HERMIONE, OR THE ORPHAN SISTERS.
A NOVEL.
IN FOUR VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
LONDON: PRINTED FOR WILLIAM LANE, AT THE
Minerva,
LEADENHALL-STREET. M.DCC.XCI.
HERMIONE.
LETTER VI. TO MISS BEAUMONT.
DEC. 12.
WE removed to Mrs. Hindon's yesterday, who received us with a profusion of civilities. They had company all the day; but my spirits were weak, and I supported no part in the conversation. Mrs. Hindon, however, would not allow me to indulge my contemplative humour in peace, but enquired repeatedly what made me look so grave, and if I found myself indisposed, till I was obliged to plead a head ach in excuse for being so dull a companion. This happened really to be the case; and no sooner was she informed of it, than in spite of all my resistance she fairly forced me to go to rest at a very early hour, long before any of her guests thought of taking leave. To this piece of kindness, though rather officious (for poor Mrs. Hindon's civilities are unfortunately sometimes rather obtrusive) I was not sorry to consent; and retiring to bed, though not to sleep, I passed the hours more at ease than I could have done in the midst of a large circle where I was constrained to assume an appearance of gaiety foreign to my feelings. Lady Farnford was of the party last night; and to-morrow evening we propose accompanying her Ladyship to Drury-lane Theatre. She has a weekly box, to which we have received a general invitation whenever we incline to go.
Fanny, who as yet has not been present at an entertainment of this kind, is half wild with eagerness and expectation; and for myself, never having seen a dramatic performance since that gay and happy period when I accompanied my dearest Sophia and her worthy aunt to several of the different diversions at M—, the idea of my beloved friend is so intimately connected with the thoughts of an amusement of this kind that I sigh at the melancholy reflection how distant we are at present, and recollect with redoubled anguish how delightful were the sensations of that pleasing aera of my life to those which have succeeded.
DEC. 14.
Well, my dear Sophia, we were both much delighted at the play; although there was somewhat very gloomy in a reflection which could not but occur on first entering, that in so large an audience, where half the world seemed met together, not one friendly countenance was to be found on which we had ever looked before, Lady Farnford and her daughter excepted (for Mr. Howard as well as Mrs. Hindon, were engaged to a lady's assembly, and Mr. Hindon seldom goes to places of public amusement.) There is something extremely dismal in the thoughts of being an unconnected and solitary being, about whom no one is either solicitous or interested; nor does the idea ever strike more poignantly than when you behold all around you in the full enjoyment of the blessings of friendship and society. Miss Farnford, in particular, appeared to possess, if not friends, such variety of intimate acquaintances, that I could not avoid envying her in my heart the many kind salutations she gave and returned from different parts of the house. This was however but a passing idea; for most fortunately in the midst of the musing to which it gave birth, and which in spite of the novelty of the surrounding scene almost wholly engrossed me, I was suddenly roused from my melancholy contemplations by the sight of Mr. Roatsley, who had entered the next box, but instantly on perceiving us removed to ours, and paid us his compliments with his usual grace and politeness.
The train of recollections that had preceded his entrance made me view him with redoubled pleasure. Luckily there was a place vacant between Fanny and me, of which he took immediate possession; nor did he think of quitting it till the inimitable comedy of the Journey to London was concluded, for from some particular circumstances the play had been changed. I was almost equally delighted with the representation itself, and with the admirable and amusing observations it drew from Mr. Roatsley, who was if possible still more agreeable than when we passed the day with him at Dover. There is indeed a certain mixture of sweetness and vivacity blended both in his countenance and manners, that renders his conversation uncommonly pleasing. I was much charmed to perceive that the denouement of the piece, which, though defective I think in point of delicacy, is exceedingly affecting, brought a tear of feeling into his eye: there is indeed something so amiable in any unaffected symptoms of softness and sensibility in a manly countenance, and it forms a contrast so attractive from that roughness and austerity which is in general seated upon their faces, that in my opinion it is the most insinuating of all prepossessions; and as it gives you in a manner an insight into the mind, renders the figure itself infinitely more interesting. I suppose it was owing to this observation that Mr. Roatsley never struck me with being so incomparably handsome as he did this evening.
Had I even enjoyed less pleasure at the representation of a piece which I have so often read with repeated satisfaction, I should have been sufficiently amused and delighted from observing the effect it produced on my dear Fanny, who was charmed beyond measure by an exhibition so entirely new, and of which my description could have given her but a faint notion. Roatsley seemed both pleased and entertained with the innocent
naivetè
of her expressions of wonder at all she saw, and with great goodness of heart enjoyed the entertainment she drew from every object.
When the play was finished, he left us for a few moments to pay his respects to a lady in another box; and so comfortable was the idea of possessing at least one acquaintance amidst so many faces totally new, for we were placed at a distance from either Lady Farnford or her daughter, that I could not avoid being apprehensive least he should not again return; but in a short time he made his appearance, and resumed his place, where he continued till we left the house.
DEC. 21.
This day produced an event which has charmed both Fanny and me beyond measure. We have unexpectedly met with an old friend, (for such in this part of the world we should deem almost any person whom we had known in our own country); and as such we cordially welcomed our lively acquaintance, Mrs. Weldon, who arrived in town only the evening before last.
Fortunately she had taken lodgings in the next street; and perceiving us in Mrs. Hindon's carriage pass her window in our way to church, she made her footman watch our return, with a message informing us of her abode, and requesting that we would take immediate advantage of the information. Delighted with this intelligence, so unexpected too, as Mrs. Weldon, when at the chateau, had not once dropped any hint of an intention to re-visit England, we requested Mrs. Hindon to set us down at her house. She gave us the kindest reception possible: and on our part, we felt as if we had met one in whom we were warmly interested, and who was nearly connected with us. She informed us that business relative to a legacy lately bequeathed her had obliged her to come over at a sudden call, and that she had left our much respected friends in good health.
How strangely do circumstances, apparently the most trifling, alter our opinions and prepossessions: this Mrs. Weldon, whom I thought at best but an agreeable coquet, and whose friendship I had in Languedoc no sort of desire to cultivate, now scarcely appears to me the person she was, except in her powers of pleasing, which are if possible augmented. The change is not however entirely owing to the partiality with which I could not but regard an acquaintance formed under the roof of our worthy friend; the alteration is in herself; and I now perceive how illiberal and injudicious are often the sentiments and impressions inspired by an imperfect knowledge. Mrs. Weldon, in her own house, and in private, possesses not merely the gaiety which amuses, but that good sense and knowledge of the world which must charm and improve all who are admitted to an intimacy with her. These good qualities are blended with a flow of spirits uncommonly elevated, which diffuses a vivacity over her manner and appearance that on a superficial acquaintance may be mistaken for levity, but which, on a nearer view, I find proves merely the natural result of a sprightly turn of mind, added to an early introduction into life; circumstances that in general arive defiance to bashfulness, at least to that painful degree of it that accompanies awkwardness.
She was so kind as to insist on our remaining with her the whole day, and at her earnest request an apology was dispatched to Mrs. Hindon; indeed I have not spent one so entirely to my satisfaction since my arrival. Mrs. Weldon was equally amusing, whether we conversed on gay or serious subjects; and uninterrupted by company, we chatted over affairs that mutually interested us.
I was extremely sorry however to find that she did not regard Madame de Clarence with that cordial esteem which I imagined every one must be disposed to feel for a character so amiable; and she let us into some little circumstances relating to family dissentions, which I never should have suspected to have occurred between a couple who always behave, at least in company, with the utmost apparent good humour and politeness to each other. Mrs. Weldon even told us, that poor Madame de Clarence has an unfortunate failing in her temper, which renders herself and her husband equally miserable: she possesses, it seems, an unhappy degree of jealousy, that leads her to conclude almost every young woman, whose visits are frequent in the family, the object of Monsieur de Clarence's affections; and no sooner is she convinced of her error in one place, than her suspicions are turned to another quarter, however improbable and extraordinary.
This is a most unfortunate disposition, and sincerely to be lamented; for I fear, according to Mrs. Weldon's account, it is quite incurable. She gave me innumerable instances of her weakness in this particular; and added, that as she had been for some time an inmate of her family, she had not failed herself to experience the effects of her temper in this point.
I expressed my surprize that this unlucky foible should never have been hinted to me till now, nor the slightest suspicion of a turn of mind so adverse to her tranquillity ever occur to my mind during the whole period of my acquaintance with Madame de Clarence.
You was the last person, said she, to whom such an information was likely to be suggested. The strict intimacy that subsisted between you was sufficiently known to deter all malicious or officious disposed persons from entertaining you with a topic so little agreeable as the errors of your friend; and the circle you ranged in was ever so limited, that large as is the proportion of the world which comes under these descriptions, I believe there were very few of either class that could be ranked among the number of your acquaintance.
But pray, added she, had you never occasion to remark, during your last visit, that Madame behaved to me with a distance wholly unaccountable, and which must, I think, have provoked both your observation and surprize? The real truth of the matter was, that as my acquaintance with the family originated through Monsieur, who lived in terms of the strictest friendship with poor Mr. Weldon, and to whom I was in some measure given in charge by my husband in his last moments, the lady never regarded me with much kindness; but conscious she herself possesses not address sufficient to preserve her husband's affections, she suspects every pretty woman she sees to be more in favour than herself, and charitably accuses her of the theft.
That Madame de Clarence disapproved of Mrs. Weldon's behaviour I well knew, nor was I ignorant that she was no great favourite with that lady; but as I could not myself avoid joining in the censure which her coquetry incurred, it made no impression on my mind at the time, nor could excite either surprize or suspicion: our lively little friend, mean while, happy in the possession of unbounded spirits, dreamt not of this severe judgment on her gaiety till after Fanny and I left the chateau, when the augmented reserve and solemn deportment of Madame de Clarence soon gave place to an open manifestation of her repugnance and dislike.
Her sententious harangues, said Mrs. Weldon, (who always expresses herself with force, and on this occasion may be forgiven the exaggeration of resentment) and thread bare lectures on the dignity of a proper retinue in the sex, were suddenly converted into plain invectives against the licentiousness of the present age, and the unprincipled levity of all its daughters, whether maids, wives, or widows; those of the latter denomination had, you may believe, sufficient justice done them; till at last it was impossible for me any longer to mistake my own resemblance in the pictures me continually drew of those profligate females, who having buried the man, either agreeable or otherwise, who had once received their vows, dared to be happy, and presumed to confess it too after they had regained their freedom.
For my own part, continued she, united by my friends early in life to a man twice my age, I am satisfied with having performed my duty to him when alive, without considering myself as obliged to mourn his loss when gone; and blessed with conscious innocence, I allow myself those liberties in which a mind free and at ease is glad to rejoice after a tedious bondage. However, finding Madame de Clarence was always grave when I laughed, and sorrowful when I was gay, I began to suspect that I had worn out her patience by too long a visit, and under this notion was preparing to take a civil departure, when one day, in the little arbour, (you may remember it I believe, it is at the entrance into the wood) in the little arbour, where I had taken refuge in a fine evening, to avoid exciting a rudeness of behaviour for which I could assign no adequate motive, I was unexpectedly joined by Monsieur; who seeing me seated, naturally enough, you know, placed himself by me and entered into conversation.
On mentioning my intentions of leaving the chateau next morning, he confessed, with an ingenuity which our friendship of long standing fully authorized, that he could not but approve of the prudence which dictated this step, and acknowledged to me that a jealousy of temper, which formed, he said, the misery of both their lives, had so encreased instead of abating with his wife's years, that it was grown quite insupportable: it is then no wonder, added he, in a friendly manner, that you should at last become the object of her suspicions, since fifty women, fifty times your inferior, have by turns excited them.
This I allow, continued Mrs. Weldon, must have sounded somewhat complimentary to an ear, the organs of which were disordered by jealousy; and just at that instant who should we see gliding by the trees but Madame herself, who had been without doubt listening to a sketch of her own character, not much either softened or embellished from the lips of her husband, and done perhaps rather a little in
caracatura.
But one must pardon him some degree of exaggeration from a just exasperation at her unceasing and teazing importunities.
After this little adventure, you may suppose it was time for me to be gone. Madame pretended indisposition, and kept her room the rest of the evening; breakfasted next morning
chez elle
; and I left the chateau, having received only a message that she was sorry she could not see me before I went.
Poor Madame de Clarence! I pity her from my soul: it was indeed impossible to hear that my worthy friend was unhappy, even though owing to her own unfortunate weakness, without sincerely deploring that fault which is attended, I am convinced, by no other in her bosom: but what a number of great and amiable qualities will not this single error obscure in a husband's eyes.
Till now, I always concluded Monsieur in fault; and that to the cold civility of his manner, those clouds were owing which during our last visit I sometimes observed hanging on his lady's brow. He was always indeed scrupulously polite in his attentions to her; but his behaviour seemed the studied effusions of good breeding and propriety, to which, from her rank in life, and the splendid fortune she brought him, she justly lays claim. I heartily lament however, that she should have carried her suspicions to lengths so blameable: lengths which must operate towards augmenting the alienation she deplores.
This unexpected and delightful rencontre, together with the agreeable alteration in Mrs. Weldon's manners, entirely discarded the reserve with which I used formerly to converse with her; and upon her talking openly of her affairs, which are at present somewhat embarrassed, I made no scruple of acquainting her with the circumstances of our situation, so replete with difficulties, so singularly perplexing and uncomfortable.
She entered kindly and with interest into all our anxieties, and told us that some years ago Lady Linrose and her family were not unknown to her. That was before she separated from her husband, said she; but she never was a woman by any means to my taste; for though her Ladyship can make herself extremely agreeable where she pleases, she is intolerably proud, exceedingly fond of money, and as artful as the devil. I dare to say she was more to blame than her Lord, though she has been cunning enough to persuade the world, and even Lord Belmont, that his peevish humour rendered her life a burthen to her. No doubt he was a very capricious, ill tempered man; but I believe he had provocation sufficient. I ask pardon, however, my dears, for talking of your aunt with so little ceremony; though to own the truth, when you come to know her as well as I do, your opinion will probably coincide with mine.
I assured Mrs. Weldon she might use all manner of freedom, and eagerly enquired if all the family exhibited portraits equally unfavourable.
The eldest daughter, said she, is as proud to the full as her mother, and still more deficient in good humour; but the second, who was scarce twelve years old when I left England, was the sweetest, most enchanting little girl in the world; and I really think resembled you, Miss Seymour, extremely. There was always some person in my head, when I saw you in Languedoc, that you struck me with having a likeness to, and now I recollect it is your cousin, Miss Lucy Dudley. There is another daughter, but she was then quite a child; and there are two sons; the eldest is a very good young man I am told, but his talents I believe are not shining; the youngest, however, when I last saw him, was a blooming youth of eighteen, captivating as an Adonis, and in all respects amiable and engaging. I hear he has by no means disappointed the hopes inspired by his juvenile perfections, either in point of mind or person, for he is by all accounts a very extraordinary young man, and I have been informed possesses a degree of influence over Lord Belmont, with whom he is at present abroad, which I think you must regard as a favourable circumstance in your situation; for a single glance from either of you must interest him in your cause.
Mrs. Hindon's carriage being at this time announced, we took our leave, and on our return found a card of invitation from Lady Farnford to accompany her to the play to-morrow evening.
DEC. 23.
We were delighted beyond expression last night. The inimitable Mrs. Siddons surpasses all that can either be conceived or described. Added to the most exquisite taste and feeling, she possesses a countenance the most expressive, over which she enjoys a command the most inconceivable.
However pleasing to a person unaccustomed to the glare of a public exhibition, the effect of the company, the various decorations, and the disposition of the different lights, must at first prove, yet the instant the curtain drew up my eyes were immoveably fixed on the stage, nor would it, I imagined, have been in the power of any other object for a moment to have engaged my attention.
I soon found however that Mrs. Siddons, all powerful as she is, could not wholly engross it; for on casting my eyes round the house, I discovered Mr. Roatsley in the adjoining box. As he sat alone, I could not avoid flattering myself that he would join us as he had done the week before, and Fanny and I could have easily contrived room for him, although the house was extremely crouded; but to my no small regret he did not appear to have the most distant thought of approaching. On perceiving us he indeed instantly bowed; but with a degree of coldness and reserve which almost disconcerted me; and though from the accidental change of places there was a spare seat by us most part of the evening, far from wishing to take possession of it, he never once came near the box.
Astonished at a change really striking, as well as unaccountable after the flow of civility with which he had before attended us at the same place, I tried in vain to discover what could possibly have occasioned the alteration; but I could only rest my conclusions on that fickleness and caprice of which all his sex have been so vehemently accused by ours, and of which, though I have seen nothing, I have read and heard much.
Possessed with this idea, I endeavoured to satisfy myself; but another soon accompanied it, which partook perhaps not a little of the weakness attributed to our sex: I suspected that we did not improve upon intimacy; and that disappointed in the expectations which at first induced him to cultivate the acquaintance, he wished to let it drop. Soon after the first act was concluded, I took notice that we were evidently the subject of his conversation with another gentleman who had joined him; an idea which you may believe did not lessen my perplexity.
Roatsley seemed to regard me with looks of anxious gravity; while the countenance of his companion, whom to my no small surprize I recollected to be our late fellow lodger, Captain Bradshaw, manifested nothing but satisfaction.
Just as the fourth act was concluded, Lady Farnford beckoned to a lady behind, desiring her to inform her son, who could not get admittance for the croud, that a seat was kept for him on the bench on which I was sitting.
Way was therefore made for the gentleman: but guess my astonishment and regret, when I found that this son of Lady Farnford's was the profligate and audacious young man who had terrified me at Mrs. Brumpton's. I was shocked on seeing him; nor was my perturbation abated, you may believe, from finding that his mother meant to place him by me.
Without having time to consider, I determined that no degree of ill-judged bashfulness should prevent me from manifesting a resentment so justly incurred; I therefore hastily entreated a lady who sat on the bench behind, to allow me to change places with her, as I wished to speak with my sister; and having by this little artifice contrived to place myself at some distance from him, I pretended to be earnestly engaged in conversation with Fanny. Lady Farnford however soon tapped me with her fan, and asked leave to introduce her son. I was then absolutely obliged to turn round, and perceived in his countenance an astonishment and confusion which ought indeed to have wholly overpowered him; but he seemed to recover himself very speedily, at least he obtained sufficient command over his feelings to pay me the usual compliments, though I believe, for I hardly deigned to look at him, not without embarrasment. As for me, I scarcely bowed my head, and instantly turned from him with unfeigned indignation.
I believe his mother was not a little confounded at the rudeness of my behaviour; but without giving myself the trouble of considering what interpretation she might put on it, I continued to talk with Fanny, who was almost equally vexed at this rencontre.
I saw Roatsley's eyes were fixed on our party, and perceived him whisper his friend. Overcome with a variety of emotions, added to the intense heat, I felt myself now suddenly extremely sick, and apprehensive of fainting, immediate arose. You may conjecture the bustle which ensued: I was carried out almost insensible, supported in the arms of the odious Farnford, who ventured to assist me while I was unable to repulse him, and attended by his mother and Fanny.
They stopped in the passage to give me air and administer eau de luce, salts, &c. before they ventured to call a chair, and just at that instant Roatsley and his friend came up. The former, hoping I was recovering from the bad effects of the heat, walked on with a formal bow; and the other giving Farnford a significant smile, said to him in a loud whisper as he passed—I give you joy Farnford; there is no need of my introduction now I perceive.
Shocked to the soul, I exerted all my returning strength, and disengaging myself entirely from Farnford, who had presumed to support me with his arm, I told Lady Farnford I was much better, and wished instantly to go home in a chair, as Mrs. Hindon's carriage could not have arrived so early.
If you think there is no danger of a relapse, answered she, in my opinion Miss Seymour you had better return to your place till my son enquires if my coach, which shall obey your commands, is in waiting.
I insisted however upon going directly; and her son, who seemed to aim at covering the awkwardness he could not avoid feeling under an appearance of rude indifference, said, with an air of unconcern, O you can easily have a couple of chairs if you will go, and walked away to order them.
I suppose he was glad of an opportunity of leaving us; for to my great joy instead of returning himself he sent a boxkeeper to inform us that chairs were procured.
Where is my son? cried Lady Farnford. But happily no son appeared; and desiring that her footman might be ordered to see us safe home, she wished us good night.
When we came to the door, we found Farnford standing with Mr. Roatsley and Captain Bradshaw. Will you give me leave to see you through the crowd? said Farnford to me with the most perfect ease. I replied only by withdrawing the hand he had seized, and by an air (I cannot call it a look for I had scarce courage to look at him) of aversion and contempt. He was disconcerted I believe; but covering it with a smile of effrontery, stepped back, and instantly Mr. Roatsley advancing, offered his services with a politeness and respect which gave me the only sensation of satisfaction I had felt that evening. I curtseyed in silence; and accepting his hand, he conducted me to my chair, after which he left me to perform the same office to Fanny.
Fortunately Mr. and Mrs. Hindon were both engaged abroad, so that I instantly went to bed; where instead of sleeping I ruminated most part of the night on the disagreeable occurrences of the preceding day.
My reflections were not indeed of the most comfortable nature. My dear father's loss, attended, alas! by a multitude of circumstances additionally painful and perplexing, have kept my mind for some months past in a state of unceasing agitation; and the suspence in which we continue at present, from the unaccountable silence of Lady Linrose to Mr. Howard's letter, conspires to give me unspeakable uneasiness. My past sufferings, as well as present anxieties, by weakening my mind and exhausting my spirits, render me doubly susceptible of every slight vexation; the probability therefore, nay almost certainty, in spite of my most vigilant precautions, of meeting frequently with Captain Farnford while I reside in a family who are upon a footing of intimacy with his, distresses me prodigiously, and I must also confess, although I am sensible how absurd beyond measure it is to allow myself to be hurt from the caprice of others, that I cannot help regretting the change in Mr. Roatsley's behaviour, because he appears so extremely opposite from a man who would permit himself to be governed by mere whim. My thoughts are constantly employed in conjecturing what could possibly have occasioned an alteration so apparent. It is however of little importance in itself; but it is so different from his former behaviour that some prejudice must have excited him to this conduct; and there is not I believe a more painful sensation than that occasioned by having unjustly lost the good opinion of those we esteem.
Is it not astonishing that we hear nothing of Lady Linrose? We begin to fear the letter cannot have found its way to her Ladyship. Adieu!
LETTER VII. TO MISS BEAUMONT.
DEC. 26.
YESTERDAY morning, Mrs. Hindon, whom as yet I had not let into any particulars relating to the odious Farnford, informed me that Sir Jonathan's family were that day to take a Christmas dinner with us. You have hardly seen the best part of it, said she. Their son, the Captain, is a mighty pretty young man, and extremely clever and agreeable. He wishes of all things in the world to be introduced to you; and her Ladyship told me he has absolutely raved about Miss Seymour since he saw her two nights ago at the play. He swears there was nobody there to be compared with her either for grace or beauty. He has been out of town lately, or you should have seen him before now. I assure you, ladies, continued she, before I had time to reply, he is no contemptible conquest. Besides his father's fortune, which to be sure is not so good as it has been, he has expectations from a rich relation, and is an only son, with the incumbrance of but one sister's fortune, and she you see is a puny, poor thing. Lady Farnford brought a good fifteen hundred per annum with her. Sir Jonathan's estate was originally as much more; and although no doubt some of it is gone, there are still excellent pickings left. They have been some years on a frugal plan too; so that I dare say things are almost clear by this time. Indeed, Miss Seymour, I wish with all my heart this may turn out a match. You know the young man is my cousin; and I should be happy to have the honour of being related to you. Come, Miss Fanny, don't you think it would do charmingly.
I am not acquainted with him, said Fanny drily.
