Letter XI
To Mrs. Fielder
Philadelphia, October 15.
I have several times taken up the pen, but my distress has compelled me to lay it down again. Heaven is my witness that the happiness of my revered mamma is dearer to me than my own; no struggle was ever greater between my duty to you and the claims of another.
Will you not permit me to explain my conduct? will you not acquaint me with the reasons of your aversion to my friend?--let me call him by that name. Such, indeed, has he been to me,--the friend of my understanding and my virtue. My soul's friend; since, to suffer, without guilt, in this world, entitles us to peace in another, and since to him I owe that I have not been a guilty as well as an unfortunate creature.
Whatever conduct I pursue with regard to him, I must always consider him in this light; at least, till your proofs against him are heard. Let me hear them, I beseech you. Have compassion on the anguish of your poor girl, and reconcile, if possible, my duty to your inclination, by stating what you know to his disadvantage. You must have causes for your enmity, which you hide from me. Indeed, you tell me that you have; you say that if I knew them they would determine me. Let then every motive be set aside through regard to my happiness, and disclose to me this secret.
While I am ignorant of these charges, while all that I know of Colden tends to endear his happiness to me, and while his happiness depends upon my acceptance of his vows, can I, ought I, to reject him?
Place yourself in my situation. You once loved and was once beloved. I am, indeed, your child. I glory in the name which you have had the goodness to bestow upon me. Think and feel for your child, in her present unhappy circumstances; in which she does not balance between happiness and misery,--that alternative, alas! is not permitted,--but is anxious to discover which path has fewest thorns, and in which her duty will allow her to walk.
How greatly do you humble me, and how strongly evince your aversion to Colden, by offering, as the price of his rejection, half your property! How low am I fallen in your esteem, since you think it possible for such a bribe to prevail! and what calamities must this alliance seem to threaten, since the base selfishness of accepting this offer is better, in your eyes, than my marriage!
Sure I never was unhappy till now. Pity me, my mother. Condescend to write to me again, and, by disclosing all your objections to Colden, reconcile, I earnestly entreat you, my duty to your inclination.
JANE TALBOT.
Letter XII
To Mrs. Fielder
Philadelphia, October 17.
You will not write to me. Your messenger assures me that you have cast me from your thoughts forever; you will speak to me and see me no more.
That must not be. I am preparing, inclement as the season is, to pay you a visit. Unless you shut your door against me I will see you. You will not turn me out of doors, I hope.
I will see you and compel you to answer me, and to tell me why you will not admit my friend to your good opinion.
J. TALBOT.
Letter XIII
To Jane Talbot
New York, October 19.
You need not come to see me, Jane. I will not see you. Lay me not under the cruel necessity of shutting my door against you, for that must be the consequence of your attempt.
After reading your letter, and seeing full proof of your infatuation, I resolved to throw away my care no longer upon you; to think no more of you; to act just as if you never had existence; whenever it was possible, to shun you; when I met you, by chance, or perforce, to treat you merely as a stranger. I write this letter to acquaint you with my resolution. Your future letters cannot change it, for they shall all be returned to you unopened.
I know you better than to trust to the appearance of half-yielding reluctance which your letter contains. Thus it has always been, and as often as this duteous strain flattered me with hopes of winning you to reason, have I been deceived and disappointed.
I trust to your discernment, your seeming humility, no longer. No child are you of mine. You have, henceforth, no part in my blood; and may I very soon forget that so lost and betrayed a wretch ever belonged to it!
I charge you, write not to me again. H.F.
Letter XIV
To Mrs. Fielder
Philadelphia, October 24.
Impossible! Are you not my mother?--more to me than any mother? Did I not receive your protection and instruction in my infancy and my childhood? When left an orphan by my own mother, your bosom was open to receive me. There was the helpless babe cherished, and there was it taught all that virtue which it has since endeavoured to preserve unimpaired in every trial.
You must not cast me off. You must not hate me. You must not call me ungrateful and a wretch. Not to have merited these names is all that enables me to endure your displeasure. As long as that belief consoles me, my heart will not break.
Yet that, even that, will not much avail me. The distress that I now feel, that I have felt ever since the receipt of your letter, cannot be increased.
