I was very ill, and obliged to lay down my pen. I thought I should have
fainted. But am better now—so will proceed.
The pretended ladies, the more we talked, the fonder they seemed to be
of me. And the Lady Betty had Mrs. Moore called up; and asked her, If
she had accommodations for her niece and self, her woman, and two men
servants, for three or four days?
Mr. Lovelace answered for her that she had.
She would not ask her dear niece Lovelace, [Permit me, my dear,
whispered she, this charming style before strangers! I will keep your
uncle’s secret,] whether she should be welcome or not to be so near
her. But for the time she should stay in these parts, she would come up
every night—What say you, niece Charlotte?
The pretended Charlotte answered, she should like to do so, of all
things.
The Lady Betty called her an obliging girl. She liked the place, she
said. Her cousin Leeson would excuse her. The air, and my company,
would do her good. She never chose to lie in the smoky town, if she
could help it. In short, my dear, said she to me, I will stay with you
till you hear from Miss Howe; and till I have your consent to go with
me to Glenham-hall. Not one moment will I be out of your company, when
I can have it. Stedman, my solicitor, as the distance from town is so
small, may attend me here for instructions. Niece Charlotte, one word
with you, child.
They retired to the further end of the room, and talked about their
night-dresses.
The Miss Charlotte said, Morrison might be dispatched for them.
True, said the other—but I have some letters in my private box, which I
must have up. And you know, Charlotte, that I trust nobody with the
keys of that.
Could not Morrison bring up the box?
No. She thought it safest where it was. She had heard of a robbery
committed but two days ago at the food of Hampstead-hill; and she
should be ruined if she lost her box.
Well, then, it was but going to town to undress, and she would leave
her jewels behind her, and return; and should be easier a great deal on
all accounts.
For my part, I wondered they came up with them. But that was to be
taken as a respect paid to me. And then they hinted at another visit of
ceremony which they had thought to make, had they not found me so
inexpressibly engaging.
They talked loud enough for me to hear them; on purpose, no doubt,
though in affected whispers; and concluded with high praises of me.
I was not fool enough to believe, or to be puffed up with their
encomiums; yet not suspecting them, I was not displeased at so
favourable a beginning of acquaintance with Ladies (whether I were to
be related to them or not) of whom I had always heard honourable
mention. And yet at the time, I thought, highly as they exalted me,
that in some respects (though I hardly know in what) they fell short of
what I expected them to be.
The grand deluder was at the farther end of the room, another way;
probably to give me an opportunity to hear these preconcerted
praises—looking into a book, which had there not been a preconcert,
would not have taken his attention for one moment. It was Taylor’s Holy
Living and Dying.
When the pretended ladies joined me, he approached me with it in his
hand—a smart book, this, my dear!—this old divine affects, I see, a
mighty flowery style of an ordinary country funeral, where, the young
women, in honour of a defunct companion, especially if she were a
virgin, or passed for such, make a flower-bed of her coffin.
And then, laying down the book, turning upon his heel, with one of his
usual airs of gaiety, And are you determined, Ladies, to take up your
lodgings with my charming creature?
Indeed they were.
Never were there more cunning, more artful impostors, than these women.
Practised creatures, to be sure: yet genteel; and they must have been
well-educated—once, perhaps, as much the delight of their parents, as I
was of mine: and who knows by what arts ruined, body and mind—O my
dear! how pregnant is this reflection!
But the man!—Never was there a man so deep. Never so consummate a
deceiver; except that detested Tomlinson; whose years and seriousness,
joined with a solidity of sense and judgment that seemed uncommon, gave
him, one would have thought, advantages in villany, the other had not
time for. Hard, very hard, that I should fall into the knowledge of two
such wretches; when two more such I hope are not to be met with in the
world!—both so determined to carry on the most barbarous and perfidious
projects against a poor young creature, who never did or wished harm to
either.
Take the following slight account of these women’s and of this man’s
behaviour to each other before me.
Mr. Lovelace carried himself to his pretended aunt with high respect,
and paid a great deference to all she said. He permitted her to have
all the advantage over him in the repartees and retorts that passed
between them. I could, indeed, easily see, that it was permitted; and
that he forbore that vivacity, that quickness, which he never spared
showing to his pretended Miss Montague; and which a man of wit seldom
knows how to spare showing, when an opportunity offers to display his
wit.
The pretended Miss Montague was still more respectful in her behaviour
to her pretended aunt. While the aunt kept up the dignity of the
character she had assumed, rallying both of them with the air of a
person who depends upon the superiority which years and fortune give
over younger persons, who might have a view to be obliged to her,
either in her life, or at her death.
The severity of her raillery, however, was turned upon Mr. Lovelace, on
occasion of the character of the people who kept the lodgings, which,
she said, I had thought myself so well warranted to leave privately.
This startled me. For having then no suspicion of the vile Tomlinson, I
concluded (and your letter of the 7th* favoured my conclusion) that if
the house were notorious, either he, or Mr. Mennell, would have given
me or him some hints of it—nor, although I liked not the people, did I
observe any thing in them very culpable, till the Wednesday night
before, that they offered not to come to my assistance, although within
hearing of my distress, (as I am sure they were,) and having as much
reason as I to be frighted at the fire, had it been real.
* His forged letter. See Vol. V. Letter XXX.