Part 19 (1/2)

Though I hung back with an awkwardness that was really unfeigned, yet when she so readily left me I thought it was not so kind, and I began to think she should have pressed me still on to it; so foolishly backward are we to the thing which, of all the world, we most desire; mocking ourselves with a feigned reluctance, when the negative would be death to us. But she was too cunning for me; for while I, as it were, blamed her in my mind for not carrying me to him, though, at the same time, I appeared backward to see him, on a sudden she unlocks the folding-doors, which looked into the next parlour, and throwing them open. ”There,”

says she (ushering him in), ”is the person who, I suppose, thou inquirest for;” and the same moment, with a kind decency, she retired, and that so swift that she would not give us leave hardly to know which way she went.

I stood up, but was confounded with a sudden inquiry in my thoughts how I should receive him, and with a resolution as swift as lightning, in answer to it, said to myself, ”It shall be coldly.” So on a sudden I put on an air of stiffness and ceremony, and held it for about two minutes; but it was with great difficulty.

He restrained himself too, on the other hand, came towards me gravely, and saluted me in form; but it was, it seems, upon his supposing the Quaker was behind him, whereas she, as I said, understood things too well, and had retired as if she had vanished, that we might have full freedom; for, as she said afterwards, she supposed we had seen one another before, though it might have been a great while ago.

Whatever stiffness I had put on my behaviour to him, I was surprised in my mind, and angry at his, and began to wonder what kind of a ceremonious meeting it was to be. However, after he perceived the woman was gone he made a kind of a hesitation, looking a little round him.

”Indeed,” said he, ”I thought the gentlewoman was not withdrawn;” and with that he took me in his arms and kissed me three or four times; but I, that was prejudiced to the last degree with the coldness of his first salutes, when I did not know the cause of it, could not be thoroughly cleared of the prejudice though I did know the cause, and thought that even his return, and taking me in his arms, did not seem to have the same ardour with which he used to receive me, and this made me behave to him awkwardly, and I know not how for a good while; but this by the way.

He began with a kind of an ecstasy upon the subject of his finding me out; how it was possible that he should have been four years in England, and had used all the ways imaginable, and could never so much as have the least intimation of me, or of any one like me; and that it was now above two years that he had despaired of it, and had given over all inquiry; and that now he should chop upon me, as it were, unlooked and unsought for.

I could easily have accounted for his not finding me if I had but set down the detail of my real retirement; but I gave it a new, and indeed a truly hypocritical turn. I told him that any one that knew the manner of life I led might account for his not finding me; that the retreat I had taken up would have rendered it a hundred thousand to one odds that he ever found me at all; that, as I had abandoned all conversation, taken up another name, lived remote from London, and had not preserved one acquaintance in it, it was no wonder he had not met with me; that even my dress would let him see that I did not desire to be known by anybody.

Then he asked if I had not received some letters from him. I told him no, he had not thought fit to give me the civility of an answer to the last I wrote to him, and he could not suppose I should expect a return after a silence in a case where I had laid myself so low and exposed myself in a manner I had never been used to; that indeed I had never sent for any letters after that to the place where I had ordered his to be directed; and that, being so justly, as I thought, punished for my weakness, I had nothing to do but to repent of being a fool, after I had strictly adhered to a just principle before; that, however, as what I did was rather from motions of grat.i.tude than from real weakness, however it might be construed by him, I had the satisfaction in myself of having fully discharged the debt. I added, that I had not wanted occasions of all the seeming advancements which the pretended felicity of a marriage life was usually set off with, and might have been what I desired not to name; but that, however low I had stooped to him, I had maintained the dignity of female liberty against all the attacks either of pride or avarice; and that I had been infinitely obliged to him for giving me an opportunity to discharge the only obligation that endangered me, without subjecting me to the consequence; and that I hoped he was satisfied I had paid the debt by offering myself to be chained, but was infinitely debtor to him another way for letting me remain free.

He was so confounded at this discourse that he knew not what to say, and for a good while he stood mute indeed; but recovering himself a little, he said I run out into a discourse he hoped was over and forgotten, and he did not intend to revive it; that he knew I had not had his letters, for that, when he first came to England, he had been at the place to which they were directed, and found them all lying there but one, and that the people had not known how to deliver them; that he thought to have had a direction there how to find me, but had the mortification to be told that they did not so much as know who I was; that he was under a great disappointment; and that I ought to know, in answer to all my resentments, that he had done a long and, he hoped, a sufficient penance for the slight that I had supposed he had put upon me; that it was true (and I could not suppose any other) that upon the repulse I had given them in a case so circ.u.mstanced as his was, and after such earnest entreaties and such offers as he had made me, he went away with a mind heartily grieved and full of resentment; that he had looked back on the crime he had committed with some regret, but on the cruelty of my treatment of the poor infant I went with at that time with the utmost detestation, and that this made him unable to send an agreeable answer to me; for which reason he had sent none at all for some time; but that in about six or seven months, those resentments wearing off by the return of his affection to me and his concern in the poor child ----.

