The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom — Complete
the brink of the grave; when her husband returned from a neighbouring
kingdom, in consequence of her earnest request, joined to the
information of her friends, who had written to him an account of the
extremity in which she was. The good man was afflicted beyond measure
when he saw himself upon the verge of losing a wife whom he had always
tenderly loved; but what were his emotions, when she, taking the first
opportunity of his being alone with her, accosted him to this effect:
“I am now hastening towards that dissolution from which no mortal is
exempted, and though the prospect of futurity is altogether clouded and
uncertain, my conscience will not allow me to plunge into eternity
without unburdening my mind, and, by an ingenuous confession, making
all the atonement in my power for the ingratitude I have been guilty
of, and the wrongs I have committed against a virtuous husband, who
never gave me cause of complaint. You stand amazed at this preamble,
but alas! how will you be shocked when I own that I have betrayed you
in your absence, that I have trespassed against God and my marriage
vow, and fallen from the pride and confidence of virtue to the most
abject state of vice; yes, I have been unfaithful to your bed, having
fallen a victim to the infernal insinuations of a villain, who took
advantage of my weak and unguarded moments. Fathom is the wretch who
hath thus injured your honour, and ruined my unsuspecting innocence. I
have nothing to plead in alleviation of my crime but the most sincere
contrition of heart, and though, at any other juncture, I could not
expect your forgiveness, yet, as I now touch the goal of life, I trust
in your humanity and benevolence for that pardon which will lighten the
sorrows of my soul, and those prayers which I hope will entitle me to
favour at the throne of grace.”
The poor husband was so much overwhelmed with grief and confusion at
this unexpected address that he could not recollect himself till after
a pause of several minutes, when uttering a hollow groan, “I will not,”
said he, “aggravate your sufferings, by reproaching you with my wrongs,
though your conduct hath been but an ill return for all my tenderness
and esteem. I look upon it as a trial of my Christian patience, and
bear my misfortune with resignation; meanwhile, I forgive you from my
heart, and fervently pray that your repentance may be acceptable to the
Father of Mercy.” So saying, he approached her bedside, and embraced
her in token of his sincerity. Whether this generous condescension
diffused such a composure upon her spirits as tended to the ease and
refreshment of nature, which had been almost exhausted by disease and
vexation, certain it is, that from this day she began to struggle with
her malady in surprising efforts, and hourly gained ground, until her
health was pretty well re-established.
This recovery was so far beyond the husband’s expectation, that he
began to make very serious reflections on the event, and even to wish
he had not been quite so precipitate in pardoning the backslidings of
his wife; for, though he could not withhold his compassion from a dying
penitent, he did not at all relish the thoughts of cohabiting, as
usual, with a wife self-convicted of the violation of the matrimonial
contract; he therefore considered his declaration as no more than a
provisional pardon, to take place on condition of her immediate death,
and, in a little time, not only communicated to her his sentiments on
this subject, but also separated himself from her company, secured the
evidence of her maid, who had been confidant in her amour with Fathom,
and immediately set on foot a prosecution against our adventurer, whose
behaviour to his wife he did not fail to promulgate, with all its
aggravating circumstances. By these means the doctor’s name became so
notorious that every man was afraid of admitting him into his house,
and every woman ashamed of soliciting his advice.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
HIS ECLIPSE, AND GRADUAL DECLINATION.
Misfortunes seldom come single; upon the back of this hue and cry he
unluckily prescribed phlebotomy to a gentleman of some rank, who
chanced to expire during the operation, and quarrelled with his
landlord the apothecary, who charged him with having forgot the good
offices he had done him in the beginning of his career, and desired he
would provide himself with another lodging.
All these mishaps, treading upon the heels of one another, had a very
mortifying effect upon his practice. At every tea-table his name was
occasionally put to the torture, with that of the vile creature whom he
had seduced, though it was generally taken for granted by all those
female casuists, that she must have made the first advances, for it
could not be supposed that any man would take much trouble in laying
schemes for the ruin of a person whose attractions were so slender,
especially considering the ill state of her health, a circumstance that
seldom adds to a woman’s beauty or good-humour; besides, she was always
a pert minx, that affected singularity, and a masculine manner of
speaking, and many of them had foreseen that she would, some time or
other, bring herself into such a premunire. At all gossipings, where
the apothecary or his wife assisted, Fathom’s pride, ingratitude, and
malpractice were canvassed; in all clubs of married men he was
mentioned with marks of abhorrence and detestation, and every medical
coffee-house rung with his reproach. Instances of his ignorance and
presumption were quoted, and many particulars feigned for the purpose
of defamation, so that our hero was exactly in the situation of a
horseman, who, in riding at full speed for the plate, is thrown from
the saddle in the middle of the race, and left without sense or motion
upon the plain.
