Chapter XI
Shews what effects the transactions of the preceding night had on the minds of Miss Betsy and Mr. Trueworth
Mr. Goodman and Lady Mellasin were gone to bed when Miss Betsy came home; but Miss Flora sat up for her, in complaisance, as she pretended, but in reality to see who it was came home with her. This malicious creature had been extremely fawning, for some days past, to Miss Betsy, but this night was more so than usual; doubtless, in the hope of being able to draw something out of her, which her cruel wit might turn to her disadvantage: but the other knew too well the disposition she had towards her, to communicate anything to her, which she would not wish should be made publick.
Never did any one pass a night with greater inquietudes than this young lady sustained; and she felt them the more terribly, as she had no friend to whom pride and shame would suffer her to impart the cause: she looked back with horror on the precipice she had fallen into, and considered it as a kind of miracle, that she had recovered from it unhurt, she could not reflect on what had passed; that by the levity of her conduct she had been thought a common prostitute, had been treated as such, and preserved from irrecoverable ruin by the mere mercy of a man who was a perfect stranger to her; without feeling anew that confusion which the most shocking moments of her distress inflicted. The most bitter of her enemies could not have passed censure more severe than she did on herself; and, in this fit of humiliation and repentance, would even have asked Mr. Trueworth pardon for the little regard she had paid to his advice.
The agitations of her mind would not suffer her to take one moment of repose for the whole night; nor did the morning afford any more tranquillity: the disturbance of her heart flew up into her head, and occasioned so violent a pain there, that she was as unable as unwilling to get out of bed. She lay till some hours after the time in which they usually breakfasted, nor would take any refreshment, though the tea was brought to her bedside. Amongst the crowd of tormenting ideas, the remembrance that she owed all the vexation she laboured under entirely to the acquaintance she had with Miss Forward, came strong into her thoughts; and she had not rose the whole day, if not moved to it by the impatience of venting her spleen on that unfortunate woman; which she did, in a letter to her, containing these lines.
'To Miss Forward.
I am sorry that the compassion, which your feigned contrition for one false step obliged me to take in your misfortunes, should make you imagine I would continue any conversation with you, after knowing you had abandoned yourself to a course of life, which I blush to think any of my sex can descend to brook the thoughts of, much more to be guilty of. If you had retained the least spark of generosity or good-will towards me, you would rather have avoided than coveted my company; as you must be sensible, that to be seen with you must render me in some measure a partaker of your infamy, though wholly innocent of your crimes. How base, how cruel, is such behaviour; especially to one, who had a real regard for you, even after you had confessed yourself unworthy of it! But I have been often told, and now I find the observation just, that women of your wretched principles, being lost to all hope of happiness themselves, take a malicious pleasure in endeavouring to destroy it in others.
But, for Heaven's sake, what could induce you to desire a continuation of a correspondence with me? What did you take me for? Did you imagine me so blind as not to see into the shameful means by which you are supported, or so weak as to forfeit all the reputation and respect I have in the world, merely to comply with your request? No! your conduct is too bare-faced to give me even the shadow of an excuse for ever seeing you again: do not, therefore, go about to varnish over actions, whose foulness will appear through all the colours you can daub them with. The friendship I once had for you has already pleaded all that yourself could urge in your defence; but the cause is too bad, and I must leave you to the miseries which attend remorse, and which a little time will infallibly bring on. Heavens! to be a common prostitute! to earn precarious bread, by being the slave of every man's licentious will. What is digging in the mines! What is begging! What is starving, when compared to this! But the idea is too shocking; modesty shudders at it. I shall drive both that and you as distant from my thoughts as possible; so, be assured, this is the last time you will ever hear from the much deceived, and ill-treated,
B. THOUGHTLESS.'
She was going to seal up the above letter, when a sudden thought coming into her head, she added, to what she had already wrote, this postscript.
'P.S. You may perhaps be instigated to answer this, either through resentment for the reproaches it contains, or through some remains of modesty, to attempt an apology for the occasion: but I would not wish you should give yourself that trouble; for, be assured, I shall read nothing that comes from you, and that whatever you send will be returned to you again unopened.'
She immediately sent this away by a porter; and, having satisfied the dictates of her indignation against Miss Forward, she had now done with her, and resolved to think of her no more; yet was the confusion of her mind far from being dissipated. 'What will Mr. Trueworth say,' cried she to herself, 'if ever the ridiculous adventure of last night should reach his ears, as nothing is more probable than that it may? What will my brother Frank say, on hearing such a story? What will Mr. Goodman and Lady Mellasin say? What a triumph for the envious Miss Flora! And what can I answer for myself, either to my friends or enemies?'
Little care as this young lady had seemed to have taken of her reputation, it was, notwithstanding, very dear to her. Honour was yet still more dear; and she could not reflect, that what she had done might call the one into question, and how near she had been to having the other irrecoverably lost, without feeling the most bitter agonies: she was not able to dress, or go down stairs that day; and gave orders to be denied to whoever should come to visit her.
In this perplexed situation of mind let us leave her for a while, and see with what sort of temper Mr. Trueworth behaved, after having seen her go to the very woman he had so much conjured her to avoid.
All the love he had for her would not keep him from resenting this last rebuff: he thought he had not deserved such usage; nor that his having professed himself her lover, gave her the privilege of treating him as her slave. The humour he was in making him unfit for company, he went directly to his lodgings; but had not been long there, before it came into his head that, possibly, the manner in which she had behaved was only a fit of contradiction; and that, after all, she might, when she was out of hearing, have given counter-orders to the chairmen, and was neither gone to Miss Forward's, nor would accompany her to the play. With such vain imaginations does love sometimes flatter its votaries; and the sincere and ardent flame which filled the heart of Mr. Trueworth, made him greedily catch at every supposition in favour of the darling object.
Willing, however, to be more assured, he bethought himself of a strategem, which would either relieve all the doubts remaining in him of her obstinacy, or convince him they were but too just. He sent immediately to his barber for a black perriwig; and, muffled up in a cloak, so as to render it almost an impossibility for him to be known by any one, went to the theatre; and, with a heart divided betwixt hope and fear, placed himself in a part of the middle gallery, which had the full command of more than half the boxes. He saw a very brilliant circle; but not she, whom he so much dreaded to find, shine among them.
Having scrutinously examined all within the reach of his view, he quitted his present post, and removed to the other side of the house; where he soon discovered the persons he came in search of. He saw Miss Forward earnest in discourse with a gentleman that sat behind her; and Miss Betsy receiving fruit from another, with the same freedom and gaiety of deportment she could have done if presented by himself. He saw the nods, the winks, and the grimaces, which several in the pit made to each other, when looking towards these two ladies. Every moment brought with it some fresh matter for his mortification; yet would not his curiosity stop here. When the play was ended, he went hastily down stairs, and mingled with the crowd that stood about the door, in hopes of seeing Miss Betsy quit her company, take a chair, and go home. But how cruel a stab was it to a man who loved as he did, to find her go with a dissolute companion and two gentlemen, who, he had reason to believe, by the little he saw of their behaviour, were utter strangers to her, in a hackney-coach. He was once about to appear himself through his disguise, and tell Miss Betsy, that he thought he had more right to the honour of conducting her than those to whom she gave permission; but the greatness of his spirit assisted his prudence in restraining him from so rash an action.
After this sight, it is not in the power of words to represent what it was he felt. Reason was too weak to combat against the force of such various emotions as for a time had the entire possession of his soul; though he thought Miss Betsy unworthy of his love, yet still he loved her; and had she been witness of his present distracted state, she would have seen the power she had over him, no less manifest in the moments of his rage, than in those in which he had behaved with the greatest tenderness and respect.
His good-sense, however, at last convinced him, that as no solid happiness could be expected with a woman of Miss Betsy's temper, he ought to conquer his passion for her. This he resolved to attempt; yet thought, before he did so, it would become him to see her once more, to argue gently with her, and to try, at least, if there were not a possibility of making her see the errors she was guilty of.
With this intent he went the next day to visit her; but, being told she could see no company that day, was going from the door; when Miss Flora, who had watched for him at the parlour-window, came and desired him to walk in. His complaisance would not permit him to refuse her request; and, after the usual compliments, said he was sorry Miss Betsy was so ill. 'You need not be in much pain,' replied she, with a look which he thought had more than ordinary meaning in it; 'she is not greatly indisposed.'--'Perhaps,' cried Mr. Trueworth, with some warmth, 'she is only so to me.'--'I cannot say anything to that,' returned Miss Flora; 'but her orders were in general to all that came; and I believe, indeed, she is not perfectly well. She came home extremely late last night, and seemed in a good deal of disorder.'--'Disorder, Madam!' interrupted Mr. Trueworth, impatiently. 'For Heaven's sake, on what occasion?'--'I wish I could inform you,' answered she; 'but at present I am not favoured with her confidence, though there was a time when I was made partaker of her dearest secrets. I wish those she now intrusts them with may be no less faithful to her than I have been.'--'I hope,' said he, 'she has none which, to be betrayed in, would give her pain.' With these words he rose up to go away. Miss Flora fain would have persuaded him to drink tea: but he excused himself, saying he was engaged; that he came only to enquire after the health of her fair friend, and could not have staid, if so happy as to have seen her.
Scarce could this passionate lover contain himself till he got out of the house. The manner in which Miss Flora had spoke of Miss Betsy, added fresh fuel to the jealousies he was before possessed of: but, how great soever his disturbance was, he found, on his return home, somewhat which made all he had known before seem light and trifling.
Chapter XII
Contains some passages which, it is probable, will afford more pain than pleasure; yet which are very pertinent to the history, and necessary to be related
Though the words which Miss Flora had let fall to Mr. Trueworth, concerning Miss Betsy, seemed as if spoken by mere chance, there was couched under them a design of the most black and villainous kind that ever entered the breast of woman, as will presently appear, to the astonishment of every reader.
In order to do this, we must relate an incident in Miss Betsy's life not hitherto mentioned, and which happened some little time before her going to Oxford with her brother Frank.
On her first coming to town, a woman had been recommended to her for starching, and making up her fine linen. This person she had ever since employed, and took a great fancy to, as she found her honest, industrious, and very obliging. The poor creature was unhappily married; her husband was gone from her, and had listed himself for a soldier. Being born in a distant country, she had no relations to whom she could apply for assistance; was big with child, and had no support but the labour of her hands. These calamitous circumstances so much touched the commiserative nature of Miss Betsy, that she frequently gave her double the sum she demanded for her work, besides bestowing on her many things she left off wearing; which, though trifles in themselves, were very helpful to a person in such distress.
Miss Mabel, for whom she also worked at the same time, was no less her patroness than Miss Betsy. In fine, they were both extremely kind to her; insomuch as made her often cry out, in a transport of gratitude, that these two good young ladies were worth to her all the customers she had besides. They continued to prove themselves so indeed; for when her child was born, which happened to be a girl, they stood godmothers; and not only gave handsomely themselves, but raised a contribution among their acquaintance, for the support of the lying-in woman and her infant: the former, however, did not long enjoy the blessing of two such worthy friends; she died before the expiration of her month; and the latter, being wholly destitute, was about to be thrown upon the parish. Some well-disposed neighbour, who knew how kind Miss Mabel and Miss Betsy had been, came and acquainted them with the melancholy story: they consulted together; and each reflecting that she had undertaken the protection of this infant at the font, thought herself bound by duty to preserve if from those hardships with which children thus exposed are sometimes treated; they, therefore, as they were equally engaged, agreed to join equally in the maintenance of this innocent forlorn.
This was a rare charity indeed! and few there are, especially at their years, who so justly consider the obligations of a baptismal covenant. It was also the more to be admired, as neither of them had the incomes of their fortunes in their own hands, the one being under guardianship, and the other at the allowance of a father, who, though rich, was extremely avaricious.
As they were, therefore, obliged to be good oeconomists in this point, and nurses in the country are to be had at a much cheaper rate than in the town, they got a person to seek out for one who would not be unreasonable in her demands, and at the same time do justice to her charge. Such a one, according to the character given of her by neighbours, being found, the child, decently cloathed, was sent down to her habitation, which was in a little village about seventeen miles from London. For the sake of concealing the part Miss Mabel had in this affair from the knowledge of her father, it was judged proper that Miss Betsy should seem to take the whole upon herself, which she did; and the nurse's husband came up every month and received the money from her hands, as also whatever other necessaries the child wanted.
Who would imagine that such a glorious act of benevolence should ever be made a handle to traduce and vilify the author! Yet what cannot malice, accompanied with cunning, do! It can give the fairest virtue the appearance of the foulest vice, and pervert the just estimation of the world into a mistaken scorn and contempt!
Miss Flora, after receiving the disappointment, as related in the sixth chapter of this volume, was far from desisting from the wicked design she had conceived of putting an end to the intercourse between Miss Betsy and Mr. Trueworth. Her fertile brain presented her with a thousand strategems, which she rejected, either as they were too weak to accomplish what she wished, or too liable to discovery, till at last she hit upon the most detestable project of representing what proceeded from the noblest propensity of Miss Betsy's nature, as the effect of a criminal compulsion: in fine, to make it appear so feasible, as to be believed that the child, who owed half its maintenance to her charity, was entirely kept by herself, and the offspring of her own body.
Having well weighed and deliberated on this matter, it seemed to her such as Mr. Trueworth, on the most strict examination, could not discover the deception of: she therefore resolved to pursue it, and accordingly wrote the following letter.
'To Charles Trueworth, Esq.
Sir,
The friendship I had for some of your family, now deceased, and the respect due to your own character in particular, obliges me to acquaint you with truths more disagreeable than perhaps you ever yet have heard: but, before I proceed to the shocking narrative, let me conjure you to believe, that in me your better angel speaks, and warns you to avoid that dreadful gulph of everlasting misery into which you are just ready to be plunged.
I am informed, by those who are most versed in your affairs, and on whose veracity I may depend, that a treaty of marriage is on foot, and almost as good as concluded, between you and Miss Betsy Thoughtless. A young lady, I must confess, well descended; handsome, and endued with every accomplishment to attract the admiration of mankind; and if her soul had the least conformity with her exterior charms, you doubtless might have been one of the most happy and most envied men on earth: but, Sir, this seeming innocence is all a cheat; another has been beforehand with you in the joys you covet; your intended bride has been a mother without the pleasure of owning herself as such. The product of a shameful passion is still living; and though she uses the greatest caution in this affair, I have by accident discovered, is now nursed at Denham, a small village within two miles of Uxbridge, by a gardener's wife, who is called, by the country people, Goody Bushman. I give you this particular account, in order that you may make what enquiry you shall think proper into a fact, which, I am sorry to say, you will find but too real. I pity from my soul the unfortunate seduced young lady; she must be doubly miserable, if, by having lost her virtue, she loses a husband such as you: but if, after this, you should think it fit to prosecute your pretensions, I wish she may endeavour, by her future conduct, to atone for the errors of the past; but, alas! her present manner of behaviour affords no such promising expectations; and if you should set your honour and fortune, and all that is dear to you, against so precarious a stake as the hope of reclaiming a woman of her temper, it must certainly fill all your friends with astonishment and grief. But you are yourself the best judge of what it will become you to do; I only beg, that you will be assured this intelligence comes from one, who is, with the utmost sincerity, Sir, your well-wisher, and most humble, though unknown servant.'
She would not trust the success of the mischief she intended by this letter, till she had examined and re-examined every sentence; and, finding it altogether such as she thought would work the desired effect, got one who was always her ready agent in matters of this kind, to copy it over, in order to prevent any accident from discovering the real author; and then sent it, as directed, by the penny-post.
How far the event answered her expectations shall very shortly be related; but incidents of another nature requiring to be first mentioned, the gratification of that curiosity, which this may have excited, must for a while be deferred.
Chapter XIII
Is the recital of some accidents, as little possible to be foreseen by the reader as they were by the persons to whom they happened
In youth, when the blood runs high, and the spirits are in full vivacity, affliction must come very heavy indeed, when it makes any deep or lasting impression on the mind. That vexation which Miss Betsy had brought upon herself, by going to the play with Miss Forward, was severe enough the whole night, and the ensuing day. A great while, it must be confessed, for a person of her volatile disposition; and when the more violent emotions had subsided, the terror she had lately sustained, had, at least, this good effect upon her; it made her resolve to take all possible precautions not to fall into the like danger again. As she had an infinite deal of generosity in her nature, when not obscured by that pride and vanity which the flatteries she had been but too much accustomed to, had inspired her with, she could not reflect how ill she had treated Mr. Trueworth, and the little regard she had paid to the tender concern he had shewn for her reputation, without thinking she ought to ask his pardon, and acknowledge she had been in the wrong. If Mr. Trueworth could have known the humour she was at present in, how readily would he have flown to her with all the wings of love and kind forgiveness! but as he had not the spirit of divination, and could only judge of her sentiments by her behaviour, it was not in his power to conceive how great a change had happened in his favour, through a just sensibility of her own error.
She, in the mean time, little imagined how he far he resented the treatment she had given him; especially as she heard he had been to wait upon her the day in which she saw no company; and, after having passed a night of much more tranquillity than the former had been, went down in the morning to breakfast with her usual chearfulness. She had not been many minutes in the parlour before she was agreeably surprized with the sight of her elder brother, Mr. Thomas Thoughtless, who, it seems, had arrived the night before. After the first welcomes were over, Mr. Goodman asked him, wherefore he did not come directly to his house; saying, he had always a spare bed to accommodate a friend; to which the other replied, that he had come from Paris with some company whom he could not quit, and that they had lain at the Hummums. Miss Betsy was extremely transported at his return, and said a thousand obliging things to him; all which he answered with more politeness than tenderness: and this young lady soon perceived, by this specimen of his behaviour to her, that she was not to expect the same affection from him, as she had received so many proofs of from her younger brother.
His long absence from England, and some attachments he had found abroad, had indeed very much taken off that warmth of kindness he would doubtless otherwise have felt for an only sister, and one who appeared so worthy of his love. As Mr. Goodman had acquainted him by letter, that he had hired a house for him, according to his request, the chief of their conversation turned on that subject; and, as soon as breakfast was over, they took a walk together to see it. On their return, he seemed very much pleased with the choice Mr. Goodman had made; and the little time he staid was entirely taken up with consulting Lady Mellasin, his sister, and Miss Flora, concerning the manner in which he should ornament it; for the honest guardian had taken care to provide all such furniture as he thought would be necessary for a single gentleman.
No intreaties were wanting to prevail on him to make that house his home, till his own was thoroughly aired, and in all respects fit for him to go into; but he excused himself, saying, he could not leave the friends he had travelled with, till they were provided for as well as himself; nor could all Mr. Goodman and the ladies urged, persuade him to dine with them that day.
It must be acknowledged, that this positive refusal of every thing that was desired of him, had not in it all that complaisance which might have been expected from a person just come from among a people more famous for their politeness than their sincerity.
But he had his own reasons, which the family of Mr. Goodman as yet were far from suspecting, which made him act in the manner he now did; and it was not, in reality, the want of French breeding, but the want of true old English resolution, that enforced this seeming negligence and abruptness.
After he was gone, Mr. Goodman went to Change; but was scarce entered into the walk, where he had appointed to meet some merchants, when he was accosted by two rough, ill-looking fellows, who demanded his sword, and told him they had a writ against him; that he was their prisoner, and must go with them.
Mr. Goodman, who had as little reason as any man living to suspect an insult of this nature, only smiled, and told them they were mistaken in the person. 'No, no,' said one of them, 'we are right enough, if you are Mr. Samuel Goodman!'--'My name is Samuel Goodman,' replied he; 'but I do not know that it stands in any man's books for debt: but, pray,' continued he, 'at whose suit am I arrested?'--'At the suit of Mr. Oliver Marplus,' said the other officer. 'I have no dealings with any such person,' cried Mr. Goodman: 'nor even ever heard the name of him you mention.' They then told him it was his business to prove that; they did but do their duty, and he must obey the writ. Mr. Goodman, on this, knowing they were not the persons with whom this matter should be contested, readily went where they conducted him, which was to a house belonging to him who appeared to be the principal of the two. As they were coming off Change, he bade his coachman drive his chariot home, and tell his lady, that he believed he should not dine with her that day; but he kept his footman with him, to send on what messages he should find convenient.
The officer, knowing his condition, and not doubting but he should have a handsome present for civility-money, used him with a great deal of respect when he had got him into his house; and, on his desiring to be informed of the lawyer's name employed in the action, he immediately told him, and also for what sum he was arrested, which was no less than two thousand five hundred and seventy-five pounds eight shillings. 'A pretty parcel of money, truly!' said Mr. Goodman; 'I wonder in what dream I contracted this debt.' He then called for pen, ink, and paper; and wrote a line to his lawyer in the Temple, desiring him to go to the other who they said was concerned against him, and find out the truth of this affair.
The honest old gentleman, having sent this letter by his servant, called for something to eat; and was extremely facetious and pleasant with the officers, not doubting but that what had happened was occasioned through some mistake or other, and should immediately be discharged when the thing was enquired into: but his present good-humour was changed into one altogether the reverse, when his own lawyer, accompanied by him who was engaged for his adversary, came to him, and told him there was no remedy but to give bail; that the suit commenced against him was on account of a bond given by Lady Mellasin to Mr. Oliver Marplus, some few days previous to her marriage. It is hard to say, whether surprize or rage was most predominant in the soul of this much-injured husband, at so shocking a piece of intelligence. He demanded to see the bond; which request being granted, he found it not, as he at first flattered himself, a forgery, but signed with his wife's own hand, and witnessed by Mrs. Prinks, her woman, and another person whom he knew not.
It is certain that no confusion ever exceeded that of Mr. Goodman's at this time: he sat like one transfixed with thunder; and was wholly incapable of uttering one syllable. He appeared to the company as lost in thought; but was, indeed, almost past the power of thinking, till his lawyer roused him with these words--'Come, Sir,' said he, 'you see how the case stands; there is no time to be lost; you must either pay the money down, or get immediate security; for I suppose you would not chuse to lie here to-night.' This seasonable admonition brought him a little to himself: he now began to reflect on what it would best become him to do; and, after a pause of some moments, 'I believe,' said he, 'that I have now in my house more than the sum in bills that would discharge this bond; but I would willingly hear what this woman has to say before I pay the money, and will therefore give in bail.' Accordingly, he sent for two citizens of great worth and credit, to desire them to come to him; they instantly complied with this summons; and the whole affair being repeated to them, voluntarily offered to be his sureties.
