Jane Talbot Part 7

Nothing can be weaker and more silly than these disquiets. Cannot my friend visit a deserving woman a few times but my terrors must impertinently intrude?--Cannot he forget the pen, and fail to write to me, for half a week together, but my rash resentments must conjure up the phantoms of ingrat.i.tude and perfidy?

Pity the weakness of a fond heart, Henry, and let me hear from you, and be your precious and long-withheld letter my relief from every disquiet. I believe, and do _not_ believe, what I have heard, and what I have heard teems with a thousand mischiefs, or is fair and innocent, according to my reigning temper.--Adieu; but let me hear from you immediately.

Letter VIII

_To Jane Talbot_

Wilmington, Sat.u.r.day, October 9.

I thought I had convinced my friend that a letter from me ought not to be expected earlier than Monday. I left her to gratify no fickle humour, nor because my chief pleasure lay anywhere but in her company. She knew of my design to make some stay at this place, and that the business that occasioned my stay would leave me no leisure to write.

Is it possible that my visits to Miss Secker have given you any concern? Why must the source of your anxiety be always so mortifying and opprobrious to me? That the absence of a few days, and the company of another woman, should be thought to change my sentiments, and make me secretly recant those vows which I offered to you, is an imputation on my common sense which--I suppose I deserve. You judge of me from what you know of me. How can you do otherwise? If my past conduct naturally creates such suspicions, who am I to blame but myself? Reformation should precede respect; and how should I gain confidence in my integrity but as the fruit of perseverance in well-doing?

Alas! how much has he lost who has forfeited his own esteem!

As to Miss Secker, your ignorance of her, and, I may add, of yourself, has given her the preference. You think her your superior, no doubt, in every estimable and attractive quality, and therefore suspect her influence on a being so sensual and volatile as poor Hal. Were she really more lovely, the faithless and giddy wretch might possibly forget you; but Miss Secker is a woman whose mind and person are not only inferior to yours, but wholly unfitted to inspire love. If it were possible to smile in my present mood, I think I should indulge _one smile_ at the thought of falling in love with a woman who has scarcely had education enough to enable her to write her name, who has been confined to her bed about eighteen months by a rheumatism contracted by too a.s.siduous application to the wash-tub, and who often boasts that she was born, not above forty-five years ago, in an upper story of the mansion at Mount Vernon.

You do not tell me who it was that betrayed me to you. I suspect, however, it was Miss Jessup. She was pa.s.sing through this town, in her uncle's carriage, on Wednesday, on her way home. Seeing me come out of the poor woman's lodgings, she stopped the coach, prated for five minutes, and left me with ironical menaces of telling you of my frequent visits to a single lady, of whom it appeared that she had some knowledge. Thus you see that your disquiets have had no foundation but in the sportive malice of your talkative neighbour.

Hannah Secker chanced to be talked of at Mr. Henshaw's as a poor creature, who was sick and dest.i.tute, and lay, almost deserted, in a neighbouring hovel. She existed on charity, which was the more scanty and reluctant as she bore but an indifferent character either for honesty or grat.i.tude.

The name, when first mentioned, struck my ear as something that had once been familiar, and, in my solitary evening walk, I stopped at her cottage. The sight of her, though withered by age and disease, called her fully to mind. Three years ago, she lived in the city, and had been very serviceable to me in the way of her calling. I had dismissed her, however, after receiving several proofs that a pair of silk stockings and a muslin cravat offered too mighty a temptation for her virtue. You know I have but little money to spare from my own necessities, and all the service I could render her was to be her pet.i.tioner and advocate with some opulent families in this place. But enough--and too much--of Hannah Secker.

Need I say that I have read your narrative, and that I fully acquit you of the guilt laid to your charge? That was done, indeed, before I heard your defence, and I was anxious to hear your story, merely because all that relates to you is in the highest degree interesting to me.

This letter, notwithstanding my engagements, should be longer, if I were not in danger, by writing on, of losing the post. So, dearest love, farewell, and tell me in your next (which I shall expect on Tuesday) that every pain has vanished from your head and from your heart. You may as well delay writing to your mother till I return. I hope it will be permitted me to do so very shortly. Again, my only friend, farewell.