You forbid me to write to you; but I cannot forbear as long as there is hope of extorting from you the cause of your aversion to my friend. I solicit not this disclosure with a view or even in the hope of repelling your objections. I want, I had almost said, I want to share your antipathies. I want only to be justified in obeying you. When known, they will, perhaps, be found sufficient. I conjure you once more, tell me your objections to this marriage.
As well as I can, I have examined myself. Passion may influence me, but I am unconscious of its influence. I think I act with no exclusive regard to my own pleasure, but as it flows from and is dependent on the happiness of others.
If I am mistaken in my notions of duty, God forbid that I should shut my ears against good counsel. Instead of loathing or shunning it, I am anxious to hear it. I know my own short-sighted folly, my slight experience. I know how apt I am to go astray, how often my own heart deceives me; and hence I always am in search of better knowledge; hence I listen to admonition, not only with docility, but gratitude. My inclination ought, perhaps, to be absolutely neuter; but, if I know myself, it is with reluctance that I withhold my assent from the expostulator. I am delighted to receive conviction from the arguments of those that love me.
In this case, I am prepared to hear and weigh, and be convinced by, any thing you think proper to urge.
I ask not pardon for my faults, nor compassion on my frailty. That I love Colden I will not deny, but I love his worth; his merits, real or imaginary, enrapture my soul. Ideal his virtues may be, but to me they are real, and the moment they cease to be so, that the illusion disappears, I cease to love him, or, at least, I will do all that is in my power to do. I will forbear all intercourse or correspondence with him,--for his as well as my own sake.
Tell me then, my mother, what you know of him. What heinous offence has he committed, that makes him unworthy of my regard?
You have raised, without knowing it perhaps, or designing to effect it in this way, a bar to this detested alliance. While you declare that Colden has been guilty of base actions, it is impossible to grant him my esteem as fully as a husband should claim. Till I know what the actions are which you impute to him, I never will bind myself to him by indissoluble bands.
I have told him this, and he joins with me to entreat you to communicate your charges to me. He believes that you are misled by some misapprehension,--some slander. He is conscious that many of his actions have been, in some respects, ambiguous, capable of being mistaken by careless, or distant, or prejudiced observers. He believes that you have been betrayed into some fatal error in relation to one action of his life.
If this be so, he wishes only to be told his fault, and will spare no time and no pains to remove your mistake, if you should appear to be mistaken.
How easily, my good mamma, may the most discerning and impartial be misled! The ignorant and envious have no choice between truth and error. Their tale must want something to complete it, or must possess more than the truth demands. Something you have heard of my friend injurious to his good name, and you condemn him unheard.
Yet this displeases me not. I am not anxious for his justification, but only to know so much as will authorize me to conform to your wishes.
You warn me against this marriage for my own sake. You think it will be disastrous to me.--The reasons of this apprehension would, you think, appear just in my eyes should they be disclosed, yet you will not disclose them. Without disclosure I cannot--as a rational creature, I cannot--change my resolution. If then I marry and the evil come that is threatened, whom have I to blame? at whose door must my misfortunes be laid if not at hers who had it in her power to prevent the evil and would not?
Your treatment of me can proceed only from your love; and yet all the fruits of the direst enmity may grow out of it. By untimely concealments may my peace be forfeited forever. Judge then between your obligations to me, and those of secrecy, into which you seem to have entered with another.
My happiness, my future conduct, are in your hand. Mould them, govern them, as you think proper. I have pointed out the means, and once more conjure you, by the love which you once bore, which you still bear, to me, to use them.
JANE TALBOT.
Letter XV
To Jane Talbot
New York, October 27.
Insolent creature that thou art, Jane, and cunning as insolent! To elude my just determination by such an artifice! To counterfeit a strange hand in the direction of thy letter, that I might thereby be induced to open it!
Thou wilt not rest, I see, till thou hast torn from my heart every root, every fibre of my once-cherished tenderness; till thou hast laid my head low in the grave. To number the tears and the pangs which thy depravity has already cost me----but thy last act is destined to surpass all former ones.
