MR. LOVELACE
[IN CONTINUATION.]
TUESDAY AFTERNOON, AUG. 29.
I went back, in this part of our conversation, to the day that I was
obliged to come down to attend my Lord in the dangerous illness which
some feared would have been his last.
I told the Colonel, 'what earnest letters I had written to a particular
friend, to engage him to prevail upon the lady not to slip a day that had
been proposed for the private celebration of our nuptials; and of my
letters* written to her on that subject;' for I had stepped to my closet,
and fetched down all the letters and draughts and copies of letters
relating to this affair.
* See Vol. VI. Letters XXXVII. XXXVIII. XXXIX. XLIII.
I read to him, 'several passages in the copies of those letters, which,
thou wilt remember, make not a little to my honour.' And I told him,
'that I wished I had kept copies of those to my friend on the same
occasion; by which he would have seen how much in earnest I was in my
professions to her, although she would not answer one of them;' and thou
mayest remember, that one of those four letters accounted to herself why
I was desirous she should remain where I had left her.*
* See Vol. VI. Letter XXXVII.
I then proceeded to give him an account 'of the visit made by Lady Sarah
and Lady Betty to Lord M. and me, in order to induce me to do her
justice: of my readiness to comply with their desires; and of their high
opinion of her merit: of the visit made to Miss Howe by my cousins
Montague, in the name of us all, to engage her interest with her friend
in my behalf: of my conversation with Miss Howe, at a private assembly,
to whom I gave the same assurances, and besought her interest with her
friend.'
I then read a copy of the letter (though so much to my disadvantage)
which was written to her by Miss Charlotte Montague, Aug. 1,* entreating
her alliance in the names of all our family.
* See Vol. VII. Letter LXVI.
This made him ready to think that his fair cousin carried her resentment
against me too far. He did not imagine, he said, that either myself or
our family had been so much in earnest.
So thou seest, Belford, that it is but glossing over one part of a story,
and omitting another, that will make a bad cause a good one at any time.
What an admirable lawyer should I have made! And what a poor hand would
this charming creature, with all her innocence, have made of it in a
court of justice against a man who had so much to say and to show for
himself!
I then hinted at the generous annual tender which Lord M. and his sisters
made to his fair cousin, in apprehension that she might suffer by her
friends' implacableness.
And this also the Colonel highly applauded, and was pleased to lament the
unhappy misunderstanding between the two families, which had made the
Harlowes less fond of an alliance with a family of so much honour as this
instance showed ours to be.
I then told him, 'That having, by my friend, [meaning thee,] who was
admitted into her presence, (and who had always been an admirer of her
virtues, and had given me such advice from time to time in relation to
her as I wished I had followed,) been assured that a visit from me would
be very disagreeable to her, I once more resolved to try what a letter
would do; and that, accordingly, on the seventh of August, I wrote her
one.
'This, Colonel, is the copy of it. I was then out of humour with my Lord
M. and the ladies of my family. You will, therefore, read it to
yourself.'*
* See Vol. VII. Letter LXXIX.
This letter gave him high satisfaction. You write here, Mr. Lovelace,
from your heart. 'Tis a letter full of penitence and acknowledgement.
Your request is reasonable--To be forgiven only as you shall appear to
deserve it after a time of probation, which you leave to her to fix.
Pray, Sir, did she return an answer to this letter?
She did, but with reluctance, I own, and not till I had declared by my
friend, that, if I could not procure one, I would go up to town, and
throw myself at her feet.
I wish I might be permitted to see it, Sir, or to hear such parts of it
read as you shall think proper.
Turning over my papers, Here it is, Sir.* I will make no scruple to put
it into your hands.
This is very obliging, Mr. Lovelace.
He read it. My charming cousin!--How strong her resentments!--Yet how
charitable her wishes!--Good Heaven! that such an excellent creature--
But, Mr. Lovelace, it is to your regret, as much as to mine, I doubt not
--
Interrupting him, I swore that it was.
So it ought, said he. Nor do I wonder that it should be so. I shall
tell you by-and-by, proceeded he, how much she suffers with her friends
by false and villanous reports. But, Sir, will you permit me to take
with me these two letters? I shall make use of them to the advantage of
you both.
I told him I would oblige him with all my heart. And this he took very
kindly (as he had reason); and put them in his pocket-book, promising to
return hem in a few days.
I then told him, 'That upon this her refusal, I took upon myself to go to
town, in hopes to move her in my favour; and that, though I went without
giving her notice of my intention, yet had she got some notion of my
coming, and so contrived to be out of the way: and at last, when she
found I was fully determined at all events to see her, before I went
abroad, (which I shall do, said I, if I cannot prevail upon her,) she
sent me the letter I have already mentioned to you, desiring me to
suspend my purposed visit: and that for a reason which amazes and
confounds me; because I don't find there is any thing in it: and yet I
never knew her once dispense with her word; for she always made it a
maxim, that it was not lawful to do evil, that good might come of it: and
yet in this letter, for no reason in the world but to avoid seeing me (to
gratify an humour only) has she sent me out of town, depending upon the
assurance she had given me.'
