MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
THURSDAY NIGHT, AUG. 10.
You have been informed by Tourville, how much Belton's illness and
affairs have engaged me, as well as Mowbray and him, since my former.
I called at Smith's on Monday, in my way to Epsom.
The lady was gone to chapel: but I had the satisfaction to hear she was
not worse; and left my compliments, and an intimation that I should be
out of town for three or four days.
I refer myself to Tourville, who will let you know the difficulty we had
to drive out this meek mistress, and frugal manager, with her cubs, and
to give the poor fellow's sister possession for him of his own house; he
skulking mean while at an inn at Croydon, too dispirited to appear in his
own cause.
But I must observe that we were probably but just in time to save the
shattered remains of his fortune from this rapacious woman, and her
accomplices: for, as he cannot live long, and she thinks so, we found she
had certainly taken measures to set up a marriage, and keep possession of
all for herself and her sons.
Tourville will tell you how I was forced to chastise the quondam hostler
in her sight, before I could drive him out of the house. He had the
insolence to lay hands on me: and I made him take but one step from the
top to the bottom of a pair of stairs. I thought his neck and all his
bones had been broken. And then, he being carried out neck-and-heels,
Thomasine thought fit to walk out after him.
Charming consequences of keeping; the state we have been so fond of
extolling!--Whatever it may be thought of in strong health, sickness and
declining spirits in the keeper will bring him to see the difference.
She should soon have him, she told a confidant, in the space of six foot
by five; meaning his bed: and then she would let nobody come near him but
whom she pleased. This hostler-fellow, I suppose, would then have been
his physician; his will ready made for him; and widows' weeds probably
ready provided; who knows, but she to appear in them in his own sight? as
once I knew an instance in a wicked wife; insulting a husband she hated,
when she thought him past recovery: though it gave the man such spirits,
and such a turn, that he got over it, and lived to see her in her coffin,
dressed out in the very weeds she had insulted him in.
So much, for the present, for Belton and his Thomasine.
***
I begin to pity thee heartily, now I see thee in earnest in the fruitless
love thou expressest to this angel of a woman; and the rather, as, say
what thou wilt, it is impossible she should get over her illness, and her
friends' implacableness, of which she has had fresh instances.
I hope thou art not indeed displeased with the extracts I have made from
thy letters for her. The letting her know the justice thou hast done to
her virtue in them, is so much in favour of thy ingenuousness, (a
quality, let me repeat, that gives thee a superiority over common
libertines,) that I think in my heart I was right; though to any other
woman, and to one who had not known the worst of thee that she could
know, it might have been wrong.
If the end will justify the means, it is plain, that I have done well
with regard to ye both; since I have made her easier, and thee appear in
a better light to her, than otherwise thou wouldst have done.
But if, nevertheless, thou art dissatisfied with my having obliged her in
a point, which I acknowledge to be delicate, let us canvas this matter at
our first meeting: and then I will show thee what the extracts were, and
what connections I gave them in thy favour.
But surely thou dost not pretend to say what I shall, or shall not do, as
to the executorship.
I am my own man, I hope. I think thou shouldst be glad to have the
justification of her memory left to one, who, at the same time, thou
mayest be assured, will treat thee, and thy actions, with all the lenity
the case will admit.
I cannot help expressing my surprise at one instance of thy
self-partiality; and that is, where thou sayest she has need, indeed, to
cry out for mercy herself from her friends, who knows not how to show
any.
Surely thou canst not think the cases alike--for she, as I understand,
desires but a last blessing, and a last forgiveness, for a fault in a
manner involuntary, if a fault at all; and does not so much as hope to be
received; thou, to be forgiven premeditated wrongs, (which, nevertheless,
she forgives, on condition to be no more molested by thee;) and hopest to
be received into favour, and to make the finest jewel in the world thy
absolute property in consequence of that forgiveness.
I will now briefly proceed to relate what has passed since my last, as to
the excellent lady. By the account I shall give thee, thou wilt see that
she has troubles enough upon her, all springing originally from thyself,
without needing to add more to them by new vexations. And as long as
thou canst exert thyself so very cavalierly at M. Hall, where every one
is thy prisoner, I see not but the bravery of thy spirit may be as well
gratified in domineering there over half a dozen persons of rank and
distinction, as it could be over an helpless orphan, as I may call this
lady, since she has not a single friend to stand by her, if I do not; and
who will think herself happy, if she can refuge herself from thee, and
from all the world, in the arms of death.
My last was dated on Saturday.
On Sunday, in compliance with her doctor's advice, she took a little
airing. Mrs. Lovick, and Mr. Smith and his wife, were with her. After
being at Highgate chapel at divine service, she treated them with a
little repast; and in the afternoon was at Islington church, in her way
home; returning tolerably cheerful.
She had received several letters in my absence, as Mrs. Lovick acquainted
me, besides your's. Your's, it seems, much distressed her; but she
ordered the messenger, who pressed for an answer, to be told that it did
not require an immediate one.
On Wednesday she received a letter from her uncle Harlowe,* in answer to
one she had written to her mother on Saturday on her knees. It must be a
very cruel one, Mrs. Lovick says, by the effects it had upon her: for,
when she received it, she was intending to take an afternoon airing in a
coach: but was thrown into so violent a fit of hysterics upon it, that
she was forced to lie down; and (being not recovered by it) to go to bed
about eight o'clock.
* See Letter LXXXIV. of this volume.
On Thursday morning she was up very early; and had recourse to the
Scriptures to calm her mind, as she told Mrs. Lovick: and, weak as she
was, would go in a chair to Lincoln's-inn chapel, about eleven. She was
brought home a little better; and then sat down to write to her uncle.
But was obliged to leave off several times--to struggle, as she told Mrs.
Lovick, for an humble temper. 'My heart, said she to the good woman, is
a proud heart, and not yet, I find, enough mortified to my condition;
but, do what I can, will be for prescribing resenting things to my pen.'
I arrived in town from Belton's this Thursday evening; and went directly
to Smith's. She was too ill to receive my visit. But, on sending up my
compliments, she sent me down word that she should be glad to see me in
the morning.
Mrs. Lovick obliged me with the copy of a meditation collected by the
lady from the Scriptures. She has entitled it Poor mortals the cause of
their own misery; so entitled, I presume, with intention to take off the
edge of her repinings at hardships so disproportioned to her fault, were
her fault even as great as she is inclined to think it. We may see, by
this, the method she takes to fortify her mind, and to which she owes, in
a great measure, the magnanimity with which she bears her undeserved
persecutions.