I was unwilling to appear cold in Miss Burchell’s interest, or to refuse doing what my mother seemed to approve; but the resolution I had long before made, never to see, or on any account whatsoever to hold the least correspondence with Mr Faulkland, determined me. If strict prudence might on so extraordinary an occasion have dispensed with this promise, which, as I had made it to my own heart, I thought amounted almost to a vow, I could not however answer it to that decorum, which I had, as an inviolable law, determined to guide myself by, in so critical a situation. And I resolved to have it in my power to say, in case Mr Arnold and I were ever to unite again, that I had not in the smallest article departed from it.
I told Miss Burchell there was but one reason which could prevent me from complying with her request; but it was one of so much weight with me, that, after my informing her of it, I hoped she would be so good as not to urge me farther. I did, said I, upon my parting with my husband, make a firm resolution, not only never to see Mr Faulkland, but never to receive from, or write a line to him, nor in any manner whatsoever to keep up the least intercourse with him.
I did not know but that Mr Faulkland (if he should learn the truth) considering himself to be (as he really was, though innocently) the cause of that unfortunate separation, might, either with a design of consoling me, or of vindicating himself from any suspicion of blame, have endeavoured to see me or write to me. In this I was mistaken; his prudence, or his respect for me, prevented him from attempting either. The resolution I had made, however, I thought due to my husband’s honour, as well as my own. The same cause still subsists; the weight of it perhaps more in my own imagination than in reality; but if it even be so, indulge me, dear Madam (to my mother), and dear Miss Burchell, in this singularity. I have (not improbably) the happy prospect of being restored to Mr Arnold’s esteem; let me then be able to assure him, that these eyes, these ears, these hands, have been as guiltless as my heart, and all equally estranged from Mr Faulkland. This is a declaration I think due to that punctilio, or, give me leave to call it, that delicacy, I have endeavoured to preserve in all my conduct. Mother! you always taught me to avoid even the shadow of reproach.
Very true, my dearest, answered my mother; I believe you are in the right. Miss Burchell, I think my daughter cannot, conformably to that discretion by which she has always been governed, undertake your cause at present: it did not appear to me at first in the light wherein Sidney has now put it.
Miss Burchell made no answer, but by her tears; we were both affected, and I wished sincerely to have had it in my power to serve her. I told her, if Mr Arnold and I should ever be re-united, that I would endeavour to draw him so far over to our party, as to obtain his permission to correspond with Mr Faulkland: that I was sure he would join with me in wishing her the reparation she hoped for; and that I would make no scruple of engaging warmly for her in such a case. But then, Madam, said she, with what face can you interest yourself for me, so long as Mr Arnold shall think that my aunt has been criminal with Mr Faulkland? That thought, said I, did not occur to me before, and is indeed a difficulty; for should Mr Arnold know that the elopement of Mrs Gerrarde was against her will, and the letter she wrote him extorted from her by Mr Faulkland, it might perhaps injure me as much in his opinion, as Mrs Gerrarde’s false suggestions had done before. Those intricacies, dear Miss Burchell, must be left to time, which I hope may unravel them favourably for us all. The attempt to disclose this affair to Mr Arnold must not be sudden; indeed I must be well assured of his restored confidence and affection before I can venture upon it at all. Whenever that joyful event happens, assure yourself of my best endeavours to serve you, if I have really any influence over Mr Faulkland, and circumstances should so happily concur as to put it in my power to make use of it.
Be contented, good Miss Burchell, said my mother, with this promise which my daughter has made you: if Mr Arnold and she should live together again, Mr Faulkland may probably return to England; as nothing I believe now keeps him abroad, but to avoid giving Mr Arnold umbrage in the present unhappy disunion between him and his wife.
