 Section 5 of Memoirs of Miss Sidney Bidoff. Volume 1 continued. My mother, ever kind and tender, came early the next morning into my room. She inquired after my health and looked as if she pitied me. I was ready to cry at her compassionate glances. They mortified me, but I was determined not to let her perceive it. I told her I was much better, and what is surprising, I was really so, notwithstanding the uneasy state of my mind. She talked of indifferent things, and said she hoped I should soon be able to go into the country for a few days, to recover a little strength. I answered, I hope so too, madam. We were both silent for a while. My mother had her indulgent eyes fixed upon me. Mine were cast down. At last I resolved to speak out. Madam, said I, looking steadfastly at her, what is the cause of your coldness towards Mr. Falkland? It is in vain for you to hide it longer. You say he is well and gone out of town. If he has shown any slight towards me, tell me so at once and do not entertain so mean an opinion of your daughter, as to suppose she cannot bear the news. Your tenderness, I see, would conceal something from me. But believe me, madam, I am prepared for the worst. My dear, replied my mother, it gives me great pleasure to hear you say so. I pray God preserve my child, and grant her a better lot than she could hope for in a union with Mr. Falkland. What has he done, madam? My dearest Sydney, she answered, this is the first trial you have ever had of your patients, but I have no doubt that your goodness and discretion will teach you to act as becomes your character. I did not intend to have spoken to you on the subject till you were better able to bear the knowledge of what I am going to acquaint you with, but your prudence, I think, makes you equal to everything and I hope your health will not be endangered by the discovery of Mr. Falkland's baseness. What a dreadful preface! The day after you were taken ill, a letter directed to you was brought hither by a porter which your maid very discreetly delivered to me. As you were not in a condition to read it yourself, I thought proper to open it. The cover contained a few lines addressed to you, and in it was enclosed a letter directed to Mr. Falkland. Good God! answered she, taking the papers out of her pocket, how little reliance ought we to have on a fair outside. Here are the letters. Read what is in the cover first. I did so. It was ill-writ and worse spelt. These were the contents. To Sydney, madam, I hear you are soon to be married to Mr. Falkland, but as I think it is a great pity that so virtuous a young lady should be thrown away, this is to inform you that he does not deserve you. The enclosed letter, wrote to him by a fine and beautiful young lady that he decoyed, shows you how false he is. When you tax him with it, he will know from whence you've got your information, but let him deny it if he can. I am, madam, your unknown friend and humble servant. The letter to Mr. Falkland, in a very pretty female hand, and the date, but a week old, from the time it was sent to me, was as follows. To Falkland, from A, B. Oh, Mr. Falkland, I am the most unfortunate woman in the world. Fatal have you been to me, and I am undone forever. I was in hopes that our mutual fault might have been concealed, for while we stayed at Bath, I kept my aunt entirely ignorant of what passed between us, though she often pressed me to confess the truth. But it can now no longer be concealed. I am but too sensibly reminded of the unhappy consequences of my own weakness, and your ungoverned, would I could call it, love. I never meant to trouble you with complaints, but my present condition calls loudly for your compassion. Are you then really going to be married? There once but this to complete my destruction. Oh, sir, before it is too late, take pity on me. I dare not continue in the house with my uncle much longer. My aunt says that when my affliction becomes so conspicuous as not to be any longer hid, she will form a pretense on account of my health, for me to be absent for some months, under colour of going to Bath or to London for better advice than I can have here. But what will this avail me? I have no relations, no friends, nor acquaintance that I can trust with the secret of my miserable situation. To whom, then, can I fly? But to you, the cause of all my sorrow. I beseech you for heaven's sake, write to me and tell me if indeed you are going to give yourself away forever. If you are, your intended bride perhaps may have no other advantage of me, but what you in an evil hour deprived me of. Write to me, dear though cruel as you are, and think of some place of refuge for your unhappy, A, B. When I had read these letters, my mother asked me what I thought of Mr. Falkland. Indeed, I was so astonished that I scarce knew what answer to make, but replied, Madam, are you satisfied that this letter is not forged with the design to injure Mr. Falkland? Ah, my dear, said she. I am sorry you strived to catch at so slender a twig. You may be sure, I am but too well convinced that the letter is genuine, or you should never have had a moment's uneasiness by the knowledge of it. Mr. Falkland himself does not deny it, and it is with his permission that I kept it. I promise to return it, but desire leave to retain it for a few days. He could not refuse me this, though he might easily imagine I designed to show it to you. That was indeed my intention when I desired to keep it a little while in my hands, and I did so that I might have your judgment on the letter itself, as well as fully to justify my own proceedings in what I have done. Ah, dear Madam, cried I scarce knowing what I said. I rely on your maternal goodness. I am sure you have done what is proper, yet has Mr. Falkland nothing to say for himself? But I will ask no more questions. I know too much already. My love, said my mother, you have a right to know everything relative to this affair. I showed the letters to your brother as soon as I received them. Sir George at first seemed quite confounded, but afterwards to my very great surprise, he smiled, and said he knew of that foolish business before. I asked him if he knew of it before, how he could answer it to his honour, his conscience or the love he ought to bear his sister, not to divulge it immediately. Why, said he, I assure you it is a trivial affair that ought not to make you uneasy. What George answered I, a trivial matter for a man to ruin a fine young lady, forsake her, and dare to involve an innocent creature in his crimes. Do you call this a trivial affair? If you knew the circumstances, said he, you would not view it in so disadvantageous a light. Falkland certainly gained the affections of a young lady, though without seeking to do so, he never courted her, never attempted to please her much less to win her heart, and least of all to ruin her virtue. I know that is an action he is not capable of committing. How comes it to pass that he did so? said I, interrupting him. Why the girl was silly and she was thrown in his way by a vile designing woman that had the care of her. And was he, again stopping him, to take advantage of her folly and join with that vile designing woman to destroy a poor young creature's honour? The best man, said he confidently, may fall into an error, and if you expect to find a man entirely free from them, you look for what is not possible in human nature. I may expect to find a man without flagrant crimes to answer for, I hope, said I. I believe I spoke it with warmth. Do you call this one, madam? said he, with still more assurance. I hope Sidney will not be such a chit as to think in this manner when she comes to hear the affair explained. I really grew downright angry and could not forebear saying, I would rather see you married to your grave than to such a man. Your brother then begged I would hear Mr. Falkland justified and be a little cool till that was done. I told him there was a terrible fact alleged, of which I could not conceive it possible for him to acquit himself. George said he had a letter to show me on the subject which he had received from Mr. Falkland while he was at Bath and which he was sure would convince me that the whole affair was so trifling it ought by no means to be objected to Mr. Falkland nor in his opinion even mentioned to him. I told him I was sorry to find that he and I thought so differently for that I was determined to speak to Mr. Falkland immediately about it and if he could not satisfy me entirely on the score of the injured lady then he must never think of Sidney more. Your brother said that the letter which was sent to you had come from the revengeful dog who had robbed his master and that he would give half his estate to have the villain punished as he deserved. Mr. Falkland it seems had told him this himself. The fellow found it in the pocket book which he had taken out of the escritoir and his disappointment perhaps at not getting a better booty for he found but 20 moidores besides joined to his malice against his master incited him to make the use he did of this letter. Now continued my mother though the fellow is undoubtedly a vile creature yet my dear I think we are obliged to him for this discovery providentially is at his come to save you from what in my opinion would be the worst of misfortunes. The loss of this letter had alarmed Mr. Falkland so much that he put an advertisement into the papers next day worded in so particular a manner as showed how very fearful he was of that letter's coming to light for no doubt he suspected the man might make a dangerous use of it. The advertisement said that if the servant who had absconded from his master's house in St. James's Square the night before would restore the papers which he took with him they should be received without any questions being asked and a reward of 20 guineas paid to any person who should bring them back. The advertisement which to be sure the fellow either did not see at all or had not time enough to avail himself of shows you to what