John Hawkesworth
(?1715-1773)
What I have heard, permit me to relate.
I received, a few weeks ago, an account of the death of a lady whose name is known to many, but the “eventful history” of whose life has been communicated to few: to me it has been often related during a long and intimate acquaintance; and as there is not a single person living, upon whom the making it public can reflect unmerited dishonour, or whose delicacy or virtue can suffer by the relation, I think I owe to mankind a series of events from which the wretched may derive comfort, and the most forlorn may be encouraged to hope; as misery is alleviated by the contemplation of yet deeper distress, and the mind fortified against despair by instances of unexpected relief.
The father of Melissa was the younger son of a country gentleman who possessed an estate of about five hundred a year; but as this was to be the inheritance of the elder brother, and as there were three sisters to be provided for, he was at about sixteen taken from Eton school, and apprenticed to a considerable merchant at Bristol. The young gentleman, whose imagination had been fired by the exploits of heroes, the victories gained by magnanimous presumption, and the wonders discovered by daring curiosity, was not disposed to consider the acquisition of wealth as the limit of his ambition, or the repute of honest industry as the total of his fame. He regarded his situation as servile and ignominious, as the degradation of his genius and the preclusion of his hopes; and longing to go in search of adventures, he neglected his business as unworthy of his attention, heard the remonstrances of his master with a kind of sullen disdain, and after two years’ legal slavery made his escape, and at the next town enlisted himself a soldier; not doubting but that, by his military merit and the fortune of war, he should return a general officer, to the confusion of those who would have buried him in the obscurity of a compting-house. He found means effectually to elude the inquiries of his friends, as it was of the utmost importance to prevent their officious endeavours to ruin his project and obstruct his advancement.
He was sent with other recruits to London, and soon after quartered with the rest of his company in a part of the country, which was so remote from all with whom he had any connection, that he no longer dreaded a discovery.
It happened that he went one day to the house of a neighbouring gentleman with his comrade, who was become acquainted with the chamber-maid, and by her interest admitted into the Kitchen. This gentleman, whose age was something more than sixty, had been about two years married to a second wife, a young woman who had been well educated, and lived in the polite world, but had no fortune. By his first wife, who had been dead about ten years, he had several children; the youngest was a daughter who had just entered her seventeenth year; she was very tall for her age, had a fine complexion, good features, and was well shaped; but her father, whose affection for her was mere instinct, as much as that of a brute for his young, utterly neglected her education. It was impossible for him, he said, to live without her; and as he could not afford to have her attended by a governess and proper masters in a place so remote from London, she was suffered to continue illiterate and unpolished; she knew no entertainment higher than a game at romps with the servants; she became their confident, and trusted them in return, nor did she think herself happy anywhere but in the kitchen.
As the capricious fondness of her father had never conciliated her affection, she perceived it abate upon his marriage without regret. She suffered no new restraint from her new mother, who observed with a secret satisfaction that miss had been used to hide herself from visitors, as neither knowing how to behave nor being fit to be seen, and chose rather to conceal her defects by excluding her from company, than to supply them by putting her to a boarding-school.
Miss, who had been told by Betty that she expected her sweetheart, and that they were to be merry, stole down stairs, and, without scruple, made one in a party at blindman’s buff. The soldier of fortune was struck with her person, and discovered, or thought he discovered, in the simplicity of nature, some graces which are polished away by the labour of art. However, nothing that had the appearance of an adventure could be indifferent to him; and his vanity was flattered by the hope of carrying off a young lady under the disguise of a common soldier, without revealing his birth or boasting of his expectations.
In this attempt he became very assiduous, and succeeded. The company being ordered to another place, Betty and her young mistress departed early in the morning with their gallants; and there being a privileged chapel in the next town, they were married.
The old gentleman, as soon as he was informed that his daughter was missing, made so diligent and scrupulous an inquiry after her, that he learned with whom and which way she was gone: he mounted his horse, and pursued her, not without curses and imprecation; discovering rather the transports of rage than the emotions of tenderness, and resenting her offence rather as the rebellion of a slave than the disobedience of a child. He did not however overtake them till the marriage had been consummated; of which when he was informed by the husband, he turned from him with expressions of brutality and indignation, swearing never to forgive a fault which he had taken no care to prevent.
