Memoirs of Miss Sidney Biddulph / Extracted from her own Journal, and now first published

by Frances Chamberlaine Sheridan

On the evening preceding the appointed day, she conjured her brother in the most earnest manner, to permit Mr Main to be present at the operation. The brother was unwilling to comply, as he thought it might very much discompose her, but she was so extremely pressing, that he was constrained to yield.

The attending surgeon was consulted on the occasion; who having declared, that he had no objection to Mr Main’s being present, that young man was sent for. He had been quite inconsolable at the accounts he received, of the dangerous state in which his mistress was, and went with an aching heart to her brother’s house in the morning.

He was introduced into her chamber, where he found the whole chirurgical apparatus ready. The young woman herself was in her closet, but came out in a few minutes, with a countenance perfectly serene. She seated herself in an elbow chair, and desired she might be indulged for a quarter of an hour, to speak a few words to her brother, before they proceeded to their work. Her brother was immediately called to her, when taking him by the hand, she requested him to sit down by her.

You have, said she, been a father to me, since I lost my own; I acknowlege your tenderness and your care of me with gratitude. I believe your refusal of me to Mr Main, was from no other motive but your desire of seeing me matched to a richer man. I therefore freely forgive you that only act, in which you ever exercised the authority my father gave you over me. My life, I now apprehend, is in imminent danger, the hazard nearly equal, whether I do, or do not undergo the operation; but as they tell me there is a chance in my favour on one side, I am determined to submit to it.

I put it off to this day, on account of its being my birth-day. I am now one and twenty, and as the consequences of what I have to go through, may deprive me of the power of doing what I intended, I have spent this morning in making my will. You, brother, have an ample fortune; I have no poor relations; I hope, therefore, I stand justified to the world, for having made Mr Main my heir. Saying this, she pulled a paper from under her gown, which she put into her brother’s hand, that he might read it. It was her will, wrote by herself, regularly signed, and witnessed by two servants of the family.

Sir, said she, turning to the other surgeon, as soon as my brother is withdrawn, I am ready for you. You may imagine this had various effects on the different persons concerned. The brother, however displeased he might have been at this act of his sister’s, had too much humanity to make any animadversions on it at that time. He returned the paper to his sister without speaking, and retired.

Poor Main, who had stood at the back of her chair, from his first coming in, had been endeavouring to suppress his tears all the time; but at this proof of his mistress’s tenderness and generosity, it was no longer in his power to do so, and they burst from him with the utmost violence of passion.

The other surgeon desired him to compose himself, for that they were losing time, and the lady would be too much ruffled.

The heroic young woman, with a smiling countenance, begged of him to dry his eyes: perhaps, said she, I may recover. Then fixing herself firmly in the chair, she pronounced, with much composure, ‘I am ready.’ Two maid servants stood one at each side of her, and the surgeon drew near to do his painful work. He had uncovered her bosom, and taken off the dressings, when Mr Main, casting his eyes at her breast, begged he might have leave to examine it before they proceeded. The other surgeon, with some indignation, said, his doing so was only an unnecessary delay; and had already laid hold of his knife, when Mr Main having looked at it, said, he was of opinion it might be saved, without endangering the lady’s life. The other, with a contemptuous smile, told him, he was sorry he thought him so ignorant of his profession, and without much ceremony, putting him aside, was about to proceed to the operation; when Mr Main laying hold of him, said, that he should never do it in his presence; adding, with some warmth, that he would engage to make a perfect cure of it in a month, without the pain or hazard of amputation.

The young lady, who had been an eye-witness of what passed, for she would not suffer her face to be covered, now thought it proper to interpose. She told the unfeeling operator, the he might be very sure she would embrace any distant hope of saving herself from the pain, the danger, and the loss she must sustain, if he pursued the method he intended. She was not, however, so irresolute, she said, as to desire either to avoid or postpone the operation, if it should be found necessary; but as there was hope given her of a cure without it, she thought it but reasonable to make the experiment; and should therefore refer the decision of her case to a third person of skill in the profession, by whose opinion she would be determined.