"My dear Talbot,—You may be quite sure that I shall not repeat to any one what you have told me of Mother Shipton. I knew, however, pretty well what she was doing and what I had to expect from her. It is astonishing to me that such a woman should still have the power of persuading any one,—astonishing also that any human being should continue to hate as she hates me. She has often tried to do me an injury, but she has never succeeded yet. At any rate she will not bend me. Though my school should be broken up to-morrow, which I do not think probable, I should still have enough to live upon,—which is more, by all accounts, than her unfortunate husband can say for himself.
"The facts are these. More than twelve months ago I got an assistant named Peacocke, a clergyman, an Oxford man, and formerly a Fellow of Trinity;—a man quite superior to anything I have a right to expect in my school. He had gone as a Classical Professor to a college in the United States;—a rash thing to do, no doubt;—and had there married a widow, which was rasher still. The lady came here with him and undertook the charge of the school-house,—with a separate salary; and an admirable person in the place she was. Then it turned out, as no doubt you have heard, that her former husband was alive when they were married. They ought probably to have separated, but they didn't. They came here instead, and here they were followed by the brother of the husband,—who I take it is now dead, though of that we know nothing certain.
"That he should have told me his position is more than any man has a right to expect from another. Fortune had been most unkind to him, and for her sake he was bound to do the best that he could with himself. I cannot bring myself to be angry with him, though I cannot defend him by strict laws of right and wrong. I have advised him to go back to America and find out if the man be in truth dead. If so, let him come back and marry the woman again before all the world. I shall be ready to marry them and to ask him and her to my house afterwards.
"In the mean time what was to become of her? 'Let her go into lodgings,' said the Bishop. Go to lodgings at Broughton! You know what sort of lodgings she would get there among psalm-singing greengrocers who would tell her of her misfortune every day of her life! I would not subject her to the misery of going and seeking for a home. I told him, when I persuaded him to go, that she should have the rooms they were then occupying while he was away. In settling this, of course I had to make arrangements for doing in our own establishment the work which had lately fallen to her share. I mention this for the sake of explaining that she has got nothing to do with the school. No doubt the boys are under the same roof with her. Will your boy's morals be the worse? It seems that Gustavus Momson's will. You know the father; do you not? I wonder whether anything will ever affect his morals?
"Now, I have told you everything. Not that I have doubted you; but, as you have been told so much, I have thought it well that you should have the whole story from myself. What effect it may have upon the school I do not know. The only boy of whose secession I have yet heard is young Momson. But probably there will be others. Four new boys were to have come, but I have already heard from the father of one that he has changed his mind. I think I can trace an acquaintance between him and Mother Shipton. If the body of the school should leave me I will let you know at once as you might not like to leave your boy under such circumstances.
"You may be sure of this, that here the lady remains until her husband returns. I am not going to be turned from my purpose at this time of day by anything that Mother Shipton may say or do.—Yours always,
"Jeffrey Wortle."