The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great Part 9

Laet.i.tia. Then some, I am certain, have great reason to complain of the price they give for them. But I know better things. (These words were spoken with a very great air, and toss of the head.)

Jonathan. Well, my sweeting, I will make it impossible for you to wish me more fond.

Laet.i.tia. Pray, Mr. Wild, none of this nauseous behaviour, nor those odious words. I wish you were fond! I a.s.sure you, I don't know what you would pretend to insinuate of me. I have no wishes which misbecome a virtuous woman. No, nor should not, if I had married for love. And especially now, when n.o.body, I am sure, can suspect me of any such thing.

Jonathan. If you did not marry for love why did you marry?

Laet.i.tia. Because it was convenient, and my parents forced me.

Jonathan. I hope, madam, at least, you will not tell me to my face you have made your convenience of me.

Laet.i.tia. I have made nothing of you; nor do I desire the honour of making anything of you.

Jonathan. Yes, you have made a husband of me.

Laet.i.tia. No, you made yourself so; for I repeat once more it was not my desire, but your own.

Jonathan. You should think yourself obliged to me for that desire.

Laet.i.tia. La, sir! you was not so singular in it. I was not in despair. I have had other offers, and better too.

Jonathan. I wish you had accepted them with all my heart.

Laet.i.tia. I must tell you, Mr. Wild, this is a very brutish manner in treating a woman to whom you have such obligations; but I know how to despise it, and to despise you too for shewing it me.

Indeed I am well enough paid for the foolish preference I gave to you. I flattered myself that I should at least have been used with good manners. I thought I had married a gentleman; but I find you every way contemptible and below my concern.

Jonathan. D--n you, madam, have I not more reason to complain when you tell me you married for your convenience only?

Laet.i.tia. Very fine truly. Is it behaviour worthy a man to swear at a woman? Yet why should I mention what comes from a wretch whom I despise.

Jonathan. Don't repeat that word so often. I despise you as heartily as you can me. And, to tell you a truth, I married you for my convenience likewise, to satisfy a pa.s.sion which I have now satisfied, and you may be d--d for anything I care.

Laet.i.tia. The world shall know how barbarously I am treated by such a villain.

Jonathan. I need take very little pains to acquaint the world what a b--ch you are, your actions will demonstrate it.

Laet.i.tia. Monster! I would advise you not to depend too much on my s.e.x, and provoke me too far; for I can do you a mischief, and will, if you dare use me so, you villain!

Jonathan. Begin whenever you please, madam; but a.s.sure yourself, the moment you lay aside the woman, I will treat you as such no longer; and if the first blow is yours, I promise you the last shall be mine.

Laet.i.tia. Use me as you will; but d--n me if ever you shall use me as a woman again; for may I be cursed if ever I enter into your bed more.

Jonathan. May I be cursed if that abstinence be not the greatest obligation you can lay upon me; for I a.s.sure you faithfully your person was all I had ever any regard for; and that I now loathe and detest as much as ever I liked it.

Laet.i.tia. It is impossible for two people to agree better; for I always detested your person; and as for any other regard, you must be convinced I never could have any for you.

Jonathan. Why, then, since we are come to a right understanding, as we are to live together, suppose we agreed, instead of quarrelling and abusing, to be civil to each other.

Laet.i.tia. With all my heart.

Jonathan. Let us shake hands then, and henceforwards never live like man and wife; that is, never be loving nor ever quarrel.

Laet.i.tia. Agreed. But pray, Mr. Wild, why b--ch? Why did you suffer such a word to escape you?

Jonathan. It is not worth your remembrance.

Laet.i.tia. You agree I shall converse with whomsoever I please?

Jonathan. Without controul. And I have the same liberty?

Laet.i.tia. When I interfere may every curse you can wish attend me!

Jonathan. Let us now take a farewell kiss, and may I be hanged if it is not the sweetest you ever gave me.

Laet.i.tia. But why b--ch? Methinks I should be glad to know why b--ch?

At which words he sprang from the bed, d--ing her temper heartily.

She returned it again with equal abuse, which was continued on both sides while he was dressing. However, they agreed to continue steadfast in this new resolution; and the joy arising on that occasion at length dismissed them pretty chearfully from each other, though Laet.i.tia could not help concluding with the words, why b--ch?

CHAPTER NINE

OBSERVATIONS ON THE FOREGOING DIALOGUE, TOGETHER WITH A BASE DESIGN ON OUR HERO, WHICH MUST BE DETESTED BY EVERY LOVER OF GREATNESS.

