I read this letter with mingled feelings of indignation and
delight--indignation, because of the cruelties to which the worthless
mother and the base suitor subjected one so dear and innocent
delight, since the consent which she now yielded placed the means
of saving her at my control. The consent was to flight and clandestine
marriage, to which I had, with the assistance of our mutual friend,
endeavored to persuade her, in several instances, before.
The question now was, how to effect this object, since we had
no opportunities for communication; but, before I took any steps
in the matter, I made it a point of duty to deprive the infamous
attorney, Perkins, of his means of power over the unhappy family.
I determined to pay his legal charges; and William Edgerton, at
my request, readily undertook this part of the business. They were
found to be extortionate, and far beyond anything either warranted
by the practice or the fee bill. Edgerton counselled me to resist
the claim; but the subject was too delicate in all its relations,
and my own affair with Perkins would have made my active opposition
seem somewhat the consequence of malice and inveterate hostility.
I preferred to pay the excess, wnich was done by Edgerton, rather
than have any further dispute or difficulty with one whom I so
much despised. Complete satisfaction was entered upon the records
of the court, and a certified discharge, under the hand of Perkins
himself--which he gave with a reluctance full of mortification--was
sent in a blank envelope to Mrs. Clifford. She was thus deprived
of the only excuse--if, indeed, such a woman ever needs an excuse
for wilfulness--for persecuting her unhappy daughter on the score
of the attorney.
But the possession of this document effected no sort of change in
her conduct. She pursued her victim with the same old tenacity. It
was not to favor Perkins that she strove for this object: it was
to baffle ME. That blind heart, which misguides all of us in turn,
was predominant in her, and rendered her totally incapable of
seeing the cruel consequences to her daughter which her perseverance
threatened. Julia was now so feeble as scarcely to leave her
chamber; the physician was daily in attendance; and, though I could
not propose to make use of his services in promoting a design which
would subject him to the reproach of the grossest treachery, yet,
without counsel, he took it upon him plainly to assure the mother
that the disorder of her daughter arose solely from her mental
afflictions. He went farther. Mrs. Clifford, whose garrulity was
as notorious as her vanity and folly, herself took occasion, when
this was told her, to ascribe the effect to me; and, with her
own coloring, she continued, by going into a long history of our
"course of wooing." The doctor availed himself of these statements
to suggest the necessity of a compromise, assuring Mrs. Clifford
that I was really a more deserving person than she thought me, and,
in short, that some concessions must be made, if it was her hope
to save her daughter's life.