Agnes; or Beauty and Pleasure

Front matter

AGNES; OR, BEAUTY AND PLE ASURE. IN TWO VOLUMES. BI GEORGE W. M. REYNOLDS, AUTHOR OF THE FIRST AND SECOND SERIES OP "THE MTSTERIES OE LONDON," "THE MYSTERIES OF TBE COURT OE LONDON," " MAET PEICE," "JOSEPH WILMOT," "EOSA LAMBEKT," "THE SOLDIER'S WIFE," "THE NECROMANCER" '• POPE JOAN," "THE PIXY," "ROBERT MACAJLRE," "RENNETH," "THE DATS OF HOGARTH," " WAGNER THE WEHB-W01F," "THE RTE HOUSE PLOT," "THE BEONZE STATUE," "THE IOVB8 OF THE HAREM." "OMAR," " LEILA," "ELLEN PERCY," "THE SEAMSTRESS," "THE CORAL ISLAND," "MARGARET; OR, THE DISCARDED QUEEN,"1 " MAY MIDDLETON," " FAUST," " PICKWICK ABROAD," BTC. ETC. VOL. I WITH FIFTY-TWO ILLUSTRATIONS, BY !•'. GILBERT. LONDON : PUBLISHED, FOE THE PEOPEIETOE, BY JOHN DICKS, No. 7, WELLINGTON STEEET NORTH, STEAND. 1867. INDEX TO ENGRAVINGS. NO. 1. Tho Gaming House .......

Seepage 6 2. Morton Evelyn aud his Wife ,,...- 3. Eloribel aDd Agnes . . • . • • ■ 4. Beauty ......••• 3t 6. Pleasure ......••• i0 6. Cicely Neale. 7. Tbe Dream. ......•• 5? 8. Mrs. ChieklaHe and Winifred .....'■ 6° 9. The Murder Discovered .....•• 10. The Arrest of Winifred ....••• 73 11. The Magistrates' Room .....•• 12. The Elopement .....•••" 13. The Chamber of Agnes ....-•• 103 14. Gustavus Shipwrecked .....•■• *" 15. Gustavus Saved ......•• 113 16. Floribel and her Maids .....•• 133 17. The Meeting of the Cousins ....•• 135 18. Flokibei. 19. Tbe Trial of Winifred . . . . . . • .157 20. Gustavus and Emily . . . . . • • 162 21. Tbe Negro Defeated .....••• 165 22. The Bridal Day ....... 23. Gustavus reading the English Newspaper . • 24. Winifred's Lodging .....•• 25. The Quadroon in London ....«•• -"0* 26.

Josephine Hardeess 27. The Fair Penitent . . 28. Tbe Sham Priest ......•• 2-5 29. Ginevba, Countess or Camerino. 30. Tbe Ball at the Embassy .....•• 2I5 31. The Attack in the Ruins ....••• 2^s 32. Ginevra in the Ruins ... 253 33. Benedeita Coeso. 34. Ginevra's Death .....••• 35. The Count at the Death-bed . / . . . • • 28^ 36. The Count's Arrest. . . . . . • • .'285 37. The Maechioness Lcceezia di Mirano. 38. Tbe Arrival of Edgar Marcellin ...••• 39. Edgar and Ciprina .....•■• 310 40. Winifred and Roderick Dalham ...... 41. Agnes and Cicely .....••• 3^° 42. Gustavus and Emily ....••• *" 43. Gustavus being borne away .,••••• "41 44. Winifred Bakeington. 45. Winifred and her Grandfather . . .... 376 46. The Husband's Arrival ....••• 3?8 47 The Hut of tho Italian Refugees ...••• 48. The Letter ......••• 392 49.

