"We shall kill you," said I, turning to my aunt Martha.
"Oh dear no!" answered the good-natured woman; "I have experienced so much kindness from every stranger at Falmouth, that gratitude will keep me broad awake." Aunt Martha was indeed a general favourite with young people; because she ever entered into all their little cares and vexations with so much heart, and a real desire to advise what was best and most pleasant for them. Then a dozen English people meeting at Falmouth, when they are just about to separate and go, some of them, they know not to whom, naturally threw off all restraint, and made them appear to each other in the light of brothers and sisters.
We found an excellent supper ready, and the good consul was himself making us some punch, in case we should happen to be tired of champagne and claret. After supper we had a waltz. Mr. Brown kindly undertook to give my aunt Martha her first lesson, which created much merriment. It was nearly three o'clock before we got to bed, and in this manner we kept it up for almost three weeks, dining regularly, when not otherwise engaged, at the consul's table.
Every evening we went either to a play or a party, and the mornings we passed on board, or walking, or riding about. My health was scarcely ever so good as during the time I spent at Falmouth, nor do I recollect ever to have been thrown into society where there was so much vivacity and wit and no trouble in dressing for it.
I had been an unusual length of time without letters from Lord Worcester, and, as I could not doubt their being immediately forwarded to me by Mrs. Edmond, if any had arrived at Charmouth, I grew uneasy; and, having learned by accident, that a young officer who had just arrived from headquarters was in the house, I requested in a note that he would allow me to ask him a few questions. He came to me instantly, and in answer to my various inquiries about Worcester, with whom he said he was not personally acquainted, he hinted something of a story, that Mrs. Archdeacon, the sister of the paymaster's second wife, who formerly made such an attack on Worcester's virtue at Brighton, and who was living with her husband at Lisbon, had been run away with by the Marquis of Worcester.
"Are you certain of this?" I inquired, without, I confess, much agitation.
"He was not," he said; "but it was a fact that Mrs. Archdeacon had left her husband, and gone up to the army with somebody; though, as she arrived there just as he had left headquarters on his way to England, he could not take upon himself to say that she was with Lord Worcester. He knew that the Marquis, when he last came down to Lisbon, had been in the habit of dining with Mr. Archdeacon and his wife."
"This fool!" thought I, "after tormenting his parents, and keeping me here lest he should die!—after refusing the prayers of his father, whose very life seemed to depend on his leaving me, suddenly takes another woman away, notwithstanding his last letter was so full of solemn vows of everlasting constancy as any he ever wrote. What steadiness could I expect from such an ass as Worcester? I'll go to London: that's settled! Life is short, and I have been quite patient enough. I don't care one straw about money; but I must have something like enjoyment, of some sort, before I die." Another story decided me. I heard, two days after my interview with the officer, it was whispered about Lisbon, that, supposing Harriette Wilson made an attempt to join Lord Worcester, the English Ambassador had the power to get her put on an American ship and sent to America!
All this might, or might not, be true; but certainly I was not disposed to try it. Then came more stories, from different quarters, concerning Worcester and Mrs. Archdeacon. "They cannot be wholly false," thought I, "or he would write." In fact there was one person, who had no sort of interest in deceiving me, and he acquainted the consul that Mrs. Archdeacon certainly did go up to the army to join Lord Worcester, and that she was then actually staying with him.