The young couple, notwithstanding their union frequently doubled their distress, still continued fond of each other. The spirit of enterprise and the hope of presumption were not yet quelled in the young soldier; and he received orders to attend King William, when he went to the siege of Namur, with exultation and transport, believing his elevation to independence and distinction as certain as if he had been going to take possession of a title and estate. His wife, who had been some months pregnant, as she had no means of subsistence in his absence, procured a passage with him. When she came on shore, and mingled with the crowd that followed the camp, wretches who without compunction wade in human blood to strip the dying and the dead, to whom horror is become familiar and compassion impossible, she was terrified: the discourse of the women, rude and unpolished as she was, covered her with confusion; and the brutal familiarity of the men filled her with indignation and disgust; her maid, Betty, who had also attended her husband, was the only person with whom she could converse, and from whom she could hope the assistance of which she was so soon to stand in need.
In the meantime she found it difficult to subsist; but accidentally hearing the name of an officer, whom she remembered to have visited her mother soon after her marriage, she applied to him, told him her name, and requested that he would afford her his protection, and permit her to take care of his linen. With this request the captain complied; her circumstances became less distressed, and her mind more easy: but a new calamity suddenly overtook her; she saw her husband march to an engagement in the morning, and saw him brought back desperately wounded at night. The next day he was removed, in a waggon with many others who were in the same condition, to a place of greater safety, at the distance of about three leagues, where proper care might be taken of their wounds. She intreated the captain to let her go in the waggon with him; but to this he could not consent, because the waggon would be filled with those who were neither able to walk, nor could be left behind. He promised, however, that if she would stay till the next day, he would endeavour to procure her a passage; but she chose rather to follow the waggon on foot, than to be absent from her husband. She could not, however, keep pace with it, and she reached the hospital but just time enough to kneel down by him upon some clean straw, to see him sink under the last agony, and hear the groan that is repeated no more. The fatigue of the journey, and the perturbation of her mind, immediately threw her into labour, and she lived but to be delivered of Melissa, who was thus in the most helpless state left without father, mother, or friend, in a foreign country, in circumstances which could afford no hope of reward to the tenderness that should attempt the preservation of her life, and among persons who were become obdurate and insensible, by having been long used to see every species of distress.
It happened that, among those whom accident or distress had brought together at the birth of Melissa, there was a young woman, whose husband had fallen in the late engagement, and who a few days before had lost a little boy that she suckled. This person, rather perhaps to relieve herself from an inconveniency, than in compassion to the orphan, put it to her breast: but whatever was her motive, she believed that the affording sustenance to the living, conferred a right to the apparel of the dead, of which she therefore took possession; but in searching her pockets she found only a thimble, the remains of a pocket looking-glass, about the value of a penny in Dutch money, and the certificate of her marriage. The paper, which she could not read, she gave afterwards to the captain, who was touched with pity at the relation which an inquiry after his laundress produced. He commended the woman who had preserved the infant, and put her into the place of its mother. This encouraged her to continue her care of it till the captain returned to England, with whom she also returned, and became his servant.
This gentleman, as soon as he had settled his immediate concerns, sent Melissa, under the care of her nurse, to her grandfather; and inclosed the certificate of her mother’s marriage in a letter containing an account of her death, and the means by which the infant had been preserved. He knew that those who had been once dear to us, by whatever offence they may have alienated our affection when living, are generally remembered with tenderness when dead; and that after the grave has sheltered them from our resentment, and rendered reconciliation impossible, we often regret, as severe, that conduct which before we approved as just; he, therefore, hoped that the parental fondness which an old man had once felt for his daughter, would revive at the sight of her offspring; that the memory of her fault would be lost in the sense of her misfortunes; and that he would endeavour to atone for that inexorable resentment which produced them, by cherishing a life, to which she had, as it were, transferred her own. But in these expectations, however reasonable, he was mistaken. The old man, when he was informed by the messenger that the child she held in her arms was his grand-daughter, whom she was come to put under his protection, refused to examine the contents of the letter, and dismissed her with menaces and insult. The knowledge of every uncommon event soon becomes general in a country town. An uncle of Melissa’s, who had been rejected by his father for having married, his maid, heard this fresh instance of his brutality with grief and indignation; he sent immediately for the child and the letter, and assured the servant that his niece should want nothing which he could bestow; to bestow much, indeed, was not in his power, for his father having obstinately persisted in his resentment, his whole support was a little farm which he rented of the ’squire: but as he was a good economist and had no children of his own, he lived decently; nor did he throw away content, because his father had denied him affluence.
Melissa, who was compassionated for her mother’s misfortunes, of which her uncle had been particularly informed by her maid Betty, who had returned a widow to her friends in the country, was not less beloved for her good qualities; she was taught to read and write, and work at her needle, as soon as she was able to learn; and she was taken notice of by all the gentry as the prettiest girl in the place; but her aunt died when she was about eleven years old, and before she was thirteen she lost her uncle.