Chapter I. The Gambling-house

Our tale opens in the month of August, 1829. That annual period of dissipation and gaiety which is called " the London season," had drawn to a close ; and all tho rank and fashion of the metropolis wero hastening out of town. Members of Parliament were throwing aside their senatorial duties to be off to the moors : tho gentlemen of The fashionable world was however going out of No. 1. AGNES: OU, BEAUTY AND PLEASUEE. 2 town; and from all the mansions of the West End travelling-chariots and post-chaises, crowded with a living freightage and cumbered with luggage, were rolling away to country-seats or to favourite sea-side resorts. Marriageable young ladies, who had been whirled and waltzed and quadrilled through the season— but who in stead of picking up husbands under the auspices of manœuvring mammas, had caught only cada verous complexions — were on their way to woo back the colour to tbeir cheeks amidst a rural atmosphere or in sea-breezes ; so that in due time they might return, with, a renovated bloom, to plunge anew into London dissipations and cast the matrimonial net once more in the heated, troubled waters where gold and silver fishes were to be caught. brilliant party to a thousand guest3 ?

Who could have fancied that the proud and brilliant Hon. Miss Such-a-one could have possibly eloped with a penniless subaltern in the army ? And how strango it was that another belle of fashion should have gone in the very midst of the season to pas3 a few months at some country-seat of which no ono had ever heard before, and with some old aunt whose existence was apocryphal ? And how infamously young Lord So-and-so had behaved in not proposing to Lady Mary after flirting with her throughout tho season! — and what a thorough want of taste did the Hoo. Augustus Such-a-one display iu remaining insensible to the beauty of " mamma's youngest daughter," who had just been brought out! Ah, brought out indeed ! Does not tho phrase, — shed what gloss upon it you will, or shroud it ia phraseology as delicate and as elegantly mystical as possible, — but does it not mean, we ask, in ita naked truthfulness, that tho young marriageable daughters of fashion are paraded in gilded saloons before the eyes of titled and wealthy bachelors, in the same way that a horse-dealer at his stables leads forth his animals one after another, and makes them exhibit all their best points to the flats whom lie is seeking to £atch ?

Ah! go, then, to your country-seats and to the watering-places, ye votaries of fashion ! Carry thither your reminiscences of tbe season that is just over — your languid memory of its enjoyments and your vivid sense of its disappointments— your recollection of fete s and waltzes, and your bitter consciousness ot blighted hopes aud basiled schoolings — your gossiping, your scandal, and your slander ! Go thither, likewise, to woo from the fresh air some slight renovation of that bloom which has been lost in the heated atmosphere of crowded drawing-rooma ! — and peradventure ye may partially succeed. But ye will not win back aught of the genuine freshness of youth — none of that simplicity of mind which began to depart in the very first hour tbat a masculine arm encircled your waist in the voluptuous dance, and that masculine eyes looked down with libertine hardihood into your own ; ye will not find either at country-seats or watering-places the rejuvenescing springs of those generous impulses of character which have been subdued or crushed beneath the weight of the gems and jewels which decked you for the saloons of fashion; — and if you dare look down deep into your own hearts, you cannot shut out from yourselves the conviction that ye have been rendered altered beings by the ordeal of a London season.

A mother's pride, as false as it is frivolous — a dandy's idle flattery— a fop's silly compliment — or an abigail's hollow sycophantic adulation, may tell you, young Beauty ! that you are marvellously improved since you escaped from school-girl restraints and entered the great world as a lady of fashion. You may be told that in dress you have acquired a tasteful elegance — that the <lance has taught you to step with graceful ease — that you have a statuesque carriage of the head and bust — that your conversation has gained a captivating charm — and that your manners have acquired an aristocratic polish : but pause and ask yourself whether ' in point of real and veritable attractiveness you have gained by exchanging the genuine gushing i freshness of the youthful feelings fur the artificial How few of all those denizens of the fashion able world could look back with satisfaction upon the season which was just over!

Their existence, instead of having marched with the dignified steps of conscious usefulness, had been partially whirled with feverish rapidity through exciting and wearing dissipations, and had partially dragged itself languidly through pursuits as frivolous aB they wero enervating. The effects upon health were felt in the fact that those who had worn rouge before, were now compelled to use a deeper tint to cover fresh wrinkles : while those who had hitherto blushed with their natural bloom, were forced to find a substitute in an artificial hue. And with the loss of all that freshness of beauty, was there no impairing of th? freshness of the disposition likewise? "With the waning of the rose upon the cheeks, was there no withering of all the loveliest flowers of the soul ? While wrinkles gathered upon the brow, were there no hard lines impressing themselves upon tbe heart ?

