Posted on 2008-10-08

Dear Mother,

I hope my letter finds you in the best of health, enjoying the society of Bath. You will forgive me if I do not visit you presently, but I find there are too many unpleasant memories from my last visit, when I intended to bring you to London to have my entire new family together for the first time.

By the time you read this, I will be gone from Sotherton Court forever. The estate has truly become a prison to me after all that has happened. If I were a greater man, I could rise above all this and lose myself in those improvements to the house and grounds that I sought to make before my marriage to Maria, and in taking care of all those whose livelihood depends on us. However, I find I no longer have any spirit for any of it. I can no longer bear the knowing looks, sometimes of pity and often of disdain, that I receive from all I encounter, even from our neighbours' servants. My former brother Edmund, now the Reverend Bertram and a recently married man, used to say that if I had not twelve thousand pounds a year, I would be a rather stupid fellow. Even with those pounds, I now feel that he has the right of it, and everyone else shares his opinion. To all and sundry within twenty miles, I am nothing but a fat cuckold with no knowledge beyond hunting and food. I wish I had sought to learn more as a youth; indeed, someone should establish a school for estate management somewhere. It would be a great service to many in the country, rather than reading the classics and being told to leave everything to the steward.

I find myself regretting many words and actions of mine. If only that blasted Mr. Crawford had come to Mansfield before I proposed to Maria, they might have become content with each other, without involving any others, or a flirtation between them might have run its course. I brought the man to our home because I wished for his opinions on the improvements, and in return he placed me in the scandal sheet. In jealousy over how universally well-liked he was, I told Miss Price, now Mrs. Bertram, that his society and that of his sister were no true addition to our neighbourhood and disparaged him for his short stature and his features; little did I know that they were to be preferred to mine.

Why did Maria marry me? Was it because of her aunt Norris's notion that it was now time for her to marry, and she might as well be married close by? Or was it because of the house in town and the land attached to my name? Many others could have fulfilled such requirements. Alas, I must now accept the fact that besides not loving me -- which our society rarely expects to happen -- she did not even like or respect me at the time of our marriage, possibly even earlier, such as the time of the preparations for the play, when I found it difficult to learn my speeches. Truly -- I am not completely ignorant of scandals -- if Maria had been discreet in her unfaithfulness, or at least slightly respectful in it, I would not have begrudged her another man if she could still show some degree of attachment and devotion to me, if we could still form a family. Do I shock you? I was so besotted with her charms that even to retain a part of her attentions would have been preferable to me than solitude. But to leave me in this manner, to make me the talk of all the clubs and papers, showed only one thing: that indeed she thought nothing of me as a husband, and wanted nothing of me. Sir Thomas, the only man who has been sincere towards me, could not convince me to take her back, and she did not attempt it herself. Even if she claimed to regret the entire misadventure, and promised me her absolute love from that point on, I doubt that I could accept. Or maybe only in that way I could. Perhaps this occurred earlier and I failed to understand it, but I have no wish to be constantly mocked by acquaintance and stranger alike.

Which brings me to the present. I have made arrangements with Mr. Wheeler and will shortly be selling the house in Wimpole Street, and that in Brighton as well, the site of a honeymoon that never should have been. As for Sotherton, I have no wish to return. If you agree, my cousins may take it as theirs, even tomorrow. I called it a prison before, when I was eager for improvements like those made at Compton, but then I had no idea what a prison truly was. Even to go to church here is unbearable. I shall establish myself in a new location, where no one has known me until now and therefore none are aware of my shame. Do not ask me to join you in Bath, for too much of London society ventures there. I shall write to Sir Thomas to enquire about Antigua. Mayhap Mr. Roderick would allow me to join his son in the British Honduras. Otherwise, I will seek out some remote corner of the kingdom, and hopefully find some way to pass my bachelorhood, for I have lost my taste for marriage. Once I have some plan, I will write to you again.

Your dutiful son,

James Rushworth