Well, I hope you'll both become better acquainted with him in time. But Lord look how Miss Seymour blushes: well things will come about, I'll lay a good wager, cried she, laughing immoderately at the confusion which the sound of the wretches name unavoidably occasioned me. Come, continued she, with her usual volubility, you saw him at the play I know; well tell truth honestly, is he not extremely handsome?
Indeed, Madam, answered I, I am sorrow to differ from you; but I don't think he has the slightest pretensions to it.
Nay this is downright coquetry. I'm certain you cannot think as you speak. You are afraid I'll tell; but I promise you I shall keep the secret.
I hope then you will allow me to entrust you with it, cried I much provoked and in the midst of a long harangue, for when eager on a subject Mrs. Hindon never allows any one but herself to talk. I interrupted her by explaining the too just occasion her cousin had given me for the most determined repugnance and dislike. I soon however regretted the confidence I had placed in her, when I found that instead of being shocked at the recital, she appeared so highly entertained that I thought she would have fallen from her chair, she laughed so violently.
Oh! cried she at length, I never heard such a good story in my life. And so he really mistook you for a woman of the town? How confounded then he must have been to find you in his mother's party, and placed on the same bench with her at Drury-lane. I should have been quite delighted to have seen his astonishment and confusion: he must have looked so droll.
There could not have been much
confusion
in the case, said I, since he wishes to throw himself again in my way.
No doubt he is sensible of his error, and desires to be received into favour.
I then very seriously told her that I was determined not to see Captain Farnford if I possibly could avoid it, and would be infinitely obliged to her if she would be so kind as to inform me when she knew of his visits, entreating that she would permit me to keep my apartment on such occasions. To this, after some remonstrances, she unwilling consented; though I could easily perceive she thought my behaviour an unnecessary refinement of delicacy, which I had imposed on myself out of an absurd idea of propriety.
After the company were gone, Mrs. Hindon returned to relieve me, she said, from my imprisonment, and entertained me the whole remaining part of the evening with the Captain's accomplishments: he was the most agreeable young man— so like a man of fashion—so much at his ease—so lively—indeed, Miss Seymour, you must have been quite molified had you seen how dismal and mortified he looked during dinner.
What, Madam, cried I, after being so lively.
Oh I mean when your indisposition was mentioned: and indeed I could scarcely talk of it without laughing; to think you was above stairs in perfect health all the while he was regretting your illness as so great a misfortune. However I whispered the truth to her Ladyship.
I am indeed extremely sorry you did, Madam, cried I. I thought you had promised me not to mention to any person an adventure in which I blush ever to have been involved.
Oh! there was no harm, you know, in telling it to Lady Farnford. I assure you she blamed her son very much, and said she did not wonder at your resentment; only she hoped it would not be carried too far; for that he was most passionately in love with you, and tho' he had been too much penetrated with his behaviour to confess it to her when his first meeting with you took place, she was certain he was thoroughly vexed at the accident, which must have entirely resulted from intoxication and his mistaking you for one of those ladies who appear in such crowds in the dusk of the evening; for nothing on earth Captain Farnford wished so anxiously as to render himself agreeable to you: and indeed, Miss Seymour, I must own, that to make too much fuss about this affair is bestowing an importance on it greater than it deserves. It would be better, I should imagine, after having testified your displeasure as you have now sufficiently done, to appear as if you had forgot it.
Forgot it, Madam! cried I. I must possess a very slight memory indeed if I am capable of forgetting behaviour like his. I do not intend to make any fuss about it; all I wish is to avoid him; and if chance should introduce him where I am, all the resentment I should discover would be to regard him as an utter stranger. I have seen enough of his character to cure me of all desire for his acquaintance; and as to the passion you tell me he has conceived for me, and which must be altogether imaginary, give me leave to say that had I never beheld him in a point of view so disagreeable, it would have been equally unsuccessful.
I pronounced this in a tone so grave and determined, that Mrs. Hindon looked surprized.
Well, well, Miss Seymour, I had no commission to carry the Captain's proposals, so have no intention to be the bearer of his refusal; and soon after Mr. Hindon coming in, the conversation shifted to other topics.
This morning a card arrived from Sir Jonathan and Lady Farnford, enquiring after my health, and adding, that they hoped it would not prevent me from accompanying my sister and this family to dinner with them on Thursday. Mrs. Hindon distressed me exceedingly by obstinately persisting in a resolution to remain at home if we would not consent to go; and though I was both teized and vexed at her ill-judged civility, I was constrained to make her suffer for her complaisance. A polite apology was therefore dispatched.
DEC. 27.
This moment, Sophia, a card is brought from Lady Linrose. She is in town, and writes as follows:
Lady Linrose presents her compliments to Mr. Howard, and requests he would take the trouble to call in St. James's Square this evening about six o'clock, as Lady Linrose wishes to converse with him on the subject of the letter she received some time since.
Oh! Sophia! how infinitely interesting are these few lines. The agitation they have given us is unspeakable. I believe Fanny has read them over fifty times, and examined with eagerness and curiosity the formation of every letter. She draws a favourable interpretation from Lady Linrose being arrived in town, and is so extremely sanguine, that she has infected me with expectations which I can hardly conceive myself so happy as to find realized.
Adieu till the evening, when you shall know the result of all this perturbation.
DEC. 28.
Well, my dear—But I will not anticipate. Mr. Howard, whose friendly anxiety equalled if not surpassed our own, went to St. James's Square, a few minutes before six, and was ushered into the drawing room, where her Ladyship allowed him to wait a full hour before she made her appearance.
She then entered. He described her to us (for you may believe we were minute in our enquiries) as a woman of a very majestic figure, but whose address, imperious and disdainful, freezes the beholder at first sight, and inspires only distance and reserve.
I had the favour of a letter from you some time ago, Sir, said she, but as I imagined the subject of which it treated would be better discussed by an interview than by writing, I delayed an answer till it was in my power to come to town. You tell me Sir, continued she, that two daughters of the late unfortunate Lord Linrose are come over from his retreat in France, under the idea that my Lord Belmont will be induced to countenance and acknowledge them. This, admitting that
they really are
his children, was surely a very strange and unaccountable step. It is indeed extraordinary to suppose that his Lordship, so justly irritated against their father, whose ill conduct, not to say crimes, have been the destruction of his peace and the ruin of his constitution, will be easily if ever prevailed with to favour with his notice, two girls who are the pledges of family dishonour, and the offspring of a calamity which has loaded his declining years with affliction. I think it would have been at least prudent in their friends to have advised them to sound my Lord's intentions before they ventured on a proceeding so rash as that of leaving the Continent without his permission.
Mr. Howard then explained that our journey was in consequence of the commands of a gentleman who had been left our guardian, but who on our arrival we found had unfortunately expired a few days before.
I am much surprised, said she, that any gentleman should take upon him to act in such intricate circumstances without my Lord Belmont's approbation, who alone was empowered to fix their residence where he pleased.
Mr. Benseley could not be certain, Madam, said Mr. Howard, that my Lord would at all concern himself about his grand children, after the unhappy event which had so long excluded them from his knowledge: it was therefore natural in him to propose what plan he thought most conducive to their advantage, deferring an application to his Lordship till the arrival of the young ladies in England; when he doubted not they would sufficiently plead their own cause the moment they were presented to his sight.
Indeed the assistance of natural affection, continued Mr. Howard, would have been, I am persuaded, hardly necessary to subdue his Lordship's feelings on this occasion; however irritated they might prove, a heart like Lord Belmont's could not have beheld unmoved, two lovely young women, blest with every amiable quality of the heart and every insinuating grace of the form, kneeling at his feet for favour; and I am convinced when your Ladyship has once seen them, an instantaneous prepossession must inevitably follow.
His Lordship, had he been in England, replied she with coldness, would doubtless have acted in that case as he thought proper. I perceive however, Sir, that you appear much too sanguine in your expectations. None of Lord Belmont's friends have ever dared for many years to revive the recollection of the unhappy transactions relating to the late Lord, by any mention of him or his family; a subject which must have given an infinite shock to a frame so exhausted and reduced as my Lord's now is; nor is it my own private opinion, founded on a perfect knowledge of the inflexibility of his temper, that he will ever be persuaded to bestow his favour or countenance on his unfortunate son's children.
My endeavours, however, shall not be wanting, Sir, to prevail with him, if possible, to perform what certainly would be an act of humanity; and as the young ladies are probably anxious to know their destiny, shall not only write to Lord Belmont to enforce their claims, but shall take courage to assail him with all the rhetoric in my power. He is at present at Nice, and his answer cannot be long in finding its way hither.
Mr. Howard thanked her Ladyship in warm terms for this offer, which in some measure softened the harsh severity of her preceding discourse, and kindly added a thousand circumstances and recommendations calculated to animate and encourage the dawning interest she began to testify in the cause.
There is however one thing I must premise Sir, added she; the young ladies may perhaps be led to expect that I will invite them to my house, and give them my notice and protection; but till my Lord's resolution is known, I must be excused from venturing on a conduct which I have reason to apprehend may meet with his disapprobation. The hour that brings me his Lordship's permission, I shall receive my nieces with all the cordiality and satisfaction imaginable; till that arrives, I must needs say that I think the more private they remain, and the less they are beheld in public, the better; and I should advise their friends to persuade them into this measure.
Mr. Howard, who by the expression
their friends
knew was meant only himself, replied—your Ladyship cannot imagine that in this country, where the young ladies arrived so lately, they possess many friends; but I hope, as they are perfectly deserving of those given them by nature, a prejudice, which you must allow me to call unjust, will not deprive them of one day possessing their regard. I make no doubt but that till Lord Belmont's answer arrives, or till their relations choose to introduce them, they will not of themselves incline either to assume the family name, which they have not yet borne, or to appear in the world as his grand children.
In this particular I approve extremely of their prudence and delicacy, answered her Ladyship, and sincerely wish them the success their conduct in this point so justly merits. Indeed it would be the height of impropriety to let the world into those family secrets, till they can with propriety be disclosed; and they ought undoubtedly to continue under the name of Seymour till Lord Belmont allows of the change; and in the interim I shall most willingly undertake to convey any letter or packet the young ladies may be inclined to transmit to my Lord Belmont.
Well, my dear Sir, cried Fanny, who had watched his return at the window, what success?
I am not much pleased with the intelligence your countenance divulges, cried I.
My face is not then to be trusted, said he, for at this moment I scarce know whether to be pleased or not. Lady Linrose has dissatisfied me without giving me any just grounds for complaint. She expresses herself in your favour, and assures me she will back your claims with all her interest, yet her manner, uninterested and cold, contradicts what her tongue avers, and though rectitude may compel her to be your advocate, generosity will not, I fear, induce her warmly to become your friend.
He then related minutely and circumstantially all that had passed between them. I think, said he, when he had concluded, you ought undoubtedly to address your grand father in your own name, nor trust to the pen of another a cause of so much moment. A letter, warm from the heart, and breathing the genuine sentiments of duty and affection, cannot fail to soften and interest him.
I agreed perfectly in this opinion, and instantly retired to set about the task. You will perhaps imagine that it would not prove an easy one: but I found it attended with no sort of difficulty. To write forcibly, little more is necessary than to be animated thoroughly with your subject. In this case, a thousand expressions of energy and warmth give a strength and eloquence to your style not to be attained by an unimpassioned writer; and as I did not affect what my heart did not feel, my epistle was extremely simple, though my tears, by blotting several, obliged me to write more than one copy.
TO THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF BELMONT.
Will my Lord Belmont permit his grand children to address him by the tender appellation which the ties of blood, and the most fervent sentiments of duty and veneration, equally prompt them to use. Alas! it is but lately we knew there yet existed a parent to whom these feelings were still due; and the same instant that bestowed an information, so unthought of, so fraught with wonder and perplexity, overwhelmed us with the sudden knowledge of a thousand cruel circumstances to poison and embitter the pleasing intelligence.
Among these, not the least dreadful is the apprehension—an apprehension which sinks us to the lowest ebb of despondency —that this venerable parent may forbid our claims, and remain, as he has hither done, a stranger and unknown to us.
Oh! my Lord! can your heart always continue unmoved to the gentle and insinuating voice of nature; or in a bosom, where rectitude is said to hold its empire, can resentment so long retain its violence, and prejudice its inflexibility. Ah! no! one day I trust I shall blush for having for an instant encouraged a suspicion so unworthy, so contrary to that justice which forms, we are told, the basis of Lord Belmont's character. We shall not mourn a second father, more cruelly torn from us than by the hands of death, while the traces of those tears which flowed for the first are hardly effaced from our eyes.
We are in England, my Lord, by the advice of a gentleman who was left our guardian, and who I believe was once not unknown to you. We arrived about three weeks ago, and had the inexpressible mortification to find that Mr. Benseley had expired but a few days before. To add to this misfortune, we were told your Lordship was abroad; and informed that till you condescended to acknowledge us, those of our family who remained could not venture to afford us even their notice.
I think I need insist on no further particulars in order to enforce to your Lordship how uncomfortable, how painfully depressing, the situation of two young women must prove, who find themselves in a foreign and unknown country, unconnected in the midst of their numerous relations, and strangers, tho' surrounded by their natural friends.
Till your Lordship's resolution with regard to us is made known, we must continue in this obscure, this miserable state, unacknowledged, unnoticed, and deserted, whilst unconscious of meriting repulse, or of deserving this contempt and desertion.
The favour of a few lines from your Lordship's hand, directed under cover to Laurence Howard, Esq. British Coffee House, a gentleman to whom, we are under infinite obligations, and with whose sister we at present reside, will either relieve our minds from a cruel load of painful suspense or finally put a period to those expectations, the uncertainty of which have deprived us for some months of comfort and rest.
We remain, with unfeigned respect, your Lordship's most dutiful children, HERMIONE AND FRANCES DUDLEY.
I made Fanny join in the signature. It appeared very strange to us to add a name so entirely new, nor could I hardly persuade myself I had any right to claim it.
When the letter was finished, I carried it down stairs in order to submit it to Mr. Howard's perusal, who was fortunately alone. He was affected with the warmth with which I had expressed myself: but my words were faint when compared with my feelings while I transmitted them to paper. Melted with the tender idea that I was yet allowed to address myself to a surviving parent, I effaced the writing with my tears. A tear dropped down the cheek of Mr. Howard while he read. If Lord Belmont can indeed remain deaf to the voice of nature, said he, when she pleads in such language as this, his heart cannot have been composed of those flexible materials of which those of other men are formed.
He undertook himself to give it this day to Lady Linrose, that it might accompany her dispatches for Nice.
H. SEYMOUR.
LETTER VIII. TO MISS BEAUMONT.
JAN. 12.
THIS presuming wretch Farnford, instead of avoiding me, as I flattered myself he would have done, after the repugnance I have testified towards the slightest intercourse with him, this morning called while we were at breakfast.
It was both painful and awkward for me to find myself in the same room with him; and in spite of all Mrs. Hindon's attempts to draw me into conversation, I maintained a profound silence, looked grave and reserved, and the moment I had done breakfast, left the parlour.
Mrs. Hindon, with all her civility, shews very little complaisance in this particular. Though she well knew the reluctance I felt to seeing him, she had undoubtedly invited him to supper; for soon after he was gone she came up stairs and informed me that the poor Captain found himself so miserable when at a distance from me, that he had asked leave to return in the evening.
I said nothing, for certainly I had no right to prescribe to Mrs. Hindon what company she should admit to her house; but the moment she left me, I took a chair to Mrs. Weldon's, and in the Captain's stile asked leave to spend the evening with her. She willingly consented; and told me with her usual kindness that there were to be a few friends with her, who would be equally pleased with an addition so agreeable to their party.
This is prudence with a witness, cried Mrs. Hindon, when I carelessly informed her that I was engaged to sup abroad. 'Tis all I suppose to avoid the poor Captain; but indeed Miss Seymour when you have seen as much of the world as I have done, you'll have a little more indulgence for the frolics of twenty-five.
That I might run no chance of being caught by Farnford, I went early to Mrs. Weldon's: but indeed my dear Sophia I heartily regret I went at all.
The guests she had mentioned, consisted of three gentlemen, who were extremely gay and excessively free in their manner. Their vivacity was indeed unbounded; and their behaviour so noisy, not to say riotous, that I should have imagined they could have inspired only the most impenetrable gravity, in any female companion. Instead of this, however, their mirth produced in Mrs. Weldon a flow of spirits so unrestrained, that I could not avoid feeling to the last degree uncomfortable, and I would have given the world more than once for a pretence to have left the table.
I had not sufficient courage however to betray so pointedly my disapprobation; I therefore kept my seat, determining in my own mind to refuse in future all Mrs. Weldon's invitations except to a
tete à tete,
when she always appears in a point of view both amiable and respectable. But I took no part in the surrounding merriment, and very little in the conversation, although the gentlemen on each side addressed themselves to me in a style of complimentary adoration perfectly new and almost incomprehensible.
The moment the cloth was removed, I ordered a chair; resolving not to wait for Mrs. Hindon's carriage, which was to attend me at a later hour; and told Mrs. Weldon that as that family were extremely regular, I should be obliged to leave her sooner than I wished.
Indeed, cried the gentleman who sat on my right hand, and who had been particularly violent in his expressions of admiration, we shall not permit you to be so cruel; and he seized my hand with an impetuosity which terrified me.
It is not indeed in my power to stay, cried I, with no little resentment in my voice. Mrs. Weldon joined earnestly in entreating me not to break up the party; and the other gentlemen insisted so strongly, that I was absolutely constrained to sit on, from the mere shame of discovering a degree of apprehension for I knew not what.
The gentlemen now began to sing a number of drinking, or as they termed it
jovial
songs; many of which, if I might judge from the manner they were received, were by no means adapted for female ears; and the glass circulated so freely, that my situation every instant grew more disagreeable. I was assailed on each side with the most extravagant flattery; and all my attempts to rise were received with such violent opposition, that I had not resolution to undergo them, and therefore forced myself to remain till it was near twelve. I then got up, and declared I was determined to go.
There is but one way of putting a period to so barbarous a determination, cried one of the gentlemen, and springing forward to the door, he turned the key, and put it with an air of gay triumph into his pocket.
My consternation at this manoeuvre was beyond conception, and I turned to Mrs. Weldon with a look of astonishment for which I could not find words. It was, you may conclude, not much abated from observing that instead of openly avowing her displeasure, she laughed extremely at my apparent distress. Come my dear, cried she, since you are kept prisoner, tis in vain to resist. Let us all sit down for an hour longer at least, and Sir Edward will favour us with another song.
No, Madam, cried I much provoked, tis my intention to be gone, and go I will. I beg and entreat Sir, turning to the gentleman, you will open the door and allow me to be gone. I ask it as a favour Sir.
Why then Madam, cried he gayly, with the grant of another you shall purchase this favour with all my soul.
What must I do then? cried I.
Pay the door keeper, Madam, advancing with an air of the most impertinent effrontery.
Nay that's but just by G— called out the others, bursting into a loud laugh.
I was so confounded with this audacious behaviour, that I could not utter a syllable; but retiring to my seat, I turned suddenly sick, and grew so pale that they all concluded I was going to faint.
Mrs. Weldon's mirth, on observing this change, was converted into apprehension. You have carried your wit greatly too far, Gentlemen, cried she; and Sir Edward instantly procuring the key from the other, uttered a thousand protestations of grief and regret for having given me a moment's uneasiness.
Mrs. Weldon then led me to her dressing room, from whence a servant was ordered to call a chair. She made me a thousand apologies for having allowed me to be so severely tormented; but concluded, she said, I would not mind the innocent frolic of a party of gay-hearted young men who were not quite sober.
I do not think them proper company for either of us, Madam, in such a situation, cried I, nor can I call a frolic innocent which was in my opinion to the last degree impudent to attempt and humiliating to receive.
I spoke with warmth, for indeed the party altogether had shocked and confounded me extremely.
Oh the pretty little prude, cried she in a tone of ironical vivacity; indeed, my dear, you must expect on entering the world to behold a number of things which will appear equally strange and unaccountable to you. Pray do you imagine that all men are as grave as your father, or as sententious as Mr. Howard? Young men will be gay, and sometimes forget themselves. I disapprove of any flagrant breach of propriety as much as you or any one else can do, but to be sometimes absurd gives a gust to life.
The chair being now come, I bad her coldly adieu, and returned home extremely hurt to perceive the notions of a person, for whom I really feel an affection, so dissimilar to my own, and grieved to find that her unfortunate spirit of coquetry obscured and concealed a thousand good qualities.
Adieu! my Sophia. My desire to hear from you augments every hour. Your delightful journal, which used formerly to constitute my chief amusement, will now prove my consolation in all my troubles, as your friendship is my support in every difficulty. The anxiety in which we must some time longer remain, wears out in some measure my spirits, though I do not allow myself to brood over vexations that have not actually arrived; on the contrary, I am beginning to prepare for the worst, that is to say, for Lord Belmont's inflexibility, and often say to myself—if my family should persist in deserting me, I still possess my dear Fanny and my invaluable Sophia, and these two blessings, when put in the scale against all the comforts and advantages resulting from being cordially received into the family of my grand father, desirable as is that event, make them appear lighter than air. Adieu, my love.
H. SEYMOUR.
LETTER IX. TO MISS BEAUMONT.
JAN. 15.
YOUR kind packet was brought me this morning. A thousand, thousand thanks to my beloved Sophia, for the warm friendship and affection which breathes in every line. Such a friend, at all times an invaluable treasure, is in our present situation if possible still more unspeakably precious: for when we now look around us, there remains not one other person, Madame de Clarence excepted, to whom that tender appellation is due; and even she is not a Sophia.
One part of your letter actually dyed my cheeks with blushes, although I read it in private. How can you rally me so unmercifully because I described our fellow traveller to be what he really is—a very agreeable man. I did not tell you he was an Adonis, nor did I express myself, if I recollect, in terms of greater warmth than the politeness of his attentions merited from me. That he is handsome, and uncommonly engaging in his manner, is no more than you yourself must have acknowledged had you also been of the party. I confess however I have been several times a little apprehensive of your animadversions upon different parts of my journal, tho' I did not imagine you would have taken such
strange
notions so
early
into your head.
If you have become already suspicious, how much elated will you prove, and how vain of your sagacity, when you receive the latter part of my journal, where you find I have again met with
my hero,
as you call him. I am conscious I have laid myself still more open to ridicule in some of my last packets than even when you took the hint with so much avidity from nothing.
I freely acknowledge, however, that the natural eagerness of my temper may have led me to express myself with an energy which was perhaps absurd enough; but I am accustomed, to
my
Sophia,
to think on paper
; I give every idea full latitude, and never once reflect how ridiculous I may often appear.
You command me, you say, on my
allegiance,
to confess faithfully if I do not find myself inclined to be a little more solicitous about this Oroondates than I ever was about the Chevalier de Mertane, or any other man? Indeed, my dear, this is by no means putting the matter to a fair trial; for to compare Mr. Roatsley with the Chevalier argues nothing in the world in favour of your opinion, the latter being determinedly disagreeable to me; and there is a material difference I hope between acknowledging that a man is agreeable and being in love with him. That I think Mr. Roatsley the most agreeable man I have yet met with, I sincerely confess; but I can think him so, and even indulge a wish for further intimacy, without concluding myself in the slightest danger.
I will confess to you, however, my sweet friend, and let the openness of my heart put a final period to your raillery on this subject, that since the night of the play, when I think I must have given him cause for thinking meanly of me, I have suffered more uneasiness than such a trifle ought to have occasioned; and the recollection that this change in his behaviour was antecedent to Farnford's appearance in the party, adds to my perplexity and encreases my regret.
As he appears to be intimate with Captain Bradshaw, perhaps the latter has hinted suspicions of my prudence and thus overturned the favourable sentiments which at Dover Roatsley seemed inclined to feel for his new acquaintances; yet his polite and attentive behaviour when I met with him at Drury-lane Theatre, entirely contradicts this idea, and was indeed totally different from the cold distance and civil reserve with which his manner was impressed the last time I saw him at the theatre. He did not appear the same man, at least he certainly was not actuated by the same feelings.
