_Contains a brief recital of several very remarkable, and equally
affecting, occurrences, of which the last-mentioned extraordinary
adventure was productive, and which may justly enough be looked upon as
yet more extraordinary than even the adventure itself_
Mr. Munden, who was no less pleased and vain on the confidence his noble
patron seemed to repose in him, than he was ambitious of the favours he
hoped to receive from him, had been extremely diligent in the execution
of that commission he had been entrusted with; but found much more
difficulty in it than he could have imagined.
He was told at the bar of the Cocoa Tree, that the gentleman he inquired
for had not been there since morning; that Sir John F---- had taken him
home with him to dinner, and that in all probability they were still
together.
Mr. Munden, on this, ordered the coachman to drive to Mark Lane, with
all the speed he could; but had, on his coming there, the mortification
to hear that Mr. W---- had left Sir John about a quarter of an hour
before, and was gone to the other end of the town: on which he drove
back to the Cocoa Tree, thinking he might now meet him there; but was
again disappointed.
They informed him, however, that Mr. W---- had just called in, but staid
no longer than to tell them he would be there again in half an hour. Mr.
Munden was impatient at this delay, but could not think of returning to
Lord ---- without having done the business he was sent upon: he
therefore sat down, and waited till the other came, which was somewhat
sooner than the time he had been made to hope.
These gentlemen, though far from being intimately acquainted, were not
altogether strangers, having frequently met at the levee of Lord ----.
They now saluted each other with the utmost politeness; after which, Mr.
Munden drawing him to the most retired part of the room, 'I have had a
chase after you, Sir,' said he, 'for a good part of this afternoon, and
which would have been impertinent in me, if not excuseable by my being
under an indispensable obligation of seeing you.'
'Then, Sir,' replied the other, 'whatever the business be, I shall think
myself happy in being found.'--'This, Sir, will inform you,' said Mr.
Munden, giving him the letter. 'From Lord ----!' cried Mr. W----, as
soon as he saw the superscription. 'It is so,' answered Mr. Munden; 'and
I am heartily sorry for the occasion.'
Mr. W---- made no reply to what Mr. Munden said, till he had examined
the contents of the letter; and then, after putting it into his pocket
with a careless air, 'I see into the meaning of this,' said he: 'an ugly
accident, which I have but lately discovered, has, I believe,
misrepresented me to his lordship. Could I be capable of what he at
present thinks I am, I should be utterly unworthy of the condescension
he vouchsafes me by this invitation: but, Sir, all this is founded on a
mistake, which may easily be rectified; I will not give his lordship the
trouble of going to the Green Park; I will wait on him at his own house
at the hour he mentions; and if what I have to say to him does not fully
convince him of my innocence, will follow either to that, or any other
place he pleases; though no consideration in the world, except his own
commands, should compel me to draw my sword against a breast I so much
love and reverence.'
Mr. Munden replied, that he should be extremely glad to find an affair,
which at present seemed to threaten such fatal consequences, was
amicably made up; and, after having assured him that he would deliver
what he had said to his lordship in the most exact manner, was about to
take his leave; but could not do it so soon as he desired, the other
still detaining him by beginning some subject or other of conversation,
which, how frivolous soever, Mr. Munden could not break off too
suddenly, without incurring the censure of abruptness and ill-manners.
Lord ---- in the mean time was in the utmost agitation; not for the
return of Mr. Munden, for he very well knew the message he would bring,
but that he had taken a great deal of pains to no purpose: the beauty of
Mrs. Munden had inspired him with the most eager desire of enjoying her;
the gaiety of her temper, joined to the temptations in his power to
offer, had given him an almost assured hope of gaining her--and now, to
find himself thus repulsed--repulsed with such disdain--left a surprize
upon him which very much increased the shock of his disappointment.
Besides, as he doubted not but she would inform her husband of all that
had passed between them, it gave the most mortal stab to that
haughtiness too incident to opulence and grandeur, to reflect he had
given a man, so much beneath him, an opportunity of triumphing over him
in his mind.
He had not recovered his confusion, and was walking backwards and
forwards in his drawing-room, with a disordered motion, when Mr. Munden
returned; to whom he never spoke, nor looked upon. The satisfaction this
gentleman had felt on finding the business of his embassy was like to
terminate so happily, was very much damped at seeing himself received in
this manner.