sad resources people are driven who having done unwarrantable actions are often in the power of the lowest wretches. I own this circumstance gave me a very ill impression of Mr. Falkland your brother says he remembers this man was one of the servants he took with him to Bath and without doubt he knew of his amour the advertisement has since been changed by Sir George's advice I find the man is named his person described and a reward of 50 pounds offered for the apprehending of him but I take it for granted he has got out of reach though this little digression was very pertinent I was impatient to know what had passed between my mother and Mr. Falkland on the fatal subject and could not forbear asking her I shall tell you said she in order your brother and I had some father altercations and indeed my dear it amazes me to find that a young man educated as Sir George was in the early part of life in the strictest principles of virtue and the son of parents who thank god always gave him the best example should have so far deviated from the sober paths he was brought up in as to treat the most glaring vices with a levity that shocks me but I suppose the company he kept abroad among whom this hypocrite Falkland was his chief has quite perverted him he gave me the letter to read which he had received from his friend whilst he was at Bath and which he said was to convince me that it was such a trifling affair that we ought not to take the least notice of it and all his reason for this was truly because that loose man treats the subject as lightly as he does I am afraid Sir George is no better than himself or he would not have ventured to make him the confidant of his wild amours and that at a time too when he was encouraged to address you he tells him of a very pretty young lady innocent he says too that he got acquainted with who came to Bath under the care of an aunt and uncle he talked some idle stuff of avoiding her when he found she liked him and that the aunt wicked woman contrived to leave them together one evening when I understand the poor young creature fell into the snare that was prepared for her for would you believe it my dear the monstrous libertine notwithstanding his pretenses owned that he had paid a price for the girl to her aunt the betrayed creature herself knew not of this I own I had not patience to read the letter through to say the truth I but to run my eye in a cursory manner over it I was afraid of meeting at every line something offensive to decency and this was the account which in your brother's opinion was entirely to exculpate mr. Falkland I think I never was so angry I threw the letter to George with indignation telling him I was ashamed to find that he after knowing an incident of this kind had so little regard to the honor of his sister as to promote a marriage between her and such a rake he answered if I kept you unmarried till I find such a man as I should not call a rake you were likely to live and die a maid that for his part he was very sorry as well as for mr. Falkland's sake as yours he had ever proposed a union which he found was likely to be overthrown by unseasonable scruples and the gentleman in a violent passion flung out of the room without daining even to take up the letter which had fallen on the floor I presume he went directly to his friend Falkland and told him all that had passed for the plausible man came to me in the evening and with looks full of pretended sorrow but real guilt begged I would hear him on the subject of a letter which he said he found had unfortunately prejudiced me against him to be sure he was prepared and had with george's help contrived an artful story to impose on me he took me unawares but I was resolved not to give him the advantage of arguments but proceed to ask him a few plain questions I therefore cut him short at once by saying mr. Falkland I am extremely concerned and shocked at what has happened I will say but a few words to you and desire to hear nothing more than answers to my questions he bound and remained silent I then asked him taking the young lady's letter out of my pocket whether that was from the same person of whom he had written an account to my son while he was at bath he answered it is madam and I hoped from that letter which I find Sir George has shown you you would be induced to believe that I never formed a thought of injuring that young lady till some unfortunate circumstances combined and suddenly surprised me in the commission of a fault that has made us both unhappy sir said I I don't pretend to know people's hearts I can only judge of them from their actions you acknowledge that she was a fine young woman and you believe innocent what excuse can you offer for being her destroyer dear madam don't you so severe an expression sir I can use no other how can you extenuate the fault by which you merit so severe an appellation to a lady of your rigid delicacy madam said he perhaps what youth could offer an extenuation of the fault might appear but a weak plea yet it is most certain that I was surprised into the fatal error I am under no promises no ties no engagements whatsoever to the lady no ties sir interrupting him is your own honor no tie upon you supposing you free from any other obligation you see the consequence of this fatal error as you call it here is a young person of fashion perhaps I don't inquire who she is but she seems to have had no mean education who is likely to bring a child into the world to the disgrace of herself and her family on you sir she charges her dishonor and mentions you're marrying another as the blow which is to complete her ruin Mr. Folkland is not all this truth be so good as to give me a direct answer madam I cannot deny it you have the proof of it in your hands from all that appears to you I am indeed very blameable nay I do not pretend to vindicate my folly but madam do not aggravate my fault in your own thoughts by considering the affair in a more unfavorable light than what even her letter puts it I can do you madam to suffer Sir George to be my advocate on this occasion he is acquainted with every particular of the transaction and can give you a detail that I will not presume to do be pleased sir replied I to tell me what you mean to do in regard to this lady I mean to do all that I can do answered he I shall provide a place of retreat for her where she will meet with the utmost care tenderness and respect and where she may continue with privacy until she is in a condition to return home again to her friends you may be sure madam as to the rest I shall acquit myself consistently with honor that is as much as to say sir said I that you will take care of the maintenance of your poor babe he looked as if he had a mind to smile forward man but restrained it doubtless madam I shall do all that is now in my power to do in every circumstance relating to her I felt myself exceedingly displeased with him I was so disappointed in my opinion of him that it increased my resentment sir I proceeded I must inform you that there is as much now in your power as ever there was you are still unmarried the way is open to you to repair the mischief you have done I will never bring down the curses of an injured maid upon my daughter's head nor purchase her worldly prosperity at the expense of the shame and sorrow of another woman for all I know is well-born as tenderly bred until she knew you perhaps as innocent as herself for heaven's sake madam he cried don't don't I beseech you pronounce my faith so hastily you must pardon me sir said I if I beg to hear no more on this subject Sir George has already said everything you could expect of your friend to say in your justification and more than became him to utter all I can find by either you or him is that you think the loss of honor to a young woman is a trifle which a man is not obliged to repair because truly he did not promise to do so this young creature I understand is a gentle woman very charming in her person by your own account one who loves you tenderly and will shortly make you a father is not all this so I grant it madam said the criminal then sir what reason can you urge in your conscience for not doing her justice none but your own inconstant inclinations which happen now to be better pleased with another woman whom perhaps you might forsake in a few months I cannot pretend to repeat to you all he said upon this last article words of course you may be sure he entreated over and over again that I would permit sir George to plead for him I told him that after the facts he had granted it was impossible that either he or sir George could make the affair better but I was very sorry to find myself disappointed in a person of whom I had conceived so high an opinion and added that as your illness made it very improper to let you know anything of the matter for the present I should take it as a favor if he would permit me to retain the lady's letter to him for a few days or till you were in a condition to have the matter broke to you in the meanwhile I requested that he would dispense with my receiving any more visits from him he said some frantic things for the man seems of a violent temper but finding me peremptory took his leave with respect I understand from sir George that he flew directly down to Richmond to a little house he has there where he has remained ever since but sends every day to inquire after your health sir George I am sure sees him often for he frequently goes out early in the morning and stays abroad till night the increase of your illness from the time I received the last visit from mr. Falkland to such a degree as to alarm us for your life I suppose prevented your brother from re-assuming the subject though I can perceive he is full of anger and vexation on the occasion you are now my dear god be praised in a hopeful way of recovery and I expect that George who has by espousing this man's interest so warmly very much offended me that George I say will renew his solicitations in his favor what do you say my child I should be