Bail-bonds were easily procured; but it took up some time in filling them up, and discharging the fees, and other consequential expences, so that it was past one o'clock before all was over, and Mr. Goodman had liberty to return to his own habitation.
It was very seldom that Mr. Goodman staid late abroad; but whenever any thing happened that obliged him to do so, Lady Mellasin, through the great affection she pretended to have for him, would never go to bed till his return. Mrs. Prinks for the most part was her sole companion in such cases; but it so fell out, that this night neither of the two young ladies had any inclination to sleep: Miss Flora's head was full of the above-mentioned plot, and the anxiety for it's success; the remembrance of the last adventure at Miss Forward's was not yet quite dissipated in Miss Betsy; the coldness with which she imagined herself treated by her elder brother, with whom she had flattered herself of living, and being very happy under his protection, gave her a good deal of uneasiness. To add to all these matters of disquiet, she had also received that afternoon a letter from Mr. Francis Thoughtless, acquainting her, that he had the misfortune to be so much bruised by a fall he got from his horse, that it was utterly impossible for him to travel, and she must not expect him in town yet for some days.
The ladies were all together, sitting in the parlour, each chusing rather to indulge her own private meditations, than to hold discourse with the others, when Mr. Goodman came home. Lady Mellasin ran to embrace him with a shew of the greatest tenderness; 'My dear Mr. Goodman,' cried she, 'how much I have suffered from my fear lest some ill accident should have befallen you!'--'The worst that could have happened has befallen me,' replied he, thrusting her from him; 'yet no more than what you might very reasonably expect would one day or another happen.'--'What do you mean, my dear?' said she, more alarmed at his words and looks than she made shew of. 'You may too easily inform yourself what it is I mean,' cried he, hastily, 'on the retrospect of your behaviour; I now find, but too late, how much I have been imposed upon. Did you not assure me,' continued he, somewhat more mildly, 'that you were free from all incumbrances but that girl, whom, since our marriage, I have tendered as my own?' And then perceiving she answered nothing, but looked pale, and trembled, he repeated to her the affront he had received; 'Which,' said he, 'in all my dealings in the world, would never have happened, but on your account.'
Though Lady Mellasin had as much artifice, and the power of dissimulation, as any of her sex, yet she was at a loss thus taken unprepared. She hesitated, she stammered, and fain would have denied the having given any such bond; but, finding the proofs too plain against her, she threw herself at his feet, wept, and conjured him to forgive the only deception she had practised on him: 'It was a debt,' said she, 'contracted by my former husband, which I knew not of. I thought the effects he left behind him were more than sufficient to have discharged whatever obligations he lay under, and foolishly took out letters of administration. The demand of Marplus came not upon me till some time after; I then inconsiderately gave him my own bond, which he, however, promised not to put in force without previously acquainting me.'
This excuse was too weak, as well as all the affection Mr. Goodman had for her, to pacify the emotions of his just indignation. 'And pray,' cried he, in a voice divided between scorn and anger, 'of what advantage would it have been to me your being previously acquainted with it? Could you have paid the money without robbing or defrauding me? No, Madam!' continued he, 'I shall for the future give credit to nothing you can say; and as I cannot be assured that this is the only misfortune I have to dread on your account, shall consider what steps I ought to take for my defence.'
In speaking these words he rung the bell for a servant, and ordered that bed to which he had invited Mr. Thoughtless, should that instant be made ready for himself. All the tears and intreaties of Lady Mellasin were in vain to make him recede from his resolution of lying alone that night; and, as soon as he was told his orders were obeyed, he flung out of the room, saying, 'Madam, perhaps, we never more may meet between a pair of sheets!' Whether at that time he was determined to carry his resentment so far, or not, is uncertain; but what happened very shortly after left him no other part to take than that which he had threatened.
Chapter XIV
Gives a full explanation of some passages which hitherto have seemed very dark and mysterious
This was a night of great confusion in Mr. Goodman's family: Lady Mellasin either was, or pretended to be, in fits; Miss Flora was called up soon after she went to bed; but Mr. Goodman himself would not be prevailed upon to rise, though told the condition his wife was in, and that she begged with the utmost earnestness to see him.
This behaviour in a husband, lately so tender and affectionate, is a proof not only that the greatest love, once turned, degenerates into its reverse, but also that the sweetest temper, when too much provoked by injuries, is not always the most easy to be reconciled. The perfect trust he had put in Lady Mellasin, the implicit faith he had given to all she said, and the dependance he had on the love she had professed for him, made the deception she was now convicted of appear in worse colours than otherwise it would have done.
The more he reflected on this ugly affair, the more he was convinced of the hypocrisy of his wife, in whom he had placed such confidence. 'We have been married near five years,' said he to himself; 'how comes it to pass, that the penalty of this bond was not in so long a time demanded? It must be that she has kept it off by large interest and for-bearance money; and who knows how far my credit may be endangered for the raising of it? It is likely, that while I thought every thing necessary for my family was purchased with ready-money, I may stand indebted to all the tradesmen this wicked woman has had any dealings with; nay, I cannot even assure myself that other obligations of the same kind with this I have already suffered for, may not some time or other call upon me for their discharge.'
With these disturbed meditations, instead of sleep, did he pass what was remaining of the night when he went to bed; yet he rose the next day full as early as he was accustomed to do after having enjoyed the best repose.
The first thing he did was to send for as many of those tradespeople, as he either knew himself, or his servants could inform him, had at any time sent goods into his house. On their presenting themselves before him, he found, more to his vexation than surprize, (for he now expected the worst) that all of them, even to those who had supplied his kitchen, had bills of a long standing: he discharged all their several demands directly; and, having taken a receipt in full from each of them, desired they would henceforth suffer no goods to be left within his doors without the value being paid on the delivery.
Mr. Goodman had just dispatched the last of these people, when he was told a woman begged leave to speak with him: 'Another creditor, I suppose,' said he; and then ordered she should come in. As soon as she did so, 'Well, mistress,' cried he, seeing her a woman of a very plain appearance, 'what is it you require of me?'--'Nothing, Sir,' replied she; 'but that you will permit me to acquaint you with a thing which it very much concerns you to be informed of?'--'I should otherwise be an enemy to myself,' returned he; 'therefore, pray, speak what you have to say.'
'I am, Sir,' said she, 'the unfortunate wife of one of the most wicked men upon earth, and by my being so, have been compelled to be in some measure accessary to the injustice you have sustained: but, I hope, what I have to reveal will atone for my transgression.' Mr. Goodman then desired she would sit down, and without any farther prelude proceed to the business she came upon.
'The sum of what I have to relate,' rejoined she, 'is, that the bond on which you were yesterday arrested, and for the payment of which you have given security, is no more than an impudent fraud: but the particulars, that prove it such cannot but be very displeasing to you; however, I shall make no apology for relating them, as the perfect knowledge of the whole transaction may put you in a way to prevent all future injuries of the like nature.
'My husband, whose name is Oliver Marplus,' continued she, 'had the honour of waiting on a nobleman belonging to court, when Sir Solomon Mellasin had a post there: his lady, now unhappily yours, took a fancy to him, and entered into a criminal conversation with him, some time before her husband's death, and has ever since, unless very lately broke off, continued it. On my first discovering it, he begged me to be easy; and reminded me, that as he had nothing at present to depend upon, having lost his place, but her ladyship's bounty, I ought to wink at it, and be content that she should share his person, since I shared in the benefits arising from their intercourse. I knowing his temper too well not to know that any opposition I could make would be in vain, and seeing no other remedy, was obliged to feign a consent to what the love I then had for him rendered most terrible to me. Thus we went on, her ladyship still supplying him with money, for our support; till he being informed, that her marriage with you was near being consummated, he bethought himself of a strategem to prevent the change of her condition from depriving him of the continuance of her favour. It was this.
'Their private meetings were always in the Savoy, at a house of my husband's chusing for that purpose, the master of it being his intimate friend and companion. Myself, and two men, whom he made privy to the plot, and were to personate officers of justice, were to be concealed in the next room to the lovers, and as soon as we found they were in bed, burst open the door, rush in, and catch them in the very act of shame.
'All this was executed according as it was contrived; my husband jumped out of bed, pretended to struggle with the sham constables, and swore he would murder me: I acted my part, as they since told me, to the life; seemed a very fury; and said I did not care what became of me, if I was but revenged upon my rival. Lady Mellasin tore her hair, wept, and entreated me in the most abject terms to forgive, and not expose a woman of her rank to publick scorn and infamy. To which I replied, that it was not her quality should protect her! I loaded her with the most inveterate reproaches I could think of. Indeed, there required not much study for my doing so, for I heartily hated her. After some time passed in beseechings on her side, and railings on mine, one of the pretended constables took me aside, as if to persuade me to more moderation; while the other talked to her, and insinuated as if a sum of money might compromise the matter. My husband also told her, that though he detested me for what I had done, yet he wished her ladyship, for her own sake, would think of some way to pacify me; "For," said he, "a wife in these cases has great power."
'The terror she was in of appearing before a civil-magistrate, and of being liable to suffer that punishment the law inflicts upon an adultress, and consequently the loss of all her hopes of a marriage with you, Sir, made her readily agree to do any thing I should require. I seemed quite averse for a good while to listen to any terms of accommodation; but at length affected to be overcome by the persuasions of the men I brought with me, and her promise of allowing us a very handsome support as soon as she became your wife, and should have it in her power. This I made slight on; and told her, that I would not depend upon her promise for any thing. It was then proposed, that she should give a bond for a large sum of money to Mr. Marplus. "That you may do with safety," said he to her, "as I shall have it in my own hands; and, you may be assured, will never put it in force to your prejudice."
'In fine, Sir,' continued Mrs. Marplus, 'she agreed to this proposal; and, as it was then too late for the execution of what she had promised, on her making a solemn vow to fulfil it punctually the next day, I told her she was at liberty to go home that night, but that I would not withdraw the warrant I pretended to have taken out against her till all was over.
'She was, indeed, too much rejoiced at the expectation of getting off from the imaginary prosecution, to think of breaking her word: my wicked husband, however, had the success of his design more greatly at heart than to give her any long time for reflection. Accordingly, we went pretty early the next morning to her lodgings, accompanied by one of those who had assumed the character of constable, and who in reality had formerly served the parish where he still lives in that capacity, and a lawyer, previously directed to fill up the bond in the strongest and most binding terms that words could form. There was not the least demur or objection, on the part of her ladyship: she signed her name; and Mrs. Prinks, her woman, and the man we brought with us, set their hands as witnesses.
'You see, Sir,' pursued she, 'the drift of this contrivance; Lady Mellasin was the instrument, but it was you that was ordained to suffer: there was no fixed sum or sums stipulated for the support we were to receive from her; but Marplus was so continually draining her purse, that I have often been amazed by what arts she imposed on you to replenish it. Whenever she began to make any excuse for not complying with his demands, he presently threatened her with putting the bond in force against you; by which means he extorted from her almost whatever he required.
'One time in particular, he pretended to be under an arrest for three hundred pounds; and she not having so much money by her, was obliged to send Mrs. Prinks with her diamond necklace, to the pawnbroker's to make it up: yet, would you believe it, Sir, notwithstanding all he got from her ladyship, he kept me poor and mean, as you see; would not let me have a servant, but made me wash his linen, and do all his drudgery, while he strutted about the town like a fine fellow, with his toupee wig, and laced waistcoat; and, if I made the least complaint, would tell me, in derision, that, as I had no children, I had nothing else to do but to wait upon him. I bore all this, however, because I loved the villain; and, indeed, did not then know he was so great a one to me as I now find he is.
'He pretended to me that he was heartily weary of Lady Mellasin, hated her, and could no longer bear the pain of dissembling with her. "I will, therefore," said he, "demand a much larger sum of her than I know it is in her power to raise: her non-compliance will give me an excuse for compelling her husband to pay the penalty of the bond; and, when I have got the money, I will purchase an employment in some one or other of the publick offices, on which you and I may live comfortably together the remainder of our days."
'Accordingly, at his next meeting with Lady Mellasin, he told her he had a present occasion for a sum of money, and she must let him have five hundred pounds within four or five days at farthest. This, it seems, extremely alarmed her; she replied, that it was impossible for her to procure so much at once--complained that he had been too pressing upon her--and told him, that he ought not to expect she could always supply his extravagances in the manner she had lately done. High words arose between them on this account; she reproached him with the straits he had already put her to; said he must wait till money came into her hands. He swore the present exigence of his affairs required an immediate supply; that he saw no remedy but arresting you; and they parted in great anger.
'The next day he sent me to her with a letter: neither she nor Mrs. Prinks was at home, and I did not judge it proper to leave it with the servants, so carried it back again; he did not happen to ask me for it, and I never thought of returning it, which I am now very glad of, as it may serve to corroborate the truth of what I told you.'
In speaking this, she presented a paper to Mr. Goodman, which he took hastily out of her hands, and found it contained these words--
'To Lady Mellasin.
Madam,
Your excuses won't do with me. Money I must have; I know you may raise it if you will, and I am amazed you should imagine I can believe any thing you say to the contrary, when you have an old fellow who, you yourself told me, knows no end to his wealth, and that you married him only to make him my banker. Do not, therefore, offer to trifle with me any longer; for if you do, by my soul I shall put the bond in force! and then there will be an end of all love and friendship between you and him, who has been for so many years, your constant servant,
O. MARPLUS.'
'Oh! wretched woman!' cried Mr. Goodman, as soon as he had done reading, 'to how low, how contemptible a fate, has vice reduced her!' Mrs. Marplus, perceiving by his countenance the distraction of his mind, would not prosecute her discourse, till he, recovering himself a little, bid her go on, if any thing yet remained to be related of this shocking narrative.
'I have told you, Sir,' resumed she, 'the preparations, the consequence you are but too well acquainted with; I have only to assure you, that I had not discovered my husband's baseness, but with a view of your doing yourself justice: you have no occasion to pay this bond; you can prove it a fraud by the joint evidence of myself his wife, and another person no less deeply concerned in the contrivance, and is ready to make his affidavit of every particular I have recited; but then, whatsoever is done, must be done with expedition, or he will be past the reach either of you or me. I have just now learned, that, instead of purchasing an employment, as he pretended to me, he is privately preparing to go over to Holland, Brussels, or some of those places, and settle there with a young hussey, who they say is with child by him, and will leave me here to starve. His lawyer, to whom he has assigned the bond, is to advance fifteen hundred pounds upon it, on condition he has the residue of it to himself, when you shall discharge the whole. Now it is in your power, Sir, to save yourself the payment of so much money, and relive a much-injured and distressed wife, by complaining to the Court of Chancery of the imposition practised on you, and procure a ne exeat regnum to prevent his escape.'
Here she gave over speaking; and Mr. Goodman, after a short pause, replied, that he could not at that instant resolve on any thing; but added, that he would take some advice, and then let her know how far she might be serviceable to him: on which she took her leave, after giving him directions where she might be found.
Chapter XV
Shews some part of the consequences produced by the foregoing occurrence
Though Mr. Goodman very easily perceived the wife of Marplus had not made the discovery she had done through any principle of conscience, or true contrition for having been an accomplice in the base action she had revealed, but merely in revenge of a husband, who had used her ill, and was about to leave her, yet he thought it behoved him to draw all advantages he could from the knowledge of so astonishing, and so alarming a secret.
He therefore wasted no time, either in unavailing reflections on his own inconsiderateness, in marrying, at his years, a woman such as Lady Mellasin, nor in exclamations on her ingratitude and perfidiousness; but, convinced beyond a doubt of the wrongs he had sustained, bent his whole mind on doing himself justice, in as ample a manner as possible, on the aggressors.
The lawyer, to whom he had applied the day before, was not only a person who had transacted all the business he had in his way, but was also his acquaintance of a long standing, and very good friend; and it was no inconsiderable consolation, under so grievous a misfortune, that he was not at a loss whom he should consult on an affair that required the greatest integrity, as well as ability.
That gentleman, luckily for Mr. Goodman's impatience, came to enquire how he did after his last night's shock, just as he was preparing to wait on him, in order to acquaint him with the more stabbing one he had since received. This injured husband rejoiced, as much as the present unhappy circumstances of his mind would permit, at the sight of his friend; and related to him, in as brief a manner as he could, the sum of the whole story he had received from Mrs. Marplus.
'Good God!' said the lawyer, as soon as Mr. Goodman had given over speaking, 'I am confounded: but, pray, Sir, how have you resolved to do? In what way will you proceed?'--'That I must ask of you,' replied Mr. Goodman, hastily; 'you may be certain I shall not be passive in this matter. I only want to know what course I am to steer?'--'Could you consent,' cried the lawyer, after a pause, 'to be divorced from Lady Mellasin?'--'Consent!' said Mr. Goodman, with more warmth than before; 'the most terrible vexation I endure dwells in the consideration that she is still my wife! Were that name once erased, I think I should be easy.'--'I hope then soon to see you so,' said the other; 'but the first thing we have to do is to get the affidavits of the two witnesses, and then arrest Marplus. I shall order it so with his lawyer, whom I have under my thumb, on account of some malpractices I have detected him in, that he shall not dare to procure bail for this unworthy client. In a word, Sir,' continued he, 'I do not doubt, the case being so plain, but to relieve you from paying the penalty of the bond; but, in the mean time, what will you do with Lady Mellasin? It is necessary she should be removed out of the house.'--'The house is hell to me while she is in it!' said Mr. Goodman. They had some farther talk on this affair; and the manner in which Mr. Goodman was to conduct himself being settled, a footman was sent to bid Mrs. Prinks come down.
The confidant of all her lady's guilty secrets could not, now detected, behold the face of Mr. Goodman without the extremest terror and confusion: he perceived it, as she stood trembling scarce half within the door, not daring to approach. 'Come near,' said he; 'you are a servant, and below the effects of my resentment, which otherwise you might have cause to dread: I have a message to send by you to your lady; take care you deliver it in the words I give it.' On which she ventured to advance a few steps farther into the room, and he went on, with a more authoritative voice than she had ever heard him assume before, in this manner.
'Tell her,' said he, 'that for many reasons I find it wholly improper she should remain any longer under the same roof with me; desire her therefore to provide a lodging immediately for herself, and all belonging to her: you must all depart this very night, so it behoves her to be speedy in her preparations.'--'To-night, Sir!' cried Mrs. Prinks. 'I have said it,' rejoined he, fiercely: 'be gone! it is not your business to reply, but to obey.' She spoke no more, but retired with much greater haste than she had entered.
Mr. Goodman and his lawyer were pursuing their discourse on the present melancholy occasion, when the butler came in to lay the cloth for dinner. As soon as he had finished, and set all the necessary utensils on the table, Mr. Goodman ordered him to go to Miss Betsy's chamber, and desire her to come down to dinner.
That young lady had passed the morning in a very disagreeable manner: the want of repose the night before had made her lie in bed till the day was very far advanced. When she got up, good-manners, good-breeding, and even common civility, obliged her to enquire after Lady Mellasin's health; and being told that she was still in bed, the same motives induced her to pay her compliments in person. On entering the chamber, a mournful scene presented itself to her eyes: Lady Mellasin sat up, supported by her pillows, with all the tokens of despair and grief in every feature of her face; Miss Flora had thrown herself on a carpet by the bedside, her head leaning on the ruelle, and her eyes half drowned in tears; Mrs. Prinks stood at a little distance from them, pale and motionless as a statue. The approach of Miss Betsy made some alteration in their postures, and seemed to awaken them from that lethargy of silent woe: Lady Mellasin began to exclaim on the hardness of her fate, and the cruelty of Mr. Goodman; who, she said, seemed glad of a pretence to throw off that affection which she had flattered herself would have been as lasting as life; and bewailed herself in terms so tender and pathetick, that in spite of the little respect that Miss Betsy in reality had for her, and the just indignation she had for some time conceived against Miss Flora, her gentle, generous heart, was touched with the strongest emotions of pity and forgiveness.
As she was far from suspecting all the grounds Lady Mellasin had for this immoderate grief, and in her soul believing that Mr. Goodman would soon be brought to forgive both the affront and the damage his fortune had suffered on her account, she begged her ladyship would not indulge the dictates of despair, but reflect on the natural sweetness of Mr. Goodman's disposition; the great love he had for her; and, above all, his strict adherence to those principles of religion, which forbid a lasting resentment; and, in short, reminded her of every thing she could think of for her consolation.
None of them having yet breakfasted, she staid and drank coffee with them; nor would her compassionate temper have permitted her to quit them so soon as she did, if she had not been called away to a milliner, who was come with some things she had the day before ordered to be brought; and she had just dispatched this little affair, and got out of her dishabille, when she had received the above-mentioned message from Mr. Goodman.
On her coming into the parlour, where dinner was that moment serving up, 'I must request the favour of you, Miss Betsy,' said Mr. Goodman, 'to do the honours of my table today.'--'I shall do the best I can, Sir,' replied Miss Betsy modestly; 'but am very sorry for the occasion which obliges me to take upon me an office I am so little accustomed to.'--'You will be the better able to discharge it when it becomes your duty!' said Mr. Goodman, with a faint smile; 'but I believe this is the only time I shall put you to it. I have a kinswoman, who I expect will be so good as to take care of the affairs of my family henceforward.'--'O Sir!' replied Miss Betsy, with a great deal of concern, 'I hope Lady Mellasin has not for ever forfeited her place!'
Mr. Goodman was about to make some reply, when they heard the voice of that lady whom Miss Betsy had just mentioned extremely loud upon the stairs. 'I will not be used in this manner,' cried she; 'if I must go, let him tell me so himself.' On this, Mr. Goodman grew extremely red: 'Go,' said he to the footman that waited at table, 'and tell Lady Mellasin that I will not be disturbed.'--'Hold,' cried the lawyer; 'permit me, Sir, to moderate this matter.' In speaking these words, he rose hastily; and, without staying to hear what Mr. Goodman would say, ran to prevent Lady Mellasin from coming in. While he was gone, 'Yes, Miss Betsy,' said Mr. Goodman, 'you will lose your companion; Miss Flora, with her mother, leaves my house to-night.'
Miss Betsy, who had gone out of Lady Mellasin's chamber before Mrs. Prinks brought her this piece of intelligence from Mr. Goodman, was prodigiously surprized to hear him speak in this manner. 'It is a sudden turn, indeed,' pursued he; 'but the reasons which urge me to this separation will hereafter appear such as I neither could nor ought to have resisted.' Miss Betsy only replying, that he was certainly the best judge of what he did, no farther discourse happened on the subject, nor, indeed, on any other, for some moments.
