TOM JONES
PART 31
Chapter viii. — A dreadful alarm in the inn, with the arrival of an unexpected friend of Mrs Fitzpatrick.
Sophia
now, at the desire of her cousin, related—not what follows, but what hath gone
before in this history: for which reason the reader will, I suppose, excuse me
for not repeating it over again.
One
remark, however, I cannot forbear making on her narrative, namely, that she
made no more mention of Jones, from the beginning to the end, than if there had
been no such person alive. This I will neither endeavour to account for nor to
excuse. Indeed, if this may be called a kind of dishonesty, it seems the more
inexcusable, from the apparent openness and explicit sincerity of the other
lady.—But so it was.
Just as
Sophia arrived at the conclusion of her story, there arrived in the room where
the two ladies were sitting a noise, not unlike, in loudness, to that of a pack
of hounds just let out from their kennel; nor, in shrillness, to cats, when
caterwauling; or to screech owls; or, indeed, more like (for what animal can
resemble a human voice?) to those sounds which, in the pleasant mansions of
that gate which seems to derive its name from a duplicity of tongues, issue
from the mouths, and sometimes from the nostrils, of those fair river nymphs,
ycleped of old the Naïades; in the vulgar tongue translated oyster-wenches; for
when, instead of the antient libations of milk and honey and oil, the rich
distillation from the juniper-berry, or, perhaps, from malt, hath, by the early
devotion of their votaries, been poured forth in great abundance, should any
daring tongue with unhallowed license prophane, i.e., depreciate, the
delicate fat Milton oyster, the plaice sound and firm, the flounder as much
alive as when in the water, the shrimp as big as a prawn, the fine cod alive
but a few hours ago, or any other of the various treasures which those
water-deities who fish the sea and rivers have committed to the care of the
nymphs, the angry Naïades lift up their immortal voices, and the prophane
wretch is struck deaf for his impiety.
Such was
the noise which now burst from one of the rooms below; and soon the thunder,
which long had rattled at a distance, began to approach nearer and nearer,
till, having ascended by degrees upstairs, it at last entered the apartment
where the ladies were. In short, to drop all metaphor and figure, Mrs Honour,
having scolded violently below-stairs, and continued the same all the way up,
came in to her mistress in a most outrageous passion, crying out, “What doth
your ladyship think? Would you imagine that this impudent villain, the master
of this house, hath had the impudence to tell me, nay, to stand it out to my
face, that your ladyship is that nasty, stinking wh—re (Jenny Cameron they call
her), that runs about the country with the Pretender? Nay, the lying, saucy
villain had the assurance to tell me that your ladyship had owned yourself to
be so; but I have clawed the rascal; I have left the marks of my nails in his
impudent face. My lady! says I, you saucy scoundrel; my lady is meat for no
pretenders. She is a young lady of as good fashion, and family, and fortune, as
any in Somersetshire. Did you never hear of the great Squire Western, sirrah?
She is his only daughter; she is——, and heiress to all his great estate. My
lady to be called a nasty Scotch wh—re by such a varlet!—To be sure I wish I
had knocked his brains out with the punch-bowl.”
The
principal uneasiness with which Sophia was affected on this occasion Honour had
herself caused, by having in her passion discovered who she was. However, as
this mistake of the landlord sufficiently accounted for those passages which
Sophia had before mistaken, she acquired some ease on that account; nor could
she, upon the whole, forbear smiling. This enraged Honour, and she cried,
“Indeed, madam, I did not think your ladyship would have made a laughing matter
of it. To be called whore by such an impudent low rascal. Your ladyship may be
angry with me, for aught I know, for taking your part, since proffered service,
they say, stinks; but to be sure I could never bear to hear a lady of mine
called whore.—Nor will I bear it. I am sure your ladyship is as virtuous a lady
as ever sat foot on English ground, and I will claw any villain’s eyes out who
dares for to offer to presume for to say the least word to the contrary. Nobody
ever could say the least ill of the character of any lady that ever I waited
upon.”