Thy perseverance in wickedness, thy inflexible imposture, amazes me beyond all utterance. Thy effrontery in boasting of thy innocence, in calling this wretch thy friend, thy soul's friend, the means of securing the favour of a pure and all-seeing Judge, exceeds all that I supposed possible in human nature. And that thou, Jane, the darling of my heart, and the object of all my care and my pride, should be this profligate, this obdurate creature!
When very young, you were ill of a fever. The physician gave up, for some hours, all hope of your life. I shall never forget the grief which his gloomy silence gave me. All that I held dear in the world, I then thought, I would cheerfully surrender to save your life.
Poor, short-sighted wretch that I was! That event which, had it then happened, would perhaps have bereaved me of reason, would have saved me from a portion far more bitter. I should have never lived to witness the depravity of one whom my whole life had been employed in training to virtue.
Having opened your letter, and somewhat debated with myself, I consented to read. I will do more than read; I will answer it minutely. I will unfold that secret by which, you truly think, my aversion to your present scheme has been chiefly caused.
I have hitherto been silent through compassion to you; through the hope that all might yet be well; that you might be influenced by my persuasions to forbear an action that will insure forever your ruin. I now perceive the folly of this compassion and these hopes. I need not be assiduous to spare you the shame and mortification of hearing the truth. Shame is as much a stranger to your heart as remorse. Say what I will, disclose what I will, your conduct will be just the same. A show of much reluctance and humility will, no doubt, be made, and the tongue will be busy in imploring favour which the heart disdains.
In the foresight of this, I was going to forbid your writing; but you care not for my forbidding. As long as you think it possible to reconcile me to your views and make me a partaker in your infamy, you will harass me with importunity, with feigned penitence and preposterous arguments. But one thing at least is in my power. I can shun you, and I can throw your unopened letters into the fire; and that, believe me, Jane, I shall do.
But I am wasting time. My indignation carries me away from my purpose. Let me return to it, and, having told you all my mind, let me dismiss the hateful subject forever.
I knew the motives that induced you to marry Lewis Talbot. They were good ones. Your compliance with mine and your father's wishes in that respect showed that force of understanding which I always ascribed to you. Your previous reluctance, your scruples, were indeed unworthy of you, but you conquered them, and that was better; perhaps it evinced more magnanimity than never to have had them.
You were happy, I long thought, in your union with a man of probity and good sense. You may be sure I thought of you often, but only with pleasure. Certain indications I early saw in you of a sensibility that required strict government; an inattention to any thing but feeling; a proneness to romantic friendship, and a pining after good not consistent with our nature. I imagined that I had kept at a distance all such books and companions as tend to produce this fantastic character; and whence you imbibed this perverse spirit, at so early an age, is, to me, inconceivable. It cost me many a gloomy foreboding.
My disquiets increased as you grew up, and that age arrived when the heart comes to be entangled with what is called love. I was anxious to find for you a man of merit, to whose keeping your happiness might safely be intrusted. Talbot was such a one, but the wayward heart refused to love him. He was not all your fancy had conceived of excellent and lovely. He was a mere man, with the tastes and habits suitable and common to his education and age. He was addicted to industry, was regular and frugal in his manner and economy. He had nothing of that specious and glossy texture which captivates inexperience and youth, and serves as a substitute for every other virtue. While others talked about their duty, he was contented with performing it; and he was satisfied with ignorance of theories as long as his practice was faultless.
He was just such a one as I wished for the darling of my heart; but you thought not so. You did not object to his age, though almost double your own; to his person or aspect, though they were by no means worthy of his mind; to his profession or condition; but your heart sighed after one who could divide with you your sympathies; who saw every thing just as you saw it; who could emulate your enthusiasm, and echo back every exclamation which chance should dictate to you.
You even pleaded religion as one of your objections. Talbot, it seems, had nothing that deserved to be called religion. He had never reasoned on the subject. He had read no books and had never looked into his Bible since he was fifteen years old. He seldom went to church but because it was the fashion, and, when there, seldom spared a thought from his own temporal concerns, to a future state and a governing Deity. All those expansions of soul produced by meditation on the power and goodness of our Maker, and those raptures that flow from accommodating all our actions to his will, and from consciousness of his approbation and presence, you discovered to be strangers to his breast, and therefore you scrupled to unite your fate with his.