glad to know your thoughts with regard to the part I have acted as well as with respect to mr. Falkland's conduct end of section five section six of memoirs of miss Sydney bid off this LibriVox recording is in the public domain memoirs of miss Sydney bid off by Francis Sheridan volume one continued shall I own my weakness to you my dear Cecilia I was ready to melt into tears my spirits exhausted by sickness were not proof against this unexpected blow a heavy sigh burst from my heart that gave me a little relief you know my mother is rigid in her notions of virtue and I was determined to show her that I would endeavor to imitate her I therefore suppressed the swelling passion in my breast and with as much composure as I could assume told her I thought she acted as became her and that with regard to mr. Falkland my opinion of his conduct was such that I never desired to see him more this answer dictated perhaps by my female pride for I will not answer for the feelings of my heart at that instant was so agreeable to my mother that she threw her arms about my neck and kissed me several times blessing and calling me by the most endearing names at every interval her tenderness overcame me or to deal with sincerity I believe I was willing to make it an excuse for weeping oh my dear mother cried I I have need of your indulgence but indeed your goodness quite overpowers me my dear love said she you deserve it all and more that is in your mother's power to show you what a blessed escape have you had my sweet child from that wild man little did I think my Sydney when I told you the story of my first disappointment that a case so parallel would soon be your own with respect to you and me indeed the incidents are nearly alike but there is a wide difference between the two men my lover had the grace to repent and would have returned to his first engagements if a dreadful malady had not overtaken him but this graceless Falkland persists in his infidelity and would make you as culpable as himself I own to you daughter that the recollection of that melancholy event which happened to me has given me a sort of horror at the very thoughts of a union between you and mr. Falkland you remember the sad consequences which I related to you of an infidelity of this kind the poor forsaken woman died of grief and the dishonest lover ran mad think of this my child and let it encourage you to banish such an unworthy man from your heart I was afraid your regard for him might make this a difficult task but I rejoice to find your virtue is stronger than your passion I loved as well as you but I overcame it when I found it a duty to do so and I see your mother's example is not lost upon you the honest pride that my mother endeavoured to inspire me with had a good effect and kept up my spirits for a time she told me she was sure that Sir George would quarrel with us both when we came to talk upon the subject of the marriage but she was entirely easy as to that now she knew my sentiments corresponded with her own you know my mother has ever been despotic in her government of me and had I even been inclined to dissent from her judgment in a matter of this importance it would have been to no purpose but this was really far from my thoughts I was as much disgusted with Mr. Falkland as she was and as heartily pitied the unhappy young creature whom he had undone you may recollect my dear that my mother though strictly nice in every particular has a sort of partiality to her own sex and where there is the least room for it throws the whole of the blame upon the man's side who from her own early prepossessions she's always inclined to think are deceivers of women I am not surprised at this bias in her her early disappointment with the attending circumstances gave her this impression she is warm and sometimes sudden in her attachments and yet it is not always difficult to turn her from them the integrity of her own heart makes her liable to be imposed on by a plausible outside and yet the dear good woman takes a sort of pride in her scarcity she had admired and esteemed Mr. Falkland prodigiously her vexation was the greater in finding her expectations disappointed and could I have been so unjust to the pretensions of another or so indelicate in regard to myself as to have overlooked Mr. Falkland's fault I knew my mother would be inflexible I therefore resolved in earnest to banish him from my thoughts I found my mother was mightily pleased with her own management of the conversation she'd held with Mr. Falkland I think I talked pretty roundly to him said she but there was no other way he is an artful man and I was resolved not to let him wind me about he would make a merit of having formed no designs upon the young lady why possibly he did not till he found the poor soul was so smitten with him that he thought she would be an easy prey so George impudently insinuated that a man must not reject a lady upon these occasions I was ashamed to hint to Mr. Falkland at the circumstance of his actually having paid a price for the girl it was too gross and I think had I mentioned it must have struck him dumb though very likely he might have had some subterfuge even for that aggravating part of the story how I am shocked my Cecilia to think of this I was glad my mother had spared his confusion on this particular for though probably as she observed he had come prepared with some evasion to this charge yet what a mean figure must a man make who has reduced to disingenuous shifts to excuse or palliate an action despicable as well as wicked my brother came in during our discourse to ask me how I did my mother answered his question before I had time to speak she is pretty well thank god and not likely to break her heart though she knows your friend Mr. Falkland's story and she spoke it scornfully my brother said Sydney are you as adverse to Mr. Falkland as my mother is I replied brother I wonder you can ask me that question after what you have been just now told I always said answered he that you did not know the value of the man and now I am convinced of it I wish he had never seen you I wish so too said I so George walked about the room and seemed vexed to death for heaven's sake madam turning to my mother now my sister is tolerably recovered suffer her to see Mr. Falkland let her hear what he has to say in his own vindication I think you may trust a her honor and her discretion and if the affair appears to her in so heinous a light as it does to you I will be contented to give Mr. Falkland up but don't shut your own ears and your daughter's too against conviction sir you are disrespectful said my mother angrily dear brother I cried I beg you will spare me on this subject my mother has given me leave to judge for myself she has repeated all that you have said and all that Mr. Falkland has been able to urge on the occasion and I'm sorry to tell you that I think myself bound never to have any further correspondence with him therefore you must excuse me for not seeing him and so the matches broke off cried sir George it is said my mother peremptorily it is echoed I faintly why then replied sir George and he swore you will never get such another while you live a pretty figure you'll make in the world when you give it for a reason that you refuse such a man after everything was concluded upon because truly you found that he had had an intrigue why Sydney you'll be so laughed at he addressed himself to me though I knew he meant the reproof for my mother sir answered she neither your sister nor I shall trouble ourselves much about the opinion of people who can laugh at such things you may put the matter into as ridiculous a light as you please but this was no common intrigue you know it was not however you may affect to speak of it I don't suppose any of you are saints but I trust in heaven some are better than others oh madame madame said my brother if you knew the world as well as I do you would think that mr. Falkland is one of the best god forbid my mother answered coolly well well madame cried sir George I see it is to no purpose to argue there are many families of more consequence than ours and ten times the fortune that will be very proud of mr. Falklands alliance and will hardly make it an objection to him that he was led into a foolish scrape by the wickedness of one woman and the folly of another if you make my sister wait for a husband till you find a man who never offended in that way I think mother you would better take a little boy from his nurse breed him up under your own eye and by that time Sydney is a good motherly gentle woman you may give her the baby to make a plaything of for my own part I am heartily sorry I ever interfered people of such nice scruples had better choose for themselves but I can't help thinking that both Falkland and I are very ill used I told you said my mother to me how he would behave sir George I desire you will not distress your sister thus she saw me sadly classed down I was ill and weak if you have no respect for me have a little tenderness for her I beg your pardon child said he I did not mean to distress you I pity you indeed Sydney I could have cried it is using that expression it humbles one so madam to my mother you shall be troubled no father by my friend or myself all I shall say is this that whenever my sister gets a husband of your ladyship's choosing I wish she may have half the worth of the poor rejected Falkland my brother left the room with these words my mother was downright in a passion but soon called on his withdrawing my spirits were quite fatigued and my mother left me that I might take a little rest what a strange alteration have a few days produced our domestic peace broke in upon by that unlucky difference between my mother and my brother my near prospect of of oh let me be ingenuous and say happiness vanished poor Mr. Falkland poor do I call him for shame Sydney but let the word go I will not blot it Mr. Falkland forbid the house myself harassed by a cruel disorder and hardly able to crawl out of bed all this has