Come, come, now you have broke in upon us, you may stay--But another
time, when you know me to be retired with a friend so dear to me, let it
enter into your head, that no third person, unsent for, can be welcome.
Poor man!--How he loves her!--His countenance changed at once to the
humble placid: he looked as if he had rather be in fault than she.
Oh! how little did she make him look!
But he has often, as well as in this instance, let her see her power over
him. I am afraid she will use it. I now see it is and will be his
misfortune that she can vex him without being vexed herself: and what may
he expect, who can be treated with feigned displeasure, which, while it
seems to be in earnest to him, will be a jest to his wife?
I was very angry with her, when we were alone; and told her, that she
would be an enemy, I was afraid, of her own happiness. But she only
laughed at me: Happiness, my dear! said she: that only is happiness which
we think so. If I can be as happy in my way, as you can be in yours,
shall I not pursue it? Your happiness, child, is in the still life. I
love not a dead calm: now a tempest, now a refreshing breeze, I shall
know how to enjoy the difference--My brother will not be here to turn
jest into earnest; as might perhaps be the effect of his mediation--But,
heigh-ho, Harriet! that the first week were over, and I had got into my
throne!
She ended with an Italian air, contrasted with another heigh-ho; and left
me for a few moments.
Poor Lord G----! said I, looking after her.
She returned soon. Poor Lord G----! repeated she: those were the piteous
words you threw after me--But if I should provoke him, do you think he
would not give me a cuff, or so?--You know he can't return joke for joke;
and he must revenge himself some way--If that should be the case, Poor
Charlotte, I hope you would say--
Not if you deserved it.
Deserve a cuff, Harriet!--Well, but I am afraid I shall.
Remember next Tuesday, Charlotte!--You must vow obedience--Will you break
your vow?--This is not a jesting matter.
True, Harriet. And that it is not, was perhaps one of the reasons that
made me disinclined to go to so solemn a place as the church with Lord
G----. Don't you think it one with those who insist upon being married
in their own chamber?
I believe great people, said I, think they must not do right things in
the common way: that seems to me to be one of their fantastic reasons:
but the vow is the vow, Charlotte: God is every where.
Now you are so serious, Harriet, it is time to have done with the
subject.
I have no sleep in my eyes; and must go on. What keeps me more wakeful
is, my real concern for this naughty Miss Grandison, and my pity for Lord
G----; for the instance I have given you of her petulance is nothing to
what I have seen: but I thought, so near the day, she would have changed
her behaviour to him. Surely, the situation her brother is in, without
any fault of his own, might convince her, that she need not go out of her
path to pick up subjects for unhappiness.
Such a kittenish disposition in her, I called it; for it is not so much
the love of power that predominates in her mind, as the love of
playfulness: and when the fit is upon her, she regards not whether it is
a china cup, or a cork, that she pats and tosses about. But her sport
will certainly be the death of Lord G----'s happiness. Pity that Sir
Charles, who only has power over her, is obliged to go abroad so soon!
But she has principles: Lady Grandison's daughter, Sir Charles
Grandison's sister, must have principles. The solemnity of the occasion;
the office; the church; the altar;--must strike her: The vow--Will she
not regard the vow she makes in circumstances so awful? Could but my
Lord G---- assume dignity, and mingle raillery with it, and be able to
laugh with her, and sometimes at her, she would not make him her sport:
she would find somebody else: A butt she must have to shoot at: but I am
afraid he will be too sensible of her smartness: and she will have her
jest, let who will suffer by it.
Some of the contents of your last are very agreeable to me, Lucy. I will
begin in earnest to think of leaving London. Don't let me look silly in
your eyes, my dear, when I come. It was not so very presumptuous in me
(was it?) to hope--When all his relations--When he himself--Yet what room
for hope did he, could he, give me? He was honest; and I cheated myself:
but then all you, my dearest friends, encouraged the cheat: nay, pointed
my wishes, and my hopes, by yours, before I had dared (shall I say, or
condescended?) to own them to myself.