This confession may lead you to suspect the weakness of my heart, and I have severely condemned myself for allowing the opinion of a stranger to influence me so far: yet I really believe pride alone is at the bottom of my uneasiness. I am hurt to have fallen in the esteem of a man, who, in spite of your raillery, appears superior to most of his sex. I formed no wishes from his acquaintance, but that he might prove an agreeable acquisition to our society; therefore I could experience, I imagined, but a slight disappointment. Yet I allow that I have permitted his behaviour to interest me too much; and since it has been so remarkable as to excite your observation even so early, I give you my word I will exert myself to think of it no more.
JAN. 16.
Were it not for the uneasy suspense in which we must remain till Lord Belmont's resolution is known, our residence here would not be so uncomfortable as I at first concluded it would prove. Mr. Hindon is a good natured man, and of a very sociable disposition. He keeps an hospitable table, to which he generally brings home two or three guests every day, and these he treats with ease and benevolence without ostentation. They are not, to be sure, men of very brilliant manners, or whose society can be deemed extremely desirable; being usually friends from Change, about his own age; men who have spent their lives in the plodding pursuits of gain, to the acquisition of which all their talents have been invariably exerted—I had almost said
exhausted,
for their conversation seldom displays either knowledge of arts or taste for attainments that lead not to the great end of becoming rich. They claim, however, the merit of industry; and though sometimes I am confounded with their vulgarity, in men passed the middle of life one is less shocked with that roughness which proceeds from plain dealing than with the smart and forward attempts made by some of the beaux of this line to appear
degagè
men of the world against nature and education.
Mrs. Hindon, though far short of my sanguine expectations, is a well-meaning woman, and by no means deficient in several good qualities. These are indeed often obscured by the want of one which bestows lustre on every other, I mean
delicacy.
She would not willingly inflict a wound, if she was conscious of its poignancy; but she is totally destitute of those feelings which tell when anothers are hurt. Without being generous, she does not fail in point of charity; I mean that branch of the duty that consists in giving alms. She keeps excellent order in her family, piques herself upon being an active oeconomist, goes seldom into public, and is not given to dissipation. Our hours are early and regular, at least when compared with those which prevail in this country, and our evenings are generally spent at home, where now and then an easy friend joins the family party.
I have discovered one striking feature in Mrs. Hindon's character, to which perhaps may be attributed her unbounded civility to us. Yet I own it is unfair to place her kindness in a light that deprives it of all its merit. She was herself of very low extraction, and probably for that reason has attached an idea of importance to rank and family, which induces her to attend with the most sedulous regard and respect to all who have the slightest claim to distinction. Since our abode here, I have suspected a scheme, which repeated observation now convinces me is not without foundation. Captain Wilmot, Mrs. Hindon's nephew, in a manner lives in her house; and except at the seasons of sleeping or dressing, makes constantly one of the family. He is become of late extremely particular in his attentions to Fanny, and continually entertains her in a sort of half whisper, which gives their conversation the air of a
tete à tete.
He is good-looking, though extremely vacant and insipid; but having received the polish of a military education, is enabled to hold forth with ease and fluency in a complimentary style to which Fanny has no sort of aversion. I have been a good deal alarmed, lest, as she is young and completely inexperienced,
les petits soins de Monsieur le Capitaine,
should prove more successful than were to be wished. I have not failed therefore, in talking of him in private, to throw a degree of ridicule upon his behaviour and appearance, of all weapons the most dangerous against which a lover can contend, and as Fanny is not extremely susceptible, I think my plan will prove the destruction of Mrs. Hindon's; for that she is at the bottom of the Captain's passion, and has bestowed the proper supplies of fuel to blow it into a flame, I have no manner of doubt. Indeed her desire of aggrandizing her family by an alliance with Lord Belmont's, might alone have induced her to promote a match between Fanny and her nephew; but I make no doubt that besides this motive, to a young man who is not in affluent circumstances, Fanny's ten thousand pounds, added to the expectations which Mrs. Hindon often insinuates we may justly form from our grand father's liberality, would be an addition extremely desirable. After all, he may be sincerely enamoured, for Fanny possesses charms capable of interesting more refined sentiments than I suspect the Captain to possess; yet I recollect we were some time here before he seemed to know she was even in the same room with him, and his solicitude took its rise all of a sudden, without any apparent cause for the alteration, after an appearance of the most frigid indifference.
My suspicions that the scheme was first suggested to him by his aunt, have been confirmed from remarking that Mrs. Hindon takes every opportunity of lavishing the most exaggerated encomiums on her nephew. He is the very best young man in the world; given to no vice; always kept himself out of the mad frolics of his military companions; and so good a son, that she made no doubt he would make a figure equally respectable in every other department of life.
Besides, don't you think him extremely handsome, Miss Fanny? I'm sure if you had been within hearing of what he said of you last night, you must have been flattered, though there was not one word of flattery in the case. He declared you was in his opinion—you must excuse me, Miss Seymour—by far the handsomest of the two, and so amiable, and so elegant, and so like a young lady of the first quality. However I give you my word, Miss Seymour, he allows you to be what all the world must acknowledge—compleatly lovely; but Miss Fanny, he says, is an angel, and I think he is fairly caught at last.
You see, my dear, by this little trait, that Mrs. Hindon, with all her errors, is not in the least artful. Indeed I believe this plan no sooner occurred to herself, than, though without intending it, she contrived to communicate it to me. She is indeed incapable even of a prudent concealment; and when she imagines her designs (for she has a very active turn of mind) are cunningly hidden from every eye, a slight degree of penetration only is required to pierce through the thin disguise. She does not spare flattery you may perceive on this occasion; and as she knows the influence which two years seniority, added to the warmest attachment, have given me over Fanny's mind, you see I get my share of it, as a person whom it is necessary to bring over to her interest.
I think Mr. Howard has likewise made a discovery of the scheme, which evidently meets with his disapprobation; for he always appears chagrined and displeased when Wilmot joins us, and regards him with a scrutinizing eye when he whispers soft nonsense into Fanny's ear.
Indeed to a mind like his, so fraught with rectitude and good sense, the utter impropriety of such a step must appear in full force; and I make no doubt that considering himself at present in the light of our guardian, he holds himself responsible to Lord Belmont for our conduct. While under his immediate, his sole direction, were this affair to involve Fanny in a marriage so imprudent, it must reflect extremely even on Mr. Howard's character; since from his connection with Wilmot, it would undoubtedly appear to Lord Belmont as having received his secret concurrence and approbation.
Of such a conduct, I am convinced Mr. Howard is incapable, even were he to draw from the event the most desirable consequenses to himself: but independent of this idea, I am mistaken if a more forcible motive does not give additional weight to the repugnance with which he beholds Wilmot's assiduities.
I believe I once hinted to you, that Mr. Howard, during the infancy of our acquaintance, was extremely particular in his attentions to me. He was ever solicitous for my company, and sought my conversation with eagerness and sedulity. His behaviour at length alarmed me, and mine plainly told him how unsuccessful any application beyond the limits of friendship would prove; for though I esteem, I admire his merits, and there is none of his sex for whose character I have a higher respect; though his manners bespeak his mind, and convey the mild benevolence of his nature into every look and motion; and though his years would not have been with me a material objection, yet, yet, Sophia, I could not have loved him. You will call me romantic perhaps; but never could Mr. Howard have enjoyed that tender interest in my heart which my lover must possess ere he becomes my husband. My sentiments partake of those a daughter feels for her parent. They are those of confidence, dependence, and gratitude; but they are far removed from those soft, cordial, and insinuating ties which make the duties of a wife her first happiness, and enable her almost to exist but for the man to whom she has given her hand.
When Fanny returned from the convent, (for it was during her abode there that our acquaintance with Mr. Howard commenced) he was struck with her appearance: but he regarded her as a beautiful child, and was more delighted with her
naivetè
than her conversation; and though he often entered into chat, he never discoursed with her: till our misfortune in losing our dear parent, by throwing us entirely under his care, made him feel Fanny's dependence, which at the period of my illness rested solely on him, as a peculiar charm that seemed to soften and affect him.
While we travelled, she leant on him for support in every difficulty or alarm. To him every enquiry was made, and from him every explanation was expected; and there are few men, I believe, in whom the idea of protection, exerted towards a young and pleasing object, will not create a tender interest, which if it is not love, partakes extremely of the same sentiment.
As for me, my spirits oppressed and my temper independent, I trusted a little more to myself, nor consulted Mr. Howard but when circumstances called for counsel and assistance. To me therefore he ever behaves with respect and the most flattering regard; but to Fanny, his address has still more softness; he appears as if he considered her peculiarly his charge, and to gratify her in any little wish, however whimsical, evidently confers pleasure on himself.
Yet if my suspicions of his secret partiality are founded on truth, (for I will not pretend to be certain whether my surmizes are not partly the chimeras of my own imagination) he is acting on this occasion like a man of honour, and as I should have expected from his character. His attentions are those which may be felt, but except by myself, I am certain never have been remarked; nor has he once betrayed a wish to insinuate himself into her good graces. No doubt he is conscious that a man of moderate fortune cannot be considered by Lord Belmont as a match for his grand child; who, if he means to acknowledge her, must possess a variety of advantages, according to the world's opinion, sufficient to carry a grandfather's views infinitely higher; neither is he insensible, I dare say, to the inequality of their years.
A girl of sixteen, with all the thoughtlessness incident to her time of life, encreased perhaps by the retirement of her education, cannot appear to sober reason an elligible choice for a grave, sedate man of forty three, whose prospects of happiness have probably been centered in expecting an amiable companion rather than a beloved mistress, in the woman whom he makes the partner of his life. Yet probably those very men, Sophia, may not prove less liable than others to be caught by the charms of youth; and when that is the case, partiality no doubt persuades them they have discovered the mistress and companion in one, and that they may be able to mould a young and innocent mind as they please.
I am mistaken if Mr. Howard's imagination has not sometimes secretly suggested some such ideas; though further than concealed wishes, I am confident
hey never will proceed.
LETTER X. TO MISS BEAUMONT.
JANUARY 20.
THIS interval of some days has produced occurrences of the most distressing nature. Oh! my Sophia, why was I ever prevailed on to quit our quiet retreat in Languedoc? why has fate condemned me to visit a country, where, since the moment of my arrival, I have encountered only disappointments, against which I must struggle, and difficulties with which I must contend.
Yesterday morning Mrs. Hindon proposed carrying us to the sale of a nobleman's furniture and effects, who had lately ruined himself by extravagance and a fatal passion for play. Curiosity, she told us, had brought the whole town together on this occasion: numbers, who never thought of becoming purchasers flocking to the auction to behold the splendor and elegance of the articles exposed to view.
This not being an amusement for which I imagined I should have much relish, I declined being of the party; and soon after Fanny and she were gone, Mrs. Weldon called. She was so extremely agreeable, and made so many apologies for the behaviour of herself and company the evening I spent at her house, that I could not help cordially forgiving, tho' in my heart I could not thoroughly excuse her.
You must consider my dear, said she, that your ideas and mine on certain points cannot fail to be extremely opposite. You have been educated in absolute solitude, and must have taken your opinions either from reading, which is a very erroneous guide to form your sentiments upon, and one that ever leads to narrow prejudices and contracted notions, or have imbibed your rules of manners from the conversation of your father, who lived in the last age, at least in times that did not allow of those freedoms that the present fully authorize. As for me, besides the sanction which matrimony at a very early period of life gave to the natural gaiety of my temper, I have seen a good deal of the world; my character therefore is established. I fear not the voice of censure; and those gentlemen whose mirth offended you so much, were men I have long known; two of them were my relations; and you must allow that in the midst of their life and spirit no real impropriety was thought of.
Though I did not exactly agree in this opinion, I allowed it to pass without endeavouring to confute it; and after sitting an hour, during which Mrs. Weldon conversed so rationally and agreeably that she made me entirely forget my resentment, she took leave, being engaged she said with her lawyers at a certain hour; having first made me promise to dine with her two days hence, when she assured me there should be no company except a female relation, with whom she was certain I should be much pleased.
As Mrs. Weldon's company is at all times really delightful, for she possesses the art of rendering the most trifling occurrences interesting from the insinuating gaiety with which she relates them, I consented; having first confessed that I hoped none of the gentlemen of her last party would join us. If any of them call, cried she laughing, I promise you I shall give orders to be denied, since the pretty little prude will have it so.
After she was gone, having a little time to myself, which is not often the case, I recollected that I had some trifling business to transact with Mrs. Brumpton, my late landlady, relating to part of our baggage, which still remained at her house; and as I wished to make Mrs. Hindon a trifling present of a very pretty work box which was packed in one of the trunks under Mrs. Brumpton's care, I sent Dubois across the square, for it is not much further, to ask if she was at home, and to let her know I should call some time that morning to speak with her; and half an hour after I ordered my chair and went.
The maid conducted me into a small parlour, saying indispensible business had carried her mistress out for a few moments, but that she had left orders if I came to beg the favour of me to wait her return. I confess I thought this rather a freedom in the woman; however I sat down, expecting she would soon appear.
My attention was in a short time roused by hearing a gentleman give orders to his servant, so near, that I found only a thin partition separated the room in which I was placed from that occupied by our late fellow lodger, Captain Bradshaw. He appeared employed in assisting the packing of some guns, and other shooting implements, about which he seemed as anxiously careful as if his life had depended on their arriving undamaged at the end of their destined journey. He was extremely busy, and whistled with great vociferation several little cotillion tunes at present in vogue.
Some time after I heard the door of his apartment open, and a gentleman enter.—Well Tom, cried a voice which I instantly knew to be Mr. Roatsley's, you are preparing to be gone I find.
Yes, I am sending off all my shooting apparatus, in hopes that since I must go I may find some amusement in making havock among the partridges. I am told there is excellent sport on Sir Edward's grounds; and I may as well take ten days of it as not.
There is a vast quantity of game about that part of the country, answered Mr. Roatsley. Perhaps I may take it into my head to pay you a visit at your quarters, after my election business is concluded.
I wish to God you would. But for my own part the devil take me if any thing under heaven should drive me from town at this season, while I had a full purse, and leave from the regiment to spend it where I pleased.
Heaven knows what my feelings by that time may be, said the other, but at present I find myself equally incapable of relishing the pleasures of the town or the amusements of the country.
Yes you are fairly caught at last, cried Bradshaw, laughing heartily: Cupid has revenged himself with a vengeance; and you know I always told you he would one day prove doubly severe. She is divinely handsome it must be confessed, and I believe the little god never aimed his darts from brighter eyes than those of your Dulcinea. They would alone constitute a beauty without the assistance of any other perfect feature.
There is at least, replied his friend, a character—an expression—a something about her altogether that interests me beyond what any other woman was ever capable of effecting.
A character! replied the other redoubling his mirth. But indeed we have always been told that love is blind.
Think, my dearest Sophia, if your suspicions had any real foundation, and much I fear there was more cause in your raillery than I ever dreaded, think what I felt at this instant. From the time of Roatsley's entering, I had suffered agitation unspeakable, and had listened with eager anxiety to this discourse; but at the last sentence my heart beat with augmented violence, and I waited with inexpressible impatience to learn the name of that happy woman whom at this painful moment I scrupled not to confess I envied. Breathless with expectation, I heard Mr. Roatsley after a short pause reply—Well, Bradshaw, in spite of appearances, which I acknowledge are by no means in her favour, I cannot for my soul think of her for an instant in a disrespectful point of view. When I reflect on her behaviour during the short period of our acquaintance, it seemed to evince a superior turn of mind; far from giving way to her fears in a storm which might justly have excused the most immoderate and well grounded apprehensions, she exerted herself in the most amiable manner to calm and allay the weaker terrors of her sister, who sunk under her alarm; incessantly endeavouring to inspire that hope and consolation which she herself equally required at a moment so tremendous. Struck with her uncommon beauty, I took advantage of her situation to offer her those little attentions which any woman in similar circumstances would have claimed from me, but which in performing to this unknown fair, gratified me beyond expression. Her fears, so unaffected, so severe, yet so little indulged, rendered her at once the object of my admiration and tendered compassion. There were a thousand charms in every word, in every look; and a certain slight degree of a foreign accent, which in another might have appeared a defect, gave a peculiar softness to the tone of her voice, the force of which I felt without being able to define it.
The alarming situation in which I beheld her, gave birth to a thousand circumstances that all conspired to delight and interest me. Nor did the evening I spent in her company at Dover, fail to heighten and augment my first impressions in her favour. Her manner possessed a polished simplicity, and her conversation a refined good sense, which diffused a mutual lustre on each other, and which insinuated her into my heart beyond all power of resistance; and although I was obliged to get to the Abbey by the day I had mentioned to my mother, and had hardly time sufficient to fulfil my promise, yet I allowed many hours to elapse before I could prevail with myself to quit the inn where the lovely Miss Seymour was.
Is it then
me
at last—
me
indeed—cried I to myself, out of breath with expectation and wholly exhausted with agitation.
During the preceding speech, it is not easy to describe what were my perturbations. At one time elated with hopes, which at another sunk into apprehensions, I feared to flatter myself delusively; nor till I heard my name distinctly pronounced could I be persuaded that the woman he had been describing with all the exaggerated encomiums of an impassioned heart, could indeed be myself.
The sensations of pleasure which rushed into my mind, were soon however mixed with a bitterness that poisoned every rising satisfaction.
When I call to mind her behaviour, continued he, both during that evening and every succeeding one when I have been so fortunate as to converse with her; when I recollect her manner, so soft, so unaffected, so inexpressibly engaging, how is it possible to reconcile all this with the account which the woman here gives of the whole party. I cannot recollect one instance of the slightest appearance of levity either in Miss Seymour or her sister, who is the very picture of innocence itself, nor would it have been in the power of any person on earth to have made me for one instant give credit to the aspersion on her character, had not my eyes witnessed that she can forgive an insult which a delicate woman never could have pardoned.
After all, said Captain Bradshaw, Mrs. Brumpton does not absolutely aver that they are abandoned girls, though it must be owned she seems to insinuate more than she chuses to divulge; and last night when I questioned her again according to your desire, she told me that when under the eye of their Argus, no girls can behave with greater propriety, but that the instant his back is turned they do not appear the same creatures.
What I at this moment heard affected me so violently that I became incapable for some minutes of at ending to what they said; on renewing my attention I found Roatsley was speaking.
You may conclude then, said he, how shocked I must be to learn that there were a variety of rumours to the disadvantage of this family, with which I was so much charmed. I was indeed inexpressibly hurt to find any mortal dared to think disrespectfully of any one of them; yet I disbelieved every syllable that was uttered. I could not discredit the evidence of my eyes, which traced every amiable quality and every sentiment of female dignity in the countenance and manner of Miss Seymour. As for her sister, she is also very lovely, and the innocent youthfulness of her appearance accords ill with your report. Mr. Howard I have enquired after; and find he is esteemed a man of sense and character, neither given to vice nor even accused of excess; I must therefore repeat, that I think the notion of their being his wards is infinitely more probable (even setting aside the appearance of the ladies, which indeed renders any other opinion absolutely impossible,) than that there should be any illicit connection in the case. That part of the story I am therefore thoroughly convinced is an infamous slander.
Wounded to the soul by this dreadful, this inconceivable explanation of the motives of Mr. Roatsley's late behaviour, oh! Sophia, what were my pangs, what was my mortification, during a recital which sunk my spirits from the highest elevation to the lowest despondency. Scarce could I keep myself from fainting at the cruel and painful conclusion of encomiums which had excited such infinite pride and pleasure. My heart died within me; yet I anxiously listened to what should follow, while my eyes were drowned in tears of vexation and regret.
The girl may be thoughtless and inconsiderate, returned Bradshaw, without being absolutely void of delicacy; and their being with Lady Farnford certainly argues in favour of their reputation. The idea of their being French courtezans is not by any means probable: but should they turn out so you have still less reason to sigh Roatsley, for your fair one will not prove cruel.
It is utterly impossible! cried Roatsley with warmth. I am perfectly convinced of the abominable falshood of that insinuation. Miss Seymour may be weak, vain, and volatile, (though even in these points I am unconvinced,) for I will not pretend to aver that first sight impressions, especially where an interesting figure is in question, are always to be taken as proof; but to attack her moral character is an aspersion which one look must compleatly and sufficiently confute. I own I am hurt and confounded at the variety of reports which pour in upon me from more quarters than one: they have even reached the ears of my mother, though she never saw either of them in her life, nor could have heard even their names repeated till within these few days. Miss Seymour has fallen I acknowledge from the high ideas I had conceived of her character, but never for an instant can I do her so material an injury as to suspect her reputation.
There are men, said Mr. Bradshaw, who in your situation would not regret if that point continued doubtful.
No, cried his friend, the woman who has once possessed the power of inspiring me with a passion [almost equally compounded of tenderness and esteem, cannot preserve the first while she loses all claim to the latter. My love for Miss Seymour could not subsist independent of that delicacy which gives it a charm refined and inexpressible; nor would I enjoy if I might the fruits of a fall which I should ever lament. But I am conscious I am injuring her in mentioning her name under such a surmise. Pray what says your watch? This subject carries me too far; and I have an engagement at four.
'Tis almost that hour, cried the other; and both the gentlemen rose to go.
I trembled from head to foot as they passed the door of the parlour, lest any accident should have discovered me; but I was soon rid of my fears as they left the house directly.
What do you think, my dear Sophia, of this conversation, so wholly inconceivable? Scarce have I preserved resolution and patience sufficient for relating it minutely, without often interrupting my narration by the silent ejaculations and the different emotions to which at the time it gave rise. To delineate my various feelings of mortification, disdain and vexation, would be perfectly impossible. I think however you may in some measure suggest to yourself what they must have been. Terror was no inconsiderable ingredient towards rendering the situation of my mind still more dreadful; and what motive Mrs. Brumpton could possibly have had for representing us to others in a light in which I am certain she never could herself have regarded us, plunged me into consternation and affright.
The instant Mr. Roatsley and his friend were out of the house, I determined to fly from a spot in which I dreaded one moment longer to remain; and was hastening to the door, when it suddenly opened, and Mrs. Brumpton appeared, quite out of breath, followed by—the wretch Farnford.
Ten thousand pardons Madam, cried she, for the trouble you have had in waiting. A poor sick relation sent to intreat I would give her the consolation of one half hour's conversation, having some affairs to impart which lay heavy on her mind, and thinking as you mentioned two o'clock that you would not be here for some time, I ventured to give my poor dying cousin the comfort she so much required.
While she pronounced these words, in a whining hypocritical tone, Farnford advanced, and making me a profound bow, endeavoured to convey a look of contrition and reverence into his countenance, as if he concluded it must at once molify and subdue my resentment: but I entirely disregarded his salutation. The sight of him so unexpectedly threw me into the utmost terror, and a crowd of confused apprehensions rushed instantly on my mind. I exerted myself however to assume an appearance of unconcerned indifference.
I am sorry Madam, said I, with an air of gravity and composure under which I strove to conceal the fears which almost overpowered me, that you should have been so unluckily from home, as I have an indispensible engagement that prevents my remaining a moment longer. I shall settle matters at a more convenient time; at present it is impossible; and I walked composedly towards the door, which she had shut.
The woman seemed at a loss, and stammered out—'Tis really extremely unlucky indeed Ma'am: but if you could just sit down a little bit Ma'am—perhaps you might find time to give me directions about that large trunk, Ma'am—which has remained in my back room ever since you quitted it. Would you choose that it should remain in my custody, where it is very safe, or shall it be sent to Mrs. Hindon's in the Square Ma'am.