fallen on me within these last 14 black days then I dread the going abroad or seeing company I shall look so silly for the intended wedding began to be talked of and the curiosity of people to know the cause of its being broke off what wild guesses will be made by some and what lies invented by others then the ill-natured mirth of one half of the girls of my acquaintance and the as provoking condolence of the other half I am fretted at the thought of it but it cannot be helped I must bear it all I wish I were well enough to get into the country to be out of the reach of such impertinence I long to know who this ill-fated girl is that has been the cause of all this a gentle woman and very pretty one that loves Mr. Falkland and will shortly make him a parent thus my mother described her to Mr. Falkland and he assented to it oh five five Mr. Falkland how could you be so cruel to her how could you use me so ill answer George knew of all this and makes light of it it is a strange story my mother is severe in her virtue but she is in the right my brother would sacrifice every consideration to aggrandize his family to make a purchase of the unhappy creature and that without her knowledge too it is horrid away away from my thoughts thou vile intruder return to your bath mistress she has a better right to you than I have she implores your pity she has no refuge but you and she may be every way preferable to me I wish I knew her name but what is it to me mine will never be Falkland hers ought perhaps Mr. Falkland may be induced to marry her when he sees her in her present interesting situation he says he will provide a retreat for her to be sure he will have the compassion to visit her and then who knows what may happen if I know my own heart I think I do most sincerely wish he may make her his wife but then I would not choose to have it known suddenly that might look as if he forsook me for her that I own would a little hurt my pride I wish not the truth to be known for Mr. Falkland's sake but then I should not like to have a slur thrown on me I will add no more to this but send the packets off at all events I think I will find you at Paris August the first my health promises to return my mother praises me and calls me a heroine I begin to fancy myself one our pride sometimes stands in the place of virtue Sir George went to Richmond yesterday we have scarce seen him since the tiff he had with us the other day what strange creatures these men are even the best of them and how light they make a faults in one another that shock us but to think of my mother takes his behavior very ill he stayed all night with his friend and returned to town this morning he only looked into my room to ask me how I did my mother was sitting with me I believe that hindered him from coming in for he looked as if he wanted to speak to me he bowed to my mother but said not a word he went abroad again as soon as he was dressed and did not come in till late I fear his conduct will oblige us to separate for my mother will not brook any liberties to be taken with her she hinted as much and said she believed Sir George was tired of living regularly she anticipated the request I intended to make of her of letting me go out of town for she said as soon as I was able I should remove into the country for a while Sydney Castle is too long a journey for me at present to think of undertaking and she talks of going into Essex on a visit to Lady Grimstone which we have long promised her I shall like this better than going down to Wiltshire where the want of my Cecilia would make my older bode a melancholy place especially at this juncture August the fourth Sir George continues sullen and cold to us he never has had an opportunity of saying anything particular to me since the day he said so much my mother's scarce ever leaves me he seems nettle at this I believe he would endeavor to work on me as he knows the attempt would be in vain regard to her as I am now well enough to receive the visits of our intimate acquaintance I am never without company I am really in pretty good spirits and bear my disappointment as I told you I would very handsomely I never hear Mr. Falkland's name mentioned no more than if such a man did not exist we are to set out for Lady Grimstone's house on Tuesday it is but 20 miles from London and I am already strong enough to bear a longer journey my mother told Sir George that if he liked it the house we are now in was at his service during her time of it of which there are some months to come for she said she meant to go directly home from Essex Sir George thanked her but did not say whether he would accept of her offer or not August the fifth I have been obliged to turn away my poor Ellen she was so imprudent as to receive a letter for me from Mr. Falkland's man contrary to my mother's express commands she brought it to me and I gave it to my mother unopened who put it directly into the fire without reading it and told me it would oblige her if I would part with the servant who had presumed to take it after her prohibition I instantly obeyed and have just discharged her I should have a sad loss of her only I am in hopes of having her place well supplied by an old acquaintance and playfellow of ours poor patty main her father is dead and she is obliged to go to service or he has left a widow with six children the eldest son you remember served his time to his father and is just now setting out in business but a young surgeon in a country town must take some time to establish himself though he is a very worthy youth and I hear clever in his profession patty came to town last week with a lady from our neighborhood who applied to my mother to recommend the girl to wait on some person of fashion my mother has been looking out for a suitable place for her but she told me today she thought I could not do better than take her to myself I shall be very glad to have her for she is an amiable young woman august the sixth we go out of town at seven o'clock tomorrow morning as we are to dine at grimston hall and purpose going at our leisure I will steal a few minutes from sleep though it is now very late to give you a short scene which passed in my chamber about an hour ago Sir George who according to his late custom had been abroad all day came into my room where my mother and I were sitting together he asked us did we hold our purpose of going out of town next day yes certainly my mother said and you intend going from Lady Grimston's to Sydney Castle we do then madam to my mother as it is the last trouble you are likely to have from Mr. Falkland I hope you will not refuse to read this letter which he has sent you and he took one out of his pocket and presented it to her she did not make an offer to receive it but answered Sir George it is of no purpose for Mr. Falkland to solicit me you know I don't easily alter my resolutions when once they are fixed he has given himself an unnecessary trouble pray excuse me it was not handsome of him to write to my daughter after he knew my sentiments you need not to be afraid of fresh solicitations madam said my brother I knew enough of your firmness and he spoke the word firmness reluctantly as if he would rather have used another perhaps less respectful term I knew enough to assure Falkland there was not the least hope left for him and though I do not know the subject of that letter I can venture to assure you it is not intended to move you in favour of his pretensions this he declared to me before I would take the letter from him but what puts it past doubt is that he set out this very evening from London in order to embark for Germany I could not help breathing a sigh when Sir George said this but nobody heard me he still held the letter in his hand and again offered it to my mother you need not to be afraid of it madam I presume it may be no more than to take a civil leave of you I wish him well said my mother taking the letter if that be all what he says may keep cold and she put it into her pocket without opening this being the eve of our journey some little domestic matters which my mother had to settle called her out of the room Sir George took that opportunity to ask me whether my mother had showed me the letter which he had received from Mr. Falkland while he was at Bath relative to that cursed affair as he called it I told him my mother had repeated great parts of the contents of it to me and that the principal observation she had made was not favourable to him on account of his being made the confident of such an affair I am very sorry for your sake Sydney said he that our mother is of so inflexible a temper you have lost by it what you will have reason to regret as long as you live such amazing obstinacy such unaccountable perverseness I do not want to shake your filial obedience but I for my own part think that nothing but infatuation can account for your mother's conduct does she want a man without passions or have you filled your head with such comerical notions as to I interrupted him for my brother is not always nice in his choice of words dear Sir George say no more I am very well contented as I am I will not increase your uneasiness said he by telling you what Falkland has suffered on this occasion if ever love was carried to adoration it was in the breast of that generous charming fellow but you have lost him and I have lost him thanks to my wise scrupulous mother for that I begged of him to drop the subject my mother came into us again Sir George bid us good night and wished us a good journey the parting was cool enough I am glad however there is not a total rupture I believe he will continue in our house in town for a time at least Patty Main who gladly accepted of the offer of my service came home to me this evening she is grown very tall and genteel I hardly know how to treat her as a servant but the good girl is so humble that she does all in her power to make me forget that I ever knew her in a better situation but in this she fails of her purpose for it only serves to remind me the more