History of Tom Jones, a Foundling

by Henry Fielding

  Chapter vii.

  In which Mrs Fitzpatrick concludes her history.

  While Mrs Honour, in pursuance of the commands of her mistress,ordered a bowl of punch, and invited my landlord and landlady topartake of it, Mrs Fitzpatrick thus went on with her relation.

  "Most of the officers who were quartered at a town in ourneighbourhood were of my husband's acquaintance. Among these there wasa lieutenant, a very pretty sort of man, and who was married to awoman, so agreeable both in her temper and conversation, that from ourfirst knowing each other, which was soon after my lying-in, we werealmost inseparable companions; for I had the good fortune to makemyself equally agreeable to her.

  "The lieutenant, who was neither a sot nor a sportsman, was frequentlyof our parties; indeed he was very little with my husband, and no morethan good breeding constrained him to be, as he lived almostconstantly at our house. My husband often expressed muchdissatisfaction at the lieutenant's preferring my company to his; hewas very angry with me on that account, and gave me many a heartycurse for drawing away his companions; saying, `I ought to be d--n'dfor having spoiled one of the prettiest fellows in the world, bymaking a milksop of him.'

  "You will be mistaken, my dear Sophia, if you imagine that the angerof my husband arose from my depriving him of a companion; for thelieutenant was not a person with whose society a fool could bepleased; and, if I should admit the possibility of this, so littleright had my husband to place the loss of his companion to me, that Iam convinced it was my conversation alone which induced him ever tocome to the house. No, child, it was envy, the worst and mostrancorous kind of envy, the envy of superiority of understanding. Thewretch could not bear to see my conversation preferred to his, by aman of whom he could not entertain the least jealousy. O my dearSophy, you are a woman of sense; if you marry a man, as is mostprobable you will, of less capacity than yourself, make frequenttrials of his temper before marriage, and see whether he can bear tosubmit to such a superiority.--Promise me, Sophy, you will take thisadvice; for you will hereafter find its importance." "It is verylikely I shall never marry at all," answered Sophia; "I think, atleast, I shall never marry a man in whose understanding I see anydefects before marriage; and I promise you I would rather give up myown than see any such afterwards." "Give up your understanding!"replied Mrs Fitzpatrick; "oh, fie, child! I will not believe so meanlyof you. Everything else I might myself be brought to give up; butnever this. Nature would not have allotted this superiority to thewife in so many instances, if she had intended we should all of ushave surrendered it to the husband. This, indeed, men of sense neverexpect of us; of which the lieutenant I have just mentioned was onenotable example; for though he had a very good understanding, healways acknowledged (as was really true) that his wife had a better.And this, perhaps, was one reason of the hatred my tyrant bore her.

  "Before he would be so governed by a wife, he said, especially such anugly b-- (for, indeed, she was not a regular beauty, but veryagreeable and extremely genteel), he would see all the women uponearth at the devil, which was a very usual phrase with him. He said,he wondered what I could see in her to be so charmed with her company:since this woman, says he, hath come among us, there is an end of yourbeloved reading, which you pretended to like so much, that you couldnot afford time to return the visits of the ladies in this country;and I must confess I had been guilty of a little rudeness this way;for the ladies there are at least no better than the mere countryladies here; and I think I need make no other excuse to you fordeclining any intimacy with them.

  "This correspondence, however, continued a whole year, even all thewhile the lieutenant was quartered in that town; for which I wascontented to pay the tax of being constantly abused in the mannerabove mentioned by my husband; I mean when he was at home; for he wasfrequently absent a month at a time at Dublin, and once made a journeyof two months to London: in all which journeys I thought it a verysingular happiness that he never once desired my company; nay, by hisfrequent censures on men who could not travel, as he phrased it,without a wife tied up to their tail, he sufficiently intimated that,had I been never so desirous of accompanying him, my wishes would havebeen in vain; but, Heaven knows, such wishes were very far from mythoughts.

  "At length my friend was removed from me, and I was again left to mysolitude, to the tormenting conversation with my own reflections, andto apply to books for my only comfort. I now read almost all day long.How many books do you think I read in three months?" "I can't guess,indeed, cousin," answered Sophia. "Perhaps half a score." "Half ascore! half a thousand, child!" answered the other. "I read a gooddeal in Daniel's English History of France; a great deal in Plutarch'sLives, the Atalantis, Pope's Homer, Dryden's Plays, Chillingworth, theCountess D'Aulnois, and Locke's Human Understanding.