All this time she kept her hand on the lock of the door, as if she intended me the civility of opening it, but evidently with the design of detaining me. This movement redoubled my emotions; yet I answered as coolly as possible—Let it be sent to Mrs. Hindon's Madam; but I am in extreme haste, and beg I may not be detained.
For heaven's sake, cried Farnford, who all this while stood in evident embarrassment, his eyes fixed with a most impudent stare on my face—Spare a few moments I beseech you from your engagement, and permit an unhappy man, who has undesignedly and unfortunately offended you, to plead his cause at your feet; and falling on his knees, he seized my hand, which all my endeavours could not wrest from him. But indeed I was too much intimidated to dare to make much resistance; for the woman still held the door; and though conscious that I was in fact a prisoner, I was anxious to keep measures with them as long as possible, which I imagined might preserve me from indignity.
Only hear me for one moment, continued he, and you will be conscious that you have no just cause for offence. The first glance I had of such superlative charms, compleated the conquest of my heart: a heart, which has long remained unmoved, unsubdued, by the attractions of the most amiable and most accomplished of your sex—
Sir, cried I, interrupting him with a resolution which pride and resentment inspired, it is perfectly immaterial to me what are your sentiments. I am not at leisure at present to listen to your discourse, and I desire you would instantly release me.
The whole world and all the powers it contains, cried he with frightful vehemence, shall not tear you from me till you have heard me out. I own I did you injustice. I heartily deplore it. What can I say more? What can I do more to testify to you the sincerity of my regret and repentance? Undoubtedly the most confounded prudery can alone induce you so violently to resent a freedom of behaviour into which intoxication and a false idea of your character inadvertently led me. The moment I discovered my error I should have flown to have acknowledged and renounced it at your feet, but you have constantly frustrated all my attempts to obtain an interview. I am therefore constrained to make the most of fortune, and since she has at length propitiously favoured my wishes, how can you imagine I will not take advantage of her gifts. Angelic creature, continued he, for heaven's sake hear me with some degree of softness and pity. I adore you: I would with delight undergo the severests torments to gain the slightest hopes of forgiveness. Tell me only that you will forget a conduct which I heartily lament—tell me that you will admit of my visits at Mrs. Hindon's, where all the family are favourably disposed towards me—and I will torture my own soul by permitting you to leave me.
I will not grant a permission, cried I with spirit, which would lead to a persecution I never will undergo and to hopes I never will encourage. You vainly flatter yourself, Sir, if you imagine you will even extort such a consent. I desire you will allow me to go. I insist upon it. What title have you to presume to detain me against my inclination, (and I spoke with undissembled heat) you will oblige me to call up my footman for assistance.
He is not within call, I give you my word, so
that
is a resource to which you cannot apply.
Pray Mrs. Brumpton, cried I to the wicked woman, do you allow of such violence being practised in your house?
All the Captain asks is forgiveness, Madam, replied she. Were he to attempt any incivility, I should be the first to condemn him. I never have countenanced such proceedings in my house I assure you, Ma'am; but all the gentleman asks is to be allowed to hope.
All I wish by G—, interrupted he, all I kneel for is, that you would forget what has displeased you in my conduct, and by admitting my visits, flatter me with the hope that time and assiduity may soften that dear, that inflexible heart in my favour.
Never, never, cried I with firmness.
Never! Madam, answered he, suddenly throwing aside that appearance of humility and respect which notwithstanding his violence he had hitherto preserved, and assuming a look that terrified me—Do you persist in this determination? do you tell me
never
to hope for pardon, Madam? Since then I find I gain no ground by submission, since you continue thus resolute and unmoved to all my entreaties, since all my protestations only feed a pride, stern and unrelenting, permit me to assure you, that if you do not condescend to grant me some chance for future favour, most certainly I shall not prove so much my own enemy as—as to allow you to leave me, said he hesitating—without obtaining it.
What do you ask, said I, almost sinking with terror from the alarming warmth with which he uttered these words, and from the wildness of his looks, while he not only grasped my hand but kissed it several times in a passionate manner.
I only desire, replied he, that you will never mention to any person whatever this interview, that you will endeavour to forget I ever offended you, and that you will deign to allow of my visits, nor scrupulously avoid my sight, under those false pretences of engagements and indisposition which have hitherto baffled all my attempts to meet with you.
Well, Sir, cried I, for my courage had now entirely failed me, since you can stoop to accept of an extorted compliance, I will see you at Mrs. Hindon's when you occasionally call; but I shall certainly keep my own apartment, and follow my own engagements when I see proper; nor shall I ever give my consent to conceal any part of your behaviour from those to whom I may choose to divulge it, but you may conclude I shall not be eager to expose it on my own account.
At least promise me, said he, promise me, loveliest of human beings! that you will not publish this day's interview either to my mother, to Mrs. Hindon, or to Mr. Howard; on this condition, and this only will I suffer my charming prisoner to depart.
You ought to blush Sir to call me by that name; but since you are determined, to these three exceptions I shall unwillingly submit. Do not imagine, however, that you have it in your power to intimidate me to grant greater concessions; for here I solemnly protest that nothing shall induce me to go further; nor would a generous mind be capable of frightening me into promises which may be above my ability to perform.
No, cried he, I ask no more. I build my future hopes on the opportunities I shall enjoy of pleading my cause when you are less disturbed; and I hope you will allow something for the generosity of my present behaviour when you are entirely in my power.
Wretch! where was the generosity he boasted of? to intimidate—to terrify me —and to force me into every measure he dared wish to adopt.
Then let me depart, cried I, for he still held my hand.
Madam, said the woman, may I take the liberty of adding one word? As the part I have acted in this matter was out of pure good will to the Captain, I hope you will not misinterpret my permitting this meeting, which the young gentleman has solicited times without number before I could be brought to consent to it.
No more conditions, said I, with a haughty air; and after Farnford's odious lips had dwelt almost a minute on my hand, he led me to my chair, which still remained in waiting though he had used the precaution to send away Dubois, as if with orders from me to return home.
Do you not think, my Sophia, that during this morning I had suffered anguish and mortifications sufficient: ah no, my dear! a more cruel, a more severe pang than any I had endured yet remained, and wholly overpowered me: at that painful moment when the horrid Farnford was putting me into my chair at the bottom of the stairs, Mr. Roatsley passed me. I involuntarily started on perceiving him, and he suddenly changed colour; but without deigning to pay me the usual compliments, he contented himself with slightly touching his hat, and with a careless but dejected air hastily passing me, walked on.
I followed him with my eyes, and observed he looked behind; though instantly on seeing that I remarked it, he turned away, and I thought I could distinguish an appearance of chagrin on his countenance that made me regard the audacious Farnford (who just at that instant bad me farewell) with augmented horror and disgust.
Oh heavens! said I to myself, as the chair moved along, what has this morning revealed to me. That I'm loved by Roatsley, yet am the object of his contempt. If some hours ago he seemed inclined to think even better of me than I appeared to deserve, now—now—every unfavourable suspicion must have received full confirmation; and the vexation of my heart drew tears of bitterness from my eyes. Happily I got unobserved into my own apartment, where Fanny immediately joined me; and I found some small alleviation to my distress in relating to her all that variety of singular occurrences which had befallen me in the course of a few hours; but a call to dinner soon obliged me to dry my eyes, and appear with dissembled ease at table, where there were, as usual, two or three friends besides the family.
JAN. 21.
Fatigued with writing, I laid down my pen to reflect on the transactions of a day, which, were I to live a thousand years, I shall ever remember with pain. Oh! Sophia! have I not cause to be wounded to the soul. The man on earth who appears the most amiable in my eyes, has conceived perhaps an equal partiality for me; yet a false and injurious suspicion must soon, nay must already, have entirely obliterated and destroyed every favourable prepossession, and substituted in their room the lowest and most contemptuous sentiments. Have I not indeed cause to be hurt in the tenderest part. No method can I devise for clearing my reputation in Mr. Roatsley's opinion. I am under a fatal promise to conceal the whole affair from Mr. Howard, who is the only person that could have explained with delicacy and propriety any doubts that were to my disadvantage, and I have little hopes Roatsley will henceforth feel the slightest solicitude about me, after the flagrant proof he has this day beheld of my deficiency in that point on which he justly rests an importance so material. How can I now flatter myself, even should I meet him in public, which is my sole chance of encountering him, that he will give me an opportunity, by conversing with him, to testify how sincerely my soul abhors the wretch whose conduct merits my scorn and detestation, and that my mind is far, far above those vile and unaccountable suspicions which he has been led, heaven knows how, to entertain against me.
But how on earth, my dear, have reports so infamous, so inconceivable, been circulated at our expence? who could have any interest in propagating them, and who could have been so infernally wicked as to invent such injurious falshoods, without some strong and powerful motive? Is it then possible to create secret and treacherous enemies, without performing or wishing ill to any one? The wretch Brumpton, you may perceive, is not alone at the bottom of these mortifying aspersions; from various quarters it seems they have reached Mr. Roatsley's ears; even from the lips of his mother he says, though heaven is my witness I scarce knew till this moment that she existed; and no sooner, it is probable, has she been made acquainted with the same fact in regard to us, than a thousand infamous calumnies have attended the information. A variety of conjectures crowd upon my mind: but the only particular I can rest on with any degree of conviction, is, that Mr. Howard must not have arrived at a period of life enough advanced to allow with propriety of two female companions of our age; and this circumstance, to slanderous dispositions, has most undoubtedly given rise to these abominable suspicions, yet how tainted with vice must that heart be, who from an accident so simple and natural, could infer and propagate accusations so scandalous. If this is the world, Sophia, ten thousand times better it had been for us had we never quitted our peaceful solitude.
Yesterday evening, being what Mrs. Hindon calls her assembly night, we had a crowd of visitors, who played at cards or conversed as they were inclined. Most of them, however, did not remain long enough for either; but, as if satisfied with having testified their politeness by shewing themselves, departed a few minutes after they entered.
Mrs. Hindon, who, to do her justice, never fails in attention towards my sister and me, introduced to us a number of her friends; but an introduction in England, seldom or never, I find, is productive of an acquaintance; it serves merely as a pretext that may be laid hold of at pleasure for that purpose, but which, if disinclined, obliges the parties only to the formality of a distant curtsey on their next meeting; a ceremony that is often dropped on succeeding interviews.
You may conclude I was not a little confused on hearing Captain Farnford's name announced among the first who appeared. He walked directly to the sopha on which I was seated, and very confidentially began to enter into conversation with me upon general topics with the ease and familiarity of the most perfect intimacy; but though constrained to remain in his company, I thought it by no means necessary to punish myself by attending to his discourse, which soon overflowed with the most bombast and absurd expressions of admiration; I therefore turned from him with unfeigned disgust, and addressing myself to some ladies with whom I have contracted a transient acquaintance, pretended to be engrossed with what had scarce the power of fixing my wandering thoughts. I found escaping from him, however, was quite impracticable, for he followed me for some time wherever I went with the most obtrusive perseverance, without seeming to remark the repugnance I did not attempt to conceal, nor the contemptuous silence with which I listened to him.
I flatter myself my behaviour at length had the desired effect. He began to look proudly displeased, and could no longer conceal the painful mortification his vanity suffered from the cold neglect I discovered to the display of his accomplishments. Indeed there is a secret self-approbation and conceit diffused over his manner, which, independent of any other consideration, would have alone rendered him disagreeable to me; though I could perceive he was by no means regarded in this unfavourable point of view by the rest of the company; on the contrary, the younger female part of it seemed to consider him as a real fine gentleman, whose notice was solicited with an eagerness that soothed his pride and softened his mortification.
A small party being invited to stay supper, I was rejoiced to find that during the latter part of the evening he had changed his plan of operations, and instead of tormenting me with unceasing persecution, had transferred his attention to a young lady in company, who indeed received it with all the satisfaction he could wish. He seemed to aim at the old attempt of engaging interest by exciting jealousy; from the idea that the sex cannot with patience submit to the mortification of being rivalled even in the admiration of those for whom they have no value. Heaven grant his scheme may continue for some time, or rather that it may last for ever.
JAN. 22.
How busy, my Sophia, is our present way of life, and how various the scenes in which we are engaged. I need now no longer repeat, as I used so frequently to do, when my journal was dated from our quiet retreat in Languedoc, that it is deficient in interest and incident.
More events, my beloved friend, but none of a very pleasing nature.
We have hitherto left the regulation of our finances wholly to Mr. Howard's care; who, more accustomed to matters of this kind than it is to be supposed my sister or I could be, with his usual goodness undertook to manage all our business of this nature; being in possession of a large sum for present use, which is not yet exhausted, and concluding our fortunes secure in the funds under the inspection of Mr. Benseley's executors, we imagined ourselves certain of independence.
Mr. Howard has been under some apprehensions, I believe, about this money ever since our arrival here, though he forbore alarming us till the truth could be no longer concealed. The sum is twenty thousand pounds; all my father ever possessed; and for which he solemnly relinquished all further claims or expectations from his father's bounty (a precaution I find which was unnecessary). This Mr. Benseley had originally placed in the stocks; but a few days previous to his demise, some change in public credit unfortunately induced him to sell out at a very great price, no doubt with the intention of laying out the money to more advantage. His death, however, unluckily taking place in the interim, no paper can be found by which the real proprietors of that money are ascertained. A note alone has been discovered, in which Mr. Benseley acknowledges a debt to my father of four thousand pounds; and it is but too probable that Fanny and I must content ourselves with this small portion of that affluence of which we always concluded ourselves secure. What is worse, Mr. Benseley's affairs are in such embarrassment and confusion, that we shall not enjoy this little pittance till all is cleared; and as there are a number of creditors, it is likely that even this may be considerably reduced.
Mr. Howard strives to persuade us that things may turn out better, and that it is not impossible but some lights may yet appear to prove our claims. He has consulted lawyers on the occasion, but he confesses they are not sanguine, having given it as their opinion that unless writings are found which plainly evince our right, a lawsuit would be an expensive and ineffectual expedient; and it is evident, from the friendly chagrin with which he just now divulged this disagreeable intelligence, that he thinks only part of this debt will be recovered. As to our fortune, that is irretrievably gone.
It has been justly observed, that the pecuniary disappointments inflicted by Fortune never produce a lasting or painful wound except to minds tainted with avarice: if we are enabled to live with decency and independence, though with the strictest oeconomy, on what still remains to us, I should blush to repine at our loss, though manifold are the advantages resulting from affluence, and grateful the pleasure which dispensing it procures to the heart.
If our grandfather should prove inexorable, Sophia, the prospect now is not a comfortable one: but I will not allow an unnecessary anxiety about the future to add one moment's uneasiness to my present vexations: Lord Belmont never can permit us to remain in absolute poverty: at all events, if we are rejected by him, obscurity must be our portion; and then a little—a very little will enable us to subsist with comfort and decency.
H. SEYMOUR.
LETTER XI. TO MISS BEAUMONT.
JAN. 23.
OH! my Sophia! how infinitely am I shocked with a discovery I have made.
Yesterday, when I went to Mrs. Weldon's, I found her alone. Her friend, she told me, had sent an apology, being a little indisposed; but as you are so sober, said she, I hope you will be almost as well pleased to sit and chat
tete à tete
with me, for I expect nobody else.
I told her she paid herself a bad compliment, if she imagined I did not prefer her company to that of her friends, and that I could not avoid enjoying the lady's detention. Soon after a hand organ in the street attracted our attention, and several well known French opera tunes were played very agreeably by a Savoyard, whose wife and child made a rude but not unpleasant accompanyment upon instruments that seemed to have been invented in the very infancy of music. The effect altogether was delightful; and the sound of airs which had been taught me in my own country recalling a thousand soft and affecting recollections, conveyed me in imagination to dear Languedoc, and threw me into a reverie that wholly absorbed me.
An intention of rewarding the performer the more liberally perhaps from considering him in some measure as my countryman, induced me to pull up the sash to throw him some money; and just at that instant I perceived Mr. Roatsley pass the window. He was walking with another gentleman; but on beholding me suddenly started, and bowing slightly, with an air of extreme embarrassment and confusion hastily walked away.
The sight of him threw me into a perturbation not to be conceived. I felt myself colour violently; and was scarcely able to stand. Mrs. Weldon, who from attentively listening to the music had not observed the gentlemen, though she was standing at the window by me, exclaimed, Good heavens, my dear, what can be the matter? You are all over crimson. Afraid of her raillery, I chose not to reveal the real truth, and gave her an evasive answer, expressed with such awkwardness that it would by no means answer the purpose intended; but on the contrary, by exciting her curiosity induced her to look out of the window. I knew there must be something at the bottom, cried she laughing. Upon my word two very handsome youths, though I can only see their backs, for they are almost at the end of the street. However I insist on being informed which of the two it is, the mere sight of whom has discomposed you so prodigiously.
After this attack, you may believe I did not chuse to afford her a subject for teizing me by confessing the cause of my agitation; as I well knew how delighted she always is with a topic on which to display her wit and vivacity. The information that it was Mr. Roatsley was little calculated to make her spare me; and besides of necessity must have led to a communication which I did not wish. I therefore evaded her enquiries in the best manner I could contrive, though not without difficulty, under pretence of an indisposition which I knew she did not credit.
Oh! Sophia! the expressive manner in which Roatsley regarded me, was so striking, that it must have made the most forcible impression on my mind had I even received no hints to guide me to unravel its meaning; but after the dreadful intelligence which accident has brought to my knowledge, too well, alas! am I enabled to interpret the gravity and melancholy that was strongly pictured in his countenance. But I must hasten to other particulars—particulars that have shocked me beyond expression.
Just as Mrs. Weldon and I had finished a
tete à tete
meal, a thundering rap announced visitors, and the instant after Sir Edward, (for I know not his other name,) entered.
I was somewhat discomposed at his appearance, after the freedom of his behaviour the evening I had been in his company; though to do him justice, he had treated me with more respect than seemed to influence the rest of his companions. I therefore assumed a look of grave reserve, and took no part in a very lively discourse which instantly commenced between him and Mrs. Weldon, though they often severally addressed themselves to me, and made many attempts to engage me in it.
After sitting a quarter of an hour, Mrs. Weldon left the room to bring some drawings for the animadversion of Sir Edward, who professed himself a connoisseur; and concluding she would immediately return, I kept my seat, with the intention of remaining till Mrs. Hindon and Fanny should call for me in their way to an assembly, whither I meant to accompany them. But scarce was she gone, when Sir Edward, advancing, resumed the stile of address with which I had been so much importuned the last time I had been in his company; and throwing himself at my feet, with a profusion of the most extravagant compliments swore he had adored me ever since he had enjoyed the happiness of seeing me, and that he had been the most miserable of men, and must remain so, unless I would discard the cold and cruel reserve with which I received all his attentions.
I was petrified with astonishment; and rising in order to leave him, assured him I never discovered either distance or repugnance, but in company which naturally inspired those feelings.
Loveliest of women! cried he, wherein can I have been so wretched as to displease you? How can I have inadvertently fallen into an error which is the fault on earth I should most deplore, and which were it necessary I would expiate with my life. Do not imagine, all divine as you are, that your charms can be heightened or your beauty rendered more irresistible from that air of haughtiness and disdain, which would destroy the power of any features but your own, nor conclude that you will augment the number of your slaves from the severity and cruelty of the chains with which you must bind all hearts that behold you.
Sir, cried I, confounded at this speech, and a great many others in the same strain which succeeded, and still more by the manner in which they were pronounced, while he stood between me and the door with the intention of preventing me from escaping—for heaven's sake allow me to depart. I flattered myself the disapprobation I testified so lately at a similar behaviour, would have entirely put an end to compliments and a conversation which confounds and bewilders me; and I also hoped that the regret you expressed for having alarmed and shocked me, would not have been so soon followed by the same inhumanity. I thought myself under obligations to you then Sir, for relieving me from another gentleman's persecution; let me, I entreat you, have reason to express my thanks once more for delivering me from your own.
The earnestness with which I uttered these words seemed to strike him; yet for some time he went on in the same incomprehensible stile, till at length I exclaimed—What on earth Sir does all this mean? I am perplexed and bewildered. I know not what to make of your discourse.
Madam, said he, with an evident change in his countenance and some hesitation, my conversation cannot have confounded and bewildered you more than yours astonishes me. If such are your real sentiments, why do I behold you here?
At this question, pronounced so seriously, I felt as if I was thunderstruck. A thousand suspicions, confused and terrifying, rushed upon my mind.
Tell me, cried I with terror, tell me why I ought not to be here.
Miss Seymour, answered he with encreasing earnestness, I blush for myself. I perceive I have been egregiously deceived, and my confusion deprives me of power to apologize for my behaviour. All that I now can do to atone for my offence is, to inform you that this house is by no means a proper place, nor is its owner a safe companion, for a young lady of your appearance.
My God! exclaimed I in horror, for at that instant he who had been but a moment before the object of my dislike and apprehension, seemed now my sole dependance and only security from insult and despair—My God! what shall I do?
Be not alarmed I beseech you, cried he, and be assured that as certainly as I have warned you of your danger I shall myself secure you from it. You have nothing to fear.
I was very near fainting, from the shock of this dreadful information; and anxious as was my desire of quitting instantly the house, I had not power to move. At last, when I had a little recovered myself, I entreated Sir Edward to order a chair. He instantly complied; and having pulled the bell, desired the footman to make haste.
The short interval which passed till the chair was ready, was the most awkward that can be imagined. My unspeakable impatience rendered it an age; and to my agitation and terror was superadded the most painful confusion. I could hardly look Sir Edward in the face after the explanation he had made of my situation, and he himself seemed equally at a loss. My distress was not, you may conceive, much abated, by an expression which inadvertently dropt from him upon my confessing my apprehensions for Mrs. Weldon's return before I had left the house. Be assured
Madam, said he, she will take particular care not to interrupt us. This speech at once finished her character and informed me that she had
planned the interview; in procuring which she probably pursued her own interest.
Good heavens, Sophia, is it possible that this woman, to whom nature has been so bountiful, so prodigal of her gifts; who possesses so abundantly the insinuating power of pleasing and whose conversation is in general as refinedly delicate as it is judicious and agreeable—is it possible that she is the most infamous and abandoned of her sex: she who enjoys the talent of engaging admiration and affection almost in the very moment that her conduct cannot but excite disapprobation? Good heavens! into what a gulph of misery might I not have been plunged, had not the hand of Providence been held forth to extri
e me from the labyrinth of destruction in which I had been entangled.
The instant the chair arrived, Sir Edward supported me into it, for I could scarce move; having first procured me a glass of water, which my impatience suffered me only just to put to my lips. Having no attendant, Sir Edward was so obliging as to walk by the side of the chair to see me safe home; where I found Mrs. Hindon and Fanny drest for their visit; but perceiving me so ill and disordered, I could prevail with neither to fulfil their intention, my sister positively refusing to leave me, and Mrs. Hindon imagining herself obliged in politeness to appear equally anxious.
As that lady's love of talking renders her often imprudently communicative, I did not choose to confess the private cause of my indisposition, but retiring to my apartment, poured out the fulness of my heart to my dear Fanny, who lifted up her hands and eyes to heaven in astonishment that such a character existed on earth.
