Jane Talbot

Excerpt

Letter XVI

To the same

O my lost child! In thy humiliations at this moment I can sympathize. The shame that must follow the detection of it is more within my thoughts at present than the negligence or infatuation that occasioned thy faults.

I know all. Thy intended husband knew it all. It was from him that the horrible tidings of thy unfaithfulness to marriage-vows first came.

He visited this city on purpose to obtain an interview with me. He entered my apartment with every mark of distress. He knew well the effect of such tidings on my heart. Most eagerly would I have laid down my life to preserve thy purity spotless.

He demeaned himself as one who loved thee with a rational affection, and who, however deeply he deplored the loss of thy love, accounted thy defection from virtue of infinitely greater moment.

I was willing to discredit even his assertion. Far better it was that the husband should prove the defamer of his wife, than that my darling child should prove a profligate. But he left me no room to doubt, by showing me a letter.

He showed it me on condition of my being everlastingly silent to you in regard to its contents. He yielded to a jealousy which would not be conquered, and had gotten this letter by surreptitious means. He was ashamed of an action which his judgment condemned as ignoble and deceitful.

Far more wise and considerate was this excellent and injured man than I. He was afraid, by disclosing to you the knowledge he had thus gained, of rendering you desperate and hardened. As long as reputation was not gone, he thought your errors were retrievable. He distrusted the success of his own efforts, and besought me to be your guardian. As to himself, he resigned the hope of ever gaining your love, and entreated me to exert myself for dissolving your connection with Colden, merely for your own sake.

To show me the necessity of my exertions, he had communicated this letter, believing that my maternal interest in your happiness would prevent me from making any but a salutary use of it. Yet he had not put your safety into my hands without a surety. He was so fully persuaded of the ill consequences of your knowing how much was known, that he had given me the proofs of your guilt only on my solemn promise to conceal them from you.

I saw the generosity and force of his representations, and, while I endeavoured by the most earnest remonstrances to break your union with Colden, I suffered no particle of the truth to escape me. But you were hard as a rock. You would not forbid his visits, nor reject his letters.

I need not repeat to you what followed; by what means I endeavoured to effect that end which your obstinate folly refused.

When I gave this promise to Talbot, I foresaw not his speedy death and the consequences to Colden and yourself. I have been affrighted at the rumour of your marriage; and, to justify the conduct I mean to pursue, I have revealed to you what I promised to conceal merely because I foresaw not the present state of your affairs....