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

by Frances Chamberlaine Sheridan

He returned home shocked and disappointed, more on account of the family he had married into, than on his own. He now found himself at near forty years of age, with a family coming on him, and no other provision than a curacy of forty pounds a year. My grandfather pretended he had been deceived by him, and made that excuse for withdrawing all his favour from him. My mother had children pretty fast, but they all died young excepting myself; and as he loved her too well to let her feel the inconvenience of streightened circumstances, he was content to let his own little patrimony, which he had preserved till now, gradually waste; for my grandfather never gave her any fortune. At his death, which happened a few years after, it appeared he could not, for he left but little behind him. In this situation, my father having lost all hopes of being better provided for, with the melancholy reflexion of having thrown away the best part of his days in a fruitless attendance and expectation, dragged on a life of obscurity and toil for eleven years; and then it was that Mr Ware applied to him in the manner I have mentioned.

I told this amiable girl, I was glad I had interrupted the thread of her story, as by that means she had obliged me with so many interesting particulars of her family, and then requested she would proceed. She bowed with a pretty modest grace, and went on.

I informed you, Madam, that my father, having accepted of the tuition of Mr Ware’s son, prepared to attend him on his travels. He took his leave very reluctantly of my poor mother and me, whom he tenderly recommended to Mr Ware’s patronage, and set out with the young gentleman, having given up his cure, as his absence was to be of a long continuance.

Mr Ware, who was a truly good man, was punctual in the performance of his promise towards my mother and me, and behaved while my father was away like a second parent. His son continued abroad upwards of four years, and returned a very accomplished gentleman.

Mr Ware was exceedingly pleased with my father’s conduct, for which he told him both his son and himself owed him the utmost gratitude. He was now far advanced in years, and grown indolent from infirmities, he thought it better to be himself the rewarder of my father’s merit, than take upon him the trouble of soliciting other people to provide for him; and accordingly resolved to give him an annual income of two hundred pounds during his life. He told him, at the same that as his estate was entailed, it was not in his power to confirm this grant by a will; but he was sure his son was too sensible of what he owed him, not to promise in the most solemn manner to continue to him this income, when he should come into his inheritance. The young gentleman, who was present, handsomely acknowleged the obligations he had to my father, and assured him he thought he could never sufficiently repay them.

My father, who now wished for nothing more than to sit down peacably on a competency, thought himself very happy; he retired to his little house in Berkshire, where my mother and I still lived, and gave himself up to domestic contentment.

The old gentleman was punctual to his agreement, constantly paying my father fifty pounds every quarter. He died in something less than three years; his son immediately on his accession to his fortune, being at that time in London, wrote my father a very affectionate letter, assuring him of the continuance of his friendship. Nor did he fail in his promise; for two years he was punctual in his remittances to my father. He did not during that time come down to Berkshire, having another country-seat, of which he was fonder. At this time I lost my dear mother, who had been for some years in a declining way; and though during her health, as she was an exceedingly good œconomist, my father might have laid by some of his income, yet the frequent journies she was prescribed to Bath, and other places, for change of air, together with the expence of physicians at home, put it out of his power to save any thing: which on my account gave him great uneasiness; but as he was still strong and hale, he was in hopes he might yet live to lay by something for me. I was now about fifteen, and the darling of my father’s heart. He was inconsolable for my mother’s death, but I endeavoured to comfort him, and at last in some measure succeeded. Mr Ware, whom my father had not seen since the death of the good old gentleman, came down now to revisit his paternal seat. He would not omit paying a visit of condolement to his old friend and tutor, and accordingly came to our house the day after his arrival in the country. Though I had seen him before, as it was in my childhood, I had taken but little notice of him; he is indeed a handsome genteel young man.

The innocent girl blushed as she spoke these words, but I seemed not to observe it.

She proceeded with a sigh. My father who loved him, was rejoiced to see him; Mr Ware behaved with a tenderness and respect almost filial towards him, and very obliging to me. He continued about a week in the country, calling to ask my father how he did every day. When he was about to return to London, he pressed my father to pass a few weeks with him in town: you are melancholy here, said he, changing the scene a little, will divert both your daughter and you.

My father thanked him for the honour he did him, but modestly declined it.