How must I adore this charming creature! for I am ready to think my servant a happier fellow than myself, for having been within a pair of stairs and an apartment of her.
Mowbray and I will drop a tear a-piece, as we ride along, to the memory of poor Belton:--as we ride along, said I: for we shall have so much joy when we arrive at Lord M."s, and when I communicate to him and my cousins the dear creature"s letter, that we shall forget every thing grievous: since now their family-hopes in my reformation (the point which lies so near their hearts) will all revive; it being an article of their faith, that if I marry, repentance and mortification will follow of course.
Neither Mowbray nor I shall accept of thy verbal invitation to the funeral. We like not these dismal formalities. And as to the respect that is supposed to be shown to the memory of a deceased friend in such an attendance, why should we do any thing to reflect upon those who have made it a fashion to leave this parade to people whom they hire for that purpose?
Adieu, and be cheerful. Thou canst now do no more for poor Belton, wert thou to howl for him to the end of thy life.
LETTER XXIII
MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
SAT. AUG. 26.
On Thursday afternoon I a.s.sisted at the opening of poor Belton"s will, in which he has left me his sole executor, and bequeathed me a legacy of an hundred guineas; which I shall present to his unfortunate sister, to whom he has not been so kind as I think he ought to have been. He has also left twenty pounds a-piece to Mowbray, Tourville, thyself, and me, for a ring to be worn in remembrance of him.
After I had given some particular orders about the preparations to be made for his funeral, I went to town; but having made it late before I got in on Thursday night, and being fatigued for want of rest several nights before, and now in my spirits, [I could not help it, Lovelace!] I contented myself to send my compliments to the innocent sufferer, to inquire after her health.
My servant saw Mrs. Smith, who told him, she was very glad I was come to town; for that lady was worse than she had yet been.
It is impossible to account for the contents of her letter to you; or to reconcile those contents to the facts I have to communicate.
I was at Smith"s by seven yesterday (Friday) morning; and found that the lady was just gone in a chair to St. Dunstan"s to prayers: she was too ill to get out by six to Covent-garden church; and was forced to be supported to her chair by Mrs. Lovick. They would have persuaded her against going; but she said she knew not but it would be her last opportunity. Mrs. Lovick, dreading that she would be taken worse at church, walked thither before her.
Mrs. Smith told me she was so ill on Wednesday night, that she had desired to receive the sacrament; and accordingly it was administered to her, by the parson of the parish: whom she besought to take all opportunities of a.s.sisting her in her solemn preparation.
This the gentleman promised: and called in the morning to inquire after her health; and was admitted at the first word. He staid with her about half an hour; and when he came down, with his face turned aside, and a faltering accent, "Mrs. Smith," said he, "you have an angel in your house.--I will attend her again in the evening, as she desires, and as often as I think it will be agreeable to her."
Her increased weakness she attributed to the fatigues she had undergone by your means; and to a letter she had received from her sister, which she answered the same day.
Mrs. Smith told me that two different persons had called there, one on Thursday morning, one in the evening, to inquire after her state of health; and seemed as if commissioned from her relations for that purpose; but asked not to see her, only were very inquisitive after her visiters: (particularly, it seems, after me: What could they mean by that?) after her way of life, and expenses; and one of them inquired after her manner of supporting them; to the latter of which, Mrs. Smith said, she had answered, as the truth was, that she had been obliged to sell some of her clothes, and was actually about parting with more; at which the inquirist (a grave old farmer-looking man) held up his hands, and said, Good G.o.d!--this will be sad, sad news to somebody! I believe I must not mention it. But Mrs. Smith says she desired he would, let him come from whom he would. He shook his head, and said if she died, the flower of the world would be gone, and the family she belonged to would be no more than a common family.* I was pleased with the man"s expression.
* This man came from her cousin Morden; as will be seen hereafter, Letters LII. and LVI. of this volume.
You may be curious to know how she pa.s.sed her time, when she was obliged to leave her lodging to avoid you.