  "During this interval I wrote three very supplicating, and, I thought,moving letters to my aunt; but, as I received no answer to any ofthem, my disdain would not suffer me to continue my application." Hereshe stopt, and, looking earnestly at Sophia, said, "Methinks, my dear,I read something in your eyes which reproaches me of a neglect inanother place, where I should have met with a kinder return." "Indeed,dear Harriet," answered Sophia, "your story is an apology for anyneglect; but, indeed, I feel that I have been guilty of a remissness,without so good an excuse.--Yet pray proceed; for I long, though Itremble, to hear the end."

  Thus, then, Mrs Fitzpatrick resumed her narrative:--"My husband nowtook a second journey to England, where he continued upwards of threemonths; during the greater part of this time I led a life whichnothing but having led a worse could make me think tolerable; forperfect solitude can never be reconciled to a social mind, like mine,but when it relieves you from the company of those you hate. Whatadded to my wretchedness was the loss of my little infant: not that Ipretend to have had for it that extravagant tenderness of which Ibelieve I might have been capable under other circumstances; but Iresolved, in every instance, to discharge the duty of the tenderestmother; and this care prevented me from feeling the weight of thatheaviest of all things, when it can be at all said to lie heavy on ourhands.

  "I had spent full ten weeks almost entirely by myself, having seennobody all that time, except my servants and a very few visitors, whena young lady, a relation to my husband, came from a distant part ofIreland to visit me. She had staid once before a week at my house, andthen I gave her a pressing invitation to return; for she was a veryagreeable woman, and had improved good natural parts by a propereducation. Indeed, she was to me a welcome guest.

  "A few days after her arrival, perceiving me in very low spirits,without enquiring the cause, which, indeed, she very well knew, theyoung lady fell to compassionating my case. She said, `Thoughpoliteness had prevented me from complaining to my husband's relationsof his behaviour, yet they all were very sensible of it, and feltgreat concern upon that account; but none more than herself.' Andafter some more general discourse on this head, which I own I couldnot forbear countenancing, at last, after much previous precaution andenjoined concealment, she communicated to me, as a profoundsecret--that my husband kept a mistress.

  "You will certainly imagine I heard this news with the utmostinsensibility--Upon my word, if you do, your imagination will misleadyou. Contempt had not so kept down my anger to my husband, but thathatred rose again on this occasion. What can be the reason of this?Are we so abominably selfish, that we can be concerned at othershaving possession even of what we despise? Or are we not ratherabominably vain, and is not this the greatest injury done to ourvanity? What think you, Sophia?"

  "I don't know, indeed," answered Sophia; "I have never troubled myselfwith any of these deep contemplations; but I think the lady did veryill in communicating to you such a secret."

  "And yet, my dear, this conduct is natural," replied Mrs Fitzpatrick;"and, when you have seen and read as much as myself, you willacknowledge it to be so."

  "I am sorry to hear it is natural," returned Sophia; "for I wantneither reading nor experience to convince me that it is verydishon
ourable and very ill-natured: nay, it is surely as ill-bred totell a husband or wife of the faults of each other as to tell them oftheir own."

  "Well," continued Mrs Fitzpatrick, "my husband at last returned; and,if I am thoroughly acquainted with my own thoughts, I hated him nowmore than ever; but I despised him rather less: for certainly nothingso much weakens our contempt, as an injury done to our pride or ourvanity.

  "He now assumed a carriage to me so very different from what he hadlately worn, and so nearly resembling his behaviour the first week ofour marriage, that, had I now had any spark of love remaining, hemight, possibly, have rekindled my fondness for him. But, thoughhatred may succeed to contempt, and may perhaps get the better of it,love, I believe, cannot. The truth is, the passion of love is toorestless to remain contented without the gratification which itreceives from its object; and one can no more be inclined to lovewithout loving than we can have eyes without seeing. When a husband,therefore, ceases to be the object of this passion, it is mostprobable some other man--I say, my dear, if your husband growsindifferent to you--if you once come to despise him--I say--thatis--if you have the passion of love in you--Lud! I have bewilderedmyself so--but one is apt, in these abstracted considerations, to losethe concatenation of ideas, as Mr Locke says:--in short, the truthis--in short, I scarce know what it is; but, as I was saying, myhusband returned, and his behaviour, at first, greatly surprized me;but he soon acquainted me with the motive, and taught me to accountfor it. In a word, then, he had spent and lost all the ready money ofmy fortune; and, as he could mortgage his own estate no deeper, he wasnow desirous to supply himself with cash for his extravagance, byselling a little estate of mine, which he could not do without myassistance; and to obtain this favour was the whole and sole motive ofall the fondness which he now put on.

  "With this I peremptorily refused to comply. I told him, and I toldhim truly, that, had I been possessed of the Indies at our firstmarriage, he might have commanded it all; for it had been a constantmaxim with me, that where a woman disposes of her heart, she shouldalways deposit her fortune; but, as he had been so kind, long ago, torestore the former into my possession, I was resolved likewise toretain what little remained of the latter.