When I recall to mind the address with which Mrs. Weldon contrived to impose upon me, and the ingenious methods by which she inspired me with the best opinion of her heart, I am lost in astonishment and horror to think that such a character lives. Here then is the infamous and secret cause brought to light of that warm attachment which me testified with so much fervour to us both, but chiefly to me, and which stole so imperceptibly upon my affections, that she was every day gaining ground in our esteem, in spite of several little improprieties of behaviour, that served however only as foils to her other good qualities, and to which she possessed the art of giving what turn she pleased. Under pretence of business, I now recollect she never would consent to visit at Mr. Hindon's, though I carried repeated messages from his lady assuring her she should be happy to see any of our friends, that morning excepted when she ventured to call for the purpose of soliciting my forgiveness in order to further the barbarous purpose of engaging me to meet Sir Edward. He no doubt had bribed her to his purpose. Let me not blame him however, whatever were the steps he took to obtain the interview, since the artfu
woman no doubt represented me to him in a false point of view, and the delicacy of his behaviour on this occasion has laid me under obligations to him which I can never recall without gratitude. So sacred must I hold the fame of a woman, however infamous, whom I once called my friend, that I will not confess even to Mr. Howard what dupes we have been to her artifice and duplicity. As for Mrs. Hindon, my terror and escape would to her appear just the counterpart of the good story of my alarm before, and would I make no doubt prove equally the subject of her mirth and diversion. I therefore resolved to say nothing of an event which has shocked me severely, farther than to acknowledge that some reports of her conduct have reached my ears which have induced me no longer to continue our intimacy.
Poor Madame de Clarence! Much, much, I fear, she has had sufficient reason for her jealousy; and I accuse myself most severely for having given credit to the vile ridicule thrown on her by Mrs. Weldon.
I slept little all night; and to-day I really feel more uncomfortable than can be conceived. I have not only lost a friend and an agreeable companion, which of itself in our situation is irreparable, but I have found her to be criminal and unworthy. I fear I shall grow suspicious in future; for never could I have been more compleatly deceived than with regard to Mrs. Weldon, whose greatest fault I imagined consisted in a love of admiration and a passion for coquetry, which is said in some degree to pervade the whole sex, and often subsists in the most innocent hearts.
But oh! can you guess the circumstance which of all others tortures me the most painfully, and dwells perpetually in my thoughts? What must Mr. Roatsley's ideas have been, how must his suspicions have received confirmation, from beholding me standing with a woman of this character, at the window of her residence. No wonder that he started and changed colour. No doubt he had heard of her before; and I can now partly trace the cause of those calumnies, to account for which puzzled and perplexed me so extremely. Our intimacy with Mrs. Weldon must have been the origin of all the defamatory reports that have reached his ears. But oh! Sophia! how will he be undeceived—and when? Is there any thing so tender, so delicate, so irretrievable, as the reputation of a young woman? and when once wounded in the slightest manner, however injudiciously and unjustly, how difficult does it prove wholly to obliterate the stain and to efface the false impression. This dreadful reflection hurts me to the soul, and for some time was quite intolerable. But a few hours consideration have abated in some measure its acute force; and I have been calling up the assistance of conscious innocence and dignity to my assistance, which tells me it is weakness to allow calumny to poison that repose which has never been embittered from vice.
Mrs. Hindon insists on our attending her this evening to the Opera, an entertainment at which we have not yet been present; for as I agree with Lady Linrose in opinion that till we are properly introduced we ought not often to appear in public, I have hitherto resisted all her intreaties, though it is the amusement, if of any, from which I promise myself most pleasure. You may believe I was never less disposed for being entertained than at this moment. Indeed the utmost gratification I could receive, would be to indulge my serious humour at home. But for that very reason I have forced myself to consent to go. It is a duty I think to be chearful when one is unconscious of meriting self-reproach, and can raise our hearts in gratitude to heaven that no visible calamity hangs over us.
FOUR O'CLOCK.
About an hour ago, while I was engaged writing in my dressing room, I was informed by Therese that Sir Edward Sudbury was below, and requested the honour of seeing me if not particularly engaged; and on entering the parlour, I perceived my new acquaintance, who politely apologized for the liberty he had taken of enquiring after my health; but the situation in which I left you last night, Madam, said he, gave me so much uneasiness, that my desire of making personal enquiries was not to be resisted.
I found myself at first a little embarrassed; but summoned courage to tell him that his visit required no sort of apology, as I should ever regard myself as particularly indebted to him for an explanation which might not otherwise for some time have reached my ears. This speech, short as it was, alluded to recollections which wounded me so severely, that my cheeks were dyed with blushes; and I hesitated more than once before I came to the conclusion. Sir Edward himself seemed almost in equal confusion; and his manner appeared so modest, mild, and respectful, that I could scarce recognize him for the man who had joined with his riotous companions in giving me such pain and mortification. But large allowances ought certainly to be made for his behaviour where his freedom was neither suspected to occasion pain nor apprehended to be considered as an insult.
JAN. 24.
Y
sterday evening we accompanied Mrs. Hindon to the Opera, the amusement of all others the most suited to my taste; indeed in the state my spirits then were, it was the only one for which I could have felt the slightest relish. A faint hope which I had entertained, that chance might carry Roatsley there also, conquered my reluctance at going, and supported me with courage and spirits for the exertion.
The instant I was seated, I cast my eyes around the house in hopes of seeing him, though I well knew the confusion the sight of him must have given me, but without success, for he was no where to be found.
Sunk and disappointed, I tried to attend to the music; and endeavoured to forget my dejection by participating in the general gaiety that sat on every countenance but mine. My attempts were however fruitless. The songs, which in private used to charm me, now, though improved to the highest pitch of perfection by the most admirable vocal performers and the most excellent accompanyment, could not even fix my wandering attention; and Mrs. Hindon's remarks, by interrupting a train of ideas that absorbed me, proved extremely fatigueing. Her incessant talking, poor woman, indeed almost exhausted me, and I felt as a severe talk the share I was constrained to take in a conversation so little interesting. Oh! how painful it is, Sophia, to cover a heavy heart under the mask of chearfulness.
Melico had at length began one of his most melting songs; and it accorded so well "with my soul's sadness" at that moment, that not only my attention was unavoidably engaged, but my inquietude soothed and lulled into composure. At this moment I accidentally discovered the face I had so anxiously sought in one of the side boxes, not very far distant from that part of the pit where I was placed. I felt my face glow and my heart beat with great violence. He did not however observe me; but stood behind a young lady, who was indeed uncommonly beautiful, and with whom he conversed with infinite eagerness and animation. I thought I could perceive that their discourse was equally interesting to both. They smiled delighted to each other, at particular passages of the song that seemed to enchant them, and though surrounded by several persons of both sexes, appeared wholly engrossed with each other.
At last, however, he looked round; and on discovering us bowed with politeness, which instantly carried the eyes of the young lady towards our party; and the moment after I saw that she was enquiring of him who we were. The ideas which this little circumstance produced, and my conjectures what answer he could give to her interrogatories, added to my pain and confusion. Soon after I observed that he had quitted her; and while I was watching with anxiety to find in what part of the house he meant to place himself, guess my perturbation on finding that he had actually seated himself on the bench immediately behind me, where there happened to be a spare place. His face was overspread with a deep colour while he paid me his compliments; and there was an air of gravity and penetration in his countenance, as if he sought in mine the refutation or confirmation of his doubts, while this suspicion mortified and wounded me so cruelly, that I was apprehensive of raising the same commotion I had done at the play.
He perceived I looked disturbed; and attributing it to the extreme heat, enquired with such evident softness if I was not ill, that the tender and unexpected anxiety he manifested on this occasion gave an instant revival to my spirits.
He then regretted his bad fortune, he said, in having so unluckily missed seeing us when he had called at Mr. Hindon's both that day and the evening before; this, through the negligence of that gentleman's servants, had never come to our knowledge; and oh! what uneasiness would it not have spared me to have known that Mr. Roatsley had taken this step towards having his unjust surmises confuted. I assured him the favour he had done us had been entirely unknown to Mr. Howard, who undoubtedly would have immediately acknowledged his attention. He then began to talk of our accidental rencontre in the packet boat, and paid me a number of unmerited compliments on the composure of my behaviour; for although I did not, like my poor Fanny, allow my terrors to distract me, I was very far from deserving the encomiums he lavished on me. Pray my Sophia does not his exaggerations on this occasion betray— But I see you smile. I will however be perfectly unreserved.—Does it not manifest something like partiality? and may I not draw this inference from it, that he will be open to conviction. O
his I may surely be confident; that although to the eye of a man so penetrating, so intelligent as Roatsley, many errors and defects in my manner and conversation must be apparent, new as I am to the world and ignorant of its forms and etiquettes, yet no real impropriety, nothing below the dignity of the female character, can possibly be discovered by a candid and well disposed mind; and this little pride, my dear, enabled me, after my first flutters were over, to acquit myself during the remainder of the evening with tolerable ease. Supported by conscious rectitude, I determined not to yield to the bashfulness and constraint which were stealing upon me; but in justice to my own character to shew myself to him such as I really was, and leave him to repent and blush for the injury he had done me.
He often recurred to the accident that had produced our acquaintance, and called it the most fortunate of his life The most fortunate of your life, cried Fanny, who is extremely literal: that is strange indeed. Sure there can be no sort of pleasure in being frightened out of one's wits, and very near being drowned into the bargain? for my own part I never reflect on it without horror.
This return to his compliment, uttered with such
naivité,
made him smile. Nay, said she, the storm was so violent that I think the most courageous of men needed not have blushed to have owned themselves terrified.
Had I been in danger of losing my courage on that occasion, said he, Miss Seymour would have taught me my duty.
Mr. Howard at this moment joined us. Mr. Roatsley and he seemed mutually pleased at meeting; and soon after the latter whispered that Lady Linrose was in the house, and pointed her out to us in the box which Roatsley had just quitted.
Our curiosity to see her was inexpressible: she seems under fifty, and possesses an air of majestic dignity in her appearance, blended however with a cold severity of aspect that destroys the admiration her figure excites, and renders her countenance harsh and unamiable. It is indeed wholly devoid of that affability of expression which denotes a disposition to be pleased, and which ever confers pleasure on the beholder. The instant I had studied her features, I could not persuade myself I should ever recognize either the kind relation or tender friend in Lady Linrose.
From having observed Mr. Roatsley of her party, I naturally conjectured he must be of her acquaintance, and began to flatter myself that through this unexpected channel of intelligence I might be able to learn some particulars relating to a family, with whom, in spite of our present prepossessions, we may one day become as intimately connected by affection as we are at present from consanguinity. I therefore demanded if he was acquainted with that lady in black, pointing to the part of the house where she was placed.
What lady pray? said he.
That lady, cried Fanny: she who sits to the right in the box you were just now seated in. Don't you think she is the most severe, disagreeable-looking woman you ever beheld.
What lady do you talk of? repeated he, astonished no doubt at Fanny's inconsiderate warmth of expression.
Lady Linrose, returned she. You have been of her party all this time. Sure you must know her?
As Mr. Roatsley was silent, and did not seem inclined to give the slightest encouragement to Fanny's thoughtless imprudence, who, unacquainted with the etiquette of society, perpetually disregards the little artifices which common politeness demands, and never once considered that Lady Linrose might be, for any thing she knew, one of the most intimate of his friends, I endeavoured to check her from proceeding farther, but in vain. Lord, continued she, inattentive to the coldness with which he listened to her remarks, don't you think she looks cross and ill-natured? I have not once observed her smile or look pleased all the while I have been watching her countenance: besides Hermione, turning to me, is it not very strange for a widow to make a public appearance so early. I thought nobody had done so in England till at least six months after their husband's decease; did not Mrs. Hindon say so the other evening, when we were on this subject? Oh! but I had forgot that they did not live together, and my Lord was so ill-humoured, I suppose, her Ladyship considered him as no great loss, though I think she might have shewn a little more regard to his memory though only for the sake of decency.
I tried by a look to stop her volubility: though in fact my own sentiments of her Ladyship's conduct in this last instance were similar to my sister's. Her
prudence
has not impressed us, you may believe, with the most favourable opinion of her
heart
; and this procedure, which I am told is unusual, was not calculated, for improving it.
Mr. Roatsley's gravity deterred me, however, from avowing my secret thoughts. Pray, said he to Fanny, after a short pause, with a half smile—has Lady Linrose the honour of your acquaintance?
Oh! Lord! no, cried she, without considering how unaccountable this violent prepossession against an utter stranger must appear, I never beheld her in my life till this moment.
Then how, pray, has she been so unlucky as to fall under your displeasure.
My displeasure! cried she, embarrassed; oh not at all. I merely dislike her appearance. She looks sulky and proud, and I hate those sort of people.
She is very unfortunate indeed, returned he. I then contrived to put a period to the subject by calling Fanny's attention to another object; for I dreaded the suspicion and curiosity her simplicity might excite in Mr. Roatsley, who seemed both amused and astonished at her conversation.
Not for a moment during the remainder of the evening did he leave us; and by the vivacity of his discourse, and the amiable gentleness of his manner, he insensibly restored my tranquillity, dissipated my confusion, and inspired me with a flow of spirits almost equal to what appears natural to himself.
When all was concluded, he attended us to Mrs. Hindon's carriage; and requested leave, in polite terms, to indemnify himself, he said, for his late disappointment by waiting on us again.
I have not spent an evening so agreeably since that we passed at Dover. Indeed I even give last night greatly the preference, it having all the advantages of a most painful contrast to enhance its value. My sufferings in the early part of the evening conferred a double relish on the satisfaction of the succeeding.
I feel myself now relieved from a load of uneasiness which I supported with much anxiety; for I am convinced from Roatsley's behaviour last night, nay from the very expression of his countenance, that we are completely justified in his opinion, at least with regard to the vile aspersions so cruelly circulated against us.
Sir Edward Sudbury, who did not observe us till near the conclusion of the last dance, joined us before we left the house, and requested me to introduce him to Mrs. Hindon; which, as I wished that lady to remain ignorant of the circumstances of our acquaintance, was rather disagreeable to me; however I had no choice, and fortunately contrived to evade her enquiries by informing her of my own accord that I had been in company with him at Mrs. Weldon's.
We are beginning to grow extremely impatient for dispatches from Nice. Mr. Howard tells us that by course of post we ought to have received letters before this time; and surely on this subject little time for consideration is required. Why then does Lord Belmont retain us in suspence.
JAN. 25.
Mrs. Hindon being rather indisposed to-day, she kept her room all the morning, and taking my work, I went to sit with her, Fanny having gone to call upon Lady Farnford, whose repeated civilities demanded or rather extort some return on our part.
Mrs. Hindon was very pressing with me to accompany her; but you may believe her entreaties had no sort of effect: as the sight of Captain Farnford was absolutely disagreeable to me, it would be strange indeed, I said, if I threw myself in his way when it was in my power so easily to avoid it.
This visit naturally led the subject to that family, upon which Mrs. Hindon began to lavish a thousand encomiums. Lady Farnford is her relation; and there has ever subsisted between them from infancy a very intimate friendship. They are extremely opposite in point of appearance; Lady Farnford being a little lean figure, with a very cold and dry address; but they are both equally prying and inquisitive, which is I suppose their chief bond of union, though Lady Farnford does not talk so much in a week as her friend does in one day.
Captain Farnford, Mrs. Hindon said, had always been reckoned a young man of very shining parts, and his figure and address were singularly elegant. He was a little wild to be sure; but what of that? few young ladies regarded that error as a material fault at his time of life, and in him it seemed more the effects of life and gaiety than of any inclination to vice. Some people, it was true, thought him a little extravagant; but this was the foible of a generous mind. For her part, to see a young man too
near,
was of all things what most disgusted her; besides, continued she, as he is not yet burthened with a wife and family, no doubt he has not turned his mind towards oeconomy; but when he is once fairly settled, I'll answer for it it will be the study of his life in all respects to render the woman of his choice compleatly happy.
I began now to suspect to what all this tended. I tried, however, to ward off an explanation, by coldly acquiescing in her sentiments as a person uninterested in the cause; but my plan would not succeed.
I am glad you think so, Miss Seymour, cried she, for indeed, to tell you the real truth of the matter, the poor Captain is quite in despair at your distant and frigid manner towards him; and my Lady, whose heart is wrapt up in her son's happiness, and who herself admires you above all women, desires nothing on earth so fervently as that he may render himself acceptable to you. Many a good match has been proposed to Captain Farnford, I assure you; but till he saw you he hated the very idea of matrimony, to which now he annexes every hope of happiness.
I am extremely sorry Madam, answered I, to receive this information. I flattered myself my behaviour had sufficiently explained to Captain Farnford that my sentiments were fixed and immoveable on this head, and I imagined, if he still deceived himself, you was able to have convinced him how little successful this application could ever be. If however you Madam have been commissioned to talk with me on the subject, I entreat you will no longer delay acquainting him at once from me, that there is not the slightest chance—there is not even a possibility of my altering my resolution. I hope you will excuse me when I acknowledge, added I, that there is hardly any proposal could be made to me at which I should feel a more invincible repugnance, and I earnestly beg you will mention a subject no more which is disagreeable to me even to think of.
Poh, poh, Miss Seymour; upon my word you are absolutely cruel. However I assure you I won't carry this message, which I know would be a death warrant to the Captain's hopes. I have known many a young lady change her mind after declaring herself ten times more violently determined than you are, and I hope to see you alter your resolution one day in his favour. Indeed if you persist in precluding him from all chance of seeing you, how can the young man find opportunity to plead his cause. I really think I must assist him. I assure you he importunes me incessantly for only ten minutes conversation with you, as if it was more than life to him, and though your heart is hardened, mine is quite melted at his sufferings.
If ten minutes conversation would rid me of his solicitations for ever, said I, I would certainly punish myself so far as to give him that satisfaction; but as I have reason to imagine it would rather feed than extinguish his hopes, I think it would be as unfair to him as painful to myself.
Nay but till you bid him despair yourself, you may be convinced what I say will have little effect; and I hope when you see so fine a young man at your feet, you will find yourself softened in his favour in spite of your present opposition.
I assured her again and again that my dislike and prepossession against him were insurmountable; but she went on without the slightest regard to all I said, repeating time when we met, I should not be able to adhere to my inflexibility.
The return of Fanny relieved me from this fatiguing conversation. Lady Farnford had loaded her with civilities, and almost forced her to promise to go back to dinner: Miss Farnford, on her part, was equally kind, and indeed seems resolved to become Fanny's intimate friend, without any sort of interchange of affections between them; taking every opportunity of getting her aside; and quite unsolicited, with the communicative imprudence of a boarding school girl, making her the confidant of a thousand little trifling love affairs, or, as she terms them,
flirtations.
The equality of their ages, and the flattery which Miss Farnford so lavishly employs to gain Fanny's confidence, have cemented a sort of intimacy between them, though they are too dissimilar in disposition even to receive any real gratification from the society of each other.
In the evening Mrs. Hindon being almost well, and able to walk into the drawing room, one or two of her female friends came in, and were prevailed with to remain to make up a party at whist. Fanny having got half through a favourite novel, took this opportunity of slipping up stairs to finish it; and as I was opening my work box to take out my netting, Mr. Howard drew me aside from the company. I have got something to say to you, Miss Seymour, said he, and placed himself by me on the sopha.
You must know, proceeded he, that your acquaintance Mr. Roatsley, (I coloured at the name) told me last night at the opera that if I was at leisure this morning he would call about twelve, as he wished extremely to have a few minutes conversation with me in private, and this day he kept his appointment.
Oh Sophia! how your Hermione's heart beat at this information, Mr. Howard too looked earnest and grave. The lights however were at some distance, and I hope my confusion was unobserved.
Mr. Roatsley, continued Mr. Howard, with the politeness natural to him apologized with some little embarrassment for the liberty he said he was about to take.
Do you think, Sophia, that I was not embarrassed at this preamble. Indeed I dare not acknowledge even to myself what absurd notions were at that instant crouding into my thoughts.
Mr. Howard went on. He then explained to me, said he, a very intricate series of iniquity, with which I would not shock your ears, did I not conceive it as absolutely necessary to put you on your guard.
Good heavens, cried I, what are you going to tell me?
You have no reason thank God, answered he, to suffer now any apprehensions, as the danger is at an end; but I cannot call to mind that my own imprudence was the original cause of the injurious reports, without the utmost self-reproach. I think no man can be more sensible than myself of the value and importance of my charge, yet I own I committed the most unpardonable oversight in allowing you and your sister to remain for a week under the roof of a woman of whose character I was not perfectly informed.
Her appearance indeed was so plausible, and your stay to be so short, that I took it on trust, nor once harboured a suspicion of her being what she has proved—one of the most abandoned and profligate of her sex: a wretch entirely divested of honour and conscience, who has had the audacity and wickedness to traffic with your reputation, and who perceiving you had kindled the presumptuous wishes of a libertine, dared to represent you to him in the most doubtful, nay in the most infamous light, in order, by flattering his licentious hopes, to reap the lucrative fruits of his folly and prodigality.
Oh! my dear Sir, interrupted I in a tone of impatient vexation, let us return to solitude and obscurity, where, though listlesness may intrude and languor invade our quiet, danger and mortification never can molest us. How unjust have I not been to the cautious experience of my dear father, in sometimes suspecting he had represented the world and its fallacious charms through that medium with which calamity and disappointment ever invest the face of nature. I am now fatally convinced that the pleasures of society fade and disappear when opposed to the snares, anxieties, and disgusts, which sour and taint all its enjoyments.
You are too young, and much too amiable, returned Mr. Howard, smiling at my impetuosity, to become a cynic so early upon those whom nature has formed to adorn society as well as to improve it. The world has powerful claims; and Miss Seymour must not talk of disgust because a temporary mortification obscures for a moment the many rational enjoyments which it offers to every well-regulated mind. But you must allow me to go on with my story.
Mr. Roatsley, after expressing himself in the warmest and most respectful terms of both the amiable sisters, confessed that he had been infinitely shocked and astonished to learn, immediately almost on his arrival in town, that they were regarded in a very injurious light by his friend Captain Bradshaw, who from residing under the same roof had apparently access to proper information, and had received
his
from the woman of the house.
Mr. Roatsley confidently asserted the falshood of these defamatory suspicions, and requested his friend to be more particular in his enquiries, and to talk again with the landlady, who when interrogated still continued to insinuate that you were not altogether what you appeared. Mr. Roatsley however was not so weak as to allow his judgment to be biassed by this report, nor was he lead for a moment to do you injustice, although he found that rumours to your disadvantage were pressed on him from more quarters than one; all originating no doubt from the same source; till one evening at the play, when he confessed—
Oh! repeat it not to me, dear Sir, cried I; I know too well that it was quite natural for him to think me light, thoughtless, and imprudent, when he beheld me at Drury lane attended by the wretch, whom I then found out to be Captain Farnford, and to all appearance voluntarily receiving his attentions: an accident which my indisposition alone occasioned; for you may believe no inducement on earth, had I been in a situation to have repulsed him, should have forced me to have granted him the shadow of my notice.
Well, Miss Seymour, thoughtless and imprudent I really believe he might conclude you to be, nor could he possibly think otherwise, ignorant as he was of the circumstances that produced Farnford's attendance, and conscious of the just cause he had given you for repugnance and disdain. He saw you together in the fame party, and it seems supported by him when you left the box. He could not but imagine you had permitted all this, and of course must have supposed your resentment neither so lasting nor so severe as in strict delicacy he thought it ought to have been. Yet Mr. Roatsley solemnly swore, that to the disadvantage of your reputation a doubt or suspicion never once found place in his breast; and tho' wholly ignorant myself of the circumstances of the fact, I easily convinced him that in a point of delicacy Miss Seymour could not possibly be found in the slightest degree deficient.
That interest, however, which youth and beauty seldom fail to excite in the heart of a young man, (a sentiment, added he with a half smile, which Mr. Roatsley seems formed to feel with enthusiastic force) made him undergo no little disappointment I conjecture in perceiving you had so ill answered the expectation to which your acquaintance, interesting tho' short, had given birth; for he confessed that he had been indefatigable in his enquiries about you, tho' very fruitless you may believe they must have proved; and tho' I understood the hint in this avowal; I did not think myself at liberty to satisfy his curiosity, and therefore let it pass unnoticed.
He owns, however, that these unjust surmizes received some degree of credibility from meeting you a few days after, accompanied by this same audacious young man, who put you into a chair, unattended by your servant, at the door of your former lodgings; but this part of his information I persisted in averring was impossible, and that he must have mistaken some other person for you.
