The bare loss of him as a gallant was not so much my affliction as the loss of his person, whom indeed I loved to distraction; and the loss of all the expectations I had, and which I always built my hopes upon, of having him one day for my husband. These things oppressed my mind so much that, in short, the agonies of my mind threw me into a high fever, and long it was that none of the family expected my life.
I was reduced very low indeed and was often delirious; but nothing lay so near me as the fear that when I was light-headed I should say something or other to his prejudice. I was distressed in my mind also to see him, and so he was to see me, for he really loved me most passionately; but it could not be; there was not the least room to desire it on one side or other.
It was near five weeks that I kept my bed; and though the violence of my fever abated in three weeks, yet it several times returned; and the physicians said two or three times they could do no more for me, but that they must leave nature and the distemper to fight it out. After the end of five weeks I grew better, but was so weak, so altered, and recovered so slowly that the physicians apprehended I should go into a consumption; and which vexed me most, they gave their opinion that my mind was oppressed, that something troubled me, and in short, that I was in love. Upon this, the whole house set upon me to press me to tell whether I was in love or not and with whom; but as I well might, I denied my being in love at all.
They had on this occasion a squabble one day about me at table that had like to put the whole family in an uproar. They happened to be all at table but the father; as for me, I was ill and in my chamber. At the beginning of the talk the old gentlewoman, who had sent me somewhat to eat, bid her maid go up and ask me if I would have any more; but the maid brought down word I had not eaten half what she had sent me already. “Alas,” says the old lady, “that poor girl! I am afraid she will never be well.” “Well!” says the elder brother. “How should Mrs. Betty be well? They say she is in love.” “I believe nothing of it,” says the old gentlewoman. “I don’t know,” says the eldest sister, “what to say to it; they have made such a rout about her being so handsome, and so charming, and I know not what, and that in her hearing too, that has turned the creature’s head, I believe, and who knows what possessions may follow such doings? For my part, I don’t know what to make of it.”
“Why, sister, you must acknowledge she is very handsome,” says the elder brother. “Aye, and a great deal handsomer than you, sister,” says Robin, “and that’s your mortification.” “Well, well, that is not the question,” says his sister; “the girl is well enough, and she knows it; she need not be told of it to make her vain.”
“We don’t talk of her being vain,” says the elder brother, “but of her being in love; maybe she is in love with herself; it seems my sisters think so.”
“I would she was in love with me,” says Robin; “I’d quickly put her out of her pain.” “What d’ye mean by that, son?” says the old lady. “How can you talk so?” “Why, madam,” says Robin again, very honestly, “do you think I’d let the poor girl die for love, and of me, too, that is so near at hand to be had?” “Fie, brother!” says the second sister. “How can you talk so? Would you take a creature that has not a groat in the world?” “Prithee, child,” says Robin, “beauty’s a portion, and good humour with it is a double portion; I wish thou hadst half her stock of both for thy portion.” So there was her mouth stopped.
“I find,” says the eldest sister, “if Betty is not in love, my brother is. I wonder he has not broke his mind to Betty; I warrant she won’t say no.” “They that yield when they are asked,” says Robin, “are one step before them that were never asked to yield, and two steps before them that yield before they are asked; and that’s an answer to you, sister.”
This fired the sister, and she flew into a passion and said things were come to that pass that it was time the wench, meaning me, was out of the family; and but that she was not fit to be turned out, she hoped her father and mother would consider of it as soon as she could be removed.
Robin replied that was for the master and mistress of the family, who were not to be taught by one that had so little judgement as his eldest sister.
It run up a great deal farther; the sister scolded, Robin rallied and bantered, but poor Betty lost ground by it extremely in the family. I heard of it and cried heartily, and the old lady came up to me, somebody having told her that I was so much concerned about it. I complained to her that it was very hard the doctors should pass such a censure upon me, for which they had no ground; and that it was still harder, considering the circumstances I was under in the family; that I hoped I had done nothing to lessen her esteem for me or given any occasion for the bickering between her sons and daughters, and I had more need to think of a coffin than of being in love, and begged she would not let me suffer in her opinion for anybody’s mistakes but my own.
She was sensible of the justice of what I said, but told me since there had been such a clamour among them, and that her younger son talked after such a rattling way as he did, she desired I would be so faithful to her as to answer her but one question sincerely. I told her I would, and with the utmost plainness and sincerity. Why, then, the question was, whether there was anything between her son Robert and me. I told her with all the protestations of sincerity that I was able to make, and as I might well do, that there was not nor ever had been; I told her that Mr. Robert had rattled and jested, as she knew it was his way, and that I took it always as I supposed he meant it, to be a wild, airy way of discourse that had no signification in it; and assured her that there was not the least tittle of what she understood by it between us; and that those who had suggested it had done me a great deal of wrong and Mr. Robert no service at all.