At last, however, Mr. Goodman taking notice that she looked more than ordinarily serious, 'Perhaps,' said he, 'you may think my house too melancholy for you when they are gone. The relation I intend to bring home, though a perfect good woman, is pretty far advanced in years; and, I believe, receives but few visits, especially from the younger sort; but as the house I have hired for Mr. Thoughtless will be ready in a day or two, I should imagine he would be glad to have you with him till you marry: but this,' continued he, 'is at your own option; I do but mention it, because I would have you entirely easy in this point, and consider what it is will most contribute to make you so.'
Miss Betsy had only time to thank him for his goodness before the lawyer came down: that gentleman had found a more difficult talk than he had expected, in bringing Lady Mellasin to submit to the injunctions she had received from her husband; not that she had the least spark of conjugal affection for him, as the reader may very well suppose, or would have wished ever to see him more, if she could have lived without him in the same manner she did with him; but the thoughts of leaving her large and richly-appointed house--her fine side-board of plate--her coach--her equipage, and all those other ensigns of opulence and state she now enjoyed, were insupportable to her, and, having in vain essayed what a feigned penitence and tenderness could do, to work him to forgiveness, had now resolved to try the effect of a more haughty and imperious deportment. 'I will make him know I am his wife!' cried she; 'and whatever he is possessed of, I am an equal sharer in: let him not therefore think that, wherever he is master, I shall cease to be mistress.'
The lawyer then remonstrated to her, that though it were true, as she said, that she had a right to partake of his fortune, yet it was still in the power of a husband to oblige her to receive the benefit of that right in what manner, and in what place, he should think proper: he told her, Mr. Goodman was determined that she should quit his house, and that all applications made by her to the contrary would be fruitless, and exasperate him the more, and only serve to widen the unhappy breach between them. 'If Mr. Goodman,' said he, 'has no other complaint against your ladyship, than simply his paying the penalty of the bond, and, it may be, some other trifling debts, I cannot think he will, for any length of time, persevere in his present inflexibility of temper.' These arguments, and some others he made use of, enforced with all the rhetorick and art he was master of, at last convinced her, that it was best for her to yield, with a seeming willingness, to the fate it was not in her power to avoid; and she promised him to send Prinks directly to hire an apartment for her, at a house near Golden Square, with the mistress of which she had some small acquaintance.
The whole time this gentleman had been with Lady Mellasin, the meat was kept on the table, but he would not stay to eat. 'We have not a minute to lose,' said he to Mr. Goodman; 'let us go, Sir, and dispatch what we have to do.' With these words, they both went hastily out of the doors, leaving Miss Betsy in a good deal of consternation at what they were about.
Chapter XVI
Is a kind of olio, a mixture of many things, all of them very much to the purpose, though less entertaining than some others
Lady Mellasin, who little expected that her husband was made so well acquainted, or even that he had the least thought of the worst part of her behaviour towards him, was ready enough to flatter herself, both from her experience of his uncommon tenderness for her, and from what his lawyer had insinuated, in order to prevail upon her to go away with the less noise, that when this gust of passion was blown over, he would be reconciled, and consent to her return.
These imaginations made her carry it with a high hand before the servants; and as they were packing up her things, while Mrs. Prinks was gone to prepare a lodging for her--'Your master will be glad to fetch me home again,' cried she; 'poor man! he has been strangely wrong-headed of late. I suppose he will be ready to hang himself when he considers what he has done; for he may be sure I shall not very easily forgive the affront he has put upon me.'
How truly amiable is an unblemished character, and how contemptible is the reverse! Servants naturally love and respect virtue in those they live with, and seldom or ever either flatter or conceal the vices they do not greatly profit by. The airs Lady Mellasin gave herself on this occasion, were so far from making them believe her innocent, or their master blameable, that, as soon as they had gone out of her sight, they only turned her pride, and the fall it was going to sustain, into ridicule and grimace.
Miss Betsy, however, could not see them depart in this manner, without feeling a very deep concern: their misfortunes obliterated all the resentment she had at any time conceived against them; and she had never before been more angry, even with Miss Flora, for the treachery she had been guilty of to her, than she was now grieved at the sight of her humiliation.
She was sitting alone, and full of very serious reflections on this sudden change in the family, when her brother Thoughtless came in: she was glad of the opportunity of sounding his inclinations as to her living with him, and now resolved to do it effectually: she began with telling him the whole story of Lady Mellasin's and Miss Flora's removal; and then complained how dully she should pass the time with only Mr. Goodman, and an old gentlewoman who was to come to be his housekeeper. 'I thought you were about marrying,' said he; 'and expected, from what Mr. Goodman wrote to me, that my first compliment to you, on my arrival, would have been to have wished you joy.--You are not broke off with the gentleman, are you?'
The careless air with which he spoke these words, stung Miss Betsy to the quick; she took no notice, however, how much she was piqued at them, but replied, that the whole affair was mere suggestion; that it was true, indeed, she had for some time received the addresses of a gentleman recommended by her brother Frank; that he, and some other of her friends, were very much for the match, and she supposed had spoke of it as a thing concluded on, because they wished it to be so: but, for her own part, she never had as yet entertained one serious thought about the matter; and, at present, was far from having any disposition to become a wife; 'So that,' continued she, 'if I am doomed to stay in Mr. Goodman's house, till I am relieved that way, it is very probable I may be moped to death, and married to my grave.'
'Where is the necessity for that?' said he. 'Are there not places enough in town, where you may find good company to board or lodge with?'--'Doubtless there are many such, Sir,' replied she, with some spirit; 'and if I am so unhappy as not to have any friend so kind to make me an invitation, shall be obliged to seek an asylum amongst strangers.'
Mr. Thoughtless looked a little confounded at these words: he had seen, from the beginning of her discourse, the aim to which it tended; and, as he had his own reasons for not complying with her desire, would not seem to understand her; but she now spoke too plain, and he was somewhat at a loss what answer to make, so as not to give her any cause of accusing his want of affection, and at the same time put her off from expecting he would agree to what she would have him, in this point; when, fortunately for his relief, a letter, just brought by the post, was presented to Miss Betsy. 'From L----e!' said she, as soon as she took it into her hand. 'From brother Frank, then, I suppose?' cried he. 'No,' answered she, 'from Lady Trusty; you will excuse me, brother, while I look over the contents.' She broke it open while she was speaking, and read to herself as follows.
'To Miss Betsy Thoughtless.
My dear Miss Betsy,
Sir Ralph received yesterday a letter from Mr. Thoughtless, dated Calais, the third instant; so I doubt not but by this time I may congratulate you on his safe arrival in London: but I am sorry to acquaint you, that while you were embracing one brother, you were in very great danger of losing another; but do not be too much alarmed, I hope the worst is past. I believe he gave you an account himself, that, by an unlucky fall from his horse, he was prevented from going to London so soon as he had designed; but the mischief done him by this accident was much greater than he imagined at the time of his writing to you. What he took only for a common bruise, proved to be a contusion; and, for want of proper care at first, through the outrageousness of the pain, soon brought on a fever: for two whole days we were in the utmost apprehensions for his life; but now, thanks to the Author of all mercies, we are assured by the physician that attends him, and who is esteemed the most skilful this county affords, that he is in a fair way of doing well. His delirium has quite left him; and he has recovered the use of his reason so far as to entreat I would send the warmest wishes of his heart to you, and to desire you will make the same acceptable to his dear brother, if you are yet so happy as to see him: he also enjoins you to pay his compliments to Mr. Trueworth, in such words as are befitting the friendship you know he has for him. I have much to say to you from myself, on the score of that gentleman, and should be glad to add to the advice I have already given you, but am deprived of that satisfaction by the arrival of some company, who are come to pass a week or fortnight with us; therefore must defer what I have to say till another opportunity. Farewel! may Heaven keep you under it's protection, and your guardian-angel never fail his charge! Be assured, that though I do not write so long, nor so often to you, as I could wish, I am always, with the greatest sincerity, my dear Miss Betsy, your very affectionate friend, and humble servant,
M. TRUSTY.
P.S. I wrote the above this morning, because one of our men was to have gone pretty early to town; but Sir Ralph having some letters of his own, which were not then ready, detained him; and I have now the pleasure to tell you, that the doctor, who is this moment come from your brother's chamber, assures me that he has found him wonderfully mended since his visit to him last night. Once more, my dear, adieu.'
Mr. Thoughtless, perceiving some tears in the eyes of Miss Betsy while she was reading, cried out, 'What is the matter, sister? I hope no ill news from the country!'--'Be pleased to read that, Sir,' said she, giving him the letter, 'and see if I had not cause to be affected with some part of it.'
'Poor Frank!' said he, as soon as he had done reading, 'I am sorry for the accident that has happened to him; but more glad it is like to be attended with no worse consequences. Do not be melancholy, my dear sister; you find he is in a fair way of recovery, and I hope we shall soon have him with us. I long very much to see him,' continued he; 'and the more so, as I have spoke in his behalf to a general officer whom I contracted an intimacy with at Paris, and who has promised me all the service he can in procuring him a commission.'
They had some farther talk on family affairs; after which he told her he was troubled to leave her alone, but was obliged to return to some company he had made an elopement from when he came there. At parting, he saluted her with a great deal of affection--desired she would be chearful--and said, he dare believe she had too much merit ever to have any real cause to be otherwise.
This tenderness very much exhilarated her drooping spirits: she entertained fresh hopes of being in the house with a brother, who, she found, designed to live in the most elegant and polite manner, which was what she had at present the most at heart of any thing in the world. She now began to fancy he did not propose it to her, either because he did not think she would approve of it, or because he feared, that to testify any desire of removing her might offend Mr. Goodman, as she had boarded with him ever since she came to town; she, therefore, resolved to desire the favour of that gentleman to mention it to him, as of his own accord, and let her know what answer he should make. This idea gave her some pleasure for a while; but it was as soon dissipated: the thoughts of her brother Frank's misfortune, and the danger she could not be sure he was yet perfectly recovered from, came again into her mind; but this also vanished, on remembering the hopes Lady Trusty had given her: yet still she was discontented, though she knew not well at what. In fine, she was so little accustomed to reflect much on any thing, much less to be alone, that it became extremely irksome to her. 'What a wilderness is this house!' cried she to herself. 'What a frightful solitude! One would think all the world knew Lady Mellasin and Miss Flora were gone, that nobody comes near the door. How still! how quiet, is every thing!' Then would she start up from her chair, measure how many paces were in the room--look at one picture, then on another--then on her own resemblance in the great glass. But all this would not do; she wanted somebody to talk to--something new to amuse her with. 'I wonder,' said she, 'what is become of Trueworth!--I have not seen him these three days. Indeed, I used him a little ill at our last conversation: but what of that? If he loves me as well as he professes, he will not, sure, pretend to be affronted at any thing I do. My brother desires me to give his compliments; but if the man will not come to receive them, it is none of my fault. Yet, after all,' continued she, having paused a little, 'what privilege has our sex to insult and tyrannize over the men? It is certainly both ungenerous and ungrateful to use them the worse, for using us, perhaps, better than we deserve. Mr. Trueworth is a man of sense; and, if I were in his place, I would not take such treatment from any woman in the world. I could not much blame him if he never saw me more. Well--when next he comes, I will, however, behave to him with more respect.'
Thus did the dictates of a truly reasonable woman, and the idle humour of a vain coquette, prevail by turns over her fluctuating mind. Her adventure at Miss Forward's came fresh into her head: she was in some moments angry with Mr. Trueworth for offering his advice; in others, more angry with herself, for not having taken it. She remained in this perplexity till a servant, finding it grew late, and that his master did not sup at home, came in, and asked her if she would not please to have the cloth laid; to which she answered, with all her heart: on which, the table being immediately spread, she eat of something that was there, and soon after went to bed; where, it is probable, she lost in sleep both all the pleasure and the pain of her past meditations.
Mr. Goodman was all this while, as well as for several succeeding days also, busily employed on an affair no less disagreeable to him than it was new to him; but, by the diligence and adroitness of his lawyer, he got the affidavits, the warrant, and everything necessary for the intended prosecution of Marplus and Lady Mellasin, ready much sooner than many others would have done, or he himself had expected.
The fatigue and perplexity he was under, was, indeed, very great, as may be easily supposed; yet did it not render him neglectful of Miss Betsy. She had desired him to speak to her brother on her account, and he did so the first opportunity; not as if the thing had been mentioned by her, but as if he, in the present situation of his family, thought her removal expedient.
Mr. Thoughtless, from what his sister had said, expecting he should one time or other be spoke more plainly to upon that subject, had prepared himself with an answer. He told Mr. Goodman, that nothing could have been more satisfactory to him than to have his sister with him, if her being so were any ways proper. Said he, 'As I am a single man, I shall have a crowd of gay young fellows continually coming to my house; and I cannot answer that all of them would be able to behave with that strict decorum, which I should wish to see always observed towards a person so near to me. Her presence, perhaps, might be some check upon them, and theirs no less disagreeable to her. In fine, Mr. Goodman,' continued he, 'it is a thing wholly inconsistent with that freedom I propose to live in, and would not have her think on it.'
It was not that this gentleman wanted natural affection for his sister, that he refused what he was sensible she so much desired; but he was at present so circumstanced, that, to have complied, would, under a shew of kindness, have done her a real injury. He had brought with him a young and very beautiful mistress from Paris, of whom he was fond, and jealous to that extravagant degree, that he could scarce suffer her a moment from his sight: he had promised her the sole command of his house and servants, and that she should appear as his wife in all respects except the name. How could he, therefore, bring home a sister, who had a right to, and doubtless would have claimed, all those privileges another was already in possession of! And how would it have agreed with the character of a virtuous young lady, to have lived in the same house with a woman kept by her brother as his mistress!
But this was a secret Miss Betsy was as yet wholly unacquainted with; and when Mr. Goodman repeated to her what had passed between them on her score, and the excuse her brother had made for not complying with the proposal, she thought it so weak, and withal so unkind, that she could not forbear bursting into tears. The good-natured old gentleman could not see her thus afflicted without being extremely concerned, and saying many kind things to pacify her. 'Do not weep,' said he; 'I will make it my business, nay my study, to procure some place where you may be boarded to your satisfaction.'--'I beg, Sir, that you will not mistake my meaning. I do assure you, Sir, I am not wanting in sensibility of your goodness to all our family, and to me in particular. I must, indeed, be strangely stupid not to think myself happy under the protection of a gentleman of so humane and benign a disposition. No, Sir, be persuaded there is no house in London, except that of an own brother, I would prefer to yours. I will, therefore, with your permission, continue here; nor entertain the least thought of removing, unless some accident, yet unforeseen, obliges me to it.'
Mr. Goodman then told her, that he should be glad she would always do what was most for her own ease. This was all the discourse they had upon this head; and when Miss Betsy began to consider seriously on the behaviour of Lady Mellasin and Miss Flora, she found there was little reason for her to regret the loss of their society; nor that she ought to think Mr. Goodman's house less agreeable for their being out of it. She received all such as she approved of, who had come to visit them, and by doing so, were acquainted with her; and as to those who still visited herself in particular, it was the same as ever. Mr. Goodman's kinswoman, now his housekeeper, was a well-bred, accomplished woman, and a chearful, agreeable companion. She seemed studious to oblige her: all the servants were ready to do every thing she desired; and it would have been difficult for her to have found any place where she could have been better accommodated, or have had more cause to be contented; and she would doubtless have thought herself more happy than she had ever been since her coming to Mr. Goodman's, if other things, of a different nature, had not given her some unquiet moments.
But, besides the unkindness of one brother, on whom she had built the most pleasing hopes, and the indisposition of another, for whom she had a very great affection, the late behaviour of Mr. Trueworth gave her much matter of mortification. She had not seen him for upwards of a week: she imputed this absence to the rebuff she had given him at his last visit; and, though she could not avoid confessing in her heart that she had treated him neither as a gentleman nor a friend, yet her vanity having suggested, that he was capable of resenting any thing she did, received a prodigious shock by the disappointment it now sustained.
Chapter XVII
Contains only such things as the reader might reasonably expect to have been informed of before
It was the fate of Miss Betsy to attract a great number of admirers; but never to keep alive, for any length of time, the flame she had inspired them with. Whether this was owing to the inconstancy of the addressers, or the ill-conduct of the person addressed, cannot absolutely be determined; but it is highly probable that both these motives might sometimes concur to the losing her so many conquests. Mr. Trueworth had been the most assiduous, and also the most persevering, of all that had ever yet wore her chains. His love had compelled his judgment to pay an implicit obedience to her will; he had submitted to humour all the little extravagances of her temper, and affected to appear easy at what his reason could not but disapprove. He had flattered himself, that all that was blame-worthy in her would wear off by degrees, and that every error would be her last, till a long succession of repeated inadvertences made him first begin to fear, and then to be convinced, that however innocent she might be in fact, her manner of behaviour would ill suit with the character he wished should always be maintained by the woman he had made choice of for a wife.
His meeting her at Miss Forward's--her obstinately persisting in going to the play with that abandoned creature, after the remonstrances he had made her on that score--her returning home so late, and in disorder, conducted by a stranger--in fine, what he saw himself, and had been told, concerning the proceedings of that night, gave the finishing stroke to all his hopes, that she would ever, at least, while youth and beauty lasted, be brought to a just sensibility of the manner in which she ought to act.
If the letter, contrived and sent by the mischievous Miss Flora, had reached his hand but two days sooner, it would have had no other effect upon him than to make him spurn the invective scroll beneath his feet, and wish to serve the author in the same manner: but poor Miss Betsy had, by her own mismanagement, prepared his heart to receive any impressions to her prejudice; yet was the scandal it contained of so gross a kind, that he could not presently give into the belief of it: 'Good God!' he cried, 'it is impossible! If she has so little sense of honour or reputation, as the lightness of her behaviour makes some people too ready to imagine, her very pride is sufficient to secure her virtue: she would not, could not, condescend to the embraces of a man who thought so meanly of her as to attempt the gaining her on any other score than that of marriage! And yet,' pursued he, after a pause, 'who knows but that very pride, which seems to be her defence, may have contributed to her fall? She has vanity enough to imagine she may act with impunity what she would condemn in others. She might fancy, as the poet says--
"That faultless form could act no crime, But Heav'n, on looking on it, must forgive."
'Why then,' continued he, 'should the foolish remains of the tenderness I once had for her, make me still hesitate to believe her guilty? No, no! the account before me has too much the face of truth; it is too circumstantial to be the work of mere invention. No one would forge a lie, and at the same time present the means of detecting it to be so. Here is the village specified, the nurse's name, and a particular direction how I may convince myself of the shameful truth. There is no room to doubt!'
To strengthen the opinion he now had of her guilt, the words Miss Flora had said to him, returned to his remembrance--that there was a time when Miss Betsy had trusted her with her dearest secrets.--'Her dearest secrets!' cried he: 'what secrets can a virtuous young lady have, that shun the light, and require so much fidelity in the concealment of? No, no! it must be this Miss Flora meant by that emphatick expression. The other could not hide the consequence of her shameful passion from the family; Lady Mellasin and Miss Flora must know it, and perhaps many more; who, while they were witnesses of the respect I paid her, laughed at the folly of my fond credulity.'
Thus at some times did he believe her no less guilty than the letter said; but, at others, sentiments of a different nature prevailed, and pleaded in her favour; her adventure with the gentleman-commoner at Oxford came into his head: 'If the too great gaiety of her temper,' said he, 'led her into danger, she then had courage and virtue to extricate herself out of it.' He also recollected several expressions she had casually let fall, testifying her disdain and abhorrence of every thing that had the least appearance of indecency: but then relapsing into his former doubts, 'Yet who,' cried he again, 'can account for accident? she might, in one unguarded moment, grant what, in another, she would blush to think of.'
How terrible is the situation of a lover who endeavours all he can to reconcile his reason to his passion, yet to which side soever he bends his thoughts, finds in them things so diametrically opposite and incompatible, that either the one or the other must be totally renounced! Willing, therefore, to take the party which would best become his honour and reputation, Mr. Trueworth resolved to banish from his mind all the ideas of those amiable qualities he had admired in Miss Betsy, and remember only those which gave him occasion for disgust.
But this was a task not so easy to be accomplished as he imagined; for though the irregularity of Miss Betsy's conduct was of itself sufficient to deter him from a marriage with her, yet he found he stood in need of all helps to enable him to drive that once so pleasing object entirely from his mind.
To be therefore more fully confirmed how utterly unworthy she was of his regard, than could be made by this anonymous accusation, he went in person down to Denham; where, following the directions given him in the letter, the cottage where Goody Bushman lived was presently pointed out to him by the first person he enquired of. 'So far, at least,' said he to himself, 'the letter-writer has told truth.' He then sent his servants with his horses to wait his return at a publick-house in the village, and walked towards the place he came in search of.
He found the honest countrywoman holding a child in her arms on one side of the fire, two rosy boys were sitting opposite to her, with each a great piece of bread and butter in his hand. At sight of a strange gentleman she got off her seat; and, dropping a low curtsey, cried, 'Do you please to want my husband, Sir?'--'No,' said Mr. Trueworth; 'my business is with you, if you are Mrs. Bushman.'--'Goody Bushman, an't please you, Sir,' replied she. And then, bidding the boys get farther from the chimney, reached him the handsomest joint-stool her cottage afforded, for him to sit down.
He told her that he had a kinswoman, who had some thoughts of putting a child to nurse in the country; that she had been recommended: 'But,' said he, 'can we have nothing to drink together? What sort of liquor does this part of the world afford?'--'Alack, Sir,' replied she, 'you fine gentlemen, mayhap, may like nothing but wine; and there is none to be had any nearer than Uxbridge.'--'Nor cyder!' cried he. 'I am afraid none good,' replied she; 'but there is pure good ale down the lane, if your honour could drink that.'--'It is all one to me,' said Mr. Trueworth, 'if you like it yourself.' Then turning to him who seemed the eldest of the two boys, 'I suppose, my lad,' continued he, 'you can procure a tankard of this same ale.'--'Yes, Sir,' cried his mother, hastily--'Go to Philpot's, and bid them send a can of their best ale; and, do you hear, desire my dame to draw it herself.'--Mr. Trueworth then gave the boy some money, and he went on his errand, prudently taking with him a large slice of bread that happened to lay upon the dresser.