Mrs. Smith tells me "that she was very ill when she went out on Monday morning, and sighed as if her heart would break as she came down stairs, and as she went through the shop into the coach, her nurse with her, as you had informed me before: that she ordered the coachman (whom she hired for the day) to drive any where, so it was into the air: he accordingly drove her to Hampstead, and thence to Highgate. There at the Bowling-green House, she alighted, extremely ill, and having breakfasted, ordered the coachman to drive very slowly any where. He crept along to Muswell-hill, and put up at a public house there; where she employed herself two hours in writing, though exceedingly weak and low, till the dinner she had ordered was brought in: she endeavoured to eat, but could not: her appet.i.te was gone, quite gone, she said. And then she wrote on for three hours more: after which, being heavy, she dozed a little in an elbow-chair. When she awoke, she ordered the coachman to drive her very slowly to town, to the house of a friend of Mrs. Lovick; whom, as agreed upon, she met there: but, being extremely ill, she would venture home at a late hour, although she heard from the widow that you had been there; and had reason to be shocked at your behaviour. She said she found there was no avoiding you: she was apprehensive she should not live many hours, and it was not impossible but the shock the sight of you must give her would determine her fate in your presence.
"She accordingly went home. She heard the relation of your astonishing vagaries, with hands and eyes often lifted up; and with these words intermingled, Shocking creature! incorrigible wretch! And will nothing make him serious? And not being able to bear the thoughts of an interview with a man so hardened, she took to her usual chair early in the morning, and was carried to the Temple-stairs, where she had ordered her nurse before her, to get a pair of oars in readiness (for her fatigues the day before made her unable to bear a coach;) and then she was rowed to Chelsea, where she breakfasted; and after rowing about, put in at the Swan at Brentford-ait, where she dined; and would have written, but had no conveniency either of tolerable pens, or ink, or private room; and then proceeding to Richmond, they rowed her back to Mort-lake; where she put in, and drank tea at a house her waterman recommended to her.
She wrote there for an hour; and returned to the Temple; and, when she landed, made one of the watermen get her a chair, and so was carried to the widow"s friend, as the night before; where she again met the widow, who informed her that you had been after her twice that day.
"Mrs. Lovick gave her there her sister"s letter;* and she was so much affected with the contents of it, that she was twice very nigh fainting away; and wept bitterly, as Mrs. Lovick told Mrs. Smith; dropping some warmer expressions than ever they had heard proceed from her lips, in relation to her friends; calling them cruel, and complaining of ill offices done her, and of vile reports raised against her.
* See Letter XXVI. of this volume.
"While she was thus disturbed, Mrs. Smith came to her, and told her, that you had been there a third time, and was just gone, (at half an hour after nine,) having left word how civil and respectful you would be; but that you was determined to see her at all events.
"She said it was hard she could not be permitted to die in peace: that her lot was a severe one: that she began to be afraid she should not forbear repining, and to think her punishment greater than her fault: but, recalling herself immediately, she comforted herself, that her life would be short, and with the a.s.surance of a better."
By what I have mentioned, you will conclude with me, that the letter brought her by Mrs. Lovick (the superscription of which you saw to be written in her sister"s hand) could not be the letter on the contents of which she grounded that she wrote to you, on her return home. And yet neither Mrs. Lovick, nor Mrs. Smith, nor the servant of the latter, know of any other brought her. But as the women a.s.sured me, that she actually did write to you, I was eased of a suspicion which I had begun to entertain, that you (for some purpose I could not guess at) had forged the letter from her of which you sent me a copy.
On Wednesday morning, when she received your letter, in answer to her"s, she said, Necessity may well be called the mother of invention--but calamity is the test of integrity.--I hope I have not taken an inexcusable step--And there she stopt a minute or two; and then said, I shall now, perhaps, be allowed to die in peace.
I staid till she came in. She was glad to see me; but, being very weak, said, she must sit down before she could go up stairs: and so went into the back-shop; leaning upon Mrs. Lovick: and when she had sat down, "I am glad to see you, Mr. Belford, said she; I must say so--let mis-reporters say what they will."
I wondered at this expression;* but would not interrupt her.
* Explained in Letter XXVIII. of this volume.
O Sir, said she, I have been grievously hara.s.sed. Your friend, who would not let me live with reputation, will not permit me to die in peace. You see how I am. Is there not a great alteration in me within this week!
but "tis all for the better. Yet were I to wish for life, I must say that your friend, your barbarous friend, has hurt me greatly.
She was so weak, so short breathed, and her words and actions so very moving, that I was forced to walk from her; the two women and her nurse turning away their faces also, weeping.
I have had, Madam, said I, since I saw you, a most shocking scene before my eyes for days together. My poor friend Belton is no more. He quitted the world yesterday morning in such dreadful agonies, that the impression they have left upon me have so weakened my mind--
I was loth to have her think that my grief was owing to the weak state I saw her in, for fear of dispiriting her.