strongly of it she is so ready and so handy that she does 20 little offices that do not belong to her place and which are not expected of her my mother is exceedingly pleased with her and says it is such a happiness to have about me a young person virtuously brought up that she almost considers her as one of the family end of section six section seven of memoirs of miss Sydney bid off this LibriVox recording is in the public domain memoirs of miss Sydney bid off by Francis Sheridan volume one continued Grimstone Hall August the eighth we arrived here yesterday and met a most friendly reception from the lady of this mansion but before I say any more of her I will hasten to a more interesting subject I have got mr. Falkland's letter to my mother she has just put it into my hands and while she walks in the garden with Lady Grimstone I will make haste to transcribe it thus it is to Dorothy from Falkland madam I submit to the sentence you have passed on me I am miserable but do not presume to expostulate I purpose leaving England directly but would wish if possible a little to mitigate the severity of my lot to convince you that the unhappy rejected man who aspired the honor of being your son-in-law is not quite such a criminal as he now appears to you to Sir George's friendship I know I am much indebted for endeavouring to vindicate me it was not in his power it was not in my own for you saw all which I in unreserved freedom wrote to him on the subject of my acquaintance with Miss B I have but one resource left perhaps madam you will think it a strange one to the lady herself I must appeal she will do me justice and I am sure will be ready to acknowledge that I am no betrayer of innocence no breaker of promises that I was surprised into the commission of a fault for which I have paid so dear a price her testimony madam may perhaps have some weight with you though I propose nothing more from it than that you may think of me with less detestation you have banished me from your presence I am a voluntary exile from my country and from my friends I submit to the chastisement and would do anything to expiate my offence against you and miss bid off there is but one command which you can possibly lay on me to which I would not pay a perfect and ready obedience but that act perhaps is the only one which would make me appear worthy of your esteem the lady whom it has been my ill fate to render unhappy and by whom I am made unutterably so will air long come to a house at Putney which I have taken on purpose for her I have placed in it my housekeeper a grave worthy woman under whose care she will be safe and attended with that secrecy and tenderness which her condition requires I have written to her a faithful account of everything relative to my hoped for alliance with your family and the occasion of the treaties being broken off as she must by this means know that your ladyship is acquainted with her story I have told her that perhaps you might from the interest you took in her misfortune be induced to see her in her retirement let me therefore conjure you madam by that pious seal which governs all your actions and by the love you bear that daughter so deservedly dear to you to take compassion on this young lady she has no friends nor any acquaintance in this part of the kingdom her situation will require the comfort of society and perhaps the advice of wisdom it will be an act worthy of your humanity to show some countenance to her I think she will be in very good hands with the honest woman who waits her coming but if anything should happen otherwise than well it would make me doubly wretched to one who has no resources of contentment in her own bosom solitude cannot be a friend this I fear may be the lady's case and this makes me with the more earnestness urge my request to you forgive me madam for the liberty I take with you a liberty which though I confess it needs an apology yet is it at the same time a proof of the confidence I have in you which I hope will not affront either your candor or your virtue if you will condescend to grant this request I shall obtain the two wishes at present most material to my peace the one to secure to the lady a compassionate friend already inclined to espouse her cause the other to put it in your power to be satisfied from the lady's own mouth of the truth of what I have asserted I trust to her generosity to deal openly on this occasion I wish you and miss bid off every blessing that heaven can bestow and I'm with great respect madam your lady ship's most obedient humble servant Orlando Falkland post script the lady will go by the name of mrs. Jeffress you will pardon me for not having mentioned her real name I never yet told it even to sir George but I presume she will make no secret of it to you if you honor her with a visit poor Orlando unhappy miss B I could name a third person that is not happy either what a pity it is that so many good qualities should be blotted by imperfections how tender is his compassion for this poor girl how ingenuous his conduct but still he flies from her I fear she can never hope to recover him there is but one thing he says which he would not do the only act perhaps by which he could make himself appear worthy of my mother's esteem the meaning of this but too plainly shows him determined against marrying miss B I don't know anything else which would reconcile my mother to him I make no doubt of her complying with mr. Falkland's request in seeing the lady she is very compassionate particularly to her own sex what a strange resource indeed is this of mr. Falkland's to appeal to the lady herself what am I to judge from it but that the unfortunate victim ignorant of the treachery that was practiced against her by her wicked aunt and that her destroyer paid a price for her dishonour exculpates him from the worst part of the guilt and perhaps poor easy creature blames her own weakness only for the error which a concealed train of cunning and perfidy might have led her into but even supposing miss B were generous and candid enough and great indeed must be her candor and generosity to justify this guilty man what would it avail did not my mother tell me she conceived a sort of horror at the bare idea of a union between mr. Falkland and me this arises from the strong impression made on her by the unlucky event which blasted her own early love strong and early prejudices are almost insurmountable my mother's piety genuine and rational as it is is notwithstanding a little tinctured with superstition it was the error of her education and her good sense has not been able to surmount it so that I know the universe would not induce her to change her resolution in regard to mr. Falkland she thinks he ought to marry miss B and she will ever think so I wish he would for I am sure he can never be mine the bell rings for breakfast I must run down my mother came up to dress just now and stepped into my room I returned her the letter and she asked me what I thought of mr. Falkland's request madame you are a better judge of the propriety of it than I am I shall have no objection to seeing the unhappy lady said she since it seems he has apprised her of my knowledge of her affairs I am glad he has the grace to show even so much compassion for her perhaps it may be the beginning of repentance and time may work a thorough reformation in him if God spares him his life and his senses you see which way my good mother's thoughts tended I did not she added intend to return to London again but this occasion I think calls upon me and I believe I shall go for a while in order to see and comfort this poor young creature she cannot yet be near lying in and I suppose she will not come to the house mr. Falkland speaks of till she can no longer remain undiscovered at home so that a month or two hence will be full soon enough for me to think of going to town I saw my mother rested her compliance with mr. Falkland's request merely on one point that of compassion to the girl as for the other motive said she the hearing him justified from the lady's own mouth I am not such a novice in those matters but that I know when a deluding man has once got an ascendancy over a young creature he can coax her into anything too much truth I doubt there is in this observation of my mother's but it is time to say something of Lady Grimstone my Cecilia has never seen her though I believe she has often heard my mother speak of her they are nearly of an age and much of the same cast of thinking though with this difference that Lady Grimstone is extravagantly rigid in her notions and precise in her manner she has been a widow for many years and lives upon a large jointure at Grimstone Hall with as much regularity and solemnity as you would see in a monastery her servants are all anti deluvians I believe her coach horse is a 50 years of age and the very house dog is as bold as a badger she herself who in her youth never could have been handsome renders herself still a more unpleasing figure by the oddity of her dress you would take her for a lady of Charles the first court at least she's always dressed out I believe she sleeps in her clothes for she comes down ruffled and towered and flanked and fatheringaled even to breakfast my mother has a very high opinion of her and says she knows more of the world than any one of her acquaintance it may be so but it must be of the old world for Lady Grimstone has not been 10 miles from her seat these 30 years it is nine years since my mother and she met before and there was a world of compliments paid between them though I'm sure they were sincerely glad to see each other for they seem to be very fond they were companions in youth that season wherein the most durable friendships are contracted I believe her really a very good woman she is pious and charitable and does abundance of good things in her neighborhood though I cannot say I think her amiable there is an austerity about her that keeps me in awe notwithstanding that she is extremely obliging to me and told my mother I promise