She was now again thrown back upon the world, still helpless, though her wants were increased, and wretched in proportion as she had known happiness: she looked back with anguish, and forward with distraction; a fit of crying had just afforded a momentary relief, when the ’squire, who had been informed of the death of his tenant, sent for her to his house.
This gentleman had heard her story from her uncle, and was unwilling that a life which had been preserved almost by miracle, should at last be abandoned to misery; he therefore determined to receive her into his family, not as a servant but as a companion to his daughter, a young lady finely accomplished, and now about fifteen. The old gentleman was touched with her distress, and miss received her with great tenderness and complacency: she wiped away her tears; and of the intolerable anguish of her mind, nothing remained but a tender remembrance of her uncle, whom she loved and reverenced as a parent. She had now courage to examine the contents of a little box which he had put into her hand just before he expired; she found in it only the certificate of her mother’s marriage, enclosed in the captain’s letter, and an account of the events that have been before related, which her uncle had put down as they came to his knowledge: the train of mournful ideas that now rushed upon her mind, raised emotions which, if they could not be suppressed by reason, were soon destroyed by their own violence.
In this family, which in a few weeks after returned to London, Melissa soon became a favourite: the good ’squire seemed to consider her as his child, and miss as her sister; she was taught dancing and music, introduced to the best company, elegantly dressed, and allowed such sums as were necessary for trivial expenses. Youth seldom suffers the dread of to-morrow to intrude upon the enjoyment of to-day, but rather regards present felicity as the pledge of future: Melissa was probably as happy as if she had been in the actual possession of a fortune, that, to the ease and splendour which she enjoyed already, would have added stability and independence.
She was now in her eighteenth year, and the only son of her benefactor was just come from the university to spend the winter with his father in town. He was charmed with her person, behaviour, and discourse; and what he could not but admire, he took every opportunity to commend. She soon perceived that he showed particular marks of respect to her, when he thought they would not be perceived by others; and that he endeavoured to recommend himself by an officious assiduity, and a diligent attention to the most minute circumstances that might contribute to her pleasure. But this behaviour of the young gentleman, however it might gratify her vanity, could not fail to alarm her fear; she foresaw, that if what she had remarked in his conduct should be perceived by his father or sister, the peace of the family would be destroyed; and that she must either be shipwrecked in the storm, or thrown overboard to appease it. She therefore affected not to perceive that more than a general complaisance was intended by her lover, and hoped that he would thus be discouraged from making an explicit declaration; but though he was mortified at her disregard of that which he knew she could not but see, yet he determined to address her in such terms as should not leave this provoking neutrality in her power: though he reverenced her virtue, yet he feared too much the anger of his father to think of making her his wife; and he was too deeply enamoured of her beauty, to relinquish his hopes of possessing her as a mistress. An opportunity for the execution of his purpose was not long wanting: she received his general professions of love with levity and merriment; but when she perceived that his view was to seduce her to prostitution, she burst into tears, and fell back in an agony, unable to speak. He was immediately touched with grief and remorse; his tenderness was alarmed at her distress, and his esteem increased by her virtue; he catched her in his arms, and as an atonement for the insult she had received, he offered her marriage: but as her chastity would not suffer her to become his mistress, neither would her gratitude permit her to become his wife; and as soon as she was sufficiently recollected, she intreated him never more to urge her to violate the obligation she was under either to herself or to her benefactor.
“Would not,” said she, “the presence of a wretch whom you had seduced from innocence and peace to remorse and guilt, perpetually upbraid you; and would you not always fear to be betrayed by a wife, whose fidelity no kindness could secure; who had broken all the bands that restrain the generous and the good; and who, by an act of the most flagitious ingratitude, had at once reached the pinnacle of guilt, to which others ascend by imperceptible gradations?”
These objections, though they could neither be obviated nor evaded, had yet no tendency to subdue desire; he loved with greater delicacy, but with more ardour: and as he could not always forbear expostulations, neither could she always silence them in such a manner as might most effectually prevent their being repeated. Such was one morning the situation of the two lovers: he had taken her hand into his, and was speaking with great earnestness; while she regarded him with a kind of timorous complacency, and listened to him with an attention which her heart condemned: his father, in this tender moment, in which their powers of perception were mutually engrossed by each other came near enough to hear that his heir had made proposals of marriage, and retired without their knowledge.
