At my repeated request she condescended to meet me in the dining-room to
afternoon-tea, and not before.
She entered with bashfulness, as I thought; in a pretty confusion, for
having carried her apprehensions too far. Sullen and slow moved she
towards the tea-table.--Dorcas present, busy in tea-cup preparations. I
took her reluctant hand, and pressed it to my lips.--Dearest, loveliest
of creatures, why this distance? why this displeasure?--How can you thus
torture the faithfullest heart in the world?
She disengaged her hand. Again I would have snatched it.
Be quiet, [peevishly withdrawing it.] And down she sat; a gentle
palpitation in the beauty of beauties indicating a mingled sullenness and
resentment; her snowy handkerchief rising and falling, and a sweet flush
overspreading her charming cheeks.
For God's sake, Madam!--[And a third time I would have taken her
repulsing hand.]
And for the same sake, Sir, no more teasing.
Dorcas retired; I drew my chair nearer her's, and with the most
respectful tenderness took her hand; and told her, that I could not
forbear to express my apprehensions (from the distance she was so
desirous to keep me at) that if any man in the world was more indifferent
to her, to use no harsher word, than another, it was the unhappy wretch
before her.
She looked steadily upon me for a moment, and with her other hand, not
withdrawing that I held, pulled her handkerchief out of her pocket; and
by a twinkling motion urged forward a tear or two, which having arisen in
each sweet eye, it was plain by that motion she would rather have
dissipated: but answered me only with a sigh, and an averted face.
I urged her to speak; to look up at me; to bless me with an eye more
favourable.
I had reason, she told me, for my complaint of her indifference. She saw
nothing in my mind that was generous. I was not a man to be obliged or
favoured. My strange behaviour to her since Saturday night, for no cause
at all that she knew of, convinced her of this. Whatever hopes she had
conceived of me were utterly dissipated: all my ways were disgustful to
her.
This cut me to the heart. The guilty, I believe, in every case, less
patiently bear the detecting truth, than the innocent do the degrading
falsehood.
I bespoke her patience, while I took the liberty to account for this
change on my part.--I re-acknowledged the pride of my heart, which could
not bear the thought of that want of preference in the heart of a lady
whom I hoped to call mine, which she had always manifested. Marriage, I
said, was a state that was not to be entered upon with indifference on
either side.
It is insolence, interrupted she, it is a presumption, Sir, to expect
tokens of value, without resolving to deserve them. You have no whining
creature before you, Mr. Lovelace, overcome by weak motives, to love
where there is no merit. Miss Howe can tell you, Sir, that I never loved
the faults of my friend; nor ever wished her to love me for mine. It was
a rule with us not to spare each other. And would a man who has nothing
but faults (for pray, Sir, what are your virtues?) expect that I should
show a value for him? Indeed, if I did, I should not deserve even his
value; but ought to be despised by him.
Well have you, Madam, kept up to this noble manner of thinking. You are
in no danger of being despised for any marks of tenderness or favour
shown to the man before you. You have been perhaps, you'll think,
laudably studious of making and taking occasions to declare, that it was
far from being owing to your choice, that you had any thoughts of me. My
whole soul, Madam, in all its errors, in all its wishes, in all its
views, had been laid open and naked before you, had I been encouraged by
such a share in your confidence and esteem, as would have secured me
against your apprehended worst constructions of what I should from time
to time have revealed to you, and consulted you upon. For never was
there a franker heart; nor a man so ready to accuse himself. [This,
Belford, is true.] But you know, Madam, how much otherwise it has been
between us.--Doubt, distance, reserve, on your part, begat doubt, fear,
awe, on mine.--How little confidence! as if we apprehended each other to
be a plotter rather than a lover. How have I dreaded every letter that
has been brought you from Wilson's!--and with reason: since the last,
from which I expected so much, on account of the proposals I had made you
in writing, has, if I may judge by the effects, and by your denial of
seeing me yesterday, (though you could go abroad, and in a chair too, to
avoid my attendance on you,) set you against me more than ever.
I was guilty, it seems, of going to church, said the indignant charmer;
and without the company of a man, whose choice it would not have been to
go, had I not gone--I was guilty of desiring to have the whole Sunday to
myself, after I had obliged you, against my will, at a play; and after
you had detained me (equally to my dislike) to a very late hour over-
night.--These were my faults: for these I was to be punished: I was to be
compelled to see you, and to be terrified when I did see you, by the most
shocking ill humour that was ever shown to a creature in my
circumstances, and not bound to bear it. You have pretended to find free
fault with my father's temper, Mr. Lovelace: but the worst that he ever
showed after marriage, was not in the least to be compared to what you
have shown twenty times beforehand.--And what are my prospects with you,
at the very best?--My indignation rises against you, Mr. Lovelace, while
I speak to you, when I recollect the many instances, equally ungenerous
and unpolite, of your behaviour to one whom you have brought into
distress--and I can hardly bear you in my sight.