Oh it was me indeed, cried I, and the rencontre you may be certain gave me equal pain and terror: nor should I have concealed it for a moment, had not the wretch extorted a promise which fear alone persuaded me to grant him never to divulge it to you.
Good heaven! how did the scoundrel contrive to meet with you?
Through the connivance of that wicked woman, said I. But as my promise, tho' constrained, remains still in force, except as to that part of it which chance has informed you, I am not at liberty to give you the particulars, neither are they at all necessary; since I hope in God, as the wretch is quite undeceived in regard to my character, I have nothing now to alarm me except the persecution of solicitation, which I hope by sedulously avoiding him to escape.
Mr. Howard's mild countenance reddened with indignation at this account, which quickly infused an apprehension into my mind, that under the character of our guardian he might think it necessary to resent my affronts. The instant this idea struck me, I softened as much as possible what I had just been acknowledging, and assured him that during our last interview Farnford had appeared so much piqued and offended at my unconquerable reserve, that I had reason to flatter myself I should be tormented by him no more; and added, that when I was entirely in his power, all he had asked was forgiveness, and permission to visit me, having repeatedly sworn that an injurious suspicion of my character had alone given rise to a conduct which he now sincerely abjured, and of which he heartily repented.
Let him then testify his concern and regret as he ought, by avoiding your presence, said Mr. Howard. Had I known the other day that I was at the same table with the man who had dared subject you to insult, I should most assuredly—
Then thank heaven you did not, interrupted I. Indeed the less this affair is mentioned or remembered the better; and before you leave me I insist on your promise never even to hint to Captain Farnford your knowledge of these particulars. I ask it as a favour, the grant of which is essential to my peace. You need not, I am sure, be told how delicate an interference of this kind must prove, where my fame and my repose are so deeply interested. Let me beseech you therefore to give me your word never to take notice to Captain Farnford of what you have been informed.
I need not at least be told, said he with gravity, that the title by which I should in that case act might be justly called in question; but as I have the happiness at present of considering you as being under my particular protection, tho' I hope that you will soon experience a parent's care, you must not insist on binding me from acting as circumstances may in future require. I agree so entirely in your sentiments however, as to the delicacy of this matter, that you may rest assured while the wretch molests you no more I shall not interfere, though I should have the most perfect satisfaction in chastising him for his impudence.
But I have not done with my disagreeable explanation, Miss Seymour, continued Mr. Howard, and your acute sensibility almost intimidates me from confessing all to you, since I am afraid what I am going to add must wound in a still more vulnerable part; for I am well aware that to a youthful and enthusiastic heart, no blow is so painful, no pang is so severe, as to be told it has bestowed its affections unworthily.
These words threw me into a state of confused consternation not to be described, and dyed my cheeks with blushes: for indeed my imagination hurried me in an instant into a thousand wild conjectures; the truth however after a moment rushed upon my mind. You need not fear to alarm me as to this part of your information, cried I, for it is no secret to me; and the shock, tho' at first extremely distressing, received its cure in the resentment and indignation which treatment so abominable excited. It is of Mrs. Weldon I perceive you are going to speak; but tho' I am in part acquainted with the artifice and duplicity of her character, a mystery surrounds her situation through which I have not been able to penetrate. I then briefly related the alarming situation into which that horrid woman had so artfully drawn me, and the fortunate circumstances that had relieved me from my danger. Mr. Howard was lost in astonishment at my recital, and shuddered on reflecting how critical the snare might have proved in which this infamous woman had so inhumanly entrapped me.
Mr. Roatsley, said he, has let me into the particulars of her history, which are well known, and have made no small
noise; tho' from her change of name I never could have suspected that Mrs. Weldon was the famous Mrs. Brereton, whose imprudence has long been no secret to the world.
Good heavens! cried I, how then could such a woman find admittance to the abode of Madame de Clarence. Has she too been deceived by her artifices?
I believe it is not unknown to you, returned he, that among the number of Monsieur de Clarence's good qualities, those of attachment to his amiable lady, and a proper discharge of domestic duties, are not to be enumerated. Mrs. Weldon appeared at the chateau as his friend, nor did Madame suspect that under that specious character, she had harboured her most invidious enemy; till about the time of your departure from Languedoc, or immediately after it.
Mr. Howard then informed me more particularly of this profligate woman's real history. She was, it seems, originally a girl of low birth, whose name was Ware, and whose uncommon beauty induced Colonel Brereton, at the age of sixty five, to pay his addresses to her, having become violently enamoured from accidentally meeting with her at an assembly while his regiment was quartered at York. This gentleman, though of a very limited understanding, as may be concluded from his conduct on this imprudent occasion, possessed an affluent fortune, and was nearly related to Lord Belmont. His lady's taste for gallantry became soon suspected, and at last grew so notorious, that finding herself gradually deserted by that brilliant circle to which her marriage had introduced her, and to charm and embellish which she possessed so powerfully every talent, she persuaded her husband, ever blind to his dishonour and infatuated by her insinuating address, to carry her over to France, where her amours, though well known, were less prejudicial to her gay career, because unproductive of the world's contempt, at least the fashionable part of it, and unattended by its desertion.
Her husband, dying about a twelve-month after, bequeathed her his whole fortune, the greatest part of which had already fallen a sacrifice to her unbounded extravagance. Mr. Brereton's natural heir, however, at present disputes at law the portion of it that remains, alledging that from some private entail he was not empowered to dispose of it at pleasure; and it is thought the lady will be legally deprived of an inheritance which she so little deserves, and which she gained merely by the effects of her artful management, and the powerful influence she possessed over her superannuated husband.
After Mr. Brereton's death, his wife's conduct became so flagrant as to force those who had been hitherto willingly blind to her infamy no longer to shut their eyes, and as a proper regard to the rules of propriety is a tax which virtue never more rigorously exacts from vice than where her genuine and intrinsic value is least admitted, she soon found her stay in France could not enable her to continue in that brilliant society where she had been accustomed to shine with such eclat. At this period, her acquaintance with Monsieur de Clarence commenced while he spent some time at the city of M— for the recovery of his health, whither his lady had not accompanied him.
He soon became enslaved by the charms of Mrs. Brereton, and weakly consented to her request of being invited to the residence of his lady at the Chateau de Clarence, on the footing of a friend recommended to his peculiar care by her deceased husband. Madame de Clarence was easily deceived; and without difficulty consented to entreat the favour of a visit from his agreeable English acquaintance, who on her part regarding it as an ingenious stroke of policy to regain in some measure the good opinion of the world, to whom she might boast being still admitted into an intimacy so respectable, complied with eagerness and satisfaction. The company of the Chevalier de Mertane soon, however, interrupted the harmony which subsisted between Monsieur de Clarence and Mrs. Weldon, (for such was the name she now chose to assume, probably from an apprehension that the imprudence of Mrs. Brereton might not be wholly unknown even to Madame de Clarence, whilst under a borrowed name she might be easily imposed on.) The youth and weakness of the Chevalier almost instantly suggested to that abandoned woman the hopes of repairing her injured reputation and her exhausted finances, by an union, the rank and opulence of which offered both to her vanity and profusion the most ample gratification.
This explanation fully accounts for the mortification and displeasure, too painful for concealment, which she so evidently discovered on perceiving the Chevalier's partiality for me. He was not however proof against her powers of fascination; and after my determined rejection, accepted with great cordiality the consolation which Mrs. Weldon's kindness afforded. He was indeed almost involved in this perilous snare, when the fortunate jealousy of Monsieur de Clarence happily relieved him from his danger. That gentleman, influenced either by pique or principle, or perhaps by both, suddenly informed the Chevalier's father of the son's matrimonial intentions, as also with some particulars relating to the lady's character, which induced the old gentleman to appear unexpectedly one morning at the chateau, from whence he carried off the Chevalier without allowing him the ceremonial of a private farewell conference with his mistress.
From more circumstances than one both Mr. Howard and I perceived that this affair must have been in agitation during the time of our abode in the family; for the poor Chevalier's departure succeeded ours but a few days, and it seems a thorough reconciliation having immediately taken place between Mrs. Weldon and Monsieur de Clarence, their mutual imprudence soon infused suspicions into Madame which induced her to insist upon that lady's instant dismission. To this demand the husband, unwilling to come to an open rupture with Madame, whose family and connections demand peculiar respect, consented; and Mrs. Weldon's lawsuit requiring her presence in England, she set off directly for this country.
I was actually frozen with horror on learning this account. Good heavens! exclaimed I, does such a character of vice and duplicity exist, and can it belong to woman?
Oh! Miss Seymour, returned Mr. Howard, a mind like yours, delicate and pure, blessed with conscious innocence and fortified with intuitive integrity, can form no ideas adequate to that degradation to which licentiousness and profligacy often reduce the female mind; but to dwell no longer on a theme so melancholy, I must inform you, that after having related these particulars, which Mr. Roatsley had received from a friend lately arrived from the Continent, and intimately acquainted with the parties concerned, he confessed how inexpressibly confounded and astonished he had been on perceiving you the morning before last standing at the window of a house which he had been told was occupied by his unworthy relation; and still more was he shocked, when at a second glance, he recollected Mrs. Brereton herself, whose features he instantly recognized, though it is many years since he beheld her. Scarcely could he credit his senses. Yet so strongly did the dignity and innocence of your countenance contradict this confirmation of your levity, that instead of convincing it awakened him from his error. Imprudent he might believe you, but infamous it was impossible he could for an instant suspect you to be; and upon revolving the circumstances in his mind, it instantaneously struck him that the daring Farnford must have bribed that infamous woman to entrap you to her house. This idea no sooner occurred, than a thousand circumstances seemed to enforce its conviction. Farnford's character, which though unstained by actual villany, is loose and unprincipled, assured him he would not be scrupulous in effecting his ends by whatever means in his power. He knew besides that the woman was in his pay, and to lay him under further contributions, she might be induced to misrepresent your behaviour, conscious that the knowledge of your being a woman of rank and character must have checked his hopes and restrained his liberality to herself. Mr. Roatsley began to suspect that your acquaintance with Mrs. Weldon might have originated also from some such machinations, and he instantly determined to acquaint me with his suspicions; and having enquired at our old lodgings for our present residence with the eagerness of a man of honour anxious to secure virtue and innocence from destruction, he hastened to this house without loss of time; for me only he enquired, for to me only could so delicate an explanation be made, but I was unluckily from home. Next morning he repeated his visit, but being engaged in business, he was denied admittance. On his return home, however, he encountered a gentleman with whom he is particularly intimate, and who in the confidence of friendship confessed to him how amazed he had been to meet with a young lady not only of the most elegant but of the most innocent and amiable appearance at the house of his profligate relation, Mrs. Weldon, who from being now notoriously infamous, was wholly excluded all honourable society: his friend added, that this abandoned woman had represented the young lady, whose name was Seymour, as a girl of light character and dependant fortune, but having been more than once in her company, this injurious error had appeared to him so apparent, that he had thought it incumbent on him to atone for it by representing to her the hazards of her situation, an information that had operated so violently on her spirits as fully convinced him how entirely she must have been deceived as to the character of her companion.
Amiable, generous Roatsley! May not I call the man so, my Sophia, who has so humanely interested himself in my affairs. How many, in a similar situation, would have contented themselves with leaving me to my fate, especially after that perplexed series of unfortunate events, which might have too justly led him to regard me with contempt; how few would have given themselves the trouble of investigating this matter to the foundation, and exerted themselves in a manner so nobly, to extricate a young woman whose conduct he had so much reason to contemn, and who had been represented to him in a light so unworthy. Surely gratitude at least may be allowed me after this striking instance of a benevolence of which I have reaped so largely the fruit: yet heaven grant that this dangerous sentiment lead not my heart too far. Vexatious it has indeed proved; but ah! Sophia, had not heaven directed and preserved me, this intelligence had arrived greatly too late.
The whist party breaking up, and supper being announced, Mr. Howard seized an opportunity, while we were on the stairs, to whisper that Mr. Roatsley regretted extremely not having seen my sister and me this morning, when he had called, particularly as he leaves town tomorrow, and is engaged by business the early part of the day. Mr. Howard however, who was not sufficiently acquainted with many of the unaccountable facts to which Mr. Roatsley's story alluded, and was only enabled, from his knowledge of my disposition and character, to pronounce that some mysterious appearances must have involved my actions in obscurity, had of his own accord offered him a short visit before his departure, to explain from my own information what had seemed either extraordinary or imprudent in my conduct, and is actually to meet him at the British Coffee-house for that purpose.
I hope, added that worthy friend, with a penetrating smile, as he entered the supper room, that Mr. Roatsley, in his return to town, will find the disagreeable air of secrecy and mystery, which must confound all his enquiries respecting you and your sister, completely removed by the approbation and public countenance of Lord Belmont.
I took no notice of this little hint; but walked on with a mind ah! how enlightened! how relieved! to find myself reinstated in Mr. Roatsley's good opinion; to know that he had shewn himself so anxious, so deeply concerned in an affair in which I alone was interested, gave a spirit to my countenance, and a gaiety to my heart, not to be enjoyed but when contrasted by previous uneasiness and depression.
JAN. 28.
Ah! my dear Sophia! how infinitely am I shocked. Poor Madame de Clarence! alas! she is no more! A short letter from her husband, which I received last night, announces this melancholy intelligence. An epidemic fever carried her off after a week's illness, and Fanny and I have been weeping her irreparable loss with tears of bitter affliction. A friend—a maternal friend! respected and beloved, is a blessing which heaven sends but once in our lives, and to us can never be supplied. In our present situation, this blow cannot fail to be felt with redoubled poignancy. There now remains not to us one single friend of our own sex, (my Sophia, my invaluable Sophia excepted) who excites or returns to us the tender interest of affection. What a dismal, what a solitary state. That wretch, Mrs. Weldon! how I detest her, for troubling with suspicion and uneasiness the mind of that amiable, that respectable woman, so near the close of her days. Oh were she capable of remorse, how must it wring her bosom at this moment.
I am inexpressibly anxious to learn a thousand particulars relating to this dear friend's last illness: for her husband's letter is extremely concise, and merely informs us, in terms of unfeigned affliction, of the melancholy event. Doubtless he must be overwhelmed with the most poignant distress; that distress which results from the reflection of a misconduct he preserves no longer the power of repairing.
We inclined much to indulge our sadness in our own apartments but Mrs. Hindon soon drove us from solitude by insisting upon sitting with us in order to
comfort us:
and the poor woman talked so incessantly of the delicacy and acuteness of her feelings, and repeated such various instances of the excess of her own unfortunate sensibility, that we were glad to accompany, her down stairs to the gentlemen, as some relief from her tedious conversation.
FEB. 1.
Sir Edward called again this morning. He really appears to be an amiable man, and possesses somewhat in his appearance so mild and unpresuming, that he prepossesses one at first sight in his favour.
I forgot to tell you that Mr. Roatsley and Mr. Howard met the other morning according to appointment; and after an explanatory conversation, which the former assured Mr. Howard was wholly unnecessary, as not a doubt could remain on his mind after having been favoured with an opportunity of being in Miss Seymour's company at the Opera, he set out on his excursion.
FEB. 2.
Sir Edward supped with us this evening. Mrs. Hindon, delighted with an acquaintance of his figure and address, has given him a general invitation to her house, which he seems well disposed to accept, and repays her civilities with abundant marks of attention.
FEB. 6.
Captain Wilmot had been, as usual, in earnest conversation yesterday evening with Fanny, who while she pretends to laugh at his absurdities always appears pleased with his assiduities. He had been repeating to her a number of verses, all on the soft subject of love, which he informed her were the effusions of his own passion that had inspired him with a poetical ardour. Of one of these Fanny inconsiderately requested a copy, not reflecting that to demand a poem, of which she was herself the theme, confessed no little satisfaction at the compliment. Wilmot told her he had it in his pocket book, which he hastily produced; and anxious to avoid observation, privately delivered to her a paper without himself looking into it.
Fanny having no opportunity to peruse the stanzas, slipped them into her pocket, from whence she drew them the moment we retired after supper: when conceive her astonishment on finding the copy of verses converted into a letter directed to Captain Wilmot. Hastily throwing her eyes over it, she was struck with the words—"your old flame Jenny Parsons," and suddenly yielding to a curiosity which cannot be defended, she took advantage of the poor youth's unfortunate blunder, and read as follows:
TO CAPTAIN WILMOT.
DEAR WILMOT,
Your epistle arrived very opportunely to rouse me from a stupor that has congealed and benumbed all my faculties ever since we were ordered to this confounded quarter, which is undoubtedly the dullest spot under heaven, and which Providence seems to have stamped with an impression of gloom, and lassitude not to be expressed. There is not a soul in the town with whom one can associate with any degree of satisfaction. The very girls are as ugly as devils; and what is still worse, as most of the officers are either on furlow or absent on recruiting duty, there are none here except Wilson and the Major; and the latter is so constantly immured amidst a library of musty old folios, that it is merely at mess hours we ever set eyes upon him.
I am extremely happy to learn, from your letter, that the time which hung so heavily on my hands,
you
have been employing so much to your satisfaction and advantage. From the account you give me of your Dulcinea, I agree with you in opinion that she will not hold out the siege much l
nger, when to your own assiduities are superadded the assistance and solicitations of your aunt, who being a discreet matron may give an air of credit and propriety to a step which, with all due deference, you must allow me to call imprudent, as I suspect the fortune of the beautiful Seymour is no less necessary to the rapacious demands of your creditors, than the possession of the young lady herself is to the claims of your passion; but I sincerely hope, thro' the prudent management of Mrs. Hindon, she has no chance of being made acquainted with these disagreeable and
unnecessary
particulars till the information can be attended with no alarming consequences.
It must be confessed, Wilmot, that for one so
deeply
enamoured you talk very
reasonably
on the topic of your mistress; and though you tell me she is divine, you evidently prefer expatiating on her more substantial attractions. You retail, indeed, her prospects and possessions with the accuracy of an army agent.
I hope, by this time, you have brought matters to a happy conclusion. Indeed, as your affairs are at present situated, no time is to be lost. Fortune does not throw a gift of ten thousand pounds into the arms of a soldier every day; and you may reasonably conclude that the grandfather will not be so easily
melted to compliance,
as you tell me the girl herself has been, nor can you flatter yourself his Lordship will prove so wholly influenced by disinterested sentiments as to remain contentedly ignorant of your situation respecting pecuniary matters. His interference would effectually blow up the whole scheme; and if your point is not settled past redemption before his return, you may hang yourself on the first willow you meet with between London and Coventry.
I can't help laughing at the difficulties you must have to encounter in courting your fair one under the eye of your old flame Jenny Parsons. This untoward circumstance must throw a constraint over your behaviour and address, by no means favourable to your desire of pleasing: yet to have fulfilled your engagements in that quarter must have proved unmitigated ruin to both; and she is so soft, poor gentle soul, that if ever a deserted mistress was to be trusted where retaliation was in her power, I dare say Miss Parsons might be the woman. Consider it entirely rests with her to overturn the whole machine of your ingenious scheme. You tell me you have been so prudent that you are convinced she does not even suspect your intentions; and that your management could not have been discernable even to the eye of jealousy. Remember, however, that revenge is a ruling passion in the sex; nor are they ever to be trusted where offended pride must stimulate to vengeance.
Heartily wishing you all the success you can wish, and requesting to be immediately made acquainted with it, I conclude, with my caution, as above; and remain, dear Wilmot,
wholly your's, F. HARLOW.
You may easily judge how confounded Fanny must be to perceive by this letter, so wonderfully presented to her knowledge, that with all his timidity and diffident desire of ingratiating himself, Wilmot regarded his solicitations as certain of success, and had communicated his expectations to his friend with all the vanity of a man who did not allow himself even to doubt.
I was employed last night pretty late, and was still reading in my dressing room, when my sister, who I concluded was gone to bed, flew to me with the epistle in her hand, with a countenance as pale as death, in which mortification, anger, and astonishment were strongly painted. She informed me of the accident; and as tears are a relief which Fanny has ever at hand, her gentle disposition allowing of no other vent to her indignation, she could not help crying from vexation, while she entreated me to read it.
The part of it, however, which provoked her most, was that humiliating sentence where Wilmot appears to have boasted to his correspondent that she had been very
easily melted to compliance,
a phraze that severely wounded her pride. You see, cried she, he has never once mentioned me. I dare say he never thought about me. 'Tis my fortune alone about which he is so anxious. No doubt it would have been of some service in advancing him in his profession; but God knows, had he been informed how matters stand, he never would have paid me his addresses on account of an advantage which no longer exists, and he is both weak and vain if he concludes I have been so
easily melted
as he flattered himself, or that I have listened with pleasure to solicitations which have fatigued and tormented me ever since our residence in this house.
Solicitations, Fanny, cried I; I never knew till this moment that Wilmot had made any advances that could go under the name of solicitations. Strange indeed, if I have continued thus long ignorant of any part of his behaviour, yet certain I am you have never once hinted to me any thing which could be construed into that meaning.
Oh! my dear Hermione! exclaimed she, burning into a fresh flood of tears, I will tell you all.
All! cried I, terrified at the expression, what is the
all
of which you are to inform me? for indeed I suspected some frightful imprudence from the agitation in which I beheld her.
She could not, however, immediately relieve my fears, and tears of mortification choaked her utterance.
Oh! cried she at length, how can I tell you; you, that are older and so much wiser than I, you will think meanly of me, and I would sooner lose the good opinion of the whole world than be despised by you.
My dearest Fanny, said I in the tenderest accents, you may assure yourself that is impossible. My knowledge of your heart must ever conceal and extenuate all your little errors, and it is unkind in you to imagine that mine could for an instant harbour a sentiment so injurious of which you were the object.
She then confessed to me that about ten days ago Wilmot had declared his passion in the warmest and most affecting terms; and though I did not love him, cried she, at least I am certain it gave me no pain to reject him on my own account, yet I could not be wholly unmoved at prayers and entreaties which seemed the result of the most ardent affection; an affection, repeated she, which I now plainly perceive my fortune alone inspired. All however that he desired, remitting his hopes of success to time and assiduity, was that you, whom he apprehended and whom I well knew not to be in his interest, should not for some time be made acquainted with his proposals; and to this request, softened by his apparent distress, I was weak enough unwillingly to consent; though it shocked me extremely that you, who are my only friend and advizer, and to whom every thought of my heart has ever been known, should continue ignorant of an affair which but for this fortunate discovery might have interested it too much.
As she finished speaking, she sobbed on my bosom most bitterly. You may believe I embraced and soothed her tenderly. But tell me, my dear, said I, what further lengths you have been prevailed with to go. There are no engagements in the case I hope.
No, thank God, cried she, though heaven knows how I have been persecuted and tormented, not only by Wilmot himself but by Mrs. Hindon, who has warmly espoused his cause and privately pleaded his passion on every occasion when she could get me by myself; and not having my beloved Hermione to direct me, for they both kept me steadily to my rash promise of secrecy, though I often desired permission to disclose this affair to you, into what an abyss of misery might I not have been plunged from my folly and inexperience; bewildered by Mrs. Hindon's partial representation of this imprudent step, and softened by the continual assiduities and despair of a man who seemed to adore me.
Artful wretches! can I give them, Sophia, a milder appellation? What a plan was here to entrap my amiable, innocent, unsuspecting Fanny. And because my eyes were supposed to be open to the thousand objections against a match, in favour of which not one single advantage can be presented, I was to be kept out of the secret till too late effectually to interfere; whilst my dear and only sister was to prove a victim to the need and prodigality of the one, and to the absurd and destructive vanity of the other.
