Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady Volume IX Part 29

On Monday he will be with you, I believe. Pray let me be favoured with an account of all your conversations; for Mr. Mowbray and Mr. Tourville are to be there too; and whether you think he is grown quite his own man again.

What I mostly write for is, to wish you to keep Colonel Morden and him asunder; and so I give you notice of his going to town. I should be very loth there should be any mischief between them, as you gave me notice that the Colonel threatened my nephew. But my kinsman would not bear that; so n.o.body let him know that he did. But I hope there is no fear; for the Colonel does not, as I hear, threaten now. For his own sake, I am glad of that; for there is not such a man in the world as my kinsman is said to be, at all the weapons--as well he was not; he would not be so daring.

We shall all here miss the wild fellow. To be sure, there is no man better company when he pleases.

Pray, do you never travel thirty or forty miles? I should be glad to see you here at M. Hall. It will be charity when my kinsman is gone; for we suppose you will be his chief correspondent; although he has promised to write to my nieces often. But he is very apt to forget his promises; to us his relations particularly. G.o.d preserve us all; Amen! prays

Your very humble servant, M.

LETTER LII

MR. BELFORD, TO LORD M.

LONDON, TUESDAY NIGHT, OCT. 3.

MY LORD,

I obey your Lordship's commands with great pleasure.

Yesterday in the afternoon Mr. Lovelace made me a visit at my lodgings.

As I was in expectation of one from Colonel Morden about the same time, I thought proper to carry him to a tavern which neither of us frequented, (on pretence of a half-appointment;) ordering notice to be sent me thither, if the Colonel came; and Mr. Lovelace sent to Mowbray, and Tourville, and Mr. Doleman of Uxbridge, (who came to town to take leave of him,) to let them know where to find us.

Mr. Lovelace is too well recovered, I was going to say. I never saw him more gay, lively, and handsome. We had a good deal of bl.u.s.ter about some parts of the trust I had engaged in; and upon freedoms I had treated him with; in which, he would have it, that I had exceeded our agreed-upon limits; but on the arrival of our three old companions, and a nephew of Mr. Doleman's, (who had a good while been desirous to pa.s.s an hour with Mr. Lovelace,) it blew off for the present.

Mr. Mowbray and Mr. Tourville had also taken some exceptions at the freedoms of my pen; and Mr. Lovelace, after his way, took upon him to reconcile us; and did it at the expense of all three; and with such an infinite run of humour and raillery, that we had nothing to do but to laugh at what he said, and at one another. I can deal tolerably with him at my pen; but in conversation he has no equal. In short, it was his day. He was glad, he said, to find himself alive; and his two friends, clapping and rubbing their hands twenty times in an hour, declared, that now, once more, he was all himself--the charming'st fellow in the world; and they would follow him to the farthest part of the globe.

I threw a bur upon his coat now-and-then; but none would stick.

Your Lordship knows, that there are many things which occasion a roar of applause in conversation, when the heart is open, and men are resolved to be merry, which will neither bear repeating, nor thinking of afterwards.

Common things, in the mouth of a man we admire, and whose wit has pa.s.sed upon us for sterling, become, in a gay hour, uncommon. We watch every turn of such a one's countenance, and are resolved to laugh when he smiles, even before he utters what we are expecting to flow from his lips.

Mr. Doleman and his nephew took leave of us by twelve, Mowbray and Tourville grew very noisy by one, and were carried off by two. Wine never moves Mr. Lovelace, notwithstanding a vivacity which generally helps on over-gay spirits. As to myself, the little part I had taken in the gaiety kept me unconcerned.

The clock struck three before I could get him into any serious or attentive way--so natural to him is gaiety of heart; and such strong hold had the liveliness of the evening taken of him. His conversation, you know, my Lord, when his heart is free, runs off to the bottom without any dregs.

But after that hour, and when we thought of parting, he became a little more serious: and then he told me his designs, and gave me a plan of his intended tour; wishing heartily that I could have accompanied him.

We parted about four; he not a little dissatisfied with me; for we had some talk about subjects, which, he said, he loved not to think of; to whit, Miss Harlowe's will; my executorship; papers I had in confidence communicated to that admirable lady (with no unfriendly design, I a.s.sure your Lordship;) and he insisting upon, and I refusing, the return of the letters he had written to me, from the time that he had made his first addresses to her.

He would see me once again, he said; and it would be upon very ill terms if I complied not with his request. Which I bid him not expect. But, that I might not deny him every thing, I told him, that I would give him a copy of the will; though I was sure, I said, when he read it, he would wish he had never seen it.

I had a message from him about eleven this morning, desiring me to name a place at which to dine with him, and Mowbray, and Tourville, for the last time: and soon after another from Colonel Morden, inviting me to pa.s.s the evening with him at the Bedford-head in Covent-Garden. And, that I might keep them at distance from one another, I appointed Mr.

Lovelace at the Eagle in Suffolk-street.

There I met him, and the two others. We began where we left off at our last parting; and were very high with each other. But, at last, all was made up, and he offered to forget and forgive every thing, on condition that I would correspond with him while abroad, and continue the series which had been broken through by his illness; and particularly give him, as I had offered, a copy of the lady's last will.

