I had actually done so, I told her, on seeing her strange uneasiness. But it was then gone to fetch a doctor for Miss Montague, lest his chariot should not be so ready.
Ah! Lovelace! said she, with a doubting face; anguish in her imploring eye.
Lady Betty would think it very strange, I told her, if she were to know it was so disagreeable to her to stay one night for her company in the house where she had passed so many.
She called me names upon this—she had called me names before.—I was patient.
Let her go to Lady Betty’s lodgings then; directly go; if the person I called Lady Betty was really Lady Betty.
If, my dear! Good Heaven! What a villain does that if show you believe me to be!
I cannot help it—I beseech you once more, let me go to Mrs. Leeson’s, if that if ought not to be said.
Then assuming a more resolute spirit—I will go! I will inquire my way!—I will go by myself!—and would have rushed by me.
I folded my arms about her to detain her; pleading the bad way I heard poor Charlotte was in; and what a farther concern her impatience, if she went, would give to poor Charlotte.
She would believe nothing I said, unless I would instantly order a coach, (since she was not to have Lady Betty’s, nor was permitted to go to Mrs. Leeson’s), and let her go in it to Hampstead, late as it was, and all alone, so much the better; for in the house of people of whom Lady Betty, upon inquiry, had heard a bad character, (Dropped foolishly this, by my prating new relation, in order to do credit to herself, by depreciating others), everything, and every face, looking with so much meaning vileness, as well as my own, (thou art still too sensible, thought I, my charmer!) she was resolved not to stay another night.
Dreading what might happen as to her intellects, and being very apprehensive that she might possibly go through a great deal before morning, (though more violent she could not well be with the worst she dreaded), I humoured her, and ordered Will to endeavour to get a coach directly, to carry us to Hampstead; I cared not at what price.
Robbers, with whom I would have terrified her, she feared not—I was all her fear, I found; and this house her terror: for I saw plainly that she now believed that Lady Betty and Miss Montague were both impostors.
But her mistrust is a little of the latest to do her service!
And, O Jack, the rage of love, the rage of revenge is upon me! by turns they tear me! The progress already made—the women’s instigations—the power I shall have to try her to the utmost, and still to marry her, if she be not to be brought to cohabitation—let me perish, Belford, if she escape me now!
Will is not yet come back. Near eleven.
Will is this moment returned. No coach to be got, either for love or money.
Once more she urges—to Mrs. Leeson’s, let me go, Lovelace! Good Lovelace, let me go to Mrs. Leeson’s? What is Miss Montague’s illness to my terror?—For the Almighty’s sake, Mr. Lovelace!—her hands clasped.
O my angel! What a wildness is this! Do you know, do you see, my dearest life, what appearances your causeless apprehensions have given you?—Do you know it is past eleven o’clock?
Twelve, one, two, three, four—any hour, I care not—If you mean me honourably, let me go out of this hated house!
Thou’lt observe, Belford, that though this was written afterwards, yet, (as in other places), I write it as it was spoken and happened, as if I had retired to put down every sentence spoken. I know thou likest this lively present-tense manner, as it is one of my peculiars.
Just as she had repeated the last words, If you mean me honourably, let me go out of this hated house
, in came Mrs. Sinclair, in a great ferment—And what, pray, Madam, has this house done to you? Mr. Lovelace, you have known me some time; and, if I have not the niceness of this lady, I hope I do not deserve to be treated thus!
She set her huge arms akimbo: Hoh! Madam, let me tell you that I am amazed at your freedoms with my character! And, Mr. Lovelace, (holding up, and violently shaking her head), if you are a gentleman, and a man of honour—
Having never before seen anything but obsequiousness in this woman, little as she liked her, she was frighted at her masculine air, and fierce look—God help me! cried she—what will become of me now! Then, turning her head hither and thither, in a wild kind of amaze. Whom have I for a protector! What will become of me now!
I will be your protector, my dearest love!—But indeed you are uncharitably severe upon poor Mrs. Sinclair! Indeed you are!—She is a gentlewoman born, and the relict of a man of honour; and though left in such circumstance as to oblige her to let lodgings, yet would she scorn to be guilty of a wilful baseness.
I hope so—it may be so—I may be mistaken—but—but there is no crime, I presume, no treason, to say I don’t like her house.
The old dragon straddled up to her, with her arms kemboed again—her eyebrows erect, like the bristles upon a hog’s back, and, scowling over her shortened nose, more than half-hid her ferret eyes. Her mouth was distorted. She pouted out her blubber-lips, as if to bellows up wind and sputter into her horse-nostrils; and her chin was curdled, and more than usually prominent with passion.
With two Hoh-Madams she accosted the frighted fair-one; who, terrified, caught hold of my sleeve.
I feared she would fall into fits; and, with a look of indignation, told Mrs. Sinclair that these apartments were mine; and I could not imagine what she meant, either by listening to what passed