As he did not dream that such a proposal could possibly be rejected by a girl in Melissa’s situation, imagining that every woman believed her virtue to be inviolate, if her person was not prostituted, he took his measures accordingly. It was near the time in which his family had been used to remove into the country: he therefore, gave orders, that every thing should be immediately prepared for the journey, and that the coach should be ready at six the next morning, a man and horse being dispatched in the mean time to give notice of their arrival. The young folks were a little surprised at this sudden removal; but though the squire was a good-natured man, yet as he governed his family with high authority, and as they perceived something had offended him, they did not inquire the reason, nor indeed did they suspect it. Melissa packed up her things as usual: and in the morning the young gentleman and his sister having by their father’s orders got into the coach, he called Melissa into the parlour; where, in a few words, but with great acrimony, he reproached her with having formed a design to marry his son without his consent, an act of ingratitude which he said justified him in upbraiding her with the favours which he had already conferred upon her, and in a resolution he had taken that a bank bill of fifty pounds, which he then put into her hand, should be the last; adding, that he expected she should within one week leave the house. To this heavy charge she was not in a condition to reply; nor did he stay to see whether she would attempt it, but hastily got into the coach, which immediately drove from the door.
Thus was Melissa, a third time, by a sudden and unexpected desertion, exposed to penury and distress, with this aggravation, that ease and affluence were become habitual; and that though she was not so helpless as at the death of her uncle, she was exposed to yet greater danger; for few that have been used to slumber upon down, and wake to festivity, can resist the allurements of vice, who still offers ease and plenty, when the alternatives are a flock bed and a garret, short meals, coarse apparel, and perpetual labour.
Melissa, as soon as she had recovered from the stupor which had seized her upon so astonishing and dreadful a change of fortune, determined not to accept the bounty of a person who imagined her to be unworthy of it; nor to attempt her justification, while it would render her veracity suspected, and appear to proceed only from the hope of being restored to a state of splendid dependence, from which jealousy or caprice might again at any time remove her, without cause and without notice: she had not, indeed, any hope of being ever able to defend herself against her accuser upon equal terms; nor did she know how to subsist a single day, when she had returned his bill and quitted his house; yet such was the dignity of her spirit, that she immediately enclosed it in a blank cover, directed to him at his country seat, and calling up the maid who had been left to take care of the house, sent her immediately with it to the postoffice. The tears then burst out, which the agitation of her mind had before restrained; and when the servant returned, she told her all that had happened, and asked her advice what she should do. The girl, after the first emotions of wonder and pity had subsided, told her that she had a sister who lodged in a reputable house, and took in plain work, to whom she would be welcome, as she could assist her in her business, of which she had often more than she could do; and with whom she might continue till some more eligible situation could be obtained. Melissa listened to this proposal as to the voice of heaven; her mind was suddenly relieved from the most tormenting perplexity, from the dread of wandering about without money or employment, exposed to the menaces of a beadle, or the insults of the rabble: she was in haste to secure her good fortune, and felt some degree of pain lest she should lose it by the earlier application of another; she therefore went immediately with the maid to her sister, with whom it was soon agreed that Melissa should work for her board and lodging: for she would not consent to accept as a gift, that which she could by any means deserve as a payment.
While Melissa was a journeywoman to a person, who but a few weeks before would have regarded her with envy, and approached her with confusion; it happened that a suit of linen was brought from the milliner’s wrapped up in a newspaper: the linen was put into the work-basket, and the paper being thrown carelessly about, Melissa, at last, catched it up, and was about to read it; but perceiving that it had been published a fortnight, was just going to put it into the fire, when by an accidental glance she saw her father’s name: this immediately engaged her attention, and with great perturbation of mind she read an advertisement, in which her father, said to have left his friends, about eighteen years before, and to have entered either into the army or the navy, was directed to apply to a person in Staples Inn, who could inform him of something greatly to his advantage. To this person Melissa applied with all the ardour of curiosity, and all the tumult of expectation: she was informed that the elder brother of the person mentioned in the advertisement was lately dead, unmarried; that he was possessed of fifteen hundred a year, five hundred of which had descended to him from his father, and one thousand had been left him by an uncle, which upon his death, there being no male heir, had been claimed by his sisters; but that a mistress who had lived with him many years, and who had been treated by the supposed heiresses with too much severity and contempt, had in the bitterness of her resentment published the advertisement, having heard in the family that there was a younger brother abroad.