to make a fine woman think of such a compliment to one of almost 19 my mother and she call one another by their christian names and you would smile to hear the two old ladies begging their pardons letting and dollying one another this accounts to me for Lady Grimstone's thinking me still a child for I suppose she considered herself not much past girlhood though to do her justice she has not a scrap of it in her behavior August the 10th all our motions here are as regular as the clock the family rise at six we are summoned to breakfast at eight at 10 a venerable congregation are assembled to prayers which an ancient clergyman who is curate of the parish and her leadership's chaplain gives us daily then the old horses are put to the old coach and my lady with her guests if they choose it take an airing always going and returning by the same road and driving precisely to the same landmark and no father at half an hour after 12 in a hall large enough to entertain a corporation we sit down to dinner my lady has a grace of a quarter of an hour long and we are waited on by four truly venerable footmen for she likes state the afternoon we may dispose of as we please at least it is a liberty I'm indulged in and I generally spend my time in the garden or my own chamber till I have notice given me of suppers being on the table where we are treated with the same ceremonials as at dinner at 10 exactly the instant the clock strikes the first stroke my lady rises with great solemnity and wishes us a good night August the 14th you cannot expect in such a house as this is my dear that I can be furnished with materials to give you much variety indeed these four last days have been so exactly the same in every particular accepting that the dishes at dinner and supper were changed that I had resolved to hang up my pen till I quitted Grimstone Hall or at least resign it to Patty and let her plod on and tell you how the wind blew such a day what sort of a mantua Lady Grimstone had on such a day though by the way it is always the same always ash coloured tissue what the great dog barked at at such an hour and what the old parrot said at such a time the house and the garden I've exhausted my descriptive faculties on already though they are neither of them worth describing and I was beginning to despair of matter to furnish out a quarter an hour's entertainment when the scene began to brighten a little this auspicious day by the arrival of a coach full of visitors these were a venerable dean who is the minister of our parish his lady and daughter and a mr. Arnold a gentleman who is a distant relation of Lady Grimstone's he has a house in this neighborhood and has just come to an estate by the death of his elder brother this visit has given me hopes that I may now and then have a chance for seeing a human face besides the antiques of the family and those who are depicted on the arras though not to disparage the people they were all agreeable enough in their different ways the old dean is good-humoured and polite I mean the true politeness that of the heart which dictates the most obliging things in so frank a manner that they have not the least appearance of flattery being very nearsighted he put on a pair of spectacles to look at me and turning to mr. Arnold with a vivacity that would have become five and twenty he repeated with an air and a face and a shape and a grace etc the young man smiled his ascent and my mother looked so delighted that the good-natured dean's compliment pleased me for her sake Lady Grimstone who is passionately fond of music has a very pretty organ in one of her chambers mr. Arnold was requested to give us a lesson on it which he very readily obliged us with he plays ravishingly the creature made me envious he touched it so admirably I have taken a sort of dislike to him when he first came in I cannot tell you why or where for but this accomplishment has reconciled me to him so that I'm half in love with him I hope we shall see him often he's really excellent on this instrument and you know how fond I am of music August the 15th this packet is already so large that I'm sure it will frighten you I will therefore send it off before I increase it especially as I am now so much in the humdrum way that I ought out of policy to make a break in my narrative in order to encourage you to read it positively if things do not mend and that considerably too patty shall keep the journal for I find myself already disposed to sleep over it end of section seven section eight of memoirs of miss Sydney bid off this LibriVox recording is in the public domain memoirs of miss Sydney bid off by Francis Sheridan volume one continued August the 20th I have looked over what patty has written for the five last days upon my word she's a very good journalist as well as a manuensis and she has given you to the full as good an account of matters and things as I could my time passes rather more tolerably than I expected the deans family seem to have broken the solitary spell that hung over the house and we have company you see every day mr. Arnold never fails I always make him play he is very obliging and if you were not good-natured I should tire him August the 22nd I have had a letter from Sir George he mentions not Mr. Falkland I too am endeavouring to forget him when my mother goes to London I will try to prevail on her to let me go down to Sydney Castle I have no inclination to go to town unless to stay here we are to have a concert tomorrow at mr. Arnold's house my lively good old Dean touches the base vial his daughter sings prettily I am to bear my part too so that we begin to grow a little sociable August the 30th are you not tired of my Grimstone journal my Cecilia day after day rolls on in the same dull repetition Lady Grimstone the Dean and Mr. Arnold perpetually there is no bearing this you cry well but here is a new person it's arrived to diversify the scene a little Lady Grimstone's daughter a sweet woman but her mother does not seem fond of her it amazes me for she is perfectly amiable both in temper and person she's a widow of about eight and 20 Lady Grimstone appears to treat her with a distance very unmaternal and the poor young woman seems so humbled that I pity her she is calm but on a visit and we shall lose her in a week for which I'm very sorry as I have taken a fancy to her September the first poor Mrs. Veer that is the name of Lady Grimstone's daughter I can now give you the cause of her mother's coldness to her I had it from herself she told me her little history this evening in the garden with a frankness that charmed me how happy you are dear Miss Bidoff said she you seem to be blessed with one of the tenderest of parents I am indeed I answered she's one of the best of mothers and the best of women she sighed and a tear started in her eye I too was happy once said she when my indulgent father lived I hope madam Lady Grimstone is to you what my good mother is to me she shook her head no miss Bidoff it must be but too obvious to you that she is not I should not have introduced the subject if the cold severity of her looks were not so apparent that you must have taken notice of them my mother is undoubtedly a very good woman and you may naturally suppose that my conduct has been such as to deserve her friends I will therefore tell you my melancholy though short story it is now about 12 years since Mr. Veer paid his address to me he was the eldest son of a gentleman of family and fortune who then lived in this country I was about 16 and the darling of my father who was perhaps the more indulgent to me as he knew my mother's severity Mr. Veer was but two years older than myself and a childish courtship had gone on for some time between us before it was suspected by anybody and to say the truth before I was well aware of the consequences myself it happened that an elderly gentleman of a great estate just at that time saw and liked me and directly made proposals to my mother as she was very well known to hold the reins of government in her family this offer I suppose was advantageous for she immediately consulted my father upon it or rather gave him to understand that she meant to dispose of her daughter in marriage my father who had no objection to the match told her he was very well satisfied provided I liked the gentleman but said he hoped she would not think of putting any force on my inclinations my eldest sister had been married sometime before by my mother's sole authority and quite contrary to her own liking the marriage had not turned out happily and my father was resolved not to have me sacrificed in the same way my mother told him she was sorry he had such romantic notions as to think a girl of my age capable of having any ideas of preference for one man more than another that she took it for granted I had never presumed to entertain a thought of any man as yet and supposed her presets had not been so far thrown away upon me as that I should let it enter into my head that anything but parental authority was to guide me in my choice my father from the gentleness of his nature had been so accustomed to acquiesce that he made no other reply than to bid my mother use her discretion he came directly to me notwithstanding and told me what had passed it was then for the first time that I discovered I loved Mr. I loved Mr. Veer I burst into tears and clinging round my father's neck beg to him to save me from my mother's rigor my gesture and words were too passionate for him not to perceive that there was something more at my heart than mere dislike of the old man he charged me to deal sincerely I loved him too well and was myself too frank to do otherwise in short I confessed my inclination for Mr. Veer and his affection for me though my kind father chid me gently for admitting a lover without his or my mother's approbation yet at the same time he told me he would endeavor to dissuade her from prosecuting the other match though he could wish he said I would try to bring myself to accepting of it adding he was afraid my