Barford Abbey eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 210 pages of information about Barford Abbey.

Barford Abbey eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 210 pages of information about Barford Abbey.

I go to my bed, but not to my repose.

Nine o’clock in the morning.

How sad, how gloomy, has been the approach of morning!—­About six, for I had not clos’d my eyes,—­somebody enter’d my chamber.  I suppos’d it Mr. Morgan, and drew aside my curtain.—­It was not Mr. Morgan;—­it was the poor disconsolate father of Miss Powis, more agitated, if possible, than the preceding night.—­He flung himself on my bed with agony not to be express’d:—­

Dear Risby, said he, do rise:—­do come to my apartment.—­Alas! my
Fanny—­

What new misfortune, my friend? ask’d I, starting up.—­My wife! return’d! he!—­she is in fits;—­she has been in fits the whole night.—­Oh Risby! if I should lose her, if I should lose my wife!—­My parents too, I shall lose them!—­

Words could not lessen his affliction.  I was silent, making what haste I could to huddle on my clothes;—­and at his repeated intreaties follow’d him to his wife,—­She was sitting near the fire drowned; in tears, supported by her woman.  I was pleas’d to see them drop so plentifully.—­She lifted up her head a little, as I enter’d.—­How alter’d!—­how torn to pieces with grief!—­Her complexion once so lovely,—­how changed in a few hours.

My husband! said she, in a faint voice, as he drew near her.—­Then looking at me,—­Comfort him, Mr. Risby;—­don’t let him sob so.—­Indeed he will be ill;—­indeed he will.—­Then addressing him, Consider, she who us’d to be your nurse is now incapable of the task.—­His agitation was so much increas’d by her words and manner, that I attempted to draw him into another apartment.—­Your intentions are kind, said she, Mr. Risby;—­but I must not lose my husband:—­you see how it is, Sir, shaking her head;—­try to sooth him;—­talk to him here but do not take him from me.—­

Then turning to Mr. Powis,—­I am better, my love,—­don’t frighten yourself:—­we must learn to be resign’d.—­Set the example, and I will be resign’d, said he,—­wiping away the tears as they trickled down her cheek;—­if my Fanny supports herself, I shall not be quite miserable.  In this situation I left them, to close my letter.

What is become of poor Lord Darcey?  For ever is he in my thoughts.—­His death will be an aggravation to the general sorrow.—­Write instantly:—­I wait your account with impatience; yet dread to receive it.

LETTER XXXI.

The Honourable GEORGE MOLESWORTH to RICHARD RISBY, Esq;

Dover.

Say not a word of it;—­no, not for the world;—­the body of Miss Powis is drove on shore.—­If the family choose to have her brought down, it may be done some time hence.—­I have order’d an undertaker to get a lead coffin, and will take care to have her remains properly deposited.—­It would be an act of cruelty at present to acquaint her friends with this circumstance.—­I have neither leisure or spirits to tell you in what manner the body was found, and how I knew it to be miss Powis’s.

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Barford Abbey from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.