HENRY COLDEN.

Letter IX

_To Henry Colden_

Philadelphia, Monday, October 11.

I am ashamed of myself, Henry. What an inconsistent creature am I! I have just placed this dear letter of yours next my heart. The sensation it affords, at this moment, is delicious; almost as much so as I once experienced from a certain somebody's hand placed on the same spot. But that somebody's hand was never (if I recollect aright) so highly honoured as this paper. Have I not told you that your letter is deposited _next_ my heart?

And with all these proofs of the pleasure your letter affords me, could you guess at the cause of those tears which, even now, have not ceased flowing? Your letter has so little tenderness--is so _very_ cold. But let me not be ungrateful for the preference you grant me, merely because it is not so enthusiastic and unlimited as my own.

I suppose, if I had not extorted from you some account of this poor woman, I should never have heard a syllable of your meeting with her. It is surely possible for people to be their own calumniators, to place their own actions in the worst light, to exaggerate their faults and conceal their virtues. If the fictions and artifices of vanity be detestable, the concealment of our good actions is surely not without guilt. The conviction of our guilt is painful to those that love us: wantonly and needlessly to give this pain is very perverse and unjustifiable. If a contrary deportment argue vanity, self-detraction seems to be the offspring of pride.

Thou art the strangest of men, Henry. Thy whole conduct with regard to me has been a tissue of self-upbraidings. You have disclosed not only a thousand misdeeds (as you have thought them) which could not possibly have come to my knowledge by any other means, but have laboured to ascribe even your commendable actions to evil or ambiguous motives. Motives are impenetrable, and a thousand cases have occurred in which every rational observer would have supposed you to be influenced by the best motives, but where, if credit be due to your own representations, your motives were far from being laudable.

Why is my esteem rather heightened than depressed by this deportment?

In truth, there is no crime which remorse will not expiate, and no more shining virtue in the whole catalogue than sincerity. Besides, your own account of yourself, with all the exaggerations of humility, proved you, on the whole, and with the allowances necessarily made by every candid person, to be a very excellent man.

Your deportment to me ought chiefly to govern my opinion of you; and have you not been uniformly generous, sincere, and upright?--not quite pa.s.sionate enough, perhaps; no blind and precipitate enthusiast. Love has not banished discretion, or blindfolded your sagacity; and, as I should forgive a thousand errors on the score of love, I cannot fervently applaud that wisdom which tramples upon love. Thou hast a thousand excellent qualities, Henry; that is certain: yet a little more impetuosity and fervour in thy tenderness would compensate for the want of the whole thousand. _There_ is a frank confession for thee! I am confounded at my own temerity in making it. Will it not injure me in thy esteem? and, of all evils which it is possible for me to suffer, the loss of _that_ esteem would soonest drive me to desperation.

The world has been liberal of its censure, but surely a thorough knowledge of my conduct could not condemn me. When my father and mother united their entreaties to those of Talbot, my heart had never known a preference. The man of their choice was perfectly indifferent to me, but every individual of his s.e.x was regarded with no less indifference. I did not conceal from him the state of my feelings, but was always perfectly ingenuous and explicit. Talbot acted like every man in love. He was eager to secure me on these terms, and fondly trusted to his tenderness and perseverance to gain those affections which I truly acknowledged to be free. He would not leave me for his European voyage till he had extorted a solemn promise.

During his absence I met you. The nature of those throbs, which a glance of your very shadow was sure to produce, even previous to the exchange of a single word between us, was entirely unknown to me. I had no experience to guide me. The effects of that intercourse which I took such pains to procure could not be foreseen. My heart was too pure to admit even such a guest as apprehension, and the only information I possessed respecting you impressed me with the notion that your heart already belonged to another.

I sought nothing but your society and your esteem. If the fetters of my promise to Talbot became irksome after my knowledge of you, I was unconscious of the true cause. This promise never for a moment lost its obligation with me. I deemed myself as much the wife of Talbot as if I had stood with him at the altar.