What a despicable character does this letter plainly prove Wilmot's to be. I am amazed, on looking back, that the whole affair did not occur to my suspicion. But the art of the one, and the low cunning of the other, added to my trust in Fanny's confidence in my advice, all conspired to deceive me. You see too, there is a hint of a previous engagement. Poor Miss Parsons! her dejection and depression are now fully accounted for. How hard has been her fate. Deprived of her parents at a period of life when the feelings are most acutely sensible to the shafts of misfortune, constrained to endure a haughty and indelicate dependance, her affections and her pride had yet a wound more painful to receive, a sting more corroding to undergo. Her sufferings, and her patient forbearance of complaint, endear her to me in the most affecting point of view, and I shall now more anxiously than ever exert myself to soften her anguish, by every kindness and attention in my power to bestow.
As to my dear Fanny, though this providential discovery produced a temporary mortification, and drew some tears of vexation from her eyes, her heart, slightly if at all touched, had nothing deeply to hurt or painfully to interest it; and as she was thoroughly sensible of the risques from which she had just escaped, she beheld with horror the precipice on which she had been standing, and required not either argument or persuasion (though by way of caution I bestowed both very lavishly) to convince her how fortunate this accident had proved. Her innocent mind, unacquainted with disguise and unused to concealment, felt relieved of a painful weight by the confession which her first agitation had extorted from her; yet I had no little difficulty in reconciling her to herself on account of having forfeited her promise, which indeed she had falsified almost unconsciously in the height of her emotions.
Since I have done so, said she, though I think I have been to blame, do not expose me to Mrs. Hindon. Dishonourably as she has acted towards me, I ought not to have receded from the promise I gave. I ought indeed to have possessed both sense and resolution sufficient for acting without counsel; but you may rest assured never, never, shall I risque my peace by granting another promise to the same purport. I have suffered too severely from this ill judged concealment, and shall take the first opportunity of informing Mrs. Hindon that I am determined in my resolution never again to listen to her nephew on the subject, of his passion—never indeed shall he have an opportunity of tormenting me more.
To calm her, I gave her my word I should not mention one syllable of the matter to Mrs. Hindon. Yet I was somewhat at a loss how to proceed. To apply to Mr. Howard, was to hazard engaging him in a quarrel with his sister in law; nor could I myself resent her behaviour while we were partaking of her civilities. I resolved therefore to be silent on the subject; and by never quitting Fanny's side, who herself wished to avoid any intercourse with Wilmot, so to regulate her manner in future as entirely to destroy the hopes to which his vanity and her imprudence had given rise. Yet I could hardly talk to the artful woman this morning at breakfast with any degree of temper.
FEB. 14.
Sir Edward spent yesterday evening here; and really grows so very particular, both in his attentions and conversation, that I begin to feel the necessity of a reserve, which his modesty, and the obligations I owe him, render very unpleasant. Adieu! my Sophia. I have just received your delightful packet. Ah my love! are there no hopes, now you are so near as Paris, that your father may be prevailed with to pay England a visit. Oh that I were with you to solicit this favour on my knees.
H. SEYMOUR.
LETTER XII. TO MISS BEAUMONT.
FEB. 15.
WELL, Sophia, our doom is at last determined. My grandfather's answer is arrived. Yet not addressed to us: that would have been a condescension too great. He has not even deigned to acknowledge my letter; but has ordered Lady Linrose to inform us. But let her Ladyship's letter speak for itself.
TO LAURENCE HOWARD, ESQ.
SIR,
I was this day favored with an answer from Nice, and I delay not a moment in acquainting you with the result of your application, although I am extremely sorry to premise that it is not of a nature that can either prove agreeable to your own wishes or to those of the young ladies committed to your charge.
In spite of the indefatigable trouble I have taken, and the persuasive arguments I have used in more than one letter, to represent their situation in a light the most dismal and affecting, his Lordship remains quite inexorable to all my entreaties. He tells me that the revival of recollections so bitter, as this subject recalls to his memory, has given a mortal stab to that repose which time had in some measure restored, and he desires, as he is not at liberty himself to address the ladies, that through the medium of my pen they may be informed, that when the conduct of their unhappy parent forced him to renounce him, he bound himself by a solemn resolution it should be for ever; nor that any consideration should prevail on him through life, to see, countenance, or hold the slightest intercourse with the offspring of a calamity which has loaded his days with mortification and misery. His Lordship concludes by laying his commands upon me, under pain of his perpetual displeasure, strictly to observe a similar conduct, and expresses himself with a sternness and force which constrains me, with all the disposition imaginable to serve the young ladies, to give up all thoughts of making myself or family known to them. I hope therefore, after this disagreeable information, which with infinite pain to myself I am obliged to divulge, they will neither be surprised nor offended when I acknowledge that a firm adherence to Lord Belmont's prohibition is the unavoidable consequence of its having been made known; and that I think myself obliged, after requesting the favor of one line more on this subject, to decline even all further correspondence upon it.
As I cannot but feel warmly interested in two young persons, who suffer so unfortunately for errors for which in strict justice they cannot be esteemed accountable, I was extremely happy Sir, to understand from you, that your wards laboured under no difficulties in regard to fortune. I take it for granted therefore that they possess that sum which Lord Linrose received from the generosity of his father, and which I know was reckoned a very noble stipulation in Lord Belmont to grant after a conduct so weak, dishonourable, and irritating to all his friends. Had any pecuniary assistance been required, I should certainly have risqued my Lord's displeasure by contributing from my own private purse what might have been of service for their ease and comfort; but as this is by no means necessary, and the ladies are in possession of an affluence which allows them to pursue what plan of life they chuse, and to settle wherever they may incline, if I might be allowed to interfere with my advice on this head, I would take the liberty of suggesting that France, which may in a manner be called their native country, must to them undoubtedly prove a more eligible, as well as a more agreeable residence than England is ever likely to become. A hint must convince them that where the stain of their father's faults is unknown they certainly enjoy a better chance of being respected, than where remembrance must ever subject them to the impertinence of curiosity, and perhaps, however unjustly, to unmerited contempt.
I approve highly of the modesty and prudence they have testified in not assuming a name, the renunciation of which was the consequence of family dishonor; and I make no doubt they will equally support their claim to those virtues in future, by carefully concealing their title to it. Any attempt to the contrary would but produce the disagreeable effect of renewing the recollection of a fate which must discredit it, and never can be of service to them in the world's opinion, and which, from the great length of time that has elapsed since those circumstances engaged in so great a degree the public attention, is now wholly sunk into oblivion.
I should be happy. Sir, to learn, if you would for once favor me with a line for that purpose, what the determination of your wards is likely to be; tho' after this communication I am unwillingly constrained to ask no farther, compassion compels me to be anxiously solicitous in regard to the fate of two young persons, whom, in spite of the restrictions which paternal authority imposes, I shall ever consider as nearly allied to my family.
I remain, with esteem. Sir,
your most obedient servant, CAROLINE LINROSE.
Well, Sophia, what do you think of this letter? All our absurd and romantic hopes, hitherto supported by the chimeras of a sanguine and delusive imagination, are at one blow finally crushed. No redress you find. A solemn resolution deprives us even of a flattering possibility that Lord Belmont, (alas! I dare not give him the tender appellation of grandfather,) may allow nature and compassion to plead for us in his bosom. He forbids our claims, denies our title to his protection, and breaks with us for ever. Oh! my Sophia, my dear and only friend! our hearts are deeply wounded by this stroke. Fanny and I have been weeping the loss of our last parent in each other's arms; and on this occasion I have been faithfully acting up to the encomium once bestowed on me, of instilling consolation at a moment when I could not myself imbibe comfort from my own arguments.
We were sitting at table with some company after dinner, when this cruel letter was put into Mr. Howard's hands. He asked leave to break the seal; and upon hastily perusing the first lines, changed colour and left the room. My apprehensions instantly told me from whence it came, and what were the contents; yet I kept my seat in seeming composure till Mrs. Hindon withdrew with the ladies to the drawing room.
My impatience then left me no longer resolution to remain in this anxious inquietude; and unwilling to make Fanny a sharer in my uneasiness, I stole softly to Mr. Hindon's study, where I concluded Mr. Howard would be, and tapping at the door, asked permission to enter. He opened it immediately. The disappointment which your countenance cannot conceal, said I, too evidently explains all I want to know.
Pressing my hand—Here is the letter, answered he. I can say nothing to mitigate its unwelcome contents. Yet what bosom can boast superior fortitude to Miss Seymour's, whose mind suggests more powerful and alleviating consolations for a misfortune in which neither imprudence nor misconduct involves her. He then gave me the letter, and walked up stairs to send down Fanny to receive the news.
She found me drowned in tears, which this complete disappointment to all our hopes could not but at first produce: but soon that mixture of indelicacy and pretended compassion which the letter contained, by exciting my resentment fortified my spirits. Narrow-minded woman! Does she suppose all the world influenced by sentiments of equal meanness with her own? does she conclude that reproach and contempt must be our portion, because our parent erred and was unhappy. He suffered, alas, suffciently for his faults, without entailing their miserable consequences on his offspring, and heaven I trust has accepted the tribute of his remorse.
Pecuniary assistance; oh! may it please a wise and gracious Providence to avert a calamity so insupportable, so degrading as dependence on Lady Linrose would prove. Rather, iny Sophia, let us owe the mere necessaries of existence to the honest labour of our hands. Ah! rake not up the ashes of the dead! Cruel woman; why does she write with a shew of sympathy she feels not, and of pity which borders on insult, while such bitter expressions drop from her pen, (expressions which she well knew must recall the most distressing reflections) for errors that long since were expiated and forgiven.
Poor Fanny's sanguine expectations were so cruelly dashed, and her spirits so sunk by this blow, that I found it doubly incumbent on me to exert my own in order to support hers. I reflected that this disappointment, as suggested by Mr. Howard, was not the consequence either of our folly or our faults: it was an event I had ever believed possible, and often feared was probable, nor could it ever have depended on our own conduct to have averted or escaped it. Pride intermixed itself in many motives of consolation; and in such circumstances the assistance of that sentiment (in many cases the error of our nature) is perhaps the most salutary source from which comfort can flow.
My grandfather's vow, (for still will I call him so) if it cannot be recalled, yet surely extends not to Lady Linrose. Were she possessed of a mind noble and enlarged were it not selfish, little, and interested, never would she have given implicit obedience to a measure so unfeeling and unjust as that of renouncing two friendless girls, in a foreign country, where they have no claims for kindness or protection except on those whom benevolence and humanity induce to be the friends of the unfortunate.
Mr. Howard soon joined us. I was quite composed when he entered, and assisted his arguments so effectually, that Fanny became at length more composed; We remained together a considerable time in conversation; till at length we were interrupted by the appearance of Mrs. Hindon.
Good stars! in tears my dear ladies, cried she. What on earth can be the matter? for God's sake tell me what has distressed you in this manner? Brother, what can it be?
On being informed—God Almighty! cried she, renounce you! Lord Belmont renounce you! What on earth will then become of you, for to my certain knowledge you will never see one shilling of the money that was lodged in Mr. Bensley's hands.
Pardon me, Madam, cried Mr. Howard with evident displeasure, I hope part of it will certainly be recovered.
Part of it—what perhaps one paltry thousand, or it may be two, out of the twenty-four. That's part of it with a vengeance. What will two thousand be to them, who have been accustomed to want for nothing, and to have things always handsome and genteel about them. Indeed it is most deplorable. But pray Miss Seymour if you was yourself to write to Lady Linrose, for you know you are extremely clever at your pen, and was to represent your destitute condition in the most moving terms, don't you think she might be prevailed on to intercede with Lord Belmont to allow you something yearly, or in case that failed to grant it herself.
Not for a thousand worlds! cried I. If our afffirs are in this dismal situation, we must accustom ourselves to conform to our finances. It is a duty to live within the limits of what one possesses; the discharge of which is I think as essential as that of almost any other. To apply to any of our family after this renunciation, is what I never will for an instant think of.
And why not pray? cried she. Fine talking indeed, of living like scrubs on fifty pounds a year, after having been brought up to forty times that sum, when a step so natural and simple might bestow affluence and comfort instead of penury and want. Tis nothing but pride, mere pride, which prevents you fronn following my advice, and indeed you must allow me to tell you so; besides, as you have such certain proofs by which to ascertain your birth, if you make but bustle enough, I dare say his Lordship will be glad to compound matters from the dread of your reviving the old story by going to law with him; or if he won't be brought to hear reason, what do you think of actually commencing a process. I'll warrant the bare idea of such a proceeding will bring him to act as he ought to do. What say you brother to the scheme?
I would rather starve, cried I with a warmth which her indelicacy made irrepressible.
Starve! Fine talking to be sure. I'll wager Mr. Howard agrees with me, if people wont be persuaded to behave properly why they must be compelled to it if possible.
I cannot agree wich you in this measure, indeed Madam, said Mr. Howard, who seemed to have been lost in thought ever since her entrance, for I cannot possibly conceive what advantage could result from Lord Belmont's being constrained to acknowledge his grandchildren: but it is impossible immediately to determine what steps ought to be pursued.
Oh to be sure one ought to consider certainly, and I make no doubt you will agree with me in opinion that some sort of application ought immediately to be made to Lady Linrose. But I have lest my company below. Will you make your appearance ladies; or if you are not sufficiently composed I shall send up Jenny wich tea, for Lady Farnford and her daughter are just come in and will be surprised at my absence.
She then lest us: and I besought Mr. Howard no longer to conceal any circumstances relating to our affairs, which it was necessary we should be made acquainted with. Mrs. Hindon's information is but too true, I perceive, added I; but on what we possess we must contrive to subsist, and you need not be afraid to confess the worst, for this disappointment to my hopes has inured me to mortification.
I must acknowledge, answered he, that I am afraid Mrs. Hindon has authority but too good for the abrupt discovery she has made of your affairs. As I flattered myself that pecuniary misfortunes would neither have been felt nor regarded while you enjoyed the affection and prorection of Lord Belmont, I wished not to disturb you with the apprehension of an evil which might never arrive; but sorry I am to confess the claims of Mr. Benseley's creditors are become so great, that it is much to be feared your fortune will be reduced to pretty near what Mrs. Hindon mentioned—two thousand pounds, or about that sum. There is no saying however how things may turn out, as nothing is yet settled; but I wish not to flatter you, while I observe and admire that fortitude and strength of mind that rises superior to disappointments under which the bulk of mankind would sink into despondency.
Well, my dear Sir, cried I, there is no help for this misfortune. Thank heaven a little yet remains. We must immediately think of some private abode, where we may live peaceably and tranquilly, no longer agitated with the wishes nor tormented by the expectations which have kept our minds ever since we left Languedoc in a state of tumult and suspense. All expectation is at an end; for we have nothing now to hope, but that we may enjoy enough out of the wreck of our fortune to exist with decency and comfort in obscurity. What is it but returning to a retirement that experience has convinced us we are capable of enjoying, and that habit and education have both conspired to render even agreeable to us. We shall soon forget this busy aera of our lives, or regard it but as an uneasy, troublesome dream, which we shall be delighted to find has vanished away.
Upon you, my dear Sir, continued I, who have so faithfully and conscientiously fulfilled the fatigueing and disagreeable charge imposed on you by my dear father, we must still lean for further direction and assistance. Your goodness and zeal must expect still further trouble in seeking out for us some humble residence. Our abode must be as simple as is consistent with neatness and decency, in some retired spot in a cheap country.
And would you have the barbarity to exclude me from your dwelling, cried he, with a sudden eagerness which he seemed incapable of repressing, but which, as if conscious of having gone too far, he instantly checked, and added in a softened tone tho' with visible emotion, will my dear and amiable wards allow me as their guardian, warmly interested in their happiness, to propose a scheme—a scheme, repeated he hesitating, which I have been for some time revolving in my mind lest things should take this unfavorable turn. It is indeed a plan which no other circumstances could have justified—and even now requires—But I shall lay hold of some other opportunity of presenting it to your consideration, when I have more clearly weighed it and considered it's consequences.
Oh tell it us now, my dear Sir, cried Fanny with impatience. What would become of us if we had not so good, so kind, and so able a friend to advise us.
Mr. Howard, affected at these words, could hardly disperse a tear which rushed into his eye, and unable to answer, took advantage of Miss Parsons entering to leave us hastily. The softness of that amiable girl's nature made Fanny's apparent grief infectious; and without uttering a syllable, she gave way to a sudden burst of tears; which tender sympathy, had I not been before prepossessed in her favour, would alone have endeared her to me. I was obliged to become her comforter likewise; and assured her we were weeping a disappointment, not a calamity; and indulging in tears, which after the first shock it was weakness to allow to flow, and therefore merited not the kind compassion they had excited.
I was not a little surprised to discover that she was perfectly informed not only of the subject of our present distress but with every circumstance relating to our present situation, which she told us Mrs. Hindon, oppressed with the secret, had been so eager to divulge, that not only herself, but Lady Farnford and several of her friends below had been already partakers of it.
Mrs. Hindon must look upon her word as nothing, said I, for she promised secrecy.
Ah, Madam! if you knew all, cried she, and shook her head emphatically— and indeed I have more than once thought of mentioning it to you; but as I saw little danger of your being led into difficulties, and beheld you possessed of prudence sufficient to secure you from danger, I thought it needless to hazard my aunt's displeasure, should my conduct ever have become suspected.
You mean with regard to Captain Wilmot, cried Fanny, but thank God the discovery you hint at has been already made, time enough to prevent any ill consequences from his duplicity. Indeed had his fortune been splendid to my wish, and his affection as sincere as I believe it pretended, to pity alone, not attachment, would he have owed the success which Mrs. Hindon's artful representations and my simple inexperience might perhaps have led me to bestow.
I am afraid indeed Madam, answered she, that my cousin merits not the honor of your good opinion. But as to that plan, though I have long suspected it I never once dreamt of interfering, as I concluded till this moment it had not only the approbation of your own heart, but likewise of Miss Seymour's judgment.
Far from it indeed, cried I. My opinion of Captain Wilmot has ever been such, that independent of the embarrassment of his fortune, this step never should have received my concurrence while I knew my sister's heart was not deeply interested.
You amaze me Madam, for indeed Mrs. Hindon long since gave me to understand that it was a match where no material objections on either side could possibly be opposed to obstruct its progress.
Mrs. Hindon then spoke from her wishes, not her conviction, for from the beginning I am convinced she dreaded its success.
Well, Madam, said Miss Parsons, I heartily congratulate you on having escaped the snare; for it is a secret to few that Captain Wilmot, from a destructive passion for play, has mortgaged his estate, at no time considerable, to very near its full value, and if he has not already wholly ruined himself, his extravagance, unsubdued by experience, sufficiently proves that such a termination must soon take place. But on this head having received false intelligence, I concluded you acted from the dictates of affection; an idea which was sufficient to deter me from interfering by an explanation that might have been but indifferently received, and which at all events I could not have been justified for bringing to light.
I thought, cried I, you had begun by indirectly proposing to reveal all. If secrecy was your determined resolution how was this in your power?
I meant all that concerned you, Madam, not what regarded your sister. Of her affairs I was informed, and in divulging my cousin's real situation, from the charges of treachery, however innocent my intention and however beneficial the consequences, I could not have been wholly exculpated, while confidence alone had put it in my power to betray.
Miss Parsons then hastened to inform us, that on the very evening which succeeded that of our arrival in England, Mr. Howard having on his visit to his brother and sister disclosed our situation, and acquainted them with our real name and splendid connection under the tie of secrecy, and likewise with the amount of our fortune, Mrs. Hindon seized the earliest opportunity of making a confidant of her friend Lady Farnford.
The two ladies were seated in Mrs. Hindon's dressing-room, which is merely divided by a thin partition from the apartment we at present occupy, and which was then inhabited by Miss Parsons. She happened to be quietly placed at her book, when her studies were interrupted by the conversation of the next room, and her attention so unavoidably attracted by the eager vociferation of this confidential tete a tete, that contrary either to her inclination or design, she found herself in possession of all their secrets.
The two friends, after pondering, wondering, and gossiping, began to reflect that with ten thousand in possession, and at least double that sum in expectation, with the advantages of a splendid family connection, Fanny and I presented no inconsiderable gratification to the avarice or vanity of any needy pretenders.
From these particulars they soon began to form wishes that prizes so considerable could be secured to their own families, by means of whatever males of their house should be matrimonially disposed: and Captain Wilmot, the nephew of the one, and Farnford, the son of the other, instantly occurred to the active and fertile imaginations of these busy intermedling old women. Those two gentlemen, in whom the ladies felt a mutual interest, were at once indigent and extravagant, good looking and showy, circumstances which rendered the success of their schemes both essential and probable. They resolved however carefully to conceal their plan till ripe for execution; doubting not but occasional meetings and frequent intercourse would gradually facilitate its progress and insure it a fortunate conclusion. It was in consequence of this that you two ladies were entreated with a display so oftentatious of hospitable civility to take up your abode in Mrs. Hindon's family.
Fanny and I both warmly thanked Miss Parsons for this information, dictated by the keenness of her feelings and by that gratitude which a little kindness and a few trivial attentions had excited: attentions that no delicate mind could have withheld testifying even for a person less amiable, in a situation so humiliating as hers.
Good heavens! cried I, and was I too the object of a project? We have undoubtedly made a sufficient return to Mrs. Hindon for all her civilities in furnishing such amusing and interesting subjects for her active spirit to work on. I think, however, as our fortune was the secret spring of all these intrigues, we have little reason now to apprehend either art or contrivances. The primary motive for all these speculations has vanished, and I shrewdly suspect the unconquerable and violent passion which has occasioned such ravages in the bosoms of the two gentlemen, being deprived of this nourishment, will quietly sink into neglect and indifference; the only advantage it must be confessed that results from this change in our prospects.
This intelligence at another time might have occasioned me uneasiness; but at the moment it was communicated the information was attended by a number of others so much more distressing, that I hardly gave it any attention. It only encreased the dislike which resentment at Mrs. Hindon's behaviour with regard to Fanny had before excited, and which, as this clue to her conduct deprived her even of the merit her hospitality and civilities had before claimed, now almost amounted to repugnance and contempt.
The motive of her advice, indelicate and unfeeling, to apply to Lady Linrose, not merely for her mediation but even for her assistance, is now fully explained, as also the secret cause of that frigid chagrin too potent either for concealment or repression, which diffused itself over both her manner and countenance on receiving the news of our cruel disappointment.
Perhaps I am a little severe in my expressions: for after all, her disappointment, poor woman, might prove little inferior to ours. Her designs and expectations are compleatly frustrated by the same unlucky event that puts ours to flight; and perhaps in some minds the desires suggested by pride are as powerful as those which reason, nature, and feeling excite. To lose the hopes of an alliance that flatters her vanity, may to Mrs. Hindon prove a blow as severe as the shock which deprives us at once of a parent and the pleasing comforts of family connections.
LETTER XIII. TO MISS BEAUMONT.
FEB. 15, TWELVE AT NIGHT.
MRS. Hindon's company not having left her till late, I had some hours leisure to pursue my journal. We then went down to supper, which proved a dull and comfortless repast. Mrs. Hindon was cold and out of humour; her husband sleepy and fatigued, Fanny dejected, Mr. Howard thoughtful, and for myself I was grave and silent. Miss Jenny was indeed the only person in company who retained her usual behaviour; at all times soft, humble, and melancholy.
The change our situation had undergone in the eyes of Mrs. Hindon since the morning, shone conspicuous in her manner, and produced an alteration hardly to be credited. That flattering civility, bordering often almost upon servility, those professions of unalterable esteem, friendship, and regard, that used some times, from our utter inability to make adequate returns, absolutely to overpower us, were this evening converted into frigid reserve, mixed with a displeasure which seemed to avow that she could hardly forgive herself for having hitherto lavished upon us so much unnecessary respect and attention, and for which mortification she meant to indemnify herself in the season of our humiliation, by making all proper reprisals. Poor woman! she is infinitely mistaken if she imagines I am in the least humbled by this reverse. It is not, thank heaven, in the power of fortune to produce an effect so degrading on my mind. I looked down on her with a degree of pity which softened my contempt, on witnessing the littleness of mind her conduct betrayed.
