At last my lucky star has directed us into the desired port, and we are
safely landed.--Well says Rowe:--
The wise and active conquer difficulties,
By daring to attempt them. Sloth and folly
Shiver and shrink at sight of toil and hazard,
And make th' impossibility they fear.
But in the midst of my exultation, something, I know not what to call
it, checks my joys, and glooms over my brighter prospects: if it be not
conscience, it is wondrously like what I thought so, many, many years
ago.
Surely, Lovelace, methinks thou sayest, thy good motions are not gone
off already! Surely thou wilt not now at last be a villain to this lady!
I can't tell what to say to it. Why would not the dear creature accept
of me, when I so sincerely offered myself to her acceptance? Things
already appear with a very different face now I have got her here.
Already have our mother and her daughters been about me:--'Charming
lady! What a complexion! What eyes! What majesty in her person!--O
Mr. Lovelace, you are a happy man! You owe us such a lady!'--Then they
remind me of my revenge, and of my hatred to her whole family.
Sally was so struck with her, at first sight, that she broke out to me
in these lines of Dryden:--
----Fairer to be seen
Than the fair lily on the flow'ry green!
More fresh than May herself in blossoms new!
I sent to thy lodgings within half an hour after our arrival, to receive
thy congratulation upon it, but thou wert at Edgeware, it seems.
My beloved, who is charmingly amended, is retired to her constant
employment, writing. I must content myself with the same amusement, till
she shall be pleased to admit me to her presence: for already have I
given to every one her cue.
And, among the rest, who dost thou think is to be her maid
servant?--Deb. Butler.
Ah, Lovelace!
And Ah, Belford!--It can't be otherwise. But what dost think Deb's name
is to be? Why, Dorcas, Dorcas Wykes. And won't it be admirable, if,
either through fear, fright, or good liking, we can get my beloved to
accept of Dorcas Wykes for a bed-fellow?
In so many ways will it be now in my power to have the dear creature,
that I shall not know which of them to choose!
But here comes the widow with Dorcas Wykes in her hand, and I am to
introduce them both to my fair-one?
*****
So, the honest girl is accepted--of good parentage--but, through a
neglected education, plaguy illiterate: she can neither write, nor
read writing. A kinswoman of Mrs. Sinclair--could not therefore well be
refused, the widow in person recommending her; and the wench only taken
till her Hannah can come. What an advantage has an imposing or forward
nature over a courteous one! So here may something arise to lead into
correspondencies, and so forth. To be sure a person need not be so wary,
so cautious of what she writes, or what she leaves upon her table, or
toilette, when her attendant cannot read.
It would be a miracle, as thou sayest, if this lady can save
herself--And having gone so far, how can I recede? Then my revenge upon
the Harlowes!--To have run away with a daughter of theirs, to make her
a Lovelace--to make her one of a family so superior to her own--what a
triumph, as I have heretofore observed,* to them! But to run away
with her, and to bring her to my lure in the other light, what a
mortification of their pride! What a gratification of my own!
Then these women are continually at me. These women, who, before my
whole soul and faculties were absorbed in the love of this single
charmer, used always to oblige me with the flower and first fruits of
their garden! Indeed, indeed, my goddess should not have chosen this
London widow's! But I dare say, if I had, she would not. People who will
be dealing in contradiction ought to pay for it. And to be punished by
the consequences of our own choice--what a moral lies there!--What a
deal of good may I not be the occasion of from a little evil!
Dorcas is a neat creature, both in person and dress; her continuance not
vulgar. And I am in hopes, as I hinted above, that her lady will accept
of her for her bedfellow, in a strange house, for a week or so. But I
saw she had a dislike to her at her very first appearance; yet I thought
the girl behaved very modestly--over-did it a little perhaps. Her
ladyship shrunk back, and looked shy upon her. The doctrine of
sympathies and antipathies is a surprising doctrine. But Dorcas will be
excessively obliging, and win her lady's favour soon, I doubt not. I
am secure in one of the wench's qualities however--she is not to be
corrupted. A great point that! since a lady and her maid, when heartily
of one party, will be too hard for half a score devils.
The dear creature was no less shy when the widow first accosted her at
her alighting. Yet I thought that honest Doleman's letter had prepared
her for her masculine appearance.
And now I mention that letter, why dost thou not wish me joy, Jack?
Joy, of what?
Why, joy of my nuptials. Know then, that said, is done, with me, when I
have a mind to have it so; and that we are actually man and wife! only
that consummation has not passed: bound down to the contrary of that,
by a solemn vow, till a reconciliation with her family take place. The
women here are told so. They know it before my beloved knows it; and
that, thou wilt say, is odd.
But how shall I do to make my fair-one keep her temper on the
intimation? Why, is she not here? At Mrs. Sinclair's?--But if she will
hear reason, I doubt not to convince her, that she ought to acquiesce.
She will insist, I suppose, upon my leaving her, and that I shall not
take up my lodgings under the same roof. But circumstances are changed
since I first made her that promise. I have taken all the vacant
apartments; and must carry this point also.
I hope in a while to get her with me to the public entertainments. She
knows nothing of the town, and has seen less of its diversions than
ever woman of her taste, her fortune, her endowments, did see. She has,
indeed, a natural politeness, which transcends all acquirement. The most
capable of any one I ever knew of judging what an hundred things are, by
seeing one of a like nature. Indeed she took so much pleasure in her
own chosen amusements, till persecuted out of them, that she had neither
leisure nor inclination for the town diversions.
These diversions will amuse, and the deuce is in it, if a little
susceptibility will not put forth, now she receives my address;
especially if I can manage it so as to be allowed to live under one roof
with her. What though the sensibility be at first faint and reluctant,
like the appearance of an early spring-flower in frosty winter, which
seems afraid of being nipt by an easterly blast! That will be enough for
me.
I hinted to thee in a former,* that I had provided books for the lady's
in-door amusement. Sally and Polly are readers. My beloved's light
closet was their library. And several pieces of devotion have been put
in, bought on purpose at second-hand.
* See Letter XXXIX. of this volume.
I was always for forming a judgment of the reading part of the sex by
their books. The observations I have made on this occasion have been of
great use to me, as well in England as out of it. The sagacious lady may
possibly be as curious in this point as her Lovelace.
So much for the present. Thou seest that I have a great deal of business
before me; yet I will write again soon.
[Mr. Lovelace sends another letter with this; in which he takes notice
of young Miss Sorlings's setting out with them, and leaving them at
Barnet: but as its contents are nearly the same with those in the
Lady's next letter, it is omitted.]