It was not enough that this man had never been seduced into disbelief; that his faith was steadfast and rational without producing those fervours, and reveries, and rhapsodies, which unfit us for the mixed scenes of human life, and breed in us absurd and fantastic notions of our duty or our happiness; that his religion had produced all its practical effects, in honest, regular, sober, and consistent conduct.
You wanted a zealot; a sectary; one that should enter into all the trifling distinctions and minute subtleties that make one Christian the mortal foe of another, while, in their social conduct, there is no difference to be found between them.
I do not repeat these things to upbraid you for what you then were, but merely to remind you of the inconsistency of these notions with your subsequent conduct. You then, at the instance of your father and at my instance, gave them up; and that compliance, supposing your scruples to have been undissembled, gave you a still greater interest in our affections.
You never gave me reason to suppose that you repented of this compliance. I never saw you after your engagement, but you wore a cheerful countenance; at least till your unfortunate connection with Colden. To that connection must be traced every misfortune and depravity that has attended you since.
When I heard, from Patty Sinclair, of his frequent visits to you during your retirement at Burlington, I thought of it but little. He was, indeed, a new acquaintance. You were unacquainted with his character and history, except so far as you could collect them from his conversation; and no confidence could, of course, be placed in that. It was therefore, perhaps, somewhat indiscreet to permit such very frequent visits, such very long walks. To neglect the friends whom you lived with, for the sake of exclusive conversations and lonely rambles, noon and night, with a mere stranger,--one not regularly introduced to you,--whose name you were obliged to inquire of himself,--you, too, already a betrothed woman; your lover absent; yourself from home, and merely on terms of hospitality! all this did not look well.
But the mischief, it was evident, was to be known by the event. Colden might have probity and circumspection. He might prove an agreeable friend to your future husband and a useful companion to yourself. Kept within due limits, your complacency for this stranger, your attachment to his company, might occasion no inconvenience. How little did I then suspect to what extremes you were capable of going, and even then had actually gone!
The subject was of sufficient importance to induce me to write to you. Your answer was not quite satisfactory, yet, on the whole, laid my apprehensions at rest. I was deceived by the confidence you expressed in your own caution, and the seeming readiness there was to be governed by my advice.
Afterwards, I heard, through various channels, without any efforts on my part, intelligence of Colden. At first I was not much alarmed. Colden, it is true, was not a faultless or steadfast character. No gross or enormous vices were ascribed to him. His habits, as far as appearances enabled one to judge, were temperate and chaste. He was contemplative and bookish, and was vaguely described as being somewhat visionary and romantic.
In all this there was nothing formidable. Such a man might surely be a harmless companion. Those with whom he was said to associate most intimately were highly estimable. Their esteem was a test of merit not to be disposed or hastily rejected.
Things, however, quickly took a new face. I was informed that, after your return to the city, Colden continued to be a very constant visitant. Your husband's voyage left you soon after at liberty, and your intercourse with this person only became more intimate and confidential.
Reflecting closely on this circumstance, I began to suspect some danger lurking in your path. I now remembered that impetuosity of feeling which distinguished your early age; those notions of kindred among souls, of friendship and harmony of feelings which, in your juvenile age, you loved to indulge.
I reflected that the victory over these chimeras, which you gained by marriage with Talbot, might be merely temporary; and that, in order to call these dormant feelings into action, it was only requisite to meet with one contemplative, bookish, and romantic as yourself.
Such a one, it was greatly to be feared, you had now found in this young man; just such qualities he was reported to possess, as would render him dangerous to you and you dangerous to him. A poet, not in theory only, but in practice; accustomed to intoxicate the women with melodious flattery; fond of being intimate; avowedly devoted to the sex; eloquent in his encomiums upon female charms; and affecting to select his friends only from that sex.
What effect might such a character have upon your peace, even without imputing any ill intention to him? Both of you might work your own ruin, while you designed nothing but good; and even supposing that your intercourse should be harmless, or even beneficial with respect to yourselves, what was to be feared for Talbot? An intimacy of this kind could hardly escape his observation on his return. It would be criminal, indeed, to conceal it from him.
