_ Chapter VIII - Consisting of grave matters.
While innocence and chearful hope, in spite of the malice of fortune,
closed the eyes of the gentle Amelia on her homely bed, and she
enjoyed a sweet and profound sleep, the colonel lay restless all night
on his down; his mind was affected with a kind of ague fit; sometimes
scorched up with flaming desires, and again chilled with the coldest
despair.
There is a time, I think, according to one of our poets, _when lust
and envy sleep_. This, I suppose, is when they are well gorged with
the food they most delight in; but, while either of these are hungry,
Nor poppy, nor mandragora,
Nor all the drousy syrups of the East,
Will ever medicine them to slumber.
The colonel was at present unhappily tormented by both these fiends.
His last evening's conversation with Amelia had done his business
effectually. The many kind words she had spoken to him, the many kind
looks she had given him, as being, she conceived, the friend and
preserver of her husband, had made an entire conquest of his heart.
Thus the very love which she bore him, as the person to whom her
little family were to owe their preservation and happiness, inspired
him with thoughts of sinking them all in the lowest abyss of ruin and
misery; and, while she smiled with all her sweetness on the supposed
friend of her husband, she was converting that friend into his most
bitter enemy.
Friendship, take heed; if woman interfere,
Be sure the hour of thy destruction's near.
These are the lines of Vanbrugh; and the sentiment is better than the
poetry. To say the truth, as a handsome wife is the cause and cement
of many false friendships, she is often too liable to destroy the real
ones.
Thus the object of the colonel's lust very plainly appears, but the
object of his envy may be more difficult to discover. Nature and
Fortune had seemed to strive with a kind of rivalship which should
bestow most on the colonel. The former had given him person, parts,
and constitution, in all which he was superior to almost every other
man. The latter had given him rank in life, and riches, both in a very
eminent degree. Whom then should this happy man envy? Here, lest
ambition should mislead the reader to search the palaces of the great,
we will direct him at once to Gray's-inn-lane; where, in a miserable
bed, in a miserable room, he will see a miserable broken lieutenant,
in a miserable condition, with several heavy debts on his back, and
without a penny in his pocket. This, and no other, was the object of
the colonel's envy. And why? because this wretch was possessed of the
affections of a poor little lamb, which all the vast flocks that were
within the power and reach of the colonel could not prevent that
glutton's longing for. And sure this image of the lamb is not
improperly adduced on this occasion; for what was the colonel's desire
but to lead this poor lamb, as it were, to the slaughter, in order to
purchase a feast of a few days by her final destruction, and to tear
her away from the arms of one where she was sure of being fondled and
caressed all the days of her life.
While the colonel was agitated with these thoughts, his greatest
comfort was, that Amelia and Booth were now separated; and his
greatest terror was of their coming again together. From wishes,
therefore, he began to meditate designs; and so far was he from any
intention of procuring the liberty of his friend, that he began to
form schemes of prolonging his confinement, till he could procure some
means of sending him away far from her; in which case he doubted not
but of succeeding in all he desired.
He was forming this plan in his mind when a servant informed him that
one serjeant Atkinson desired to speak with his honour. The serjeant
was immediately admitted, and acquainted the colonel that, if he
pleased to go and become bail for Mr. Booth, another unexceptionable
housekeeper would be there to join with him. This person the serjeant
had procured that morning, and had, by leave of his wife, given him a
bond of indemnification for the purpose.
The colonel did not seem so elated with this news as Atkinson
expected. On the contrary, instead of making a direct answer to what
Atkinson said, the colonel began thus: "I think, serjeant, Mr. Booth
hath told me that you was foster-brother to his lady. She is really a
charming woman, and it is a thousand pities she should ever have been
placed in the dreadful situation she is now in. There is nothing so
silly as for subaltern officers of the army to marry, unless where
they meet with women of very great fortunes indeed. What can be the
event of their marrying otherwise, but entailing misery and beggary on
their wives and their posterity?"
"Ah! sir," cries the serjeant, "it is too late to think of those
matters now. To be sure, my lady might have married one of the top
gentlemen in the country; for she is certainly one of the best as well
as one of the handsomest women in the kingdom; and, if she had been
fairly dealt by, would have had a very great fortune into the bargain.
Indeed, she is worthy of the greatest prince in the world; and, if I
had been the greatest prince in the world, I should have thought
myself happy with such a wife; but she was pleased to like the
lieutenant, and certainly there can be no happiness in marriage
without liking."
"Lookee, serjeant," said the colonel; "you know very well that I am
the lieutenant's friend. I think I have shewn myself so."
"Indeed your honour hath," quoth the serjeant, "more than once to my
knowledge."
