LETTER XXXVIII
MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE THURSDAY, APRIL 20.
Mr. Lovelace's servant is already returned with an answer from hisfriend Mr. Doleman, who has taken pains in his inquiries, and is veryparticular. Mr. Lovelace brought me the letter as soon as he had readit: and as he now knows that I acquaint you with every thing that heoffers, I desired him to let me send it to you for your perusal. Bepleased to return it by the first opportunity. You will see by it, thathis friends in town have a notion that we are actually married.
TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. TUESDAY NIGHT, APRIL 18.
DEAR SIR,
I am extremely rejoiced to hear, that we shall so soon have you in townafter so long an absence. You will be the more welcome still, if whatreport says, be true; which is, that you are actually married to thefair lady upon whom we have heard you make such encomiums. Mrs. Doleman,and my sister, both wish you joy if you are; and joy upon your nearprospect if you are not.
I have been in town for this week past, to get help if I could, from myparalytic complaints; and am in a course for them. Which, nevertheless,did not prevent me from making the desired inquiries. This is theresult.
You may have a first floor, well furnished, at a mercer's inBelford-street, Covent-garden, with conveniencies for servants: andthese either by the quarter or month. The terms according to theconveniences required.
Mrs. Doleman has seen lodgings in Norfolk-street and others inCecil-street; but though the prospects to the Thames and Surrey-hillslook inviting from both these streets, yet I suppose they are too nearthe city.
The owner of those in Norfolk-street would have half the house gotogether. It would be too much for your description therefore: andI suppose, that when you think fit to declare your marriage, you willhardly be in lodgings.
Those in Cecil-street are neat and convenient. The owner is a widow ofa good character; and she insists, that you take them for a twelvemonthcertain.
You may have good accommodations in Dover-street, at a widow's,the relict of an officer in the guards, who dying soon after he hadpurchased his commission (to which he had a good title by service,and which cost him most part of what he had) she was obliged to letlodgings.
This may possibly be an objection. But she is very careful, she says,that she takes no lodgers, but of figure and reputation. She rents twogood houses, distant from each other, only joined by a large handsomepassage. The inner-house is the genteelest, and very elegantlyfurnished; but you may have the use of a very handsome parlour in theouter-house, if you choose to look into the street.
A little garden belongs to the inner-house, in which the old gentlewomanhas displayed a true female fancy; having crammed it with vases,flower-pots, and figures, without number.
As these lodgings seemed to me the most likely to please you, I was moreparticular in my inquiries about them. The apartments she has to letare in the inner-house: they are a dining-room, two neat parlours, awithdrawing-room, two or three handsome bedchambers, one with a prettylight closet in it, which looks into the little garden, all furnished intaste.
A dignified clergyman, his wife, and maiden daughter were the last wholived in them. They have but lately quitted them, on his being presentedto a considerable church preferment in Ireland. The gentlewoman saysthat he took the lodgings but for three months certain; but liked themand her usage so well, that he continued in them two years; and leftthem with regret, though on so good an account. She bragged, that thiswas the way of all the lodgers she ever had, who staid with her fourtimes as long as they at first intended.
I had some knowledge of the colonel, who was always looked upon as a manof honour. His relict I never saw before. I think she has a masculineair, and is a little forbidding at first: but when I saw her behaviourto two agreeable gentlewomen, her husband's nieces, whom, for thatreason, she calls doubly hers, and heard their praises of her, I couldimpute her very bulk to good humour; since we seldom see your sourpeevish people plump. She lives reputably, and is, as I find, aforehandin the world.
If these, or any other of the lodgings I have mentioned, be notaltogether to your lady's mind, she may continue in them the less while,and choose others for herself.
The widow consents that you shall take them for a month only, and whatof them you please. The terms, she says, she will not fall out upon,when she knows what your lady expects, and what her servants are to do,or yours will undertake; for she observed that servants are generallyworse to deal with than their masters or mistresses.
The lady may board or not as she pleases.
As we suppose you were married, but that you have reason, fromfamily-differences, to keep it private for the present, I thought it notamiss to hint as much to the widow (but as uncertainty, however);and asked her, if she could, in that case, accommodate you and yourservants, as well as the lady and hers? She said, she could; and wished,by all means, it were to be so: since the circumstance of a person'sbeing single, it not as well recommended as this lady, was one of theusual exceptions.
If none of these lodgings please, you need not doubt very handsome onesin or near Hanover-square, Soho-square, Golden-square, or in some of thenew streets about Grosvenor-square. And Mrs. Doleman, her sister,and myself, most cordially join to offer to your good lady the bestaccommodations we can make for her at Uxbridge (and also for you, if youare the happy man we wish you to be), till she fits herself more to hermind.
Let me add, that the lodgings at the mercer's, those in Cecil-street,those at the widow's in Dover-street, any of them, may be entered uponat a day's warning.
I am, my dear Sir, Your sincere and affectionate friend and servant,THO. DOLEMAN.
You will easily guess, my dear, when you have read the letter, whichlodgings I made choice of. But first to try him, (as in so materiala point I thought I could not be too circumspect,) I seemed to preferthose in Norfolk-street, for the very reason the writer gives why hethought I would not; that is to say, for its neighbourhood to a cityso well governed as London is said to be. Nor should I have disliked alodging in the heart of it, having heard but indifferent accounts of theliberties sometimes taken at the other end of the town.--Then seemingto incline to the lodgings in Cecil-street--Then to the mercer's. Buthe made no visible preference; and when I asked his opinion of thewidow gentlewoman's, he said he thought those the most to my taste andconvenience: but as he hoped that I would think lodgings necessary butfor a very little while, he knew not which to give his vote for.
I then fixed upon the widow's; and he has written accordingly to Mr.Doleman, making my compliments to his lady and sister, for their kindoffer.
I am to have the dining-room, the bed-chamber with the light-closet, (ofwhich, if I stay any time at the widow's, I shall make great use,) and aservant's room; and we propose to set out on Saturday morning. As fora maid servant, poor Hannah's illness is a great disappointment to me:but, as he observes, I can make the widow satisfaction for one ofhers, till I can get a servant to my mind. And you know I want not muchattendance.
*****
Mr. Lovelace has just now, of his own accord, given me five guineas forpoor Hannah. I send them inclosed. Be so good as to cause them to beconveyed to her, and to let her know from whom they came.
He has obliged me much by this little mark of his considerateness.Indeed I have the better opinion of him ever since he proposed herreturn to me.
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I have just now another instance of his considerateness. He came to me,and said that, on second thoughts, he could not bear that I should go upto town without some attendant, were it but for the look of the thing tothe London widow and her nieces, who, according to his friend's account,lived so genteelly; and especially as I required him to leave me so soonafter I arrived there, and so would be left alone among strangers. Hetherefore sought that I might engage Mrs. Sorlings to lend me one of hertwo maids, or let one of her daughters go up with me, and stay till Iwere provided. And if the latter, the young gentlewoman, no doubt, wouldbe glad of so good
an opportunity to see the curiosities of the town,and would be a proper attendant on the same occasions.
I told him as I had done before, that the two young gentlewomen were soequally useful in their way, and servants in a busy farm were so littleto be spared, that I should be loth to take them off their laudableemployments. Nor should I think much of diversions for one while; and sothe less want an attendant out of doors.
And now, my dear, lest any thing should happen, in so variable asituation as mine, (which at present are more promising than ever yetthey have been since I quitted Harlowe-place,) I will snatch theopportunity to subscribe myself
Your not unhoping and ever-obliged friend and servant, CL. HARLOWE.