Where can a woman be safe, who has once entered the lists with a contriving and intrepid lover?
But as to this letter, methinkest thou sayest, of Miss Howe?
I knew thou wouldest be uneasy for me. But did not I tell thee that I had provided for everything? That I always took care to keep seals entire, and to preserve covers?207 Was it not easy then, thinkest thou, to contrive a shorter letter out of a longer; and to copy the very words?
I can tell thee, it was so well ordered, that, not being suspected to have been in my hands, it was not easy to find me out. Had it been my beloved’s hand, there would have been no imitating it for such a length. Her delicate and even mind is seen in the very cut of her letters. Miss Howe’s hand is no bad one, but it is not so equal and regular. That little devil’s natural impatience hurrying on her fingers, gave, I suppose, from the beginning, her handwriting, as well as the rest of her, its fits and starts, and those peculiarities, which, like strong muscular lines in a face, neither the pen, nor the pencil, can miss.
Hast thou a mind to see what it was I permitted Miss Howe to write to her lovely friend? Why then, read it here, so extracted from hers of Wednesday last, with a few additions of my own. The additions underscored.
My Dearest Friend,
You will perhaps think that I have been too long silent. But I had begun two letters at different times since my last, and written a great deal each time; and with spirit enough I assure you; incensed as I was against the abominable wretch you are with; particularly on reading yours of the 21st of the past month.
The first I intended to keep open till I could give you some account of my proceedings with Mrs. Townsend. It was some days before I saw her: and this intervenient space giving me time to reperuse what I had written, I thought it proper to lay that aside, and to write in a style a little less fervent; for you would have blamed me, I knew, for the freedom of some of my expressions, (execrations, if you please). And when I had gone a good way in the second, and change your prospects, on his communicating to you Miss Montague’s letter, and his better behaviour, occasioning a change in your mind, I laid that aside also. And in this uncertainty thought I would wait to see the issue of affairs between you before I wrote again; believing that all would soon be decided one way or other.
Here I was forced to break off. I am too little my own mistress:—My mother208 is always up and down—and watching as if I were writing to a fellow. What need I (she asks me), lock myself in,209 if I am only reading past correspondencies? For that is my pretence, when she comes poking in with her face sharpened to an edge, as I may say, by a curiosity that gives her more pain than pleasure.—The Lord forgive me; but I believe I shall huff her next time she comes in.
Do you forgive me too, my dear—my mother ought; because she says I am my father’s girl; and because I am sure I am hers.
Upon my life, my dear, I am sometimes of opinion, that this vile man was capable of meaning you dishonour. When I look back upon his past conduct, I cannot help, and verily believe, that he has laid aside such thoughts. My reasons for both opinions I will give you.
For the first: to-wit, that he had it once in his head to take you at advantage if he could, I consider210 that pride, revenge, and a delight to tread in unbeaten paths, are principal ingredients in the character of this finished libertine. He hates all your family, yourself excepted—yet is a savage in love. His pride, and the credit which a few plausible qualities, sprinkled among his odious ones, have given him, have secured him too good a reception from our eye-judging, our undistinguishing, our self—flattering, our too-confiding sex, to make assiduity and obsequiousness, and a conquest of his unruly passions, any part of his study.
He has some reason for his animosity to all the men, and to one woman of your family. He has always shown you, and his own family too, that he prefers his pride to his interest. He is a declared marriage-hater; a notorious intriguer; full of his inventions, and glorying in them.—As his vanity had made him imagine that no woman could be proof against his love, no wonder that he struggled like a lion held in toils,* against a passion that he thought not returned.211 Hence, perhaps, it is not difficult to believe, that it became possible for such a wretch as this to give way to his old prejudices against marriage; and to that revenge which had always been a first passion with him.212
And hence we may account for his delays—his teasing ways—his bringing you to bear with his lodging in the same house—his making you pass to the other people of it as his wife—his bringing you into the company of his libertine companions—the attempt of imposing upon you that Miss Partington for a bedfellow, etc.
My reasons for a contrary opinion, to wit, that he is now resolved to do you all the justice in his power to do you, are these:—That he sees that all his own family213 have warmly engaged themselves in your cause: that the horrid wretch loves you; with such a love, however, as Herod loved his Mariamne: that, on inquiry, I find it to be true, that
