He has made his inquiries, and actually seen the house he was told of
last night. The owner of it is a young widow lady, who is inconsolable
for the death of her husband; Fretchville her name. It is furnished
quite in taste, every thing being new within these six months. He
believes, if I like not the furniture, the use of it may be agreed for,
with the house, for a time certain: but, if I like it, he will endeavour
to take the one, and purchase the other, directly.
The lady sees nobody; nor are the best apartments above-stairs to be
viewed, till she is either absent, or gone into the country; which she
talks of doing in a fortnight, or three weeks, at farthest, and to live
there retired.
What Mr. Lovelace saw of the house (which were the saloon and two
parlours) was perfectly elegant; and he was assured all is of a piece.
The offices are also very convenient; coach-house and stables at hand.
He shall be very impatient, he says, till I see the whole; nor will he,
if he finds he can have it, look farther till I have seen it, except any
thing else offer to my liking. The price he values not.
He now does nothing but talk of the ceremony, but not indeed of the day.
I don't want him to urge that--but I wonder he does not.
He has just now received a letter from Lady Betty Lawrance, by a
particular hand; the contents principally relating to an affair she has
in chancery. But in the postscript she is pleased to say very respectful
things of me.
They are all impatient, she says, for the happy day being over; which
they flatter themselves will ensure his reformation.
He hoped, he told me, that I would soon enable him to answer their wishes
and his own.
But, my dear, although the opportunity was so inviting, he urged not for
the day. Which is the more extraordinary, as he was so pressing for
marriage before we came to town.
He was very earnest with me to give him, and four of his friends, my
company on Monday evening, at a little collation. Miss Martin and Miss
Horton cannot, he says, be there, being engaged in a party of their own,
with two daughters of Colonel Solcombe, and two nieces of Sir Anthony
Holmes, upon an annual occasion. But Mrs. Sinclair will be present, and
she gave him hope of the company of a young lady of very great fortune
and merit (Miss Partington), an heiress to whom Colonel Sinclair, it
seems, in his lifetime was guardian, and who therefore calls Mrs.
Sinclair Mamma.
I desired to be excused. He had laid me, I said, under a most
disagreeable necessity of appearing as a married person, and I would see
as few people as possible who were to think me so.
He would not urge it, he said, if I were much averse: but they were his
select friends; men of birth and fortune, who longed to see me. It was
true, he added, that they, as well as his friend Doleman, believed we
were married: but they thought him under the restrictions that he had
mentioned to the people below. I might be assured, he told me, that his
politeness before them should be carried into the highest degree of
reverence.
When he is set upon any thing, there is no knowing, as I have said
heretofore, what one can do.* But I will not, if I can help it, be made
a show of; especially to men of whose character and principles I have no
good opinion. I am, my dearest friend,
Your ever affectionate
CL. HARLOWE.
* See Letter I. of this volume. See also Vol. II. Letter XX.
***
[Mr. Lovelace, in his next letter, gives an account of his quick return:
of his reasons to the Lady for it: of her displeasure upon it: and of
her urging his absence from the safety she was in from the situation
of the house, except she were to be traced out by his visits.]
I was confoundedly puzzled, says he, on this occasion, and on her
insisting upon the execution of a too-ready offer which I made her to go
down to Berks, to bring up my cousin Charlotte to visit and attend her.
I made miserable excuses; and fearing that they would be mortally
resented, as her passion began to rise upon my saying Charlotte was
delicate, which she took strangely wrong, I was obliged to screen myself
behind the most solemn and explicit declarations.
[He then repeats those declarations, to the same effect with the account
she gives of them.]
I began, says he, with an intention to keep my life of honour in view, in
the declaration I made her; but, as it has been said of a certain orator
in the House of Commons, who more than once, in a long speech, convinced
himself as he went along, and concluded against the side he set out
intending to favour, so I in earnest pressed without reserve for
matrimony in the progress of my harangue, which state I little thought of
urging upon her with so much strength and explicitness.
[He then values himself upon the delay that his proposal of taking and
furnishing a house must occasion.
He wavers in his resolutions whether to act honourable or not by a merit
so exalted.
He values himself upon his own delicacy, in expressing his indignation
against her friends, for supposing what he pretends his heart rises
against them for presuming to suppose.]
But have I not reason, says he, to be angry with her for not praising me
for this my delicacy, when she is so ready to call me to account for the
least failure in punctilio?--However, I believe I can excuse her too,
upon this generous consideration, [for generous I am sure it is, because
it is against myself,] that her mind being the essence of delicacy, the
least want of it shocks her; while the meeting with what is so very
extraordinary to me, is too familiar to her to obtain her notice, as an
extraordinary.
[He glories in the story of the house, and of the young widow possessor
of it, Mrs. Fretchville he calls her; and leaves it doubtful to Mr.
Belford, whether it be a real or a fictitious story.
He mentions his different proposals in relation to the ceremony, which he
so earnestly pressed for; and owns his artful intention in avoiding to
name the day.]
And now, says he, I hope soon to have an opportunity to begin my
operations; since all is halcyon and security.
It is impossible to describe the dear creature's sweet and silent
confusion, when I touched upon the matrimonial topics.
She may doubt. She may fear. The wise in all important cases will
doubt, and will fear, till they are sure. But her apparent willingness
to think well of a spirit so inventive, and so machinating, is a happy
prognostic for me. O these reasoning ladies!--How I love these reasoning
ladies!--'Tis all over with them, when once love has crept into their
hearts: for then will they employ all their reasoning powers to excuse
rather than to blame the conduct of the doubted lover, let appearances
against him be ever so strong.
Mowbray, Belton, and Tourville, long to see my angel, and will be there.
She has refused me; but must be present notwithstanding. So generous a
spirit as mine is cannot enjoy its happiness without communication. If I
raise not your envy and admiration both at once, but half-joy will be the
joy of having such a charming fly entangled in my web. She therefore
must comply. And thou must come. And then I will show thee the pride and
glory of the Harlowe family, my implacable enemies; and thou shalt join
with me in my triumph over them all.
I know not what may still be the perverse beauty's fate: I want thee,
therefore, to see and admire her, while she is serene and full of hope:
before her apprehensions are realized, if realized they are to be; and if
evil apprehensions of me she really has; before her beamy eyes have lost
their lustre; while yet her charming face is surrounded with all its
virgin glories; and before the plough of disappointment has thrown up
furrows of distress upon every lovely feature.
If I can procure you this honour you will be ready to laugh out, as I
have often much ado to forbear, at the puritanical behaviour of the
mother before this lady. Not an oath, not a curse, nor the least free
word, escapes her lips. She minces in her gait. She prims up her
horse-mouth. Her voice, which, when she pleases, is the voice of
thunder, is sunk into an humble whine. Her stiff hams, that have not
been bent to a civility for ten years past, are now limbered into
courtesies three deep at ever word. Her fat arms are crossed before
her; and she can hardly be prevailed upon to sit in the presence of my
goddess.