Chapter VI: Letter LVI: From Miss Cowley to Miss Hardcastle

I am truly rejoiced, my Lucy, to know that the manuscript is safe in your hands, having had on my spirits a dread of its miscarrying. You know not the comfort you administered to poor Lady Maclairn by your letter of Saturday’s post. She suspected, by my lenity, that I was but a poor casuist in matters of conscience; and that I was more solicitous to banish her sorrows, than to probe the cause from which they spring; but since you agree with me in asserting, that it is your decided opinion, there can be no criminality in a concealment which secures to the innocent peace and security; I find she listens to me with more confidence; and I hope in time to convince her, that to disclose a secret which cannot produce, either directly or indirectly, any beneficial effect to those who must, on the contrary, suffer from such a disclosure, would partake more of folly than wisdom.

In this conclusion I am guided by the best light my understanding offers me: moreover, I cannot help placing in the balance, the whole train of events which have led astray from the paths of rectitude, a mind constituted like Lady Maclairn’s; and I am disposed to believe, that she will be exculpated by an unerring Judge, for those deviations to which she has been betrayed, by the treachery and oppression of others, more culpable than herself. Although falsehood is never to be excused, yet the caution of wisdom may surely suggest, without a crime, the reasonableness and utility of suppressing that “_truth_ which ought not to be spoken at all times;” the produce which regulates our zeal, and imposes silence, is no violation of truth. These are my arguments with poor Lady Maclairn; I even go farther, Lucy; for I insist, that she has _for years_ been practising the most heroic virtues by suffering in silence, to preserve the peace and tranquillity of her husband and son.

But, my dear friend, if such be the penalty annexed to the concealment of error and duplicity by an ingenuous mind, even when that concealment is qualified by the powerful motives of preserving the peace and interest of all around us, what, I ask, must be the horrors of the mind, which covers, with a veil of darkness, the fraud intended to ruin the innocent, to betray the unsuspecting, and to defraud the ignorant? What must be the state and condition of those whose life is a _lie_? I cannot form a more appalling idea of a state of future punishment, than in the contemplation of the hypocrite’s terrors even in this life. What must be the life of a person, whom deceit and treachery have made responsible for his safety to a confederate, as depraved and dishonest as himself; living under the dread of the chance of every moment for open detection; harassed with the conviction that a more immediate interest, or more specious promises, will convert the sharer of his crimes into an informer and accuser, whom he dares not confront? What can equal the pang which must at times pierce his bosom when he recollects, that he enjoys the confidence and favour of his fellow creatures, only because they do not know him for a monster to be shunned! But I must check this train of thought.

Lady Maclairn thanks you for your soothing letter. Her mind is relieved by the participation of its burden. She can now, to use her own words, live without devouring her griefs, lest they should be seen. Sir Murdoch smiles and tells her, she is his rival with Rachel Cowley. We shall yet be more comfortable I trust.

I enclose for your amusement and _Mary’s perusal_, a letter we received on Monday from Mr. Serge. Well may this poor man apply to himself the words of the son of Sirach!

“The father waketh for the daughter when no man knoweth, and the care for her taketh away sleep when she is young, lest she pass away the flower of her age; and being married, lest she should be hated.” I only regret that Mr. Serge did not study the same author, or at least one as wise, for the means to prevent the watchfulness and parental anxiety, so admirably described in the above mentioned words: for had he understood better how to chuse a wife, he might have slept in peace. A woman without understanding can hardly be called a virtuous woman, and we well know the price of a virtuous woman is far above rubies.

Miss Flint goes on deplorably; her sufferings have subdued the baronet, who sees with augmenting admiration the unremitting attentions of his “excellent Harriet.” Even Malcolm relents, and this morning most cordially wished his mother to urge her to send for advice to London, thinking her case a chirurgical one.

I am growing somewhat displeased with the winds and waves; but I remember _Canute_, and submit to a power which I cannot control. Mrs. Allen sends her love; she is constantly engaged with her invalid. Miss Flint is not easy without her.

I remain, faithfully your’s,
RACHEL COWLEY.