  "I will not describe to you the passion into which these words, andthe resolute air in which they were spoken, threw him: nor will Itrouble you with the whole scene which succeeded between us. Out came,you may be well assured, the story of the mistress; and out it didcome, with all the embellishments which anger and disdain could bestowupon it.

  "Mr Fitzpatrick seemed a little thunderstruck with this, and moreconfused than I had seen him, though his ideas are always confusedenough, heaven knows. He did not, however, endeavour to exculpatehimself; but took a method which almost equally confounded me. Whatwas this but recrimination? He affected to be jealous:--he may, foraught I know, be inclined enough to jealousy in his natural temper;nay, he must have had it from nature, or the devil must have put itinto his head; for I defy all the world to cast a just aspersion on mycharacter: nay, the most scandalous tongues have never dared censuremy reputation. My fame, I thank heaven, hath been always as spotlessas my life; and let falsehood itself accuse that if it dare. No, mydear Graveairs, however provoked, however ill-treated, however injuredin my love, I have firmly resolved never to give the least room forcensure on this account.--And yet, my dear, there are some people somalicious, some tongues so venomous, that no innocence can escapethem. The most undesigned word, the most accidental look, the leastfamiliarity, the most innocent freedom, will be misconstrued, andmagnified into I know not what, by some people. But I despise, my dearGraveairs, I despise all such slander. No such malice, I assure you,ever gave me an uneasy moment. No, no, I promise you I am above allthat.--But where was I? O let me see, I told you my husband wasjealous--And of whom, I pray?--Why, of whom but the lieutenant Imentioned to you before! He was obliged to resort above a year andmore back to find any object for this unaccountable passion, if,indeed, he really felt any such, and was not an arrant counterfeit inorder to abuse me.

  "But I have tired you already with too many particulars. I will nowbring my story to a very speedy conclusion. In short, then, after manyscenes very unworthy to be repeated, in which my cousin engaged soheartily on my side, that Mr Fitzpatrick at last turned her out ofdoors; when he found I was neither to be soothed nor bullied intocompliance, he took a very violent method indeed. Perhaps you willconclude he beat me; but this, though he hath approached very near toit, he never actually did. He confined me to my room, withoutsuffering me to have either pen, ink, paper, or book: and a servantevery day made my bed, and brought me my food.

  "When I had remained a week under this imprisonment, he made me avisit, and, with the voice of a schoolmaster, or, what is often muchthe same, of a tyrant, asked me, `If I would yet comply?' I answered,very stoutly, `That I would die first.' `Then so you shall, and bed--nd!' cries he; `for you shall never go alive out of this room.'

  "Here I remained a fortnight longer; and, to say the truth, myconstancy was almost subdued, and I began to think of submission;when, one day, in the absence of my husband, who was gone abroad forsome short time, by the greatest good fortune in the world, anaccident happened.--I--at a time when I began to give way to theutmost despair----everything would be excusable at such a time--atthat very time I received----But it would take up an hour to tell youall particulars.--In one word, then (for I will not tire you withcircumstances), gold, the common key to all padlocks, opened my door,and set me at liberty.

  "I now made haste to Dublin, where I immediately procured a passage toEngland; and was proceeding to Bath, in order to throw myself into theprotection of my aunt, or of your father, or of any relation who wouldafford it me. My husband overtook me last night at the inn where Ilay, and which you left a few minutes before me; but I had the goodluck to escape him, and to follow you.

  "And thus, my dear, ends my history: a tragical one, I am sure, it isto myself; but, perhaps, I ought rather to apologize to you for itsdullness."

  Sophia heaved a deep sigh, and answered, "Indeed, Harriet, I pity youfrom my soul!----But what could you expect? Why, why, would you marryan Irishman?"

  "Upon my word," replied her cousin, "your censure is unjust. Thereare, among the Irish, men of as much worth and honour as any among theEnglish: nay, to speak the truth, generosity of spirit is rather morecommon among them. I have known some examples there, too, of goodhusbands; and I believe these are not very plenty in England. Ask me,rather, what I could expect when I married a fool; and I will tell youa solemn truth; I did not know him to be so."--"Can no man," saidSophia, in a very low and altered voice, "do you think, make a badhusband, who is not a fool?" "That," answered the other, "is toogeneral a negative; but none, I believe, is so likely as a fool toprove so. Among my acquaintance, the silliest fellows are the worsthusbands; and I will venture to assert, as a fact, that a man of senserarely behaves very ill to a wife who deserves very well."