Volume II Part 44 (1/2)

SUNDAY EVENING, SEVEN O'CLOCK.

There remains my letter still!--He is busied, I suppose, in his preparations for to-morrow. But then he has servants. Does the man think he is so secure of me, that having appointed, he need not give himself any further concern about me till the very moment? He knows how I am beset. He knows not what may happen. I may be ill, or still more closely watched or confined than before. The correspondence might be discovered.

It might be necessary to vary the scheme. I might be forced into measures, which might entirely frustrate my purpose. I might have new doubts. I might suggest something more convenient, for any thing he knew. What can the man mean, I wonder!--Yet it shall lie; for if he has it any time before the appointed hour, it will save me declaring to him personally my changed purpose, and the trouble of contending with him on that score. If he send for it at all, he will see by the date, that he might have had it in time; and if he be put to any inconvenience from shortness of notice, let him take it for his pains.

SUNDAY NIGHT, NINE O'CLOCK.

It is determined, it seems, to send for Mrs. Norton to be here on Tuesday to dinner; and she is to stay with me for a whole week.

So she is first to endeavour to persuade me to comply; and, when the violence is done, she is to comfort me, and try to reconcile me to my fate. They expect fits and fetches, Betty insolently tells me, and expostulations, and exclamations, without number: but every body will be prepared for them: and when it's over, it's over; and I shall be easy and pacified when I find I can't help it.

MONDAY MORN. APRIL 10, SEVEN O'CLOCK.

O my dear! there yet lies the letter, just as I left it!

Does he think he is so sure of me?--Perhaps he imagines that I dare not alter my purpose. I wish I had never known him! I begin now to see this rashness in the light every one else would have seen it in, had I been guilty of it. But what can I do, if he come to-day at the appointed time! If he receive not the letter, I must see him, or he will think something has befallen me; and certainly will come to the house. As certainly he will be insulted. And what, in that case, may be the consequence! Then I as good as promised that I would take the first opportunity to see him, if I change my mind, and to give him my reasons for it. I have no doubt but he will be out of humour upon it: but better, if we meet, that he should go away dissatisfied with me, than that I should go away dissatisfied with myself.

Yet, short as the time is, he may still perhaps send, and get the letter. Something may have happened to prevent him, which when known will excuse him.

After I have disappointed him more than once before, on a requested interview only, it is impossible he should not have a curiosity at least, to know if something has not happened; and whether my mind hold or not in this more important case. And yet, as I rashly confirmed my resolution by a second letter, I begin now to doubt it.

NINE O'CLOCK.

My cousin Dolly Hervey slid the enclosed letter into my hand, as I pa.s.sed by her, coming out of the garden.

DEAREST MADAM,

I have got intelligence from one who pretends to know every thing, that you must be married on Wednesday morning to Mr. Solmes. Perhaps, however, she says this only to vex me; for it is that saucy creature Betty Barnes. A license is got, as she says: and so far she went as to tell me (bidding me say nothing, but she knew I would) that Mr. Brand is to marry you. For Dr. Lewen I hear, refuses, unless your consent can be obtained; and they have heard that he does not approve of their proceedings against you. Mr. Brand, I am told, is to have his fortune made by uncle Harlowe and among them.

You will know better than I what to make of all these matters; for sometimes I think Betty tells me things as if I should not tell you, and yet expects that I will.* For there is great whispering between Miss Harlowe and her; and I have observed that when their whispering is over, Betty comes and tells me something by way of secret. She and all the world know how much I love you: and so I would have them. It is an honour to me to love a young lady who is and ever was an honour to all her family, let them say what they will.

* It is easy for such of the readers as have been attentive to Mr. Lovelace's manner of working, to suppose, from this hint of Miss Hervey's, that he had instructed his double- faced agent to put his sweet-heart Betty upon alarming Miss Hervey, in hopes she would alarm her beloved cousin, (as we see she does,) in order to keep her steady to her appointment with him.

But from a more certain authority than Betty's I can a.s.sure you (but I must beg of you to burn this letter) that you are to be searched once more for letters, and for pen and ink; for they know you write.

Something they pretend to have come at from one of Mr. Lovelace's servants, which they hope to make something of. I know not for certain what it is. He must be a very vile and wicked man who would boast of a lady's favour to him, and reveal secrets. But Mr. Lovelace, I dare say, is too much of a gentleman to be guilty of such ingrat.i.tude.

Then they have a notion, from that false Betty I believe, that you intend to take something to make yourself sick; and so they will search for phials and powders and such like.

If nothing shall be found that will increase their suspicions, you are to be used more kindly by your papa when you appear before them all, than he of late has used you.

Yet, sick or well, alas! my dear cousin! you must be married. But your husband is to go home every night without you, till you are reconciled to him. And so illness can be no pretence to save you.