These apprehensions were raised to the highest pitch by more accurate information of Colden's character, which I afterwards received. I found, on inquiring of those who had the best means of knowing, that Colden had imbibed that pernicious philosophy which is now so much in vogue. One who knew him perfectly, who had long been in habits of the closest intimacy with him, who was still a familiar correspondent of his, gave me this account.
I met this friend of Colden's (Thomson his name is, of whom I suppose you have heard something) in this city. His being mentioned as the intimate companion of Colden made me wish to see him, and fortunately, I prevailed upon him to be very communicative.
Thomson is an excellent young man: he loves Colden much, and describes the progress of his friend's opinions with every mark of regret. He even showed me letters that had passed between them, and in which every horrid and immoral tenet was defended by one and denied by the other. These letters showed Colden as the advocate of suicide; a scoffer at promises; the despiser of revelation, of Providence and a future state; an opponent of marriage, and as one who denied (shocking!) that any thing but mere habit and positive law stood in the way of marriage, nay, of intercourse without marriage, between brother and sister, parent and child!
You may readily believe that I did not credit such things on slight evidence. I did not rely on Thomson's mere words, solemn and unaffected as these were; nothing but Colden's handwriting could in such a case, be credited.
To say truth, I should not be much surprised had I heard of Colden, as of a youth whose notions on moral and religious topics were, in some degree, unsettled; that, in the fervour and giddiness incident to his age, he had not tamed his mind to investigation; had not subdued his heart to regular and devout thoughts; that his passions or his indolence had made the truths of religion somewhat obscure, and shut them out, not properly from his conviction, but only from his attention.
I expected to find, united with this vague and dubious state of mind, tokens of the influence of a pious education; a reverence,--at least, for those sacred precepts on which the happiness of men rests, and at least a practical observance of that which, if not fully admitted by his understanding, was yet very far from having been rejected by it.
But widely and deplorably different was Colden's case. A most fascinating book [Footnote: Godwin's Political Justice.] fell at length into his hands, which changed, in a moment, the whole course of his ideas. What he had before regarded with reluctance and terror, this book taught him to admire and love. The writer has the art of the grand deceiver; the fatal art of carrying the worst poison under the name and appearance of wholesome food; of disguising all that is impious, or blasphemous, or licentious, under the guise and sanctions of virtue.
Colden had lived before this without examination or inquiry. His heart, his inclination, was perhaps on the side of religion and true virtue; but this book carried all his inclination, his zeal, and his enthusiasm, over to the adversary; and so strangely had he been perverted, that he held himself bound, he conceived it to be his duty, to vindicate in private and public, to preach with vehemence, his new faith. The rage for making converts seized him; and that Thomson was not won over to the same cause proceeded from no want of industry in Colden.
Such was the man whom you had admitted to your confidence; whom you had adopted for your bosom friend. I knew your pretensions to religion, the stress which you laid upon piety as the basis of morals. I remembered your objections to Talbot on this score, not only as a husband, but as a friend. I could, therefore, only suppose that Colden had joined dissimulation to his other errors, and had gained and kept your good opinion by avowing sentiments which his heart secretly abhorred.
I cannot describe to you, Jane, my alarms upon this discovery. That your cook had intended to poison you, the next meat which you should eat in your own house, would have alarmed me, I assure you, much less. The preservation of your virtue was unspeakably of more importance in my eyes than of your life.
I wrote to you: and what was your reply? I could scarcely believe my senses. Every horrid foreboding realized! already such an adept in this accursed sophistry! the very cant of that detestable sect adopted!
I had plumed myself upon your ignorance. He had taken advantage of that, I supposed, and had won your esteem by counterfeiting a moral and pious strain. To make you put him forever at a distance, it was needed only to tear off his mask. This was done, but, alas, too late for your safety. The poison was already swallowed.
I had no patience with you, to listen to your trifling and insidious distinctions,--such as, though you could audaciously urge them to me, possessed no weight, could possess no weight, in your understanding. What was it to me whether he was ruffian or madman? whether, in destroying you, he meant to destroy or to save? Is it proper to expose your breast to a sword, because the wretch that wields it supposes madly that it is a straw which he holds in his hand?