The conflict of different passions that were at once excited with uncommon violence in the breast of Melissa, deprived her for a time of the power of reflection; and when she became more calm, she knew not by what method to attempt the recovery of her right: her mind was bewildered amidst a thousand possibilities, and distressed by the apprehension that all might prove ineffectual. After much thought and many projects, she recollected that the captain, whose servant brought her to England, could probably afford her more assistance than any other person; as he had been often pointed out to her in public places by the ’squire, to whom her story was well known; she was acquainted with his person, and knew that within a few months he was alive: she soon obtained directions to his house, and being readily admitted to a conference, she told him with as much presence of mind as she could, that she was the person whom his compassion had contributed to preserve when an infant, in confirmation of which she produced his letter, and the certificate which it enclosed; that by the death of her father’s elder brother, whose family she had never known, she was become entitled to a very considerable estate; but that she knew not what evidence would be necessary to support her claim, how such evidence was to be produced, nor with whom to intrust the management of an affair in which wealth and influence would be employed against her. The old captain received her with that easy politeness which is almost peculiar to his profession, and with a warmth of benevolence that is seldom found in any: he congratulated her upon so happy and unexpected an event; and without the parade of ostentatious liberality, without extorting an explicit confession of her indigence, he gave her a letter to his lawyer, in whom he said she might with utmost security confide, and with whom she would have nothing more to do than to tell her story: “And do not,” said he, “doubt of success, for I will be ready to testify what I know of the affair, whenever I shall be called upon; and the woman who was present at your birth, and brought you over, still lives with me, and upon this occasion may do you signal service.”
Melissa departed, melted with gratitude, and elated with hope. The gentleman, to whom the captain’s letter was a recommendation, prosecuted her claim with so much skill and assiduity, that within a few months she was put into the possession of her estate. Her first care was to wait upon the captain, to whom she now owed not only life but a fortune: he received her acknowledgments with a pleasure, which only those who merit it can enjoy; and insisted that she should draw upon him for such sums as she should want before her rents became due. She then took very handsome ready furnished lodgings, and determined immediately to justify her conduct to the ’squire, whose kindness she still remembered, and whose resentment she had forgiven. With this view she set out in a chariot and six, attended by two servants in livery on horseback, and proceeded to his country seat, from whence the family was not returned: she had lain at an inn within six miles of the place, and when the chariot drove up to the door, as it was early in the morning, she could perceive the servants run to and fro in a hurry, and the young lady and her brother gazing through the window to see if they knew the livery: she remarked every circumstance which denoted her own importance with exultation; and enjoyed the solicitude which her presence produced among those, from whose society she had so lately been driven with disdain and indignation.
She now increased their wonder, by sending in a servant to acquaint the old gentleman, that a lady desired to speak with him about urgent business, which would not however long detain him; he courteously invited the lady to honour him with her commands, hasted into his best parlour, adjusted his wig, and put himself in the best order to receive her; she alighted, and displayed a very rich undress, which corresponded with the elegance of her chariot, and the modish appearance of her servants. She contrived to hide her face as she went up the walk, that she might not be known too soon; and was immediately introduced to her old friend, to whom she soon discovered herself to his great astonishment; and before he had recovered his presence of mind, she addressed him to this effect: “You see, sir, an orphan who is under the greatest obligations to your bounty, but who has been equally injured by your suspicions. When I was a dependent upon your liberality, I would not assert my innocence, because I could not bear to be suspected of falsehood: but I assert it now I am the possessor of a paternal estate, because I cannot bear to be suspected of ingratitude: that your son pressed me to marry him, is true; but it is also true that I refused him, because I would not disappoint your hopes, and impoverish your posterity.” The old gentleman’s confusion was increased by the wonders that crowded upon him: he first made some attempts to apologise for his suspicions with awkwardness and hesitation; then doubting the truth of appearances, he broke off abruptly and remained silent: then reproaching himself, he began to congratulate her upon her good fortune, and again desisted before he had finished the compliment. Melissa perceived his perplexity, and guessed the cause; she was, therefore, about to account more particularly for the sudden change of her circumstances, but miss, whose maid had brought her intelligence from the servants, that the lady’s name who was with her papa was Melissa, and that she was lately come to a great estate by the death of her uncle, could no longer restrain the impatience of her affection and joy; she rushed into the room and fell upon her neck, with a transport that can only be felt by friendship, and expressed by tears. When this tender silence was past, the scruples of doubt were soon obviated; the reconciliation was reciprocal and sincere; the father led out his guest, and presented her to his son, with an apology for his conduct to them both.
Melissa had bespoke a dinner and beds at the inn, but she was not suffered to return. Within a few weeks she became the daughter of her friend, who gave her hand to his son, with whom she shared many years that happiness which is the reward of virtue. They had several children, but none survived them; and Melissa, upon the death of her husband, which happened about seven years ago, retired wholly from town to her estate in the country, where she lived beloved, and died in peace.