Clarissa Harlowe, Samuel Richardson [black authors fiction .txt] 📗

managed all her affairs. She calls him a young officer of sense and politeness, who gave her an account of the house and furniture, to the same effect that Mr. Lovelace had done before;133 as also of the melancholy way Mrs. Fretchville is in.

She tells Miss Howe how extremely urgent Mr. Lovelace was with the gentleman, to get his spouse (as he now always calls her before company) a sight of the house: and that Mr. Mennell undertook that very afternoon to show her all of it, except the apartment Mrs. Fretchville should be in when she went. But that she chose not to take another step till she knew how she approved of her scheme to have her uncle sounded, and with what success, if tried, it would be attended.

Mr. Lovelace, in his humorous way, gives his friend an account of the Lady’s peevishness and dejection, on receiving a letter with her clothes. He regrets that he has lost her confidence; which he attributes to his bringing her into the company of his four companions. Yet he thinks he must excuse them, and censure her for over-niceness; for that he never saw men behave better, at least not them.

Mentioning his introducing Mr. Mennell to her,]

Now, Jack, says he, was it not very kind of Mr. Mennell (Captain Mennell I sometimes called him; for among the military there is no such officer, thou knowest, as a lieutenant, or an ensign⁠—was it not very kind in him) to come along with me so readily as he did, to satisfy my beloved about the vapourish lady and the house?

But who is Capt. Mennell? methinks thou askest: I never heard of such a man as Captain Mennell.

Very likely. But knowest thou not young Newcomb, honest Doleman’s newphew?

O-ho! Is it he?

It is. And I have changed his name by virtue of my own single authority. Knowest thou not, that I am a great name-father? Preferment I bestow, both military and civil. I give estates, and take them away at my pleasure. Quality too I create. And by a still more valuable prerogative, I degrade by virtue of my own imperial will, without any other act of forfeiture than my own convenience. What a poor thing is a monarch to me!

But Mennell, now he has seen this angel of a woman, has qualms; that’s the devil!⁠—I shall have enough to do to keep him right. But it is the less wonder, that he should stagger, when a few hours’ conversation with the same lady could make four much more hardened varlets find hearts⁠—only, that I am confident, that I shall at least reward her virtue, if her virtue overcome me, or I should find it impossible to persevere⁠—for at times I have confounded qualms myself. But say not a word of them to the confraternity: nor laugh at me for them thyself.

[In another letter, dated Monday night, he writes as follows:]

This perverse lady keeps me at such a distance, that I am sure something is going on between her and Miss Howe, notwithstanding the prohibition from Mrs. Howe to both: and as I have thought it some degree of merit in myself to punish others for their transgressions, I am of opinion that both these girls are punishable for their breach of parental injunctions. And as to their letter-carrier, I have been inquiring into his way of living; and finding him to be a common poacher, a deer-stealer, and warren-robber, who, under pretence of haggling, deals with a set of customers who constantly take all he brings, whether fish, fowl, or venison, I hold myself justified (since Wilson’s conveyance must at present be sacred) to have him stripped and robbed, and what money he has about him given to the poor; since, if I take not money as well as letters, I shall be suspected.

To serve one’s self, and punish a villain at the same time, is serving public and private. The law was not made for such a man as me. And I must come at correspondences so disobediently carried on.

But, on second thoughts, if I could find out that the dear creature carried any of her letters in her pockets, I can get her to a play or to a concert, and she may have the misfortune to lose her pockets.

But how shall I find this out; since her Dorcas knows no more of her dressing and undressing than her Lovelace? For she is dressed for the day before she appears even to her servant. Vilely suspicious! Upon my soul, Jack, a suspicious temper is a punishable temper. If a woman suspects a rogue in an honest man, is it not enough to make the honest man who knows it a rogue?

But, as to her pockets, I think my mind hankers after them, as the less mischievous attempt. But they cannot hold all the letters I should wish to see. And yet a woman’s pockets are half as deep as she is high. Tied round the sweet levities, I presume, as ballast-bags, lest the wind, as they move with full sail, from whale-ribbed canvass, should blow away the gypsies.