Part 3 (1/2)
Unless Montagu were tactless beyond the general, the position as regards himself and Lord Dorchester must indeed have been hopeless before he inspired the paper in the _Tatler_ on settlements. Anyhow, Montagu, who was used to having his way, and was probably very cross at being thwarted on this occasion, would not yield a step; and Lord Dorchester maintained his att.i.tude that philosophic theories were all very well in their way, but he would not sanction a marriage that involved the risk of his grandchildren being left beggars.
Lady Mary was powerless in the matter, but, although her father said there was no engagement between her and Montagu, the young people continued their correspondence with unabated vigour.
”I am going to comply with your request, and write with all the plainness I am capable of,” she replied in November, 1710, to one of Montagu's effusions. ”I know what may be said upon such a proceeding, but am sure you will not say it. Why should you always put the worst construction upon my words? Believe me what you will, but do not believe I can be ungenerous or ungrateful. I wish I could tell you what answer you will receive from some people, or upon what terms. If my opinion could sway, nothing should displease you. n.o.body ever was so disinterested as I am. I would not have to reproach myself (I don't suppose you would) that I had any way made you uneasy in your circ.u.mstances. Let me beg you (which I do with the utmost sincerity) only to consider yourself in this affair; and, since I am so unfortunate to have nothing in my own disposal, do not think I have any hand in making settlements. People in my way are sold like slaves; and I cannot tell what price my master will put on me. If you do agree, I shall endeavour to contribute, as much as lies in my power, to your happiness.
I so heartily despise a great figure, I have no notion of spending money so foolishly; though one had a great deal to throw away. If this breaks off, I shall not complain of you: and as, whatever happens, I shall still preserve the opinion you have behaved yourself well. Let me entreat you, if I have committed any follies, to forgive them; and be so just to think I would not do an ill thing.”
Shortly afterwards, Lady Mary wrote again to Montagu. ”I have tried to write plainly,” she said; and she did not have to reproach herself with failure. It had now come to a struggle for mastery, and she would not yield a foot of her ground.
”Indeed I do not at all wonder that absence, and variety of new faces, should make you forget me; but I am a little surprised at your curiosity to know what pa.s.ses in my heart (a thing wholly insignificant to you), except you propose to yourself a piece of ill-natured satisfaction, in finding me very much disquieted. Pray which way would you see into my heart? You can frame no guesses about it from either my speaking or writing; and, supposing I should attempt to show it you, I know no other way.
”I begin to be tired of my humility: I have carried my complaisances to you farther than I ought. You make new scruples; you have a great deal of fancy; and your distrusts being all of your own making, are more immovable than if there was some real ground for them. Our aunts and grandmothers always tell us that men are a sort of animals, that, if they are constant, 'tis only where they are ill used. 'Twas a kind of paradox I could never believe: experience has taught me the truth of it.
You are the first I ever had a correspondence with, and I thank G.o.d I have done with it for all my life. You needed not to have told me you are not what you have been: one must be stupid not to find a difference in your letters. You seem, in one part of your last, to excuse yourself from having done me any injury in point of fortune. Do I accuse you of any?
”I have not spirits to dispute any longer with you. You say you are not yet determined: let me determine for you, and save you the trouble of writing again. Adieu for ever! make no answer. I wish, among the variety of acquaintance, you may find some one to please you; and can't help the vanity of thinking, should you try them all, you won't find one that will be so sincere in their treatment, though a thousand more deserving, and every one happier. 'Tis a piece of vanity and injustice I never forgive in a woman, to delight to give pain; what must I think of a man that takes pleasure in making me uneasy? After the folly of letting you know it is in your power, I ought in prudence to let this go no farther, except I thought you had good nature enough never to make use of that power. I have no reason to think so: however, I am willing, you see, to do you the highest obligation 'tis possible for me to do; that is, to give you a fair occasion of being rid of me.”
There is now another break in the (preserved) correspondence until the end of February, 1711, and then Lady Mary, writing with more than a tinge of bitterness, broke off all relations with him--or, at least, affected to do so.