Hinc
illae lachrymae; in plain truth,
Honour had as much love for her mistress as most servants have, that is to
say—But besides this, her pride obliged her to support the character of the
lady she waited on; for she thought her own was in a very close manner
connected with it. In proportion as the character of her mistress was raised,
hers likewise, as she conceived, was raised with it; and, on the contrary, she
thought the one could not be lowered without the other.
On this
subject, reader, I must stop a moment, to tell thee a story. “The famous Nell
Gwynn, stepping one day, from a house where she had made a short visit, into
her coach, saw a great mob assembled, and her footman all bloody and dirty; the
fellow, being asked by his mistress the reason of his being in that condition,
answered, `I have been fighting, madam, with an impudent rascal who called your
ladyship a wh—re.’ `You blockhead,’ replied Mrs Gwynn, `at this rate you must
fight every day of your life; why, you fool, all the world knows it.’ `Do
they?’ cries the fellow, in a muttering voice, after he had shut the
coach-door, `they shan’t call me a whore’s footman for all that.’”
Thus the
passion of Mrs Honour appears natural enough, even if it were to be no
otherwise accounted for; but, in reality, there was another cause of her anger;
for which we must beg leave to remind our reader of a circumstance mentioned in
the above simile. There are indeed certain liquors, which, being applied to our
passions, or to fire, produce effects the very reverse of those produced by
water, as they serve to kindle and inflame, rather than to extinguish. Among
these, the generous liquor called punch is one. It was not, therefore, without
reason, that the learned Dr Cheney used to call drinking punch pouring liquid
fire down your throat.
Now, Mrs
Honour had unluckily poured so much of this liquid fire down her throat, that
the smoke of it began to ascend into her pericranium and blinded the eyes of
Reason, which is there supposed to keep her residence, while the fire itself
from the stomach easily reached the heart, and there inflamed the noble passion
of pride. So that, upon the whole, we shall cease to wonder at the violent rage
of the waiting-woman; though at first sight we must confess the cause seems
inadequate to the effect.
Sophia and
her cousin both did all in their power to extinguish these flames which had
roared so loudly all over the house. They at length prevailed; or, to carry the
metaphor one step farther, the fire, having consumed all the fuel which the
language affords, to wit, every reproachful term in it, at last went out of its
own accord.
But,
though tranquillity was restored above-stairs, it was not so below; where my
landlady, highly resenting the injury done to the beauty of her husband by the
flesh-spades of Mrs Honour, called aloud for revenge and justice. As to the
poor man, who had principally suffered in the engagement, he was perfectly
quiet. Perhaps the blood which he lost might have cooled his anger: for the
enemy had not only applied her nails to his cheeks, but likewise her fist to
his nostrils, which lamented the blow with tears of blood in great abundance.
To this we may add reflections on his mistake; but indeed nothing so
effectually silenced his resentment as the manner in which he now discovered
his error; for as to the behaviour of Mrs Honour, it had the more confirmed him
in his opinion; but he was now assured by a person of great figure, and who was
attended by a great equipage, that one of the ladies was a woman of fashion,
and his intimate acquaintance.
By the
orders of this person, the landlord now ascended, and acquainted our fair
travellers that a great gentleman below desired to do them the honour of
waiting on them. Sophia turned pale and trembled at this message, though the
reader will conclude it was too civil, notwithstanding the landlord’s blunder,
to have come from her father; but fear hath the common fault of a justice of
peace, and is apt to conclude hastily from every slight circumstance, without
examining the evidence on both sides.
To ease
the reader’s curiosity, therefore, rather than his apprehensions, we proceed to
inform him that an Irish peer had arrived very late that evening at the inn, in
his way to London. This nobleman, having sallied from his supper at the
hurricane before commemorated, had seen the attendant of Mrs Fitzpatrick, and
upon a short enquiry, was informed that her lady, with whom he was very
particularly acquainted, was above. This information he had no sooner received than
he addressed himself to the landlord, pacified him, and sent him upstairs with
compliments rather civiller than those which were delivered.
