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

by Frances Chamberlaine Sheridan

My father took an opportunity the same day to inform me what he had done, but assured me, he would immediately make another will, agreeable to his first intentions, and leave it in the hands of a faithful friend.

This was his design; but alas he lived not to execute it. He was seized that night with a paralytic disorder, which at once deprived him of the use of his limbs and his speech. They who were about him believed he retained his senses, but he was not capable of making himself understood even by signs. Alarmed with this dismal account of my beloved father’s situation, I flew to the house without considering my mother’s displeasure; but I was not permitted to see him. I filled the house with my cries, but to no purpose; I had not the satisfaction of receiving even a farewell look from him, which was all he was capable of bestowing on me.

He languished for several days in this melancholy condition, and then, in spite of the aid of physic, expired.

The loss of this dear father so entirely took up my thoughts, that I never reflected on the loss of the remaining part of my fortune; but it was not so with my father-in-law. There had been a settlement made on me in consequence of the fortune promised; though not equal to what it demanded, yet superior to the half which was paid. He relied on my father’s word for the remainder, and had no doubt of its being secured to him, knowing his circumstances, as well as his strict integrity, and that my sister had actually received the same fortune which I was promised.

Mr Vere had four daughters, and it was on this fortune he chiefly depended to provide for them.

The news of my being cut off with a shilling exceedingly surprized and exasperated him. Unluckily I had not mentioned to him, nor even to my husband, the will which my father had been obliged to make. The assurances he gave me, of immediately making another in my favour, prevented me; as I thought it would only be a very severe proof of my mother’s enmity to the family, which I could have wished to conceal from them; especially as I did not imagine it would have affected me afterwards. Mr Vere the elder was from home when my father died, and his business detained him for more than a month after his funeral was over. My husband, on this occasion, shewed the tender and disinterested love he bore me; he affected to make as light as possible of this unexpected disappointment, but at the same time expressed his uneasiness, lest his father should carry matters to an extremity with my mother, from whom we knew we were to expect nothing by mild methods.

It was now thought adviseable, that I should write to my mother, to condole with her on my father’s death; again to intreat her forgiveness of my fault, and, as some mitigation of it, to acknowlege that it was not only with my father’s privity, but even with his consent and approbation, that I had married.

I wrote this letter in a strain of the utmost humility, without mentioning a word of my fortune; that I thought it would be time enough for me to do, if I could prevail on my mother to see me, and would at all events come better from my husband or his father, than from me. But I gained nothing by this, only some unkind reflections on my father’s memory, and a message, that since he thought proper to marry his daughter in a manner so highly disagreeable to her mother, he should have taken care of providing for her; as he could not expect a parent, so disobliged as she had been, would take any notice of me.

My mother had been left sole executrix to my father’s forced will; and she took care to put my sister, and the other legatees, into possession of what was bequeathed to them in a very short time after his decease. She found there was an unexpected deficiency in his personal fortune, insomuch that there was barely enough to pay his debts; and that her being left the residue, after the specified legacies were paid, amounted to nothing. On the contrary, had my father’s just intentions taken place, in leaving me five thousand pounds, she would have come in for the other five; but the whole ten thousand now went to my sister.

She was not long however at a loss to know how this came to pass. Mr Vere determined to assert his own, and his son’s right; and being exceedingly provoked at my mother’s behaviour, wrote to her immediately on his return home; and having informed her of the settlement made on me, on account of the fortune already paid, and what was farther agreed on to be paid by my father, told her, he expected that this promise should be punctually fulfilled. He said, he knew she had it in her power to do this; and since it was by her contrivance I had been robbed of my just right, if honour, and the duty of a parent, would not induce her to make me proper amends, she must excuse him, if he made use of such means as the laws allowed him, in order to compel her.