The waiter threw open the door of Mr. Herbert’s chamber, and Lady Annabel swept in with a majesty she generally assumed when about to meet strangers. The first thing she beheld was her daughter in the arms of a man whose head was bent, and who was embracing her. Notwithstanding this astounding spectacle, Lady Annabel neither started nor screamed; she only said in an audible tone, and one rather expressing astonishment than agitation, ‘Venetia!’
Immediately the stranger looked up, and Lady Annabel beheld her husband!
She was rooted to the earth. She turned deadly pale; for a moment her countenance expressed only terror, but the terror quickly changed into aversion. Suddenly she rushed forward, and exclaimed in a tone in which decision conquered dismay, ‘Restore me my child!’
The moment Herbert had recognised his wife he had dexterously disengaged himself from the grasp of Venetia, whom he left on the chair, and meeting Lady Annabel with extended arms, that seemed to deprecate her wrath, he said, ‘I seek not to deprive you of her; she is yours, and she is worthy of you; but respect, for a few moments, the feelings of a father who has met his only child in a manner so unforeseen.’
The presence of her mother instantaneously restored Venetia to herself. Her mind was in a moment cleared and settled. Her past and peculiar life, and all its incidents, recurred to her with their accustomed order, vividness, and truth. She thoroughly comprehended her present situation. Actuated by long-cherished feelings and the necessity of the occasion, she rose and threw herself at her mother’s feet and exclaimed, ‘O mother! he is my father, love him!’
Lady Annabel stood with an averted countenance, Venetia clinging to her hand, which she had caught when she rushed forward, and which now fell passive by Lady Annabel’s side, giving no sign, by any pressure or motion, of the slightest sympathy with her daughter, or feeling for the strange and agonising situation in which they were both placed.
‘Annabel,’ said Herbert, in a voice that trembled, though the speaker struggled to appear calm, ‘be charitable! I have never intruded upon your privacy; I will not now outrage it. Accident, or some diviner motive, has brought us together this day. If you will not treat me with kindness, look not upon me with aversion before our child.’
Still she was silent and motionless, her countenance hidden from her husband and her daughter, but her erect and haughty form betokening her inexorable mind. ‘Annabel,’ said Herbert, who had now withdrawn to some distance, and leant against a pillar, ‘will not then nearly twenty years of desolation purchase one moment of intercourse? I have injured you. Be it so. This is not the moment I will defend myself. But have I not suffered? Is not this meeting a punishment deeper even than your vengeance could devise? Is it nothing to behold this beautiful child, and feel that she is only yours? Annabel, look on me, look on me only one moment! My frame is bowed, my hair is grey, my heart is withered; the principle of existence waxes faint and slack in this attenuated frame. I am no longer that Herbert on whom you once smiled, but a man stricken with many sorrows. The odious conviction of my life cannot long haunt you; yet a little while, and my memory will alone remain. Think of this, Annabel; I beseech you, think of it. Oh! believe me, when the speedy hour arrives that will consign me to the grave, where I shall at least find peace, it will not be utterly without satisfaction that you will remember that we met if even by accident, and parted at least not with harshness!’
‘Mother, dearest mother!’ murmured Venetia, ‘speak to him, look on him!’
‘Venetia,’ said her mother, without turning her head, but in a calm, firm tone, ‘your father has seen you, has conversed with you. Between your father and myself there can be nothing to communicate, either of fact or feeling. Now let us depart.’
‘No, no, not depart!’ said Venetia franticly. ‘You did not say depart, dear mother! I cannot go,’ she added in a low and half-hysterical voice.
‘Desert me, then,’ said the mother. ‘A fitting consequence of your private communications with your father,’ she added in a tone of bitter scorn; and Lady Annabel moved to depart, but Venetia, still kneeling, clung to her convulsively.
‘Mother, mother, you shall not go; you shall not leave me; we will never part, mother,’ continued Venetia, in a tone almost of violence, as she perceived her mother give no indication of yielding to her wish. ‘Are my feelings then nothing?’ she then exclaimed. ‘Is this your sense of my fidelity? Am I for ever to be a victim?’ She loosened her hold of her mother’s hand, her mother moved on, Venetia fell upon her forehead and uttered a faint scream. The heart of Lady Annabel relented when she fancied her daughter suffered physical pain, however slight; she hesitated, she turned, she hastened to her child; her husband had simultaneously advanced; in the rapid movement and confusion her hand touched that of Herbert.
‘I yield her to you, Annabel,’ said Herbert, placing Venetia in her mother’s arms. ‘You mistake me, as you have often mistaken me, if you think I seek to practise on the feelings of this angelic child. She is yours; may she compensate you for the misery I have caused you, but never sought to occasion!’
‘I am not hurt, dear mother,’ said Venetia, as her mother tenderly examined her forehead. ‘Dear, dear mother, why did you reproach me?’
‘Forget it,’ said Lady Annabel, in a softened tone; ‘for indeed you are irreproachable.’
‘O Annabel!’ said Herbert, ‘may not this child be some atonement, this child, of whom I solemnly declare I would not deprive you, though I would willingly forfeit my life for a year of her affection; and your, your sufferance,’ he added.
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