Charlotte Temple

S >> Susanna Rowson >> Charlotte Temple


Unable to finish the sentence, she sunk back on her pillow: her
countenance was serenely composed; she regarded her father as he pressed
the infant to his breast with a steadfast look; a sudden beam of joy
passed across her languid features, she raised her eyes to heaven--and
then closed them for ever.




CHAPTER XXXIV.

RETRIBUTION.

IN the mean time Montraville having received orders to return to
New-York, arrived, and having still some remains of compassionate
tenderness for the woman whom he regarded as brought to shame by
himself, he went out in search of Belcour, to enquire whether she was
safe, and whether the child lived. He found him immersed in dissipation,
and could gain no other intelligence than that Charlotte had left him,
and that he knew not what was become of her.

"I cannot believe it possible," said Montraville, "that a mind once so
pure as Charlotte Temple's, should so suddenly become the mansion of
vice. Beware, Belcour," continued he, "beware if you have dared to
behave either unjust or dishonourably to that poor girl, your life shall
pay the forfeit:--I will revenge her cause."

He immediately went into the country, to the house where he had left
Charlotte. It was desolate. After much enquiry he at length found the
servant girl who had lived with her. From her he learnt the misery
Charlotte had endured from the complicated evils of illness, poverty,
and a broken heart, and that she had set out on foot for New-York, on a
cold winter's evening; but she could inform him no further.

Tortured almost to madness by this shocking account, he returned to the
city, but, before he reached it, the evening was drawing to a close.
In entering the town he was obliged to pass several little huts, the
residence of poor women who supported themselves by washing the cloaths
of the officers and soldiers. It was nearly dark: he heard from a
neighbouring steeple a solemn toll that seemed to say some poor mortal
was going to their last mansion: the sound struck on the heart of
Montraville, and he involuntarily stopped, when, from one of the houses,
he saw the appearance of a funeral. Almost unknowing what he did, he
followed at a small distance; and as they let the coffin into the grave,
he enquired of a soldier who stood by, and had just brushed off a tear
that did honour to his heart, who it was that was just buried. "An
please your honour," said the man, "'tis a poor girl that was brought
from her friends by a cruel man, who left her when she was big with
child, and married another." Montraville stood motionless, and the man
proceeded--"I met her myself not a fortnight since one night all wet and
cold in the streets; she went to Madam Crayton's, but she would not take
her in, and so the poor thing went raving mad." Montraville could bear
no more; he struck his hands against his forehead with violence; and
exclaiming "poor murdered Charlotte!" ran with precipitation towards the
place where they were heaping the earth on her remains. "Hold, hold, one
moment," said he. "Close not the grave of the injured Charlotte Temple
till I have taken vengeance on her murderer."

"Rash young man," said Mr. Temple, "who art thou that thus disturbest
the last mournful rites of the dead, and rudely breakest in upon the
grief of an afflicted father."

"If thou art the father of Charlotte Temple," said he, gazing at
him with mingled horror and amazement--"if thou art her father--I am
Montraville." Then falling on his knees, he continued--"Here is my
bosom. I bare it to receive the stroke I merit. Strike--strike now, and
save me from the misery of reflexion."

"Alas!" said Mr. Temple, "if thou wert the seducer of my child, thy own
reflexions be thy punishment. I wrest not the power from the hand of
omnipotence. Look on that little heap of earth, there hast thou buried
the only joy of a fond father. Look at it often; and may thy heart feel
such true sorrow as shall merit the mercy of heaven." He turned from
him; and Montraville starting up from the ground, where he had thrown
himself, and at that instant remembering the perfidy of Belcour, flew
like lightning to his lodgings. Belcour was intoxicated; Montraville
impetuous: they fought, and the sword of the latter entered the heart
of his adversary. He fell, and expired almost instantly. Montraville had
received a slight wound; and overcome with the agitation of his mind and
loss of blood, was carried in a state of insensibility to his distracted
wife. A dangerous illness and obstinate delirium ensued, during which
he raved incessantly for Charlotte: but a strong constitution, and
the tender assiduities of Julia, in time overcame the disorder. He
recovered; but to the end of his life was subject to severe fits of
melancholy, and while he remained at New-York frequently retired to the
church-yard, where he would weep over the grave, and regret the untimely
fate of the lovely Charlotte Temple.




CHAPTER XXXV.

CONCLUSION.

SHORTLY after the interment of his daughter, Mr. Temple, with his
dear little charge and her nurse, set forward for England. It would be
impossible to do justice to the meeting scene between him, his Lucy, and
her aged father. Every heart of sensibility can easily conceive their
feelings. After the first tumult of grief was subsided, Mrs. Temple
gave up the chief of her time to her grand-child, and as she grew up and
improved, began to almost fancy she again possessed her Charlotte.

It was about ten years after these painful events, that Mr. and Mrs.
Temple, having buried their father, were obliged to come to London on
particular business, and brought the little Lucy with them. They had
been walking one evening, when on their return they found a poor
wretch sitting on the steps of the door. She attempted to rise as they
approached, but from extreme weakness was unable, and after several
fruitless efforts fell back in a fit. Mr. Temple was not one of those
men who stand to consider whether by assisting an object in distress
they shall not inconvenience themselves, but instigated by the impulse
of a noble feeling heart, immediately ordered her to be carried into the
house, and proper restoratives applied.

She soon recovered; and fixing her eyes on Mrs. Temple, cried--"You know
not, Madam, what you do; you know not whom you are relieving, or you
would curse me in the bitterness of your heart. Come not near me, Madam,
I shall contaminate you. I am the viper that stung your peace. I am the
woman who turned the poor Charlotte out to perish in the street. Heaven
have mercy! I see her now," continued she looking at Lucy; "such, such
was the fair bud of innocence that my vile arts blasted ere it was half
blown."

It was in vain that Mr. and Mrs. Temple intreated her to be composed and
to take some refreshment. She only drank half a glass of wine; and then
told them that she had been separated from her husband seven years,
the chief of which she had passed in riot, dissipation, and vice, till,
overtaken by poverty and sickness, she had been reduced to part with
every valuable, and thought only of ending her life in a prison; when a
benevolent friend paid her debts and released her; but that her illness
increasing, she had no possible means of supporting herself, and her
friends were weary of relieving her. "I have fasted," said she, "two
days, and last night lay my aching head on the cold pavement: indeed it
was but just that I should experience those miseries myself which I had
unfeelingly inflicted on others."

Greatly as Mr. Temple had reason to detest Mrs. Crayton, he could not
behold her in this distress without some emotions of pity. He gave her
shelter that night beneath his hospitable roof, and the next day got her
admission into an hospital; where having lingered a few weeks, she died,
a striking example that vice, however prosperous in the beginning, in
the end leads only to misery and shame.