My mother unwillingly consented to postpone a discovery which she knew would be so agreeable to Miss Burchell. I applaud her humanity; but think that, good and prudent as she is, she is too unreserved in her confidences. This strange business is, I think, at present in too critical a suspence to trust the knowledge of it to anybody. If Mr Faulkland fails in his design, his avowal of it will be far from serving me. Sir George was with us for a few minutes to-day, only to exult in Mr Faulkland’s recovered credit. Has he not well explained himself, said he? Oh! I knew there must have been some mystery at the bottom of that conduct which surprized us all so much. There’s a man for you! Shew me another who would carry his noble disinterested love to such lengths!
My mother did not like that he should run on in that strain, and therefore stopped him. The end crowns all, Sir George: let us see how your friend will conduct himself through this ticklish affair. Let him get through it how he will, answered my brother a little bluntly, I think Sidney has obligations to him she ought never to forget.
December 16
More intelligence, my dear; stranger and stranger still! I am sorry I sent off my last packet, as I am sure you must be impatient for the conclusion of Mr Faulkland’s adventure; and then what sorry stuff has the interval been filled up with! but I will now make you amends. My mother is better too, thank God! and every thing promises well.
Sir George has had a second packet from Boulogne. Take the continuation of Mrs Gerrarde’s history as follows:
How rude is the hand of sickness, my Bidulph! it had like to have spoiled one of the best projects that ever was undertaken, and consigned to oblivion an action worthy of immortality. I have been very ill since I last wrote to you; the disorder, which I then complained of, turned out to be an ugly fever; and I was for three days in extreme danger. Mrs Gerrarde was, during that time, closely attended by Pivet, whose services I dispensed with on that account. He told me she appeared uneasy at my situation, and enquired constantly, and kindly too, after my health. When I grew well enough to sit up, I begged the favour of seeing her in my chamber. She came very readily, and seemed downright anxious for my recovery. I told her I hoped she had been treated with proper care and respect during my sickness. She said Mr Pivet was a very obliging, good-natured man, and had endeavoured to make her confinement as easy to her as possible.
The plan she had formed of turning to the most lasting advantage the inclination she supposed I had for her, inclined her to assume a very different behaviour from what was natural to her. The weakness of my condition, while it afforded me a pretence for a more cold and languid behaviour than I could with any colour have put on at another time, gave her an opportunity of playing off her arts, and facilitated my design beyond my hopes.
She was seated at my bed-side: our first conversation consisted of nothing but complaints on my side, and condolements on her’s. I sighed several times, and she sighed in return. Mrs Gerrarde, said I, you are afflicted; but my illness has no share in your concern. Something else oppresses you; you regret the being separated from Mr Arnold, and I am always the object of your hatred. Neither one nor t’other, answered she, in a kind voice. ’Tis impossible to hate you; you know it is not in nature for a woman to hate such a man as Mr Faulkland. As for Mr Arnold, though I own my former weakness in regard to him, yet I hope I have something to plead in my excuse. I was married very early to an old man, and had never experienced the happiness of reciprocal love: he died, and left me destitute. Mr Arnold’s generous, though I must confess unwarrantable passion, rescued me from distress. I did not know he was married when I first unwarily accepted of his addresses, and it was too late to retreat before I found it out; otherwise the universe should not have tempted me to have listened to him.
In the midst of the affluence I obtained from him, it often grieved me to think of the injury I did his wife. There is nothing, Mr Faulkland, so grating to a generous mind, and I think I may venture to assert that mine is one, as to live in a state of dependence, and, at the same time, owe that very dependence to a vice that you disdain.
I was delighted to find that she had got into this strain; it was the thing I wished, but durst hardly hope for without abundance of trouble on my part, and a dissimulation that was irksome to me. I knew she had studied this speech, and got it by rote to answer her own purpose; but in this, as is generally the case of designing people, she overshot herself, and became the dupe to her own artifice. I laid hold of the cue she gave: Oh! madam, you charm me! go on, go on; now indeed you shew a generous mind: happy would it be for all your sex, after having deviated from the paths of virtue, if they could return to them with so good a grace, so just a sense of their errors! To you, Sir, said she with a solemn air, I am indebted for my present resolutions: I hope from this time forward that my life will be irreproachable. I hope so too, madam. I guessed she understood these words as favouring her design: it was not meet to undeceive her (a little mental reservation, you know, Bidulph): she went on, little thinking she was forwarding my plan, when she only meant to promote her own. I hope Mr Arnold will be as sensible of his fault as I am of mine, and that he will never fall into the like indiscretion again. I believe there can be no true happiness but between a married pair, who sincerely love each other.