To Henry Mandeville, Esq;
CAN I play with the anxiety of a tender
heart? Certainly, or I should
not be what I am, a coquette of the first
order. Setting aside the pleasure of the thing,
and I know few pleasanter amusements,
policy dictates this conduct; for there is no
possibility of keeping any of you without
throwing the charms of dear variety into
one's treatment of you: nothing cloys like
continual sweets; a little acid is absolutely
necessary.
I am just come from giving Lady Julia
some excellent advice on the subject of her
passion for you. Really, my dear, said I,
you are extremely absurd to blush and look
foolish about loving so pretty a fellow as
Harry Mandeville, handsome, well made,
lively, elegant; and in the true classical stile,
and approved by the connoisseurs, by Madame
le Comtesse de –– herself, whom
I look upon to be the greatest judge of male
merit on the face of the globe.
It is not for loving him I am angry with
you, but for entertaining so ridiculous a
thought as that of marrying him. You
have only one ratinoal step to take; marry
Lord Melvin, who has title and fortune,
requisites not to be dispensed with in a husband,
and take Harry Mandeville for your
Cecisbeo. The dear creature was immensely
displeased, as you, who know the
romantic turn of her imagination, will easily
conceive.
Oh, I had almost forgot: yes, indeed,
you have great right to give yourself
jealous airs: we have not heard of your
coquetry with Miss Truman. My correspondent
tells me, there is no doubt of
its being a real passion on both sides, and
that the Truman family have been making
private enquiries into your fortune. I
shewed Lady Julia the letter, and you cannot
conceive how prettily she blushed.
But, to be grave, I am afraid you have
nothing to fear from Lord Melvin. You
must forgive my making use of this expression;
for, as I see no possibility of surmounting
the obstacles which oppose your
union with Lady Julia, I am too much a
friend to both, not to wish earnestly to
break a connexion which has not a shadow
of hope to support it.
But a truce to this subject, which is not a
pleasant one to either of us.
I told you in my last I had something to
say to you. As I am your confidente, you
must consent to be mine, having a little
present occasion for your services. You are
to know, my dear Harry, that, with all
my coquetry, I am as much in love as yourself,
and with almost as little prospect of
success: this odious money is absolutely the
bane of us true lovers, and always contrives
to stand in our way.
My dear spouse then, who in the whole
course of our acquaintance did but one
obliging thing, being kindly determined I
should neither be happy with him nor without
him, obligingly, though nobody knows
this but myself and the Caro Bellville, made
my jointure what it is, on condition I never
married again: on observance of which
condition, it was to be in my power to give
the estate to whoever I pleased at my death;
but, on a proof of my supposed future marriage,
it was to go immediately to a niece
of his, who at his death was in a convent
in France, who is ignorant of this condition,
and whose whole present fortune
scarce amounts to fifteen hundred pounds.
She is both in person and mind one of the
most lovely of women, and has an affection
for me, which inclines me to think she would
come into measures for my sake, which I
shall make it her interest to acquiesce in for
her own.
Bellville's fortune is extremely moderate;
and, if I marry him at present, I shall
not add a shilling to it; his income will remain
in statu-quo, with the incumbrance of
an indigent woman of quality, whose affairs
are a little derangé, and amongst whose
virtues œconomy was never one of the
most observable. He would with transport
marry me to-morrow, even on these
hard conditions; but how little should I
deserve so generous a passion, if I suffered
it to seduce him to his ruin! I have wrote
to my niece to come to England, when I
shall tell her my passion for Bellville, and
propose to her a private agreement to divide
the fortune, which will be forfeited to
her on my marriage, and which it is in my
power by living single to deprive her of for
ever. Incapable, however, of injustice, I
have at all events made a will, dividing it
equally between her and Bellville, if I die
unmarried: I have a right to do this for the
man I love, as my father left thirty thousand
pounds to Mr. Wilmot, which in equity
ought to be regarded as mine, and which is
all I desire, on the division: she, therefore
by my will, has all she ever can expect, even
from the strictest justice: and she can never,
I think, hesitate between waiting till
my death and at my mercy, and receiving
at the present the utmost she could then
hope for.
I have heard from the Lady to whom I
enclosed my letter, which she has returned,
my niece having left France a year ago, to
accompany a relation into Italy. What I,
therefore, have to ask of you is, to endeavour
to find her out, by your Italian friends,
as I will by mine at the same time; that I
may write to her to return immediately to
England, as I will not run the hazard of
mentioning the subject in a letter. She is
the daughter of the late colonel Hastings,
once abroad in a public character, and is
well known in Italy.
Bellville is not at all in the secret of my
scheme; nor did I ever tell him I would
marry him, though I sometimes give him
reason to hope.
I am too good a politician in love matters
ever to put a man out of doubt till
half an hour before the ceremony. The
moment a woman is weak enough to promise,
she sets the heart of her lover at rest;
the chace, and of consequence the pleasure,
is at an end; and he has nothing to do but
to seek a new object, and begin the pursuit
over again.
I tell you, but I tell it in confidence, that
if I find Bell Hastings, if she comes into my
scheme, and my mind does not change, I may,
perhaps, do Bellville the honor. And yet,
when I reflect on the matter; on the condition
of the obligation, "so long as ye both
shall live"–Jesu Maria! Only think of
promising to be of the same mind as long as
one lives. My dear Harry, people may talk as
they will, but the thing is utterly impossible.
Adieu!
Mon cher Ami,
A. Wilmot.
