the name of Turl! it's author!

My emotions were confused. At one moment an answer from him was what I
wished; the next it was something like what I feared. In all argument,
I had hitherto found him so cool, so collected, and so clear, that, to
my imagination, he perhaps was the only man on earth fit to cope with
me. But the grating question, 'Was I fit to cope with him?' would
now and then recur. I could not but feel that I had, in a certain
manner, been subdued and cowed by his greater extent of knowledge,
perspicuity, and masculine genius. By thoughts like these my anxiety,
if not my ardour, was increased, and I began to read.

My forebodings were fulfilled. The impotence of my arguments was
exposed, their absurdity and self-contradiction ridiculed, their evil
tendency demonstrated, their falsehood rendered odious, and the author
of them treated like a child. My self respect was wounded at every
line, each paragraph was a death stab, and I never before felt myself
so completely ridiculous.

As a lesson of philosophy it was the most serious, salutary, and
impressive I ever received; for though, while reading, I affirmed to
myself that every thing urged against me was weak, or ill founded,
inconclusive, or absolutely false, yet the arguments returned with
increasing and reiterated force, haunting and oppressing me like a
painful dream from which I could not awake.

The evil tendency which he proved against my doctrines was the least
to be forgotten. As far as I understood myself, I had a sincere love
of truth, and an unfeigned desire to benefit, not mislead and oppress,
mankind. As the author of the defence, the heavy charge of immorality
was brought against me; not by personal attacks on my substitute, the
bishop, but by a detail of the consequences of such doctrines.

This event made me pause and consider, though with but little
propensity to candour, concerning the pamphlet on which I was then
engaged. Consideration however did but seem to confirm me in my
purpose. Let my defence be right or wrong, and I had by no means yet
decided in the negative, still the turpitude of the bishop and my
persecutors was no less flagitious. These incidents once more turned
my thoughts toward Turl, whom I knew not whether to admire, love, or
hate. I was not so entirely overwhelmed but that I had arguments,
at least I had words, at my command. Beside, I felt a wish to
communicate to him my projected attack, and perhaps read a part of my
pamphlet, that it might, as it certainly must, meet his approbation.
I felt satisfied that what he approved could not be wrong. And how
disapprove? On former occasions indeed my hopes, in this respect, had
been deceived; but now it was impossible! The case was so clear! In
the present instance, there could be but one opinion!

Feelings which were not the most honourable to myself, for their
source was egotism, had withheld me from visiting him since my return;
but these were now subdued, by others that were more imperious. I was
not satisfied with requiring his approbation of my plan of vengeance;
my choleric vanity challenged him to the lists, and the combat was
resolved upon.

As I was going, I recollected the shortness of the period in which his
answer had been composed and published, and this did but remind me of
the champion I had to encounter.

I found him, as before, tranquily pursuing his labours; except that
now he was writing, engaged as I imagined on the grand work he had
projected; though his copper and engraving tools lay dispersed by
his side. He received me as usual with calmness, but not without an
evident mixture of pleasure. Irritable as my feelings were, I had
always experienced something infinitely more dissatisfactory in being
angry with him than with any other person. In his countenance there
was a sedate undeviating rectitude, that, but for my impetuous disdain
of all restraint, would have inspired awe; yet, whenever his eye met
the eye of another, there was something so benevolent as almost to
disarm ill humour.

Replete with new arguments, as I supposed, but which in reality were
only a repetition of those I had already adduced, I burst upon him
with a multitude of words; defending my own defence of the articles
and attacking his answer. He made various ineffectual attempts to
arrest my career, and at last was obliged to suffer me to weary
myself; after which he calmly replied.

'The best answer I can give, to all you have urged, is to request
you will read the defence of the articles and my answer again, with
care. Either I am mistaken or you will find every thing you have said
already confuted.'

I endeavoured to divert him from this defence by reference, but he
continued to urge that he should only weaken his cause by answering
desultory arguments in a desultory way; which in the present case
would be folly, because his answer was already given in a clear and as
he believed conclusive manner.

Finding his purpose not to be shaken, I asked him if he were aware
that I was the author of the defence of the articles? He answered
that, seeing the bishop's name to the publication, he could not but
suppose the bishop himself had been intimately concerned in the
writing of the work: but, from what I had formerly told him, he had
suspected me to be a fellow-labourer.

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