All done as I advised; and all is well.
Mrs. Sinclair wishes she had never seen the face of so skittish a lady;
and she and Sally are extremely pressing with me, to leave the perverse
beauty to their breaking, as they call it, for four or five days. But I
cursed them into silence; only ordering double precaution for the
future.
Polly, though she consoled the dear perverse one all she could, when
with her, insists upon it to me, that nothing but terror will procure
me tolerable usage.
Dorcas was challenged by the women upon her tears. She owned them real.
Said she was ashamed of herself: but could not help it. So sincere, so
unyielding a grief, in so sweet a lady!—
The women laughed at her; but I bid her make no apologies for her
tears, nor mind their laughing. I was glad to see them so ready. Good
use might be made of such strangers. In short, I would not have her
indulge them often, and try if it were not possible to gain her lady’s
confidence by her concern for her.
She said that her lady did take kind notice of them to her; and was
glad to see such tokens of humanity in her.
Well then, said I, your part, whether any thing come of it or not, is
to be tender-hearted. It can do no harm, if no good. But take care you
are not too suddenly, or too officiously compassionate.
So Dorcas will be a humane, good sort of creature, I believe, very
quickly with her lady. And as it becomes women to be so, and as my
beloved is willing to think highly of her own sex; it will the more
readily pass with her.
I thought to have had one trial (having gone so far) for cohabitation.
But what hope can there be of succeeding?—She is invincible!—Against
all my motions, against all my conceptions, (thinking of her as a
woman, and in the very bloom of her charms,) she is absolutely
invincible. My whole view, at the present, is to do her legal justice,
if I can but once more get her out of her altitudes.
The consent of such a woman must make her ever new, ever charming. But
astonishing! Can the want of a church-ceremony make such a difference!
She owes me her consent; for hitherto I have had nothing to boast of.
All of my side, has been deep remorse, anguish of mind, and love
increased rather than abated.
How her proud rejection stings me!—And yet I hope still to get her to
listen to my stories of the family-reconciliation, and of her uncle and
Capt. Tomlinson—and as she has given me a pretence to detain her
against her will, she must see me, whether in temper or not.—She cannot
help it. And if love will not do, terror, as the women advise, must be
tried.
A nice part, after all, has my beloved to act. If she forgive me
easily, I resume perhaps my projects:—if she carry her rejection into
violence, that violence may make me desperate, and occasion fresh
violence. She ought, since she thinks she has found the women out, to
consider where she is.
I am confoundedly out of conceit with myself. If I give up my
contrivances, my joy in stratagem, and plot, and invention, I shall be
but a common man; such another dull heavy creature as thyself. Yet what
does even my success in my machinations bring me but regret, disgrace,
repentance? But I am overmatched, egregiously overmatched, by this
woman. What to do with her, or without her, I know not.