The History of Miss Betsy ThoughtlessHaywood, Eliza Fowler
General
The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless
Haywood, Eliza Fowler
Abused wives -- Fiction; Bildungsromans; Didactic fiction; England -- Fiction; Married women -- Fiction
As for the lady, the motive on which she had consented to be his wife
may easily be guessed; and when once made so, gained such an absolute
ascendancy over him, that whatever she declared as her will, with him
had the force of a law. She had an aversion to the city; he immediately
took a house of her chusing at St. James's, inconvenient as it was for
his business. Whatever servants she disapproved, though of ever so long
standing, and of the most approved fidelity, were discharged, and
others, more agreeable to her, put in their places. In fine, nothing she
desired was denied; he considered her as an oracle of wit and wisdom,
and thought it would be an unpardonable arrogance to attempt to set his
reason against hers.
This lady was no sooner informed of the trust imposed in him, than she
told him, she thought it would be highly proper for Miss Betsy to be
sent for from the school, and boarded with them, not only as her
daughter would be a fine companion for that young orphan, they being
much of the same age, and she herself was more capable of improving her
mind than any governess of a school could be supposed to be; but that,
also, having her under her own eye, he would be more able to discharge
his duty towards her as a guardian, than if she were at the distance of
near an hundred miles.
There was something in this proposal which had, indeed, the face of a
great deal of good-nature and consideration for Miss Betsy, at least it
seemed highly so to Mr. Goodman; but as Sir Ralph Trusty was joined with
him in the guardianship of that young beauty, and was at that time in
London, he thought it proper to consult him on the occasion; which
having done, and finding no objection on the part of the other, Lady
Mellasin, to shew her great complaisance to the daughter of her
husband's deceased friend, sent her own woman to bring her from the
boarding-school, and attend her up to London.
Miss Betsy had never seen this great metropolis; but had heard so much
of the gay manner in which the genteel part of the world passed their
time in it, that she was quite transported at being told she was to be
removed thither. Mrs. Prinks (for so Lady Mellasin's woman was called)
did not fail to heighten her ideas of the pleasures of the place to
which she was going, nor to magnify the goodness of her lady, in taking
her under her care, with the most extravagant encomiums: it is not,
therefore, to be wondered at, that neither the tears of the good
governess, who truly loved her, nor those of her dear Miss Forward, nor
of any of those she left behind, could give her any more than a
momentary regret to a heart so possessed with the expectations of going
to receive every thing with which youth is liable to be enchanted. She
promised, however, to keep up a correspondence by letters; which she
did, till things, that seemed to her of much more importance, put her
L----e acquaintance entirely out of her head.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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