There he stopped, and indeed tears stood in his eyes; while in a parenthesis he only added, and to this minute he did not know whether it was dead or alive. He then went on: Those resentments wearing off, he sent me several letters--I think he said seven or eight--but received no answer; that then his business obliging him to go to Holland, he came to England, as in his way, but found, as above, that his letters had not been called for, but that he left them at the house after paying the postage of them; and going then back to France, he was yet uneasy, and could not refrain the knight-errantry of coming to England again to seek me, though he knew neither where or of who to inquire for me, being disappointed in all his inquiries before; that he had yet taken up his residence here, firmly believing that one time or other he should meet me, or hear of me, and that some kind chance would at last throw him in my way; that he had lived thus above four years, and though his hopes were vanished, yet he had not any thoughts of removing any more in the world, unless it should be at last, as it is with other old men, he might have some inclination to go home to die in his own country, but that he had not thought of it yet; that if I would consider all these steps, I would find some reasons to forget his first resentments, and to think that penance, as he called it, which he had undergone in search of me an _amende honorable_, in reparation of the affront given to the kindness of my letter of invitation; and that we might at last make ourselves some satisfaction on both sides for the mortifications past.

I confess I could not hear all this without being moved very much, and yet I continued a little stiff and formal too a good while. I told him that before I could give him any reply to the rest of his discourse I ought to give him the satisfaction of telling him that his son was alive, and that indeed, since I saw him so concerned about it, and mention it with such affection, I was sorry that I had not found out some way or other to let him know it sooner; but that I thought, after his slighting the mother, as above, he had summed up his affection to the child in the letter he had wrote to me about providing for it; and that he had, as other fathers often do, looked upon it as a birth which, being out of the way, was to be forgotten, as its beginning was to be repented of; that in providing sufficiently for it he had done more than all such fathers used to do, and might be well satisfied with it.

He answered me that he should have been very glad if I had been so good but to have given him the satisfaction of knowing the poor unfortunate creature was yet alive, and he would have taken some care of it upon himself, and particularly by owning it for a legitimate child, which, where n.o.body had known to the contrary, would have taken off the infamy which would otherwise cleave to it, and so the child should not itself have known anything of its own disaster; but that he feared it was now too late.

He added that I might see by all his conduct since that what unhappy mistake drew him into the thing at first, and that he would have been very far from doing the injury to me, or being instrumental to add _une miserable_ (that was his word) to the world, if he had not been drawn into it by the hopes he had of making me his own; but that, if it was possible to rescue the child from the consequences of its unhappy birth, he hoped I would give him leave to do it, and he would let me see that he had both means and affection still to do it; and that, notwithstanding all the misfortunes that had befallen him, nothing that belonged to him, especially by a mother he had such a concern for as he had for me, should ever want what he was in a condition to do for it.

I could not hear this without being sensibly touched with it. I was ashamed that he should show that he had more real affection for the child, though he had never seen it in his life, than I that bore it, for indeed I did not love the child, nor love to see it; and though I had provided for it, yet I did it by Amy's hand, and had not seen it above twice in four years, being privately resolved that when it grew up it should not be able to call me mother.

However, I told him the child was taken care of, and that he need not be anxious about it, unless he suspected that I had less affection for it than he that had never seen it in his life; that he knew what I had promised him to do for it, namely, to give it the thousand pistoles which I had offered him, and which he had declined; that I a.s.sured him I had made my will, and that I had left it 5000, and the interest of it till he should come of age, if I died before that time; that I would still be as good as that to it; but if he had a mind to take it from me into his government, I would not be against it; and to satisfy him that I would perform what I said, I would cause the child to be delivered to him, and the 5000 also for its support, depending upon it that he would show himself a father to it by what I saw of his affection to it now.

I had observed that he had hinted two or three times in his discourse, his having had misfortunes in the world, and I was a little surprised at the expression, especially at the repeating it so often; but I took no notice of that part yet.