The old lady was fully satisfied, and kissed me, spoke cheerfully to me, and bid me take care of my health and want for nothing, and so took her leave. But when she came down she found the brother and all his sisters together by the ears; they were angry, even to passion, at his upbraiding them with their being homely, and having never had any sweethearts, never having been asked the question, their being so forward as almost to ask first, and the like. He rallied them with Mrs. Betty; how pretty, how good-humoured, how she sung better than they did, and danced better, and how much handsomer she was; and in doing this he omitted no ill-natured thing that could vex them. The old lady came down in the height of it and, to stop it, told them the discourse she had had with me, and how I answered that there was nothing between Mr. Robert and I.
“She’s wrong there,” says Robin, “for if there was not a great deal between us, we should be closer together than we are. I told her I loved her hugely,” says he, “but I could never make the jade believe I was in earnest.” “I do not know how you should,” says his mother; “nobody in their senses could believe you were in earnest, to talk so to a poor girl whose circumstances you know so well.
“But prithee, son,” adds she, “since you tell us you could not make her believe you were in earnest, what must we believe about it? For you ramble so in your discourse that nobody knows whether you are in earnest or in jest; but as I find the girl, by your own confession, has answered truly, I wish you would do so too, and tell me seriously so that I may depend upon it. Is there anything in it or no? Are you in earnest or no? Are you distracted, indeed, or are you not? ’Tis a weighty question; I wish you would make us easy about it.”
“By my faith, madam,” says Robin, “’tis in vain to mince the matter or tell any more lies about it; I am in earnest, as much as a man is that’s going to be hanged. If Mrs. Betty would say she loved me and that she would marry me, I’d have her tomorrow morning fasting, and say, ‘To have and to hold,’ instead of eating my breakfast.”
“Well,” says the mother, “then there’s one son lost”; and she said it in a very mournful tone, as one greatly concerned at it. “I hope not, madam,” says Robin; “no man is lost when a good wife has found him.” “Why, but, child,” says the old lady, “she
is a beggar.” “Why, then, madam, she has the more need of charity,” says Robin; “I’ll take her off the hands of the parish, and she and I’ll beg together.” “It’s bad jesting with such things,” says the mother. “I don’t jest, madam,” says Robin; “we’ll come and beg your pardon, madam, and your blessing, madam, and my father’s.” “This is all out of the way, son,” says the mother. “If you are in earnest you are undone.” “I am afraid not,” says he, “for I am really afraid she won’t have me. After all my sister’s huffing, I believe I shall never be able to persuade her to it.”
“That’s a fine tale, indeed. She is not so far gone neither. Mrs. Betty is no fool,” says the youngest sister. “Do you think she has learnt to say no any more than other people?” “No, Mrs. Mirth-wit,” says Robin, “Mrs. Betty’s no fool, but Mrs. Betty may be engaged some other way, and what then?” “Nay,” says the eldest sister, “we can say nothing to that. Who must it be to, then? She is never out of the doors; it must be between you.” “I have nothing to say to that,” says Robin. “I have been examined enough; there’s my brother. If it must be between us, go to work with him.”
This stung the elder brother to the quick, and he concluded that Robin had discovered something. However, he kept himself from appearing disturbed. “Prithee,” says he, “don’t go to sham your stories off upon me; I tell you I deal in no such ware; I have nothing to say to no Mrs. Bettys in the parish”; and with that he rose up and brushed off. “No,” says the eldest sister, “I dare answer for my brother; he knows the world better.”
Thus the discourse ended; but it left the eldest brother quite confounded. He concluded his brother had made a full discovery, and he began to doubt whether I had been concerned in it or not; but with all his management, he could not bring it about to get at me. At last he was so perplexed that he was quite desperate and resolved he would see me whatever came of it. In order to this, he contrived it so that one day, after dinner, watching his eldest sister till he could see her go upstairs, he runs after her. “Hark ye, sister,” says he, “where is this sick woman? May not a body see her?” “Yes,” says the sister, “I believe you may; but let me go in first a little and I’ll tell you.” So she run up to the door and gave me notice, and presently called to him again. “Brother,” says she, “you may come in if you please.” So in he came, just in the same kind of rant. “Well,” says he at the door as he came in, “where’s this sick body that’s in love? How do ye do, Mrs. Betty?” I would have got up out of my chair, but was so weak I could not for a good while; and he saw it and his sister too; and she said, “Come, do not strive to stand up; my brother desires no ceremony, especially now you are so weak.” “No, no, Mrs. Betty, pray sit still,” says he, and so sets himself down in a chair over against me and appeared as if he was mighty merry.
He talked a deal of rambling stuff to his sister and to me; sometimes of one thing, sometimes another, on purpose to amuse her, and every now and then would turn it upon the old story. “Poor Mrs. Betty,” says he, “it is a sad thing to be in love; why, it has reduced you sadly.” At last I spoke a little. “I am glad to see you so merry, sir,” says I; “but I think the doctor might have found something better to do than to make his game of his patients. If I had been ill of no other distemper, I know the proverb too well to have let him come to me.” “What proverb?” says he. “What—
‘Where love is the case,
The doctor’s an ass.’
Is not that it, Mrs. Betty?” I smiled and said nothing. “Nay,” says he, “I think the effect has proved it to be love; for it seems the doctor has done you little service; you mend very slowly, they say. I doubt there’s somewhat in it, Mrs. Betty; I doubt you are sick of the incurables.” I smiled and said, “No, indeed, sir, that’s none of my distemper.”
