The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom — Complete
part of Wilhelmina, an immediate answer to the letter he had received.
This was an expedition with which the old maiden would have willingly
dispensed, because it was founded upon an uncertainty, which might be
attended with troublesome consequences; but, rather than be the means
of retarding a negotiation so productive of that sort of mischief which
is particularly agreeable to all of her tribe, she undertook to manage
and effect the discovery, in full confidence of her own talents and
experience.
With such a fund of self-sufficiency and instigation, she repaired to
the academy on the instant, and inquiring for Mr. Fathom, was
introduced to his apartment, where she found him in the very act of
writing a billet to the jeweller’s daughter. The artful agent having
asked, with the mysterious air of an expert go-between, if he had not
lately received a message from a certain young lady, and, being
answered in the affirmative, gave him to understand, that she herself
was a person favoured with the friendship and confidence of Wilhelmina,
whom she had known from her cradle, and often dandled on her knee;
then, in the genuine style of a prattling dry nurse, she launched out
in encomiums on his Dulcinea’s beauty and sweetness of temper,
recounting many simple occurrences of her infancy and childhood; and,
finally, desiring a more circumstantial answer to that which she had
sent to him by her friend Catherina. In the course of her loquacity she
had also, according to her instructions, hinted at the misfortune of
the door; and, on the whole, performed her cue with such dexterity and
discretion that our politician was actually overreached, and, having
finished his epistle, committed it to her care, with many verbal
expressions of eternal love and fidelity to his charming Wilhelmina.
The messenger, doubly rejoiced at her achievement, which not only
recommended her ministry, but also gratified her malice, returned to
her principal with great exultation, and, delivering the letter, the
reader will easily conceive the transports of that lady when she read
the contents of it in these words:—
“ANGELIC WILHELMINA!—To forget those ecstatic scenes we have enjoyed
together, or even live without the continuation of that mutual bliss,
were to quit all title to perception, and resign every hope of future
happiness. No! my charmer, while my head retains the least spark of
invention, and my heart glows with the resolution of a man, our
correspondence shall not be cut off by the machinations of an envious
stepmother, who never had attractions to inspire a generous passion;
and, now that age and wrinkles have destroyed what little share of
beauty she once possessed, endeavours, like the fiend in paradise, to
blast those joys in others, from which she is herself eternally
excluded. Doubt not, dear sovereign of my soul! that I will study, with
all the eagerness of desiring love, how to frustrate her malicious
intention, and renew those transporting moments, the remembrance of
which now warms the breast of your ever constant FATHOM.”
Had our hero murdered her father, or left her a disconsolate widow, by
effecting the death of her dear husband, there might have been a
possibility of her exerting the Christian virtues of resignation and
forgiveness; but such a personal outrage as that contained in this
epistle precluded all hope of pardon, and rendered penitence of no
signification. His atrocious crime being now fully ascertained, this
virago gave a loose to her resentment, which became so loud and
tempestuous, that her informer shuddered at the storm she had raised,
and began to repent of having communicated the intelligence which
seemed to have such a violent effect upon her brain.
She endeavoured, however, to allay the agitation, by flattering her
fancy with the prospect of revenge, and gradually soothed her into a
state of deliberate ire; during which she determined to take ample
vengeance on the delinquent. In the zenith of her rage, she would have
had immediate recourse to poison or steel, had she not been diverted
from her mortal purpose by her counsellor, who represented the danger
of engaging in such violent measures, and proposed a more secure
scheme, in the execution of which she would see the perfidious wretch
sufficiently punished, without any hazard to her own person or
reputation. She advised her to inform the jeweller of Fathom’s efforts
to seduce her conjugal fidelity, and impart to him a plan, by which he
would have it in his power to detect our adventurer in the very act of
practising upon her virtue.
The lady relished her proposal, and actually resolved to make an
assignation with Ferdinand, as usual, and give notice of the
appointment to her husband, that he might personally discover the
treachery of his pretended friend, and inflict upon him such
chastisement as the German’s brutal disposition should suggest, when
inflamed by that species of provocation. Had this project been brought
to bear, Ferdinand, in all likelihood, would have been disqualified
from engaging in any future intrigue; but fate ordained that the design
should be defeated, in order to reserve him for more important
occasions.
Before the circumstances of the plan could be adjusted, it was his good
fortune to meet his Dulcinea in the street, and, in the midst of their
mutual condolence on the interruption they had suffered in their
correspondence, he assured her, that he would never give his invention
respite, until he should have verified the protestations contained in
the letter he had delivered to her discreet agent. This allusion to a
billet she had never received, did not fail to alarm her fears, and
introduce a very mortifying explanation, in which he so accurately
described the person of the messenger, that she forthwith comprehended
the plot, and communicated to our hero her sentiments on that subject.