Col. This is indeed surprising. But I cannot believe that my cousin,
for such an end only, or indeed for any end, according to the character I
hear of her, should stoop to make use of such an artifice.
Lovel. This, Colonel, is the thing that astonishes me; and yet, see
here!--This is the letter she wrote me--Nay, Sir, 'tis her own hand.
Col. I see it is; and a charming hand it is.
Lovel. You observe, Colonel, that all her hopes of reconciliation with
her parents are from you. You are her dear blessed friend! She always
talked of you with delight.
Col. Would to Heaven I had come to England before she left
Harlowe-place!--Nothing of this had then happened. Not a man of those
whom I have heard that her friends proposed for her should have had her.
Nor you, Mr. Lovelace, unless I had found you to be the man every one who
sees you must wish you to be: and if you had been that man, no one living
should I have preferred to you for such an excellence.
My Lord and I both joined in the wish: and 'faith I wished it most
cordially.
The Colonel read the letter twice over, and then returned it to me. 'Tis
all a mystery, said he. I can make nothing of it. For, alas! her
friends are as averse to a reconciliation as ever.
Lord M. I could not have thought it. But don't you think there is
something very favourable to my nephew in this letter--something that
looks as if the lady would comply at last?
Col. Let me die if I know what to make of it. This letter is very
different from her preceding one!--You returned an answer to it, Mr.
Lovelace?
Lovel. An answer, Colonel! No doubt of it. And an answer full of
transport. I told her, 'I would directly set out for Lord M.'s, in
obedience to her will. I told her that I would consent to any thing she
should command, in order to promote this happy reconciliation. I told
her that it should be my hourly study, to the end of my life, to deserve
a goodness so transcendent.' But I cannot forbear saying that I am not a
little shocked and surprised, if nothing more be meant by it than to get
me into the country without seeing her.
Col. That can't be the thing, depend upon it, Sir. There must be more
in it than that. For, were that all, she must think you would soon be
undeceived, and that you would then most probably resume your intention--
unless, indeed, she depended upon seeing me in the interim, as she knew I
was arrived. But I own I know not what to make of it. Only that she
does me a great deal of honour, if it be me that she calls her dear
blessed friend, whom she always loved and honoured. Indeed I ever loved
her: and if I die unmarried, and without children, shall be as kind to
her as her grandfather was: and the rather, as I fear there is too much
of envy and self-love in the resentments her brother and sister endeavour
to keep up in her father and mother against her. But I shall know better
how to judge of this, when my cousin James comes from Edinburgh; and he
is every hour expected.
But let me ask you, Mr. Lovelace, what is the name of your friend, who is
admitted so easily into my cousin's presence? Is it not Belford, pray?
Lovel. It is, Sir; and Mr. Belford's a man of honour; and a great
admirer of your fair cousin.
Was I right, as to the first, Jack? The last I have such strong proof
of, that it makes me question the first; since she would not have been
out of the way of my intended visit but for thee.
Col. Are you sure, Sir, that Mr. Belford is a man of honour?
Lovel. I can swear for him, Colonel. What makes you put this question?
Col. Only this: that an officious pragmatical novice has been sent up
to inquire into my cousin's life and conversation: And, would you believe
it? the frequent visits of this gentlemen have been interpreted basely to
her disreputation.--Read that letter, Mr. Lovelace; and you will be
shocked at ever part of it.
This cursed letter, no doubt, is from the young Levite, whom thou, Jack,
describest as making inquiry of Mrs. Smith about Miss Harlowe's character
and visiters.*
* See Vol. VII. Letter LXXXI.
I believe I was a quarter of an hour in reading it: for I made it, though
not a short one, six times as long as it is, by the additions of oaths
and curses to every pedantic line. Lord M. too helped to lengthen it, by
the like execrations. And thou, Jack, wilt have as much reason to curse
it as we.
You cannot but see, said the Colonel, when I had done reading it, that
this fellow has been officious in his malevolence; for what he says is
mere hearsay, and that hearsay conjectural scandal without fact, or the
appearance of fact, to support it; so that an unprejudiced eye, upon the
face of the letter, would condemn the writer of it, as I did, and acquit
my cousin. But yet, such is the spirit by which the rest of my relations
are governed, that they run away with the belief of the worst it
insinuates, and the dear creature has had shocking letters upon it; the
pedant's hints are taken; and a voyage to one of the colonies has been
proposed to her, as the only way to avoid Mr. Belford and you. I have
not seen these letters indeed; but they took a pride in repeating some of
their contents, which must have cut the poor soul to the heart; and
these, joined to her former sufferings,--What have you not, Mr. Lovelace,
to answer for?
Lovel. Who the devil could have expected such consequences as these?
Who could have believe there could be parents so implacable? Brother and
sister so immovably fixed against the only means that could be taken to
put all right with every body?--And what now can be done?