'I did not expect to find your lordship alone,' said Mr. Munden. 'I
believe not,' replied he: 'but an unlucky accident at home deprived me
of my cousin's company; and your wife, it seems, did not think herself
safe with me.'
These last words, and the contemptuous tone in which they were
expressed, put him into the extremest consternation: 'I hope, my lord,'
cried he, 'that Mrs. Munden cannot have so far forgot herself as to have
acted in any manner unbecoming of the respect due to your
lordship.'--'Fine women will have their caprices,' resumed the peer:
'but no matter; let no more be said of it.'
Mr. Munden then proceeded to repeat what Mr. W---- had said to him; but
his lordship took no notice, and seemed entirely unconcerned all the
time he was speaking; till the other adding, that, if his lordship
thought proper, he would attend him in the morning, in order to be at
hand in case the event should require his presence, the peer replied
peevishly, 'No, no; you need not come--I believe there will be no
occasion; if there be, I can send for you.'
After this, Mr. Munden, easily perceiving his company was rather
troublesome than agreeable, made a low obeisance, and withdrew, almost
distracted in his mind at this sudden turn of temper in his patron, and
no less impatient to hear what his wife had to say on that account.
It was not in one of the best of humours, as the reader may easily
imagine, that he now came home; nor did he find Mrs. Munden in one very
proper to alleviate his vexation. She was extremely pensive; and when
he asked her, in somewhat of an imperious voice, the reason of having
left Lord ---- in so abrupt a manner--'When you,' said she, 'forsook the
guardianship of my honour, it was time for me to take the defence of it
upon myself; which I could do no other way than by flight.'
'What is it you mean?' cried he. 'I am certain my lord has too much
friendship for me to offer any rudeness to you.'--'Be not too certain,'
answered she, 'of the friendship of that base great man.' She then began
to repeat the discourse with which his lordship had entertained her,
after being left alone with him; but had gone through a very small part
of it before her husband interrupted her, saying, with a kind of
malicious sneer, that he was positive there was nothing at all in what
she apprehended--that it was impossible for the noble lord to be in
earnest when he talked to her in such terms--that she had been deceived
by her own vanity, to mistake for a serious design upon her virtue what
was only meant for mere gallantry; and then added, with more passion,
that he feared her idle resentment had lost him all his interest with
the best of friends.
'Good Heavens!' cried she, 'defend me, and all virtuous women, from such
gallantries! But know, Sir,' continued she, with a great deal of
vehemence, 'that, but for that idle resentment, as you are pleased to
call it, my ruin and your dishonour would have been compleated by this
best of friends.'
'How!' said Mr. Munden, eagerly; 'he did not, sure, proceed to action?'
Perceiving he was now in a disposition to listen with more attention to
what she said, than hitherto he had done, she hesitated not to acquaint
him with every particular of his lordship's behaviour to her, and the
means by which she had defended herself.
During this recital, Mr. Munden bit his lips, and appeared in very great
emotions. He spoke not a word, however, till his fair wife, pitying the
anxieties she saw him under, desired him to think no more of this
accident, since it was so happily got over. 'It may be so in your
opinion,' answered he fiercely; 'but not in mine. I foresee the
consequences; though you, perhaps, think not of them. It is true, my
lord's behaviour is not to be justified; nor can yours in regard to me
be so: you ought to have considered the dependence I had on him, and not
have carried things with so high an hand. You might have doubtless
evaded this attempt by more gentle and less affrontive methods: but that
cursed pride of yours must be gratified, though at the expence of all my
expectations.' With these words he flung out of the room; and this was
all the return she met with from her ungrateful husband, for having
resisted, with such courage and resolution, temptations which some women
would have thought themselves absolved for yielding to the force of.
Ill-natured and perverse as Mr. Munden was, it must be confessed that
his present situation, nevertheless, merited some compassion: he had a
great share of ambition--loved both pleasure and grandeur to an excess;
and, though far from being of a generous disposition, the pride and
vanity of his humour made him do many things, through ostentation, which
his estate would not well support. He kept company with persons of rank
and fortune much superior to his own; and, as he bore an equal part in
their expences whenever he was with them, he stood in need of some
addition to his revenue: well, therefore, might he be chagrined at an
accident that cast so dark a cloud over that prospect of interest and
preferment he had flattered himself with from Lord ----.
