MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
SAT. TEN O'CLOCK.
Poor Mrs. Norton is come. She was set down at the door; and would have
gone up stairs directly. But Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Lovick being together
and in tears, and the former hinting too suddenly to the truly-venerable
woman the fatal news, she sunk down at her feet in fits; so that they
were forced to breath a vein to bring her to herself, and to a capacity
of exclamation; and then she ran on to Mrs. Lovick and me, who entered
just as she recovered, in praise of the lady, in lamentations for her,
and invectives against you; but yet so circumscribed were her invectives,
that I could observe in them the woman well educated, and in her
lamentations the passion christianized, as I may say.
She was impatient to see the corpse. The women went up with her. But
they owned that they were too much affected themselves on this occasion
to describe her extremely-affecting behaviour.
With trembling impatience she pushed aside the coffin-lid. She bathed
the face with her tears, and kissed her cheeks and forehead, as if she
were living. It was she indeed! she said; her sweet young lady! her very
self! Nor had death, which changed all things, a power to alter her
lovely features! She admired the serenity of her aspect. She no doubt
was happy, she said, as she had written to her she should be; but how
many miserable creatures had she left behind her!--The good woman
lamenting that she herself had lived to be one of them.
It was with difficulty they prevailed upon her to quit the corpse; and
when they went into the next apartment, I joined them, and acquainted her
with the kind legacy her beloved young lady had left her; but this rather
augmented than diminished her concern. She ought, she said, to have
attended her in person. What was the world to her, wringing her hands,
now the child of her bosom, and of her heart, was no more? Her principal
consolation, however, was, that she should not long survive her. She
hoped, she said, that she did not sin, in wishing she might not.
It was easy to observe, by the similitude of sentiments shown in this and
other particulars, that the divine lady owed to this excellent woman many
of her good notions.
I thought it would divert the poor gentlewoman, and not altogether
unsuitably, if I were to put her upon furnishing mourning for herself; as
it would rouse her, by a seasonable and necessary employment, from that
dismal lethargy of grief, which generally succeeds to the violent anguish
with which a gentle nature is accustomed to be torn upon the first
communication of the unexpected loss of a dear friend. I gave her
therefore the thirty guineas bequeathed to her and to her son for
mourning; the only mourning which the testatrix has mentioned; and
desired her to lose no time in preparing her own, as I doubted not, that
she would accompany the corpse, if it were permitted to be carried down.
The Colonel proposes to attend the hearse, if his kindred give him not
fresh cause of displeasure; and will take with him a copy of the will.
And being intent to give the family some favourable impressions of me, he
desired me to permit him to take with him the copy of the posthumous
letter to me; which I readily granted. He is so kind as to promise me a
minute account of all that should pass on the melancholy occasion. And
we have begun a friendship and settled a correspondence, which but one
incident can possibly happen to interrupt to the end of our lives. And
that I hope will not happen.
But what must be the grief, the remorse, that will seize upon the hearts
of this hitherto-inexorable family, on the receiving of the posthumous
letters, and that of the Colonel apprizing them of what has happened? I
have given requisite orders to an undertaker, on the supposition that the
body will be permitted to be carried down; and the women intend to fill
the coffin with aromatic herbs.
The Colonel has obliged me to take the bills and draughts which he
brought up with him, for the considerable sums which accrued since the
grandfather's death from the lady's estate.
I could have shown to Mrs. Norton the copies of the two letters which she
missed by coming up. But her grief wants not the heightenings which the
reading of them would have given her.
***
I have been dipping into the copies of the posthumous letters to the
family, which Harry has carried down. Well may I call this lady divine.
They are all calculated to give comfort rather than reproach, though
their cruelty to her merited nothing but reproach. But were I in any of
their places, how much rather had I, that she had quitted scores with me
by the most severe recrimination, than that she should thus nobly triumph
over me by a generosity that has no example? I will enclose some of
them, which I desire you to return as soon as you can.