Yes: for even the crow's-feet that are traced by dissipation at the corners of Beauty's eyes, are accompanied in their growth by a corresponding warping of the imagination and by a proportionate marring of the purity of the fancy. Beauty en ters into fashionable life fair and stainless as the alabaster statue ; bat after a time she emerges thence like a painted waxen effigy, the picture of everything that ia spoilt, tawdry, and meretricious. When the day comes that Beauty finds herself forced to shed the artificial tint of the rose upon her pale and jaded cheeks, — rest assured, gentle reader, that she has arrived at the point when her mind is invested with a correspondiag artificiality, and that it is only the outward gloss which con ceals the hollowness of the heart within. The G-enius of Mischief — a hideous hag who conceals her ugliness under a beautiful mask, and whose spiteful sardonism is hidden beneath looks of falsest blandishment— sits at an everlasting spin ning-wheel, weaving her silken tissues of sin and sorrow for the female votaries of Fashion.

But the season of 1829 was over ; and LonHon was going out of town. What food was there for conversation and for scandal during the journey to country-seats and to watering-places !— and how much was there to gossip about until new topics for tittle-tattle, for mysterious confidence, or for bold open slander, should transpire ! Who would have thought that Lady So-and-so should have been ruined, and that the bailiffs were in her house at the very time when she gave that last AGNES : OB, ?EAUTT ANB PLEASUEE. 3 frivolities of fashion. _No longer possessing your own artless candour, you mistrust the words and the actions of all who are brought in contact with you : you plunge with false excitement into pleasure, having lost the naturally buoyant spirit which gave its healthful charm to innocent re creation : you are no longer willing to put favour able interpretations upon words, nor generous con- Btructions upon actions : you listen with incre dulity even to the sublimest truths, Bhould they happen to be told you : you look without a sincere admiration upon things that are really admirable; — and if you should chance to become the victim of calamity or wrong-doing, it does not render you charitable to the misfortunes, to the sufferings, or the frailties of others.

Nol — for you are an altered being; your mind is warped, your imagi nation is led astray, and your fancy is fevered by the sinister influences of that idol of fashion at whose shrine you have become a votary. sums at the house ; and according to all outward appearance he was still in the same affluent cir cumstances as ever. But how deceptive are such appearances! A man may continue to dress well, display a watch chain festooning over his waistcoat, smoke his cigars, wear lemon-coloured kid gloves, and drop in with half-a-dozen " young gentlemen about town" to dine off turtle and venison at an hotel, without in reality having any of his once good fortune left. And such was precisely the case with Morton Evelyn — the young gentleman of whom we are speaking. Not that he was utterly penniless : for in his pocket-book he possessed bank-notes to the ex tent of about fifty or sixty pounds — the remnant of tbe last five hundred which he had sold out of the Bank of England.

He could thus have paid for his dinner if he thought fit : but it would havo seemed odd to settle for a single repast when he owed for twenty or thirty; and moreover it was against his Bystcm to pay where he might obtain credit. It was the beginning of the month of August, in the year 1829, as we have already said, — when, a little after eight o'clock in the evening, a young gentleman issued from the coffee-room of a fashionable West End Hotel, where he had been dining. He was about twentythree years of age — tall and well made. Without being handsome, he might be termed good-looking; for the slight flush of wine that was now upon his countenance concealed the traces of dissipation which would have otherwise been apparent. His hair was dark : he had fine eyes, but somewhat thickly pencilled brows — a rather large mouth, but a very good set of teeth.