Though he expressed infinite anxiety and chagrin at this misfortune,
which could not fail to raise new obstacles to their love, his heart
was a stranger to the uneasiness he affected; and rather pleased with
the occasion, which would furnish him with pretences to withdraw
himself gradually from an intercourse by this time become equally
cloying and unprofitable. Being well acquainted with the mother’s
temperament, he guessed the present situation of her thoughts, and
concluding she would make the jeweller a party in her revenge, he
resolved from that moment to discontinue his visits, and cautiously
guard against any future interview with the lady whom he had rendered
so implacable.
It was well for our adventurer that his good fortune so seasonably
interposed; for that same day, in the afternoon, he was favoured with a
billet from the jeweller’s wife, couched in the same tender style she
had formerly used, and importing an earnest desire of seeing him next
day at the wonted rendezvous. Although his penetration was sufficient
to perceive the drift of this message, or at least to discern the risk
he should run in complying with her request, yet he was willing to be
more fully certified of the truth of his suspicion, and wrote an answer
to the billet, in which he assured her, that he would repair to the
place of appointment with all the punctuality of an impatient lover.
Nevertheless, instead of performing this promise, he, in the morning,
took post in a public-house opposite to the place of assignation, in
order to reconnoitre the ground, and about noon had the pleasure of
seeing the German, wrapped in a cloak, enter the door of his wife’s
she-friend, though the appointment was fixed at five in the evening.
Fathom blessed his good angel for having conducted him clear of this
conspiracy, and kept his station with great tranquillity till the hour
of meeting, when he beheld his enraged Thalestris take the same route,
and enjoyed her disappointment with ineffable satisfaction.
Thus favoured with a pretext, he took his leave of her, in a letter,
giving her to understand, that he was no stranger to the barbarous
snare she had laid for him; and upbraiding her with having made such an
ungrateful return for all his tenderness and attachment. She was not
backward in conveying a reply to this expostulation, which seemed to
have been dictated in all the distraction of a proud woman who sees her
vengeance baffled, as well as her love disdained. Her letter was
nothing but a succession of reproaches, menaces, and incoherent
execrations. She taxed him with knavery, insensibility, and
dissimulation; imprecated a thousand curses upon his head, and
threatened not only to persecute his life with all the arts that hell
and malice could inspire, but also to wound him in the person of her
daughter-in-law, who should be enclosed for life in a convent, where
she should have leisure to repent of those loose and disorderly
practices which he had taught her to commit, and of which she could not
pretend innocence, as they had it in their power to confront her with
the evidence of her lover’s own confession. Yet all this denunciation
was qualified with an alternative, by which he was given to understand,
that the gates of mercy were still open, and that penitence was capable
of washing out the deepest stain of guilt.
Ferdinand read the whole remonstrance with great composure and
moderation, and was content to incur the hazard of her hate, rather
than put her to the trouble of making such an effort of generosity, as
would induce her to forgive the heinous offence he had committed; nor
did his apprehension for Wilhelmina in the least influence his
behaviour on this occasion. So zealous was he for her spiritual
concerns, that he would have been glad to hear she had actually taken
the veil; but he knew such a step was not at all agreeable to her
disposition, and that no violence would be offered to her inclinations
on that score, unless her stepmother should communicate to the father
that letter of Fathom’s which she had intercepted, and by which the
German would be convinced of his daughter’s backsliding; but this
measure, he rightly supposed, the wife would not venture to take, lest
the husband, instead of taking her advice touching the young lady,
should seek to compromise the affair, by offering her in marriage to
her debaucher, a proffer which, if accepted, would overwhelm the mother
with vexation and despair. He therefore chose to trust to the effects
of lenient time, which he hoped would gradually weaken the resentment
of this Penthesilea, and dissolve his connexion with the other parts of
the family, from which he longed to be totally detached.
How well soever he might have succeeded in his attempts to shake off
the yoke of the mother, who by her situation in life was restrained
from prosecuting those measures her resentment had planned against his
fortitude and indifference, he would have found greater difficulty than
he had foreseen, in disengaging himself from the daughter, whose
affections he had won under the most solemn professions of honour and
fidelity, and who, now she was debarred of his company and
conversation, and in danger of losing him for ever, had actually taken
the resolution of disclosing the amour to her father, that he might
interpose in behalf of her peace and reputation, and secure her
happiness by the sanction of the church.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
OUR HERO DEPARTS FROM VIENNA, AND QUITS THE DOMAIN OF VENUS FOR THE
ROUGH FIELD OF MARS.
Luckily for our adventurer, before she adhered to this determination,
the young Count de Melvil was summoned to Presburg by his father, who
desired to see him, before he should take the field, in consequence of
a rupture between the Emperor and the French King; and Fathom of course
quitted Vienna, in order to attend his patron, after he and Renaldo had