Part 38 (1/2)

You do not write to me, my dear Jane. Why are you silent? Surely you cannot be indifferent to my happiness. You must know how painful, at a moment like this, your silence must prove.

I have waited from day to day in expectation of a letter; but more than a week has pa.s.sed, and none has come. Let me hear from you immediately, I entreat you.

I am afraid you are ill; or perhaps you are displeased with me.

Unconsciously I may have given you offence.

But, indeed, I can easily suspect the cause of your silence. I trembled with terror when I sent you tidings of our calamity. I know the impetuosity of your feelings, and the effects of your present solitude.

Would to Heaven you were anywhere but where you are! Would to Heaven you were once more with us!

Let me beseech you to return to us immediately. Mr. M. is anxious to go for you. He wanted to set out immediately on his brother's arrival, and to be the bearer of my letter, but I prevailed on him to forbear until I heard from you.

Do not, if you have any regard for me, delay answering me a moment longer.

M. M.

Letter LXVIII

_To Mrs. Montford_

Banks of Delaware, November 26.

I beseech you, dear Mrs. Montford, take some measures for drawing our dear Jane from this place. There is no remedy but absence from this spot, cheerful company and amusing engagements, for the sullen grief which has seized her. Ever since the arrival of your letter, giving us the fatal tidings of your brother's misfortune, she has been--in a strange way--I am almost afraid to tell you. I know how much you love her; but, indeed, indeed, unless somebody with more spirit and skill than I possess will undertake to console and divert her, I am fearful we shall lose her forever.

I can do nothing for her relief. You know what a poor creature I am.

Instead of summoning up courage to a.s.sist another in distress, the sight of it confuses and frightens me. Never, I believe, was there such another helpless, good-for-nothing creature in existence. Poor Jane's affecting ways only make me miserable; and, instead of my being of any use to her, her presence deprives me of all power to attend to my family and friends.

I endeavour to avoid her, though, indeed, that requires but little pains to effect, since she will not be seen but when she cannot choose; for whenever she looks at me steadily there is such expression in her features, something so woeful, so wild, that I am struck with terror. It never fails to make me cry heartily.

Come hither yourself, or send somebody immediately. If you do not, I dread the consequence.

Letter LXIX

_To Mr. Montford_

New Haven, February 10.

My dear friend:--

This letter is written in extreme pain; yet no pain that I ever felt, no external pain possible for me to feel, is equal to the torment I derive from suspense. Good Heaven! what an untoward accident! to be forcibly immured in a tavern-chamber; when the distance is so small between me and that certainty after which my soul pants!

I ought not thus to alarm my beloved friends, but I know not what I write: my head is in confusion, my heart in tumults; a delirium, more the effect of a mind stretched upon the rack of impatience than of limbs shattered and broken, whirls me out of myself.

Not a moment of undisturbed repose have I enjoyed for the last two months. If awake, omens and conjectures, menacing fears, and half-formed hopes, have haunted and hara.s.sed me. If asleep, dreams of agonizing forms and ever-varying hues have thronged my fancy and driven away peace.

In less than an hour after landing at Boston, I placed myself in the swiftest stage, and have travelled night and day, till within a mile of this town, when the carriage was overturned and my left arm terribly shattered. I was drawn with difficulty hither; and my only hope of being once more well is founded on my continuance, for I know not how long, in one spot and one posture.

By this time, the well-known hand has told you who it is that writes this:--the exile; the fugitive; whom four long years of absence and silence have not, I hope, erased from your remembrance, banished from your love, or even totally excluded from the hope of being seen again.