'That is a fine child you have in your lap,' said Mr. Trueworth; 'is it your own?'--'No,' answered she, 'this is a young Londoner.'--'Some wealthy citizen's, I suppose,' rejoined he. 'No, by my truly, Sir!' said she; 'it has neither father nor mother, and belike must have gone to the parish, if a good sweet young lady had not taken pity of it, and given it to me to nurse; and, would you think it, Sir, is as kind to it, and pays as punctually for it, as if it were her own. My husband goes up to London every month to receive the money, and she never lets him come home without it, and gives him over and above sixpence or a shilling to drink upon the road: poor man, he loves a sup of good ale dearly, that's all his fault, though I cannot say he ever neglects his business; he is up early and down late, and does a power of work for a little money. Sir Roger Hill will employ nobody but him; and, good reason, because he makes him take whatever he pleases, and that is little enough, God knows; for he is a hard man: and if it were not for my nursing, we could not make both ends meet, as the saying is; but he is our landlord, and we dare not disoblige him.'
This innocent countrywoman would probably have run on with the whole detail of her family affairs, if Mr. Trueworth, desirous of turning the tide of her communicative disposition into a channel more satisfactory to his curiosity, had not interrupted her.
'This is a very extraordinary charity you have been telling me of,' said he, 'especially in a young lady: she must certainly be somewhat of kin to the child.'--'None in the varsal world, Sir,' answered she, 'only her godmother.' The boy now bringing in the ale, Mr. Trueworth was obliged to taste it, and testify some sort of approbation, as the good woman had praised it so much; but he made her drink a hearty draught of it; after which, 'And pray,' resumed he, 'what is the name of the child?'--'O, Sir!' replied she, 'the lady has given it her own name, Betsy; she is called Miss Betsy Thoughtless herself, though she is a woman grown, and might have had a child or two of her own; but you know, Sir, they are all called Miss till they are married.'
Mr. Trueworth, in the present disturbance of his thoughts, making no reply, she went on: 'She is a sweet young lady, I can tell you, Sir,' said she; 'I never saw her but once, and that was when I went to fetch the child; she used me with so much familiarity, not a bit proud, charged me to take care of her little Betsy, and told me, if she lived, I should keep her till she was big enough to go to school, and told me she would have her learn to write and read, and work, and then she would put her apprentice to a mantua-maker, or a milliner, or some such pretty trade; and then, who knows, Sir,' continued she, holding up the child at arms-length, and dancing it, 'but some great gentleman or other may fall in love with my little Betsy, and I may live to see her ride in her coach? I warrant she will make much of her old nurse.'
'There are many strange things happen in the world, indeed!' said Mr. Trueworth, with a sigh. After which, thinking there was no farther discovery to be made, he rose up to go away; but seeing the change of the money he had sent by the boy for the beer, lay upon the table, he gave it to him, saying, 'Here, my good boy, take this, and divide it with your brother, to buy apples.' Then turning to the nurse, took his leave of her with this compliment, 'Well, Mrs. Bushman, I believe you are a very honest careful woman, and shall not fail to remember you whenever it comes in my way. In the mean time,' added he, putting a crown piece into her hands, 'take this, and make merry with your husband.' The poor woman was so transported, that she knew not how to thank him sufficiently; she made twenty curtsies, crying, 'Heavens bless you, Sir; you are a right noble gentleman, I am sure. Marry, such guests come not every day!' And with such like expressions of gratitude, followed him till he was quite out of hearing.
What now could this enquiring lover think? Where was the least room for any conjecture in favour of Miss Betsy's innocence, to gain entrance into his breast? He had seen the child, had heard by whom, and in what manner it was delivered: the charge given with it, and the promises made for its future protection; and whether the nurse was really so weak as to be imposed upon by this pretence of charity, or whether bribed to impose it upon others, the facts, as related in the letter, appeared to be so plain, from every circumstance, as to admit no possibility of a doubt.
A marriage with Miss Betsy was, therefore, now quite out of the question with him: the manner of entirely breaking off with her, was the only thing that puzzled him. Loth was he to reproach her with the cause, and equally loth to be deemed so inconstant as to quit her without a justifiable one. He remained in this dilemma for the space of two days, at the expiration of which, after much debating with himself, he wrote, and sent to her, by a servant, the following epistle.
'To Miss Betsy Thoughtless.
Madam,
The very ill success I have met with, in the only business which brought me to this town, has determined me to quit it with all possible expedition, and not to think of a return, till I find myself in a disposition more capable of relishing its pleasures. You have given me, Madam, too many instances how little agreeable my presence has ever been, not to convince me, that I stand in no need of an apology for not waiting on you in person, and that this distant way of taking my leave will be less unwelcome to you than a visit, which perhaps would only have interrupted your more gay amusements, and broke in, for some moments, on that round of pleasures, with which you are perpetually encompassed. May you long enjoy all the felicities the manner you chuse to live in can bestow, while I retire to solitude, and, lost in contemplation on some late astonishing occurrences, cry out with the poet--
"There is no wonder, or else all is wonder."
'If I speak in riddles, a very small retrospect on some remarkable passages in your own conduct, will serve for the solution; but that might probably be imposing on yourself too great a task. I shall therefore trouble you no farther than to assure you, that though I cease to see you, I shall never cease to be, with the most friendly wishes, Madam, your very humble servant,
C. TRUEWORTH.'
Mr. Trueworth having dispatched this letter, which he doubted not but would finish all his concerns with Miss Betsy, thought he had nothing more to do than to take leave of the friends he had in town, and retire to his seat in the country, and there endeavour to lose the remembrance of all that had been displeasing to him since he left it.
Chapter XVIII
Is of very small importance, yet contains such things as the reader may expect to hear
While Mr. Trueworth was employing himself in exploring the truth of Miss Betsy's imaginary crime, and hunting after secrets to render her more unworthy of his love, that young lady's head was no less taken up with him, though in a widely different manner; she wanted not a just sense of the merits, both of his person and passion; and though a plurality of lovers, the power of flattering the timid with vain hopes, and awing the proudest into submission, seemed to her a greater triumph than to be the wife of the most deserving man on earth, yet when she consulted her heart, she found, and avowed within herself, she could part with the triumph with less reluctance in favour of Mr. Trueworth than of any other she yet had seen.
His absence, therefore, and the strange neglect he testified in not sending to acquaint her with the cause, gave her as much inquietude as a person of her humour could be capable of feeling; but whether it proceeded in reality from the first shootings of a growing inclination, or from that vanity which made her dread the loss of so accomplished a lover, cannot be easily determined: but to which soever of these causes it was owing, I think we may be pretty certain, that had he visited her in the situation her mind then was, he would have had no reason to complain of his reception.
She never went abroad without flattering herself with the expectation of hearing, on her return home, that he had been there, or at least that some letter or message from him had been left for her; and every disappointment involved her in fresh perplexity. In short, if she had considered him with half that just regard, while he continued to think her worthy of his affections, as she was beginning to do when he was endeavouring to drive all favourable ideas of her from his mind, they might both have been as happy as at present they were the contrary.
She had been with Miss Mabel, and two other ladies of her acquaintance, to see that excellent comedy, called the Careless Husband: she was very much affected with some scenes in it; she imagined she saw herself in the character of Lady Betty Modish, and Mr. Trueworth in that of Lord Morelove; and came home full of the most serious reflections on the folly of indulging an idle vanity, at the expence of a man of honour and sincerity. She was no sooner within the doors, than the letter above-mentioned was put into her hands: as they told her it had been left for her in the beginning of the evening, by one of Mr. Trueworth's servants, and she knew, both by the superscription, and device on the seal, that it came from that gentleman, she ran hastily up stairs to her chamber, in order to examine the contents; but what flutterings seized her heart--what an universal agitation diffused itself through all her frame, on reading even the first lines of this cruel epistle! 'Good Heaven!' cried she, 'going out of town, not to return!' And then, proceeding a little farther; 'What,' added she, 'not see me before he goes! Sure the man is either mad, or I am in a dream.'
Surprize, and some mixture of a tender remorse, were the first emotions of her soul: but when she came to that part of the letter which seemed to reflect upon her conduct, and the way in which she chose to live, her native haughtiness re-assumed it's former power, and turned her all into disdain and rage. 'No retrospect,' said she, 'on my own behaviour, can ever justify the audacious reproaches he treats me with. If I have been to blame, it is not his province to upbraid me with it.'
As she was entirely ignorant of the base artifice that had been put in practice against her, and was conscious of no fault Mr. Trueworth had to accuse her of, but that of her going with Miss Forward to the play, after the warning he had given her of the danger, it must be confessed, she had a right to think the provocation too slight to draw from him such resentful expressions, much less to induce him to abandon her.
'Ungrateful man!' said she, bursting into tears of mingled grief and spite, 'to treat me thus, when I was just beginning to entertain the kindest thoughts of him! When I was ready to acknowledge the error I was guilty of, in not following his advice, and had resolved never to throw myself into such inconveniences again. 'Tis plain he never loved me, or he would not have taken so poor, so trifling, a pretence to break with me.'
Thus, for some moments, did she bewail, as it were, the ill-treatment she thought she had received from him. Then looking over the letter again, 'With what a magisterial air,' cried she, 'with what an affectation of superiority, does he conclude! "With the most friendly wishes, my humble servant!" Good lack! friendly! Let him carry his friendly wishes to those he may think will receive them as a favour!'
Upon revolving in her mind all the circumstances of her behaviour towards Mr. Trueworth, she could find nothing, except what passed at his last visit, that could give him any occasion of disgust, and even that she looked upon as a very insufficient plea for that high resentment he now expressed, much more for his resolving to throw off a passion he had a thousand and a thousand times vowed should be as lasting as his life.
The anonymous letter sent her by Miss Flora, some time since, now came fresh into her head; that passage in it which insinuated that Mr. Trueworth had no real design of marrying her, that he but trifled with her, and on the arrival of her brothers would find some pretence or other to break entirely with her, seemed now to tally exactly with his present manner of proceeding. 'The devil,' said she, 'may sometimes speak truth; Mr. Trueworth has but too well verified the words of that malicious girl; and what she herself then thought a falsehood is now confirmed by fact: yet, wherefore,' cried she, 'did he take all this pains; if he never loved me, never hoped any recompense for his dissimulation, what end could he propose by practicing it? What advantage, what pleasure, could it give him to affront the sister of his friend, and impose upon the credulity of a woman he had no design upon?' It would be endless to repeat the many contradictory surmizes which rose alternately in her distracted mind; so I shall only say, she sought, but the more she did so, the more she became incapable of fathoming, the bottom of this mysterious event.
The butler was laying the cloth in the parlour for supper when she came home; Mr. Goodman had waited for her some time, thinking she might be undressing, and now sent to desire she would come down: but she begged to be excused, said she could not eat, and then called for Nanny, who was the maid that usually attended her in her chamber, to come up and put her to bed.
This prating wench, who would always know the whole secrets of every body in the family, whether they thought fit to entrust her with them or not, used frequently to divert Miss Betsy with her idle stories: but it was not now in her power, that young lady had no attention for any thing but the object of her present meditations; which the other not happening to hit upon, was answered only with peevishness and ill-humour.
But as every little circumstance, if any was adapted to the passion we at that time are possessed of, touches upon the jarring string, and seems a missionary from fate, an accident, the most trifling that can be imagined, served to renew in Miss Betsy, the next morning, those anxieties which sleep had in some measure abated.
A ballad singer happening to be in the street, the first thing she heard, on her waking, was these words, sung in a sonorous voice, just under the window--
'Young Philander woo'd me long, I was peevish, and forbade him; I would not hear his charming song; But now I wish, I wish I had him!'
Though this was a song at that time much in vogue, and Miss Betsy had casually heard it an hundred times; yet, in the humour she now was, it beat an alarm upon her heart. It reminded her how inconsiderate she had been, and shewed the folly of not knowing how to place a just value on any thing, till it was lost, in such strong colours before her eyes, as one could scarce think it possible an incident in itself so merely bagatelle could have produced.
Again she fell into very deep reveries; and, divesting herself of all passion, pride, and the prejudice her vanity had but too much inspired her with, she found, that though Mr. Trueworth had carried his resentment farther than became a man who loved to that degree he pretended to have done; yet she could no way justify herself to her brother Frank, Lady Trusty or any of those friends who had espoused his cause, for having given him the provocation.
To heighten the splenetick humour she was in, Mr. Goodman, who, having been taken up with his own affairs, had not mentioned Mr. Trueworth to her for some days, happened this morning, as they sat at breakfast, to ask her how the courtship of that gentleman went on, and whether there was like to be a wedding or not. Perceiving she blushed, hung down her head, and made no answer, 'Nay, nay,' said he, 'I told you long ago I would not interfere in these matters; and have less reason now than ever to do so, as your eldest brother is in town, and who is doubtless capable of advising you for the best.' Miss Betsy was in a good deal of confusion; she knew not as yet whether it would be proper for her to acquaint Mr. Goodman with what had passed between Mr. Trueworth and herself, or to be silent on that head, till she should see what a little time might bring about. As she was thinking in what manner she should reply, Mr. Goodman's lawyer, luckily for her relief, came in, and put an end to a discourse which, in the present situation of her mind, she was very unfit to bear a part in.
But, as if this was to be a day of continued admonitions to Miss Betsy, she was no sooner dressed, and ready to quit her chamber, than she heard Miss Mabel's voice upon the stairs. As that young lady was not accustomed to make her any morning visits, she was a little surprized; she ran, however, to meet her, saying, 'This is a favour I did not expect, and therefore have the more cause to thank you.'--'I do not know,' replied the other, as she entered the room, 'whether you will think I deserve thanks or no, when you hear the business that brought me; for I assure you I am come only to chide you.'--'I think,' said Miss Betsy, with a sigh, 'that all the world takes the liberty of doing so with me! but, pray, my dear,' continued she, 'how am I so unhappy as to deserve it from you?'
'Why, you must know,' replied Miss Mabel, 'that I have taken upon me to be the champion of distressed love; you have broken a fine gentleman's heart, and I am come to tell you, that you must either make it whole again, as it was before he saw you, or repair the damage he has sustained by giving him your own.'--'I plead Not Guilty,' said Miss Betsy, in a tone more sprightly than before: 'but, pray, who has gained so great an influence over you, as to send you on so doughty an errand?'--'No, my dear, you are quite mistaken in the matter,' replied the other; 'I assure you I am not sent--I am only led by my own generosity, and the sight of poor Mr. Trueworth's despair.'--'Trueworth!' cried Miss Betsy hastily; 'What do you mean?'--'I mean,' replied the other, 'to engage you, if the little rhetorick I am mistress of can prevail on you to consider, that while we use a man of sense and honour ill, we do ourselves a real injury. The love our beauty has inspired, may, for a time, secure our power; but it will grow weaker by degrees, and every little coquette-air we give ourselves, lessen the value of our charms. I know there is at present some very great brulée between you and Mr. Trueworth: he is a match every way deserving of you; he has the approbation of all your friends; and, I have heard you acknowledge, you are not insensible of his merit. To what end, then, do you study to perplex and give unnecessary pains to a heart, which you, according to all appearances, will one day take a pride in rendering happy?'
'This is an extreme fine harangue, indeed!' replied Miss Betsy; 'but I would fain know for what reason it is directed to me. If Mr. Trueworth imagines I have used him ill, I think it no proof of his understanding, to make a proclamation of it; but, for Heaven's sake! how came you to be the confidante of his complaints?'
'Indeed, I have not that honour,' said Miss Mabel: 'finding myself a little ill this morning, I thought the air would do me good; so went into the Park, taking only a little girl with me, who lives next door, because I would not go quite alone. Being in the deshabille you see, I crossed the grass, and was passing towards the back of the Bird Cage Walk, where who should I see among the trees but Mr. Trueworth, if I may call the object that then presented itself to me by that name; for, indeed, Miss Betsy, the poor gentleman seems no more than the shadow of himself. He saw me at a distance, and I believe would have avoided me; but, perceiving my eyes were upon him, cleared his countenance as well as he was able, and accosted me with the usual salutations of the morning. "It is somewhat surprizing, Madam," said he, with an air of as much gallantry as he could assume, "to find a lady so justly entitled to the admiration of the world, as Miss Mabel is, shun the gay company of the Mall, and chuse an unfrequented walk, like this!"--"I might retort the same exclamation of surprize," replied I, "at so unexpectedly meeting with Mr. Trueworth here."
'After this, as you know, my dear,' continued she, 'I have lately, on your account, had the pleasure pretty often of Mr. Trueworth's company; I took the liberty to ask him where he had buried himself, that I had not seen him for so many days: to which he answered, not without a confusion, which I saw he attempted, though in vain, to conceal from me--"Yes, Madam, I have indeed been buried from all pleasure, have been swallowed up in affairs little less tormenting than those of the grave: but," added he, "they are now over, and I am preparing to return to my country seat, where I hope to re-enjoy that tranquillity which, since my leaving it, has been pretty much disturbed."
'Nothing could equal my astonishment at hearing him speak in this manner: "To your country-seat!" cried I; "not to continue there for any long time?"--"I know not as yet, Madam," replied he; and then, after a pause, "perhaps for ever!" added he. "Bless me," said I, "this is strange, indeed! Miss Betsy did not tell me a word of it; and I saw her but last night."--"She might not then know it, Madam," answered he: "but, if she had, I am not vain enough to imagine, she would think a trifle, such as my departure, worth the pains of mentioning."
'I then,' pursued Miss Mabel, 'endeavoured to rally him out of this humour. After having told him I had a better opinion of your understanding and generosity, than to be capable of believing you thought so lightly of his friendship and affection, I added, that this was only some little pique between you, some jealous whim: but he replied to all I said on this subject with a very grave air, pretended business, and took his leave somewhat abruptly for a man of that politeness I had till now always observed in him.'
'He carries it off with a high hand, indeed,' cried Miss Betsy: 'but it is no matter; I shall give myself no trouble whether he stays in town, or whether he goes into the country, or whether I ever see him more. What! does the man think to triumph over me?'
'I do not believe that is the case with Mr. Trueworth,' said the discreet Miss Mabel; 'but I know it is the way of many men to recriminate in this manner: and pray, when they do, who can we blame for it but ourselves, in giving them the occasion? For my part, I should think it an affront to myself to encourage the addresses of a person I did not look upon worthy of being treated with respect.'
She urged many arguments to convince Miss Betsy of the vanity and ill consequences of trifling with an honourable and sincere passion; which, though no more than what that young lady had already made use of to herself, and was fully persuaded in the truth of, she was not very well pleased to hear from the mouth of another.
Though these two ladies perfectly agreed in their sentiments of virtue and reputation, yet their dispositions and behaviour in the affairs of love were as widely different as any two persons possibly could be: and this it was, which, during the course of their acquaintance, gave frequent interruptions to that harmony between them, which the mutual esteem they had for each other's good qualities, would otherwise have rendered perpetual.
Chapter XIX
Is multum in parvo
There is an unaccountable pride in human nature, which often gets the better of our justice, and makes us espouse what we know within ourselves is wrong, rather than appear to be set right by any reason, except our own.
Miss Betsy had too much of this unhappy propensity in her composition: a very little reflection enabled her to see clearly enough the mistakes she sometimes fell into; but she could not bear they should be seen by others. Miss Mabel was not only in effect the most valuable of all the ladies she conversed with, but was also the most esteemed and loved by her; yet was she less happy and delighted in her company, than in that of several others, for whom her good sense would not suffer her to have the least real regard. The truth is, that though she was very well convinced of her errors, in relation to those men who professed themselves her admirers, yet she loved those errors in herself, thought they were pretty, and became her; and therefore, as she could not as yet resolve to alter her mode of behaviour, was never quite easy in the presence of any one who acted with a prudence she would not be at the pains to imitate.
There were two young ladies, who had an apartment at the palace of St. James's, (their father having an office there) who exactly suited with her in the most volatile of her moments: they had wit, spirit, and were gay almost to wildness, without the least mixture of libertinism or indecency. How perfectly innocent they were, is not the business of this history to discuss; but they preserved as good a reputation as their neighbours, and were well respected in all publick places.
There it was Miss Betsy chiefly found an asylum from those perplexing thoughts which, in spite of her pride, and the indifference she had for mankind, would sometimes intrude upon her mind on Mr. Trueworth's account; here she was certain of meeting a great variety of company; here was all the news and scandal the town could furnish; here was musick, dancing, feasting, flattery: in fine, here was every thing that was an enemy to care and contemplation.
Among the number of those who filled the circle of those two court belles, there was a gentleman named Munden: he appeared extremely charmed with Miss Betsy at first sight; and after having informed himself of the particulars of her family and fortune, took an opportunity, as he was conducting her home one night, to entreat she would allow him to pay his respects to her where she lived. This was a favour Miss Betsy was never very scrupulous of granting; and consented the now more readily, as she thought the report of a new lover would gall Mr. Trueworth, who, she heard by some, who had very lately seen him, was not yet gone out of town.
Mr. Munden, to testify the impatience of his love, waited on her the very next day, as soon as he thought dinner would be over, at Mr. Goodman's: he had the satisfaction of finding her alone; but, fearing she might not long be so, suffered but a very few minutes to escape before he acquainted her with the errand on which he came: the terms in which he declared himself her admirer, were as pathetick as could be made use of for the purpose; but though this was no more than Miss Betsy had expected, and would have been strangely mortified if disappointed by his entertaining her on any other score, yet she affected, at first, to treat it with surprize, and then, on his renewing his protestations, to answer all he said with a sort of raillery, in order to put him to the more expence of oaths and asseverations.
It is certain, that whoever pretended to make his addresses to Miss Betsy, stood in need of being previously provided with a good stock of repartees, to silence the sarcasms of the witty fair, as well as fine speeches to engage her to more seriousness. Mr. Munden often found himself at his ne plus ultra, but was not the least disconcerted at it; he was a courtier; he was accustomed to attend at the levees of the great; and knew very well, that persons in power seldom failed to exercise it over those who had any dependance on them: and looking on the case of a lover with his mistress, as the same with one who is soliciting for a pension or employment, had armed himself with patience, to submit to every thing his tyrant should inflict, in the hope that it would one day be his turn to impose those laws, according to the poet's words--
'The humbled lover, when he lowest lies, But kneels to conquer, and but falls to rise.'
Miss Betsy was indeed a tyrant, but a very gentle one; she always mingled some sweet with the sharpness of her expressions: if in one breath she menaced despair, in the next she encouraged hope; and her very repulses were sometimes so equivocal, as that they might be taken for invitations. She played with her lovers, as she did with her monkey; but expected more obedience from them: they must look gay or grave, according as she did so; their humour, and even their very motions, must be regulated by her influence, as the waters by the moon. In fine, an exterior homage was the chief thing to be required; for, as to the heart, her own being yet untouched, she gave herself but little trouble how that of her lovers stood affected.