But I will not renew the subject. The same motives that induced me to attempt to reason with you then no longer exist. The anguish, the astonishment, which your letters, as they gradually unfolded your character, produced in me, I endeavoured to show you at the time. Now I pass them over to come to a more important circumstance.
Yet how shall I tell it thee, Jane? I am afraid to intrust it to paper. Thy fame is still dear to me. I would not be the means of irretrievably blasting thy fame. Yet what may come of relating some incidents on paper?
Faint is my hope, but I am not without some hope, that thou canst yet be saved, be snatched from perdition. Thy life I value not, in comparison with something higher. And if, through an erring sensibility, the sacrifice of Colden cost thee thy life, I shall yet rejoice. As the wife of Colden thou wilt be worse than dead to me.
What has come to me, I wonder? I began this letter with a firm, and, as I thought, inflexible, soul. Despair had made me serene; yet now thy image rises before me with all those bewitching graces which adorned thee when thou wast innocent and a child. All the mother seizes my heart, and my tears suffocate me.
Shall I shock, shall I wound thee, my child, by lifting the veil from thy misconduct, behind which thou thinkest thou art screened from every human eye? How little dost thou imagine that I know so much!
Now will thy expostulations and reasonings have an end. Surely they will have an end. Shame at last, shame at last, will overwhelm thee and make thee dumb.
Yet my heart sorely misgives me. I shudder at the extremes to which thy accursed seducer may have urged thee. What thou hast failed in concealing thou mayest be so obdurately wicked as to attempt to justify.
Was it not the unavoidable result of confiding in a man avowedly irreligious and immoral; of exposing thy understanding and thy heart to such stratagems as his philosophy made laudable and necessary? But I know not what I would say. I must lay down the pen till I can reason myself into some composure. I will write again to-morrow.
H. FIELDER.
Letter XVI
To the same
O my lost child! In thy humiliations at this moment I can sympathize. The shame that must follow the detection of it is more within my thoughts at present than the negligence or infatuation that occasioned thy faults.
I know all. Thy intended husband knew it all. It was from him that the horrible tidings of thy unfaithfulness to marriage-vows first came.
He visited this city on purpose to obtain an interview with me. He entered my apartment with every mark of distress. He knew well the effect of such tidings on my heart. Most eagerly would I have laid down my life to preserve thy purity spotless.
He demeaned himself as one who loved thee with a rational affection, and who, however deeply he deplored the loss of thy love, accounted thy defection from virtue of infinitely greater moment.
I was willing to discredit even his assertion. Far better it was that the husband should prove the defamer of his wife, than that my darling child should prove a profligate. But he left me no room to doubt, by showing me a letter.
He showed it me on condition of my being everlastingly silent to you in regard to its contents. He yielded to a jealousy which would not be conquered, and had gotten this letter by surreptitious means. He was ashamed of an action which his judgment condemned as ignoble and deceitful.
Far more wise and considerate was this excellent and injured man than I. He was afraid, by disclosing to you the knowledge he had thus gained, of rendering you desperate and hardened. As long as reputation was not gone, he thought your errors were retrievable. He distrusted the success of his own efforts, and besought me to be your guardian. As to himself, he resigned the hope of ever gaining your love, and entreated me to exert myself for dissolving your connection with Colden, merely for your own sake.
To show me the necessity of my exertions, he had communicated this letter, believing that my maternal interest in your happiness would prevent me from making any but a salutary use of it. Yet he had not put your safety into my hands without a surety. He was so fully persuaded of the ill consequences of your knowing how much was known, that he had given me the proofs of your guilt only on my solemn promise to conceal them from you.
I saw the generosity and force of his representations, and, while I endeavoured by the most earnest remonstrances to break your union with Colden, I suffered no particle of the truth to escape me. But you were hard as a rock. You would not forbid his visits, nor reject his letters.
I need not repeat to you what followed; by what means I endeavoured to effect that end which your obstinate folly refused.