Lord M. I have great hopes that Col. Morden may yet prevail upon his
cousin. And, by her last letter, it runs in my mind that she has some
thoughts of forgiving all that's past. Do you think, Colonel, if there
should not be such a thing as a reconciliation going forward at present,
that her letter may not imply that, if we could bring such a thing to
bear with her friends, she would be reconciled with Mr. Lovelace?
Col. Such an artifice would better become the Italian subtilty than the
English simplicity. Your Lordship has been in Italy, I presume?
Lovel. My Lord has read Boccaccio, perhaps; and that's as well, as to
the hint he gives, which may be borrowed from one of that author's
stories. But Miss Clarissa Harlowe is above all artifice. She must have
some meaning I cannot fathom.
Col. Well, my Lord, I can only say that I will make some use of the
letters Mr. Lovelace has obliged me with: and after I have had some talk
with my cousin James, who is hourly expected; and when I have dispatched
two or three affairs that press upon me; I will pay my respects to my
dear cousin; and shall then be able to form a better judgment of things.
Mean time I will write to her; for I have sent to inquire about her, and
find she wants consolation.
Lovel. If you favour me, Colonel, with the d----d letter of that fellow
Brand for a day or two, you will oblige me.
Col. I will. But remember, the man is a parson, Mr. Lovelace; an
innocent one too, they say. Else I had been at him before now. And
these college novices, who think they know every thing in their
cloisters, and that all learning lies in books, make dismal figures when
they come into the world among men and women.
Lord M. Brand! Brand! It should have been Firebrand, I think in my
conscience!
Thus ended this doughty conference.
I cannot say, Jack, but I am greatly taken with Col. Morden. He is brave
and generous, and knows the world; and then his contempt of the parsons
is a certain sign that he is one of us.
We parted with great civility: Lord M. (not a little pleased that we did,
and as greatly taken with Colonel) repeated his wish, after the Colonel
was gone, that he had arrived in time to save the lady, if that would
have done it.
I wish so too. For by my soul, Jack, I am every day more and more uneasy
about her. But I hope she is not so ill as I am told she is.
I have made Charlotte transcribe the letter of this Firebrand, as my Lord
calls him; and will enclose her copy of it. All thy phlegm I know will
be roused into vengeance when thou readest it.
I know not what to advise as to showing it to the lady. Yet, perhaps,
she will be able to reap more satisfaction than concern from it, knowing
her own innocence; in that it will give her to hope that her friends'
treatment of her is owing as much to misrepresentation as to their own
natural implacableness. Such a mind as her's, I know, would be glad to
find out the shadow of a reason for the shocking letters the Colonel says
they have sent her, and for their proposal to her of going to some one of
the colonies [confound them all--but, if I begin to curse, I shall never
have done]--Then it may put her upon such a defence as she might be glad
of an opportunity to make, and to shame them for their monstrous
credulity--but this I leave to thy own fat-headed prudence--Only it vexes
me to the heart, that even scandal and calumny should dare to surmise the
bare possibility of any man sharing the favours of a woman, whom now
methinks I could worship with a veneration due only to a divinity.
Charlotte and her sister could not help weeping at the base aspersion:
When, when, said Patty, lifting up her hands, will this sweet lady's
sufferings be at an end?--O cousin Lovelace!--
And thus am I blamed for every one's faults!--When her brutal father
curses her, it is I. I upbraid her with her severe mother. The
implacableness of her stupid uncles is all mine. The virulence of her
brother, and the spite of her sister, are entirely owing to me. The
letter of this rascal Brand is of my writing--O Jack, what a wretch is
thy Lovelace!
***
Returned without a letter!--This d----d fellow Will. is returned without
a letter!--Yet the rascal tells me that he hears you have been writing to
me these two days!
Plague confound thee, who must know my impatience, and the reason for it!
To send a man and horse on purpose; as I did! My imagination chained me
to the belly of the beast, in order to keep pace with him!--Now he is got
to this place; now to that; now to London; now to thee!
Now [a letter given him] whip and spur upon the return. This town just
entered, not staying to bait: that village passed by: leaves the wind
behind him; in a foaming sweat man and horse.
And in this way did he actually enter Lord M.'s courtyard.
The reverberating pavement brought me down--The letter, Will.! The
letter, dog!--The letter, Sirrah!
No letter, Sir!--Then wildly staring round me, fists clenched, and
grinning like a maniac, Confound thee for a dog, and him that sent thee
without one!--This moment out of my sight, or I'll scatter thy stupid
brains through the air. I snatched from his holsters a pistol, while the
rascal threw himself from the foaming beast, and ran to avoid the fate
which I wished with all my soul thou hadst been within the reach of me to
have met with.
But, to be as meek as a lamb to one who has me at his mercy, and can
wring and torture my soul as he pleases, What canst thou mean to send
back my varlet without a letter?--I will send away by day-dawn another
fellow upon another beast for what thou hast written; and I charge thee
on thy allegiance, that thou dispatch him not back empty-handed.