Farida's Blog

The loss of my beloved Isabella affected me to such a degree that if not for our son who was left motherless at the age of five, I should have preferred to beseech the Creator to allow me to follow her rather than remain to lead a meaningless life of a broken-hearted wretch. I did not presume to hope that I should ever be happy again – not when the very source of my happiness was forever taken away from me.

Engrossed by grief, overwhelmed by pain and knowing nothing but the terrible agony of bereavement, I never once thought that I was not the only one thus tried. However, to admit that Miss Margaret – Isabella’s younger sister – was suffering the same manner of affliction would be to admit that she was capable of affection and an affectionate heart was not something I allowed her to possess.

I believed her vain and insincere, incapable of strong feeling and inheriting none of her sister’s excellence, virtue and warmth. In my blackest moments, when my heart was overpowered with bitterness and rage, and I knelt, weeping at the foot of Isabella’s portrait, I implored Heavens to reverse their fates and to restore my adored wife to me. That I should have been so monstrously cruel and hateful to the one who became my salvation!

I was uncaring, unfair and unyielding. I treated Miss Margaret with dislike and derision and made the first months of her stay at Northbrook Hall unbearable. There is only one thing that can lessen the severe blows of remorse I willingly submit myself to – the soothing balm of Margaret’s tender words of forgiveness and the divine touch of her lips.

Could I dare to hope that at my time of life, having loved deeply and lost irrevocably, I should be gifted with a second chance at happiness by the very person whose merits I ridiculed and whose goodness I disregarded for years? She of generous heart and selfless love! How infamously did I treat my dearest Margaret, flinging harsh words of accusation in her face, always with suspicion, always with reproach. Am I not the basest of creatures?

For not only did I torment the poor soul, but I neglected – shamefully neglected – the discharge of my promise to Isabella. It was on her deathbed that I promised to take care of her sister, and with what delay did I honour her final wish? For years I kept my distance from Miss Margaret, encouraging her to remain with her aunt, and entrusting an old acquaintance of mine to follow her progress and inform me of her latest breach of decorum.

How soon the tidings of her indiscretions arrived, proving me right on her account, justifying my wish to keep her away from my family and arming me with growing dislike and contempt. But I had long since had Margaret’s words, Stockley’s testimony and my own eyes to ascertain the false nature of those reports, started and spread by the malicious intent of Stockley’s vicious sister.

But I ask myself: was not it my fault that she became the victim of such reports in the first place? Wasn’t I to blame for leaving her without counsel and any means of escape the pernicious influence of London at the age of fifteen, having just lost her sister and monitor? Hadn’t Isabella entreated me to place Margaret in the care of my mother and sister aware as she was that Lady Allingthorpe did not possess the necessary qualities to guide her through the maze of wickedness and vice the town presents to a young, innocent and inexperienced soul?

Is it any wonder that after all the anguish, distress and offence that I had inflicted on Miss Margaret I should not believe my fortune of being accepted? That I can boast to have been loved and to be loved again by the best of the fair sex?

I shall never forget that day at the lake – so peaceful one moment, so turbulent the next. It was a shock to discover the sweet flower of love blossoming in my chest. As I gazed at Margaret in wonder, how I longed to hold her in my arms, to press her to my bosom and to subdue the trembling of her limbs with the warmth of my caress.

It happened when she broke the slumbering surface of the lake – at that very moment she shattered the ice cage for years confining my heart. It sprang free. It was beating again. I was alive.