When I gave this promise to Talbot, I foresaw not his speedy death and the consequences to Colden and yourself. I have been affrighted at the rumour of your marriage; and, to justify the conduct I mean to pursue, I have revealed to you what I promised to conceal merely because I foresaw not the present state of your affairs.
You will not be surprised that, on your marriage with this man, I should withdraw from you what you now hold from my bounty. No faultiness in you shall induce me to leave you without the means of decent subsistence; but I owe no benevolence to Colden. My duty will not permit me to give any thing to your paramour. When you change your name you must change your habitation and leave behind you whatever you found.
Think not, Jane, that I cease to love thee. I am not so inhuman as to refuse my forgiveness to a penitent; yet I ask not thy penitence to insure thee my affection. I have told thee my conditions, and adhere to them still.
To preclude all bickerings and cavils, I enclose the letter which attests your fall.
H. FIELDER.
Letter XVII
To Henry Colden
Tuesday Morning.
You went away this morning before I was awake. I think you might have stayed to breakfast; yet, on second thoughts, your early departure was best. Perhaps it was so. You have made me very thoughtful to-day. What passed last night has left my mind at no liberty to read and to scribble as I used to do. How your omens made me shudder!
I want to see you. Can't you come again this evening? but no; you must not. I must not be an encroacher. I must judge of others, and of their claims upon your company, by myself and my own claims. Yet I should be glad to see that creature who would dare to enter into competition with me.
But I may as well hold my peace. My rights will not be admitted by others. Indeed, no soul but yourself can know them in all their extent, and, what is all I care for, you are far from being strictly just to me!
Don't be angry, Hal. Skip the last couple of sentences, or think of them as not mine: I disown them. To-morrow, at six, the fire shall be stirred, the candles lighted, and the sofa placed in order due. I shall be at home to nobody; mind that.
I am loath to mention one thing, however, but I must. Though nothing be due to the absent man, somewhat is due to myself. I have been excessively uneasy the whole day. I am terrified at certain consequences. What may not happen if--No; the last night's scene must not be repeated; at least for a month to come. The sweet oblivion of the future and past lasted only for the night. Now I have leisure to look forward, and am resolved (don't laugh at my resolves; I am quite in earnest) to keep thee at a distance for at least a fortnight to come. It shall be a whole month if thou dost not submit with a good grace.
JANE TALBOT.
Letter XVIII
To Mr. Henry Colden
New York, October 22.
SIR:--
I address myself to you as the mother of an unhappy girl who has put herself into your power. But I write not to upbraid you or indulge my own indignation, but merely to beseech your compassion for her whom you profess to love.
I cannot apologize for the manner in which I have acted in regard to your connection with Jane Talbot. In that respect, I must take to myself all the blame you may choose to impute to me.
I call not into question the disinterestedness of your intentions in proposing marriage to this woman; nor, if the information which I am going to give you should possess any influence, shall I ascribe that influence to any thing but a commendable attention to your true interest, and a generous regard to the welfare of my daughter.
Be it known to you then, sir, that Mrs. Talbot possesses no fortune in her own right. Her present dwelling, and her chief means of subsistence, are derived from me: she holds them at my option; and they will be instantly and entirely withdrawn, on her marriage with you.
You cannot be unacquainted with the habits and views in which my daughter has been educated. Her life has passed in ease and luxury, and you cannot but perceive the effect of any material change in her way of life.
It would be a wretched artifice to pretend to any particular esteem for you, or to attempt to persuade you that any part of this letter is dictated by any regard to your interest, except as that is subservient to the interest of one whom I can never cease to love.
Yet I ardently hope that this circumstance may not hinder you from accepting bills upon London to the amount of three hundred pounds sterling. They shall be put into your hands the moment I am properly assured that you have engaged your passage to Europe and are determined to be nothing more than a distant well-wisher to my daughter.
I am anxious that you should draw, from the terms of this offer, proof of that confidence in your word which you might not perhaps have expected from my conduct towards you in other respects. Indeed, my conscience acquits me of any design to injure you. On the contrary, it would give me sincere pleasure to hear of your success in every laudable pursuit.
I know your talents and the direction which they have hitherto received. I know that London is a theatre best adapted to the lucrative display of those talents, and that the sum I offer will be an ample fund, till your own exertions may be turned to account.
