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Jane Talbot, a novel by Charles Brockden Brown |
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Letter 32 - To Jane Talbot |
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_ Letter XXXII - To Jane Talbot To Jane Talbot Baltimore, November 14. Let me overlook your last letter [Footnote A: Letter XXX.] for the present, while I mention to you a most unexpected and surprising circumstance. It has just happened. I have parted with my visitant but this moment. I had strolled to the bank of the river, and was leaning idly on a branch of an apple-tree that hung pretty low, when I noticed some one coming hastily towards me: there was something striking and noble in the air and figure of the man. When he came up, he stopped. I was surprised to find myself the object of which he was in search. I found afterwards that he had inquired for me at my lodgings, and had been directed to look for me in this path. A distinct view of his features saved him the trouble of telling me that he was your brother. However, that was information that he thought proper immediately to communicate. He was your brother, he said; I was Colden; I had pretensions to you, which your brother was entitled to know, to discuss, and to pronounce upon. Such, in about as many words, was his introduction to me, and he waited for my answer with much impatience. I was greatly confused by these sudden and unceremonious intimations. At last I told him that all that he had said respecting my connection with his sister was true. It was a fact that all the world was welcome to know. Of course I had no objection to her brother's knowing it. But what were my claims? what my merits, my profession, my fortune? On all these heads a brother would naturally require to be thoroughly informed. "As to my character, sir, you will hardly expect any satisfactory information from _my_ own mouth. However, it may save you the trouble of applying to others, when I tell you that my character has as many slurs and blots in it as any you ever met with. A more versatile, inconsistent, prejudiced, and faulty person than myself, I do not believe the earth to contain. Profession I have none, and am not acquiring any, nor expect ever to acquire. Of fortune I am wholly destitute: not a farthing have I, either in possession or reversion." "Then, pray, sir, on what are built your pretensions to my sister?" "Really, sir, they are built on _nothing_. I am, in every respect, immeasurably her inferior. I possess not a single merit that entitles me to grace from her." "I have surely not been misinformed. She tacitly admitted that she was engaged to be your wife." "'Tis very true. She is so." "But what, then, is the basis of this engagement?" "Mutual affection, I believe, is the only basis. Nobody who knows Jane Talbot will need to ask why she is beloved. Why she requites that passion in the present case, is a question which she only can answer." "Her passion, sir," (contemptuously,) "is the freak of a child; of folly and caprice. By your own confession you are beggarly and worthless, and therefore it becomes you to relinquish your claim." "I have no claim to relinquish. I have urged no claims. On the contrary, I have fully disclosed to her every folly and vice that cleaves to my character." "You know, sir, what I mean." "I am afraid not perfectly. If you mean that I should profess myself unworthy of your sister's favour, 'tis done. It has been done a hundred times." "My meaning, sir, is simply this: that you, from this moment, give up every expectation of being the husband of Mrs. Talbot. That you return to her every letter and paper that has passed between you; that you drop all intercourse and correspondence." I was obliged to stifle a laugh which this whimsical proposal excited. I continued, through this whole dialogue, to regard my companion with a steadfast and cheerful gravity. "These are injunctions," said I, "that will hardly meet with compliance, unless, indeed, they were imposed by the lady herself. I shall always have a supreme regard for her happiness; and whatever path she points out to me, I will walk in it." "But _this_ is the path in which her true interest requires you to walk." "I have not yet discovered that to be _her_ opinion; the moment I do, I will walk in it accordingly." "No matter what _her_ opinion is. She is froward and obstinate. It is my opinion that her true happiness requires all connection between you to cease from this moment." "After all, sir, though, where judgments differ, one only can be right, yet each person must be permitted to follow his own. You would hardly, I imagine, allow your sister to prescribe to you in your marriage choice, and I fear she will lay claim to the same independence for herself. If you can convert her to your way of thinking, it is well. I solemnly engage to do whatever she directs." "This is insolence. You trifle with me. You pretend to misconstrue my meaning." "When you charge me with insolence, I think you afford pretty strong proof that you mistake _my_ meaning. I have not the least intention to offend you." "Let me be explicit with you. Do you instantly and absolutely resign all pretensions to my sister?" "I will endeavour to be explicit in my turn. Your sister, notwithstanding my defects and disadvantages, offers me her love, vows to be mine. I accept her love; she is mine; nor need we to discuss the matter any further." This, however, by no means put an end to altercation. I told him I was willing to hear all that he had to say upon the subject. If truth were on his side, it was possible he might reason me into a concurrence with him. In compliance with this concession, he dwelt on the benefits which his sister would receive from accompanying him to France, and the mutual sorrow, debasement, and perplexity likely to flow from a union between us, unsanctioned by the approbation of our common friends. "The purpose of all this is to prove," said I, "that affluence and dignity without me will be more conducive to your sister's happiness than obscurity and indigence _with_ me." It was. "Happiness is mere matter of opinion; perhaps Jane thinks already as you do." He allowed that he had talked with you ineffectually on that subject. "I think myself bound to believe her in a case where she is the proper judge, and shall eagerly consent to make her happy in her own way. _That_, sir, is my decision." I will not repeat the rest of our conversation. Your letters have given me some knowledge of your brother, and I endeavoured by the mildness, sedateness, and firmness of my carriage to elude those extremes to which his domineering passions were likely to carry him. I carefully avoided every thing that tended in the least to exasperate. He was prone enough to rage, but I quietly submitted to all that he could say. I was sincerely rejoiced when the conference came to an end. Whence came your brother thus abruptly? Have you seen him? Yet he told me that you had. Alas! what must you have suffered from his impetuosity! I look with impatience for your next letter, in which you will tell what has happened. _ |
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