_ a year for
six years, on condition of her not being married during that time. The
fact has suggested various speculations, but was, perhaps, only a part
of some family arrangement, made convenient by the diminished fortunes
of the ladies. Whatever the history, Pope gradually became attached to
Martha, and simultaneously came to regard Teresa with antipathy. Martha,
in fact, became by degrees almost a member of his household. His
correspondents take for granted that she is his regular companion. He
writes of her to Gay, in 1730, as "a friend--a woman friend, God help
me!--with whom I have spent three or four hours a day these fifteen
years." In his last years, when he was most dependent upon kindness, he
seems to have expected that she should be invited to any house which he
was himself to visit. Such a close connexion naturally caused some
scandal. In 1725, he defends himself against "villanous lying tales" of
this kind to his old friend Caryll, with whom the Blounts were
connected. At the same time he is making bitter complaints of Teresa. He
accused her afterwards (1729) of having an intrigue with a married man,
of "striking, pinching, and abusing her mother to the utmost
shamefulness." The mother, he thinks, is too meek to resent this
tyranny, and Martha, as it appears, refuses to believe the reports
against her sister. Pope audaciously suggests that it would be a good
thing if the mother could be induced to retire to a convent, and is
anxious to persuade Martha to leave so painful a home.
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