mother would be much incensed by a denial my mother was fond of grandeur and would not like to have me marry anyone who could not make me at once mistress of a fine house and a fine equipage which I knew I must not expect to be the case with Mr. Veer his father had several children was very frugal in his temper besides as he was but of the middle age and of a very healthy constitution his son's prospect of possessing the estate was to all a human appearance at a very great distance these discouragements however did not hinder me from indulging my wishes my father's tenderness was the foundation on which I built my hopes I told Mr. Veer the designs of one parent and the kind condescension of the other emboldened by this information he ventured to disclose his love to my father begging his interest with my mother in his favor he had a great kindness for the youth and was so fond of me that he would readily have consented to my happiness if the fear of disablaging my mother had not checked him he represented to her in the mildest manner the utter dislike I had expressed of the proposed match and conjured her not to insist on it my mother unused to being controlled was filled with resentment both against him and me she said he encouraged me in my disobedience and that if he did not unite his authority to hers in order to compel me to marry the gentleman she approved of it would make a total breach between them my good father who loved my mother exceedingly was alarmed at this menace unwilling to come to extremities either with her or me he was at a loss how to act his paternal love at length prevailed and he determined at all events to save me from the violence which he knew would be put upon my heart my mother had never condescended to talk to me on the subject she thought my immediate obedience ought to have followed the bare knowledge of her will she forbade me her sight and charged me never to appear before her till I came with a determination to obey her however severe this prohibition was I yielded to it with the less reluctance as my father's tender love made me amends for my mother's harshness perhaps had she vouchsafed to reason a little with me tempering her arguments with a motherly kindness she would have found me as flexible as she could wish but the course she took had a very contrary effect I thought myself persecuted and that it was for the honor of my love to persevere on the other hand my father's secret indulgence encouraged me in the sentiments I entertained and I now determined not only to refuse my old lover but to have my young one my mother had given me a stated time in which I was to come to a resolution and if I did not at the expiration of it acquiesce I was to be pronounced a reprobate and to be no more considered as her child in this emergency I had recourse to my father I told him there was nothing which I was not ready to suffer rather than marry the man I hated my greatest affliction was the uneasiness I saw him endure on my account for my mother reproached him daily with my obstinacy my father said he thought the alternative offered by my mother was to be avoided but in one way and that was by marrying mr. beer for added he when she finds you resolute in your refusal of her choice not even my parental authority will be able to screen you from her severity and your life will be made miserable without your father's being able to relieve you on the other hand when you are out of her house she cannot distress you nor prevent me from doing you the justice which I owe my child nay possibly in time I may be able to work out a reconciliation between you but she must not know that I was consenting to this marriage less than irreconcilable quarrel should ensue I felt my father's feet and embraced his knees for this tender and unexpected proof of his affection mr. beer's father was no stranger to his son's attachment and we were very sure he would readily come into the proposal which my father intended to me the two parents had a meeting secretly where all the terms of portion and settlement were speedily and privately adjusted mr. beer the father who had been long intimate in our family knew very well the necessity there was for keeping the secret after this my lover and I were to be married privately without the knowledge seemingly of anyone in either family accepting one of the mr. beers who was to be present and when the time of my probation was expired my father was to let my mother into the knowledge of this affair as a thing he had just discovered and to pacify her anger as well as he could everything was conducted in the manner proposed I was married with the utmost privacy and continued in my father's house till the day arrived when I was to give my definitive answer unfortunately for me my mother chose to receive it from my own mouth and called me into her presence I appeared before her trembling and terrified I had not seen her for a fortnight and I was in dread less the discovery I had to make should banish me her sight perhaps forever unless my father might influence her in time to forgive me she asked me with a stern brow what I had resolved on I had not courage to make her any answer but burst into tears she repeated her question and I could only reply madam it is not in my power to obey you she did not comprehend the meaning of my words but imputing them to obstinacy commanded me to leave the room and not to see her face till I came to a proper sense of my duty at the same time ordering me into my chamber where I was to be locked up I flew to my father and conjured him to let my mother know the truth at once that I might be no longer subject to such harsh treatment for I knew the being sent home to my husband would be the consequence of her being told that I had one my poor father was almost afraid to undertake the task though he had been the chief promoter of my marriage and his authority ought to have given sanction to it he ventured however to let her know that I had confessed to him what my fears of her immediate resentment would not suffer me to discover whilst I was in her presence and what my aversion to the man she proposed to me and the rigours I'd been threatened with if I refused him had driven me to the rage my mother flew into was a little short of frenzy and my father made haste to send me out of the house Mr. Veers whole family received me with great tenderness but I was sorry at leaving my father whose visits to me were made but seldom and even those by stealth my situation though I was united to the man I loved and caressed by all his family was far from being happy my mother's inflexible temper was not to be wrought upon not withstanding my father did his utmost to prevail on her to see and to forgive me and she carried her resentment so far that she told my father unless he cut me off entirely in his will she was determined to separate herself totally from him this was an extremity he by no means expected she would have gone to in a fit of sickness which had seized him a few years before he had left me 10 000 pounds five of this he had secretly transferred to Mr. Veer on the day of my marriage and had promised him to bequeath me five more at his death in consequence of this disposition he purposed making a new will so that he the less scrupled giving my mother up the old one with a promise of making another agreeable to her request my mother's jointure was already settled on her my eldest sister had received her portion so that there was little bequeathed by this testament but my fortune and a few other small legacies my mother tore the will with indignation and not satisfied with my father's promise insisted on his putting it into execution immediately in short his easy temper yielded to her importunities and he had a will drawn up by her instructions in which I was cut off with one shilling and my intended fortune bequeathed to my eldest sister my mother was made residuary legatee to everything that should remain after paying all the bequests this would have amounted to a considerable sum if the half of my portion which was already paid without her knowledge had not made such a diminution in the personal estate that after paying my sister the whole of what was specified in the will there was scarce anything likely to remain had my mother known this secret she would not perhaps have been so ready to have made my father devise all my intended fortune to my sister my father who was aware of this durst not however inform her at that juncture how much she hurt herself by forcing him to such measures she insisted upon his leaving the whole of what he designed for me to my eldest sister as well as convince him she said that she had no self-interested views as to be an example to other rebellious children my father had no remedy on these occasions but a patient acquiescence the will was made and my mother herself would keep it 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 believe he retained his senses but he was not capable of making himself understood even my 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 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 veer 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 surprised 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 favor 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 concealed from them especially as i did not imagine it would have affected me afterwards mr veer 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 showed the tender and disinterested love he bore me he affected to make as light as possible of his unexpected disappointment but at the same time expressed his uneasiness lest his father should carry matters to an extremity with my mother from whom he knew we were to expect nothing by mild methods it was now thought advisable that i should write to my mother to condol with her on my father's death again to entreat her forgiveness of my fault and as some mitigation of it to acknowledge 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 disabledged 