CHAPTER X
Contains an account of some transactions which, though they may not be very pleasing in the repetition, nor are of any great consequence to Miss Betsy, would render this history extremely deficient if omitted
As Lady Mellasin has made so considerable a figure in the former parts of this history, the reader may, perhaps, now begin to think she has been too long neglected; it is, therefore, proper to proceed directly to some account how that guilty and unfortunate woman behaved, after being driven in the manner already related from the house of her much-injured husband. Mr. Goodman was advised by his lawyers to be extremely private in the prosecution he was going to commence against her, and by no means to let her know the secret of her criminal conversation with Marplus had been discovered to him: this seemed a caution necessary to be observed, in order to prevent her from taking any measures, either to invalidate the evidence of the witnesses, or prevail upon them to abscond when the proof of what they had sworn against her should be expected. The whole detection of her guilt was designed to come at once upon her like a thunderclap, and thereby all the little efforts of artifice and chicanery to which she, doubtless, would otherwise have had recourse, be rendered of no use, nor give the least impediment to justice.
Accordingly, this zealous assertor of his client's cause went to visit her, as of his own good-will; flattered her with the hope that her husband would soon be prevailed upon to take her home again, and lent her several small sums of money to supply her necessities; saying, at the same time, that when matters were made up between them, and all was over, he very well knew that Mr. Goodman would return it to him with thanks.
This strategem had the effect it was intended for; it not only kept her from attempting any thing of the nature above-mentioned, but also from running Mr. Goodman into debt; which certainly she might have done, on some pretence or other, in spite of all the care and means that could have been taken to destroy her credit.
It must be acknowledged, indeed, that acting in this manner was a prodigious piece of dissimulation; but, at the same time, it must be acknowledged also, that it was abundantly justified by the cause, and practised for the most laudable end, to serve an honest, worthy, gentleman, his friend and client, against a woman who had wronged him in the tenderest point, and who was capable of making use of the vilest methods to elude the punishment her crimes deserved; and, as a great author tells us—
'It is a kind of stupid honesty,
Among known knaves, to play upon the square.'
Lady Mellasin, however, was lulled into so perfect a security by her dependance on the good-nature of her husband, and the tender affection he had always shewn to her, as well as by the high character she had always heard of the lawyer's veracity, that she was more easy than could have been expected in a woman of her situation, even though it had been as she was made to believe.
She received, and returned, with her usual politeness and gaiety, the visits that were made her by all those who thought proper to continue an acquaintance with her: she pretended that it was only a little family contest that had separated her from Mr. Goodman for a short time; and always mentioned him with so much kindness and respect, as made every one believe there was nothing between them but what would be easily made up.