Has not your family, Madam, some one tradesman they deal with, who has conveniences of this kind? I would make it worth such a person’s while to keep his secret of your being at his house. Traders are dealers in pins, said he, and will be more obliged by a penny customer, than by a pound present, because it is in their way: yet will refuse neither, any more than a lawyer or a man of office his fee.
My father’s tradesmen, I said, would, no doubt, be the first employed to find me out. So that that proposal was as wrong as the other. And who is it that a creature so lately in favour with all her friends can apply to, in such a situation as mine, but must be (at least) equally the friends of her relations.
We had a good deal of discourse upon the same topic. But, at last, the result was this—He wrote a letter to one Mr. Doleman, a married man, of fortune and character, (I excepting to Mr. Belford), desiring him to provide decent apartments ready furnished (I had told him what they should be) for a single woman; consisting of a bedchamber; another for a maidservant; with the use of a dining-room or parlour. This letter he gave me to peruse; and then sealed it up, and dispatched it away in my presence, by one of his own servants, who, having business in town, is to bring back an answer.
I attend the issue of it; holding myself in readiness to set out for London, unless you, my dear, advise the contrary.
Letter 127
Mr. Lovelace, to John Belford, Esq.
Sat., Sunday, Monday
[He gives, in several letters, the substance of what is contained in the last seven of the Lady’s.
He tells his friend, that calling at The Lawn, in his way to M. Hall, (for he owns that he went not to Windsor), he found the letters from Lady Betty Lawrance, and his cousin Montague, which Mrs. Greme was about sending to him by a special messenger.
He gives the particulars, from Mrs. Greme’s report, of what passed between the Lady and her, as in Letter 96 and makes such declarations to Mrs. Greme of his honour and affection to the Lady, as put her upon writing the letter to her sister Sorlings, the contents of which are in Letter 120.
He then accounts, as follows, for the serious humour he found her in on his return:]
Upon such good terms when we parted, I was surprised to find so solemn a brow upon my return, and her charming eyes red with weeping. But when I had understood she had received letters from Miss Howe, it was natural to imagine that that little devil had put her out of humour with me.
It is easy for me to perceive, that my charmer is more sullen when she receives, and has perused, a letter from that vixen, than at other times. But as the sweet maid shows, even then, more of passive grief, than of active spirit, I hope she is rather lamenting than plotting. And, indeed, for what now should she plot? when I am become a reformed man, and am hourly improving in my morals?—Nevertheless, I must contrive some way or other to get at their correspondence—only to see the turn of it; that’s all.
But no attempt of this kind must be made yet. A detected invasion, in an article so sacred, would ruin me beyond retrieve. Nevertheless, it vexes me to the heart to think that she is hourly writing her whole mind on all that passes between her and me, I under the same roof with her, yet kept at such awful distance, that I dare not break into a correspondence, that may perhaps be a mean to defeat all my devices.
Would it be very wicked, Jack, to knock her messenger on the head, as he is carrying my beloved’s letters, or returning from Miss Howe’s?—To attempt to bribe him, and not succeed, would utterly ruin me. And the man seems to be one used to poverty, one who can sit down satisfied with it, and enjoy it; contented with hand-to-mouth conveniencies, and not aiming to live better tomorrow, than he does today, and than he did yesterday. Such a one is above temptation, unless it could come clothed in the guise of truth and trust. What likelihood of corrupting a man who has no hope, no ambition?
Yet the rascal has but half life, and groans under that. Should I be answerable in his case for a whole life?—But hang the fellow! Let him live. Were I king, or a minister of state, an Antonio Perez,103 it were another thing. And yet, on second thoughts, am I not a rake, as it is called? And who ever knew a rake stick at anything? But thou knowest, Jack, that the greatest half of my wickedness is vapour, to show my invention; and to prove that I could be mischievous if I would.
[When he comes to that part where the Lady says (Letter 121) in a sarcastic way, waving her hand, and bowing,
“Excuse me, good Mr. Lovelace, that I am willing to think the best of my father,”he gives a description of her air and manner, greatly to her advantage; and says,]I could hardly forbear taking her into my arms upon it, in spite of an expected tempest. So much wit, so much beauty, such a lively manner, and such exceeding quickness and penetration! O Belford! she must be nobody’s but mine. I can now account for and justify Herod’s command to destroy his Mariamne, if he returned not alive from his interview with Caesar: for were I to know that it were but probable that any other man were to have this charming creature, even after my death, the very thought would be enough to provoke me
