I have this moment your continuation-letter. And am favoured, at
present, with the absence of my Argus-eyes mother.--
Dear creature! I can account for all your difficulties. A young lady of
your delicacy!--And with such a man!--I must be brief----
The man's a fool, my dear, with all his pride, and with all his
complaisance, and affected regards to your injunctions. Yet his ready
inventions----
Sometimes I think you should go to Lady Betty's. I know not what to
advise you to do.--I should, if you were not so intent upon reconciling
yourself to your relations. Yet they are implacable. You can have no
hopes of them. Your uncle's errand to my mother may convince you of
that; and if you have an answer to your letter to your sister, that will
confirm you, I dare say.
You need not to have been afraid of asking me, Whether upon reading your
narrative, I thought any extenuation could lie for what you have done! I
have, as above, before I had your question, told you my mind as to that.
And I repeat, I think, your provocations and inducements considered,
that ever young creature was who took such a step.
But you took it not--You were driven on one side, and, possibly, tricked
on the other.--If any woman on earth shall be circumstanced as you were,
and shall hold out so long as you did, against her persecutors on one
hand, and her seducer on the other, I will forgive her for all the rest
of her conduct, be it what it will.
All your acquaintance, you may suppose, talk of nobody but you. Some
indeed bring your admirable character for a plea against you: but nobody
does, or can, acquit your father and uncles.
Every body seems apprized of your brother's and sister's motives. Your
flight is, no doubt, the very thing they aimed to drive you to, by the
various attacks they made upon you; unhoping (as they must do all the
time) the success of their schemes in Solmes's behalf. They knew, that
if once you were restored to favour, the suspended love of your father
and uncles, like a river breaking down a temporary obstruction, would
return with double force; and that then you would expose, and triumph
over all their arts.--And now, I hear they enjoy their successful
malice.
Your father is all rage and violence. He ought, I am sure, to turn his
rage inward. All your family accuse you of acting with deep art; and are
put upon supposing that you are actually every hour exulting over them,
with your man, in the success of it.
They all pretend now, that your trial of Wednesday was to be the last.
Advantage would indeed, my mother owns, have been taken of your
yielding, if you had yielded. But had you not been prevailed upon, they
would have given up their scheme, and taken your promise for renouncing
Lovelace--Believe them who will!
They own, however, that a minister was to be present--Mr. Solmes was
to be at hand--And your father was previously to try his authority over
you, in order to make you sign the settlements--All of it a romantic
contrivance of your wild-headed foolish brother, I make no doubt. Is
it likely that he and Bell would have given way to your restoration to
favour, supposing it in their power to hinder it, on any other terms
than those their hearts had been so long set upon?
How they took your flight, when they found it out, may be better
supposed than described.
Your aunt Hervey, it seems, was the first that went down to the ivy
summer-house, in order to acquaint you that their search was over.
Betty followed her; and they not finding you there, went on towards the
cascade, according to a hint of yours.
Returning by the garden-door, they met a servant [they don't say, it was
Joseph Leman; but it is very likely that it was he] running, as he said,
from pursuing Mr. Lovelace (a great hedge-stake in his hand, and out of
breath) to alarm the family.
If it were this fellow, and if he were employed in the double agency of
cheating them, and cheating you, what shall we think of the wretch you
are with? Run away from him, my dear, if so--no matter to whom--or marry
him, if you cannot.
Your aunt and all your family were accordingly alarmed by this
fellow--evidently when too late for pursuit. They got together, and when
a posse, ran to the place of interview; and some of them as far as to
the tracks of the chariot wheels, without stopping. And having heard the
man's tale upon the spot, a general lamentation, a mutual upbraiding,
and rage, and grief, were echoed from the different persons, according
to their different tempers and conceptions. And they returned like fools
as they went.
Your brother, at first, ordered horses and armed men to be got ready for
a pursuit. Solmes and your uncle Tony were to be of the party. But your
mother and your aunt Hervey dissuaded them from it, for fear of adding
evil to evil; not doubting but Lovelace had taken measures to support
himself in what he had done; and especially when the servant declared,
that he saw you run with him as fast as you could set foot to the
ground; and that there were several armed men on horseback at a small
distance off.
*****
My mother's absence was owing to her suspicion, that the Knolly's were
to assist in our correspondence. She made them a visit upon it. She does
every thing at once. And they have promised, that no more letters shall
be left there, without her knowledge.
But Mr. Hickman has engaged one Filmer, a husbandman in the lane we call
Finch-lane, near us, to receive them. Thither you will be pleased to
direct yours, under cover, to Mr. John Soberton; and Mr. Hickman himself
will call for them there; and there shall leave mine. It goes against me
too, to make him so useful to me. He looks already so proud upon it!
I shall have him [Who knows?] give himself airs--He had best consider,
that the favour he has been long aiming at, may put him into a
very dangerous, a very ticklish situation. He that can oblige, may
disoblige--Happy for some people not to have it in their power to
offend!
I will have patience, if I can, for a while, to see if these bustlings
in my mother will subside--but upon my word, I will not long bear this
usage.
Sometimes I am ready to think, that my mother carries it thus on purpose
to tire me out, and to make me the sooner marry. If I find it to be so,
and that Hickman, in order to make a merit with me, is in the low plot,
I will never bear him in my sight.
Plotting wretch, as I doubt your man is, I wish to heaven that you
were married, that you might brave them all, and not be forced to hide
yourself, and be hurried from one inconvenient place to another. I
charge you, omit not to lay hold on any handsome opportunity that may
offer for that purpose.