"But I am angry with him for his imprudence, greatly angry with him
for his imprudence; and the more so, as it affects a lady of so much
worth."
"She is, indeed, a lady of the highest worth," cries the serjeant.
"Poor dear lady! I knew her, an 't please your honour, from her
infancy; and the sweetest-tempered, best-natured lady she is that ever
trod on English ground. I have always loved her as if she was my own
sister. Nay, she hath very often called me brother; and I have taken
it to be a greater honour than if I was to be called a general
officer."
"What pity it is," said the colonel, "that this worthy creature should
be exposed to so much misery by the thoughtless behaviour of a man
who, though I am his friend, I cannot help saying, hath been guilty of
imprudence at least! Why could he not live upon his half-pay? What had
he to do to run himself into debt in this outrageous manner?"
"I wish, indeed," cries the serjeant, "he had been a little more
considerative; but I hope this will be a warning to him."
"How am I sure of that," answered the colonel; "or what reason is
there to expect it? extravagance is a vice of which men are not so
easily cured. I have thought a great deal of this matter, Mr.
serjeant; and, upon the most mature deliberation, I am of opinion that
it will be better, both for him and his poor lady, that he should
smart a little more."
"Your honour, sir, to be sure is in the right," replied the serjeant;
"but yet, sir, if you will pardon me for speaking, I hope you will be
pleased to consider my poor lady's case. She suffers, all this while,
as much or more than the lieutenant; for I know her so well, that I am
certain she will never have a moment's ease till her husband is out of
confinement."
"I know women better than you, serjeant," cries the colonel; "they
sometimes place their affections on a husband as children do on their
nurse; but they are both to be weaned. I know you, serjeant, to be a
fellow of sense as well as spirit, or I should not speak so freely to
you; but I took a fancy to you a long time ago, and I intend to serve
you; but first, I ask you this question--Is your attachment to Mr.
Booth or his lady?"
"Certainly, sir," said the serjeant, "I must love my lady best. Not
but I have a great affection for the lieutenant too, because I know my
lady hath the same; and, indeed, he hath been always very good to me
as far as was in his power. A lieutenant, your honour knows, can't do
a great deal; but I have always found him my friend upon all
occasions."
"You say true," cries the colonel; "a lieutenant can do but little;
but I can do much to serve you, and will too. But let me ask you one
question: Who was the lady whom I saw last night with Mrs. Booth at
her lodgings?"
Here the serjeant blushed, and repeated, "The lady, sir?"
"Ay, a lady, a woman," cries the colonel, "who supped with us last
night. She looked rather too much like a gentlewoman for the mistress
of a lodging-house."
The serjeant's cheeks glowed at this compliment to his wife; and he
was just going to own her when the colonel proceeded: "I think I never
saw in my life so ill-looking, sly, demure a b---; I would give
something, methinks, to know who she was."
"I don't know, indeed," cries the serjeant, in great confusion; "I
know nothing about her."
"I wish you would enquire," said the colonel, "and let me know her
name, and likewise what she is: I have a strange curiosity to know,
and let me see you again this evening exactly at seven."
"And will not your honour then go to the lieutenant this morning?"
said Atkinson.
"It is not in my power," answered the colonel; "I am engaged another
way. Besides, there is no haste in this affair. If men will be
imprudent they must suffer the consequences. Come to me at seven, and
bring me all the particulars you can concerning that ill-looking jade
I mentioned to you, for I am resolved to know who she is. And so good-
morrow to you, serjeant; be assured I will take an opportunity to do
something for you."
Though some readers may, perhaps, think the serjeant not unworthy of
the freedom with which the colonel treated him; yet that haughty
officer would have been very backward to have condescended to such
familiarity with one of his rank had he not proposed some design from
it. In truth, he began to conceive hopes of making the serjeant
instrumental to his design on Amelia; in other words, to convert him
into a pimp; an office in which the colonel had been served by
Atkinson's betters, and which, as he knew it was in his power very
well to reward him, he had no apprehension that the serjeant would
decline--an opinion which the serjeant might have pardoned, though he
had never given the least grounds for it, since the colonel borrowed
it from the knowledge of his own heart. This dictated to him that he,
from a bad motive, was capable of desiring to debauch his friend's
wife; and the same heart inspired him to hope that another, from
another bad motive, might be guilty of the same breach of friendship
in assisting him. Few men, I believe, think better of others than of
themselves; nor do they easily allow the existence of any virtue of
which they perceive no traces in their own minds; for which reason I
have observed, that it is extremely difficult to persuade a rogue that
you are an honest man; nor would you ever succeed in the attempt by
the strongest evidence, was it not for the comfortable conclusion
which the rogue draws, that he who proves himself to be honest proves
himself to be a fool at the same time. _