If this offer be accepted, I shall not only hold myself everlastingly obliged to you, but I shall grant you a higher place in my esteem. Yet, through deference to scruples which you may possibly possess, I most cheerfully plight to you my honour, that this transaction shall be concealed from Mrs. Talbot and from all the world.
Though property is necessary to our happiness, and my daughter's habits render the continuance of former indulgences necessary to her content, I will not be so unjust to her as to imagine that this is all which she regards. Respect from the world, and the attachment of her ancient friends, are, also, of some value in her eyes. Reflect, sir, I beseech you, whether you are qualified to compensate her for the loss of property, of good name,--my own justification, in case she marries you, will require me to be nothing more than just to her,--and of all her ancient friends, who will abhor in her the faithless wife and the ungrateful child. I need not inform you that your family will never receive into their bosom one whom her own kindred have rejected. I am, &c.
H. FIELDER.
Letter XIX
To Mrs. Fielder
Philadelphia, October 28.
I need not hesitate a moment to answer this letter. I will be all that my revered mamma wishes me to be. I have vowed an eternal separation from Colden; and, to enable me to keep this vow, I entreat you to permit me to come to you.
I will leave this house in anybody's care you direct. My Molly and the boy Tom I shall find it no easy task to part with; but I will, nevertheless, send the former to her mother, who is thrifty and well to live. I beg you to permit me to bring the boy with me. I wait your answer.
JANE TALBOT.
Letter XX
To Henry Colden
Philadelphia, October 28.
O my friend! Where are you at this trying moment? Why did you desert me? Now, if ever, does my feeble heart stand in need of your counsel and courage.
Did I ever lean these throbbing brows against your arm and pour my tears into your bosom, that I was not comforted? Never did that adored voice fail to whisper sweet peace to my soul. In every storm, thy calmer and more strenuous spirit has provided me the means of safety. But now I look around for my stay, my monitor, my encourager, in vain.
You will make haste to despatch the business that detains you. You will return, and fly, on the wings of love, to thy Jane. Alas! she will not be found. She will have fled far away, and in her stead will she leave this sullen messenger to tell thee that thy Jane has parted from thee forever!
Do not upbraid me, Hal. Do not call me ungrateful or rash. Indeed, I shall not be able to bear thy reproaches. I know they will kill me quite.
And don't expostulate with me. Confirm me rather in my new resolution. Even if you think it cruel or absurd, aver that it is just. Persuade me that I have done my duty to my mother, and assure me of your cheerful acquiescence.
Too late is it now, even if I would, to recall my promise.
I have promised to part with you. In the first tumult of my soul, on receiving the enclosed letters, I wrote an answer, assuring Mrs. Fielder of my absolute concurrence with her will.
Already does my heart, calling up thy beloved image; reflecting on the immense debt which I owe to your generosity, on the disappointment which the tidings of my journey will give you; already do I repent of my precipitation.
I have sought repose, but I find it not. My pillow is moist with the bitterest tears that I ever shed. To give vent to my swelling heart, I write to you; but I must now stop. All my former self is coming back upon me, and, while I think of you as of my true and only friend, I shall be unable to persist. I will not part with thee, my friend. I cannot do it. Has not my life been solemnly devoted to compensate thee for thy unmerited love? For the crosses and vexations thou hast endured for my sake?
Why shall I forsake thee? To gratify a wayward and groundless prejudice. To purchase the short-lived and dubious affection of one who loves me in proportion as I am blind to thy merit; as I forget thy benefits; as I countenance the envy and slander that pursue thee.
Yet what shall I bring to thy arms? A blasted reputation, poverty, contempt, the indignation of mine and of thy friends. For thou art poor, and so am I. Thy kindred have antipathies for me as strong as those that are fostered against thyself----
JANE TALBOT.
Letter XXI
To Henry Colden
October 28, Evening.
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 handwriting,--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 parlour. 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 neighbour, Miss Jessup, and had some hopes that, finding no one in the parlour, 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 had 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 ashes. 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 ill-fated 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, re-echoed 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. JANE TALBOT.