Mr. Munden, with less love perhaps than any man who had addressed her, knew better how to suit himself to her humour: he could act over all the delicacies of the most tender passion, without being truly sensible of any of them; and though he wished, in reality, nothing so much as attaining the affections of Miss Betsy, yet wishing it without those timid inquietudes, those jealous doubts, those perplexing anxieties, which suspense inflicts on a more stolid mind, he was the more capable of behaving towards her in the way she liked.
He was continually inviting her to some party of pleasure or other; he gallanted her to all publick shews, he treated her with the most exquisite dainties of the season, and presented her with many curious toys. Being to go with these ladies, at whose appointment he first commenced his acquaintance with her, and some other company, to a masquerade, he waited on her some hours before the time; and taking out of his pocket a ruby, cut in the shape of a heart, and illustrated with small brilliants round about, 'I beg, Madam,' said he, 'you will do me the honour of wearing this to-night, either on your sleeve or breast, or some other conspicuous place. There will be a great deal of company, and some, perhaps, in the same habit as yourself: this will direct my search, prevent my being deceived by appearances, which otherwise I might be, and prophanely pay my worship to some other, instead of the real goddess of my soul.'
This was the method he took to ingratiate himself into the favour of his mistress; and it had the effect, if not to make her love him, at least to make her charmed with this new conquest, much more than she had been with several of her former ones, though ever so much deserving her esteem.
In the midst of these gay scenes, however, Mr. Trueworth came frequently into her head. To find he was in town, made her flatter herself that he lingered here on her account; and that, in spite of all his resolution, he had not courage to leave the same air she breathed in: she fancied, that if she could meet him, or any accident throw him in her way, she should be able to rekindle all his former flames, and render him as much her slave as ever. With this view she never went abroad without casting her eyes about, in search of him; nay, she sometimes even condescended to pass by the house where he was lodged, in hopes of seeing him either going in or out, or from some one or other of the windows: but chance did not befriend her inclinations this way, nor put it in her power again to triumph over a heart, the sincerity of which she had but too ill treated, when devoted to her.
In the mean time, Mr. Goodman, in spite of the perplexities his own affairs involved him in, could not help feeling a great concern for those of Miss Betsy; he knew that Mr. Trueworth had desisted his visits to her; that she had got a new lover, who he could not find had consulted the permission of any one but herself to make his addresses to her; the late hours she kept, seldom coming home till some hours after the whole family, except the servant who sat up for her, were in bed, gave him also much matter of uneasiness; and he thought it his duty to talk seriously to her on all these points.
He began with asking her how it happened, that he had not seen Mr. Trueworth for so long a time: to which she replied, with the utmost indifference, that she took some things ill from that gentleman, and that, perhaps, he might have some subject of complaint against her; 'Therefore,' said she, 'as our humours did not very well agree, it was best to break off conversation.'
He then questioned her concerning Mr. Munden. 'I hope,' said he, 'you have taken care to inform yourself as to his character and circumstances.'--'No, truly, Sir,' answered she, with the same careless air as before; 'as I never intend to be the better or the worse for either, I give myself no pain about what he is.' Mr. Goodman shook his head; and was going to reason with her on the ill consequences of such a behaviour, when some company coming in, broke off, for a time, all farther discourse between them.
Chapter XX
Shews Miss Betsy left entirely to her own management, and the cause of it, with some other particulars
Mr. Goodman, who had been a little vexed at being interrupted in the remonstrances he thought so highly necessary should be made to Miss Betsy, took an opportunity of renewing them the next morning, in the strongest expressions he was master of.
Miss Betsy, with all her wit, had little to say for herself in answer to the serious harangue made to her by Mr. Goodman on her present fashion of behaviour; her heart avowed the justice of his reproofs, but her humour, too tenacious of what pleased itself, and too impatient of control, would not suffer her to obey the dictates either of his or her own reason. She knew very well the tender regard he had for her, on the account of her deceased father, and that all he spoke was calculated for her good; but then it was a good she was not at present ambitious of attaining, and thought it the privilege of youth to do whatever it listed, provided the rules of virtue were unfringed; so that all he could get from her was--that her amusements were innocent--that she meant no harm in any thing she did--that it was dull for her to sit at home alone; and, when in company, could not quit it abruptly on any consideration of hours.
Mr. Goodman found, that to bring her to a more just sense of what was really her advantage, would be a task impossible for him to accomplish; he began heartily to wish she was under the care of some person who had more leisure to argue with her on points so essential to her happiness: he told her, that he indeed had feared his house would be too melancholy a recess for her since the revolution that had lately happened in his family, and therefore wished some more proper place could be found for her. 'And for such a one,' said he, 'I shall make it my business to enquire; and there seems not only a necessity for my doing so, but that you should also choose another guardian; for as soon as the present unlucky business I am engaged in shall be over, it is my resolution to break up housekeeping, leave my business to my nephew, Ned Goodman, whom I expect by the first ship that arrives from the East Indies; and, having once seen him settled, retire, and spend the remainder of my days in the country.'
The melancholy accents with which Mr. Goodman spoke these words, touched Miss Betsy very much; she expressed, in terms the most affectionate, the deep concern it gave her that he had any cause to withdraw from a way of life to which he had so long been accustomed: but added, that if it must be so, she knew no person so proper, in whose hands the little fortune she was mistress of should be entrusted, as those of her brother Thoughtless, if he would vouchsafe to take that trouble upon him.
'There is no doubt to be made of that, I believe,' replied Mr. Goodman; 'and I shall speak to him about it the first time I see him.' They had some farther talk on Miss Betsy's affairs; and that young lady found he had very largely improved the portion bequeathed her by her father; for which, in the first emotions of her gratitude, she was beginning to pour forth such acknowledgements as he thought it too much to hear, and interrupted her, saying he had done no more than his duty obliged him to do, and could not have answered to himself the omission of any part of it.
It is so natural for people to love money, even before they know what to do with it, that it is not to be wondered at that Miss Betsy, now arrived at an age capable of relishing all the delicacies of life, should be transported at finding so considerable, and withal so unexpected, an augmentation of her fortune, which was no less than one third of what her father had left her.
The innate pleasure of her mind, on this occasion, diffused itself through all her form, and gave a double lustre to her eyes and air; so that she went with charms new pointed to a ball that night; for which the obsequious Mr. Munden had presented her with a ticket: but though she had all the respect in the world for Mr. Goodman, and indeed a kind of filial love for him, yet she had it not in her power to pay that regard to his admonitions she ought to have done. She came not home till between one and two o'clock in the morning; but was extremely surprized to find, that when she did so, the knocker was taken off the door; a thing which, in complaisance to her, had never before been done till she came in, how late soever she staid abroad: she was, nevertheless, much more surprized, as well as troubled, when, at the first rap her chairman gave, a footman, who waited in the hall for her return, immediately opened the door, and told her, with all the marks of sorrow in his countenance, that his master had been suddenly taken ill, and that his physician, as well as Mrs. Barns, the housekeeper, had given strict orders there should be no noise made in the house, the former having said his life depended on his being kept perfectly quiet.
It is not to be doubted, but that, on this information, she went with as little noise as possible up to her chamber; where Nanny, as she was putting her to bed, confirmed to her what the footman had said; and added, that she had heard the doctor tell Mrs. Barns, as he was going out, that he was very apprehensive his patient's disorder would not be easily remedied.
Distempers of the body, which arise from those of the mind, are, indeed, much more difficult to be cured than those which proceed from mere natural causes. Mr. Goodman's resentment for the ill usage he had sustained from a woman he had so tenderly loved, awhile kept up his spirits, and hindered him from feeling the cruel sting, which preyed upon his vitals, and insensibly slackened the strings of life: but the first hurry being over, and the lawyer having told him that every thing was drawn up, and his cause would be brought before the Commons in a few days, he sunk beneath the apprehensions; the thoughts of appearing before the doctors of the civil law, to several of whom he was known, to prove his own dishonour--the talk of the town--the whispers--the grimaces--the ridicule, which he was sensible this affair would occasion when exposed--the pity of some--and the contempt he must expect from others--all these things, though little regarded by him while at a distance, now they came more near at hand, and just ready to fall upon him, gave him such a shock, as all the courage he had assumed was not sufficient to enable him to resist.
He was seized at once with a violent fit of an apoplexy at a coffee-house, where a surgeon being immediately sent for, he was let blood, as is common in such cases. This operation soon recovered him, so far as speech and motion; but reason had not power to re-assume her seat in his distracted brain for many hours--he was brought home in a chair--the surgeon attended him--saw him put into bed, and sat by him a considerable time: but, finding him rather worse than better, told Mrs. Barns, he durst not proceed any farther, and that they must have recourse to a physician; which was accordingly done.
This gentleman, who was esteemed the most skilful of his profession, hearing Mr. Goodman frequently cry out, 'My heart! my heart!' laid his hand upon his bosom; and found, by the extraordinary pulsations there, that he had symptoms of an inward convulsion, wrote a prescription, and ordered he should be kept extremely quiet.
Towards morning, he grew more composed; and, by degrees, recovered the use of his understanding as perfectly as ever: but his limbs were so much weakened by that severe attack the fit had made upon him, that he could not sit up in his bed without support. The physician, however, had great hopes of him; said his imbecillity proceeded only from a fever of the nerves, which he doubted not but to abate, and that he would be well in a few days. How uncertain, how little to be depended upon, is art, in some cases! Mr. Goodman felt that within himself which gave the lye to all appearances; and, fully convinced that the hand of death had seized upon his heart, would not defer a moment putting all his affairs in such a posture as should leave no room for contention among the parties concerned, after his decease: he began with sending for Mr. Thoughtless; and consigned over to him the whole fortunes of Mr. Francis and Miss Betsy, the latter being obliged, as not being yet of age, to chuse him for her guardian in form. Having thus acquitted himself, in the most honourable manner, of the trust reposed in him for the children of his friend, he considered what was best to be done in relation to those of his own blood. By his death, the intended process against Lady Mellasin would be prevented, and consequently the third part of his effects would devolve on her, as being the widow of a citizen: he, therefore, having consulted with his lawyer if such a thing were practicable, made a deed of gift to his nephew, Mr. Edward Goodman, of all his money in the Bank, stocks, and other publick funds. After this, he made his will; and the lawyer, perceiving he had left but few legacies, asked him how the residue of what he was possessed of should be disposed: to which he replied, 'greatly as I have been wronged by Lady Mellasin, I would not have her starve; I have been calculating in my mind to what her dividend may amount, and believe it will be sufficient to enable her to live in that retired manner which best becomes her age and character.'
Mr. Goodman, thus having settled all his affairs in this world, began to make such preparations for another as are necessary for the best of men. In the mean time, as the least noise was disturbing to him, it was judged proper that Miss Betsy, who could not live without company, should remove. No boarding-place to her mind being yet found, and having done with all hopes of living with her brother, (as she was by this time informed of the true reasons he had for her not doing so) took lodgings in Jermyn Street; and finding the interest of her fortune, through the good management of her guardian, would allow it, hired a maid and foot-boy to wait upon her.
The adieu she received from Mr. Goodman was the most tender and affectionate that could be; she was very much moved with it, and sincerely lamented the loss she should sustain of so honest and worthy a friend: but her natural sprightliness would not suffer any melancholy reflections to dwell long upon her mind; and the hurry she was in of sending messages to all her acquaintance, with an account of the change of her situation, very much contributed to dissipate them. This important business was scarce over, and she well settled in her new habitation, when one of Mr. Goodman's footmen brought her a letter from her brother Frank, which had been just left for her by the post. It contained these lines.
'To Miss Betsy Thoughtless.
My dear sister,
I have been snatched from the brink of the grave, by the skill of one of the best physicians in the world, and the tender, and, I may say, maternal care of our most dear, and truly valuable friend, the excellent Lady Trusty. The first use I make of my recovered health, is to give an account of it to those whom, I flatter myself, will be obliged by the intelligence. I thank you for the many kind wishes you have sent me during the course of my illness, but hoped to have seen, before now, another name subscribed to your letters than that you received from your birth; and cannot help saying, I am a little surprized, that in the two last you favoured me with, you have been entirely silent on a subject you know I have always had very much at heart. I have also very lately received a letter from Mr. Trueworth, wherein he tells me, he is going to his country-seat--expresses the most kind concern for me, but mentions not the least syllable of you, or of his passion. I fear, my dear sister, there is some misunderstanding between you, which would very much trouble me, for your sake especially: but I shall defer what I have to say to you till I have the pleasure of seeing you. I am not yet judged fit to sit my horse for so long a journey; and the places in the stagecoach are all taken for to-morrow, but have secured one in Thursday's coach, and expect to be with you on Saturday. I accompany this to you with another one to my brother, and another to Mr. Goodman; so have no occasion to trouble you with my compliments to either. Farewel! I think I need not tell you that I am, with an unfeigned regard, my dear sister, your very affectionate brother, and humble servant,
F. THOUGHTLESS.
P.S. Sir Ralph and Lady Trusty are both from home at this time, or I am certain their good wishes, if no more, would have joined mine, that you may never cease to enjoy whatever it becomes you to desire! My dear Betsy, adieu!'
The joy which this letter would have afforded Miss Betsy had been compleat, if not somewhat abated by the apprehensions of what her brother would have to say to her when he should find she was indeed entirely broke off with Mr. Trueworth: but as the reader may probably desire to know in what manner he passed his time after that event, and the motives which induced him to stay in London, it is now highly proper to say something of both.
Chapter XXI
The author is under some apprehensions, will not be quite pleasing to the humour of every reader
It is certain that Mr. Trueworth, at the time of his writing his last letter to Miss Betsy, was fully determined to go into the country; and was already beginning to make such preparations as he found necessary for his journey, when an accident of a very singular nature put a sudden stop to them, and to his intentions.
He was one day just dressed, and going out, in order to dine with some company, (for he now chose to be as little alone as possible) when one of his servants delivered a letter to him, which he said was brought by a porter, who waited below for an answer. As the superscription was in a woman's hand, and he was not accustomed to receive any billets from that sex, he broke it open with a kind of greedy curiosity, and found in it these lines.
'To Charles Trueworth, Esq.
Sir,
I am a woman of fortune, family, and an unblemished character; very young, and, most people allow, not disagreeable: you have done me the greatest injury in the world without knowing it; but I take you to be more a man of honour than not to be willing to make what reparation is in your power. If the good opinion I have of you does not deceive me, you will readily accept this challenge, and not fail to meet me about eleven o'clock in the morning, at General Tatten's bench, opposite Rosamond's Pond in St. James's Park; there to hear such interrogatories as I shall think fit to make you; and on your sincere answer to which depends the whole future peace, if not the life of her, who at present can only subscribe herself, in the greatest confusion, Sir, your unfortunate and impatient,
INCOGNITA.'
Mr. Trueworth was a good deal surprized; but had no occasion to consult long with himself in what manner it would become a man of his years to behave in such an adventure, and therefore sat down and immediately wrote an answer in these terms.
'To the fair Incognita.
Madam,
Though a challenge from an unknown antagonist might be rejected without any danger of incurring the imputation of cowardice, and, besides, as the combat to which I am invited is to be that of words, in which your sex are generally allowed to excel, I have not any sort of chance of overcoming; yet, to shew that I dare encounter a fine woman at any weapon, and shall not repine at being foiled, will not fail to give you the triumph you desire; and to that end will wait on you exactly at the time and place mentioned in yours: till when, you may rest satisfied that I am, with the greatest impatience, the obliging Incognita's most devoted servant,
C. TRUEWORTH.'
Though Mr. Trueworth had not only heard of, but also experienced, when on his travels abroad, some adventures of a parallel nature with this; yet, as it never had entered his head that the English ladies took this method of introducing themselves to the acquaintance of those they were pleased to favour, the challenge of the Incognita--who she was--where she had seen him--what particular action of his had merited her good graces--and a thousand other conjectures, all tending to the same object, very much engrossed his mind. Indeed, he was glad to encourage any thoughts which served to drive those of Miss Betsy thence; whose idea, in spite of all his endeavours, and her supposed unworthiness, would sometimes intervene, and poison the sweets of his most jovial moments among his friends.
His curiosity (for it cannot be said was as yet instigated by a warmer passion) rendered him, however, very careful not to suffer the hour mentioned in the lady's letter to escape: but though he was at the place somewhat before the time, she was the first, and already waited his approach. As he turned by the corner of the pond, he began to reflect, that as she had given him no signal whereby she might be known, he might possibly mistake for his Incognita some other, whom chance might have directed to the bench; and was somewhat at a loss how to accost her in such a manner, as that the compliment might not make him be looked upon as rude or made, by a person who had no reason to expect it from him.
But the fair lady, who, it is likely, was also sensible she had been a little wanting in this part of the assignation, soon eased him of the suspense he was in, by rising from her seat, as he drew near, and saluting him with these words, 'How perfectly obliging,' said she, 'is this punctuality! It almost flatters me I shall have no reason to repent the step I have taken.'--'A person who is injured,' replied Mr. Trueworth, 'has doubtless a right to complain; and if I have, though ever so unwarily, been guilty of any wrong, cannot be too hasty, nor too zealous, in the reparation: be pleased, therefore, Madam, to let me know the nature of my offence, and be assured that the wishes of my whole heart shall be to expiate it.'
In concluding these words, one of her gloves being off, he took hold of her hand, and kissed it with either a real or a seeming warmth. 'Take care what you say,' cried she, 'lest I exact more from you than is in your power to perform: but let us sit down,' pursued she, suffering him still to keep her hand in his, 'and begin to fulfil the promise you have made, by satisfying me in some points I have to ask, with the same sincerity as you would answer Heaven.'--'Be assured I will,' said he, putting her hand a second time to his mouth; 'and this shall be the book on which I will swear to every article.'
'First, then,' demanded she, 'are you married, or contracted?'--'Neither, by all that's dear!' said he. 'Have you no attachment,' resumed she, 'to any particular lady, that should hinder your engaging with another?'-'Not any, upon my honour!' answered he.
I should before now have acquainted my reader, that the lady was not only masqued, but also close muffled in her hood; that Mr. Trueworth could discover no part even of the side of her face, which, growing weary of this examination, he took an opportunity to complain of. 'Why this unkind reserve, my charming incognita?' said he: 'I have heard of penitents who, while confessing crimes they were ashamed of, kept their faces hid; but I believe there never was a confessor who concealed himself--permit me to see to whom I am laying open my heart, and I shall do it with pleasure.'--'That cannot be,' answered she, 'even for the very reason you have alledged: I have something to confess to you, would sink me into the earth with shame, did you behold the mouth that utters it. In a word, I love you! and after having told you so, can you expect I will reveal myself?'--'Else how can I return the bounty as I ought,' cried he, 'or you be assured you have not lavished your favours on an insensible or ungrateful heart?'
'Time may do much,' said she; 'a longer and more free conversation with you may perhaps embolden me to make a full discovery of my face to you, as I have already done of my heart.' Mr. Trueworth then told her, that the place they were in would allow but very few freedoms; and added, that if he were really so happy as she flattered him he was, she must permit him to wait on her, where he might have an opportunity of testifying the sense he had of so unhoped, and as yet so unmerited, a blessing.
'Alas!' cried she, 'I am quite a novice in assignations of this sort--have so entire a dependance on your honour, that I dare meet you any where, provided you give me your solemn promise not to take any measures for knowing who I am, nor make any attempts to oblige me to unmask, till I have assumed courage enough to become visible of my own free will.'
Mr. Trueworth readily enough gave her the promise she exacted from him, not at all doubting but he should be easily able to find means to engage her consent for the satisfaction of his curiosity in these points. 'Well, then,' said she, 'it belongs to you to name a place proper for these secret interviews.'
On this, after a little pause, he answered, that since she judged it inconvenient for him to wait upon her at home, or any other place where she was known, he would be about the close of day at a certain coffee-house, which he named to her--'Where,' continued he, 'I will attend your commands; and on your condescending to stop at the door in a hackney-coach, will immediately come down and conduct you to a house secure from all danger of a discovery.' She hesitated not a moment to comply with his proposal; yet, in the same breath she did so, affected to be under some fears, which before she had not made the least shew of--said, she hoped he would not abuse the confidence she reposed in him--that he would take no advantage of the weakness she had shewn--that though she loved him with the most tender passion, and could not have lived without revealing it to him, yet her inclinations were innocent, and pure as those of a vestal virgin--and a great deal more stuff of the like sort; which, though Mr. Trueworth could scarce refrain from smiling at, yet he answered; with all the seriousness imaginable--'I should be unworthy, Madam, of the affection you honour me with, were I capable of acting towards you in a manner unbecoming of you, or of myself; and you may depend I shall endeavour to regulate my desires, so as to render them agreeable to yours.'
After some farther discourse of the like nature, she rose up and took her leave, insisting at parting, that he should not attempt to follow her, or take any method to find out which way she went; which injunction he punctually obeyed, not stirring from the bench till she was quite out of sight.
This adventure prodigiously amused him; never, in his whole life, had he met with any thing he knew so little how to judge of. She had nothing of the air of a woman of the town; and, besides, he knew it was not the interest of those who made a trade of their favours, to dispense them in the manner she seemed to intend; nor could he think her a person of the condition and character her letter intimated. He could not conceive, that any of those he was acquainted with, would run such lengths for the gratification of their passion, especially for a man who had not taken the least pains to inspire it. Sometimes he imagined it was a trick put upon him, in order to make trial how far his vanity would extend in boasting of it; it even came into his head, that Miss Betsy herself might get somebody to personate the amorous incognita, for no other purpose than to divert herself, and disappoint his high-raised expectation: but this last conjecture dwelt not long upon him; he had heard she now entertained another lover, which whom she was very much taken up, and, consequently, would not give herself so much trouble about one who had entirely quitted her. In fine, he knew not what to think: as he could not tell how to believe he had made such an impression upon any woman, without knowing it, as the incognita pretended; he was apt to imagine he should neither see nor hear any more of her. This uncertainty, however, employed his mind the whole day; and he was no less impatient for the proof, than he would have been, if actually in love with this invisible mistress.
The wished-for hour at last arrived; and he waited not long before he was eased of one part of his suspense, by being told a lady in a hackney-coach enquired for him: he was extremely pleased to find, at last, he had not been imposed upon by a trick of any of his frolicksome companions, and immediately flew to the coach-side; where, seeing it was indeed his incognita, he jumped directly in, with a transport which doubtless was very agreeable to her.
