Memoirs of Miss Sidney Bidulph | ||
We arrived here yesterday, and met a most friendly reception from the lady of this mansion. But before I say any more of her, I will hasten to a more interesting subject. I have got Mr. Faulkland's letter to my mother; she has just put it into my hands; and while she walks in the garden with lady Grimston, I will make haste to transcribe it. Thus it is:
Dorothy Faulkland
I submit to the sentence you have passed on me. I am miserable, but do not presume to expostulate. I purpose leaving England directly; but would wish, if possible (a little to mitigate the severity of my lot), to convince you, that the unhappy rejected man, who aspired to the honour of being your son-in-law,
To Sir George's friendship I know I am much indebted for endeavouring to vindicate me. It was not in his power, it was not in my own; for you saw all which I, in unreserved freedom, wrote to him on the subject of my acquaintance with Miss B.
I have but one resource left; perhaps, madam, you will think it a strange one. To the lady herself I must appeal. She will do me justice, and I am sure will be ready to acknowledge that I am no betrayer of innocence, no breaker of promises; that I was surprized into the commission of a fault, for which I have paid so dear a price.
Her testimony, madam, may perhaps have some weight with you; though I propose nothing more from it, than that you may think of me with less detestation. You have banished me from your presence: I am a voluntary exile from my country, and from my friends: I submit to the chastisement, and would
The lady whom it has been my ill fate to render unhappy, and by whom I am made unutterable so, will, ere long, come to a house at Putney, which I have taken on purpose for her. I have placed in it my housekeeper, a grave worthy woman, under whose care she will be safe, and attended with that secrecy and tenderness which her condition requires.
I have written to her a faithful account of every thing relative to my hoped-for alliance with your family, and the occasion of the treaty's being broken off. As she must, by this means, know that your ladyship is acquainted with her story, I have told her, that, perhaps you might, from the interest you took in her misfortune, be induced to see her in her retirement. Let me, therefore, conjure you,
I think she will be in very good hands with the honest woman who waits her coming; but if any thing should happen otherwise than well, it would make me doubly wretched.
To one who has no resources of contentment in her own bosom, solitude cannot be a friend; this I fear may be the lady's case; and this makes me with the more earnestness urge my request to you. Forgive me, madam, for the liberty I take with you; a liberty, which though I confess it needs an apology, yet is it at the same time a proof of the confidence I have in you, which I hope will not affront either your candour or your virtue.
If you will condescend to grant this request, I shall obtain the two wishes at present most material to my peace; the one to secure to the lady a compassionate friend, already inclined to espouse her cause; the other, to put it in your power to be satisfied from the lady's own mouth of the truth of what I have asserted. I trust to her generosity to deal openly on this occasion.
I wish you and Miss Bidulph every
blessing that heaven can bestow, and am,
with great respect,
Madam,
Your ladyship's most obedient,
Humble Servant,
ORLANDO FAULKLAND.
P.S. The lady will go by the name of Mrs. Jefferis: you will pardon me for not having mentioned her real name. I never yet told it even to Sir George; but I presume she will make no secret of it to you, if you honour her with a visit.
Poor Orlando! unhappy Miss B.! I could name a third person, that is not
I make no doubt of her complying with Mr. Faulkland's request in seeing the lady: she is very compassionate, particularly to her own sex.
What a strange resource indeed is this of Mr. Faulkland's, to appeal to the lady herself! What am I to judge from it, but that the unfortunate victim, ignorant of the treachery that was practised against her by her wicked aunt, and that her destroyer paid a price for her dishonour, exculpates him from the worst part of the guilt, and perhaps, poor easy creature,
But even supposing Miss B. were generous and candid enough (and great indeed must be her candour and generosity) to justify this guilty man, What would it avail? Did not my mother tell me she conceived a sort of horror at the bare idea of an union between Mr. Faulkland and me? This arises from the strong impression made on her by the unlucky event which blasted her own early love. Strong and early prejudices are almost insurmountable.
My mother's piety, genuine and rational as it is, is notwithstanding a little tinctured with superstition; it was the error of her education, and her good sense has not been able to surmount it; so that I know the universe would not induce her to change her resolution in regard to Mr. Faulkland. She thinks he ought to marry Miss B. and she will ever think so. I wish he would; for I am sure he never can be mine. The bell
I saw my mother rested her compliance with Mr. Faulkland's request, merely on one point; that of compassion to the girl. As for the other motive, said she, the hearing him justified from the lady's own mouth, I am not such a novice in those matters, but that I know when a deluding man has once got an ascendency over a young creature, he can coax her into any thing. Too much truth I doubt there is in this observation of my mother's.
But it is time to say something of lady Grimston. My Cecilia has never seen her, though I believe she has often heard my mother speak of her. They are nearly of an age, and much of the same cast of thinking; though with this difference, that lady Grimston is extravagantly rigid in her notions, and precise in her manner. She has been a widow for many years, and lives upon a large jointure at Grimston-hall, with as much regularity and solemnity, as you would see in a
Memoirs of Miss Sidney Bidulph | ||