The smiles were now, with added contempt, repeated; which the Captain observing, looked very fiercely at Mr. Lovel, and said, “Hark’ee my spark, none of your grinning!—’tis a lingo I don’t understand; and if you give me any more of it, I shall go near to lend you a box o’ the ear.”
“I protest, Sir,” said Mr. Lovel, turning extremely pale, “I think it’s taking a very particular liberty with a person, to talk to one in such a style as this!”
“It’s like you may,” returned the Captain: “but give a good gulp, and I’ll warrant you’ll swallow it.” Then, calling for a glass of ale, with a very provoking and significant nod, he drank to his easy digestion.
Mr. Lovel made no answer, but looked extremely sullen; and, soon after, we left the gentlemen to themselves.
I had then two letters delivered to me; one from Lady Howard and Mrs. Mirvan, which contained the kindest congratulations; and the other from Madame Duval;—but not a word from you—to my no small surprise and concern.
Madame Duval seems greatly rejoiced at my late intelligence: a violent cold, she says, prevents her coming to Bristol. The Branghtons, she tells me, are all well; Miss Polly is soon to be married to Mr. Brown; but Mr. Smith has changed his lodgings, “which,” she adds, “has made the house extremely dull. However, that’s not the worst news; pardi, I wish it was! but I’ve been used like nobody—for Monsieur Du Bois has had the baseness to go back to France without me.” In conclusion, she assures me, as you prognosticated she would, that I shall be sole heiress of all she is worth, when Lady Orville.
At teatime, we were joined by all the gentlemen but Captain Mirvan, who went to the hotel where he was to sleep, and made his daughter accompany him, to separate her trumpery, as he called it, from his clothes.
As soon as they were gone, Mr. Lovel, who still appeared extremely sulky, said, “I protest, I never saw such a vulgar, abusive fellow in my life, as that Captain: ’pon honour, I believe he came here for no purpose in the world but to pick a quarrel; however, for my part, I vow I won’t humour him.”
“I declare,” cried Lady Louisa, “he put me in a monstrous fright;—I never heard anybody talk so shocking in my life!”
“I think,” said Mrs. Selwyn, with great solemnity, “he threatened to box your ears, Mr. Lovel;—did not he?”
“Really, Ma’am,” said Mr. Lovel, colouring, “if one was to mind everything those low kind of people say, one should never be at rest for one impertinence or other; so I think the best way is to be above taking any notice of them.”
“What,” said Mrs. Selwyn, with the same gravity, “and so receive the blow in silence!”
During this discourse, I heard the Captain’s chaise stop at the door, and ran downstairs to meet Maria. She was alone, and told me that her father, who, she was sure, had some scheme in agitation against Mr. Lovel, had sent her on before him. We continued in the parlour till his return, and were joined by Lord Orville, who begged me not to insist on a patience so unnatural, as submitting to be excluded our society. And let me, my dear Sir, with a grateful heart let me own, I never before passed half an hour in such perfect felicity.
I believe we were all sorry when the Captain returned; yet his inward satisfaction, from however different a cause, did not seem inferior to what ours had been. He chucked Maria under the chin, rubbed his hands, and was scarce able to contain the fullness of his glee. We all attended him to the drawing room; where, having composed his countenance, without any previous attention to Mrs. Beaumont, he marched up to Mr. Lovel, and abruptly said, “Pray, have you e’er a brother in these here parts?”
“Me, Sir?—no, thank Heaven, I’m free from all encumbrances of that sort.”
“Well,” cried the Captain, “I met a person just now so like you, I could have sworn he had been your twin brother.”
“It would have been a most singular pleasure to me,” said Mr. Lovel, “if I also could have seen him; for, really, I have not the least notion what sort of a person I am, and I have a prodigious curiosity to know.”
Just then the Captain’s servant, opening the door, said, “A little gentleman below desires to see one Mr. Lovel.”
“Beg him to walk upstairs,” said Mrs. Beaumont. “But, pray what is the reason William is out of the way?”
The man shut the door without any answer.
“I can’t imagine who it is,” said Mr. Lovel: “I recollect no little gentleman of my acquaintance now at Bristol—except, indeed the Marquis of Charlton;—but I don’t much fancy it can be him. Let me see, who else is there so very little?”
A confused noise among the servants now drew all eyes towards the door: the impatient Captain hastened to open it; and then, clapping his hands, called out, “ ’Fore George, ’tis the same person I took for your relation!”
And then, to the utter astonishment of everybody but himself, he hauled into the room a monkey, full-dressed, and extravagantly à la mode!
The dismay of the company was almost general. Poor Mr. Lovel seemed thunderstruck with indignation and surprise: Lady Louisa began a scream, which for some time was incessant; Miss Mirvan and I jumped involuntarily upon the seats of our chairs; Mrs. Beaumont herself followed our example; Lord Orville placed himself before me as a guard; and Mrs. Selwyn, Lord Merton, and Mr. Coverley, burst into a loud, immoderate, ungovernable fit of laughter, in which they were joined by the Captain, till, unable to support himself, he rolled on the floor.
The first voice which made its way through this general noise was that of Lady Louisa, which her fright and screaming rendered extremely shrill. “Take it away!” cried she,
