Category: Blog Series Page 152 of 232

We left off last time being told that a great temptation was coming to Tom as another effort by Fortune to keep him away from Sophia.

It may be a great temptation, but it’s one that takes very little time or effort on his part (well, maybe some effort), and a mere 5 paragraphs—from the introduction of temptation to resolution. A rich widow who lives near the Miller residence asks Tom to court her and pretty much says she’ll make his worth his while monetarily. As he’s practically broke, this is tempting. Also, he really likes the woman, and it seems as if Sophia’s about to be out of reach really soon. He might as well, right?

But something stops him—it wouldn’t be right, so he turns her (and her money) down. “While Jones was exulting in the consciousness of his integrity,” Partridge comes in with news—he ran into an old friend, Black George. It took George a while to remember him, but once he did their friendship had been rekindled. George is in town for Blifil’s marriage to Sophia, but isn’t a fan of the man. He’ll gladly take a letter to Sophia from Tom. And so ends Book XV.

Book XVI begins with a chapter on the difficulty of writing prologues, and well, yeah…not much to say there.

Sophia refuses to consent to marry Blifil, so her father locks her in a room and then goes to drink and talk with the parson he brought along for “that evening and great part of the succeeding day, during which period nothing happened of sufficient consequence to find a place in this history.”

Then an army officer shows up to make Lord Fellamar’s proposal again. It doesn’t go well. At all and a tussle ensues. Eventually the officer leaves and Western tries again to convince Sophia to just give up and go along with this plan. She refuses again, definitively. Then she offers to stay with him, as she loves her father so much. If he’ll only stop pressuring her into an unhappy marriage, she’ll take care of him and only marry if he approves.

That doesn’t appeal to him at all. So he locks her up again,

departing with a very vulgar observation on the effect of tears…and returned to the parson, who said everything he durst in behalf of the young lady, which, though perhaps it was not quite so much as his duty required, yet was it sufficient to throw the squire into a violent rage, and into many indecent reflections on the whole body of the clergy, which we have too great an honour for that sacred function to commit to paper.

I don’t see the point of the whole Widow-throwing-herself-at-Tom Chapter, hopefully, it pays off eventually. But the other two chapters of story are pretty entertaining—full of great overly-long speeches. Still, it feels like too much time was spent spinning our wheels. I should be used to it, but it felt like momentum had been building lately. I glanced at chapter titles for the rest of Book XVI, and I think it’s going to be pretty slow, but building to something big. There’s not much left to go, things had better happen soon.

And now we’re caught back up to where we were at the end of the last book (seven chapters back)—Mrs. Honour has shown up at Mrs. Miller’s and dropped a bomb on Tom. The news that Sophia is with her father and bound to be married to Blifil—and that Hounour has lost her job—is bad, to be sure, but the way she was carrying on, Tom thought it was worse news. She’s a tad annoyed he’s not as distraught as her.

Naturally, at this point, Lady Bellaston shows up to see Tom—who forgets he’s supposed to be sick. She flirts a little, Tom doesn’t respond as he ought. Bellaston begins to push things and a very drunken Nightingale shows up. How drunk was he? He was “in that state of drunkenness which deprives men of the use of their reason without depriving them of the use of their limbs.” One more Fielding line I need to remember.

Anyway, Bellaston and Honour end up talking, the former assuring the latter that she can probably help with the job situation (so Honour forgets running into her). Bellaston then leaves.

Nightingale got away from his uncle because he had to leave town to attend to things when his daughter got married without warning. Which leaves the door open for Nancy to become Mrs. Nightingale the next day. Which is just what happens in an aptly named chapter, “Short and sweet.” Still, Fielding wraps it up saying that some readers:

will perhaps think this short chapter contains abundance of matter; while others may probably wish, short as it is, that it had been totally spared as impertinent to the main design, which I suppose they conclude is to bring Mr Jones to the gallows, or, if possible, to a more deplorable catastrophe.

The next day, Nightingale talks turkey with Tom. He’s not the first guy that Bellaston has done this to, and he’s not going to be the last. But he still needs to extract himself, and Nightingale has the plan for that: propose. The last thing she wants is to get tied down, no matter what airs she puts on.

It works, but before they can celebrate, Mrs. Miller comes in with bad news. Allworthy and Blifil are coming to town and they need her rooms—it’s a standing deal, and she’s distraught about what to do. Tom is happy to move out to relieve her of her stress (he also calls Nancy “Mrs. Nightingale.” It’s the first time she’s heard that and it brings her such joy). But that just means that this wedding is imminent, he’s going to have to do something soon. Mrs. Honour can’t help because she’s working for Bellaston now. It’s not going well for Tom, and Fielding leaves us on this note:

While Jones was terrifying himself with the apprehension of a thousand dreadful machinations, and deep political designs, which he imagined to be at the bottom of the promotion of Honour, Fortune, who hitherto seems to have been an utter enemy to his match with Sophia, tried a new method to put a final end to it, by throwing a temptation in his way, which in his present desperate situation it seemed unlikely he should be able to resist.

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So, so, so much happens here. Wow. Things are lining up for fireworks—with the original core characters in London. We’ve got nine weeks to go before we wrap up this book, and I think we’ll be at full speed ahead for it. Back next week to see just what this temptation is—will Fortune finally put an end to things for Tom and Sophia?