He was dressed with considerable elegance ; and though there was a certain air of the libertine about him, yet his bearing and his manners bespoke him to be, by social position, a gentleman. Pausing for an instant upon the threshold of the hotel, he yawned and looked languidly up and down the street, as if at a loss what next to do with himself. And such was the fact. The breaking-up of the season had just taken his usual companions out of town — while he, for a very good reason, was compelled to remain in London. In truth, he had no country-seat of his own, nor any wealthy friends who appeared to esteem him sufficiently to invite him to one: while his purse was too slender and his resources too much exhausted to enable him to stand the expenditure of a watering-place. He was almost ashamed at being seen alone, as it were, in London when all the fashionable world had left it : but necessity left him not a choice — there was no help for it — and at the hotel he had hinted, as if in a casual way, in the presence of the waiters, that pressing business connected with a legacy just left him, compelled him, to his disgust and annoyance, to remain for the present in the capital.

He lounged along the street, wondering partially what he should do with himself to while away two or three hours until it was time to return home to his lodgings — and wondering partially what he should do for the means of existence at all, when the contents of his pocket-book were exhausted. He strolled into Regent Street ; and it there were fewer fashionable loungers in that favourite evening resort, there were quite as many unfortunate females as usual. Evelyn scarcely glanced at the flaunting creatures, with their painted cheeks, and their hollow eyes that cast forth enticing looks: he was too much accustomed to the scene to find any novelty in it. Presently however he found his attention gradually settling upon a young girl, who, though plying the trade of infamy, yet seemed to be new at it: for there was no wanton hardihood in her looks — no paint upon her cheeks : she had not lost all the first freshness of her youthful beauty : there was neatness and no tawdriness in her attire; and she appeared even to shrink from public notice rather than to court it.

Morton Evelyn lingered to watch her for a little while; and as the blaze from a shop window streamed full upon her countenance, he saw that there was a shadow of despair upon it. Though not much given to moral reflections, it Btruck him that there was the element of sincere penitence in that youDg soul, if a philanthropic hand were stretched forth to drag her up from the abysm of degradation and infamy into which she had sunk down. He looked at her again : he contemplated her more attentively : her countenance, naturally of an exceeding beauty, appeared to show that the heart-break had begun; — ■ and Morton, touched by the spectacle, hurried onward to escape from it. But the despairing, anguished face of that un fortunate girl, haunted him as he continued hia way; and he thought to himself, "Well, after all, I shall not be much the poorer if I give her a trifle."

The tale of the legacy was however a little fic tion, which served a double purpose — in the first place accounting for his unfashionable presence in London when the season was over ; and in the second place enabling the young gentleman to add the cost of his dinner to the already somewhat lengthy bill standing against him at the establish ment. The hotel-keeper and the waiters however had full confidence in him ; for during the past two or three years ho had expended considerable He retraced his steps: he could not immediately discern her amidst the gay flaunting tribe that thronged the street ; and a pang like that of a remorse struck to his heart for not having immediately relieved her. But all of a sudden he AOI-TES: OE, BEAUTY AND PtKAStTEE. 4 caught a glimpse of her round the corner of a narrow diverging street: she had evidently re tired thither into the comparative obscurity, to drag ber load of grief away from the more brilliantly lighted thoroughfare in which it seemed to be so out of place and where it attracted so little sympathy.

She was leaning against a doorway, as if to support herself: and Morton Evelyn beheld her raise her hand and press it to her brow, as if to sooth that dull aching which de spair had infused into ber very blood, and which she was not yet sufficiently profligate to dispel by means of the excitement of strong drink. " My pocr girl, you are ill," said Morton Evelyn, accosting her : for be did not like to say, " You are -unhappy :" — he meant to relieve her, but he did not want to elicit a tale of sorrow which might be true or migbt be false. Morton Evelyn, being but little of a religious turn of mind, was on the point of sending forth from his lips the light laugh of scorn, — when, aa he flung his glance upon the girl's countenance, he beheld something so unmistakably sincere in its expression, so holy even in its fervid gratitude, that the laugh was bushed upon bis lips ; and with a feeling of piety such as he had never experienced before, he said, " My poor girl, if it please you to know my name for such a kind purpose, it is Morton Evelyn."