It may
perhaps be wondered at that the waiting-woman herself was not the messenger
employed on this occasion; but we are sorry to say she was not at present
qualified for that, or indeed for any other office. The rum (for so the
landlord chose to call the distillation from malt) had basely taken the
advantage of the fatigue which the poor woman had undergone, and had made
terrible depredations on her noble faculties, at a time when they were very
unable to resist the attack.
We shall
not describe this tragical scene too fully; but we thought ourselves obliged,
by that historic integrity which we profess, shortly to hint a matter which we
would otherwise have been glad to have spared. Many historians, indeed, for
want of this integrity, or of diligence, to say no worse, often leave the
reader to find out these little circumstances in the dark, and sometimes to his
great confusion and perplexity.
Sophia was
very soon eased of her causeless fright by the entry of the noble peer, who was
not only an intimate acquaintance of Mrs Fitzpatrick, but in reality a very
particular friend of that lady. To say truth, it was by his assistance that she
had been enabled to escape from her husband; for this nobleman had the same
gallant disposition with those renowned knights of whom we read in heroic
story, and had delivered many an imprisoned nymph from durance. He was indeed
as bitter an enemy to the savage authority too often exercised by husbands and
fathers, over the young and lovely of the other sex, as ever knight-errant was
to the barbarous power of enchanters; nay, to say truth, I have often suspected
that those very enchanters with which romance everywhere abounds were in
reality no other than the husbands of those days; and matrimony itself was,
perhaps, the enchanted castle in which the nymphs were said to be confined.
This
nobleman had an estate in the neighbourhood of Fitzpatrick, and had been for
some time acquainted with the lady. No sooner, therefore, did he hear of her
confinement, than he earnestly applied himself to procure her liberty; which he
presently effected, not by storming the castle, according to the example of
antient heroes, but by corrupting the governor, in conformity with the modern
art of war, in which craft is held to be preferable to valour, and gold is
found to be more irresistible than either lead or steel.
This
circumstance, however, as the lady did not think it material enough to relate
to her friend, we would not at that time impart it to the reader. We rather
chose to leave him a while under a supposition that she had found, or coined,
or by some very extraordinary, perhaps supernatural means, had possessed
herself of the money with which she had bribed her keeper, than to interrupt
her narrative by giving a hint of what seemed to her of too little importance
to be mentioned.
The peer,
after a short conversation, could not forbear expressing some surprize at
meeting the lady in that place; nor could he refrain from telling her he
imagined she had been gone to Bath. Mrs Fitzpatrick very freely answered, “That
she had been prevented in her purpose by the arrival of a person she need not
mention. In short,” says she, “I was overtaken by my husband (for I need not
affect to conceal what the world knows too well already). I had the good
fortune to escape in a most surprizing manner, and am now going to London with
this young lady, who is a near relation of mine, and who hath escaped from as
great a tyrant as my own.”
His
lordship, concluding that this tyrant was likewise a husband, made a speech
full of compliments to both the ladies, and as full of invectives against his
own sex; nor indeed did he avoid some oblique glances at the matrimonial
institution itself, and at the unjust powers given by it to man over the more
sensible and more meritorious part of the species. He ended his oration with an
offer of his protection, and of his coach and six, which was instantly accepted
by Mrs Fitzpatrick, and at last, upon her persuasions, by Sophia.
Matters
being thus adjusted, his lordship took his leave, and the ladies retired to
rest, where Mrs Fitzpatrick entertained her cousin with many high encomiums on
the character of the noble peer, and enlarged very particularly on his great
fondness for his wife; saying, she believed he was almost the only person of
high rank who was entirely constant to the marriage bed. “Indeed,” added she,
“my dear Sophy, that is a very rare virtue amongst men of condition. Never
expect it when you marry; for, believe me, if you do, you will certainly be
deceived.”
A gentle
sigh stole from Sophia at these words, which perhaps contributed to form a
dream of no very pleasant kind; but, as she never revealed this dream to any
one, so the reader cannot expect to see it related here.
