COLONEL JACQUE AND THE LADY
“I never receive visits from those that I hate,” says she.
“You have me there, indeed,” said I; “but you never gave me leave to tell you why I hated you. I hated you because you would never give me an opportunity to tell you I loved you. Sure, you took me for some frightful creature, that you would never come near enough so much as to let me whisper to you that I love you.”
“I never care to hear anything so disagreeable,” says she, “though it be spoken ever so softly.”
We rallied thus for an hour. In short, she showed the abundance of her wit, and I an abundant deficiency of mine; for though three or four times she provoked me to the last degree, so that once I was going to tell her I had enough of her company, and, if she pleased I would wait upon her to the door, yet she had always so much witchcraft on her tongue that she brought herself off again; till, to make the story short, we came at last to talk seriously on both sides about matrimony, and she heard me freely propose it, and answered me directly upon many occasions. For example, she told me I would carry her away to France or to Virginia, and that she could not think of leaving England, her native country. I told her I hoped she did not take me for a kidnapper. (By the way, I did not tell her how I had been kidnapped myself.) She said no; but the consequence of my affairs, which were, it seems, mostly abroad, might oblige me to go, and she could never think of marrying any man that she could not be content to go all over the world with, if he had occasion to go himself. This was handsomely expressed indeed. I made her easy on that point, and thus we began the grand parley; which indeed she drew me into with the utmost art and subtilty, such as was peculiar to herself, but was infinitely her advantage in our treating of marriage; for she made me effectually court her, though at the same time in her design she courted me with the utmost skill, and such skill it was that her design was perfectly impenetrable to the last moment.
In short, we came nearer and nearer every time we met; and after one casual visit more, in which I had the mighty favour of talking with her alone, I then waited on her every day at her own house, or lodgings rather, and so we set about the work to a purpose, and in about a month we gave the world the slip, and were privately married, to avoid ceremony and the public inconveniency of a wedding.
We soon found a house proper for our dwelling, and so went to housekeeping. We had not been long together but I found that gay temper of my wife returned, and she threw off the mask of her gravity and good conduct, that I had so long fancied was her mere natural disposition; and now, having no more occasion for disguises, she resolved to seem nothing but what really she was, a wild, untamed colt, perfectly loose, and careless to conceal any part, no, not the worst of her conduct.
She carried on this air of levity to such an excess that I could not but be dissatisfied at the expense of it; for she kept company that I did not like, lived beyond what I could support, and sometimes lost at play more than I cared to pay. Upon which, one day, I took occasion to mention it, but lightly; and said to her, by way of raillery, that we lived merrily, for as long as it would last. She turned short upon me, “What do you mean?” says she. “Why, you don’t pretend to be uneasy, do ye?” “No, no, madam, not I, by no means; it is no business of mine, you know,” said I, “to inquire what my wife spends, or whether she spends more than I can afford, or less. I only desire the favour to know, as near as you can guess, how long you will please to take to despatch me, for I would not be too long a-dying.”
“I do not know what you talk of,” says she. “You may die as leisurely, or as hastily, as you please, when your time comes; I a’nt a-going to kill you, as I know of.”
“But you are a-going to starve me, madam,” said I, “and hunger is as leisurely a death as breaking upon the wheel.”