" I shall never forget it !" were the touchingly emphatic words which Lucy Maitland spoke in response ; and there was likewise something solemnly sincere in her accents and ber looks. The next instant she glided away— not back into the brilliantly lighted street, but along the ob scurer one, as if glad to escape from the former thoroughfare where women made a market of their charms. " 111 ?" echoed the girl, recovering herself with a sudden start. " Oh no, sir ! I am not ill. I " and then she burst into tears. " I wonder whether it was all true ?" said Morton Evelyn to himself, as he returned into the Quadrant : but though he thus mused inwardly, there was the conviction in his heart that the tale was true ; and to his credit we must add that he did not regret the noble bounty which indeed ha could so ill afford.

" Come, come," said Morton, " do not give way to grief ! We shall be noticed and that will be devilish inconvenient. People will take me for a fool or a milksop." But even as that dissipated young man of plea sure thus spoke, he felt that his eyes were growing dim with a moisture of which he was half ashamed ; and he hastily drew forth his purse. In one end were two or three shillings in silver : in the other was a five-pound note. He did not like to offer the girl the silver; and he could not afford to part with the bank-note. For an instant he thought of entering a shop to ask for change : but bis pride was conflicting witb bis better feelings ; and he had a horrible dread of being noticed and taken for a spooney who was being cajoled by a syren trickster. He hesitated — and again looked in the girl's countenance.

She was now weeping softly : the sympathy which she bad elicited bad evidently proved a balm to her poor wounded heart. "How came you reduced to this?" suddenly asked Morton Evelyn, forgetting his previous in tention not to tarry to elicit a tale. The girl's narrative was brief. Her name was Lucy Maitland: sbe had been seduced from a comfortable home in the country, under a promise of marriage — she was brought up to London, where she was abandoned by her seducer : 6he had become destitute— and the landlady of her lodg ings had bidden her go earn money in the streets, or else return not thither again. The narrative was told with a mingled pathos and artlessness, as well as with so profound a mournfulness, that Morton Evelyn felt convinced it was true, not withstanding his general incredulity in such mat ters.

He hesitated no longer : he placed the five pound note in her hand, and was hurrying away, ashamed lest he should be seen in the performance of so good an action. The scene had left upon his mind a certain im pression — almost a dispiriting one — which he was anxious to shake off. Therefore again with re newed force recurred tbe question — What was he to do to while away the time? Almost unwit tingly his steps were bent towards a closed door over which a brilliant lamp was burning ; and then he suddenly stopped short, saying to himself with a species of shudder, "No — not here !" It was a gambling-house at the door of which he had for an instant halted, and whence he now turned away, in that den Morton Evelyn had lost a considerable portion of the fortune which he had inherited on coming of age two years back, and which, as the reader has seen, was now re duced to all that he had about him.

He walked on, struggling against his inclinations to seek the gaming-table. His moral courage was every moment giving way, until at length he found himself musing in this strain : — " I have about fifty or sixty pounds left ; and it must all go shortly. Then what is to become of me? May I not as well endeavour to convert it into five or six hundred ? They say that luck changes when fortune is at the lowest ebb. I can not always be a loser ; and even if I did lose everything to-night, it would only be accelerating tbe position in which I must inevitably be placed in the course of a few weeks: whereas, on the other hand, it is quite possible I may come out of the gambling-bouse with enough to carry me on for a twelvemonth in the comparatively quiet way in which I am now living." But he bad not sped many paces, when a gentle band was laid upon bis arm ; and the low musical voice of the girl was breathing in his ear.

"Pardon me for detaining you, sir1," she said with the deepest emotion: " but, Oh ! you know not what you have done I You have saved me — I feel convinced you bave Baved me !" — and now her accents were full of a grateful exultation. " I beseech you to tell me your name, that I may re member it in my prayers!" Tbe reader has seen that with all his extrava gance, his dissipation, his lax principles, and his false pride, Morton Evelyn was not utterly defi cient in good feelings : but he wanted the stamina — the moral courage — which would have made bim a better man and a more us 'ful member of society. In the present instance his want of re solution prevailed ; and he entered the gambling house. In the room to which he ascended, there was AMvES : OE, BEATTTY AUK PLEASUEE. 6 the usual scene— a table covered with green baize, the croupiers sitting with their rakes, one of them having before him a tin-box containing the notes android which constituted " the bank."