You may let that Greville know, if you please, that there is no room for
his If's, nor, of consequence, any for his menaces. You may own, that I
shall soon be in Northamptonshire. This may prevent his and Fenwick's
threatened journey to town.
But, Lucy, though my heart has been ever dutifully, as I may say, open to
the venerable domestic circle; though it would not have been an honest
heart, could it, circumstanced as I was, have concealed itself from Lady
D----; and must have been an impenetrable one indeed, if it could have
been disguised to the two sisters here--yet, I beseech you, my dear,
almost on my knees I beseech you, let not the audacious, the insulting
Greville, have ground given him to suspect a weakness in your Harriet,
which indelicate minds know not how to judge of delicately. For
sex-sake, for example-sake, Lucy, let it not be known, to any but the
partial, friendly few, that our grand-mamma Shirley's child, and aunt
Selby's niece, has been a volunteer in her affections. How many still
more forward girls would plead Mrs. Shirley's approbation of the hasty
affection, without considering the circumstances, and the object! So the
next girl that run away to a dancing-master, or an ensign, would reckon
herself one of Harriet's school.
Poor Mr. Orme! I am sorry he is not well. It is cruel in you, Lucy, at
this time, to say, (so undoubtingly,) that his illness is owing to his
love of me. You knew that such a suggestion would pain me. Heaven
restore Mr. Orme!
But I am vexed, as it cannot be to purpose, that Sir Charles Grandison
and I have been named together, and talked of, in your neighbourhood!--He
will be gone abroad. I shall return to Northamptonshire: and shall look
so silly! So like a refused girl!
'Every body gives me to him, you say'--So much the worse. I wonder what
business this every body has to trouble itself about me.
One consolation, however, I shall have in my return; and that is, in my
Nancy's recovered health; which was so precarious when I set out for
London.
But I shall have nothing to entertain you with when I am with you: Sir
Charles Grandison, Lord and Lady L----, Lady G----, (as now in three or
four days she will be), my dear Miss Jervois, Dr. Bartlett, will be all
my subject. And have I not exhausted that by pen and ink? O no! The
doctor promises to correspond with me; and he makes no doubt but Sir
Charles will correspond with him, as usual.
What can the unusually tender friendship be called which he professed for
me, and, as I may say, claimed in return from me? I know that he has no
notion of the love called Platonic. Nor have I: I think it, in general,
a dangerous allowance; and, with regard to our sex, a very unequal one;
since, while the man has nothing to fear, the woman has every thing, from
the privileges that may be claimed, in an acknowledged confidence,
especially in presence. Miss Grandison thus interprets what he said, and
strengthens her opinion by some of Dr. Bartlett's late intimations, that
he really loves me; but not being at liberty to avow his love, he knew
not what to say; and so went as near to a declaration as was possible to
do in his circumstances.
But might I not expect, from such a profession of friendship in Sir
Charles, an offer of correspondence in absence? And if he made the
offer, ought I to decline it? Would it not indicate too much on my side,
were I to do so?--And does it not on his, if he make not the offer? He
corresponds with Mrs. Beaumont: nobody thinks that any thing can be meant
by that correspondence on either side; because Mrs. Beaumont must be at
least forty; Sir Charles but six or seven and twenty: but if he makes not
the request to Harriet, who is but little more than twenty; what, after
such professions of a friendship so tender, will be inferred from his
forbearance?
But I shall puzzle myself, and you too, Lucy, if I go on with this sort
of reasoning; because I shall not know how to put all I mean into words.
Have I not already puzzled you? I think my expression is weak and
perplexed--But this offered and accepted friendship between two persons
not indelicate, must be perplexing; since he is the only young man in the
world, from whom a woman has no dishonour to fear.--Ah, Lucy!--It would
be vanity in me, would it not? to suppose that he had more to fear from
Harriet, than she has from him; as the virtue of either, I hope, is not
questionable? But the event of his Italian visit will explain and
reconcile every thing.
I will encourage a drowsy fit that seems to be stealing upon me. If I
have not written with the perspicuity I always aim at, allow, Lucy, for
the time of night; for spirits not high; and for the subject, that having
its delicacies, as well as uncertainties, I am not able to write clearly
upon it.