LETTER XXI.
To Henry Colden.
I will struggle for sufficient composure to finish this
letter. I have spent the day in reflection, and am now, I
hope, calm enough to review this most horrid and inexplicable
charge.
Look, my friend, at the letter she has sent me. It is
my hand-writing. The very same which I have so often
mentioned to you as having been, after so unaccountable a
manner, mislaid.
I wrote some part of it, alone, in my own parlor. You
recollect the time. The day after that night which a heavy
storm of rain, and my fatal importunity prevailed on you to
spend under this roof.
Mark the deplorable consequences of an act, which the
coldest charity would not have declined. On such a night
I would have opened my doors to my worst enemy. Yet
because I turned not forth my best friend, on such a night,
see to what a foul accusation I have exposed myself.
I had not finished, but it came into my mind that something
in that which I had a little before received from you,
might be seasonably noticed, before I shut up my billet.
So I left my paper on the table, open, while I ran up stairs
to get your letter, which I had left in a drawer in my
chamber.
While turning over clothes and papers, I heard the street
door open, and some one enter. This did not hinder me
from continuing my search. I thought it was my gossiping
neighbor, Miss Jessup, and had some hopes that, finding no
one in the parlor, she would withdraw, with as little ceremony
as she entered.
My search was longer than I expected, but finding it at
last, down I went, fully expecting to find a visitant, not
having heard any steps returning to the door.
But no visitant was there, and the paper was gone! I
was surprised, and a little alarmed. You know my childish
apprehensions of robbers.
I called up Molly, who was singing at her work in the
kitchen. She had heard the street door open and shut,
and footsteps overhead, but she imagined them to be mine.
A little heavier, too, she recollected them to be, than
mine. She likewise heard a sound as if the door had been
opened and shut softly. It thus appeared that my unknown
visitant had hastily and secretly withdrawn, and my paper
had disappeared.
I was confounded at this incident. Who it was that
could thus purloin an unfinished letter and retire in order to
conceal the theft, I could not imagine. Nothing else had
been displaced. It was no ordinary thief; no sordid
villain.
For a time, I thought perhaps, it might be some facetious
body, who expected to find amusement in puzzling or
alarming me. Yet I was not alarmed; for what had I to
fear or to conceal? The contents were perfectly harmless,
and being fully satisfied with the purity of my own thoughts.
I never dreamed of any construction being put on them,
injurious to me.
I soon ceased to think of this occurrence. I had no
cause, as I then thought, to be anxious about consequences.
The place of the lost letter was easily supplied by my loquacious
pen, and I came, at last, to conjecture that I had
carelessly whisked it into the fire, and that the visitant had
been induced to withdraw, by finding the apartment empty.
Yet I never discovered any one who had come in and gone
out in this manner. Miss Jessup, whom I questioned afterwards,
had spent that day elsewhere. And now, when the
letter and its contents were almost forgotten, does it appear
before me, and is offered in proof of this dreadful
charge.
After reading my mother's letter, I opened with trembling
hand that which was enclosed. I instantly recognised
the long lost billet. All of it, appeared, on the first perusal,
to be mine. Even the last mysterious paragraph was acknowledged
by my senses. In the first confusion of my
mind, I knew not what to believe or reject; my thoughts
were wandering, and my repeated efforts had no influence
in restoring them to order.
Methinks, I then felt as I should have felt if the charge
had been true. I shuddered as if to look back would only
furnish me with proofs of a guilt of which I had not hitherto
been conscious; proofs that had merely escaped remembrance,
or had failed to produce their due effect, from some
infatuation of mind.
When the first horror and amazement were passed, and
I took up the letter and pondered on it once more, I caught
a glimpse suddenly; suspicion darted all at once into my
mind; I strove to recollect the circumstances attending the
writing of this billet.
Yes; it was clear. As distinctly as if it were the work
of yesterday, did I now remember, that I stopped at the
words nobody; mind that. The following sentences are
strange to me. The character is similar to what precedes,
but the words were never penned by me.
And could Talbot—Yet what end? a fraud so—Ah!
let me not suspect my husband of such a fraud. Let me
not have reason to abhor his memory.
I fondly imagined that with his life, my causes of disquiet
were at an end, yet now are my eyes open to an endless
series of calamities and humiliations which his decease has
made sure.
I cannot escape from them. There is no help for me.
I cannot disprove. What testimony can I bring to establish
my innocence; to prove that another hand has added these
detestable confessions?
True it is you passed that night under my roof. Where
was my caution? You, Henry, knew mankind better than
I; why did you not repel my importunities, and leave me
in spite of my urgencies for your stay?
Poor, thoughtless wretch that I was, not to be aware of
the indecorum of allowing one of your sex, not allied to
me by kindred—I, too, alone, without any companion but
a servant, to pass the night in the same habitation.
What is genuine of this note, acknowledges your having
lodged here. Thus much I cannot, and need not deny;
yet how shall I make those distinctions visible to Mrs. Fielder;
how shall I point out that spot in my billet, where the
forgery begins? and at whose expense must I vindicate
myself? Better incur the last degree of infamy myself,
since it will not be deserved, than to load him that has gone
with reproach. Talbot sleeps, I hope, in peace, and let me
not, for any selfish or transitory good, molest his asbes.
Shall I not be contented with the approbation of a pure and
all-seeing judge?
But if I would vindicate myself, I have not the power; I
have forfeited my credit with my mother. With her my
word will be of no weight; surely it ought to weigh nothing.
Against evidence of this kind, communicated by a husband,
shall the wild and improbable assertion of the criminal
be suffered to prevail? I have only my assertion to
offer.
Yet, my good God! in what a maze hast thou permitted
my unhappy feet to be entangled! With intentions void of
blame, have I been pursued by all the consequences of the
most atrocious guilt.
In an evil hour, Henry, was it that I saw thee first.
What endless perplexities have beset me since that disastrous
moment. I cannot pray for their termination, for
prayer implies hope.
For thy sake, God is my witness, more than for my own,
have I determined to be no longer thine. I hereby solemnly
absolve you from all engagements to me. I command
you, I beseech you, not to cast away a thought on the illfated
Jane. Seek a more worthy companion, and be happy.
Perhaps you will feel, not pity, but displeasure, in receiving
this letter. You will not deign to answer me, perhaps,
or will answer me with sharp rebuke. I have only
lived to trouble your peace, and have no claim to your forbearance;
yet, methinks, I would be spared the misery of
hearing your reproaches, reechoed as they will be by my
own conscience. I fear they will but the more unfit me
for the part that I wish henceforth to act.
I would carry, if possible, to Mrs. Fielder's presence a
cheerful aspect. I would be to her that companion which
I was in my brighter days. To study her happiness shall
be henceforth my only office, but this, unless I can conceal
from her an aching heart, I shall be unable to do. Let me
not carry with me the insupportable weight of your reproaches.
