I find I am a very sad creature, and did not know it. I wrote not to my
brother. To you, Sir, I wrote. From you I hope the honour of an answer.
No one reveres her uncle more than I do. Nevertheless, between uncle and
niece, excludes not such a hope: and I think I have not made a proposal
that deserves to be treated with scorn.
Forgive me, Sir--my heart is full. Perhaps one day you may think you
have been prevailed upon (for that is plainly the case!) to join to
treat me--as I do not deserve to be treated. If you are ashamed, as my
brother hints, of having expressed any returning tenderness to me, God
help me! I see I have no mercy to expect from any body! But, Sir, from
your pen let me have an answer; I humbly implore it of you. Till my
brother can recollect what belongs to a sister, I will not take from him
no answer to the letter I wrote to you, nor any commands whatever.
I move every body!--This, Sir, is what you are pleased to mention. But
whom have I moved?--One person in the family has more moving ways than I
have, or he could never so undeservedly have made every body ashamed to
show tenderness to a poor distressed child of the same family.
Return me not this with contempt, or torn, or unanswered, I beseech you.
My father has a title to do that or any thing by his child: but from no
other person in the world of your sex, Sir, ought a young creature of
mine (while she preserves a supplicating spirit) to be so treated.
When what I have before written in the humblest strain has met with such
strange constructions, I am afraid that this unguarded scrawl will be
very ill received. But I beg, Sir, you will oblige me with one line, be
it ever so harsh, in answer to my proposal. I still think it ought to
be attended to. I will enter into the most solemn engagements to make it
valid by a perpetual single life. In a word, any thing I can do, I will
do, to be restored to all your favours. More I cannot say, but that I
am, very undeservedly,
A most unhappy creature.
Betty scrupled again to carry this letter; and said, she should have
anger; and I should have it returned in scraps and bits.
I must take that chance, said I: I only desire that you will deliver it
as directed.
Sad doings! very sad! she said, that young ladies should so violently
set themselves against their duty.
I told her, she should have the liberty to say what she pleased, so she
would but be my messenger that one time: and down she went with it.
I bid her, if she could, slide it into my uncle's hand, unseen; at least
unseen by my brother or sister, for fear it should meet, through their
good office, with the fate she had bespoken for it.
She would not undertake for that, she said.
I am now in expectation of the result. But having so little ground to
hope for their favour or mercy, I opened Mr. Lovelace's letter.
I would send it to you, my dear (as well as those I shall enclose) by
this conveyance; but not being able at present to determine in what
manner I shall answer it, I will give myself the trouble of abstracting
it here, while I am waiting for what may offer from the letter just
carried down.
'He laments, as usual, my ill opinion of him, and readiness to believe
every thing to his disadvantage. He puts into plain English, as I
supposed he would, my hint, that I might be happier, if, by any rashness
he might be guilty of to Solmes, he should come to an untimely end
himself.'
He is concerned, he says, 'That the violence he had expressed on his
extreme apprehensiveness of losing me, should have made him guilty of
any thing I had so much reason to resent.'
He owns, 'That he is passionate: all good-natured men, he says, are so;
and a sincere man cannot hide it.' But appeals to me, 'Whether, if any
occasion in the world could excuse the rashness of his expressions, it
would not be his present dreadful situation, through my indifference,
and the malice of his enemies.'
He says, 'He has more reason than ever, from the contents of my last,
to apprehend, that I shall be prevailed upon by force, if not by fair
means, to fall in with my brother's measures; and sees but too plainly,
that I am preparing him to expect it.
'Upon this presumption, he supplicates, with the utmost earnestness,
that I will not give way to the malice of his enemies.
'Solemn vows of reformation, and everlasting truth and obligingness,
he makes; all in the style of desponding humility: yet calls it a cruel
turn upon him, to impute his protestations to a consciousness of the
necessity there is for making them from his bad character.
'He despises himself, he solemnly protests, for his past follies. He
thanks God he has seen his error; and nothing but my more particular
instructions is wanting to perfect his reformation.
'He promises, that he will do every thing that I shall think he can do
with honour, to bring about a reconciliation with my father; and even
will, if I insist upon it, make the first overtures to my brother, and
treat him as his own brother, because he is mine, if he will not by new
affronts revive the remembrance of the past.
'He begs, in the most earnest and humble manner, for one half-hour's
interview; undertaking by a key, which he owns he has to the
garden-door, leading into the coppice, as we call it, (if I will but
unbolt the door,) to come into the garden at night, and wait till I have
an opportunity to come to him, that he may re-assure me of the truth of
all he writes, and of the affection, and, if needful, protection, of all
his family.
'He presumes not, he says, to write by way of menace to me; but if I
refuse him this favour, he knows not (so desperate have some strokes in
my letter made him) what his despair may make him do.'
He asks me, 'Determined, as my friends are, and far as they have already
gone, and declare they will go, what can I propose to do, to avoid
having Mr. Solmes, if I am carried to my uncle Antony's; unless I
resolve to accept of the protection he has offered to procure me; or
except I will escape to London, or elsewhere, while I can escape?'
He advises me, 'To sue to your mother, for her private reception of
me; only till I can obtain possession of my own estate, and procure my
friends to be reconciled to me; which he is sure they will be desirous
to be, the moment I am out of their power.'
He apprizes me, [It is still my wonder, how he comes by this
intelligence!] 'That my friends have written to my cousin Morden to
represent matters to him in their own partial way; nor doubt they to
influence him on their side of the question.
'That all this shews I have but one way; if none of my friends or
intimates will receive me.
'If I will transport him with the honour of my choice of this one way,
settlements shall be drawn, with proper blanks, which I shall fill up as
I pleased. Let him but have my commands from my own mouth, all my doubts
and scruples from my own lips; and only a repetition, that I will not,
on any consideration, be Solmes's wife; and he shall be easy. But, after
such a letter as I have written, nothing but an interview can make him
so.' He beseeches me therefore, 'To unbolt the door, as that very night;
or, if I receive not this time enough, this night;--and he will, in a
disguise that shall not give suspicion who he is, if he should be seen,
come to the garden door, in hopes to open it with his key; nor will he
have any other lodging than in the coppice both nights; watching every
wakeful hour for the propitious unbolting, unless he has a letter with
my orders to the contrary, or to make some other appointment.'
This letter was dated yesterday: so he was there last night, I suppose;
and will be there this night; and I have not written a line to him: and
now it is too late, were I determined what to write.
I hope he will not go to Mr. Solmes.--I hope he will not come
hither.--If he do either, I will break with him for ever.
What have I to do with these headstrong spirits? I wish I had never--but
what signifies wishing?--I am strangely perplexed: but I need not have
told you this, after such a representation of my situation.