Excuse us, my dear Nephew, I beseech you, to my dearest kinswoman. One
night cannot break squares: for here Miss Montague has been taken
violently ill with three fainting fits, one after another. The hurry of
her joy, I believe, to find your dear lady so much surpass all
expectations, [never did family love, you know, reign so strong as
among us,] and the too eager desire she had to attend her, have
occasioned it! For she has but weak spirits, poor girl! well as she
looks.
If she be better, we will certainly go with you tomorrow morning, after
we have breakfasted with her, at your lodgings. But whether she be, or
not, I will do myself the pleasure to attend your lady to Hampstead;
and will be with you for that purpose about nine in the morning. With
due compliments to your most worthily beloved, I am
Your’s affectionately, ELIZAB. LAWRANCE.
Faith and troth, Jack, I know not what to do with myself; for here,
just now having sent in the above note by Dorcas, out came my beloved
with it in her hand, in a fit of phrensy!—true, by my soul!
She had indeed complained of her head all the evening.
Dorcas ran to me, out of breath, to tell me, that her lady was coming
in some strange way; but she followed her so quick, that the frighted
wench had not time to say in what way.
It seems, when she read the billet—Now indeed, said she, am I a lost
creature! O the poor Clarissa Harlowe!
She tore off her head-clothes; inquired where I was; and in she came,
her shining tresses flowing about her neck; her ruffles torn, and
hanging in tatters about her snowy hands, with her arms spread out—her
eyes wildly turned, as if starting from their orbits—down sunk she at
my feet, as soon as she approached me; her charming bosom heaving to
her uplifted face; and clasping her arms about my knees, Dear Lovelace,
said she, if ever—if ever—if ever—and, unable to speak another word,
quitting her clasping hold—down—prostrate on the floor sunk she,
neither in a fit nor out of one.
I was quite astonished.—All my purposes suspended for a few moments, I
knew neither what to say, nor what to do. But, recollecting myself, am
I again, thought I, in a way to be overcome, and made a fool of!—If I
now recede, I am gone for ever.
I raised her; but down she sunk, as if quite disjointed—her limbs
failing her—yet not in a fit neither. I never heard of or saw such a
dear unaccountable; almost lifeless, and speechless too for a few
moments; what must her apprehensions be at that moment?—And for
what?—An high-notioned dear soul!—Pretty ignorance!—thought I.
Never having met with so sincere, so unquestionable a repugnance, I was
staggered—I was confounded—yet how should I know that it would be so
till I tried?—And how, having proceeded thus far, could I stop, were I
not to have had the women to goad me on, and to make light of
circumstances, which they pretended to be better judges of than I?
I lifted her, however, into a chair, and in words of disordered
passion, told her, all her fears were needless—wondered at them—begged
of her to be pacified—besought her reliance on my faith and honour—and
revowed all my old vows, and poured forth new ones.
At last, with a heart-breaking sob, I see, I see, Mr. Lovelace, in
broken sentences she spoke—I see, I see—that at last—I am
ruined!—Ruined, if your pity—let me implore your pity!—and down on her
bosom, like a half-broken-stalked lily top-heavy with the overcharging
dews of the morning, sunk her head, with a sigh that went to my heart.
All I could think of to re-assure her, when a little recovered, I said.
Why did I not send for their coach, as I had intimated? It might return
in the morning for the ladies.
I had actually done so, I told her, on seeing her strange uneasiness.
But it was then gone to fetch a doctor for Miss Montague, lest his
chariot should not be so ready.
Ah! Lovelace! said she, with a doubting face; anguish in her imploring
eye.
Lady Betty would think it very strange, I told her, if she were to know
it was so disagreeable to her to stay one night for her company in the
house where she had passed so many.
She called me names upon this—she had called me names before.—I was
patient.
Let her go to Lady Betty’s lodgings then; directly go; if the person I
called Lady Betty was really Lady Betty.
If, my dear! Good Heaven! What a villain does that IF show you believe
me to be!
I cannot help it—I beseech you once more, let me go to Mrs. Leeson’s,
if that IF ought not to be said.
Then assuming a more resolute spirit—I will go! I will inquire my
way!—I will go by myself!—and would have rushed by me.
I folded my arms about her to detain her; pleading the bad way I heard
poor Charlotte was in; and what a farther concern her impatience, if
she went, would give to poor Charlotte.