”I intended to make no answer to your letter; it was something very ungrateful, and I resolved to give over all thoughts of you. I could easily have performed that resolve some time ago, but then you took pains to please me; now you have brought me to esteem you, you make use of that esteem to give me uneasiness; and I have the displeasure of seeing I esteem a man that dislikes me. Farewell then: since you will have it so, I renounce all the ideas I have so long flattered myself with, and will entertain my fancy no longer with the imaginary pleasure of pleasing you. How much wiser are all those women I have despised than myself! In placing their happiness in trifles, they have placed it in what is attainable. I fondly thought fine clothes and gilt coaches, b.a.l.l.s, operas, and public adoration, rather the fatigues of life; and that true happiness was justly defined by Mr. Dryden (pardon the romantic air of repeating verses), when he says,
'Whom Heav'n would bless it does from pomps remove And makes their wealth in privacy and love.'
These notions had corrupted my judgment as much as Mrs. Biddy Tipkin's.
According to this scheme, I proposed to pa.s.s my life with you. I yet do you the justice to believe, if any man could have been contented with this manner of living, it would have been you. Your indifference to me does not hinder me from thinking you capable of tenderness, and the happiness of friends.h.i.+p; but I find it is not to me you'll ever have them; you think me all that is detestable; you accuse me of want of sincerity and generosity. To convince you of your mistake, I'll show you the last extremes of both.
”While I foolishly fancied you loved me, (which I confess I had never any great reason for, more than that I wished it,) there is no condition of life I could not have been happy in with you, so very much I liked you--I may say loved, since it is the last thing I'll ever say to you.
This is telling you sincerely my greatest weakness; and now I will oblige you with a new proof of generosity--I'll never see you more. I shall avoid all public places; and this is the last letter I shall send.
If you write, be not displeased if I send it back unopened. I force my inclinations to oblige yours; and remember that you have told me I could not oblige you more than by refusing you. Had I intended ever to see you again, I durst not have sent this letter. Adieu.”
The above letter was evidently sent in a fit of pique. Certainly the position must have been almost unbearable to a young woman of spirit.
Here was Lady Mary, in her twenty-second or twenty-third year, for all practical purposes betrothed, and her father and her lover quarrelling over settlements. Her friends were all getting married and having establishments of their own, and she more or less in disgrace, living at one or other of her father's houses.
Nothing came of her announcement that she desired no further relation with Montagu. She could not bring herself definitely to break with Montagu, and he would neither wed her nor give her up. The correspondence continued with unabated vigour.
”I am in pain about the letter I sent you this morning,” she wrote in March, 1911. ”I fear you should think, after what I have said, you cannot, in point of honour, break off with me. Be not scrupulous on that article, nor affect to make me break first, to excuse your doing it; I would owe nothing but to inclination: if you do not love me, I may have the less esteem of myself, but not of you: I am not of the number of those women that have the opinion of their persons Mr. Bayes had of his play, that 'tis the touchstone of sense, and they are to frame their judgment of people's understanding according to what they think of them.
”You may have wit, good humour, and good nature, and not like me. I allow a great deal for the inconstancy of mankind in general, and my own want of merit in particular. But 'tis a breach, at least, of the two last, to deceive me. I am sincere: I shall be sorry if I am not now what pleases; but if I (as I could with joy) abandon all things to the care of pleasing you, I am then undone if I do not succeed.--Be generous.”
It was about this time that she confided her troubles to Mrs. Hewet.
”At present, my domestic affairs go on so ill, I want spirits to look round,” she wrote. ”I have got a cold that disables my eyes and disorders me every other way. Mr. Mason has ordered me blooding, to which I have submitted, after long contestation. You see how stupid I am; I entertain you with discourses of physic, but I have the oddest jumble of disagreeable things in my head that ever plagued poor mortals; a great cold, a bad peace, people I love in disgrace, sore eyes, the horrid prospect of a civil war, and the thought of a filthy potion to take. I believe n.o.body ever had such a _melange_ before.”
The unsatisfactory situation, apparently, might have continued indefinitely, for, even if Montagu had been more pressing, Lady Mary, in spite of her independent att.i.tude, was most reluctant, indeed, almost determined, not to marry without her father's consent.
In the early summer of 1712, however, Lord Dorchester created a crisis.