Capt. Only one word more, Madam.--He tells me, that you promised to pardon him. He tells me--
He knew, interrupted she, that he deserved not pardon, or he had not extorted the promise from me. Nor had I given it to him, but to shield myself from the vilest outrage--
Capt. I could wish, Madam, inexcusable as his behaviour has been, since he has something to plead in the reliance he made upon your promise, that, for the sake of appearances to the world, and to avoid the mischiefs that may follow if you absolutely break with him, you could prevail upon your naturally-generous mind to lay an obligation upon him by your forgiveness.
She was silent.
Capt. Your father and mother, Madam, deplore a daughter lost to them, whom your generosity to Mr. Lovelace may restore: do not put it to the possible chance, that they may have cause to deplore a double loss; the losing of a son, as well as a daughter, who, by his own violence, which you may perhaps prevent, may be for ever lost to them, and to the whole family.
She paused--she wept--she owned that she felt the force of this argument.
I will be the making of this fellow, thought I.
Capt. Permit me, Madam, to tell you, that I do not think it would be difficult to prevail upon your uncle, if you insist upon it, to come up privately to town, and to give you with his own hand to Mr. Lovelace-- except, indeed, your present misunderstanding were to come to his ears.
Besides, Madam, your brother, it is likely, may at this very time be in town; and he is resolved to find you out--
Cl. Why, Sir, should I be so much afraid of my brother? My brother has injured me, not I him. Will my brother offer to me what Mr. Lovelace has offered?--Wicked, ungrateful man! to insult a friendless, unprotected creature, made friendless by himself!--I cannot, cannot think of him in the light I once thought of him. What, Sir, to put myself into the power of a wretch, who has acted by me with so much vile premeditation!--Who shall pity, who shall excuse me, if I do, were I to suffer ever so much from him?--No, Sir.--Let Mr. Lovelace leave me--let my brother find me.
I am not such a poor creature as to be afraid to face the brother who has injured me.
Capt. Were you and your brother to meet only to confer together, to expostulate, to clear up difficulties, it were another thing. But what, Madam, can you think will be the issue of an interview, (Mr. Solmes with him,) when he finds you unmarried, and resolved never to have Mr.
Lovelace; supposing Mr. Lovelace were not to interfere, which cannot be imagined?
Cl. Well, Sir, I can only say, I am a very unhappy creature!--I must resign to the will of Providence, and be patient under evils, which that will not permit me to shun. But I have taken my measures. Mr. Lovelace can never make me happy, nor I him. I wait here only for a letter from Miss Howe--that must determine me--
Determine you as to Mr. Lovelace, Madam? interrupted the Captain.
Cl. I am already determined as to him.
Capt. If it be not in his favour, I have done. I cannot use stronger arguments than I have used, and it would be impertinent to repeat them.
If you cannot forgive his offence, I am sure it must have been much greater than he has owned to me. If you are absolutely determined, be pleased to let me know what I shall say to your uncle? You were pleased to tell me, that this day would put an end to what you called my trouble: I should not have thought it any, could I have been an humble mean of reconciling persons of worth and honour to each other.
Here I entered with a solemn air.
Lovel. Captain Tomlinson, I have heard a part of what has pa.s.sed between you and this unforgiving (however otherwise excellent) lady. I am cut to the heart to find the dear creature so determined. I could not have believed it possible, with such prospects, that I had so little share in her esteem. Nevertheless I must do myself justice with regard to the offence I was so unhappy as to give, since I find you are ready to think it much greater than it really was.
Cl. I hear not, Sir, your recapitulations. I am, and ought to be, the sole judge of insults offered to my person. I enter not into discussion with you, nor hear you on the shocking subject. And was going.
I put myself between her and the door--You may hear all I have to say, Madam. My fault is not of such a nature, but that you may. I will be a just accuser of myself; and will not wound your ears.
I then protested that the fire was a real fire. [So it was.] I disclaimed [less truly] premeditation. I owned that I was hurried on by the violence of a youthful pa.s.sion, and by a sudden impulse, which few other persons, in the like situation, would have been able to check: that I withdrew, at her command and entreaty, on the promise of pardon, without having offered the least indecency, or any freedom, that would not have been forgiven by persons of delicacy, surprised in an att.i.tude so charming--her terror, on the alarm of fire, calling for a soothing behaviour, and personal tenderness, she being ready to fall into fits: my hoped-for happy day so near, that I might be presumed to be looked upon as a betrothed lover--and that this excuse might be pleaded even for the women of the house, that they, thinking us actually married, might suppose themselves to be the less concerned to interfere on so tender an occasion.--[There, Jack, was a bold insinuation on behalf of the women!]
