Evelina writes again from Queen Ann Street on 13 April, and she knows Villars will be surprised. It is not her fault, and it is not her happiness, that she is still in London. The journey has been postponed by an accident equally unexpected and disagreeable. They went to the Fantoccini. A little comedy in French and Italian, played by puppets, astonished and diverted everyone except the Captain, who has a fixed hatred of whatever is not English. While they wait for the coach, a tall elderly woman brushes past, calling out. She has lost her company and knows nobody in the place. Her accent is foreign, though it is hard to say whether she is English or French. It rains. No coach can be had. The Captain's offer of help is to let a link-boy call her one. Maria begs that they take the lady into their own coach. The Captain says she may be a woman of the town. Mrs Mirvan does not think so, and says that to leave her would be to follow his cruelty. After dispute, he surlily lets her in. She has been in England only two days. The gentlemen with her are Parisians, and they left her to find a hackney coach because her own carriage was abroad. She waited until she was frightened and concluded they were lost.
The Captain asks why she went to a public place without an Englishman. She says none of her acquaintance is in town, and she thinks the English a parcel of brutes. He tells her to go out of the country, mocks her as Madam French, and talks of the French and the quality going to the devil together. She is vehement. Maria tries to change the subject. The stranger catches the name Howard Grove and asks if they know Lady Howard. The quarrel sharpens. He says she would sooner be taken for Lady Howard's wash-woman. She says she is no pauper, calls him a low dirty fellow, and he seizes both her wrists. She threatens Justice Fielding and prison, and she declares she is a person of fashion, or her name is not Duval. Evelina hears no more. An exclamation escapes her, and she sinks into Mrs Mirvan's arms. The supposed foreigner is Madame Duval, her grandmother. She asks what would become of her, discovered in a woman who had introduced herself in this way, were it not for Villars, her protector, friend, and refuge. Her concern and Mrs Mirvan's surprise betray her. She will not repeat the manner of the acknowledgment, or the bitterness and grossness with which Duval speaks of the past transactions Villars had related. The misery of a much injured parent, dear though never seen, crowds on her until this interview, one only excepted, is the most afflicting she can know.
At the lodgings Duval wants Evelina to come in and sleep there. Mrs Mirvan says her daughter cannot so abruptly part with her young friend. Evelina promises to wait on her the next day. Duval, somewhat softened once she is known, asks her to breakfast. Evelina cannot close her eyes. A thousand times she wishes she had never left Berry Hill, and she resolves that her return shall be accelerated, and that once there she will suffer no temptation to allure her elsewhere. Mrs Mirvan goes with her in the morning. The Captain offers to come. Evelina declines, fearing Duval would think it an insult. Duval frowns most terribly on Mrs Mirvan, and receives Evelina with as much tenderness as she seems capable of feeling. When Evelina almost faints in her arms, Duval bursts into tears and says, let me not lose my poor daughter a second time. The unexpected humanity softens Evelina, until Duval speaks ungratefully of Villars and excites her warmest indignation. Grief and anger give way to terror when Duval avows that she came to England to make Evelina return with her to France. She says she formed the plan the instant she heard of the birth, which she protests did not reach her ears until Evelina must have been twelve. Monsieur Duval, the worst husband in the world, would not permit her to do anything she wished. He has been dead three months. Those months went to arranging affairs, and as soon as they were settled she set off. She is already out of mourning, because nobody in England can tell how long she has been a widow. She looks less than fifty, dresses very gaily, paints very high, and the traces of former beauty are still visible.
The visit might not have ended if the Captain had not called for Mrs Mirvan and insisted Evelina attend her. He has suddenly become so warm a friend that Evelina dreads his officiousness. Mrs Mirvan, whose study seems to be healing the wounds her husband inflicts, appeases Duval with a polite invitation to drink tea and spend the evening at Queen Ann Street. The Captain is prevailed upon, with great difficulty, to defer the journey. To quit town the instant Duval was discovered would have been indecent, and to stay solely under her protection is a thought Mrs Mirvan will not allow. That Duval should follow them to Howard Grove, Evelina almost equally dreads. They are to remain in London for some days, or a week. The Captain declares that the old French hag, as he calls her, shall fare never the better for it. Evelina's only hope is to get safe to Berry Hill, counselled and sheltered by Villars, where she will have nothing more to fear. Duval weeps and claims a daughter. The Captain keeps them in town and insults the claimant. The road Evelina wants is still the one back to Berry Hill.
