Which we are afraid will give some of our readers a mean opinion of our heroine’s understanding.
Two days afterwards a letter was brought by the post for miss Courteney; the direction was in her aunt’s hand: she opened it with some trepidation, and found it as follows:
HENRIETTA,
FOR niece I cannot, after what has happened, call you—If you had not, by the highest imprudence that any young woman could be guilty of, given too much colour for the shocking censures that are cast on you, I might perhaps have been deceived by your plausible account of things. I am sorry to find you have acquired so much art, it is but too sure a proof that you are less innocent; yet it would be easy for me to take to pieces every part of your defence, and shew you the absurdity of it: but this is needless; for whether you are innocent or guilty, you have greatly wounded your reputation, and I can no longer with honour consider you or treat you as my niece.
There is but one way left by which you can retrieve your fame and my affection; motives which ought to have some weight with you, but infinitely less than the desire of securing your salvation.
I hoped and believed your conversion was near completed, and doubtless it would have been, had not your passions intervened.
If you will retire to a convent, and put yourself into a way of being instructed in the true religion, I will pay your pension largely; and the day that sees you reunited to the faith, shall see you restored to my fondest affection, and made sole heiress to my whole estate. Consider well before you determine; and know, that upon any other terms than these, you must not hope for farther notice from me.
F. MEADOWS.
Although several parts of this letter were extremely shocking both to the delicacy and pride of Henrietta, yet the shining bribe that was offered her to procure her apostasy, made a large compensation. She had now an opportunity given her of making a worthy sacrifice to the religion she believed and professed; a circumstance that exalted her in her own opinion: for her self-love had been deeply wounded by the humiliations she had undergone; and as great delicacy always suffers most, so it enjoys most from its own reflections.
She was not free from a little enthusiasm that told her it was glorious to suffer in the cause of religion, nor so disinterested as not to feel great pleasure in the thought of being able to free her moral character from injurious suspicions, by so firm an attachment to her religious principles.
Her impatience to answer her aunt’s letter, would not allow her time to communicate to Mrs. Willis the contents of it: but as soon as she had done writing, she sent for the good woman, and put lady Meadows’s letter into her hands, with such an air of conscious satisfaction, as persuaded her the so much desired reconciliation was effected; but when upon reading the letter, she found her mistake, she threw it down, and, in a melancholy accent, and a look that expressed the most anxious curiosity, asked her how she had resolved?
“Read this,” said Henrietta, giving her the letter she had written; “I am sure you will not disapprove of what I have done.” Mrs. Willis read it eagerly, and found it as follows:
MADAM,
It is a great grief to me to find that your affection is irrecoverable, for at the price you have set upon it, I must ever deem it so. If my defence seems absurd, madam, it is because truth is too weak to combat prejudice: I leave it to time and my future conduct to clear my innocence, and am resolved never to give a confirmation to those aspersions which are cast on my character, by sacrificing my religion to my interest.
That poverty, which happily is become my choice, will be my best vindication; and if it affords me no other blessing but that of a good conscience, it will bestow on me the highest that is attainable in this life, and which will enable me to bear chearfully all the misfortunes that may befal me; among which I shall always look upon the loss of your esteem as the greatest. I am, madam, with all due gratitude and respect, your obliged and very humble servant,
HENRIETTA COURTENEY.
“I must approve, nay admire your resolution, miss,” said Mrs. Willis, returning the letter; “and if you persist in it, you will appear to me a wonder.”
“Do you doubt my persisting in it?” replied Henrietta.
“When I consider,” said Mrs. Willis, “your birth, your youth, your beauty, and the expectations you have been encouraged to entertain, I know it must cost you a great deal to throw away the advantages that are offered you, and which possibly you might secure by temporising4 at least.”
“Dissimulation,” interrupted Henrietta, “on any occasion, is mean and scandalous; but in matters of religion it is surely a heinous crime; and I hope I am far enough from committing it; but I own I have many motives to stimulate my resolution.
“My own imprudence, and the treachery of others, have given a wound to my reputation, which a voluntary poverty can only repair. In this licentious age, she, who with youth and even the slightest advantages of person, dares to be poor, deserves surely to be thought virtuous; and I shall ever acknowledge the bounty of Providence, that, amidst the unjust censures which have been cast on me, has made an humble lot my choice.”
“I am satisfied,” interrupted Mrs. Willis: “reason, I see has a greater share in your so lately formed resolution, than the zeal of enthusiasm, or the suggestions of vanity; and you may believe me a true friend to your fame, when I heartily congratulate you on your present situation. And now, my dear miss, suffer me to assure you of my tenderest friendship; a friendship which cannot be contented with bare professions, and insists upon your putting it to some trial.
“Tell me how I can serve you? O! that you would honour me so far as to let this house be your asylum till fortune does justice to your merit. Condescend to live with me, my dear miss, and share my little income.”
“You are very kind, dear Mrs. Willis,” replied Henrietta, “but my circumstances will not permit me to continue your boarder, and no distress shall oblige me to be burthensome to a friend. I have already resolved how to dispose of myself, and, in the scheme I have formed, I shall need your assistance.”
“Tell me, my dear,” cried Mrs. Willis, eagerly, “how I can be of any use to you?”
“You must,” replied Henrietta, blushing a little: “you must get me a service, my dear Mrs. Willis.”
“A service!” exclaimed the good woman.
“I am very well qualified,” resumed Henrietta, recovering from her first confusion, and smiling, “to wait upon a woman of fashion: for my mother gave me a useful as well as genteel education; and this station will be at once private enough to secure me from disagreeable accidents, and public enough to make my conduct acquit or condemn me.
“I will not,” added she, observing Mrs. Willis continued silent, “offer myself to any place by my own name; that would look like an insult upon my great relations, and be perhaps an obstruction to my success. It is sufficient for me, that whenever I am discovered, it may be in circumstances at which they, not I, need be ashamed.”
“When I first heard you mention this scheme,” said Mrs. Willis, “I thought I could never be brought to approve it: but a little reflection has convinced me that it may have good consequences. You cannot be long concealed; that graceful form will soon draw notice upon you. Whenever you are known to be in a station so unworthy your birth and merit, the pride of your relations will be rouzed. How glorious then will this humiliation be for you! Methinks I see their confusion for their neglect of you, and their eagerness to repair it, by restoring you to the rank you was born in—Oh! my dear, you will certainly be happy yet, I am sure you will.”
Henrietta smiled a little at the good woman’s sanguine expectations; but in reality, the same thoughts had made a great impression upon her, and contributed more than she imagined, to allay the uneasiness she felt at being reduced to take such a step. By degrees she formed in her own mind so romantick a scene, that she grew impatient to enter upon it, and again intreated the assistance of Mrs. Willis.
The good woman telling her that a cousin of her husband’s was a sack-maker, and in great vogue at the court end of the town, it was agreed that she should go to her, and engage her good offices towards recommending the young lady to a place; it being very likely that among her customers, who were mostly women of quality, she might hear of one that would suit her.