At the prospect of his return, my melancholy was excruciating, but the cause was unknown to me. I had nothing to wish, with regard to you, but to see you occasionally, to hear your voice, and to be told that you were happy. It never occurred to me that Talbot's return would occasion any difference in this respect. Conscious of nothing but rect.i.tude in my regard for you, always frank and ingenuous in disclosing my feelings, I imagined that Talbot would adopt you as warmly for his friend as I had done.

I must grant that I erred in this particular, but my error sprung from ignorance unavoidable. I judged of others by my own heart, and very sillily imagined that Talbot would continue to be satisfied with that cold and friendly regard for which only my vows made me answerable. Yet my husband's jealousies and discontents were not unreasonable. He loved me with pa.s.sion; and, if that sentiment can endure to be unrequited, it will never tolerate the preference of another, even if that preference be less than love.

In compliance with my husband's wishes--Ah! my friend! why cannot I say that I _did_ comply with them? what a fatal act is that of plighting hands when the heart is estranged! Never, never let the placable and compa.s.sionate spirit be seduced into a union to which the affections are averse. Let it not confide in the afterbirth of love. Such a union is the direst cruelty even to the object who is intended to be benefited.

I have not yet thoroughly forgiven you for deserting me. My heart swells with anguish at the thought of your setting more lightly by my resentment than by that of another; of your willingness to purchase any one's happiness at the cost of mine. You are too wise, too dispa.s.sionate, by far. Don't despise me for this accusation, Henry; you know my unbia.s.sed judgment has always been with you. Repeated proofs have convinced me that my dignity and happiness are safer in your keeping than in my own.

You guess right, my friend. Miss Jessup told me of your visits to this poor sick woman. There is something mysterious in the character of this Polly Jessup. She is particularly solicitous about every thing which relates to you. It has occurred to me, since reading your letter, that she is not entirely without design in her prattle. Something more, methinks, than the mere tattling, gossiping, inquisitive propensity in the way in which she introduces you into conversation.

She had not alighted ten minutes before she ran into my apartment, with a face full of intelligence. The truth respecting the washwoman was very artfully disguised, and yet so managed as to allow her to elude the imputation of direct falsehood. She will, no doubt, in this as in former cases, cover up all under the appearance of a good-natured jest; yet, if she be in jest, there is more of malice, I suspect, than of good nature in her merriment.

Make haste back, my dear Hal. I cannot bear to keep my mother in ignorance of our resolutions, and I am utterly at a loss in what manner to communicate them so as to awaken the least reluctance. Oh, what would be wanting to my felicity if my mother could be won over to my side? And is so inestimable a good utterly hopeless? Come, my friend, and dictate such a letter as may subdue those prejudices which, while they continue to exist, will permit me to choose only among deplorable evils.

JANE TALBOT.

Letter X

_To Jane Talbot_

New York, October 13.

I have just heard something which has made me very uneasy. I am afraid of seeming to you impertinent. You have declared your resolution to persist in conduct which my judgment disapproved. I have argued with you and admonished you, hitherto, in vain, and you have (tacitly indeed) rejected my interference; yet I cannot forbear offering you my counsel once more.

To say truth, it is not so much with a view to change your resolution, that I now write, as to be informed what your resolution is. I have heard what I cannot believe; yet, considering your former conduct, I have misgivings that I cannot subdue. Strangely as you have acted of late, I am willing to think you incapable of what is laid to your charge. In few words, Jane, they tell me that you mean to be actually married to Colden.

You know what I think of that young man. You know my objections to the conduct you thought proper to pursue in relation to Colden in your husband's lifetime. You will judge, then, with what emotions such intelligence was received.

Indiscreet as you have been, there are, I hope, bounds which your education will not permit you to pa.s.s. Some regard, I hope, you will have for your own reputation. If your conscience object not to this proceeding, the dread of infamy, at least, will check your career.

You may think that I speak harshly, and that I ought to wait, at least, till I knew your resolution, before I spoke of it in such terms; but, if this report be groundless, my censures cannot affect you. If it be true, they may serve, I hope, to deter you from persisting in your scheme.