She would believe nothing I said, unless I would instantly order a
coach, (since she was not to have Lady Betty’s, nor was permitted to go
to Mrs. Leeson’s,) and let her go in it to Hampstead, late as it was,
and all alone, so much the better; for in the house of people of whom
Lady Betty, upon inquiry, had heard a bad character, [Dropt foolishly
this, by my prating new relation, in order to do credit to herself, by
depreciating others,] every thing, and every face, looking with so much
meaning vileness, as well as my own, [thou art still too sensible,
thought I, my charmer!] she was resolved not to stay another night.
Dreading what might happen as to her intellects, and being very
apprehensive that she might possibly go through a great deal before
morning, (though more violent she could not well be with the worst she
dreaded,) I humoured her, and ordered Will. to endeavour to get a coach
directly, to carry us to Hampstead; I cared not at what price.
Robbers, with whom I would have terrified her, she feared not—I was all
her fear, I found; and this house her terror: for I saw plainly that
she now believed that Lady Betty and Miss Montague were both impostors.
But her mistrust is a little of the latest to do her service!
And, O Jack, the rage of love, the rage of revenge is upon me! by turns
they tear me! The progress already made—the women’s instigations—the
power I shall have to try her to the utmost, and still to marry her, if
she be not to be brought to cohabitation—let me perish, Belford, if she
escape me now!
Will. is not yet come back. Near eleven.
Will. is this moment returned. No coach to be got, either for love or
money.
Once more she urges—to Mrs. Leeson’s, let me go, Lovelace! Good
Lovelace, let me go to Mrs. Leeson’s? What is Miss Montague’s illness
to my terror?—-For the Almighty’s sake, Mr. Lovelace!—her hands
clasped.
O my angel! What a wildness is this! Do you know, do you see, my
dearest life, what appearances your causeless apprehensions have given
you?—Do you know it is past eleven o’clock?
Twelve, one, two, three, four—any hour, I care not—If you mean me
honourably, let me go out of this hated house!
Thou’lt observe, Belford, that though this was written afterwards, yet,
(as in other places,) I write it as it was spoken and happened, as if I
had retired to put down every sentence spoken. I know thou likest this
lively present-tense manner, as it is one of my peculiars.
Just as she had repeated the last words, If you mean me honourably, let
me go out of this hated house, in came Mrs. Sinclair, in a great
ferment—And what, pray, Madam, has this house done to you? Mr.
Lovelace, you have known me some time; and, if I have not the niceness
of this lady, I hope I do not deserve to be treated thus!
She set her huge arms akimbo: Hoh! Madam, let me tell you that I am
amazed at your freedoms with my character! And, Mr. Lovelace, [holding
up, and violently shaking her head,] if you are a gentleman, and a man
of honour——
Having never before seen any thing but obsequiousness in this woman,
little as she liked her, she was frighted at her masculine air, and
fierce look—God help me! cried she—what will become of me now! Then,
turning her head hither and thither, in a wild kind of amaze. Whom have
I for a protector! What will become of me now!
I will be your protector, my dearest love!—But indeed you are
uncharitably severe upon poor Mrs. Sinclair! Indeed you are!—She is a
gentlewoman born, and the relict of a man of honour; and though left in
such circumstance as to oblige her to let lodgings, yet would she scorn
to be guilty of a wilful baseness.
I hope so—it may be so—I may be mistaken—but—but there is no crime, I
presume, no treason, to say I don’t like her house.
The old dragon straddled up to her, with her arms kemboed again—her
eye-brows erect, like the bristles upon a hog’s back, and, scouling
over her shortened nose, more than half-hid her ferret eyes. Her mouth
was distorted. She pouted out her blubber-lips, as if to bellows up
wind and sputter into her horse-nostrils; and her chin was curdled, and
more than usually prominent with passion.
With two Hoh-Madams she accosted the frighted fair-one; who, terrified,
caught hold of my sleeve.
I feared she would fall into fits; and, with a look of indignation,
told Mrs. Sinclair that these apartments were mine; and I could not
imagine what she meant, either by listening to what passed between me
and my spouse, or to come in uninvited; and still more I wondered at
her giving herself these strange liberties.
I may be to blame, Jack, for suffering this wretch to give herself
these airs; but her coming in was without my orders.
The old beldam, throwing herself into a chair, fell a blubbering and
exclaiming. And the pacifying of her, and endeavouring to reconcile the
lady to her, took up till near one o’clock.
And thus, between terror, and the late hour, and what followed, she was
diverted from the thoughts of getting out of the house to Mrs.
Leeson’s, or any where else.