Volume VI Part 19 (1/2)

The consent of such a woman must make her ever new, ever charming. But astonis.h.i.+ng! Can the want of a church-ceremony make such a difference!

She owes me her consent; for hitherto I have had nothing to boast of.

All of my side, has been deep remorse, anguish of mind, and love increased rather than abated.

How her proud rejection stings me!--And yet I hope still to get her to listen to my stories of the family-reconciliation, and of her uncle and Capt. Tomlinson--and as she has given me a pretence to detain her against her will, she must see me, whether in temper or not.--She cannot help it.

And if love will not do, terror, as the women advise, must be tried.

A nice part, after all, has my beloved to act. If she forgive me easily, I resume perhaps my projects:--if she carry her rejection into violence, that violence may make me desperate, and occasion fresh violence. She ought, since she thinks she has found the women out, to consider where she is.

I am confoundedly out of conceit with myself. If I give up my contrivances, my joy in stratagem, and plot, and invention, I shall be but a common man; such another dull heavy creature as thyself. Yet what does even my success in my machinations bring me but regret, disgrace, repentance? But I am overmatched, egregiously overmatched, by this woman. What to do with her, or without her, I know not.

LETTER XX

MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

I have this moment intelligence from Simon Parsons, one of Lord M.'s stewards, that his Lords.h.i.+p is very ill. Simon, who is my obsequious servant, in virtue of my presumptive heirs.h.i.+p, gives me a hint in his letter, that my presence at M. Hall will not be amiss. So I must accelerate, whatever be the course I shall be allowed or compelled to take.

No bad prospects for this charming creature, if the old peer would be so kind as to surrender; and many a summons has this gout given him. A good 8000. a-year, and perhaps the t.i.tle reversionary, or a still higher, would help me up with her.

Proudly as this lady pretends to be above all pride, grandeur will have its charms with her; for grandeur always makes a man's face s.h.i.+ne in a woman's eye. I have a pretty good, because a clear, estate, as it is.

But what a n.o.ble variety of mischief will 8000. a-year, enable a man to do?

Perhaps thou'lt say, I do already all that comes into my head; but that's a mistake--not one half I will a.s.sure thee. And even good folks, as I have heard, love to have the power of doing mischief, whether they make use of it or not. The late Queen Anne, who was a very good woman, was always fond of prerogative. And her ministers, in her name, in more instances than one, made a ministerial use of this her foible.

But now, at last, am I to be admitted to the presence of my angry fair-one; after three denials, nevertheless; and a peremptory from me, by Dorcas, that I must see her in her chamber, if I cannot see her in the dining-room.

Dorcas, however, tells me that she says, if she were at her own liberty, she would never see me more; and that she had been asking after the characters and conditions of the neighbours. I suppose, now she has found her voice, to call out for help from them, if there were any to hear her.

She will have it now, it seems, that I had the wickedness from the very beginning, to contrive, for her ruin, a house so convenient for dreadful mischief.

Dorcas begs of her to be pacified--entreats her to see me with patience-- tells her that I am one of the most determined of men, as she has heard say. That gentleness may do with me; but that nothing else will, she believes. And what, as her ladys.h.i.+p (as she always styles her,) is married, if I had broken my oath, or intended to break it!--

She hinted plain enough to the honest wench, that she was not married.

But Dorcas would not understand her.

This shows she is resolved to keep no measures. And now is to be a trial of skill, whether she shall or not.

Dorcas has hinted to her my Lord's illness, as a piece of intelligence that dropt in conversation from me.

But here I stop. My beloved, pursuant to my peremptory message, is just gone up into the dining-room.

LETTER XXI

MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.