I found more difficulty than I expected (as the time was confined, and secrecy required, and as you so earnestly forbid me to accompany you in your enterprise) in procuring you a vehicle. Had you not obliged me to keep measures with my mother, I could have managed it with ease. I could even have taken our own chariot, on one pretence or other, and put two horses extraordinary to it, if I had thought fit; and I could, when we had got to London, have sent it back, and nobody the wiser as to the lodgings we might have taken.
I wish to the Lord you had permitted this. Indeed I think you are too punctilious a great deal for your situation. Would you expect to enjoy yourself with your usual placidness, and not to be ruffled, in an hurricane which every moment threatens to blow your house down?
Had your distress sprung from yourself, that would have been another thing. But when all the world knows where to lay the fault, this alters the case.
How can you say I am happy, when my mother, to her power, is as much an abettor of their wickedness to my dearest friend, as your aunt, or anybody else?—and this through the instigation of that odd-headed and foolish uncle of yours, who (sorry creature that he is!) keeps her up to resolutions which are unworthy of her, for an example to me, if it please you. Is not this cause enough for me to ground a resentment upon, sufficient to justify me for accompanying you; the friendship between us so well known?
Indeed, my dear, the importance of the case considered, I must repeat, that you are too nice. Don’t they already think that your noncompliance with their odious measures is owing a good deal to my advice? Have they not prohibited our correspondence upon that very surmise? And have I, but on your account, reason to value what they think?
Besides, What discredit have I to fear by such a step? What detriment? Would Hickman, do you believe, refuse me upon it?—If he did, should I be sorry for that?—Who is it, that has a soul, who would not be affected by such an instance of female friendship?
But I should vex and disorder my mother!—Well, that is something: but not more than she vexes and disorders me, on her being made an implement by such a sorry creature, who ambles hither every day in spite to my dearest friend—Woe be to both, if it be for a double end!—Chide me, if you will: I don’t care.
I say, and I insist upon it, such a step would ennoble your friend: and if still you will permit it, I will take the office out of Lovelace’s hands; and, tomorrow evening, or on Monday before his time of appointment takes place, will come in a chariot, or chaise: and then, my dear, if we get off as I wish, will we make terms (and what terms we please) with them all. My mother will be glad to receive her daughter again, I warrant: and Hickman will cry for joy on my return; or he shall for sorrow.
But you are so very earnestly angry with me for proposing such a step, and have always so much to say for your side of any question, that I am afraid to urge it farther.—Only be so good (let me add) as to encourage me to resume it, if, upon farther consideration, and upon weighing matters well, (and in this light, whether best to go off with me, or with Lovelace), you can get over your punctilious regard for my reputation. A woman going away with a woman is not so discreditable a thing, surely! and with no view, but to avoid the fellows!—I say, only to be so good, as to consider this point; and if you can get over your scruples on my account, do. And so I will have done with this argument for the present; and apply myself to some of the passages in yours.
A time, I hope, will come, that I shall be able to read your affecting narratives without the impatient bitterness which now boils over in my heart, and would flow to my pen, were I to enter into the particulars of what you write. And indeed I am afraid of giving you my advice at all, or telling you what I should do in your case (supposing you will still refuse my offer; finding too what you have been brought or rather driven to without it); lest any evil should follow it: in which case, I should never forgive myself. And this consideration has added to my difficulties in writing to you now you are upon such a crisis, and yet refuse the only method—but I said, I would not for the present touch any more that string. Yet, one word more, chide me if you please: If any harm betide you, I shall forever blame my mother—indeed I shall—and perhaps yourself, if you do not accept my offer.
But one thing, in your present situation and prospects, let me advise: It is this, that if you do go off with Mr. Lovelace, you take the first opportunity to marry. Why should you not, when everybody will know by whose assistance, and in whose company, you leave your father’s house, go whithersoever you will?—You may indeed keep him at a distance, until settlements are drawn, and suchlike matters are adjusted to your mind: but even these are matters of less