Though he had often heard some gentlemen speak of houses, where two persons of different sexes might at any time be received, and have the privilege of entertaining each other with all the freedom and privacy they could desire; yet, as he had never been accustomed to intrigues of this nature, and thought he should have no occasion to make use of such places, he had not given himself the trouble of asking where they might be found; therefore he had now no other recourse than either a tavern or a bagnio, the latter of which he looked upon, for more reasons than one, as the most commodious of the two; so ordered the coachman to drive to one in Silver Street: he excused himself, at the same time, to the lady, for not having been able to provide a better asylum for her reception; but she appeared perfectly content--told him she had put herself under his care--relied upon his honour and discretion, and left all to his direction.
Being come into the bagnio, they were shewn into a handsome large room, with a bed-chamber in it. Mr. Trueworth had his eye on every thing in an instant; and finding all was right, ordered a supper to be prepared, and then told the waiter he would dispense with his attendance till it was ready. As soon as he found himself alone with his incognita, 'Now, my angel,' said he, embracing her, 'I have an opportunity to thank you for the affection you have flattered me with the hopes of; but, at the same time, must complain of the little proofs you give me of it: the greatest stranger to your heart would be allowed the privilege of a salute; yet I am denied the privilege of touching those dear lips which have denounced my happiness.'--'Do not reproach me,' answered she, 'with denying what is not yet in my power to grant: I cannot let you see my face; and you have promised not to force me.'--'I have,' replied he, 'but that promise binds me not from indulging my impatient wishes with things you have not stipulated: your neck, your breasts, are free, and those I will be revenged upon.' With these words he took some liberties with her, which may better be conceived than described!--she but faintly resisted; and, perhaps, would have permitted him to take greater, thus masked; but the discovery of her face was what he chiefly wanted: 'You might, at least,' cried he, 'oblige me with a touch of those lovely lips I am forbid to gaze upon; here is a dark recess,' continued he, pointing to the inner-room, 'will save your blushes.' He then raised her from the chair; and, drawing her gently towards the door, sung in a very harmonious voice, this stanza--
'Away with this idle, this scrupulous fear; For a kiss in the dark, Cry'd the amorous spark, 'There is nothing, no, nothing too dear!'
Having led her into the chamber, and seated her on the bed, which happened to be so disposed that no gleam of light came upon it from the candles in the next room, 'Now, my charmer,' said he, taking hold of her mask, 'you have no excuse for keeping on this invidious cloud.'--'How impossible it is,' answered she, letting it fall into his hands, 'to refuse you any thing!'
What conversation after this passed between them, I shall leave to the reader's imagination; and only say, that the voice of the incognita being more distinguishable by the button of her mask being removed, Mr. Trueworth could not help thinking he had heard before accents very like those with which he was now entertained; though where, or from what mouth they had proceeded, he was not able to recollect.
This conjecture, however, rendering him more impatient than ever for the discovery, he omitted nothing in his power, either by words or actions, to dissuade her from re-assuming her vizard when they should quit that scene of darkness. 'How gladly would I comply,' cried she, 'but that I fear--' 'Fear what!' cried Mr. Trueworth, eagerly interrupting her. 'I fear to lose you,' replied she, fondly embracing him: 'My face is already but too well known to you; you have often seen it, but seen it without those emotions I endeavoured to inspire. How, then, can I now hope it will have the effect I wish!'--'Unkindly judged,' said he: 'with what indifference soever I may have regarded you, the endearing softness, the enchanting transports, you have now blessed me with, would give new charms to every feature, and make me find perfections I never saw before. Come then, my goddess,' continued he, raising her, 'shine with full lustre on me, and fix me your adorer.'--'Well,' cried she, 'you are not to be resisted, and I will venture.'
These words brought them to the chamber-door, and shewed the incognita to her amazed gallant to be no other than Miss Flora. 'Miss Flora Mellasin! Good Heavens!' cried he. 'You seem surprized and shocked,' said she: 'alas! my apprehensions were too just.'--'Pardon me, Madam,' answered he, 'I am indeed surprized, but it is through an excess of joy! Could I have ever thought the favours I have received were bestowed by the amiable Miss Flora Mellasin!'
It is certain, that his astonishment at first was very great; but recovering himself from it in a short time, a thousand passages in Miss Flora's former behaviour towards him occurred to his remembrance, and made him wonder at himself for not having sooner found her out in the person of his incognita. They passed their time, till the night was pretty far advanced, in a manner very agreeable to each other; nor parted without reciprocal assurance of renewing this tender intercourse the next day, at the same place.
Chapter XXII
Gives an account of a farther and more laudable motive to induce Mr. Trueworth to put off his intended journey into the country
Though it is impossible for a man of sense to have any real love for a woman whom he cannot esteem, yet Mr. Trueworth found enough in the agreeable person and sprightly humour of Miss Flora, to dissipate those uneasy reflections which, in spite of him, had lurked in his mind on Miss Betsy's account: the amour with this fond girl afforded him a pleasing amusement for a time; and, without filling his heart with a new passion, cleared it of those remains of his former one, which he had taken so much pains to extirpate.
Whenever he thought of Miss Betsy, as it was impossible a young lady he once loved with so much tenderness should not sometimes come into his thoughts, it was only with a friendly concern for her imagined fall. 'It is no wonder,' would he often say to himself, 'that so young and lovely a creature, under the tuition of a woman of Lady Mellasin's character, and the constant companion of one of Miss Flora's disposition, endued with charms to excite the warmest wishes, and unprovided with sufficient arms for her defence, should have yielded to the temptations of an unwarrantable flame.' In fine, he pitied her, but no more.
Thus entirely freed from all prepossession, and his heart almost in the same situation as before he ever knew what it was to love, he was easily persuaded by his friends to give over all thoughts of going into the country, and stay to partake, in a moderate way, those pleasures of the town, which the many uneasy moments he had sustained, during his courtship with Miss Betsy, had kept him hitherto from having any relish for.
But this state of indifference lasted not long; an object presented itself to him, inspiring him with a passion, which had so much of reason for its guide, as made him think it rather his glory, than his misfortune, to be a second time enslaved.
Among all the friends and acquaintance he had in town, there was none he more valued and esteemed than Sir Bazil Loveit: they had been for some time inseparable companions; but accidents, either on the one side or the other, having hindered their meeting for several days, Mr. Trueworth went one morning to visit him at his house. He found him at home, but the hall so incumbered with trunks and boxes, that there was scarce a passage to the parlour-door. 'Welcome, my dear friend!' said Sir Bazil, who, having seen him from a window, ran down stairs to receive him: 'you find me in a strange disorder here; but I have got a couple of women out of the country; and that sex, I think, like a general officer, can never move without a waggon-load of trumpery at their tail.'--'What, married!' cried Mr. Trueworth. 'No, 'faith,' said the other; 'but the arrival of two sisters last night from Staffordshire, gives me a sort of specimen of the hurry I am to expect when I become a husband.'
'The hurry,' said Mr. Trueworth, 'you seem to complain of, must needs be a very agreeable one; and I heartily congratulate you upon it. A single man, like you, makes but a very solitary figure in a great wild house: these ladies will fill the vacuum, and give a double life to your family.'--'Nay,' resumed Sir Bazil, 'I shall not have them long with me; they hate London, and never come but once in two years, to buy cloaths and see fashions: besides, one of them is married, and the other fond of her sister, that I believe she would not quit her to be a duchess. Indeed, it is not much to be wondered at; our mother dying when she was very young, Harriot, for so she is called, was brought up under her sister, who is eight years older than herself, and they never have been asunder two days in their lives.'
Mr. Trueworth then expiated on the amiableness of such an harmony between persons of the same blood: to which Sir Bazil replied, that it was more than ordinarily fortunate for his sisters; 'For,' said he, 'the elder of them being married just before my mother's death, my father committed to her the care of the younger, as she was reckoned a woman of greater prudence than might be expected from her years. My brother Wellair, (for that is the name of the gentleman she married) though a very good husband in the main, is a great sportsman, takes rather too much delight in his hawks and hounds, and gives his wife but little of his company in the day; so that, if it were not for Harriot, she would pass her time uncomfortably enough. In short, the younger is improved by the lessons of the elder, and the elder diverted by the sprightliness and good-humour of the younger.'
Sir Bazil, who had an extreme regard for his sisters, could not forbear entertaining Mr. Trueworth on this subject all the time he was there; and, at parting, told him he would not ask him to stay dinner that day, because he supposed they would be very busy in unpacking their things, and setting themselves in order; but engaged him to come on the following.
Mr. Trueworth thought no farther on what had passed, than to remember his promise, which he accordingly fulfilled. Sir Bazil received him with open arms, and conducted him into the dining-room, where the two ladies were sitting. They were both very handsome: the elder was extremely graceful; and, at first glance, appeared to be the most striking beauty of the two; but, on a second, the younger had the advantage; she was not altogether so tall as her sister, nor had a skin of that dazzling whiteness; but her shape was exquisite--her complexion clear--her eyes sparkling--all her features perfectly regular, and accompanied with a sweetness which had in it somewhat irresistibly attractive.
After the first compliments were over, neither of them lost, by their manner of conversation, any part of that admiration which their eyes had gained. Mrs. Wellair talked pretty much; yet so agreeably, that nobody could be tired of hearing her. Miss Harriot spoke much less; but all she said discovered a delicacy of sentiment, and a judgment far above her years. Sir Bazil had a large estate; he lived up to the height of it; had a very elegant taste; and, in complaisance to his sisters, as well as to his friend, who had never dined with him before since he set up housekeeping, had taken care that day to omit nothing in his bill of fare that could excite, or gratify, the most luxurious appetite; yet it was the wit, spirit, and good-humour, of the company, especially of Miss Harriot, which, to Mr. Trueworth, made the most agreeable part of the entertainment.
When the dessert was over, and the healths of absent friends toasted in Tokay and Frontiniac, they all adjourned into the drawing-room; where coffee and tea were soon brought in. Mrs. Wellair having been advised by her physicians to refrain from the use of any of those liquors, on account of some disorder she had complained of, took this opportunity of desiring leave to retire, in order to acquaint her husband, it being post-night, with her safe arrival in town.
Agreeable as her conversation was, Mr. Trueworth found no miss of her, as the lovely Harriot was left behind: on the contrary, he was rather rejoiced, in the hope she would now give her tongue a greater latitude than she had done in the presence of one whom, he easily perceived, she looked upon as her superior in understanding; as well as years; and, to provoke her to it, artfully introduced some discourse on the pleasures of the town; and said to Sir Bazil, it seemed to him a kind of miracle, that so young and beautiful a lady as Miss Harriot could content herself with the obscurity of a country life. 'Few of her age, indeed,' replied Sir Bazil, 'could chuse to live in the manner she does; but though I should, perhaps, not be of the same way of thinking, if I were a woman, and in her place, yet I cannot but say, my reason approves of her conduct in this point.'
'London,' said she, 'is a very magnificent, opulent city; and those who have their lot cast to live in it, may, doubtless, find sufficient to content them: but as for those amusements, which you gentlemen call the pleasures of the town, and which so many people take every winter such long journies merely to enjoy, I can see nothing in them which a reasonable person may not very well dispense with the want of.'
'What do you think of the Court, Madam?' cried Mr. Trueworth. 'As of a place I would always chuse to avoid,' replied she. 'I heartily pity the fatigue of those who are obliged to attend; and am tempted to laugh at the stupidity of those who undertake it without necessity. I am amazed to think how any one of common-sense can be at so great an expence for rich cloaths, to go to a place where she must suffer as great pain in shewing them. Bless me! to stand, for two or three hours together, mute as a fish--upright as an arrow; and, when the scene is over, walk backward like a crab, curtseying at every step, though their legs are so tired, they are scarce able to go through the ceremony!'
'A masquerade, then?' resumed Mr. Trueworth, willing to try her farther. 'What say you, Madam, to a masquerade? I hope you will allow no freedom of behaviour is wanting there?'--'I should like a masquerade extremely,' answered she, 'if conducted in the same manner I have been told they are in Italy, and some other places, where only persons of condition are admitted, and none presume to say that under a vizard, which he either would or ought to be ashamed of when it is plucked off. But the venal ones you have here, are my utter detestation; they seem to me to license, under a shew of innocent diversion, not only folly, but all kind of prophaneness and indecency.'
'It must be owned, Madam,' said Mr. Trueworth, 'that your sentiments on both these subjects are extremely just: but you can have no such objection against a play or opera?'--'No, Sir,' answered she; 'I look upon a good play as one of the most improving, as well as agreeable, entertainments a thinking mind can take; and as for an opera--' 'Aye, sister!' cried Sir Bazil, interrupting her, 'the opera! Take care what you say of the opera. My friend here is a passionate lover of musick; and, if you utter one syllable against his favourite science, you will certainly pass in his opinion for a stoick.'--'I should deserve it,' said she; 'and be in reality as insensible as that sect of philosophers affect to be, if I were not capable of being touched by the charms of harmony.'
'Then, Madam,' said Mr. Trueworth, 'there are two of the pleasures of London, which are so happy to receive your approbation?'--'Not only my approbation,' replied she, 'but my applause. I am, indeed, a very great admirer of both; yet can find ways to make myself easy without being present at either; and, at the distance of an hundred miles, enjoy in theory all the satisfaction the representation could afford.'
'This is somewhat extraordinary indeed, Madam,' cried Mr. Trueworth: 'be so good as to let us know by what method?'--'It is this, Sir,' answered she: 'as for the plays, I have a very good collection of the old ones by me, and have all the new ones sent down to me as they come out. When I was last in London, I was several times at the theatre; I observed how the actors and actresses varied their voices and gestures, according to the different characters they appeared in on the stage: and thus, whilst I am reading any play, am enabled to judge pretty near how it shews in representation. I have, indeed, somewhat more difficulty in bringing the opera home to me; yet I am so happy as to be able to procure a shadow of it, at least. We have two or three gentlemen in the neighbourhood who play to great perfection on the violin, and several ladies, who have very pretty voices, and some skill in musick. My sister touches the bass-viol finely; and I play a little on the harpsichord. We have all our parts in score before us, which we execute to the best of our power. It serves, however, to divert ourselves, and those friends who think it worth their while to come to hear us.'
Mr. Trueworth cried out, in a kind of rapture, as soon as she had done speaking, 'Who would not think himself happy to be one of the audience at such a performance!' He was going on; but Mrs. Wellair returned, on which he directed the compliments he was about to make Miss Harriot, equally to the other; which she returned with a great deal of politeness. The conversation afterwards turned on different subjects, and was very entertaining. Some other company coming in, Mr. Trueworth would have taken leave; but Sir Bazil would not permit him. He staid the whole evening; and, when he went home, carried such an idea of the lovely Harriot's perfection, that scarce any consideration would have been powerful enough to have made him quit the town while she continued in it.
Chapter XXIII
Returns to Miss Betsy's adventures, from which the two former were but a digression, though a very necessary one, as will hereafter appear
If Miss Betsy had been made acquainted with the manner in which Mr. Trueworth passed his time, and the inducements he had to stay in London, doubtless her vanity would have been highly piqued: but she had not as yet this subject for mortification; on the contrary, she rather imagined he lingered here on her account; that it repented him of the letter he had sent her, though his spirit was too great to acknowledge it directly, and waited the arrival of her brother Frank, in hopes of engaging him to make his peace.
With these suggestions did she please herself whenever he came into her mind: but, indeed, she had but little room for meditation on his account; not only Mr. Munden plied her close with presents, treats, fine speeches, and all the tokens of impatient love, but she had also another conquest of a more late, and consequently, to a young lady of her humour, a more pleasing æra.
She had been one day at her mantua-maker's, to consult on some matters relating to her dress, and was a little surprized to see the woman come the next morning, before she was out of bed, to her lodgings. 'Hey day, Mrs. Modely!' cried she; 'what brings you here thus early?'--'Indeed, Madam,' answered she, 'I could not well come out; I have eight or nine gowns in the house now, which should all have been finished and sent home today; the ladies will tear me to pieces about them: but I left all my business, and run away to acquaint you with a thing you little dream of. Ah, Miss Betsy! such a fine gentleman! such a vast estate! but it is no wonder,' continued she, 'you are so pretty, that you make all the men die for you.'--'What is it you are talking of?' cried Miss Betsy; 'pr'ythee, dear Modely, explain.'--'Lord!' replied the other, 'I am so transported that I know not how to contain myself! But I will tell you: you were yesterday at my house; Sir Frederick Fineer, who lodges in my first floor--the sweetest and most generous gentleman that ever lived, to be sure! (but that is nothing to the purpose) he saw you from his dining-room window when you came out of your chair; and, would you believe it! was so struck, that he immediately fell down in a swoon: you were but just gone when his valet de chambre (for he keeps three servants, two in livery, and one out) came down to me, and fetched me to his master. "Oh, Mrs. Modely!" said he to me, "what angel have you got below?--Tell me who she is? If she is not already married, I will give my whole estate to obtain her. I ask not what her fortune is; if I could once call that divine creature my wife, she should command all I am worth!"
'Indeed, Madam,' continued she, 'I was so much amazed, that I had not the power of speaking; and he, I suppose, interpreting my silence as a refusal of answering his demands, fell into such distractions, such ravings, as frighted me almost out of my wits; and, at last, to quiet him, I told him (I hope you will forgive me) your name, and where you lived, and that you were not married: on this he seemed pretty easy, and I left him; but, about two hours after, he sent for me again--desired I would go directly to you--make you a declaration of love in his name, and beg you would give him leave to visit you in person.'
'Bless me!' cried Miss Betsy; 'can the man neither speak nor write for himself?'--'I told him, Madam,' resumed Mrs. Modely, 'that it would not be well taken from me; but he was quite mad, would listen to no reason, till I bethought myself of a strategem, which I fancy you will not disapprove: I made him believe that there was no need of my going to you; that you were to call upon me about a gown this afternoon; that I would persuade you to stay and drink tea, and he might come into the room, as if by chance, and entertain you with what discourse he thought proper. Now, I would fain have you come,' pursued she, 'for if you do but like his person, such an offer is not to be rejected.'
'I do not regard this offer,' said Miss Betsy; 'but I do not know but I may come just to divert myself a little.'--'That is a dear good lady!' cried the other. 'About five, I believe, will be a proper time.'--'Aye, thereabout,' replied Miss Betsy: 'but, dear Modely, don't let him know you have spoke a word to me concerning him.'--'No, no,' said she; 'I shall not tell him I have seen you.'
During the whole time this woman staid, (which was, indeed, much longer than might have been expected from a person of that extraordinary business she pretended) nothing was talked of but Sir Frederick Fineer: she told Miss Betsy, that to her certain knowledge, he was of one of the best families in Cornwall; that he had a great estate in possession, and another in reversion; and, besides, was the next of kin to a coronet; that he kept company with nothing but lords and dukes, and that they were always courting his company.
Though Miss Betsy affected to treat all she said with indifference, yet she had given an attentive ear to it; and, after she was gone, began to rummage over all her ornaments; tried one, and then another, to see which would become her best, in order to secure a victory, which she imagined would afford so much triumph. 'Whether I marry him or not,' said she to herself, 'the addresses of a man of his rank will make me of some consideration in the world; and if ever I do become a wife, I should like to be a woman of quality: they may say what they will, but a title has prodigious charms in it; the name Fineer also becomes it. "Lady Fineer's servants there! Lady Fineer's coach to the door!" would sound vastly agreeable at the play or opera.'
She also pleased herself with the thought, that being courted by a person of Sir Frederick's quality and estate would immediately put to silence all the reproaches and remonstrances she might otherwise have expected to be persecuted with by her brother Frank, on Mr. Trueworth's account; and this imagination was of itself sufficient to give her an infinite satisfaction: in fine, she found so much in this new effect of her charms, to elevate and delight both her vanity and convenience, that she longed with as much impatience for a sight of her admirer as Mrs. Modely had told her he was under for a second interview with her.
Some part of the tedious moments were, however, taken up in a manner she was far from expecting; she was scarce risen from her toilette, when word was brought her that a young lady, who called herself Miss Flora Mellasin, was come to wait upon her. As she had never seen her since her being driven from Mr. Goodman's, the visit a little surprized her, and she would have been glad if common civility had dispensed with her receiving it; for though the pity she then had felt for her misfortunes had greatly effaced the memory of the injurious treatment she had met with from her, yet she never desired to continue any correspondence with her after they were once parted: besides, as she had no reason to look upon her coming as any proof of her friendship or good-will, but rather with a design of doing her some private prejudice, she resolved to behave entirely reserved towards her.
Her conjectures were not groundless: that complication of every worst passion that can fill the human heart, could not be perfectly satisfied, even amidst the most unbounded gratification of her amorous desires with the man that had excited them; the dread of losing him embittered all the transports of possession; she very well knew he had broke off with Miss Betsy, and doubted not but that event had happened through the artifice she had put in practice: yet, as there was a possibility that the adventure of Denham should be unravelled, and the innocency of Miss Betsy cleared up, she trembled lest such an eclaircissement should renew all his former tenderness for that once so much-loved rival, and herself be reduced to all the horrors of despair and shame. It was therefore to sound the inclinations of Miss Betsy, that alone brought her thither, in the wicked hope, that if there was the least probability of a reconciliation between them, she might find some opportunity of traversing all the steps that might be taken by either party for that purpose.
But Miss Betsy was too much upon her guard to give her any room to discover what her sentiments were in that point: she received her very coolly; and, even on her first entrance, told her that she was obliged to go out that evening; but the other taking no notice of the little pleasure Miss Betsy expressed on seeing her, told her she came out of friendship to visit her; that she had been told Mr. Trueworth and she were entirely parted; that if she had so great an affection for him as the world had been pleased to say, she must certainly stand in need of all the consolation that could be given her. 'But, I hope, my dear,' said she, 'you have too much good sense not to despise him now. Nothing is more common than that men should be false. Remember what the poet says--
"Ingratitude's the sin, which, first or last, Taints the whole sex, the catching court disease."'
Miss Betsy was so provoked at being talked to in this manner, that she replied, that there was neither falsehood nor ingratitude in the case: if Mr. Trueworth had desisted his visits, it was only because he was convinced she desired not the continuance of them.
It is possible these words were more galling to the jealous heart of Miss Flora than any thing she could have said, though she spoke them with no other intent than to clear herself of the imputation of having been forsaken; a thing she looked upon as the worst blemish that could be cast upon her reputation. Miss Flora, finding no more was to be got out of her, took her leave for this time; resolving, however, in her own mind, to keep up an acquaintance with her, that seeming to her the most likely way both to satisfy her curiosity, and prevent any effort of what the extravagance of her passion made her apprehend.