I promised him: and he then fell to rallying me on my gravity, and on my reformation-schemes, as he called them. As we walked about the room, expecting dinner to be brought in, he laid his hand upon my shoulder; then pushed me from him with a curse; walking round me, and surveying me from head to foot; then calling for the observations of the others, he turned round upon his heel, and with one of his peculiar wild airs, 'Ha, ha, ha, ha,' burst he out, 'that these sour-faced proselytes should take it into their heads that they cannot be pious, without forfeiting both their good-nature and good-manners!--Why, Jack,' turning me about, 'pr'ythee look up, man!--Dost thou not know, that religion, if it has taken proper hold of the heart, is the most cheerful countenance-maker in the world?--I have heard my beloved Miss Harlowe say so: and she knew, or n.o.body did. And was not her aspect a benign proof of the observation?

But thy these wamblings in thy cursed gizzard, and thy awkward grimaces, I see thou'rt but a novice in it yet!--Ah, Belford, Belford, thou hast a confounded parcel of briers and thorns to trample over barefoot, before religion will illuminate these gloomy features!'

I give your Lordship this account, in answer to your desire to know, if I think him the man he was.

In our conversation at dinner, he was balancing whether he should set out the next morning, or the morning after. But finding he had nothing to do, and Col. Morden being in town, (which, however, I told him not of,) I turned the scale; and he agreed upon setting out to-morrow morning; they to see him embark; and I promised to accompany them for a morning's ride (as they proposed their horses); but said, that I must return in the afternoon.

With much reluctance they let me go to my evening's appointment: they little thought with whom: for Mr. Lovelace had put it as a case of honour to all of us, whether, as he had been told that Mr. Morden and Mr. James Harlowe had thrown out menaces against him, he ought to leave the kingdom till he had thrown himself in their way.

Mowbray gave his opinion, that he ought to leave it like a man of honour as he was; and if he did not take those gentlemen to task for their opprobrious speeches, that at least he should be seen by them in public before he went away; else they might give themselves airs, as if he had left the kingdom in fear of them.

To this he himself so much inclined, that it was with difficulty I persuaded him, that, as they had neither of them proceeded to a direct and formal challenge; as they knew he had not made himself difficult of access; and as he had already done the family injury enough; and it was Miss Harlowe's earnest desire, that he would be content with that; he had no reason, from any point of honour, to delay his journey; especially as he had so just a motive for his going, as the establishing of his health; and as he might return the sooner, if he saw occasion for it.

I found the Colonel in a very solemn way. We had a good deal of discourse upon the subject of certain letters which had pa.s.sed between us in relation to Miss Harlowe's will, and to her family. He has some accounts to settle with his banker; which, he says, will be adjusted to-morrow; and on Thursday he proposes to go down again, to take leave of his friends; and then intends to set out directly for Italy.

I wish Mr. Lovelace could have been prevailed upon to take any other tour, than that of France and Italy. I did propose Madrid to him; but he laughed at me, and told me, that the proposal was in character from a mule; and from one who was become as grave as a Spaniard of the old cut, at ninety.

I expressed to the Colonel my apprehensions, that his cousin's dying injunctions would not have the force upon him that were to be wished.

'They have great force upon me, Mr. Belford,' said he; 'or one world would not have held Mr. Lovelace and me thus long. But my intention is to go to Florence; and not to lay my bones there, as upon my cousin's death I told you I thought to do; but to settle all my affairs in those parts, and then to come over, and reside upon a little paternal estate in Kent, which is strangely gone to ruin in my absence. Indeed, were I to meet Mr. Lovelace, either here or abroad, I might not be answerable for the consequence.'

He would have engaged me for to-morrow. But having promised to attend Mr. Lovelace on his journey, as I have mentioned, I said, I was obliged to go out of town, and was uncertain as to the time of my return in the evening. And so I am to see him on Thursday morning at my own lodgings.

I will do myself the honour to write again to your Lordship to-morrow night. Mean time, I am, my Lord,

Your Lordship's, &c.

LETTER LIII

MR. BELFORD, TO LORD M.

WEDN. NIGHT, OCT. 4.

MY LORD,

I am just returned from attending Mr. Lovelace as far as Gad's-Hill, near Rochester. He was exceeding gay all the way. Mowbray and Tourville are gone on with him. They will see him embark, and under sail; and promise to follow him in a month or two; for they say, there is no living without him, now he is once more himself.

He and I parted with great and even solemn tokens of affection; but yet not without gay intermixtures, as I will acquaint your Lordship.

Taking me aside, and clasping his arms about me, 'Adieu, dear Belford!'

said he: 'may you proceed in the course you have entered upon!--Whatever airs I give myself, this charming creature has fast hold of me here-- [clapping his hand upon his heart]: and I must either appear what you see me, or be what I so lately was--O the divine creature!' lifting up his eyes----

'But if I live to come to England, and you remain fixed in your present way, and can give me encouragement, I hope rather to follow your example, than to ridicule you for it. This will [for I had given him a copy of it] I will make the companion of my solitary hours. You have told me a part of its melancholy contents; and that, and her posthumous letter, shall be my study; and they will prepare me for being your disciple, if you hold on.

'You, Jack, may marry,' continued he; 'and I have a wife in my eye for you.--Only thou'rt such an awkward mortal:' [he saw me affected, and thought to make me smile:] 'but we don't make ourselves, except it be worse by our dress. Thou art in mourning now, as well as I: but if ever thy ridiculous turn lead thee again to be beau-brocade, I will bedizen thee, as the girls say, on my return, to my own fancy, and according to thy own natural appearance----Thou shalt doctor my soul, and I will doctor thy body: thou shalt see what a clever fellow I will make of thee.

'As for me, I never will, I never can, marry--that I will not take a few liberties, and that I will not try to start some of my former game, I won't promise--habits are not so easily shaken off--but they shall be by way of wearing. So return and reform shall go together.

'And now, thou sorrowful monkey, what aileth thee?' I do love him, my Lord.