But though this was the main point, it was not the sole subject of his
discontent. The motives for his being sent by Lord ---- to Mr. W----,
the pretended quarrel between them, and the trifling excuses made by the
latter to detain him from making too quick a return, were all too
obvious for him not to be assured that gentleman was privy to, and
agreed to be an assistant in, the design his lordship had upon his wife.
Mr. W----, though the representative of a borough in C----, was, indeed,
no more than a creature of Lord ----; to whose interest alone he was
indebted for his seat in parliament: but it was not because Mr. Munden
knew him to be obliged to do everything enjoined by his lordship, that
restrained the resentment he conceived against him from breaking out,
but because he considered that a quarrel between them on this score
might occasion the affair to become publick, and expose both himself and
wife to the ridicule of as many as should hear it.
Wrath, when enervate, especially if inflamed by any just provocation, is
certainly very dreadful to be borne; and what this injured husband
sustained in the first emotions of it, must have excited the pity of
every reader of this history, if he had not afterwards meanly vented it
where he had not the least occasion for disgust, but rather of the
highest tenderness and admiration.
In the midst of these perplexities, however, let us leave him for a
while, and return to her whose beauty had been the innocent cause of
all this trouble to him, and danger to herself.
Wonderful, indeed, were the effects this last adventure produced in her.
Many times before she had been on the very verge of ruin, and as often
indebted merely to fortune for her preservation from the mischiefs into
which her inadvertency had almost plunged her: but none of those
dangers, those escapes, had ever been capable of making any lasting
impression on her mind, or fixing her resolution to avoid running again
into the same mistakes.
The cruel reproaches and reflections cast on her by Mr. Munden, filled
her not now with the least resentment; for though she deserved them not
upon the score he made them, yet she was conscious that she did so for
going to the house of Lord ----, after having the strongest reasons to
believe he had dishonourable intentions upon her.
She blushed to remember, that she had given herself leave to be pleased
at the thoughts of appearing amiable in the eyes of that great man.
'Good God!' cried she, 'what infatuation possessed me! Am I not married?
Is not all I am the property of Mr. Munden? Is it not highly criminal in
any one to offer to invade his right? And can I be so wicked to take
delight in the guilt to which I am in a manner accessary?
'The vanities of my virgin state,' continued she, 'might plead some
excuse; but nothing now can be urged in my defence for persevering in
them. The pride of subduing hearts is mine no more: no man can now
pretend to love me but with the basest and most shameful views. The man
who dares to tell me he adores me, contradicts himself by that very
declaration; and while he would persuade me he has the highest opinion
of me, discovers he has in reality the meanest.'
In fine, she now saw herself, and the errors of her past conduct, in
their true light. 'How strange a creature have I been!' cried she; 'how
inconsiderate with myself! I knew the character of a coquette both silly
and insignificant; yet did every thing in my power to acquire it. I
aimed to inspire awe and reverence in the men; yet, by my imprudence,
emboldened them to the most unbecoming freedoms with me. I have sense
enough to discern real merit in those who professed themselves my
lovers; yet affected to treat most ill those in whom I found the
greatest share of it. Nature has made me no fool; yet not one action of
my life has given any proof of common reason.
'Even in the greatest and most serious affair of life--that of
marriage,' added she with a deep sigh, 'have I not been governed wholly
by caprice? I rejected Mr. Trueworth only because I thought I did not
love him enough; yet gave my hand to Mr. Munden, whom, at that time, I
did not love at all; and who has since, alas! taken little care to
cultivate that affection I have laboured to feel for him.'
In summing up this charge against herself, she found that all her faults
and her misfortunes had been owing either to an excess of vanity, a
mistaken pride, or a false delicacy. The two former appeared now too
contemptible in her eyes for her not to determine utterly to extirpate;
but the latter she found less reason to correct, since it happened only
in regard to Mr. Trueworth, and could never happen again, as both their
marriages had put a total end to all tender communication between them.
This change in Mrs. Munden's humour, great and sudden as it was, did
not, however, prove a transient one--every day, every hour, confirmed
her in it; and if at any time her natural vivacity made her seem a
little pleased on hearing her wit, her beauty, or any other perfection
or accomplishment, too lavishly extolled, she presently checked herself
for it; and assumed a look of reserve, which, though less haughty than
she had sometimes put on upon different occasions, had not the less
effect, and seldom failed to awe the flatterer into silence--a proof of
which the reader will be immediately presented with.