High indignation filled her disdainful eye, eye-beam after eye-beam flashing at me. Every feature of her sweet face had soul in it. Yet she spoke not. Perhaps, Jack, she had a thought, that this plea for the women accounted for my contrivance to have her pa.s.s to them as married, when I first carried her thither.
Capt. Indeed, Sir, I must say that you did not well to add to the apprehensions of a lady so much terrified before.
The dear creature offered to go by me. I set my back against the door, and besought her to stay a few moments. I had not said thus much, my dearest creature, but for your sake, as well as for my own, that Captain Tomlinson should not think I had been viler than I was. Nor will I say one word more on the subject, after I have appealed to your own heart, whether it was not necessary that I should say so much; and to the Captain, whether otherwise he would not have gone away with a much worse opinion of me, if he had judged of my offence by the violence of your resentment.
Capt. Indeed I should. I own I should. And I am very glad, Mr.
Lovelace, that you are able to defend yourself thus far.
Cl. That cause must be well tried, where the offender takes his seat upon the same bench with the judge.--I submit not mine to men--nor, give me leave to say, to you, Captain Tomlinson, though I am willing to have a good opinion of you. Had not the man been a.s.sured that he had influenced you in his favour, he would not have brought you up to Hampstead.
Capt. That I am influenced, as you call it, Madam, is for the sake of your uncle, and for your own sake, more (I will say to Mr. Lovelace"s face) than for his. What can I have in view but peace and reconciliation? I have, from the first, blamed, and I now, again, blame Mr. Lovelace, for adding distress to distress, and terror to terror; the lady, as you acknowledge, Sir, [looking valiantly,] ready before to fall into fits.
Lovel. Let me own to you, Captain Tomlinson, that I have been a very faulty, a very foolish man; and, if this dear creature ever honoured me with her love, an ungrateful one. But I have had too much reason to doubt it. And this is now a flagrant proof that she never had the value for me which my proud heart wished for; that, with such prospects before us; a day so near; settlements approved and drawn; her uncle meditating a general reconciliation which, for her sake, not my own, I was desirous to give into; she can, for an offence so really slight, on an occasion so truly accidental, renounce me for ever; and, with me, all hopes of that reconciliation in the way her uncle had put it in, and she had acquiesced with; and risque all consequences, fatal ones as they may too possibly be.--By my soul, Captain Tomlinson, the dear creature must have hated me all the time she was intending to honour me with her hand. And now she must resolve to abandon me, as far as I know, with a preference in her heart of the most odious of men--in favour of that Solmes, who, as you tell me, accompanies her brother: and with what hopes, with what view, accompanies him!--How can I bear to think of this?--
Cl. It is fit, Sir, that you should judge of my regard for you by your own conscienceness of demerit. Yet you know, or you would not have dared to behave to me as sometimes you did, that you had more of it than you deserved.
She walked from us; and then returning, Captain Tomlinson, said she, I will own to you, that I was not capable of resolving to give my hand, and --nothing but my hand. Had I not given a flagrant proof of this to the once most indulgent of parents? which has brought me into a distress, which this man has heightened, when he ought, in grat.i.tude and honour, to have endeavoured to render it supportable. I had even a bias, Sir, in his favour, I scruple not to own it. Long (much too long!) bore I with his unaccountable ways, attributing his errors to unmeaning gaiety, and to a want of knowing what true delicacy, and true generosity, required from a heart susceptible of grateful impressions to one involved by his means in unhappy circ.u.mstances.
It is now wickedness in him (a wickedness which discredits all his professions) to say, that this last cruel and ungrateful insult was not a premeditated one--But what need I say more of this insult, when it was of such a nature, and that it has changed that bias in his favour, and make me choose to forego all the inviting prospects he talks of, and to run all hazards, to free myself from his power?
O my dearest creature! how happy for us both, had I been able to discover that bias, as you condescend to call it, through such reserves as man never encountered with!
He did discover it, Capt. Tomlinson. He brought me, more than once, to own it; the more needlessly brought me to own it, as I dare say his own vanity gave him no cause to doubt it; and as I had apparently no other motive in not being forward to own it, than my too-justly-founded apprehensions of his want of generosity. In a word, Captain Tomlinson, (and now, that I am determined upon my measures, I the less scruple to say,) I should have despised myself, had I found myself capable of affectation or tyranny to the man I intended to marry. I have always blamed the dearest friend I have in the world for a fault of this nature.
In a word--
Lovel. And had my angel really and indeed the favour for me she is pleased to own?--Dearest creature, forgive me. Restore me to your good opinion. Surely I have not sinned beyond forgiveness. You say that I extorted from you the promise you made me. But I could not have presumed to make that promise the condition of my obedience, had I not thought there was room to expect forgiveness. Permit, I beseech you, the prospects to take place, that were opening so agreeably before us. I will go to town, and bring the license. All difficulties to the obtaining of it are surmounted. Captain Tomlinson shall be witness to the deeds. He will be present at the ceremony on the part of your uncle.
