LETTER LXXVII
From Mrs. B. to Lady Davers.
MY DEAREST LADY,
Mr. B. came back from Bedfordshire to his time. Every thing being in readiness, we set out with my baby, and his nurse. Mrs. Jervis, when every thing in London is settled by her direction, goes to Bedfordshire.
We were met by my father and mother in a chaise and pair, which your kind brother had presented to them unknown to me, that they might often take the air together, and go to church in it (which is at some distance) on Sundays. The driver is clothed in a good brown cloth suit, but no livery; for that my parents could not have borne, as Mr. B.'s goodness made him consider.
Your ladyship must needs think, how we were all overjoyed at this meeting: for my own part I cannot express how much I was transported when we arrived at the farm-house, to see all I delighted in, upon one happy spot together.
Mr. B. is much pleased with the alterations here: and it is a sweet, rural, and convenient place.
We were welcomed into these parts by the bells, and by the minister, and people of most note; and were at church together on Sunday.
Mr. B. is to set out on Tuesday for Tunbridge, with my papers. A happy issue, attend that affair, I pray God! He has given me the following particulars of it, to the time of my trial, beginning at the masquerade.
He says, that at the masquerade, when, pleased with the fair Nun's shape, air and voice, he had followed her to a corner most unobserved, she said in Italian, "Why are my retirements invaded, audacious Spaniard?"--"Because, my dear Nun, I hope you would have it so."
"I can no otherwise," returned she, "strike dead thy bold presumption, than to shew thee my scorn and anger thus!"--"And she unmasking surprised me," said Mr. B., "with a face as beautiful, but not so soft as my Pamela's."--"And I," said Mr. B., "to shew I can defy your resentment, will shew you a countenance as intrepid as yours is lovely." And so he drew aside his mask too.
He says, he observed his fair Nun to be followed wherever she went, by a mask habited like Testimony in Sir Courtly Nice, whose attention was fixed upon her and him; and he doubted not, that it was Mr. Turner. So he and the fair Nun took different ways, and he joined me and Miss Darnford, and found me engaged as I before related to your ladyship, and his Nun at his elbow unexpected.
That afterwards as he was engaged in French with a lady who had the dress of an Indian Princess, and the mask of an Ethiopian, his fair Nun said, in broken Spanish, "Art thou at all complexions?--By St. Ignatius, I believe thou'rt a rover!"
"I am trying," replied he in Italian, "whether I can meet with any lady comparable to my lovely Nun."
"And what is the result?"--"Not one: no not one."--"I wish you could not help being in earnest," said she; and slid from him.
He engaged her next at the sideboard, drinking under her veil a glass of Champaign. "You know, Pamela," said he, "there never was a sweeter mouth in the world than the Countess's except your own." She drew away the glass, as if unobserved by any body, to shew me the lower part of her face.
"I cannot say, but I was struck with her charming manner, and an unreservedness of air and behaviour, that I had not before seen so becoming. The place, and the freedom of conversation and deportment allowed there, gave her great advantages in my eye, although her habit required, as I thought, a little more gravity and circumspection: and I could not tell how to resist a secret pride and vanity, which is but too natural to both sexes, when they are taken notice of by persons so worthy of regard.