Chapter ix. — The morning introduced in some pretty
writing. A stagecoach. The civility of chambermaids. The heroic temper of
Sophia. Her generosity. The return to it. The departure of the company, and
their
arrival at
London; with some remarks for the use of travellers.
Those
members of society who are born to furnish the blessings of life now began to
light their candles, in order to pursue their daily labours for the use of
those who are born to enjoy these blessings. The sturdy hind now attends the
levee of his fellow-labourer the ox; the cunning artificer, the diligent
mechanic, spring from their hard mattress; and now the bonny housemaid begins
to repair the disordered drum-room, while the riotous authors of that disorder,
in broken interrupted slumbers, tumble and toss, as if the hardness of down
disquieted their repose.
In simple
phrase, the clock had no sooner struck seven than the ladies were ready for
their journey; and, at their desire, his lordship and his equipage were
prepared to attend them.
And now a
matter of some difficulty arose; and this was how his lordship himself should
be conveyed; for though in stage-coaches, where passengers are properly
considered as so much luggage, the ingenious coachman stows half a dozen with
perfect ease into the place of four; for well he contrives that the fat
hostess, or well-fed alderman, may take up no more room than the slim miss, or taper
master; it being the nature of guts, when well squeezed, to give way, and to
lie in a narrow compass; yet in these vehicles, which are called, for
distinction’s sake, gentlemen’s coaches, though they are often larger than the
others, this method of packing is never attempted.
His
lordship would have put a short end to the difficulty, by very gallantly
desiring to mount his horse; but Mrs Fitzpatrick would by no means consent to
it. It was therefore concluded that the Abigails should, by turns, relieve each
other on one of his lordship’s horses, which was presently equipped with a
side-saddle for that purpose.
Everything
being settled at the inn, the ladies discharged their former guides, and Sophia
made a present to the landlord, partly to repair the bruise which he had
received under herself, and partly on account of what he had suffered under the
hands of her enraged waiting-woman. And now Sophia first discovered a loss
which gave her some uneasiness; and this was of the hundred-pound bank-bill
which her father had given her at their last meeting; and which, within a very
inconsiderable trifle, was all the treasure she was at present worth. She
searched everywhere, and shook and tumbled all her things to no purpose, the
bill was not to be found: and she was at last fully persuaded that she had lost
it from her pocket when she had the misfortune of tumbling from her horse in
the dark lane, as before recorded: a fact that seemed the more probable, as she
now recollected some discomposure in her pockets which had happened at that
time, and the great difficulty with which she had drawn forth her handkerchief
the very instant before her fall, in order to relieve the distress of Mrs
Fitzpatrick.
Misfortunes
of this kind, whatever inconveniencies they may be attended with, are incapable
of subduing a mind in which there is any strength, without the assistance of
avarice. Sophia, therefore, though nothing could be worse timed than this
accident at such a season, immediately got the better of her concern, and, with
her wonted serenity and cheerfulness of countenance, returned to her company.
His lordship conducted the ladies into the vehicle, as he did likewise Mrs
Honour, who, after many civilities, and more dear madams, at last yielded to
the well-bred importunities of her sister Abigail, and submitted to be
complimented with the first ride in the coach; in which indeed she would
afterwards have been contented to have pursued her whole journey, had not her
mistress, after several fruitless intimations, at length forced her to take her
turn on horseback.
The coach,
now having received its company, began to move forwards, attended by many
servants, and led by two captains, who had before rode with his lordship, and
who would have been dismissed from the vehicle upon a much less worthy occasion
than was this of accommodating two ladies. In this they acted only as
gentlemen; but they were ready at any time to have performed the office of a
footman, or indeed would have condescended lower, for the honour of his lordship’s
company, and for the convenience of his table.
My
landlord was so pleased with the present he had received from Sophia, that he
rather rejoiced in than regretted his bruise or his scratches. The reader will
perhaps be curious to know the quantum of this present; but we cannot
satisfy his curiosity. Whatever it was, it satisfied the landlord for his
bodily hurt; but he lamented he had not known before how little the lady valued
her money; “For to be sure,” says he, “one might have charged every article double,
and she would have made no cavil at the reckoning.”
