Never blame me for giving way to have art used with this admirable
creature. All the princes of the air, or beneath it, joining with me,
could never have subdued her while she had her senses.
I will not anticipate—only to tell thee, that I am too much awakened by
her to think of sleep, were I to go to bed; and so shall have nothing
to do but to write an account of our odd conversation, while it is so
strong upon my mind that I can think of nothing else.
She was dressed in a white damask night-gown, with less negligence than
for some days past. I was sitting with my pen in my fingers; and stood
up when I first saw her, with great complaisance, as if the day were
still her own. And so indeed it is.
She entered with such dignity in her manner as struck me with great
awe, and prepared me for the poor figure I made in the subsequent
conversation. A poor figure indeed!—But I will do her justice.
She came up with quick steps, pretty close to me; a white handkerchief
in her hand; her eyes neither fierce nor mild, but very earnest; and a
fixed sedateness in her whole aspect, which seemed to be the effect of
deep contemplation: and thus she accosted me, with an air and action
that I never saw equalled.
You see before you, Sir, the wretch, whose preference of you to all
your sex you have rewarded—as it indeed deserved to be rewarded. My
father’s dreadful curse has already operated upon me in the very letter
of it, as to this life; and it seems to me too evident that it will not
be your fault that it is not entirely completed in the loss of my soul,
as well as of my honour—which you, villanous man! have robbed me of,
with a baseness so unnatural, so inhuman, that it seems you, even you,
had not the heart to attempt it, till my senses were made the previous
sacrifice.
Here I made an hesitating effort to speak, laying down my pen: but she
proceeded!—Hear me out, guilty wretch!—abandoned man!—Man, did I
say?—Yet what name else can I? since the mortal worryings of the
fiercest beast would have been more natural, and infinitely more
welcome, that what you have acted by me; and that with a premeditation
and contrivance worthy only of that single heart which now, base as
well as ungrateful as thou art, seems to quake within thee.—And well
may’st thou quake; well may’st thou tremble, and falter, and hesitate,
as thou dost, when thou reflectest upon what I have suffered for thy
sake, and upon the returns thou hast made me!
By my soul, Belford, my whole frame was shaken: for not only her looks
and her action, but her voice, so solemn, was inexpressibly affecting:
and then my cursed guilt, and her innocence, and merit, and rank, and
superiority of talents, all stared me at that instant in the face so
formidably, that my present account, to which she unexpectedly called
me, seemed, as I then thought, to resemble that general one, to which
we are told we shall be summoned, when our conscience shall be our
accuser.
But she had had time to collect all the powers of her eloquence. The
whole day probably in her intellects. And then I was the more
disappointed, as I had thought I could have gazed the dear creature
into confusion—but it is plain, that the sense she has of her wrongs
sets this matchless woman above all lesser, all weaker considerations.
My dear—my love—I—I—I never—no never—lips trembling, limbs quaking,
voice inward, hesitating, broken—never surely did miscreant look so
like a miscreant! while thus she proceeded, waving her snowy hand, with
all the graces of moving oratory.
I have no pride in the confusion visible in thy whole person. I have
been all the day praying for a composure, if I could not escape from
this vile house, that should once more enable me to look up to my
destroyer with the consciousness of an innocent sufferer. Thou seest
me, since my wrongs are beyond the power of words to express, thou
seest me, calm enough to wish, that thou may’st continue harassed by
the workings of thy own conscience, till effectual repentance take hold
of thee, that so thou may’st not forfeit all title to that mercy which
thou hast not shown to the poor creature now before thee, who had so
well deserved to meet with a faithful friend where she met with the
worst of enemies.
But tell me, (for no doubt thou hast some scheme to pursue,) tell me,
since I am a prisoner, as I find, in the vilest of houses, and have not
a friend to protect or save me, what thou intendest shall become of the
remnant of a life not worth the keeping!—Tell me, if yet there are more
evils reserved for me; and whether thou hast entered into a compact
with the grand deceiver, in the person of his horrid agent in this
house; and if the ruin of my soul, that my father’s curse may be
fulfilled, is to complete the triumphs of so vile a confederacy?—Answer
me!—Say, if thou hast courage to speak out to her whom thou hast
ruined, tell me what farther I am to suffer from thy barbarity?
She stopped here, and, sighing, turned her sweet face from me, drying
up with her handkerchief those tears which she endeavoured to restrain;
and, when she could not, to conceal from my sight.
As I told thee, I had prepared myself for high passions, raving,
flying, tearing execration; these transient violences, the workings of
sudden grief, and shame, and vengeance, would have set us upon a par
with each other, and quitted scores. These have I been accustomed to;
and as nothing violent is lasting, with these I could have wished to
encounter. But such a majestic composure—seeking me—whom, yet it is
plain, by her attempt to get away, she would have avoided seeking—no
Lucretia-like vengeance upon herself in her thought—yet swallowed up,
her whole mind swallowed up, as I may say, by a grief so heavy, as, in
her own words, to be beyond the power of speech to express—and to be
able, discomposed as she was, to the very morning, to put such a
home-question to me, as if she had penetrated my future view—how could
I avoid looking like a fool, and answering, as before, in broken
sentences and confusion?
What—what-a—what has been done—I, I, I—cannot but say—must own—must
confess—hem—hem——is not right—is not what should have
been—but-a—but—but—I am truly—truly—sorry for it—upon my soul I
am—and—and—will do all—do every thing—do what—whatever is incumbent
upon me—all that you—that you—that you shall require, to make you
amends!——
O Belford! Belford! whose the triumph now! HER’S, or MINE?
Amends! O thou truly despicable wretch! Then lifting up her eyes—Good
Heaven! who shall pity the creature who could fall by so base a
mind!—Yet—[and then she looked indignantly upon me!] yet, I hate thee
not (base and low-souled as thou art!) half so much as I hate myself,
that I saw thee not sooner in thy proper colours! That I hoped either
morality, gratitude, or humanity, from a libertine, who, to be a
libertine, must have got over and defied all moral sanctions.*
* Her cousin Morden’s words to her in his letter from Florence. See
Vol. IV. Letter XIX.
She then called upon her cousin Morden’s name, as if he had warned her
against a man of free principles; and walked towards the window; her
handkerchief at her eyes. But, turning short towards me, with an air of
mingled scorn and majesty, [what, at the moment, would I have given
never to have injured her!] What amends hast thou to propose! What
amends can such a one as thou make to a person of spirit, or common
sense, for the evils thou hast so inhumanely made me suffer?