He thanked me for my kindness to the child with a tenderness which showed the sincerity of all he had said before, and which increased the regret with which, as I said, I looked back on the little affection I had showed to the poor child. He told me he did not desire to take him from me, but so as to introduce him into the world as his own, which he could still do, having lived absent from his other children (for he had two sons and a daughter which were brought up at Nimeguen, in Holland, with a sister of his) so long that he might very well send another son of ten years old to be bred up with them, and suppose his mother to be dead or alive, as he found occasion; and that, as I had resolved to do so handsomely for the child, he would add to it something considerable, though, having had some great disappointments (repeating the words), he could not do for it as he would otherwise have done.

I then thought myself obliged to take notice of his having so often mentioned his having met with disappointments. I told him I was very sorry to hear he had met with anything afflicting to him in the world; that I would not have anything belonging to me add to his loss, or weaken him in what he might do for his other children; and that I would not agree to his having the child away, though the proposal was infinitely to the child's advantage, unless he would promise me that the whole expense should be mine, and that, if he did not think 5000 enough for the child, I would give it more.

We had so much discourse upon this and the old affairs that it took up all our time at his first visit. I was a little importunate with him to tell me how he came to find me out, but he put it off for that time, and only obtaining my leave to visit me again, he went away; and indeed my heart was so full with what he had said already that I was glad when he went away. Sometimes I was full of tenderness and affection for him, and especially when he expressed himself so earnestly and pa.s.sionately about the child; other times I was crowded with doubts about his circ.u.mstances. Sometimes I was terrified with apprehensions lest, if I should come into a close correspondence with him, he should any way come to hear what kind of life I had led at Pall Mall and in other places, and it might make me miserable afterwards; from which last thought I concluded that I had better repulse him again than receive him. All these thoughts, and many more, crowded in so fast, I say, upon me that I wanted to give vent to them and get rid of him, and was very glad when he was gone away.

We had several meetings after this, in which still we had so many preliminaries to go through that we scarce ever bordered upon the main subject. Once, indeed, he said something of it, and I put it off with a kind of a jest. ”Alas!” says I, ”those things are out of the question now; 'tis almost two ages since those things were talked between us,”

says I. ”You see I am grown an old woman since that.” Another time he gave a little push at it again, and I laughed again. ”Why, what dost thou talk of?” said I in a formal way. ”Dost thou not see I am turned Quaker? I cannot speak of those things now.” ”Why,” says he, ”the Quakers marry as well as other people, and love one another as well.

Besides,” says he, ”the Quakers' dress does not ill become you,” and so jested with me again, and so it went off for a third time. However, I began to be kind to him in process of time, as they call it, and we grew very intimate; and if the following accident had not unluckily intervened, I had certainly married him, or consented to marry him, the very next time he had asked me.

I had long waited for a letter from Amy, who, it seems, was just at that time gone to Rouen the second time, to make her inquiries about him; and I received a letter from her at this unhappy juncture, which gave me the following account of my business:--

I. That for my gentleman, who I had now, as I may say, in my arms, she said he had been gone from Paris, as I have hinted, having met with some great losses and misfortunes; that he had been in Holland on that very account, whither he had also carried his children; that he was after that settled for some time at Rouen; that she had been at Rouen, and found there (by a mere accident), from a Dutch skipper, that he was at London, had been there above three years; that he was to be found upon the Exchange, on the French walk; and that he lodged at St. Laurence Pountney's Lane, and the like; so Amy said she supposed I might soon find him out, but that she doubted he was poor, and not worth looking after. This she did because of the next clause, which the jade had most mind to on many accounts.

II. That as to the Prince ----; that, as above, he was gone into Germany, where his estate lay; that he had quitted the French service, and lived retired; that she had seen his gentleman, who remained at Paris to solicit his arrears, &c.; that he had given her an account how his lord had employed him to inquire for me and find me out, as above, and told her what pains he had taken to find me; that he had understood that I was gone to England; that he once had orders to go to England to find me; that his lord had resolved, if he could have found me, to have called me a countess, and so have married me, and have carried me into Germany with him; and that his commission was still to a.s.sure me that the prince would marry me if I would come to him, and that he would send him an account that he had found me, and did not doubt but he would have orders to come over to England to attend me in a figure suitable to my quality.

Amy, an ambitious jade, who knew my weakest part--namely, that I loved great things, and that I loved to be flattered and courted--said abundance of kind things upon this occasion, which she knew were suitable to me and would prompt my vanity; and talked big of the prince's gentleman having orders to come over to me with a procuration to marry me by proxy (as princes usually do in like cases), and to furnish me with an equipage, and I know not how many fine things; but told me, withal, that she had not yet let him know that she belonged to me still, or that she knew where to find me, or to write to me; because she was willing to see the bottom of it, and whether it was a reality or a gasconade. She had indeed told him that, if he had any such commission, she would endeavour to find me out, but no more.