- I
Will Not Repeat The Distraction I
Was In; - You May Easily Judge Of It:
- I
communicated the misfortune to my nurse,
who you know I told you went from England
with me, and has often brought you messages
from the convent:
- The faithful creature did
her utmost to console me for an evil which was
without a remedy: - to complete my confusion,
my father commanded me home; my lord
M - - e was returned from his travels: - we
were both of an age to marry; and it
was resolved, by our parents, no longer to
defer the completion of an affair long before
agreed upon. - I was ready to lay violent hands
on myself, since there seemed no way to conceal
my shame; but my good nurse having set
all her wits to work for me, found out an expedient
which served me, when I could think
of nothing for myself. - She bid me be of
comfort; that she thought being sent for home
was the luckiest thing that could have happened,
since nothing could be so bad as to have my
pregnancy discovered in the convent, as it
infallibly must have been had I stayed a very little
time longer: she also assured me she would
contrive it so, as to keep the thing a secret
from all the world. - I found afterwards she
did not deceive me by vain promises. - We
left Paris, according to my father's order, and
came by easy journeys, befitting my condition,
to Calais, and embarked on board the packet for
Dover; but then, instead of taking coach for London,
hired a chariot, and went cross the country
to a little village, where a kinswoman of my
nurse's lived. - With these people I remained
till Horatio and Louisa came into the world: - I
could have had them nursed at that place, but
I feared some discovery thro' the miscarriage of
letters, which often happens, and which could
not have been avoided being sent on such occasions; - so
we contrived together that my
good confident and adviser should carry them
to your house, and commit the care of them
to you, who, equal with myself, had a right to
it: - she found means, by bribing a man that
worked under your gardener, to convey them
where I afterwards heard you found and received
them as I could wish, and becoming the
generosity of your nature. - I then took coach
for London, pretending, at my arrival, that I
had been delayed by sickness, and to excuse my
nurse's absence, said she had caught the fever
of me; - so no farther enquiry was made, and
I soon after was married to a man whose worth
is well deserving of a better wife, tho' I have
endeavoured to attone for my unknown transgression
by every act of duty in my power: - nurse
stayed long enough in your part of the
world to be able to bring me an account how
the children were disposed of. - That I never
gave you an account they were your own, was
occasioned by two reasons, first, the danger of
entrusting such a thing by the post, my nurse
soon after dying; and secondly, because, as I
was a wife, I thought it unbecoming of me to
remind you of a passage I was willing to forget
myself.
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