She turned from me, standing up; and, lifting up her folded hands, and
charming eyes swimming in tears, O my father, said the inimitable
creature, you might have spared your heavy curse, had you known how I
have been punished ever since my swerving feet led me out of your
garden-doors to meet this man!--Then, sinking into her chair, a burst
of passionate tears forced their way down her glowing cheeks.
My dearest life, [taking her still folded hands in mine,] who can bear
an invocation so affecting, though so passionate?
And, as I hope to live, my nose tingled, as I once, when a boy, remember
it did (and indeed once more very lately) just before some tears came
into my eyes; and I durst hardly trust my face in view of her's.
What have I done to deserve this impatient exclamation?--Have I, at any
time, by word, by deeds, by looks, given you cause to doubt my honour, my
reverence, my adoration, I may call it, of your virtues? All is owing to
misapprehension, I hope, on both sides. Condescend to clear up but your
part, as I will mine, and all must speedily be happy.--Would to Heaven I
loved that Heaven as I love you! and yet, if I doubted a return in love,
let me perish if I should know how to wish you mine!--Give me hope,
dearest creature, give me but hope, that I am your preferable choice!--
Give me but hope, that you hate me not: that you do not despise me.
O Mr. Lovelace, we have been long enough together to be tired of each
other's humours and ways; ways and humours so different, that perhaps
you ought to dislike me, as much as I do you.--I think, I think, that I
cannot make an answerable return to the value you profess for me. My
temper is utterly ruined. You have given me an ill opinion of all
mankind; of yourself in particular: and withal so bad a one of myself,
that I shall never be able to look up, having utterly and for ever lost
all that self-complacency, and conscious pride, which are so necessary to
carry a woman through this life with tolerable satisfaction to herself.
She paused. I was silent. By my soul, thought I, this sweet creature
will at last undo me!
She proceeded: What now remains, but that you pronounce me free of all
obligation to you? and that you hinder me not from pursuing the destiny
that shall be allotted me?
Again she paused. I was still silent; meditating whether to renounce all
further designs upon her; whether I had not received sufficient evidence
of a virtue, and of a greatness of soul, that could not be questioned or
impeached.
She went on: Propitious to me be your silence, Mr. Lovelace!--Tell me,
that I am free of all obligation to you. You know, I never made you
promises. You know, that you are not under any to me.--My broken
fortunes I matter not--
She was proceeding--My dearest life, said I, I have been all this time,
though you fill me with doubts of your favour, busy in the nuptial
preparations. I am actually in treaty for equipage.
Equipage, Sir!--Trappings, tinsel!--What is equipage; what is life; what
is any thing; to a creature sunk so low as I am in my own opinion!--
Labouring under a father's curse!--Unable to look backward without self-
reproach, or forward without terror!--These reflections strengthened by
every cross accident!--And what but cross accidents befall me!--All my
darling schemes dashed in pieces, all my hopes at an end; deny me not the
liberty to refuge myself in some obscure corner, where neither the
enemies you have made me, nor the few friends you have left me, may ever
hear of the supposed rash-one, till those happy moments are at hand,
which shall expiate for all!
I had not a word to say for myself. Such a war in my mind had I never
known. Gratitude, and admiration of the excellent creature before me,
combating with villanous habit, with resolutions so premeditatedly made,
and with view so much gloried in!--An hundred new contrivances in my
head, and in my heart, that to be honest, as it is called, must all be
given up, by a heart delighting in intrigue and difficulty--Miss Howe's
virulences endeavoured to be recollected--yet recollection refusing to
bring them forward with the requisite efficacy--I had certainly been a
lost man, had not Dorcas come seasonably in with a letter.--On the
superscription written--Be pleased, Sir, to open it now.
I retired to the window--opened it--it was from Dorcas herself.--These
the contents--'Be pleased to detain my lady: a paper of importance to
transcribe. I will cough when I have done.'
I put the paper in my pocket, and turned to my charmer, less
disconcerted, as she, by that time, had also a little recovered herself.
--One favour, dearest creature--Let me but know, whether Miss Howe
approves or disapproves of my proposals? I know her to be my enemy. I
was intending to account to you for the change of behaviour you accused
me of at the beginning of the conversation; but was diverted from it by
your vehemence. Indeed, my beloved creature, you were very vehement. Do
you think it must not be matter of high regret to me, to find my wishes
so often delayed and postponed in favour of your predominant view to a
reconciliation with relations who will not be reconciled to you?--To this
was owing your declining to celebrate our nuptials before we came to
town, though you were so atrociously treated by your sister, and your
whole family; and though so ardently pressed to celebrate by me--to this
was owing the ready offence you took at my four friends; and at the
unavailing attempt I made to see a dropt letter; little imagining, from
what two such ladies could write to each other, that there could be room
for mortal displeasure--to this was owing the week's distance you held me
at, till you knew the issue of another application.--But, when they had
rejected that; when you had sent my cold-received proposals to Miss Howe
for her approbation or advice, as indeed I advised; and had honoured me
with your company at the play on Saturday night; (my whole behaviour
unobjectionable to the last hour;) must not, Madam, the sudden change in
your conduct the very next morning, astonish and distress me?--and this
persisted in with still stronger declarations, after you had received the
impatiently-expected letter from Miss Howe; must I not conclude, that all
was owing to her influence; and that some other application or project
was meditating, that made it necessary to keep me again at a distance
till the result were known, and which was to deprive me of you for ever?