Miss Betsy did not give herself much trouble in reflecting on what Miss Flora had said; but as soon as her watch reminded her of the appointed hour, she bid her footman fly and get a chair; on her coming to the house, Mrs. Modely herself opened the door at the first rap, and desired her to walk in. 'No, no,' said Miss Betsy, still sitting in the chair, 'I cannot stay; I only called to tell you that I will have the silver robings put upon the green night-gown, and will buy a new trimming for the pink.'--'I shall be sure to obey your orders, Madam,' replied the other: 'but I must intreat you will do me the honour to come in and drink a dish of tea; the kettle boils, and I have just now had a present of a cannister of some of the finest Hyson in the world.'--'I must leave you then as soon as I have tasted it,' said Miss Betsy, coming out of the chair; 'for I have twenty visits to make this evening.'
She had not been three minutes in the parlour, when the person for whom all this ceremony was affected, entered the room in somewhat of an abrupt manner. 'I come, Mrs. Modely, to complain,' said he--'my servants tell me--' With these words he stopt short, and fixed his eyes full on Miss Betsy, with a kind of astonishment.--Mrs. Modely, pretending to be in a great fright, cried, 'For Heaven's sake, Sir Frederick! what is the matter? I hope nothing in my house has given your honour any cause of complaint?'--'No, no! it is over now,' cried he; 'your house is become a temple, and this is the divinity that honours it with her presence--this Græcian Venus.' Miss Betsy was too much accustomed to company to be easily abashed; and answered briskly, 'If you mean the compliment to me, Sir, the Græcian Venuses are all painted fat, and I have no resemblance of that perfection.'--'Only in your face, Madam,' returned he. 'Such sparkling eyes--such a complexion--such a mouth! In your shape you are Helen of Troy!'--'That Helen of Troy,' said Miss Betsy, with an ironical smile, 'I think, was a Græcian princess, and must also be fat, or she would not have been reputed a beauty there.'
The baronet, finding by this he had been guilty of an absurdity when he intended a fine speech, thought to salve up the matter by saying, 'Sure, you are a Diana, then!'--'Worse and worse!' cried Miss Betsy. 'I beseech you, Sir, compare me to no such boisterous goddess, that runs up and down, bare-footed and bare-legged, hunting wild boars in the forest!'--'What shall I call you then?' resumed he. 'O, tell me by what name you will be worshipped?'--'The lady's name, Sir Frederick,' cried Mrs. Modely, 'is Miss Betsy Thoughtless.'--'Betsy!' said he; 'then Betsy let it be. Betsy shall henceforth become more famous than Cytherea was of old!'
He was going on with this fulsome stuff, in which he was often exposed by the ready wit of Miss Betsy, when a maid belonging to the house came in, and told her that a gentleman in a hackney-coach was at the door, and desired to speak with her. 'With me!' cried she, not able to guess who should have followed her there. 'Pray, call my footman, and bid him ask the person's name that enquires for me.' The maid did as she was ordered; and Miss Betsy's servant presently after brought her this intelligence--'Mr. Munden, Madam,' said he, 'not finding you at home, has taken the liberty to call on you here, in order to conduct you where you are to pass the evening.'--'He must be a happy man, indeed, that dare take such liberties,' cried Sir Frederick, somewhat fiercely. 'Many take more than they are allowed to do,' said Miss Betsy. 'Go,' continued she to the fellow, 'and tell him my mind is changed; that I cannot leave the company I am with, and will not go.' Mr. Munden having received this message, ordered the coachman to drive away, very much dissatisfied, as the reader may easily suppose.
Miss Betsy, the day before, had agreed to pass this evening with the ladies at St. James's, and some others, to play at commerce; a game then very much in vogue. Mr. Munden was to be one of the company; and calling at Miss Betsy's lodgings, in hopes of having some time with her before this meeting, the maid, who had not lived long enough with her mistress to know her humour, presently told him, she was only gone to her mantua-maker's, and gave him directions to the house; he also thinking it no indecorum to call on her at the house of a woman of that profession, had reason enough to be mortified at the repulse he met with for so doing.
As to Miss Betsy, though she was a little angry at the freedom Mr. Munden had taken, yet she was in reality much more pleased; and this for two reasons: first, because she saw it gave her new lover some jealous apprehensions; and, secondly, because it furnished her with a plausible pretence for complying with his entreaties to stay; which, she protested, she would not on any terms have been prevailed upon to do, but to prevent either him or Mrs. Modely from suspecting she would go where Mr. Munden had desired.
Mrs. Modely went out of the room several times, as if called away by some household affairs, that Sir Frederick might have an opportunity of declaring his passion to Miss Betsy; which he did in much the same rodomontade strain with which he had at first accosted her. A handsome supper was served in; after which, she being about to take her leave, he affected to be in a great fret, that a fine new chariot which, he said, he had bespoke, was not come home, that he might have seen her safe to her lodgings, with an equipage suitable to her merit, and the admiration he had of it: he would needs, however, attend her in another chair; which piece of gallantry, after a few faint refusals, she accepted.
VOLUME THE THIRD
Chapter I
Relates only to such things as the reader may reasonably expect would happen
As much taken up as Miss Betsy was with the pleasure of having gained a new admirer, she could not forbear, after she came home, making some reflection on the value of her conquest; she had found nothing agreeable either in his person or conversation: the first seemed to her stiff and awkward, and looked as if not made for his cloaths; and the latter, weak, romantick, and bombast: in fine, he was altogether such as she could not think of living with as a husband, though the rank and figure she was told he held in the world, made her willing to receive him as a lover. In short, though she could not consent to sacrifice herself to his quality, she took a pride to sacrifice his quality to her vanity.
No overtures of marriage having been made to her since Mr. Munden began his courtship, and that gentleman growing, as she fancied at least, a little too presuming, on finding himself the only lover, she was not a little pleased at the opportunity of giving him a rival whose quality might over-awe his hopes. In this idea, she was far from repenting her behaviour towards him the night before: but how little soever she regarded what mortification she gave the men, she always took care to treat her own sex with a great deal of politeness; and reflecting that she had been guilty of an omission, in not sending her servant to excuse herself to the ladies who expected her, went herself in the morning to make her own apology.
In the mean time, Mr. Munden, who it is certain was very much out of humour, and impatient to let her know some part of the sentiments her message had inspired him with, came to make her a morning visit, having some business which he knew would detain him from waiting on her in the afternoon. On finding she was abroad, he desired the maid to favour him with her lady's standish; which she accordingly bringing to him, he sat down, and, without taking much consideration, wrote the following letter, and left for her on the table.
'To Miss Betsy Thoughtless.
Madam,
Amidst the enchanting encouragement with which you have been pleased to admit my services, I would not, without calling your honour and generosity in question, be altogether void of hope, that you intended to afford them one day a recompence for ample than a bare acceptance.
Judge, then, of my surprize at the repulse I met with at Mrs. Modely's door. I could not think it any breach of the respect I owe you, to call on you at the house of your mantua-maker; I could not imagine it possible for you to have any engagements at such a place capable of preventing you from keeping those that you had made with persons for whom you profess an esteem: on the contrary, I rather expected you would have permitted me to conduct you thence, with the same readiness you have done from most of the other places where you have been, since I first had the honour of being acquainted with you.
I know very well, that it is the duty of every lover to submit, in all things to the pleasure of the beautiful object whose chains he wears, yet, Madam, as you have hitherto made mine easy, you must pardon me, when I say, that this sudden transition from gentleness to cruelty, appears to me to contain a mystery, which, though I dread, I am distracted for the explanation of.
Some business of great moment prevents my waiting on you this afternoon, but shall attend your commands to-morrow at the usual hour; when, I still flatter myself, you will relieve the anxieties, and put an end to the suspense, of him who is, with the greatest sincerity of heart, Madam, your most humble, and most faithfully devoted servant,
G. MUNDEN.'
Miss Betsy, at her return home, found also another billet directed for her, which they told her had been brought by a servant belonging to Sir Frederick Fineer: she gave that from Mr. Munden, however, the preference of reading first, not indeed through choice, but chance, that happening to be first put into her hands. As soon as she had looked it over, she laughed, and said to herself, 'The poor man is jealous already, though he knows not of whom, or why: what will become of him when he shall be convinced? I suppose he was sure of having me, and it is high time to mortify his vanity.'
She then proceeded to Sir Frederick's epistle; in which she found herself more deified than ever she had been by all her lovers put together.
'To the most wonderful of her sex, the incomparable Miss Betsy Thoughtless.
Divine charmer,
Though I designed myself the inexpressible pleasure of kissing your fair hands this evening, I could not exist till then without telling you how much I adore you: you are the empress of my heart, the goddess of my soul! the one loves you with the most loyal and obedient passion, the other regards you as the sole mover and director of all its motions. I cannot live without you; it is you alone can make me blest, or miserable. O then pronounce my doom, and keep me not suspended between heaven and hell. Words cannot describe the ardency of my flame; it is actions only that can do it. I lay myself, and all that I am worth, an humble offering at your feet. Accept it, I beseech you; but accept it soon; for I consume away in the fire of my impatient wishes; and, in a very short time, there will be nothing left for you but the shadow of the man who is, with the most pure devotion, Madam, your beauty's slave, and everlasting adorer,
F. FINEER.'
'Good lack!' cried Miss Betsy, 'he is in a great haste, too; but I fancy he must wait a while, as many of better sense have done. What a romantick jargon is here! One would think he had been consulting all the ballads since fair Rosamond, and the Children in the Wood, for fine phrases to melt me into pity!'
She wondered, as indeed she had good reason, that a man of his birth, and who, it must be supposed, had an education suitable to it, should express himself in such odd terms; but then she was tempted to imagine, that it was only his over-care to please her that had made him stretch his wit beyond it's natural extent, and that if he had loved her less, he would have been able to have told her so in a much better stile. Possessed with this fancy, 'What a ridiculous thing this love is!' said she; 'What extravagancies does it sometimes make men guilty of! yet one never sees this madness in them after they become husbands. If I were to marry Sir Frederick, I do not doubt but he would soon recover his senses.'
How does a mind, unbroke with cares and disappointments, entirely free from passion, and perfectly at peace with itself, improve, and dwell on every thing that affords the least matter for its entertainment? This young lady found as much diversion in anticipating the innocent pranks she intended to play with the authors of these two letters, as an infant does in first playing with a new baby, and afterwards plucking it to pieces; so true is the observation of the poet, that--
'All are but children of a larger growth.'
But this sprightliness of humour in Miss Betsy soon received a sad and sudden interruption: having sent, as she constantly did every day, to enquire after the health of Mr. Goodman, her servant returned with an account, that he had expired that morning. Though this was an event, which she, and all who knew him, had expected for some time, yet could she not be told of the death of a gentleman, under whose care and protection she so long had been, and who had behaved in all respects so like a parent towards her, without being very deeply affected with the news; she was then at dinner, but threw down her knife and fork, rose from the table, and retired to her chamber and wept bitterly: the more violent emotions of grief were soon assuaged, but her melancholy and dejection of spirits continued much longer; and, while they did so, she had the power of making the most just reflections on the vain pursuits, the fleeting pleasures, and all the noise and hurry of the giddy world. Love, and all the impertinences which bear that name, now appeared only worthy of her contempt; and, recollecting that Sir Frederick had mentioned visiting her that evening, she sent a servant immediately to Mrs. Modely's, desiring her to acquaint that gentleman, that she had just lost a very dear friend, and was in too much affliction to admit of any company.
This being the day on which Mr. Francis Thoughtless was expected to be in London, this affectionate sister perceiving, by his last letter to her, that his health was not perfectly established, was under a very great concern, lest he should be put to some inconvenience by Mr. Goodman's death, for a proper lodging on his first arrival; but she soon found her tender fears, on this occasion, altogether groundless.
Those objections which had hindered Mr. Thomas Thoughtless from taking her into his family, had not the same weight in relation to Mr. Francis, whose sex set him above meddling with those domestick concerns, the command of which he had given to another; and his reputation would suffer nothing by being under the same roof with the mistress of his brother's amorous inclinations.
He went to the inn where he knew the L----e stage puts up, welcomed Mr. Francis with open arms, as soon as he alighted from the coach, and gave him all the demonstrations of brotherly affection that the place they were in would admit of; then conducted him to his house, and insisted that he should not think of any other home, till he was better provided for, and settled in the world.
A servant belonging to the elder Mr. Thoughtless was immediately dispatched to Miss Betsy, with a letter from the younger; and it was from this man that she received the agreeable intelligence, that the two brothers were together. The terms in which Mr. Francis wrote to her were these--
'To Miss Betsy Thoughtless.
My dear sister,
Heaven be thanked, I am at last got safe to London; a place, which, I assure you, some months ago I almost despaired of ever seeing more. My brother has just given me an account of the death of honest Mr. Goodman; and, as I doubt not but you are very much concerned, as indeed we all have reason to be, for the loss of so sincere and valuable a friend, I am very impatient to see you, and give you what consolation is in my power; but the fatigue of my journey, after so long an illness, requires my taking some immediate repose; I shall, however, wait on you to-morrow morning; till when, believe me, as ever, with the greatest sincerity, dear sister, your affectionate brother, and humble servant,
F. THOUGHTLESS.
P.S. My brother purposes to come with me; but if any thing should happen to prevent his visit, you may depend on one from me. Once more, my dear sister, good night.'
In the present situation of Miss Betsy's mind, she could not have received a more sensible satisfaction, than what she felt on this young gentleman's arrival: but what ensued upon it will in due time and place appear.
Chapter II
Contains only some few particulars of little moment in themselves, but serve to usher in matters of more importance
Mr. Goodman, who, both living and dying, had sincerely at heart the welfare of all with whom he had any concern, could not content himself to leave the world without giving to those who had been under his care such advice as he thought necessary for their future happiness.
Accordingly, the day preceding that which happened to be his last, he sent for Mr. Thoughtless; and on his being come, and seated by his bedside, he took his hand, and began to remonstrate to him in the most pathetick, though very gentle, terms, how unjustifiable to the eyes of Heaven, how disreputable to those of the world, it was to avow and indulge, in the publick manner he did, an unwarrantable flame.
'I never was severe,' said he, 'in censuring the frailties of youth and nature; but think the claim they have to pardon consists chiefly in an endeavour to conceal them; when gloried in, they lose the name of frailties, and become vices: besides, others by our example might be emboldened to offend; and, if so, what are we but accessary to their faults, and answerable for them, as well as for our own? You are at present,' continued he, 'the head of your family, have a large estate, are young, handsome, accomplished; in fine, have all the requisites to make a shining character in life, and to be a service and an honour to your country. How great a pity would it be, that such a stock of fortune's blessings, such present benefits, and such glorious expectations, should all be squandered in the purchase of one guilty pleasure!'
He then proceeded to a short discussion of the difference between a lawful and an unlawful communication between the sexes; he expatiated on the wife and laudable institution of marriage; the solid comforts arising from that state, in the choice of a worthy partner; the many advantages of an honourable alliance; the serene and lasting pleasures to be found in the society of a faithful, discreet, and endearing companion. 'A wife,' said he, with a sigh, which the memory of his own hard fate drew from him, 'may sometimes be bad, but a mistress we are sure is never good; her very character denies all confidence to be reposed in her; it is the interest of a wife to secure the honour of her husband, because she must suffer in his disgrace; a mistress, having no reputation of her own, regards not that of her keeper. It is the interest of a wife to be frugal of her husband's substance, because she must be a sharer in those misfortunes which the want of economy creates; but is the interest of a mistress to sell her favours as dear as she can, and to make the best provision she can for herself, because her subsistence is precarious, and depends wholly on the will of him who supports her. These, my dear friend,' continued he, 'are truths, which I hope you will not wait for experience to convince you of.'
It is probable Mr. Thoughtless did not relish this admonition; he seemed, however, to take it in good part, and returned for answer, that he should ever retain the most grateful sense of the kind concern he expressed for him; and added, that whatever inconveniences he might have been hurried into, by an inadvertent passion, he should always take care not to become the dupe of any woman.
Mr. Goodman then fell into some discourse concerning the younger Mr. Thoughtless; and the elder telling him, that, by his interest, he procured a comission for him on very easy terms, that worthy old gentleman appeared very much pleased, and said, he hoped they would always live together in that perfect amity which both good policy and nature demands between persons of the same blood.
'And now,' continued he, 'I have but one more thing to recommend to you, and that is in relation to your sister Miss Betsy: I doubt not of her innocence, but I fear her conduct; her youth, her beauty, the gaiety of her temper, and the little vanities of her sex, are every day exposing her to temptations fatal to reputation; I wish, therefore, she were well married; I know not how the courtship of Mr. Trueworth happened to be broke off; perhaps on some trifling occasion either on the one or the other side: if so, it is likely Mr. Francis, when he comes to town, may bring about a reconciliation. According to my judgment of mankind, she cannot make a more deserving choice. There is another gentleman, who now makes his addresses to her, whose name is Munden; but I know nothing of his character; he never applied to me, nor did she consult me on the affair; it will, however, be a brother's part in you to enquire how far he may be worthy of her.'
Perceiving Mr. Thoughtless listened to him with a good deal of attention, he went on; 'I should also think it right,' said he, 'that while she remains in a single state, she should be boarded in some social, reputable family; I do not like this living by herself, her humour is too volatile to endure solitude; she must have her amusements; and the want of them at home naturally carries her in search of them abroad: I could wish,' he added, 'that you would tell her what I have said to you on this subject; she is convinced I am her friend, I believe has some regard for me, and, it may be, my dying admonitions will have greater effect upon her than all she has heard from me before.'
Mr. Goodman, after this, beginning to grow extremely faint, and altogether unable to hold any farther discourse, the brother of Miss Betsy judged it convenient to retire; assuring the other, as he took his leave, that no part of what he had said should be lost upon him.
Though the promise he had made Mr. Goodman was chiefly dictated by his complaisance, yet it was not wholly forgot after he had left him. As to what that worthy gentleman had said, in relation to his own manner of living, he thought he had talked well, but he had talked like an old man, and that it was time enough for him to part with his pleasures when he had no longer any inclination to pursue them; but what had been alledged to him, concerning his sister's conduct, made a much deeper impression on his mind: he considered, that the honour of a family depended greatly on the female part of it, and therefore resolved to omit nothing in his power to prevent Miss Betsy from being caught by any snares that might be laid to entrap her innocence.
He communicated to Mr. Francis Thoughtless, on his arrival, all that Mr. Goodman had said to him on this score, and his own sentiments upon it: that young gentleman was entirely of his brother's opinion in this point; and they both agreed, that marriage was the only sure refuge for a young woman of Miss Betsy's disposition and humour. They had a long and pretty serious conversation on this head, the result of which was, that they should go together to her, and each exert all the influence he had over her, in order to draw from her some farther eclaircissement of her intentions than could yet be gathered from her behaviour.
Miss Betsy, who little suspected their designs, received them with all the tenderness that could be expected from a sister, especially her brother Frank; whose return, after so long an absence, gave her in reality an entire satisfaction: but she had scarce time to give him all the welcomes with which her heart overflowed, before the elder Mr. Thoughtless fell on the topick of Mr. Goodman, and the misfortune they sustained in the loss of so good a friend; after which, 'He has left you a legacy, sister,' said he. 'A legacy!' cried she, 'pray, of what kind?'--'Such a one,' replied he, 'as perhaps you will not be very well pleased in receiving; nor would I chuse to deliver it, but for two reasons: first, that the injunctions of a dying friend are not to be dispensed with; and, secondly, that it is of a nature, I fear, you stand in too much need of.'
Miss Betsy, whose ready wit made her presently comprehend the meaning of these words, replied with some smartness, that whatever she stood in need of, she should certainly receive with pleasure, and that he might have spared himself the trouble of a prelude, for any thing that could be delivered by him, or bequeathed to her by Mr. Goodman.
He then told her, how that gentleman, the day before his death, had sent for him; 'For no other purpose,' said he, 'than to talk to me on your account, and to exhort me as your brother, and now your guardian, to have a watchful eye over all your actions; to remind you of some inadvertencies of the past, and to warn you against falling into the like for the future: sorry I am to find myself under a necessity of speaking to you in this manner; but harsh as it may seem at present, I doubt not, but you will hereafter own, is a proof of the greatest affection I could shew you.' He then repeated to her all that Mr. Goodman had said to him in relation to her; to which he also added many things of his own, which he thought might serve to strengthen and to enforce the arguments made use of by the other.
It is impossible to describe the various and disturbed emotions which discovered themselves in the countenance of Miss Betsy during the whole time her brother was speaking; she looked extremely grave at the manner in which he ushered what he had to deliver to her from Mr. Goodman; appeared confounded and perplexed at what she heard that gentleman had said concerning Mr. Trueworth; was quite peevish at the mention of Mr. Munden; but when told of the dangers to which she was exposed by living alone, and trusted with the management of herself, her eyes sparkled with disdain and rage at a remonstrance she looked upon as so unnecessary and so unjust.
If this message had been sent to her by any other than Mr. Goodman, whose memory, on account of the benefits she had received from him, was precious to her; or had it been repeated by any other mouth than that of her brother, she had certainly vented the indignation she was possessed, in the most bitter terms; but gratitude, respect, and love, denying her this remedy, she burst into tears. 'Good God!' cried she, 'what have I done to raise such cruel suggestions in the heart of any friend? Which of my actions can malice construe into a crime? I challenge my worst of enemies to prove me guilty of any thing that might justly cast a blemish on my reputation, much less to call my virtue into question.'
The two brothers seemed very much moved at the agonies that they saw her in, especially the elder; who, repenting he had gone so far, took her in his arms, and, tenderly embracing her, 'My dear sister,' said he, 'you wrong your friends, while you imagine yourself wronged by them; your reputation, I hope, is clear; your virtue not suspected: it is not to accuse you of any guilt, but to prevent your innocence from becoming a prey to the guilt of others, that Mr. Goodman sent you his dying admonition, or that I took upon me to deliver it.'
Mr. Francis Thoughtless seconded what the other had said; and both joining their endeavours to pacify the late tempest of her mind, she soon recovered that good-humour and chearfulness which was too natural to her to be long suspended by any accident whatever.
'I flattered myself,' said the younger of these gentlemen, 'that cautions of this kind would have been altogether unnecessary, and that before now you would have been disposed of to a man, under whose protection all that is dear to your sex had been secure; I need not tell you,' continued he, 'that I mean Mr. Trueworth.'