His wife,
however, was far from drawing this conclusion; whether she really felt any
injury done to her husband more than he did himself, I will not say: certain it
is, she was much less satisfied with the generosity of Sophia. “Indeed,” cries
she, “my dear, the lady knows better how to dispose of her money than you
imagine. She might very well think we should not put up such a business without
some satisfaction, and the law would have cost her an infinite deal more than
this poor little matter, which I wonder you would take.” “You are always so
bloodily wise,” quoth the husband: “it would have cost her more, would it? dost
fancy I don’t know that as well as thee? but would any of that more, or so much,
have come into our pockets? Indeed, if son Tom the lawyer had been alive, I
could have been glad to have put such a pretty business into his hands. He
would have got a good picking out of it; but I have no relation now who is a
lawyer, and why should I go to law for the benefit of strangers?” “Nay, to be
sure,” answered she, “you must know best.” “I believe I do,” replied he. “I
fancy, when money is to be got, I can smell it out as well as another.
Everybody, let me tell you, would not have talked people out of this. Mind
that, I say; everybody would not have cajoled this out of her, mind that.” The
wife then joined in the applause of her husband’s sagacity; and thus ended the
short dialogue between them on this occasion.
We will
therefore take our leave of these good people, and attend his lordship and his
fair companions, who made such good expedition that they performed a journey of
ninety miles in two days, and on the second evening arrived in London, without
having encountered any one adventure on the road worthy the dignity of this
history to relate. Our pen, therefore, shall imitate the expedition which it
describes, and our history shall keep pace with the travellers who are its
subject. Good writers will, indeed, do well to imitate the ingenious traveller
in this instance, who always proportions his stay at any place to the beauties,
elegancies, and curiosities which it affords. At Eshur, at Stowe, at Wilton, at
Eastbury, and at Prior’s Park, days are too short for the ravished imagination;
while we admire the wondrous power of art in improving nature. In some of
these, art chiefly engages our admiration; in others, nature and art contend
for our applause; but, in the last, the former seems to triumph. Here Nature
appears in her richest attire, and Art, dressed with the modestest simplicity,
attends her benignant mistress. Here Nature indeed pours forth the choicest
treasures which she hath lavished on this world; and here human nature presents
you with an object which can be exceeded only in the other.
The same
taste, the same imagination, which luxuriously riots in these elegant scenes,
can be amused with objects of far inferior note. The woods, the rivers, the
lawns of Devon and of Dorset, attract the eye of the ingenious traveller, and
retard his pace, which delay he afterwards compensates by swiftly scouring over
the gloomy heath of Bagshot, or that pleasant plain which extends itself
westward from Stockbridge, where no other object than one single tree only in
sixteen miles presents itself to the view, unless the clouds, in compassion to
our tired spirits, kindly open their variegated mansions to our prospect.
Not so
travels the money-meditating tradesman, the sagacious justice, the dignified
doctor, the warm-clad grazier, with all the numerous offspring of wealth and
dulness. On they jog, with equal pace, through the verdant meadows or over the
barren heath, their horses measuring four miles and a half per hour with the
utmost exactness; the eyes of the beast and of his master being alike directed
forwards, and employed in contemplating the same objects in the same manner.
With equal rapture the good rider surveys the proudest boasts of the architect,
and those fair buildings with which some unknown name hath adorned the rich
cloathing town; where heaps of bricks are piled up as a kind of monument to
show that heaps of money have been piled there before.
And now,
reader, as we are in haste to attend our heroine, we will leave to thy sagacity
to apply all this to the Boeotian writers, and to those authors who are their
opposites. This thou wilt be abundantly able to perform without our aid. Bestir
thyself therefore on this occasion; for, though we will always lend thee proper
assistance in difficult places, as we do not, like some others, expect thee to
use the arts of divination to discover our meaning, yet we shall not indulge
thy laziness where nothing but thy own attention is required; for thou art
highly mistaken if thou dost imagine that we intended, when we began this great
work, to leave thy sagacity nothing to do; or that, without sometimes
exercising this talent, thou wilt be able to travel through our pages with any
pleasure or profit to thyself.