That is only, Mr. Belford, interrupted she, in order to strengthen it, if a proper use be made of the impression. But I should be glad, since you are so humanely affected with the solemn circ.u.mstance, that you could have written an account of it to your gay friend, in the style and manner you are master of. Who knows, as it would have come from an a.s.sociate, and of an a.s.sociate, it might have affected him?
That I had done, I told her, in such a manner as had, I believed, some effect upon you.
His behaviour in this honest family so lately, said she, and his cruel pursuit of me, give me but little hope that any thing serious or solemn will affect him.
We had some talk about Belton"s dying behaviour, and I gave her several particulars of the poor man"s impatience and despair; to which she was very attentive; and made fine observations upon the subject of procrastination.
A letter and packet were brought her by a man on horseback from Miss Howe, while we were talking. She retired up stairs to read it; and while I was in discourse with Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Lovick, the doctor and apothecary both came in together. They confirmed to me my fears, as to the dangerous way she is in. They had both been apprized of the new instances of implacableness in her friends, and of your persecutions: and the doctor said he would not for the world be either the unforgiving father of that lady, or the man who had brought her to this distress.
Her heart"s broken: she"ll die, said he: there is no saving her. But how, were I either the one or the other of the people I have named, I should support myself afterwards, I cannot tell.
When she was told we were all three together, she desired us to walk up.
She arose to receive us, and after answering two or three general questions relating to her health, she addressed herself to us, to the following effect:
As I may not, said she, see you three gentlemen together again, let me take this opportunity to acknowledge my obligations to you all. I am inexpressibly obliged to you, Sir, and to you, Sir, [courtesying to the doctor and to Mr. G.o.ddard] for your more than friendly, your paternal care and concern for me. Humanity in your profession, I dare say, is far from being a rare qualification, because you are gentlemen by your profession: but so much kindness, so much humanity, did never desolate creature meet with, as I have met with from you both. But indeed I have always observed, that where a person relies upon Providence, it never fails to raise up a new friend for every old one that falls off.
This gentleman, [bowing to me,] who, some people think, should have been one of the last I should have thought of for my executor--is, nevertheless, (such is the strange turn that things have taken!) the only one I can choose; and therefore I have chosen him for that charitable office, and he has been so good as to accept of it: for, rich as I may boast myself to be, I am rather so in right than in fact, at this present. I repeat, therefore, my humble thanks to you all three, and beg of G.o.d to return to you and yours [looking to each] an hundred-fold, the kindness and favour you have shown me; and that it may be in the power of you and of yours, to the end of time, to confer benefits, rather than to be obliged to receive them. This is a G.o.dlike power, gentlemen: I once rejoiced in it some little degree; and much more in the prospect I had of its being enlarged to me; though I have had the mortification to experience the reverse, and to be obliged almost to every body I have seen or met with: but all, originally, through my own fault; so I ought to bear the punishment without repining: and I hope I do. Forgive these impertinencies: a grateful heart, that wants the power it wishes for, to express itself suitably to its own impulses, will be at a loss what properly to dictate to the tongue; and yet, unable to restrain its overflowings, will force the tongue to say weak and silly things, rather than appear ungratefully silent. Once more, then, I thank ye all three for your kindness to me: and G.o.d Almighty make you that amends which at present I cannot!
She retired from us to her closet with her eyes full; and left us looking upon one another.
We had hardly recovered ourselves, when she, quite easy, cheerful, and smiling, returned to us: Doctor, said she (seeing we had been moved) you will excuse me for the concern I give you; and so will you, Mr. G.o.ddard, and you, Mr. Belford; for "tis a concern that only generous natures can show: and to such natures sweet is the pain, if I may say so, that attends such a concern. But as I have some few preparations still to make, and would not (though in ease of Mr. Belford"s future cares, which is, and ought to be, part of my study) undertake more than it is likely I shall have time lent me to perform, I would beg of you to give me your opinions [you see my way of living, and you may be a.s.sured that I will do nothing wilfully to shorten my life] how long it may possibly be, before I may hope to be released from all my troubles.
They both hesitated, and looked upon each other. Don"t be afraid to answer me, said she, each sweet hand pressing upon the arm of each gentleman, with that mingled freedom and reserve, which virgin modesty, mixed with conscious dignity, can only express, and with a look serenely earnest, tell me how long you think I may hold it! and believe me, gentlemen, the shorter you tell me my time is likely to be, the more comfort you will give me.