No bad prospects for this charming creature, if the old peer would be so kind as to surrender; and many a summons has this gout given him. A good £8,000 a-year, and perhaps the title reversionary, or a still higher, would help me up with her.
Proudly as this lady pretends to be above all pride, grandeur will have its charms with her; for grandeur always makes a man’s face shine in a woman’s eye. I have a pretty good, because a clear, estate, as it is. But what a noble variety of mischief will £8,000 a-year, enable a man to do?
Perhaps thou’lt say, I do already all that comes into my head; but that’s a mistake—not one half I will assure thee. And even good folks, as I have heard, love to have the power of doing mischief, whether they make use of it or not. The late Queen Anne, who was a very good woman, was always fond of prerogative. And her ministers, in her name, in more instances than one, made a ministerial use of this her foible.
But now, at last, am I to be admitted to the presence of my angry fair-one; after three denials, nevertheless; and a peremptory from me, by Dorcas, that I must see her in her chamber, if I cannot see her in the dining-room.
Dorcas, however, tells me that she says, if she were at her own liberty, she would never see me more; and that she had been asking after the characters and conditions of the neighbours. I suppose, now she has found her voice, to call out for help from them, if there were any to hear her.
She will have it now, it seems, that I had the wickedness from the very beginning, to contrive, for her ruin, a house so convenient for dreadful mischief.
Dorcas begs of her to be pacified—entreats her to see me with patience—tells her that I am one of the most determined of men, as she has heard say. That gentleness may do with me; but that nothing else will, she believes. And what, as her ladyship (as she always styles her), is married, if I had broken my oath, or intended to break it!—
She hinted plain enough to the honest wench, that she was not married. But Dorcas would not understand her.
This shows she is resolved to keep no measures. And now is to be a trial of skill, whether she shall or not.
Dorcas has hinted to her my Lord’s illness, as a piece of intelligence that dropped in conversation from me.
But here I stop. My beloved, pursuant to my peremptory message, is just gone up into the dining-room.
Letter 266
Mr. Lovelace, to John Belford, Esq.
Monday Afternoon
Pity me, Jack, for pity’s sake; since, if thou dost not, nobody else will: and yet never was there a man of my genius and lively temper that wanted it more. We are apt to attribute to the devil everything happens to us, which we would not have happen: but here, being, (as perhaps thou’lt say), the devil myself, my plagues arise from an angel. I suppose all mankind is to be plagued by its contrary.
She began with me like a true woman, (she in the fault, I to be blamed), the moment I entered the dining-room: not the least apology, not the least excuse, for the uproar she had made, and the trouble she had given me.
I come, said she, into thy detested presence, because I cannot help it. But why am I to be imprisoned here?—Although to no purpose, I cannot help—
Dearest Madam, interrupted I, give not way to so much violence. You must know, that your detention is entirely owing to the desire I have to make you all the amends that is in my power to make you. And this, as well for your sake as my own. Surely there is still one way left to repair the wrongs you have suffered—
Canst thou blot out the past week! Several weeks past, I should say; ever since I have been with thee? Canst thou call back time?—If thou canst—
Surely, Madam, again interrupting her, if I may be permitted to call you legally mine, I might have but anticip—
Wretch, that thou art! Say not another word upon this subject. When thou vowedst, when thou promisedst at Hampstead, I had begun to think that I must be thine. If I had consented, at the request of those I thought thy relations, this would have been a principal inducement, that I could then have brought thee, what was most wanted, an unsullied honour in dowry, to a wretch destitute of all honour; and could have met the gratulations of a family to which thy life has been one continued disgrace, with a consciousness of deserving their gratulations. But thinkest thou, that I will give a harlot niece to thy honourable uncle, and to thy real aunts; and a cousin to thy cousins from a brothel? for such, in my opinion, is this detested house!—Then, lifting up her clasped hands, “Great and good God of Heaven,” said she, “give me patience to support myself under the weight of those afflictions, which thou, for wise and good ends, though at present impenetrable by me, hast permitted!”
Then, turning towards me, who knew neither what to say to her, nor for myself, I renounce thee forever, Lovelace!—Abhorred of my soul! forever I renounce thee!—Seek thy fortunes wheresoever thou wilt!—only now, that thou hast already ruined me!—
Ruined you, Madam—the world need not—I knew not what to say.
Ruined me in my own eyes; and that is the same to me as if all the world knew it—hinder me not from going whither my mysterious destiny shall lead me.
Why hesitate you, Sir? What right have you to stop me, as you lately did; and to bring me up by force, my hands and arms bruised by your violence? What right have