His progress, though rapid, had been so short, that he could not be
supposed to have laid up store against such a day of trouble, and as he
still cherished hopes of surmounting those obstacles which had so
suddenly started up in his way, he would not resign his equipage nor
retrench his expenses, but appeared as usual in all public places with
that serenity and confidence of feature which he had never deposited,
and maintained his external pomp upon the little he had reserved in the
days of his prosperity, and the credit he had acquired by the
punctuality of his former payments. Both these funds, however, failed
in a very little time, his lawsuit was a gulf that swallowed up all his
ready money, and the gleanings of his practice were scarce sufficient
to answer his pocket expenses, which now increased in proportion to the
decrease of business, for, as he had more idle time, and was less
admitted into private families, so he thought he had more occasion to
enlarge his acquaintance among his own sex, who alone were able to
support him in his disgrace with the other. He accordingly listed
himself in several clubs, and endeavoured to monopolise the venereal
branch of trade, though this was but an indifferent resource, for
almost all his patients of this class were such as either could not, or
would not, properly recompense the physician.
For some time he lingered in this situation, without going upwards or
downwards, floating like a wisp of straw at the turning of the tide,
until he could no longer amuse the person of whom he had hired his
coach-horses, or postpone the other demands, which multiplied upon him
every day. Then was his chariot overturned with a hideous crash, and
his face so much wounded with the shivers of the glass, which went to
pieces in the fall, that he appeared in the coffee-house with half a
dozen black patches upon his countenance, gave a most circumstantial
detail of the risk he had run, and declared, that he did not believe he
should ever hazard himself again in any sort of wheel carriage.
Soon after this accident, he took an opportunity of telling his
friends, in the same public place, that he had turned away his footman
on account of his drunkenness, and was resolved, for the future, to
keep none but maids in his service, because the menservants are
generally impudent, lazy, debauched, or dishonest; and after all,
neither so neat, handy, or agreeable as the other sex. In the rear of
this resolution, he shifted his lodgings into a private court, being
distracted with the din of carriages, that disturb the inhabitants who
live towards the open street; and gave his acquaintance to understand,
that he had a medical work upon the anvil, which he could not finish
without being indulged in silence and tranquillity. In effect, he
gradually put on the exteriors of an author. His watch, with an
horizontal movement by Graham, which he had often mentioned, and shown
as a very curious piece of workmanship, began, about this time, to be
very much out of order, and was committed to the care of a mender, who
was in no hurry to restore it. His tie-wig degenerated into a major; he
sometimes appeared without a sword, and was even observed in public
with a second day’s shirt. At last, his clothes became rusty; and when
he walked about the streets, his head turned round in a surprising
manner, by an involuntary motion in his neck, which he had contracted
by a habit of reconnoitring the ground, that he might avoid all
dangerous or disagreeable encounters.
Fathom, finding himself descending the hill of fortune with an acquired
gravitation, strove to catch at every twig, in order to stop or retard
his descent. He now regretted the opportunities he had neglected, of
marrying one of several women of moderate fortune, who had made
advances to him in the zenith of his reputation; and endeavoured, by
forcing himself into a lower path of life than any he had hitherto
trod, to keep himself afloat, with the portion of some tradesman’s
daughter, whom he meant to espouse. While he exerted himself in this
pursuit, he happened, in returning from a place about thirty miles from
London, to become acquainted, in the stage-coach, with a young woman of
a very homely appearance, whom, from the driver’s information, he
understood to be the niece of a country justice, and daughter of a
soap-boiler, who had lived and died in London, and left her, in her
infancy, sole heiress of his effects, which amounted to four thousand
pounds. The uncle, who was her guardian, had kept her sacred from the
knowledge of the world, resolving to effect a match betwixt her and his
own son; and it was with much difficulty he had consented to this
journey, which she had undertaken as a visit to her own mother, who had
married a second husband in town.
Fraught with these anecdotes, Fathom began to put forth his gallantry
and good-humour, and, in a word, was admitted by the lady to the
privilege of an acquaintance, in which capacity he visited her during
the term of her residence in London; and, as there was no time to be
lost, declared his honourable intentions. He had such a manifest
advantage, in point of personal accomplishments, over the young
gentleman who was destined for her husband, that she did not disdain
his proposals; and, before she set out for the country, he had made
such progress in her heart, that the day was actually fixed for their
nuptials, on which he faithfully promised to carry her off in a coach
and six. How to raise money for this expedition was all the difficulty
that remained; for, by this time, his finances were utterly dried up,
and his credit altogether exhausted. Upon a very pressing occasion, he
had formerly applied himself to a certain wealthy quack, who had
relieved his necessities by lending him a small sum of money, in return
for having communicated to him a secret medicine, which he affirmed to
be the most admirable specific that ever was invented. The nostrum had