_ Letter VIII - To Jane Talbot
To Jane Talbot Wilmington, Saturday, October 9.
I thought I had convinced my friend that a letter from me ought not to be expected earlier than Monday. I left her to gratify no fickle humour, nor because my chief pleasure lay anywhere but in her company. She knew of my design to make some stay at this place, and that the business that occasioned my stay would leave me no leisure to write.
Is it possible that my visits to Miss Secker have given you any concern? Why must the source of your anxiety be always so mortifying and opprobrious to me? That the absence of a few days, and the company of another woman, should be thought to change my sentiments, and make me secretly recant those vows which I offered to you, is an imputation on my common sense which--I suppose I deserve. You judge of me from what you know of me. How can you do otherwise? If my past conduct naturally creates such suspicions, who am I to blame but myself? Reformation should precede respect; and how should I gain confidence in my integrity but as the fruit of perseverance in well-doing?
Alas! how much has he lost who has forfeited his own esteem!
As to Miss Secker, your ignorance of her, and, I may add, of yourself, has given her the preference. You think her your superior, no doubt, in every estimable and attractive quality, and therefore suspect her influence on a being so sensual and volatile as poor Hal. Were she really more lovely, the faithless and giddy wretch might possibly forget you; but Miss Secker is a woman whose mind and person are not only inferior to yours, but wholly unfitted to inspire love. If it were possible to smile in my present mood, I think I should indulge _one smile_ at the thought of falling in love with a woman who has scarcely had education enough to enable her to write her name, who has been confined to her bed about eighteen months by a rheumatism contracted by too assiduous application to the wash-tub, and who often boasts that she was born, not above forty-five years ago, in an upper story of the mansion at Mount Vernon.
You do not tell me who it was that betrayed me to you. I suspect, however, it was Miss Jessup. She was passing through this town, in her uncle's carriage, on Wednesday, on her way home. Seeing me come out of the poor woman's lodgings, she stopped the coach, prated for five minutes, and left me with ironical menaces of telling you of my frequent visits to a single lady, of whom it appeared that she had some knowledge. Thus you see that your disquiets have had no foundation but in the sportive malice of your talkative neighbour.
Hannah Secker chanced to be talked of at Mr. Henshaw's as a poor creature, who was sick and destitute, and lay, almost deserted, in a neighbouring hovel. She existed on charity, which was the more scanty and reluctant as she bore but an indifferent character either for honesty or gratitude.
The name, when first mentioned, struck my ear as something that had once been familiar, and, in my solitary evening walk, I stopped at her cottage. The sight of her, though withered by age and disease, called her fully to mind. Three years ago, she lived in the city, and had been very serviceable to me in the way of her calling. I had dismissed her, however, after receiving several proofs that a pair of silk stockings and a muslin cravat offered too mighty a temptation for her virtue. You know I have but little money to spare from my own necessities, and all the service I could render her was to be her petitioner and advocate with some opulent families in this place. But enough--and too much--of Hannah Secker.
Need I say that I have read your narrative, and that I fully acquit you of the guilt laid to your charge? That was done, indeed, before I heard your defence, and I was anxious to hear your story, merely because all that relates to you is in the highest degree interesting to me.
This letter, notwithstanding my engagements, should be longer, if I were not in danger, by writing on, of losing the post. So, dearest love, farewell, and tell me in your next (which I shall expect on Tuesday) that every pain has vanished from your head and from your heart. You may as well delay writing to your mother till I return. I hope it will be permitted me to do so very shortly. Again, my only friend, farewell.
HENRY COLDEN. _