Tales and Novels — Volume 03: BelindaEdgeworth, Maria
General
Tales and Novels — Volume 03: Belinda
Edgeworth, Maria
Courtship -- Fiction; London (England) -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
The only interest that honest people can take in the fate of rogues
is in their detection and punishment; the reader, then, will be so far
interested in the fate of Mr. Champfort, as to feel some satisfaction at
his being safely lodged in Newgate. The circumstance which led to this
desirable catastrophe was the anonymous letter to Mr. Vincent. From
the first moment that Marriott saw or heard of the letter, she was
convinced, she said, that “Mr. Champfort _was at the bottom of it_.”
Lady Delacour was equally convinced that Harriot Freke was the author of
the epistle; and she supported her opinion by observing, that Champfort
could neither write nor spell English. Marriott and her lady were both
right. It was a joint, or rather a triplicate performance. Champfort, in
conjunction with the stupid maid, furnished the intelligence, which Mrs.
Freke manufactured; and when she had put the whole into proper style and
form, Mr. Champfort got her rough draught fairly copied at his leisure,
and transmitted his copy to Mr. Vincent. Now all this was discovered by
a very slight circumstance. The letter was copied by Mr. Champfort upon
a sheet of mourning paper, off which he thought that he had carefully
cut the edges; but one bit of the black edge remained, which did not
escape Marriott’s scrutinizing eye. “Lord bless my stars! my lady,” she
exclaimed, “this must be the paper--I mean may be the paper--that Mr.
Champfort was cutting a quire of, the very day before Miss Portman left
town. It’s a great while ago, but I remember it as well as if it was
yesterday. I saw a parcel of black jags of paper littering the place,
and asked what had been going on? and was told, that it was only
Mr. Champfort who had been cutting some paper; which, to be sure, I
concluded my lord had given to him, having no further occasion for,--as
my lord and you, my lady, were just going out of mourning at that time,
as you may remember.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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