LETTER VIII.
To Jane Talbot.
Wilmington, Saturday, 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, or because my chief pleasure
lay any where 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, whom 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 preferance.
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. Where
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 rhumatism contracted by too assiduous 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 passing 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 destitute, 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 gratitude.
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 petitioner 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.