December 18
My brother continues sullen; he seldom visits us, and when he does, the meeting on his part is cold. He has made himself master of many particulars relating to poor Mr Arnold’s unhappy connection with Mrs Gerrarde; for since her elopement the affair has been more talked of than it was before, and her whole history traced out. She was the daughter of an innkeeper in a country town, and ran away with Captain Gerrarde, in his march through it, upon an acquaintance of but a few days. The husband, who was passionately fond of her, concealed the meanness of her birth, and put her off to his relations for a young lady of a reputable family, with whom he got a good fortune. This induced his sister, a widow lady, the mother of Miss Burchell, to leave at her death the care of the unhappy girl to captain Gerrarde. The captain, whose infirmities increased fast upon him a few years after his marriage, got leave to retire upon half-pay into the country; and he lived for the most part at Ashby, a little estate which he had purchased and settled upon his wife: it seems he had a pretty good personal fortune, which she had squandered, for his fondness could refuse her nothing, except living apart from him at London, which he could never consent to, though it was always her desire; but being debarred of this, she betook herself to such pleasures as the country afforded, and was always a leading woman at horse-races, assemblies, and such other amusements, as were within her reach; which, together with expensive treats at home, and card-playing (her supreme delight) left her at his death, which happened about five years after their marriage, in the indigent state she in her account of herself to Mr Faulkland acknowleges. It was then Mr Arnold became acquainted with her, and in the manner she represented; for my brother has lately fallen into the acquaintance of that very relation (as she calls him) which she mentions, a Mr Pinnick, at whose lodgings they first met. This gentleman, who was in reality nothing more than an humble servant of the lady’s, though she called him cousin, the better to skreen a more particular connection, was so provoked at her deserting him in favour of Mr Arnold, whom he said he was sure she had insnared, that he made no scruple of telling all he knew of her. He said, she had two brothers, very great profligates; one of whom had been put into prison for forgery, and would have been hanged, had not Mr Arnold, at the expence of a very considerable sum, saved his life. The other, some very mean retainer to the law, a plausible fellow, and Mrs Gerrarde’s great favourite, for whom she had art and influence enough to prevail on Mr Arnold to purchase a considerable employment. It would be endless, said Mr Pinnick, to tell you the variety of stratagems she made use of to get money out of those whom she had in her power, and who were able to supply her. I, for my part, was not rich enough for her, which was the chief reason I suppose of Mr Arnold’s supplanting me; and I take it for granted, that those arts, which she practised on me to little effect, succeeded better with him. One time her poor father was in gaol, and his whole family would be undone, and her mother sent a begging, if he was not relieved from his distress, by a trifling sum; fifty pounds would do. Another time her sister’s husband, a country shopkeeper, was upon the point of breaking, and would be inevitably ruined if he was not assisted. And then she had a formal letter to produce from her sister upon the melancholy occasion. These circumstances she made no scruple of laying open to me, as she knew I was no stranger to her origin, having resided for some years in the town where she formerly lived, though I did not then know her. Her mother was a Roman Catholick; and in order to have her daughter brought up in the same principles with herself, had her sent to a relation in Dublin, where she received her education in a nunnery. Though her artifices to get money from me were grown quite stale, I make no doubt but she practised them all over again on poor Arnold. She was not contented with the lodgings I had placed her in, but obliged him to take a handsome house, elegantly furnished for her: a very fine chariot and horses were the next purchase; for a hired one the lady would not vouchsafe to sit in: and I am sure I have seen her in the boxes at the play, with as many jewels on her as any lady there.
All these ungrateful particulars, which Sir George had received from Mr Pinnick, he took a sort of ill natured pleasure in repeating to my mother and me. Unhappy Mr Arnold, into what a gulph didst thou unwarily plunge thyself! Is it not amazing that this affair was even so long a secret? That it was so to me is not strange; for it is natural to suppose that I must have been the last person to receive a hint of this nature; but that my brother should never have been informed of it is surprizing! ’Tis certain Mr Arnold was at first very cautious in his visits, making them generally at night, and even then he never was carried in his own chariot. I am shocked to think of the mischiefs which I fear he has done to his temporal affairs, for his children’s sake as well as his own; but since he is delivered from the thraldom in which this woman held him, the rest, I hope, by future good management, may be retrieved. Would to heaven! I had nothing left me to lament, but the waste of his fortune. Sir George says he is sure he is deeply in debt. The law-suit too I hear is likely to go against us; if that is to be the case, it will be a blow indeed!