We had a deal of such discourse, and sometimes others that signified as little. By and by he asked me to sing them a song, at which I smiled and said my singing days were over. At last he asked me if he should play upon his flute to me; his sister said she believed my head could not bear it. I bowed and said, “Pray, madam, do not hinder it; I love the flute very much.” Then his sister said, “Well, do, then, brother.” With that he pulled out the key of his closet. “Dear sister,” says he, “I am very lazy; do step and fetch my flute; it lies in such a drawer,” naming a place where he was sure it was not, that she might be a little while a-looking for it.
As soon as she was gone, he related the whole story to me of the discourse his brother had about me and his concern about it, which was the reason of his contriving this visit. I assured him I had never opened my mouth either to his brother or to anybody else. I told him the dreadful exigence I was in; that my love to him and his offering to have me forget that affection and remove it to another had thrown me down; and that I had a thousand times wished I might die rather than recover, and to have the same circumstances to struggle with as I had before. I added that I foresaw that as soon as I was well I must quit the family, and that as for marrying his brother, I abhorred the thoughts of it after what had been my case with him, and that he might depend upon it, I would never see his brother again upon that subject; that if he would break all his vows and oaths and engagements with me, be that between his conscience and himself; but he should never be able to say that I, who he had persuaded to call myself his wife and who had given him the liberty to use me as a wife, was not as faithful to him as a wife ought to be, whatever he might be to me.
He was going to reply, and had said that he was sorry I could not be persuaded, and was a-going to say more, but he heard his sister a-coming, and so did I; and yet I forced out these few words as a reply, that I could never be persuaded to love one brother and marry the other. He shook his head and said, “Then I am ruined,” meaning himself; and that moment his sister entered the room and told him she could not find the flute. “Well,” says he merrily, “this laziness won’t do”; so he gets up and goes himself to look for it, but comes back without it too; not but that he could have found it, but he had no mind to play; and besides, the errand he sent his sister on was answered another way; for he only wanted to speak to me, which he had done, though not much to his satisfaction.
I had, however, a great deal of satisfaction in having spoken my mind to him in freedom and with such an honest plainness, as I have related; and though it did not at all work the way I desired, that is to say, to oblige the person to me the more, yet it took from him all possibility of quitting me but by a downright breach of honour, and giving up all the faith of a gentleman, which he had so often engaged by never to abandon me, but to make me his wife as soon as he came to his estate.
It was not many weeks after this before I was about the house again and began to grow well; but I continued melancholy and retired, which amazed the whole family except he that knew the reason of it; yet it was a great while before he took any notice of it, and I, as backward to speak as he, carried as respectfully to him, but never offered to speak a word that was particular of any kind whatsoever; and this continued for sixteen or seventeen weeks; so that, as I expected every day to be dismissed the family on account of what distaste they had taken another way, in which I had no guilt, I expected to hear no more of this gentleman after all his solemn vows but to be ruined and abandoned.
At last I broke the way myself in the family for my removing; for being talking seriously with the old lady one day about my own circumstances and how my distemper had left a heaviness upon my spirits, the old lady said, “I am afraid, Betty, what I have said to you about my son has had some influence upon you and that you are melancholy on his account; pray, will you let me know how the matter stands with you both if it may not be improper? For, as for Robin, he does nothing but rally and banter when I speak of it to him.” “Why, truly, madam,” said I, “that matter stands as I wish it did not, and I shall be very sincere with you in it whatever befalls me. Mr. Robert has several times proposed marriage to me, which is what I had no reason to expect, my poor circu
mstances considered; but I have always resisted him, and that perhaps in terms more positive than became me, considering the regard that I ought to have for every branch of your family; but,” said I, “madam, I could never so far forget my obligations to you and all your house to offer to consent to a thing which I knew must needs be disobliging to you, and have positively told him that I would never entertain a thought of that kind unless I had your consent and his father’s also, to whom I was bound by so many invincible obligations.”
“And is this possible, Mrs. Betty?” says the old lady. “Then you have been much juster to us than we have been to you; for we have all looked upon you as a kind of a snare to my son, and I had a proposal to make you for your removing, for fear of it; but I had not yet mentioned it to you because I was afraid of grieving you too much, lest it should throw you down again; for we have a respect for you still, though not so much as to have it be the ruin of my son; but if it be as you say, we have all wronged you very much.”
“As to the truth of what I say, madam,” said I, “I refer to your son himself; if he will do me any justice, he must tell you the story just as I have told it.”
Away goes the old lady to her daughters and tells them the whole story, just as I had told it her; and they were surprised at it, you may be sure, as I believed they would be. One said she could never have thought it; another said Robin was a fool; a third said she would not believe a word of it, and she would warrant that Robin would tell the story another way. But the old lady, who was resolved to go to the bottom of it before I could have the least opportunity of acquainting her son with what had passed, resolved, too, that she would talk with her son immediately, and to that purpose sent for him, for he was gone but to a lawyer’s house in the town, and upon her sending he returned immediately.