Volume III Part 18 (1/2)

Was ever such a wretch heard of!--I sighed from the bottom of my heart; but bid him proceed from the part I had interrupted him at.

'I ordered the fellow, as I told you, Madam, said he, to keep within view of the garden-door: and if he found any parley between us, and any body coming (before you could retreat undiscovered) whose coming might be attended with violent effects, he should cry out; and this not only in order to save himself from their suspicions of him, but to give me warning to make off, and, if possible, to induce you (I own it, Madam) to go off with me, according to your own appointment. And I hope all circ.u.mstances considered, and the danger I was in of losing you for ever, that the acknowledgement of that contrivance, or if you had not met me, that upon Solmes, will not procure me your hatred: for, had they come as I expected as well as you, what a despicable wretch had I been, could I have left you to the insults of a brother and other of your family, whose mercy was cruelty when they had not the pretence with which this detected interview would have furnished them!'

What a wretch! said I.--But if, Sir, taking your own account of this strange matter to be fact, any body were coming, how happened it, that I saw only that man Leman (I thought it was he) out at the door, and at a distance, look after us?

Very lucky! said he, putting his hand first in one pocket, then in another--I hope I have not thrown it away--it is, perhaps, in the coat I had on yesterday--little did I think it would be necessary to be produced--but I love to come to a demonstration whenever I can--I may be giddy--I may be heedless. I am indeed--but no man, as to you, Madam, ever had a sincerer heart.

He then stepping to the parlour-door, called his servant to bring him the coat he had on yesterday.

The servant did. And in the pocket, rumpled up as a paper he regarded not, he pulled out a letter, written by that Joseph, dated Monday night; in which 'he begs pardon for crying out so soon--says, That his fears of being discovered to act on both sides, had made him take the rus.h.i.+ng of a little dog (that always follows him) through the phyllirea-hedge, for Betty's being at hand, or some of his masters: and that when he found his mistake, he opened the door by his own key (which the contriving wretch confessed he had furnished him with) and inconsiderately ran out in a hurry, to have apprized him that his crying out was owing to his fright only:' and he added, 'that they were upon the hunt for me, by the time he returned.*

* See his Letter to Joseph Leman, Vol.III. No.III. towards the end, where he tells him, he would contrive for him a letter of this nature to copy.

I shook my head--Deep! deep! deep! said I, at the best!--O Mr. Lovelace!

G.o.d forgive and reform you!--But you are, I see plainly, (upon the whole of your own account,) a very artful, a very designing man.

Love, my dearest life, is ingenious. Night and day have I racked my stupid brain [O Sir, thought I, not stupid! 'Twere well perhaps if it were] to contrive methods to prevent the sacrifice designed to be made of you, and the mischief that must have ensued upon it: so little hold in your affections: such undeserved antipathy from your friends: so much danger of losing you for ever from both causes. I have not had for the whole fortnight before last Monday, half an hour's rest at a time. And I own to you, Madam, that I should never have forgiven myself, had I omitted any contrivance or forethought that would have prevented your return without me.

Again I blamed myself for meeting him: and justly; for there were many chances to one, that I had not met him. And if I had not, all his fortnight's contrivances, as to me, would have come to nothing; and, perhaps, I might nevertheless have escaped Solmes.

Yet, had he resolved to come to Harlowe-place with his friends, and been insulted, as he certainly would have been, what mischiefs might have followed!

But his resolutions to run away with and to hide the poor Solmes for a month or so, O my dear! what a wretch have I let run away with me, instead of Solmes!

I asked him, if he thought such enormities as these, such defiances of the laws of society, would have pa.s.sed unpunished?

He had the a.s.surance to say, with one of his usual gay airs, That he should by this means have disappointed his enemies, and saved me from a forced marriage. He had no pleasure in such desperate pushes. Solmes he would not have personally hurt. He must have fled his country, for a time at least: and, truly, if he had been obliged to do so, (as all his hopes of my favour must have been at an end,) he would have had a fellow-traveller of his own s.e.x out of our family, whom I little thought of.

Was ever such a wretch!--To be sure he meant my brother!

And such, Sir, said I, in high resentment, are the uses you make of your corrupt intelligencer--

My corrupt intelligencer, Madam! interrupted me, He is to this hour your brother's as well as mine. By what I have ingenuously told you, you may see who began this corruption. Let me a.s.sure you, Madam, that there are many free things which I have been guilty of as reprisals, in which I would not have been the aggressor.

All that I shall further say on this head, Mr. Lovelace, is this: that as this vile double-faced wretch has probably been the cause of great mischief on both sides, and still continues, as you own, his wicked practices, I think it would be but just, to have my friends apprized what a creature he is whom some of them encourage.

What you please, Madam, as to that--my service, as well as your brother's is now almost over for him. The fellow has made a good hand of it. He does not intend to stay long in his place. He is now actually in treaty for an inn, which will do his business for life. I can tell you further, that he makes love to your sister's Betty: and that by my advice. They will be married when he is established. An innkeeper's wife is every man's mistress; and I have a scheme in my head to set some engines at work to make her repent her saucy behaviour to you to the last day of her life.

What a wicked schemer you are, Sir!--Who shall avenge upon you the still greater evils which you have been guilty of? I forgive Betty with all my heart. She was not my servant; and but too probably, in what she did, obeyed the commands of her to whom she owed duty, better than I obeyed those to whom I owed more.

No matter for that, the wretch said [To be sure, my dear, he must design to make me afraid of him]: The decree was gone out--Betty must smart--smart too by an act of her own choice. He loved, he said, to make bad people their own punishers.--Nay, Madam, excuse me; but if the fellow, if this Joseph, in your opinion, deserves punishment, mine is a complicated; a man and his wife cannot well suffer separately, and it may come home to him too.

I had no patience with him. I told him so. I see, Sir, said I, I see, what a man I am with. Your rattle warns me of the snake.--And away I flung: leaving him seemingly vexed, and in confusion.

LETTER XXII