Eight or ten persons were seated at play — most of them being dissipated and decayed members of the fashionable world, who, like Morton Evelyn, had not the means of going out of town, and were equally ready with excuses to account for their unfashionable presence in London. With most of them Mr. Evelyn was acquainted ; and after some little conversation, he sat down to play. For a while fortune seemed in Evelyn's favour ; and the contents of his pocket-book were doubled. He became exhilarated : he felt convinced that at last his luck had turned; and he played more boldly. His hope was however disappointed : the tide set in against him : he drank wine— he grew desperate — he would not believe that this night was to witness the confirmation of his ruin — until his last bank-note was swept away by the crou pier's rake. strained to walk: for the villa where he dwelt was quite on the outskirts, and might almost be said to stand in the open country.

With feverish brain and with a sad tightness at the heart, the ruined gamester proceeded on his way. He strode with a rapidity which was akin to the excitement of his feelings : he took no note of any objects which he passed : it was rather by instinct than by actual observation that he pursued the proper route. At length he was in the outskirt: tho air seemed purer and fresher : it fanned his cheek— it cooled his brain. He relaxed his pace : his thoughts grew more collected : he was becoming accustomed to tbe conviction that he was an utterly ruined man. Now he looked about him to see exactly where he was; and at the same instant a neighbouring church-clock began proclaiming the hour of midnight. There was a short cut through the churchyard ; and Morton proceeded to take it ;— for though it was one of those isolated and lonely churches which might have been seen at the time in certain suburbs of the metropolis, before the enterprise of builders and the require ments of a growing population hemmed them in with houses, — Evelyn had no tinge of superstitious fear in his character.

Tben Morton Evelyn became almost wild with despair; and the pride which had made him so much dread lest his generous sympathy for a fellow -creature's misfortunes should be observed, did not prevent him from giving way to loudly uttered maledictions upon his own folly. But there was no sympathy for him in that den where blacklegs and 6harpers and fallen gentlemen con gregated. The game continued: Morton Evelyn remained almost unnoticed ; and throwing himself upon a chair, he looked the picture of ruin itself. His dark hair was all tossing in disorder above the countenance from whieh the flush of wine had passed away, leaving it deadly pale : his features were rigid — his brows were corrugated — and one clenched fist rested upon the table, while the other hand supported his head. Thus, for some minutes he remained motionless as a statue — but with a sinister light in his eyes, as if the brain in its de spair were revolving projects of suicide.

Suddenly Morton Evelyn started up— dashed his hat upon his head— rudely repulsed a couple of " kind friends " who, having profited by his losses, begged him to remain to supper — and rushed forth from the gambling-house. There was a hearty laugh on the part of those whom he left behind : but he heard it not — or at least did not heed it. It was rather a dark night— but yet not so com pletely obscure as to prevent some of the most recently raised tombstones from gleaming white and ghastly above the resting-places of the dead. The last sounds of the clock had died vibratingly away into the silence of the place and the hour; and the very atmosphere itself seemed to sleep more heavily over the graves of the departed, than elsewhere. Morton was pursuing his way, when it suddenly struck him that he beheld a light flashing for an instant through a little window that was on a level with the ground, and which belonged to the vaults beneath the church.

The light however had instantaneously disappeared; and Evelyn thought that it must have been mere fancy on his part. He was again walking onward along the narrow path which intersected the church-yard, when he beheld the light again, and again did it as quickly disappear. Thoughts of resurrection men swept through his brain ; and he was on the point of shouting out tu raise au alarm — for there were three or four houses within earshot — when it struck him that the officials of the church might be possibly engaged in preparing a vault for the reception of some member of the family to which it belonged. Stiil he had a strange feeling of curiosity about him on the point : he had no superstitious terror; and perhaps, likewise, he was in that mood when a person clutches at any adventure that may divert the thoughts from a painful topic.