For was not that your constantly-proposed preliminary?--Well, Madam,
might I be wrought up to a half-phrensy by this apprehension; and well
might I charge you with hating me.--And now, dearest creature, let me
know, I once more ask you, what is Miss Howe's opinion of my proposals?
Were I disposed to debate with you, Mr. Lovelace, I could very easily
answer your fine harangue. But at present, I shall only say, that your
ways have been very unaccountable. You seem to me, if your meanings were
always just, to have taken great pains to embarrass them. Whether owing
in you to the want of a clear head, or a sound heart, I cannot determine;
but it is to the want of one of them, I verily think, that I am to
ascribe the greatest part of your strange conduct.
Curse upon the heart of the little devil, said I, who instigates you to
think so hardly of the faithfullest heart in the world!
How dare you, Sir! And there she stopt; having almost overshot herself;
as I designed she should.
How dare I what, Madam? And I looked with meaning. How dare I what?
Vile man--And do you--And there again she stopt.
Do I what, Madam?--And why vile man?
How dare you curse any body in my presence?
O the sweet receder! But that was not to go off so with a Lovelace.
Why then, dearest creature, is there any body that instigates you?--If
there be, again I curse them, be they whom they will.
She was in a charming pretty passion. And this was the first time that I
had the odds in my favour.
Well, Madam, it is just as I thought. And now I know how to account for
a temper that I hope is not natural to you.
Artful wretch! and is it thus you would entrap me? But know, Sir, that I
received letters from nobody but Miss Howe. Miss Howe likes some of your
ways as little as I do; for I have set every thing before her. Yet she
is thus far your enemy, as she is mine. She thinks I could not refuse
your offers; but endeavour to make the best of my lot. And now you have
the truth. Would to heaven you were capable of dealing with equal
sincerity!
I am, Madam. And here, on my knee, I renew my vows, and my supplication,
that you will make me your's. Your's for ever. And let me have cause to
bless you and Miss Howe in the same breath.
To say the truth, Belford, I had before begun to think that the vixen of
a girl, who certainly likes not Hickman, was in love with me.
Rise, Sir, from your too-ready knees; and mock me not!
Too-ready knees, thought I! Though this humble posture so little affects
this proud beauty, she knows not how much I have obtained of others of
her sex, nor how often I have been forgiven for the last attempts, by
kneeling.
Mock you, Madam! And I arose, and re-urged her for the day. I blamed
myself, at the same time, for the invitation I had given to Lord M., as
it might subject me to delay from his infirmities: but told her, that I
would write to him to excuse me, if she had no objection; or to give him
the day she would give me, and not wait for him, if he could not come in
time.
My day, Sir, said she, is never. Be not surprised. A person of
politeness judging between us, would not be surprised that I say so. But
indeed, Mr. Lovelace, [and wept through impatience,] you either know not
how to treat with a mind of the least degree of delicacy, notwithstanding
your birth and education, or you are an ungrateful man; and [after a
pause] a worse than ungrateful one. But I will retire. I will see you
again to-morrow. I cannot before. I think I hate you. And if, upon a
re-examination of my own heart, I find I do, I would not for the world
that matters should go on farther between us.
But I see, I see, she does not hate me! How it would mortify my vanity,
if I thought there was a woman in the world, much more this, that could
hate me! 'Tis evident, villain as she thinks me, that I should not be an
odious villain, if I could but at last in one instance cease to be a
villain! She could not hold it, determined as she had thought herself, I
saw by her eyes, the moment I endeavoured to dissipate her apprehensions,
on my too-ready knees, as she calls them. The moment the rough covering
my teasing behaviour has thrown over her affections is quite removed, I
doubt not to find all silk and silver at the bottom, all soft, bright,
and charming.
I was however too much vexed, disconcerted, mortified, to hinder her from
retiring. And yet she had not gone, if Dorcas had not coughed.
The wench came in, as soon as her lady had retired, and gave me the copy
she had taken. And what should it be but of the answer the truly
admirable creature had intended to give to my written proposals in
relation to settlements?
I have but just dipt my pen into this affecting paper. Were I to read it
attentively, not a wink should I sleep this night. To-morrow it shall
obtain my serious consideration.