Chapter x. — Containing a hint or two concerning virtue, and a few more concerning suspicion.
Our
company, being arrived at London, were set down at his lordship’s house, where,
while they refreshed themselves after the fatigue of their journey, servants
were despatched to provide a lodging for the two ladies; for, as her ladyship
was not then in town, Mrs Fitzpatrick would by no means consent to accept a bed
in the mansion of the peer.
Some
readers will, perhaps, condemn this extraordinary delicacy, as I may call it,
of virtue, as too nice and scrupulous; but we must make allowances for her
situation, which must be owned to have been very ticklish; and, when we
consider the malice of censorious tongues, we must allow, if it was a fault,
the fault was an excess on the right side, and which every woman who is in the
self-same situation will do well to imitate. The most formal appearance of
virtue, when it is only an appearance, may, perhaps, in very abstracted
considerations, seem to be rather less commendable than virtue itself without
this formality; but it will, however, be always more commended; and this, I
believe, will be granted by all, that it is necessary, unless in some very
particular cases, for every woman to support either the one or the other.
A lodging
being prepared, Sophia accompanied her cousin for that evening; but resolved
early in the morning to enquire after the lady into whose protection, as we
have formerly mentioned, she had determined to throw herself when she quitted
her father’s house. And this she was the more eager in doing from some
observations she had made during her journey in the coach.
Now, as we
would by no means fix the odious character of suspicion on Sophia, we are
almost afraid to open to our reader the conceits which filled her mind
concerning Mrs Fitzpatrick; of whom she certainly entertained at present some
doubts; which, as they are very apt to enter into the bosoms of the worst of
people, we think proper not to mention more plainly till we have first
suggested a word or two to our reader touching suspicion in general.
Of this
there have always appeared to me to be two degrees. The first of these I chuse
to derive from the heart, as the extreme velocity of its discernment seems to
denote some previous inward impulse, and the rather as this superlative degree
often forms its own objects; sees what is not, and always more than really
exists. This is that quick-sighted penetration whose hawk’s eyes no symptom of
evil can escape; which observes not only upon the actions, but upon the words
and looks, of men; and, as it proceeds from the heart of the observer, so it
dives into the heart of the observed, and there espies evil, as it were, in the
first embryo; nay, sometimes before it can be said to be conceived. An
admirable faculty, if it were infallible; but, as this degree of perfection is
not even claimed by more than one mortal being; so from the fallibility of such
acute discernment have arisen many sad mischiefs and most grievous heart-aches
to innocence and virtue. I cannot help, therefore, regarding this vast
quick-sightedness into evil as a vicious excess, and as a very pernicious evil
in itself. And I am the more inclined to this opinion, as I am afraid it always
proceeds from a bad heart, for the reasons I have above mentioned, and for one
more, namely, because I never knew it the property of a good one. Now, from
this degree of suspicion I entirely and absolutely acquit Sophia.
A second
degree of this quality seems to arise from the head. This is, indeed, no other
than the faculty of seeing what is before your eyes, and of drawing conclusions
from what you see. The former of these is unavoidable by those who have any
eyes, and the latter is perhaps no less certain and necessary a consequence of
our having any brains. This is altogether as bitter an enemy to guilt as the
former is to innocence: nor can I see it in an unamiable light, even though,
through human fallibility, it should be sometimes mistaken. For instance, if a
husband should accidentally surprize his wife in the lap or in the embraces of
some of those pretty young gentlemen who profess the art of cuckold-making, I
should not highly, I think, blame him for concluding something more than what
he saw, from the familiarities which he really had seen, and which we are at
least favourable enough to when we call them innocent freedoms. The reader will
easily suggest great plenty of instances to himself; I shall add but one more,
which, however unchristian it may be thought by some, I cannot help esteeming
to be strictly justifiable; and this is a suspicion that a man is capable of
doing what he hath done already, and that it is possible for one who hath been
a villain once to act the same part again. And, to confess the truth, of this
degree of suspicion I believe Sophia was guilty. From this degree of suspicion
she had, in fact, conceived an opinion that her cousin was really not better
than she should be.
