Part 30 (1/2)

Another messenger! with a letter for me! Miss Jessup's servant it is, perhaps. But let me read it.

Letter XLVII

_To Henry Colden_

December 8.

Sir:--

Enclosed is a letter, which you may, if you think proper, deliver to Mrs. Fielder. I am very ill. Don't attempt to see me again. I cannot be seen. Let the enclosed satisfy you. It is enough. Never should I have said so much, if I thought I were long for this world.

Let me not have a useless enemy in you. I hope the fatal effects of my rashness have not gone further than Mrs. Talbot's family. Let the mischief be repaired as far as it can be; but do not injure me unnecessarily. I hope I am understood.

Let me know what use you have made of the letter you showed me, and, I beseech you, return it to me by the bearer.

M. JESSUP.

Letter XLVIII

_To Mrs. Fielder_

December 8.

Madam:--

This comes from a very unfortunate and culpable hand,--a hand that hardly knows how to sign its own condemnation, and which sickness, no less than irresolution, almost deprives of the power to hold the pen.

Yet I call Heaven to witness that I expected not the evil from my infatuation which, it seems, has followed it. I meant to influence none but Mr. Talbot's belief. I had the misfortune to see and to love him long before his engagement with your daughter. I overstepped the limits of my s.e.x, and met with no return to my generous offers and my weak entreaties but sternness and contempt.

You, madam, are perhaps raised above the weakness of a heart like mine.

You will not comprehend how an unrequited pa.s.sion can ever give place to rage and revenge and how the merits of the object preferred to me should only embitter that revenge.

Jane Talbot never loved the man whom I would have made happy. Her ingenuous temper easily disclosed her indifference, and she married not to please herself, but to please others. Her husband's infatuation in marrying on such terms could be exceeded by nothing but his folly in refusing one who would have lived for no other end than to please him.

I observed the progress of the intimacy between Mr. Colden and her, in Talbot's absence; and can you not conceive, madam, that my heart was disposed to exult in every event that verified my own predictions and would convince Talbot of the folly of his choice? Hence I was a jealous observer. The worst construction was put upon your daughter's conduct.

That open, impetuous temper of hers, confident of innocence, and fearless of ungenerous or malignant constructions, easily put her into my power.

Unrequited love made me _her_ enemy as well as that of her husband, and I even saw, in her unguarded deportment, and in the reputed licentiousness of Mr. Colden's principles, some reason, some probability, in my surmises.

Several anonymous letters were written to you. I thank Heaven that I was seldom guilty of direct falsehoods in these letters. I told you little more than what a jealous eye and a prying disposition easily discovered; and I never saw any thing in their intercourse that argued more than a temper thoughtless and indiscreet. To distinguish minutely between truths and exaggerations, in the letters which I sent you, would be a painful and, I trust, a needless task, since I now solemnly declare that, on an impartial review of all that I ever witnessed in the conduct of your daughter, I remember nothing that can justify the imputation of guilt. I believe her conduct to Colden was not always limited by a due regard to appearances; that she trusted her fame too much to her consciousness of innocence, and set too lightly by the malignity of those who would be glad to find her in fault, and the ignorance of others, who naturally judged of her by themselves. And this, I now solemnly take Heaven to witness, is the only charge that can truly be brought against her.

There is still another confession to make. If suffering and penitence can atone for any offence, surely mine has been atoned for! But it still remains that I should, as far as my power goes, repair the mischief.

It is no adequate apology, I well know, that the consequences of my crime were more extensive and durable than I expected; but is it not justice to myself to say that this confession would have been made earlier if I had earlier known the extent of the evil? I never suspected but that the belief of his wife's infidelity was buried with Talbot.