Belinda, a young lady of fortune in Warwickshire, comes to London on business and meets at her lodging-house a mysterious fair recluse. Imagining that their lots may be somewhat akin, she induces the retired beauty to relate the history of her misfortunes.
Cleomira upon her father's death is removed from the court to the country by a prudent mother. She does not take kindly to housewifery, and languishes until friends persuade her mother to let her attend a ball. There she meets the glorious Lysander, and in spite of her mother's care, runs away to join him in London. Her ruin and desertion inevitably follow. The sight of a rival in her place makes her frantically resolve to die by poison, but the apothecary gives her only a harmless opiate. Thinking herself dying, she sends a last letter to her faithless lover. When she awakes and hears how indifferently he has received the report of her death, she at length overcomes her unhappy passion, and retires from the world.
Belinda then relates how her marriage with the deserving Worthly was postponed by her father's death. In the interim the captivating Sir Thomas Courtal has occasion to render her a slight service at the overturn of her coach, and fires her with a passion which her mild esteem for Worthly is too weak to overcome. Courtal perceives and encourages her fondness, though he poses as Worthly's friend. She gives him an assignation in a wood, where she is saved from becoming a victim to his lust only by the timely arrival of her true admirer. In the duel that ensues Worthly falls, Courtal flees, and a little later Belinda goes to London in hopes of seeing him. At the playhouse she is only too successful in beholding him in a box accompanied by his wife and mistress. From the gossip of her friends she learns that his real name is Lord——, and from one of the ladies she hears such stories of his villainy that she can no longer doubt him to be a monster.
Worthly, meanwhile, has recovered from his wound and weds Belinda's sister. Lysander and Courtal prove to be in reality the same bland villain, the inconstant Bellamy. His two victims, sympathizing in their common misfortune, agree to retire together to a remote spot where they can avoid all intercourse with the race of men. "And where a solitary Life is the effect of Choice, it certainly yields more solid Comfort, than all the publick Diversions which those who are the greatest Pursuers of them can find."
The same admirable sentiment was shared by the surviving heroine of "The Double Marriage: or, the Fatal Release" (1726), who after witnessing a signal demonstration of the perfidy of man, resolves to shun for ever the false sex.
Dazzled by the numerous accomplishments of Bellcour, the charming Alathia weds him in secret. When he finds that his father has designed to bestow his hand upon the heiress of an India merchant, he dares not confess his fault, but lets himself be carried to Plymouth to meet his intended bride. There he determines to escape from his father during a hunting party, but while passing a wood, he hears cries and rescues a fair maiden from violation. The beautiful stranger allows him to conduct her back to Plymouth, and turns out to be Mirtamene, the woman he is to marry. Though very much in love with this new beauty, Bellcour cannot relinquish the thought of Alathia without a struggle. But in fatal hesitation the time slips by, and he is finally compelled to wed a second bride. Meanwhile the deserted Alathia hears disquieting reports of her husband's conduct. In disguise as a boy she travels to Plymouth to see for herself, confronts her guilty partner, and after hearing his confession, stabs herself. Overcome by remorse and love, Bellcour imitates her, while Mirtamene "warn'd by the example of Bellcour, that Interest, Absence, or a new Passion, can make the most seeming constant Lover false, took a Resolution ever to contemn and hate that betraying Sex to which she owed her Misfortune and the Sight of such a Disaster as she had beheld in Alathia."
Not content to retire in disgust from the world, Glicera, the victim of fickle man in "The City Jilt" (1726) determines to retaliate upon the lover who has ruined and abandoned her when the death of her father left her without a fortune or a protector. To secure her revenge she encourages the advances of a senile alderman, Grubguard by name, whom she takes infinite delight in deceiving by the help of an ingenious confidant. Meanwhile an unfortunate lawsuit and the extravagances of his wife have ruined the false Melladore, who is obliged to mortgage his estate to Grubguard. Glicera obtains the deeds from the amorous alderman, and then sends him packing. Melladore is forced to beg of her sufficient funds to purchase a commission and later dies in battle. With the fortune she has won from her various lovers Glicera retires from the world and henceforth shuns the society of men.
In these three tales Mrs. Haywood followed the guidance of her own experience when it ran counter to the traditions of romance. The betrayed heroine ought to have died, or at least to have been immured in a convent to suffer a living death, but instead of acquiescing in their fate, Belinda and Cleomira, Mirtamene, and Glicera defy the world, and in the last case prove that the worm may turn.
Among the works of her first decade of authorship a few effusions in which Mrs. Haywood has succeeded to a degree in motivating, characterizing, or analyzing the passions of her characters, must be exempted from the general charge of commonplaceness. The first of these is "Idalia: or, the Unfortunate Mistress" (1724), the story of a young Venetian beauty—like Lasselia, her charms can only be imagined not described—whose varied amorous adventures carry her over most of Italy.
She is sought by countless suitors, among them the base Florez, whom her father promptly forbids the house. Idalia's vanity is piqued at the loss of a single adorer, and more from perverseness than from love she continues to correspond with him. He makes no further use of her condescension than to boast of her favors, until at the command of his patron, Don Ferdinand, he induces Idalia to make an assignation with him. Ferdinand meets her and not without difficulty at length effects her ruin. Her lover's friend, Henriquez, in conducting her to a place of safety in Padua, becomes himself the victim of her charms, quarrels with Ferdinand, and slays him and is slain. Henriquez' brother, Myrtano, next succeeds as Idalia's adorer, but learning that he is about to make an advantageous marriage, she secretly decamps. In her flight the very guide turns out to be a noble lover in disguise. When she escapes from him in a ship bound for Naples, the sea-captain pays her crude court, but just in time to save her from his embraces the ship is captured by Barbary corsairs—commanded by a young married couple. Though the heroine is in peasant dress, she is treated with distinction by her captors. Her history moves them to tears, and they in turn are in the midst of relating to her the involved story of their courtship, when the vessel is wrecked by a gale. Borne ashore on a plank, Idalia is succored by cottagers, and continues her journey in man's clothes. She is loved by a lady, and by the lady's husband, who turns out to be her dear Myrtano. Their felicity is interrupted by the jealousy of Myrtano's wife, who appeals to the Pope and forces the lovers to separate by his order. Idalia leads a miserable life, persecuted by all the young gallants of Rome. One day she sees Florez, the first cause of all her misfortunes, pass the window, and with thoughts bent on revenge sends him a billet, which he carries to his master. Myrtano keeps the appointment, muffled in a cloak, and Idalia stabs him by mistake. Overcome by remorse, she dies by the same knife.