Indeed he gave me hope that your uncle himself--
Capt. I did, Mr. Lovelace: and I will tell you my grounds for the hope I gave. I promised to my dear friend, (your uncle, Madam,) that he should give out that he would take a turn with me to my little farm-house, as I call it, near Northampton, for a week or so.--Poor gentleman!
he has of late been very little abroad!--Too visibly declining!--Change of air, it might be given out, was good for him.--But I see, Madam, that this is too tender a subject--
The dear creature wept. She knew how to apply as meant the Captain"s hint to the occasion of her uncle"s declining state of health.
Capt. We might indeed, I told him, set out in that road, but turn short to town in my chariot; and he might see the ceremony performed with his own eyes, and be the desired father, as well as the beloved uncle.
She turned from us, and wiped her eyes.
Capt. And, really, there seem now to be but two objections to this, as Mr. Harlowe discouraged not the proposal--The one, the unhappy misunderstanding between you; which I would not by any means he should know; since then he might be apt to give weight to Mr. James Harlowe"s unjust surmises.--The other, that it would necessarily occasion some delay to the ceremony; which certainly may be performed in a day or two --if--
And then he reverently bowed to my G.o.ddess.--Charming fellow!--But often did I curse my stars, for making me so much obliged to his adroitness.
She was going to speak; but, not liking the turn of her countenance (although, as I thought, its severity and indignation seemed a little abated) I said, and had like to have blown myself up by it--one expedient I have just thought of--
Cl. None of your expedients, Mr. Lovelace!--I abhor your expedients, your inventions--I have had too many of them.
Lovel. See, Capt. Tomlinson!--See, Sir!--O how we expose ourselves to you!--Little did you think, I dare say, that we have lived in such a continued misunderstanding together!--But you will make the best of it all. We may yet be happy. Oh! that I could have been a.s.sured that this dear creature loved me with the hundredth part of the love I have for her!--Our diffidences have been mutual. I presume to say that she has too much punctilio: I am afraid that I have too little. Hence our difficulties. But I have a heart, Captain Tomlinson, a heart, that bids me hope for her love, because it is resolved to deserve it as much as man can deserve it.
Capt. I am indeed surprised at what I have seen and heard. I defend not Mr. Lovelace, Madam, in the offence he has given you--as a father of daughters myself, I cannot defend him; though his fault seems to be lighter than I had apprehended--but in my conscience, Madam, I think you carry your resentment too high.
Cl. Too high, Sir!--Too high to the man that might have been happy if he would! Too high to the man that has held my soul in suspense an hundred times, since (by artifice and deceit) he obtained a power over me!--Say, Lovelace, thyself say, art thou not the very Lovelace, who by insulting me, hast wronged thine own hopes?--The wretch that appeared in vile disguises, personating an old, lame creature, seeking for lodgings for thy sick wife?--Telling the gentlewomen here stories all of thine own invention; and a.s.serting to them an husband"s right over me, which thou hast not!--And is it [turning to the Captain] to be expected, that I should give credit to the protestations of such a man?
Lovel. Treat me, my dearest creature, as you please, I will bear it: and yet your scorn and your violence have fixed daggers in my heart--But was it possible, without those disguises, to come at your speech?--And could I lose you, if study, if invention, would put it in my power to arrest your anger, and give me hope to engage you to confirm to me the promised pardon? The address I made to you before the women, as if the marriage-ceremony had pa.s.sed, was in consequence of what your uncle had advised, and what you had acquiesced with; and the rather made, as your brother, and Singleton, and Solmes, were resolved to find out whether what was reported of your marriage were true or not, that they might take their measures accordingly; and in hopes to prevent that mischief, which I have been but too studious to prevent, since this tameness has but invited insolence from your brother and his confederates.
Cl. O thou strange wretch, how thou talkest!--But, Captain Tomlinson, give me leave to say, that, were I inclined to enter farther upon this subject, I would appeal to Miss Rawlins"s judgment (whom else have I to appeal to?) She seems to be a person of prudence and honour; but not to any man"s judgment, whether I carry my resentment beyond fit bounds, when I resolve--
Capt. Forgive, Madam, the interruption--but I think there can be no reason for this. You ought, as you said, to be the sole judge of indignities offered you. The gentlewomen here are strangers to you. You will perhaps stay but a little while among them. If you lay the state of your case before any of them, and your brother come to inquire of them, your uncle"s intended mediation will be discovered, and rendered abortive --I shall appear in a light that I never appeared in, in my life--for these women may not think themselves obliged to keep the secret.