Thursday, April 13.
I have this moment your continuation-letter. And am favoured, at present, with the absence of my Argus-eyes mother.—
Dear creature! I can account for all your difficulties. A young lady of your delicacy!—And with such a man!—I must be brief—
The man’s a fool, my dear, with all his pride, and with all his complaisance, and affected regards to your injunctions
. Yet his ready inventions—
Sometimes I think you should go to Lady Betty’s. I know not what to advise you to do.—I should, if you were not so intent upon reconciling yourself to your relations. Yet they are implacable. You can have no hopes of them. Your uncle’s errand to my mother may convince you of that; and if you have an answer to your letter to your sister, that will confirm you, I dare say.
You need not to have been afraid of asking me, Whether upon reading your narrative, I thought any extenuation could lie for what you have done! I have, as above, before I had your question, told you my mind as to that. And I repeat, I think, your provocations and inducements
considered, that ever young creature was who took such a step.
But you took it not
—You were driven on one side
, and, possibly, tricked on the other
.—If any woman on earth shall be circumstanced as you were, and shall hold out so long as you did, against her persecutors on one hand, and her seducer on the other, I will forgive her for all the rest of her conduct, be it what it will.
All your acquaintance, you may suppose, talk of nobody but you. Some indeed bring your admirable character for a plea against you: but nobody does, or can, acquit your father and uncles.
Everybody seems apprised of your brother’s and sister’s motives. Your flight is, no doubt, the very thing they aimed to drive you to, by the various attacks they made upon you; unhoping (as they must do all the time) the success of their schemes in Solmes’s behalf. They knew, that if once you were restored to favour, the suspended love of your father and uncles, like a river breaking down a temporary obstruction, would return with double force; and that then you would expose, and triumph over all their arts.—And now, I hear they enjoy their successful malice.
Your father is all rage and violence. He ought, I am sure, to turn his rage inward. All your family accuse you of acting with deep art
; and are put upon supposing that you are actually every hour exulting over them
, with your man, in the success of it.
They all pretend now, that your trial of Wednesday was to be the last.
Advantage would indeed, my mother owns, have been taken of your yielding, if you had yielded. But had you not been prevailed upon, they would have given up their scheme, and taken your promise for renouncing Lovelace—Believe them who will!
They own, however, that a minister was to be present—Mr. Solmes was to be at hand—And your father was previously to try his authority over you, in order to make you sign the settlements—All of it a romantic contrivance of your wild-headed foolish brother, I make no doubt. Is it likely that he and Bell would have given way to your restoration to favour, supposing it in their power to hinder it, on any other terms than those their hearts had been so long set upon?
How they took your flight, when they found it out, may be better supposed than described.
Your aunt Hervey, it seems, was the first that went down to the ivy summerhouse, in order to acquaint you that their search was over. Betty followed her; and they not finding you there, went on towards the cascade, according to a hint of yours.
Returning by the garden-door, they met a servant (they don’t say, it was Joseph Leman; but it is very likely that it was he) running, as he said, from pursuing Mr. Lovelace (a great hedge-stake in his hand, and out of breath) to alarm the family.
If it were this fellow, and if he were employed in the double agency of cheating them, and cheating you, what shall we think of the wretch you are with? Run away from him, my dear, if so—no matter to whom—or marry him, if you cannot.
Your aunt and all your family were accordingly alarmed by this fellow—evidently when too late for pursuit. They got together, and when a posse, ran to the place of interview; and some of them as far as to the tracks of the chariot wheels, without stopping. And having heard the man’s tale upon the spot, a general lamentation, a mutual upbraiding, and rage, and grief, were echoed from the different persons, according to their different tempers and conceptions. And they returned like fools as they went.
Your brother, at first, ordered horses and armed men to be got ready for a pursuit. Solmes and your uncle Tony were to be of the party. But your mother and your aunt Hervey dissuaded them from it, for fear of adding evil to evil; not doubting but Lovelace had taken measures to support himself in what he had done; and especially when the servant declared, that he saw you run with him as fast as you could set foot to the ground; and that there were several armed men on horseback at a small distance off.
My mother’s absence was owing to her suspicion, that the Knolly’s were to assist in our correspondence. She made them a visit upon it. She does everything at once. And they have promised, that no more letters shall be left there, without her knowledge.
But Mr. Hickman has engaged one Filmer, a husbandman in the lane we call Finch-lane, near us, to receive them. Thither you will be pleased to direct yours, under cover, to Mr. John Soberton;