Miss Betsy looking a little confused, and not making any reply, the elder Mr. Thoughtless immediately took up the word, and said he had heard so high a character of that gentleman's merit, that he had wished for few things with more ardency than the honour of being allied to him; and that he never could find out what objection his sister had to accept of an offer so every way to her advantage.
To this Miss Betsy made answer, though not without some disorder and hesitation in her speech, that she had never made any objection either to his person or qualifications; but that she did not care to marry yet a while, and that he had not love enough to wait the event of her resolution in that point: that, besides, their humours did not suit, and there was little likelihood they would agree better after marriage; that there had been a little pique between them; that he gave himself airs of resenting something she had said, and thereupon had sent her a very impertinent letter; since which she had never seen him: 'So that,' added she, 'our breaking off acquaintance is wholly owing to himself.'
Mr. Francis, not doubting but this letter would explain what he so much desired to know the truth of, cried out to her hastily to let him see it. Miss Betsy already repenting that she had mentioned such a thing, as she was conscious there were some expressions in it which would greatly countenance the disagreeable remonstrances she had just now received; but she wanted artifice to pretend she had either lost or burnt it, and went that instant to her cabinet; where easily finding it, she gave it into her brother's hands, with these words 'He reproaches me,' said she, 'with things I know nothing of, and in terms which, I think, do not very well become the passion he pretended to have for me.'
'That he once loved you,' said Mr. Francis, coolly, 'I am very certain. How his sentiments may be changed, and the reasons of their being so, this may, perhaps, give me room to guess.' He then read the letter aloud; and, while he was doing so, several times cast a look at Miss Betsy, which shewed he was highly dissatisfied with her, for having given any cause for the reflections contained in it.
'I see very well,' said he, returning her the letter, 'that he has done with you, and that it is your own fault. I shall, however, talk to him on the affair; and if there be a possibility of accommodating matters between you, shall endeavour it for your sake.'
Here Miss Betsy's spirit rouzed itself, in spite of the respect she had for her brothers. 'I beseech you, Sir,' said she to Mr. Francis, 'not to go about to force your sister upon any man. If Mr. Trueworth, of his own accord, renews the professions he has made, I shall, on your account, receive them as I did before any misunderstanding happened between us; but as to changing my condition, either in favour of him or any other man, I know not when, or whether ever, I shall be in the humour to do it. You may, however, if you please,' continued she, 'hear what he has to say for himself, and what mighty matters against me, that can excuse the abrupt manner of his quitting me.'
'I know not as yet,' replied Mr. Francis, with some vehemence, 'whether I shall interfere any farther in the thing; and am heartily sorry I have given myself any trouble about it, since you so little consider your own interest, or will follow the advice of those who are at the pains to consider for you.'--'Come, come,' said the elder Mr. Thoughtless, 'you are both too fiery. I am confident my sister has too much good sense to suffer any little caprice to impede her real happiness; therefore, pr'ythee, Frank, let us drop this subject at present, and leave her to her own reflections.'
To which Miss Betsy answered, that there required but little reflection to instruct her what she ought to do; and that, though she could not consent to be kept always in leading-strings, the love and respect she had for her brothers would never permit her to do any thing without their approbation. There passed nothing more of consequence between them at this visit: but what had been said, served to engross pretty much the minds of each of them after they were separated.
Chapter III
Has somewhat more business in it than the former
Though Miss Betsy was very conscious of the merits of Mr. Trueworth, and equally convinced of the friendship her brother Francis had for him, and had, therefore, doubted not but, when that young gentleman should arrive, he would reason strongly with her on the little regard she had paid to his recommendations, or the advantages of the alliance he had proposed; yet she did not expect the satisfaction of their first meeting would have been embittered by a resentment such as, it seemed to her, he had testified on the occasion.
She easily perceived the two brothers had consulted together, before they come to her, in what manner they should behave towards her; and this she looked upon as a sort of proof, that they intended to assume an authority over her, to which they had no claim. 'The love I have for them,' said she to herself, 'will always make me take a pleasure in obliging them, and doing every thing they desire of me; but they are entirely mistaken, if they imagine it in their power to awe me into compliance with their injunctions.
'And yet,' cried she again, 'what other aim than my happiness and interest can they propose to themselves, in desiring to have me under their direction? Poor Frank has given me proofs that I am very dear to him; and, I believe, my brother Thoughtless is not wanting in natural affection for me: why, then, should I reject the counsel of two friends, whose sincerity there is not a possibility of suspecting? They know their sex, and the dangers to which ours are exposed, by the artifices of base designing men. I have had some escapes, which I ought always to remember enough to keep me from falling into the like ugly accidents again. How near was I to everlasting ruin, by slighting the warning given me by Mr. Trueworth!'
This reflection bringing into her mind many passages of her behaviour towards that gentleman, she could not forbear justifying his conduct, and condemning her own. 'I have certainly used him ill,' pursued she, with a sigh; 'and if he should return, and forgive what is past, I think I ought, in gratitude, to reward his love!'
She was in this contemplating mood when her servant told her that Mrs. Modely had been to wait upon her; but, on hearing her brothers were with her, went away, saying she would come again; which she now was, and begged to speak with her.
Miss Betsy was at this moment just beginning to feel some sort of pleasure in the idea of Mr. Trueworth's renewing his addresses, and was a little peevish at the interruption: she ordered, however, that the woman should come up. 'Well, Mrs. Modely,' said she, as soon as she saw her enter, 'what stuff have you brought me now?'
'Ah, charming Miss Betsy,' replied she, 'you fine ladies and great fortunes think you may do any thing with the men. Poor Sir Frederick will break his heart, or run mad, that's to be sure, if you don't send him a favourable answer to this letter.' In speaking these words, she delivered a letter to Miss Betsy; which that young lady opened with a careless air, and it contained these high-flown lines.
'This humbly to be presented to the most beautiful of all beauties, the super-excellent Miss Betsy Thoughtless.
Adorable creature,
I am grieved to the very soul to hear you have any subject for affliction; but am very certain that, in being deprived of your divine presence, I endure a more mortal stab than any loss you have sustained can possibly inflict. I am consumed with the fire of my passion; I have taken neither repose nor food since first I saw you. I have lived only on the idea of your charms. Oh, nourish me with the substance! Hide me in your bosom from the foul fiend Despair, that is just ready to lay hold on me!
The passion I am possessed of for you is not like that of other men. I cannot wait the tedious forms of courtship: there is no medium between death and the enjoyment of you--the circle of your arms, or a cold leaden shroud--the one or the other must very shortly be my portion. But I depend upon the heaven of your mercy, and hope you will permit me to pour forth the abundance of my soul before you--to bask in the sunshine of your smiles; and to try, at least, if no spark of that amorous flame, which burns me up, has darted upon you, and kindled you into soft desires.
O, if any part of my impatient fires, by secret sympathy, should happily have reached your breast, never was there a pair so transcendently blest as we should be! The thought is rapture! Extasy too big for words--too mighty for description! And I must, therefore, for a few hours, defer any farther endeavours to convince you; till when I remain, absorbed in the delightful image, dear quintessence of joy, your most devoted, most obsequious, and most adoring vassal,
F. FINEER.'
In spite of the serious humour Miss Betsy was in, she could not read this without bursting into a violent fit of laughter; but soon composing herself, 'If I had not seen the author of this epistle,' said she to Mrs. Modely, 'I should have thought it had been sent me by some school-boy, and was the first essay of describing a passion he had heard talked of, and was ambitious of being supposed capable of feeling. But, sure,' continued she, 'the man must be either mad, or most impudently vain, to write to me as if he imagined I was in love with him, and would have him on his first putting the question to me.'
'Ah, my dear Madam!' said Mrs. Modely, 'do you consider that a young gentleman of ten thousand a year in possession, as much more in reversion, and the expectation of a coronet, is not apt to think he may have any body?'--'If he does, he may find himself mistaken,' replied Miss Betsy haughtily; and then in the same breath softening her voice, 'But are you sure,' cried she, 'that he has so much?'--'Sure, Madam!' said Mrs. Modely, 'Aye, as sure that I am alive! I have heard it from twenty people. They say he has a house in the country as big as a town, and above fifty servants in it; though he is but just come to London, and has not had time to settle his equipage as yet: but he has bespoke the finest coach, and the genteelest chariot, you ever saw; all in a new taste, and perfectly French; they are quite finished, all but the painting, and that only waits till he knows whether he may quarter your arms or not.'
'Bless me!' cried Miss Betsy, 'does he think to gain me in the time of painting a coach?'--'Nay, I don't know,' answered Mrs. Modely; 'but I think such an offer is not to be trifled with. He is violently in love with you, that is certain: he does not desire a penny of your fortune, and will settle upon you, notwithstanding, his whole estate, if you require it.'
Miss Betsy made no answer, but paused for a considerable time, and seemed, as it were, in a profound reverie. At last, coming out of it, 'He is for doing things in such a hurry,' said she; 'I have seen him no more than once, and scarce know what sort of a person he is: how, then, can I tell you whether I ever shall be able to bring myself to like him or not?'
'You may give him leave to wait on you, however,' cried the other. Here Miss Betsy was again silent for some moments; but Mrs. Modely repeating her request, and enforcing it with some arguments, 'Well, then,' replied she, 'I shall not go to church this afternoon, and will see him if he comes. But, dear Modely,' continued she, 'don't let him assume on the permission I give him: tell him you had all the difficulty in the world to prevail on me to do it; for, in my mind, he already hopes too much, and fears too little, for a man so prodigiously in love.' Mrs. Modely on this assured her, she might trust to her management; and took her leave, very well pleased with the success of her negociation.
We often see the love of grandeur prevail over persons of the ripest years and knowledge. What guilty lengths have not some men run to attain it, even among those who have been esteemed the wisest and most honest of their time; when once a title, a bit of ribband cross their shoulder, or any other gew-gaw trophy of the favour of a court, has been hung out, how has their virtue veered and yielded to the temptation? It is not, therefore, to be wondered at, that a young heart, unexperienced in the fallacy of shew, should be dazzled with the tinsel glitter: the good sense of Miss Betsy made her see, that this last triumph of her charms was a vain, silly, and affected coxcomb; but then this coxcomb had a vast estate, and the enchanting ideas of the figure she should make, if in possession of it, in some measure out-balanced the contempt she had of the owner's person and understanding.
The glare of pomp and equipage, the pleasure of having it in her power of taking the upper-hand of those of her own rank, and of vying with those of a more exalted one, it is certain had very potent charms for her, but then there was a delicacy in her nature, that would not suffer the desire of attaining it to be altogether predominant: the thoughts of being sacrificed to a man for whom it was impossible for her to have either love or esteem; to be obliged to yield that, through duty, which inclinations shuddered at, struck a sudden damp to all the rising fires of pride and ambition in her soul, and convinced her, that greatness would be too dearly purchased at the expence of peace.
In fine, she considered on these things so long, that she grew weary of considering at all; so resolved to let the matter rest, give herself no farther pain, leave to chance the disposal of her fate, and treat all her lovers, as she hitherto had done, only as subjects of mere amusement.
She was now beginning to please herself with thoughts of how Mr. Munden, whom she expected that evening, would behave at the sight of his new rival, and how Sir Frederick Fineer would bear the preference of a man whom she was resolved to shew him had the same pretensions as himself: but though she happened to be disappointed in her expectation in this, she did not want other sufficient matter for her diversion.
Sir Frederick, to shew the impatience of his passion, came very soon after dinner: she received him with as grave an air as she could possibly put on; but it was not in her power, nor indeed would have been in any one else's, to continue it for any long time; his conversation was much of a piece with his letters, and his actions even more extravagant.
Never was such an Orlando Furioso in love: on his first approach, he had indeed the boldness to take one of her hands, and put it to his mouth; but, afterwards, whatever he said to her was on his knees. He threw himself prostrate on the carpet before her, grasped her feet, and tenderly kissed each shoe, with the same vehemence as he could have done her lips, and as much devotion as the pilgrims at Rome do the pantofle of his holiness!--'Darts!--Flames!--Immortal joys!--Death!--Despair!--Heaven!--Hell!--Ever-during woe!'--and all the epithets in the whole vocabulary of Cupid's legend, begun and ended every sentence of his discourse. This way of entertaining her was so extraordinary, and so new to her, that she could not forbear sometimes returning it with a smile; which, in spite of her endeavours to preserve a serious deportment, diffused a gaiety through all her air.
Those who had told Sir Frederick, that the way to please this lady, was to soothe her vanity, either knew not, or had forgot to inform him, she had also an equal share of good sense; so that, mistaking the change he had observed in her looks for an indication of her being charmed with his manner of behaviour, he acted and re-acted over all his fopperies, and felt as much secret pride in repeating them, as a celebrated singer on the stage does in obeying the voice of an encore.
It is probable, however, that he would have continued in them long enough to have tired Miss Betsy so much as to have made her give him some demonstrative remark that the pleasantry he had seen her in, proceeded rather from derision than satisfaction, if, divine service being ended, some ladies, as they came from church, had not called to visit her. The sound of company coming up stairs, obliged him to break off in the middle of a rhapsody, which he, doubtless, thought very fine; and he took his leave somewhat hastily, telling her, the passion with which he was inflamed, was too fierce to be restrained within those bounds which she might expect before witnesses, and that he would wait on her the next day, when he hoped she would be at more liberty to receive his vows.
Eased of the constraint which decency, and the respect which she thought due to his quality, had laid her under while he was there, her natural sprightliness burst with double force. Mr. Munden, who came in soon after, felt the effects of it: he, indeed, enjoyed a benefit he little dreamt of. The absurd conversation of a rival he as yet knew nothing of, served to make all he said sound more agreeable than ever in the ears of his mistress: in this excess of good-humour, she not only made a handsome apology for the treatment he had received at Mrs. Modely's, (a thing she had never before vouchsafed to do to any of her lovers) but also gave him an invitation to squire her to a country dancing, in which she had engaged to make one the ensuing night.
Chapter IV
If it were not for some particulars, might be as well passed over as read
Miss Betsy, one would think, had now sufficient matter to employ her meditations on the score of those two lovers who at present laid close siege to her, neither of whom she was willing to part with entirely, and to retain either she found required some management: Mr. Munden was beginning to grow impatient at the little progress his long courtship had made on her affections; and Sir Frederick Fineer, on the other hand, was for bringing things to a conclusion at once; she was also every day receiving transient addresses from many others; which, though not meant seriously by those who made them, nor taken so by her, served occasionally to fill up any vacuum in her mind; yet was it not in the power of love, gallantry, or any other amusement, to drive the memory of Mr. Trueworth wholly out of her head; which shews, that to a woman of sense, a man of real merit, even though he is not loved, can never be totally indifferent.
But she was at this time more than ordinarily agitated on that gentleman's account; she doubted not but her brother Frank either had, or would shortly have, a long conference with him, on the subject of his desisting his visits to her, and could not keep herself from feeling some palpitations for the event; for though she was not resolved to afford any recompence to his love, she earnestly wished he should continue to desire it, and that she might still preserve her former dominion over a heart which she had always looked upon as the most valuable prize of all that her beauty had ever gained.
Thus unreasonable, and indeed unjust, was she in the affairs of love: in all others she was humane, benevolent, and kind; but here covetous, even to a greediness, of receiving all, without any intention of making the least return. In fine, the time was not yet come when she should be capable of being touched with that herself which she took so much pains to inspire in others.
Though she could not love, she was pleased with being loved: no man, of what degree or circumstance soever, could offend her by declaring himself her admirer; and as much as she despised Sir Frederick Fineer for his romantick manner of expressing the passion he professed for her, yet to have missed him out of the number of her train of captives, would have been little less mortification to her than the loss of a favourite lover would have been to some other woman.
That inamorato of all inamoratoes, would not, however, suffer the flames which he flattered himself with having kindled in her, to grow cool; and, ambitious also of shewing his talents in verse as well as prose, sent to her that morning the following epistle--
'To the bright goddess of my soul, the adorable Miss Betsy Thoughtless.
Most divine source of joy!
To shew in what manner I pass the hours of absence from you, and at the same time represent the case of a lover racked with suspense, and tossed alternately between hopes and fears, I take the liberty to inscribe to you the inclosed poem, which, I most humbly beseech you to take as it is meant, the tribute of my duteous zeal, an humble offering presented at the shrine of your all-glorious beauty, from, lovely ruler of my heart, your eternally devoted, and no less faithful slave,
F. FINEER.
A true picture of my heart, in the different stages of it's worship; a poem, most humbly inscribed to the never-enough deified Miss Betsy Thoughtless.
When first from my unfinish'd sleep I start, I feel a flutt'ring faintness round my heart; A darksome mist, which rises from my mind, And, like sweet sunshine, leaves your name behind. When from your shadow to yourself I fly, To drink in transport at my thirsty eye, Each orb surveys you with a kindling sight, And trembles to sustain the vast delight: From head to foot, o'er all your heaven they stray, Dazzled with lustre in your milky way: At last you speak; and, as I start to hear, My soul is all collected in my ear. But when resistless transport makes me bold, And your soft hand inclos'd in mine I hold, Then flooding raptures swim through ev'ry vein, And each swollen art'ry throbs with pleasing pain. Fain would I snatch you to my longing arms, And grasp in extasy your blazing charms: O then, how vain the wish that I pursue! I would lose all myself, and mix with you; Involv'd--embodied, with your beauties join, As fires meet fires, and mingle in their shine; Absorb'd in bliss, I would dissolving lie, Become all you, and soul and body die. Weigh well these symptoms, and then judge, in part, The poignant anguish of the bleeding heart Of him, who is, with unutterable love, resplendent charmer, Your hoping, fearing, languishing adorer,
F. FINEER.
P.S. I propose to fly to the feet of my adorable about five o'clock this afternoon; do not, I beseech you, clip the wings of my devotion, by forbidding my approach.'
How acceptable, to a vain mind is even the meanest testimony of admiration! If Miss Betsy was not charmed with the elegance of this offering, she was at least very well pleased with the pains he took in composing it. In the humour she then was, she would perhaps have rewarded the labour of his brain, with giving him an opportunity of kissing her shoe a second time; but she expected her brother Frank about the hour he mentioned, with some intelligence of Mr. Trueworth, and had engaged to pass the evening abroad, as has been already mentioned.
She sent, however, a very complaisant message by the servant who brought the letter; she ordered he should come up into her dining-room, and then, with a great deal of sweetness, desired him to tell his master, that she was under a necessity of spending the whole day with some relations that were just come to town, therefore entreated he would defer the honour he intended her till some other time.
Mr. Francis Thoughtless did, indeed, call upon her, as she imagined he would: he had been at the lodgings of Mr. Trueworth; but as that gentleman happened to be abroad at the time he went, and he was now obliged to go with his brother on some business relating to the commission he was about to purchase, so he could not stay long enough with her to enter into any conversation of moment.
Miss Betsy had now full two hours upon her hands after her brother left her, to which she had appointed Mr. Munden to come to conduct her to the country-dancing; and as she had not seen Miss Mabel for a good while, and had heard that lady had made her several visits when she was not at home to receive them, she thought to take this opportunity of having nothing else to do, to return part of the debt which civility demanded from her to her friend. Accordingly, she set out in a hackney-coach, but met with an accident by the way, which not only disappointed her intentions, but likewise struck a strange damp on the gaiety of her spirits.
As they were driving pretty fast through a narrow street, a gentleman's chariot ran full against them, with such rapidity, that both received a very great shock, insomuch that the wheels were locked; and it was not without some difficulty, and the assistance of several people, who seeing what had happened, ran out of their shops and houses, that the coachmen were able to keep their horses from going on; which, had they done, both the machines must inevitably have been torn to pieces: there were two gentlemen in the chariot, who immediately jumped out; Miss Betsy screaming, and frighted almost to death, was also helped out of the coach by a very civil tradesman, before whose door the accident had happened; he led her into his shop, and made her sit down, while his wife ran to fetch a glass of water, and some hartshorn-drops.
Her extreme terror had hindered her from discovering who was in the chariot, or whether any one was there; but the gentlemen having crossed the way, and come into the same shop, she presently knew the one to be Sir Bazil Loveit, and the other Mr. Trueworth; her surprize at the sight of the latter was such as might have occasioned some raillery, if it had not been concealed under that which she had sustained before: Sir Bazil approached her with a very respectful bow, and made a handsome apology for the fault his man had committed, in not giving way when a lady was in the coach; to which she modestly replied, that there could be no fault where there was no design of offending. Mr. Trueworth then drawing near, with a very cold and reserved air, told her he hoped she would receive no prejudice by the accident.
'I believe the danger is now over,' said she, struck to the very heart at finding herself accosted by him in a manner so widely different from that to which she had been accustomed: scarce had she the fortitude to bear the shock it gave her; but, summoning to her aid all that pride and disdain could supply her with, to prevent him from perceiving how much she was affected by his behaviour--'I could not, however,' pursued she, with a tone of voice perfectly ironical, 'have expected to receive any consolation under this little disaster from Mr. Trueworth; I imagined, sir, that some weeks ago you had been reposing yourself in the delightful bowers, and sweet recesses, of your country-seat. How often have I heard you repeat with pleasure these lines of Mr. Addison's--
"Bear me, ye gods! t'Umbraia's gentle seats, Or hide me in sweet Bayia's soft retreats?"
'Yet still I find you in this noisy, bustling town.' She concluded these words with a forced smile; which Mr. Trueworth taking no notice of, replied with the same gravity as before, 'I purposed, indeed, Madam, to have returned to Oxfordshire; but events then unforeseen have detained me.'
While they were speaking, Sir Bazil recollecting the face of Miss Betsy, which till now he had not done, cried, 'I think, Madam, I have had the honour of seeing you before this?'--'Yes, Sir Bazil,' replied she, knowing very well he meant at Miss Forward's, 'you saw me once in a place where neither you, nor anyone else, will ever see me again: but I did not then know the character of the person I visited.' To which Sir Bazil only replying, that he believed she did not, Mr. Trueworth immediately rejoined, that the most cautious might be once deceived.
The emphasis with which he uttered the word once, made Miss Betsy see that he bore still in his mind the second error she had been guilty of in visiting that woman; but she had no time to give any other answer than a look of scorn and indignation, Sir Bazil's footman telling him the chariot was now at liberty, and had received no damage: on which the gentlemen took their leave of her, Mr. Trueworth shewing no more concern in doing so, than Sir Bazil himself, or any one would have done, who never had more than a mere cursory acquaintance with her.
She would not be persuaded to go into the coach again, much less could she think of going on her intended visit; but desired a chair to be called, and went directly home, in order to give vent to those emotions which may easier be conceived than represented.