The case,
it seems, was this: Mrs Fitzpatrick wisely considered that the virtue of a
young lady is, in the world, in the same situation with a poor hare, which is
certain, whenever it ventures abroad, to meet its enemies; for it can hardly
meet any other. No sooner therefore was she determined to take the first
opportunity of quitting the protection of her husband, than she resolved to
cast herself under the protection of some other man; and whom could she so
properly choose to be her guardian as a person of quality, of fortune, of
honour; and who, besides a gallant disposition which inclines men to
knight-errantry, that is, to be the champions of ladies in distress, had often
declared a violent attachment to herself, and had already given her all the
instances of it in his power?
But, as
the law hath foolishly omitted this office of vice-husband, or guardian to an
eloped lady, and as malice is apt to denominate him by a more disagreeable
appellation, it was concluded that his lordship should perform all such kind
offices to the lady in secret, and without publickly assuming the character of
her protector. Nay, to prevent any other person from seeing him in this light,
it was agreed that the lady should proceed directly to Bath, and that his
lordship should first go to London, and thence should go down to that place by
the advice of his physicians.
Now all
this Sophia very plainly understood, not from the lips or behaviour of Mrs
Fitzpatrick, but from the peer, who was infinitely less expert at retaining a
secret than was the good lady; and perhaps the exact secrecy which Mrs
Fitzpatrick had observed on this head in her narrative served not a little to
heighten those suspicions which were now risen in the mind of her cousin.
Sophia
very easily found out the lady she sought; for indeed there was not a chairman
in town to whom her house was not perfectly well known; and, as she received,
in return of her first message, a most pressing invitation, she immediately
accepted it. Mrs Fitzpatrick, indeed, did not desire her cousin to stay with
her with more earnestness than civility required. Whether she had discerned and
resented the suspicion above-mentioned, or from what other motive it arose, I
cannot say; but certain it is, she was full as desirous of parting with Sophia
as Sophia herself could be of going.
The young
lady, when she came to take leave of her cousin, could not avoid giving her a
short hint of advice. She begged her, for heaven’s sake, to take care of
herself, and to consider in how dangerous a situation she stood; adding, she
hoped some method would be found of reconciling her to her husband. “You must
remember, my dear,” says she, “the maxim which my aunt Western hath so often
repeated to us both; That whenever the matrimonial alliance is broke, and war
declared between husband and wife, she can hardly make a disadvantageous peace
for herself on any conditions. These are my aunt’s very words, and she hath had
a great deal of experience in the world.” Mrs Fitzpatrick answered, with a
contemptuous smile, “Never fear me, child, take care of yourself; for you are
younger than I. I will come and visit you in a few days; but, dear Sophy, let
me give you one piece of advice: leave the character of Graveairs in the
country, for, believe me, it will sit very awkwardly upon you in this town.”
Thus the
two cousins parted, and Sophia repaired directly to Lady Bellaston, where she
found a most hearty, as well as a most polite, welcome. The lady had taken a
great fancy to her when she had seen her formerly with her aunt Western. She
was indeed extremely glad to see her, and was no sooner acquainted with the
reasons which induced her to leave the squire and to fly to London than she
highly applauded her sense and resolution; and after expressing the highest
satisfaction in the opinion which Sophia had declared she entertained of her
ladyship, by chusing her house for an asylum, she promised her all the
protection which it was in her power to give.
As we have
now brought Sophia into safe hands, the reader will, I apprehend, be contented
to deposit her there a while, and to look a little after other personages, and
particularly poor Jones, whom we have left long enough to do penance for his
past offences, which, as is the nature of vice, brought sufficient punishment
upon him themselves.
To be continued