Thus did this dialogue (which, though we have termed it matrimonial, had indeed very little savour of the sweets of matrimony in it) produce at last a resolution more wise than strictly pious, and which, if they could have rigidly adhered to it, might have prevented some unpleasant moments as well to our hero as to his serene consort; but their hatred was so very great and unaccountable that they never could bear to see the least composure in one another's countenance without attempting to ruffle it. This set them on so many contrivances to plague and vex one another, that, as their proximity afforded them such frequent opportunities of executing their malicious purposes, they seldom pa.s.sed one easy or quiet day together.

And this, reader, and no other, is the cause of those many inquietudes which thou must have observed to disturb the repose of some married couples who mistake implacable hatred for indifference; for why should Corvinus, who lives in a round of intrigue, and seldom doth, and never willingly would, dally with his wife, endeavour to prevent her from the satisfaction of an intrigue in her turn? Why doth Camilla refuse a more agreeable invitation abroad, only to expose her husband at his own table at home? In short, to mention no more instances, whence can all the quarrels, and jealousies, and jars proceed in people who have no love for each other, unless from that n.o.ble pa.s.sion above mentioned, that desire, according to my lady Betty Modish, of CURING EACH OTHER OF A SMILE.

We thought proper to give our reader a short taste of the domestic state of our hero, the rather to shew him that great men are subject to the same frailties and inconveniences in ordinary life with little men, and that heroes are really of the same species with other human creatures, notwithstanding all the pains they themselves or their flatterers take to a.s.sert the contrary; and that they differ chiefly in the immensity of their greatness, or, as the vulgar erroneously call it, villany. Now, therefore, that we may not dwell too long on low scenes in a history of the sublime kind, we shall return to actions of a higher note and more suitable to our purpose.

When the boy Hymen had, with his lighted torch, driven the boy Cupid out of doors, that is to say, in common phrase, when the violence of Mr. Wild's pa.s.sion (or rather appet.i.te) for the chaste Laet.i.tia began to abate, he returned to visit his friend Heartfree, who was now in the liberties of the Fleet, and appeared to the commission of bankruptcy against him. Here he met with a more cold reception than he himself had apprehended. Heartfree had long entertained suspicions of Wild, but these suspicions had from time to time been confounded with circ.u.mstances, and princ.i.p.ally smothered with that amazing confidence which was indeed the most striking virtue in our hero. Heartfree was unwilling to condemn his friend without certain evidence, and laid hold on every probable semblance to acquit him; but the proposal made at his last visit had so totally blackened his character in this poor man's opinion, that it entirely fixed the wavering scale, and he no longer doubted but that our hero was one of the greatest villains in the world.

Circ.u.mstances of great improbability often escape men who devour a story with greedy ears; the reader, therefore, cannot wonder that Heartfree, whose pa.s.sions were so variously concerned, first for the fidelity, and secondly for the safety of his wife; and, lastly, who was so distracted with doubt concerning the conduct of his friend, should at this relation pa.s.s un.o.bserved the incident of his being committed to the boat by the captain of the privateer, which he had at the time of his telling so lamely accounted for; but now, when Heartfree came to reflect on the whole, and with a high prepossession against Wild, the absurdity of this fact glared in his eyes and struck him in the most sensible manner. At length a thought of great horror suggested itself to his imagination, and this was, whether the whole was not a fiction, and Wild, who was, as he had learned from his own mouth, equal to any undertaking how black soever, had not spirited away, robbed, and murdered his wife.

Intolerable as this apprehension was, he not only turned it round and examined it carefully in his own mind, but acquainted young Friendly with it at their next interview. Friendly, who detested Wild (from that envy probably with which these GREAT CHARACTERS naturally inspire low fellows), encouraged these suspicions so much, that Heartfree resolved to attach our hero and carry him before a magistrate.

This resolution had been some time taken, and Friendly, with a warrant and a constable, had with the utmost diligence searched several days for our hero; but, whether it was that in compliance with modern custom he had retired to spend the honey-moon with his bride, the only moon indeed in which it is fas.h.i.+onable or customary for the married parties to have any correspondence with each other; or perhaps his habitation might for particular reasons be usually kept a secret, like those of some few great men whom unfortunately the law hath left out of that reasonable as well as honourable provision which it hath made for the security of the persons of other great men.

But Wild resolved to perform works of supererogation in the way of honour, and, though no hero is obliged to answer the challenge of my lord chief justice, or indeed of any other magistrate, but may with unblemished reputation slide away from it, yet such was the bravery, such the greatness, the magnanimity of Wild, that he appeared in person to it.

Indeed envy may say one thing, which may lessen the glory of this action, namely, that the said Mr. Wild knew nothing of the said warrant or challenge; and as thou mayest be a.s.sured, reader, that the malicious fury will omit nothing which can anyways sully so great a character, so she hath endeavoured to account for this second visit of our hero to his friend Heartfree from a very different motive than that of a.s.serting his own innocence.