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 legates 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 in so much 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 veer determined to assert his own and his son's right and being exceedingly provoked at my mother's behavior roped 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 father 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 honor 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 such a letter to a woman of my mother's temper met with such a reception as might be expected she tore it before his messenger's face and desired him to tell his master that as what he had already obtained was by fraud so he was at liberty to make use of force to recover the remainder but with her consent he never should have a single shilling this exasperating reply made my father-in-law directly commenced a suit against her in which the other legacies were made parties the distress i felt on this occasion is scarce to be imagined the breach was now so widened between my mother and my husband's family that there remained not the least hope of it ever being closed mr. veer unwillingly joined with his father in pursuit of these measures he would for my sake much rather have yielded up his expectations than supported them at the expense of my quiet but his father's will and justice to the rest of his family compelled him to proceed and deprived me of any pretence for interposing the lawsuit was carried on with great acrimony on both sides when an event happened that made me then and has indeed ever since looked with indifference on everything in this life it was the death of my husband he was snatched from me by a violent fever before he reached his 20th year i will not pretend to describe my sufferings to you on this sad occasion they were aggravated by my being near the time of lying in whatever affliction mr. veer felt for the death of his only son it did not make him forgetful of what he owed his daughters and he was resolved to carry on the lawsuit with the utmost vigor you may suppose the house wherein i had lost my beloved husband appeared a dismal place to me especially in my present situation i thought too my father-in-law's looks began to grow colder to me than they used to be and i begged i might have his permission to remove for a while he did not oppose it and i went at the pressing entreaties of your favorite the good old dean to his house where he and his lady behaved to me with more than parental tenderness my health was in so declining a way that this worthy man as i have since learned made several applications to my mother to see me but without success at length the hour of my delivery arrived and i was brought to bed of a dead female child the estate in case of mr. veer's dying without issue devolved on his sisters and i was in hopes this circumstance so favorable to the young ladies would have induced their father to have been less rigorous in persisting in his claim but in this i was deceived he loved money and was besides full of resentment against my mother i thought however of an expedient which i flattered myself might work upon him and by good fortune it succeeded mr. veer though i had left his house visited me constantly and kept up a show of tenderness which i am sure he had not in his heart i told him one day whilst i was still confined to my bed that as i had now lost both my husband and my child a very moderate income would be sufficient for me and that as i valued my mother's peace of mind beyond my selfish considerations i was very willing to give up half my jointure provided he would drop his suit mr. veer seemed surprised at the proposal he said he wondered i could be so blind to my own interest and that all he was doing was purely for my sake i thanked him for his pretended friendship but assured him he could serve me no way so effectively as by coming into the measure i proposed mr. veer said i talked like a child but he would consider of it the following day he called on me again and told me that to make me easy he was willing to come into my proposal that he would have the proper instruments drawn up by which i was to relinquish half my jointure and he in consequence to give up all claim on my father's estate i was much better pleased at this losing agreement than if i had acquired a large accession of fortune mr. veer soon got the proper deeds ready and they were executed in form i now relapsed into an illness from which i was supposed to have been quite recovered and my life was thought in great danger i have since been told that mr. veer repented his agreement at that juncture and told some of his friends that if he had not been so hasty he should have had a chance of my jointure and my fortune too i begged of the dean to go to my mother and use his last efforts on her to prevail with her to see and forgive me before i died at the same time i sent her the release i had procured from mr. veer which i knew was the most acceptable present i could make her the dean urged the danger i was in without it seeming to make much impression on her i am willing to believe that she thought the dean exaggerated in his account of my illness he owned to me himself that he was shocked to find her so obdurate at length he took the paper out of his pocket and presenting it to her i am sorry madame said he i cannot prevail with you to act like a parent or a christian your daughter i fear will not survive her present malady but she will have the comfort to consider that she has left nothing unattempted to obtain that forgiveness which you so cruelly deny her i hope lady grimstone your last hours may be as peaceful as hers i trust will be from this reflection there madame she has by that instrument left you disengage from a troublesome and vexatious lawsuit which would if pursued infallibly turn out to your disadvantage it was all she could do and what few children used like her would have done my mother a good deal alarmed at the dean's manner of speaking now examined the contents of the paper she seemed affected and called him back as he was just leaving the room she told him she was not lost to the feelings of nature and that if he thought her presence would contribute to ease my mind of the remorse it must needs labour under she was not against seeing me the good man glad to find her in this yielding disposition told her she could not too soon execute her intention and pressed her to come to his house directly she suffered him to put her into his coach and he carried her home with him the interview on my side was attended with tears of joy tenderness and contrition my mother did not depart from her usual austerity she gave me but her hand to kiss and pronounced her forgiveness and her blessing in so languid a manner as greatly damped the fervour of my joy she stayed with me not more than a quarter of an hour and having talked of indifferent things without once so much as mentioning what I had done she took a cold and formal leave this interview as little cordial as my mother's behavior was to me had so good an effect on me that I began perceptibly to mend from that hour she sent indeed constantly to inquire how I did but avoided coming less to she said she should meet with mr. veer whom she never could forgive as soon as I was in a condition to go abroad I went to pay my duty to her she received me with civility but no tenderness nor has she ever from that time made me the least recompense for what I have lost her permitting me to see her she thinks sufficient amends I did not choose to return to mr. veer's house as I had only a polite not a kind invitation one of his daughters she who had been present at my marriage and who always had shown most affection towards me was about this time married to a gentleman whose estate lay in another county when the bride went home she pressed me to go with her so warmly that I could not refuse her and during the time I stayed with her I received so many marks of tenderness from her that I resolved to settle in her neighborhood and have now a little house near her where I have resided constantly ever since I come once or twice a year to pay a visit to my mother but my reception as you may see is always cold and I seldom stay more than a few days old mr. veer is dead and his daughters who were coerces to his estate are all married so that the family is entirely dispersed but notwithstanding this and the number of years that have passed over since my marriage my mother cannot yet endure the name of the family and always as you may have observed calls me by my maiden name I was much affected at the story of the amiable mrs. veer the sweet melancholy which predominates in her countenance shows that the spirits when broken in the bud of youth are hardly to be recovered what a tyrant this lady grimstone is I did not admire her before but I now absolutely dislike her what a wife and a mother has she been to a daughter and a husband who might have constituted the happiness of a woman of a different temper and yet she passes for a wonderful good woman and a pattern of all those virtues of a religion which meekness and forgiveness characterize she is mistaken if she thinks that authority is necessary to christianity the most that my charity allows me to believe of such people is that they impose on themselves at a time when the most discerning perhaps think that they are endeavouring to impose on others what an angel is my good mother when compared to this her friend whom her humility makes her look upon as her superior in virtue I am very angry with Sir George who in his resentments said to me once that she was like Lady Grimstone I then knew but little of that lady's character little of that lady's character I should have reproved him for it I conjured Mrs. Veer to make her visit longer than she had at first intended she told me she would most gladly do it but that it was a liberty she did not dare to take and let her mother asked her to prolong it which she said she possibly might do in complacence to me end of section eight