Mrs. Moore looked awry, and with a leer at Miss Rawlins, as to her
partner in the hinted-at reference.
Miss Rawlins looked down as well as I; her eyelids half closed, as if
mumbling a pater-noster, meditating her snuff-box, the distance between
her nose and chin lengthened by a close-shut mouth.
She put me in mind of the pious Mrs. Fetherstone at Oxford, whom I
pointed out to thee once, among other grotesque figures, at St. Mary's
church, whither we went to take a view of her two sisters: her eyes shut,
not daring to trust her heart with them open; and but just half-rearing
her lids, to see who the next comer was; and falling them again, when her
curiosity was satisfied.
The widow Bevis gazed, as if on the hunt for a secret.
The Captain looked archly, as if half in the possession of one.
Mrs. Moore at last broke the bashful silence. Mrs. Lovelace's behaviour,
she said, could be no otherwise so well accounted for, as by the ill
offices of that Miss Howe; and by the severity of her relations; which
might but too probably have affected her head a little at times: adding,
that it was very generous in me to give way to the storm when it was up,
rather than to exasperate at such a time.
But let me tell you, Sirs, said the widow Bevis, that is not what one
husband in a thousand would have done.
I desired, that no part of this conversation might be hinted to my
spouse; and looked still more bashfully. Her great fault, I must own,
was over-delicacy.
The Captain leered round him; and said, he believed he could guess from
the hints I had given him in town (of my over-love) and from what had now
passed, that we had not consummated our marriage.
O Jack! how sheepishly then looked, or endeavoured to look, thy friend!
how primly goody Moore! how affectedly Miss Rawlins!--while the honest
widow Bevis gazed around her fearless; and though only simpering with her
mouth, her eyes laughed outright, and seemed to challenge a laugh from
every eye in the company.
He observed, that I was a phoenix of a man, if so; and he could not but
hope that all matters would be happily accommodated in a day or two; and
that then he should have the pleasure to aver to her uncle, that he was
present, as he might say, on our wedding-day.
The women seemed all to join in the same hope.
Ah, Captain! Ah, Ladies! how happy should I be, if I could bring my dear
spouse to be of the same mind!
It would be a very happy conclusion of a very knotty affair, said the
widow Bevis; and I see not why we may not make this very night a merry
one.
The Captain superciliously smiled at me. He saw plainly enough, he said,
that we had been at children's play hitherto. A man of my character, who
could give way to such a caprice as this, must have a prodigious value
for his lady. But one thing he would venture to tell me; and that was
this--that, however desirous young skittish ladies might be to have their
way in this particular, it was a very bad setting-out for the man; as it
gave his bride a very high proof of the power she had over him: and he
would engage, that no woman, thus humoured, ever valued the man the more
for it; but very much the contrary--and there were reasons to be given
why she should not.
Well, well, Captain, no more of this subject before the ladies.--One
feels [shrugging my shoulders in a bashful try-to-blush manner] that one
is so ridiculous--I have been punished enough for my tender folly.
Miss Rawlins had taken her fan, and would needs hide her face behind it--
I suppose because her blush was not quite ready.
Mrs. Moore hemmed, and looked down; and by that gave her's over.
While the jolly widow, laughing out, praised the Captain as one of
Hudibras's metaphysicians, repeating,
He knew what's what, and that's as high
As metaphysic wit can fly.
This made Miss Rawlins blush indeed:--Fie, fie, Mrs. Bevis! cried she,
unwilling, I suppose, to be thought absolutely ignorant.
Upon the whole, I began to think that I had not made a bad exchange of
our professing mother, for the unprofessing Mrs. Moore. And indeed the
women and I, and my beloved too, all mean the same thing: we only differ
about the manner of coming at the proposed end.