We were not long in separating for the night: and as I have too much anxiety on my spirits to hope for rest, here am I retired to pass an hour in chat with my dearest Sophia, while poor Fanny is forgetting the busy occurrences of this disagreeable day in the soothing arms of sleep.
Amidst all the difficulties and mortifications we have encountered, and which at our time of life, when the feelings are all tremblingly alive and the passions eager and unsubdued, are endured with double anguish, how alleviating, how grateful to my heart is the conviction of my beloved Sophia's never failing sympathy and affection. There yet remains to us heaven's first and choicest blessing— a dear and tender friend, who feels for our embarrassments and enters into all our distresses with the kindest interest and warmest commiseration. Oh! my Sophia! ought I then to complain?
Yet, yet, my dear, I indeed require your friendly sympathy; for at this instant, without labouring, thank God, under any heavy affliction, (for in my opinion to the stings of guilt, or to the heart rending despair of losing a friend tried and beloved, alone belongs that expression), our situation is as comfortless, as disagreeable as possible. How are we to dispose of ourselves? Mrs. Hindon's House is no longer a residence for us. You will easily perceive the necessity of our quitting it in all haste; and I make no doubt may likewise conjecture, that after the vexatious adventure into which our residence in lodgings so lately involved us, I must feel no small degree of reluctance at the idea of venturing into others, without the protection of Mr. Howard, whose attendance must now of course cease, when the title, though merely nominal, of our guardian is at an end; neither can I think without repugnance of remaining in town, cooped up in small, confined, unwholesome apartments, and of such only will our finances allow; while a neat rustic habitation in the country can be procured perhaps at less expence.
Another motive no less powerful, conspires to give additional force to my desire of leaving London as soon as convenience will permit, and settling as far from it as possible; I will confess my vanity, for surely it is a natural pride— I cannot think of being recognized by Mr. Roatsley, after this change in our appearance, without pain. Were he like Mrs. Hindon, to discover by his behaviour that from our apparent fall we were sunk in his estimation, I should with ease cast him from my heart for ever: but of this mean weakness, incident only to common minds, I cannot suspect him. I fear only to be the object of his pity! Oh! Sophia! pity from Roatsley would mortify me more severely than unmerited contempt from the rest of the world.
How few are there who do not allow themselves, perhaps unconsciously, to be more influenced by appearances than they suspect. Miss Seymour, while moving in a sphere, if not splendid at least creditable, is no longer the same person when reduced to exist only through the efforts of her own industry; and though still entitled to the respect of the unprejudiced, nay perhaps to their esteem, yet being sunk, to her intrinsic value, and deprived of a thousand little adventitious circumstances that give life and alacrity to an infant passion, how can it be supposed to combat and struggle against those dangerous mortifications which are the greatest foes to its progress.
No, Sophia, I sincerely hope I shall see him no more. To you, I divulge every thought that oppresses my heart, for from your sympathy alone I can hope to derive the slightest alleviation. To you then, my dear, I will acknowledge, that the severest wound my grandfather's renunciation has inflicted, is its having awakened me from a pleasing delusive dream, on the idea of which I have almost existed ever since I overheard Roatsley's acknowledgment to his friend of his partiality in my favour. I confess it was weak, it was unpardonable, to allow my mind to indulge in such reveries; yet they stole on me imperceptibly, and I could not resist giving way to the flattering hopes, that had he beheld me in that advantageous point of view in which rank and fortune ever place their votaries, had he seen me in the circle to which my birth entitles me—in short, my dear, as we live not in the age of romance, where the splendors of life are wholly disregarded, it is probable his rising attachment would not have been greatly damped by the knowledge of my being Lord Belmont's grandchild, and possessed of a considerable fortune. Had this been the
sole
motive, or even the
chief
one, little should I have prized the flame: but remember he loved me when these particulars were unknown, and laboured for my welfare when a veil of doubtful obscurity was thrown over my situation. These are circumstances to give weight and value to his passion. But these chimeras are now no more. I must drive them from my thoughts for ever; and instead of confessing and indulging, check and conquer them with all the fortitude I can summon to my assistance.
FEB. 16.
Going down this morning to breakfast, I was surprised when I entered to find Lady Farnford and Mrs. Hindon tete a tete, and seemingly in earnest conversation. Good morning, Miss Seymour, cried the latter with a smiling air, the traces of last night's hauteur being entirely vanished from her brow. Lady Farnford likewise accosted me with abundance of civility and kindness, and they insisted on placing me between them.
Come, cried Mrs. Hindon, after a short pause, which she appeared to have employed in considering how she should introduce without abruptness what she intended to say—Why should there be such distance among friends? To tell the plain truth Miss Seymour, I could not shut my eyes all night for thinking in what a destitute and dismal way you and Miss Fanny must live if you are not ruled and persuaded by those who are interested in you. Here is Lady Farnford, who declares herself as anxious for your welfare as if you were her own children, and who protests that if you were so in fact she should be the first to advise an immediate application to my Lord Belmont. His Lordship cannot see his grandchildren starve, or what is scarcely preferable, justle through life neglected and forgotten, for want of that little which his affluent fortune can spare with ease. Consider he is unacquainted with your misfortune. He concludes you possessed of twenty thousand pounds; and tho' that is but a trifle to what you might reasonably expect, yet no doubt he might imagine it enough to support you genteelly. I assure you in your case, with such just claims, I would not content myself even with a little; and if he finds you mean to make a piece of work about it, take my word for it he will alter his tone as they say. Mr. Howard told us t'other day, talking of your father, that if he had chosen to refuse the compromise offered him by my Lord, he might have been in possession of one of Lord Belmont's estates of three thousand per annum; and tho' he gave away his own money, he had undoubtedly no right to mar the inheritance of his children. That alone would surely make a good law suit; and the simple apprehension of it would certainly be sufficient to frighten my Lord into terms. Come, Miss Seymour, I'm sure a young lady of your sense must see clearly that rather than have such disturbance and noise created, your grandfather would easily be induced to settle handsomely on you, were it only for hush money.
Allow me to assure you once for all, Madam, answered I, that nothing on earth shall ever prevail with me to attempt such a measure. I am confident you must have wholly misunderstood Mr. Howard on this point; for such are the unhappy circumstances of the case, that my father preserved no sort of claim upon Lord Belmont's fortune, and was thoroughly satisfied and contented with the stipulation. Tho' this sum is now greatly reduced, we have reason to hope a little still remains, and on that little I trust we shall be able to subsist independant of these cruel relations, who have so unnaturally renounced us. To have recourse to law, (were there even a probability of success,) is a plan at which delicacy and pride equally revolt.
Pride and nonsense, cried she. Indeed Miss Seymour I cannot conceive for my part the meaning of all this delicacy and refinement. 'Tis past my comprehension I confess.
Perhaps, cried Lady Farnford, who had not as yet been able to speak for the volubility of her friend—perhaps Miss Seymour is deterred by the hopelesness of success. All the world esteems Lord Belmont irrevocable in his determinations. He is indeed a very obstinate, whimsical old man. Lady Linrose too is generally disliked; being haughty, proud, and inflexible.
Yes, and no doubt her Ladyship finds her own advantage, cried Mrs. Hindon, in keeping her nieces at a distance from their grandfather.
We have no reason to accuse her Ladyship of any such intention, said I. Perhaps, had she possessed either sensibility or benevolence equal to our wishes, we might have expected a little more kindness (tho' ever so privately offered,) to two unfriended relations; who, divided from their friends, and in a manner alone in the universe, lay claim, from her at least, to the good offices of humanity: but tho' she has not proved warmly our friend and protectress, I am thoroughly convinced she is far from having injured the cause intrusted to her care. She is not generally beloved; but is allowed to be a woman of principle and honour; and a trifling portion of these qualities must prove sufficient to deter her from a conduct so unworthy.
Well, Miss Seymour, resumed Lady Farnford, Lady Linrose is not a woman easily melted by sentiments of pity. But pride may extort where charity fails; and the desire of preventing a revival of—of the unlucky story, may perhaps prevail with her to intercede with my Lord Belmont to allow you a pretty round sum to be quiet.
To Lady Linrose, cried I with firmness, never will I apply.
Why then, returned Lady Farnford, what I mean to propose is, applying to their son. The idea occurred to me last night, on hearing Mr. Roatsley talked of in the highest terms by some friends we had to sup with us.
Mr. Roatsley! exclaimed I.
Yes, Mr. Roatsley. It seems his election to the borough of—took place the day before yesterday. Some of the company had been warmly his friends on that occasion, which naturally led them to talk of him, and they spoke in such high terms of his character, that I could not avoid at the time concluding what probability of success an application of this kind must have to a young man of his disposition.
What connection has Mr. Roatsley with Lady Linrose? cried I in a tremor.
Lord don't you know, Miss Seymour, that he is their son, and of course your first cousin.
Their son! Good heavens! exclaimed I, quite out of breath.
Good stars, said Mrs. Hindon, is not that the young man who accompanied you in your passage from Calais, and of whom my brother talks so highly?
I know not, Madam.—But I hope not.
And pray why do you hope so? For my part I think it is the most agreeable intelligence at this juncture you could wish to hear: for I assure you my brother Howard told me that he seemed much struck, and indeed no wonder, by the elegance of your appearance; and besides, was it not he who attended you so assiduously at the Opera house. Oh! I make no doubt he knew perfectly well how nearly you were connected, though perhaps a prohibition from her Ladyship deterred him from acknowledging the relationship. And so you never once suspected that he was the late Lord Linrose's son all the while? well that is the drollest affair I have heard this age.
I dare say Madam, cried I, there may be some mistake in this, else we should have been sooner informed. How comes the son of Lady Linrose to appear under a borrowed name?
O as to that point, said Lady Farnford, in this country nothing is more common. Mr. Roatsley assumed his present name because it was accompanied by the inheritance of an estate in Ireland, left him by an uncle of his mother's, who died a few months ago.
How shall I convey to you, Sophia, an idea of the variety of emotions that agitated my heart at this moment. Oh! it is wholly impossible! This intelligence, so unexpected, so extraordinary, and oh! shall I add, so mortifying, (for a mixture of humiliation rendered my feelings at this moment still more intolerable, actually drew tears from my eyes:—tears, the source of which I could not absolutely define, but which, to my companions, appeared merely the natural effects of uncertainty and vexation.
Oh! Sophia! how long have we remained in ignorance with regard to a point so infinitely interesting. But I now find that this inheritance, and consequently this change of name, took place immediately before our arrival in England. Indeed, on investigating the matter, Mr. Howard has discovered that Mr. Roatsley's return was occasioned by that event. Mr. Howard therefore, in his enquiries relative to our family, heard often of a Mr. Dudley, but was informed he was abroad with his brother and Lord Belmont, and never received the slightest hint to lead him to conclude that our agreeable fellow traveller, Mr. Roatsley, was in fact the second son of the late Lord Linrose, whose character, even from the lips of Mrs. Weldon, does so much honour to his family. Indeed, had these enquiries been made of late, no doubt we must have been immediately acquainted with the truth; but the society in which he ranges is totally distinct from that in which chance has placed us, and you may recollect it was directly on our arrival that Mr. Howard exerted himself to satisfy our anxious desire of being informed of every circumstance concerning our relations. At that time Mr, Roatsley was himself but just arrived at his mother's country seat. His return was not generally known; and as we have not been once in any private company with him, excepting one half hour in our own lodgings, no opportunity for a discovery could possibly have occurred. Not but that a secret solicitude has induced me more than once to ask several ladies who have been at different times visitors here if they were acquainted with Roatsley; but a negative reply was always given, and I make no doubt he is wholly unknown to most of Mrs. Hindon's friends.
I will not, however, comment on this interesting discovery till I have concluded my fatiguing conversation with these officious advisers.
You must know, resumed Lady Farnford, that this young man has one of the best characters in the kingdom. To him therefore, Miss Seymour, I would advise you to apply by letter without loss of time, or perhaps Mr. Howard might transact the business better in person. Mr. Roatsley is adored by his family; and possesses, I am told, an influence over the mind of Lord Belmont which would insure success. If the old Lord thinks his vow binding, why he may keep it if he pleases, only let him act with justice, and support you in the line of life to which you were born.
Good God, my dear Sophia, what a proposal? It entirely divested me of the patience and temper with which I had hitherto listened to advice so selfish, so indelicate, so perfectly unfeeling. I therefore put a final period to a persecution that was grown intolerable, by expressing myself with a cold and determined dignity, bordering perhaps a little on hauteur.
I must beg leave, said I when I could contrive to be heard, entirely to act for myself and from my own sentiments, in a point in which myself and sister only are concerned; and tho' we must consider ourselves as under obligations to those friends who wish to alter a resolution they may deem absurd and prejudicial to our interest, yet I must use the freedom to acknowledge that we partake so much of our grandfather's firmness as to be quite immoveable in our determinations, when convinced there is nothing in them contrary to reason and rectitude.
The gravity with which I pronounced this, disconcerted them; and they both in a breath began to apologize for the liberty they had taken in an affair in which they said
our interest alone
could be supposed to influence them. I could not resist smiling at the expression. I have some reason to apprehend, however, that I should not so soon have got rid of importunities equally troublesome and officious, had not the rest of the family made their appearance to breakfast, which happily interrupted the eager volubility of the ladies.
Oh, my Sophia, what a discovery! It has engrossed and absorbed me ever since I was made acquainted with it. Is it indeed possible that the ties of blood as well as those of affection have united me with this amiable young man. I blush to make this confession in terms so strong, so explanatory; but the agitation of the present moment gives defiance to diffidence and shame, and conquers the reluctance with which such an avowal must ever be accompanied.
I have pondered and considered every circumstance of Mr. Roatsley's conduct since the beginning of our acquaintance, and indeed there are a number of circumstances explained by this information, which hurt and displease me.
After thinking and reflecting on the whole tenour of his behaviour, I am convinced that duty and obedience to his family have enrolled him a party in their determinations. How flattering, how humane were his attentions during our passage, while ignorant of our secret claims to his good offices: yet how easily was he impressed with the most injurious suspicions to our disadvantage immediately afterwards: suspicions, to which he must have submitted with hardly an attempt towards being undeceived; for what confidence was to be reposed in the representations of a woman to whose character and principles, even by the confession of his friend Captain Bradshaw, neither trust nor credit were to be given. Oh! Sophia! I am afraid he would have remained at ease under this false opinion, had not Mr. Howard's letter to Lady Linrose discovered us to him as a connection, in whose infamy and disgrace a slight degree of delicacy must have rendered him concerned. It was the knowledge of this circumstance, I now plainly perceive, that induced him to make known to Mr. Howard his fears for my safety, and which prevailed on him to discover an anxiety that wore the engaging aspect of disinterested humanity, whilst supposed to have actuated the bosom of a stranger, but which in Mr. Roatsley was but giving way to natural feelings.
I express myself perhaps with acrimony; indeed on reading over what I have written I am confounded at my warmth of expression. It is not easy, however, wholly to divest ones self of prejudice in a point dear and interesting to the heart. I am severely wounded and disappointed at one part of his conduct, which leads me perhaps to view it in other particulars through a false and unjust medium. His behaviour after all, in regard to me, has been amiable, nay noble in the highest degree: but ah! did he possess the mind, the soul, the feelings which I have been blind enough to attribute to him, never could he have stooped to countenance a transaction so cruel and unnatural as that of renouncing us. He would not have passed himself upon us for a stranger, concealed the relationship of which he was ashamed, and courted our acquaintance under a borrowed form while he possessed a title so indisputable to our notice, had he chosen to have claimed it.
Perhaps indeed his mother had laid her injunctions on him to remain neuter in this affair till Lord Belmont's intentions were made known. But am I blinded by prepossession when I assert that to desert us after our accidental rencontre, and that profusion of professions of which it was productive, to withdraw his attention and regard only when from the renunciation of his family and from the peculiarity of our circumstances he knew it was become essential to us, is a step which even parental duty can by no means justify. Common minds may argue in that manner, may in that manner act from motives of cold obedience, but if his heart is composed of materials so frigid, so correct, it is a loss little to be regretted. I am offended Sophia, and perhaps unjustly; but I had weakly flattered myself our sentiments were in some measure congenial; and his conduct has proved so opposite from what I am certain mine in similar circumstances would have been, that I am severely wounded.
But my warmth may perhaps have led my conclusions too far. Lord Belmont's resolution relative to us, must have arrived during his grandson's absence at his election, in which case he can hardly as yet have been informed of it, nor consequently have determined how he will in future conduct himself. His return to town, which will probably happen in the course of a few days, must therefore explain whether or not I have done him injustice. If he yet shews himself in the light of our relation, and disavows his part of the family compact, I shall confess him wholly entitled to the too favourable opinion I have hitherto entertained of him.
I wish things may not be still worse with regard to Mr. Benseley's affairs than Mr. Howard has acknowledged; for that worthy friend is extremely thoughtful; and altho' I wished exceedingly to have a little private conversation with him in order to consult about our future plans, I could find no opportunity, for he left the parlour immediately after he had done breakfast, and has been abroad all the morning. No time however is to be lost in deciding. I am now doubly anxious that our country scheme may take place; and am labouring to become eager for it; endeavouring to represent it to myself in the gaiest colours, as the rural abode of peace, innocence, and harmony, where no agitations shall in future ruffle, nor painful mortifications disturb the calm serenity of our lives. But it is in vain. My busy imagination perpetually places it in a different point of view, as a state of peacefulness, where tho' nothing wounds us nothing shall interest; and as a retirement, where tho' we enjoy tranquillity we shall not be able to taste happiness; and tho' tranquillity is perhaps in this fluctuating state the sole point attainable, and that to which, all our wishes ought to be directed, yet at our time of life it is not easy to resist the flattering hope that days of real enjoyment are yet in store for us. If this is a delusion, yet oh may I ever cherish it as a support in every distress and a prop under every difficulty; without which soothing consolation life would be a burthen and sorrow unsupportable.
I forgot to mention that Fanny has not seen Wilmot since the discovery of the letter. His absence, which is unusual, must either be attributed to the consciousness of his schemes having been detected by his mistake, or to the change in our affairs, which took place immediately after that event. No doubt his aunt has warned him to keep out of the way till our future expectations are clearly ascertained. Fanny, whose latent spirit has been roused by his duplicity, took the earliest opportunity to inform Mrs. Hindon of her unalterable resolution to break off all connection with her nephew. The lady received this determination with some appearance of surprise, but with much less opposition than would have followed such a step some days ago.
FEB. 17.
Mr. Howard did not appear yesterday till dinner was announced, I had it therefore in my power only to hint to him that I requested he would not attempt from friendly compassion to conceal any additional disappointments that were yet to be told us. He assured me that nothing decisive had taken place; Mr. Benseley's affairs continuing in the confusion and uncertainty in which, he had before represented them. This passed in a large company who dined here and staid the evening; by which means it was not possible for me to request a private conference with him. Mr. Howard seems, with his usual goodness, to participate in our chagrin; for I never observed him before so grave and thoughtful as he has been since the arrival of Lord Belmont's letter. I began to suspect that some private uneasiness might have affected his spirits; but a peculiar softness in his address, both to Fanny and myself, now convinces me that to his heart the distresses of his friends and those more particularly his own, convey almost equal pain.
I have had a long conversation this morning with Miss Parsons. My heart, softened by my own disappointments, sympathizes in her's with augmented commiseration; and as she perceives that I, who was so lately the happy object of her envy and admiration, as created for the enjoyment of affluence, prosperity, and social happiness, am now her companion in suffering, she returns my attentions by redoubling her endeavours to soothe and amuse me, while she finds, that tho' born to so many advantages, I am no less open than herself to the attacks of fortune.
You imagine. Miss Seymour, said she this morning as we sat together at work in my dressing room, (for Mrs. Hindon was gone out and I had insisted on Fanny's accompanying her in hopes that a little variety might dissipate the chagrin of her spirits,) you imagine, and with reason that your mortifications and distresses have been severe: yet what have your sufferings proved when compared with mine: hardly had I closed the eyes of one beloved parent, when the other claimed the same sad duty. These are however misfortunes which by the course of nature we must all expect. Heartrending and acute as is the wound that such calamities inflict. Time's lenient hand generally bestows the balm to close it. That loss, heavy and irretrievable, did not come alone: the severities of dependance, insignificance, and contempt, were the miserable consequences of a blow in itself scarce supportable. Nor was this all. She stopped, and hiding her face with her hands, suddenly gave way to a violent burst of tears, which seemed to have been irrepressible and wholly overcame her.
I know well, cried I, you have suffered the rigours of fate, and Heaven knows what yet may remain for our portion, should it please Almighty Providence to deprive us of independence, by taking away the remnant of our scanty fortune. All we shall have for it, my amiable friend, is to endeavour to profit from your laudable example, and to suffer unrepiningly those ills, which from trust in the unerring justice of Heaven, we may rest assured must in the end work for our good.
Ah! Madam! cried she, but there is one blow, cruel, biting, and acute, which the Almighty has not inflicted on you, and indeed it appears impossible you should ever experience. You may behold yourself abandoned by the world, regarded with disdain, and treated with indelicacy; but this you may bear, and from the conscious superiority of your mind, may bear perhaps with indifference; but ah! Miss Seymour, there are wounds yet more bitter, feelings yet more keen, which I have endured, and which I heartily pray you may never know.
Heaven only knows, thought I to myself, whether these bitter, keen, and heartfelt sufferings, may not yet prove mine.
Yes cried I, to the amiable, unhappy girl, taking hold of her hand with unfeigned compassion, I am sensible you claim too justly the superiority in affliction. My heart feels sincerely for what yours has endured. You have my warmest sympathy; and if the demand is not importunate, and the recital will not prove a probe rather than a relief, will you gratify me so far as to unburthen your mind to me.
It is long, long, cried she, softened at my request, since my heart has experienced the solace of confidence. The world turns wich disgust from the oppressed; it flies distress as if contagious; and prosperity beholds it as a frightfull picture presented to its view to check dissipation and to frown on enjoyment.
She then told me that when she was yet at school, Captain Wilmot, at that time a young Ensign, and nearly related to her, used frequently to spend some weeks at her father's vicarage for the amusement of shooting; and that during the holidays, when she always returned home, he constantly paid her the most flattering attention, till she confessed he made some impression on her heart. Being however hardly fifteen, and little of her age, she looked upon herself as a mere girl, and the school duties generally drove her cousin from her thoughts and conquered her attachment.
At seventeen she quitted school entirely. It was then that the abovementioned diversion furnished a pretence for the Captain's spending almost the whole shooting season at their house; a circumstance that the young lady suspected proceeded from a tenderer motive. In fact he had been but a short time there, when he took an opportunity to disclose his passion, which met with all the success he could have wished.
Gained by his early and continued partiality, accustomed as her near relation to see him in the most favourable light and to hear him favourably spoken of by others, she was blind to the insipidity and conceited folly of his character. Habit and affection equally conspired to conceal his errors from her view; and if she caught occasionally a transient glimpse of his imperfections, his unbounded professions of love, added to her tenderness for him, cast a partial veil over his defects. She acknowledged to her lover, that her heart had not been proof against his assiduities, and that were her parents to agree to their union, her consent should follow.
Mr. Parsons's illness however, which soon after followed, prevented the subject from being mentioned either to him or his lady. Miss Parsons, from almost never quitting the bed side of her father, had few opportunities of entertaining her lover. The family was become anxious and gloomy, and the Captain not finding his residence so agreeable as formerly, soon left them to join his regiment.
Mr. Parsons's death, which happened a few days after the lover departed, bringing the embarrassment of his affairs to light, informed the Captain too soon that instead of a very comfortable settlement, (for some previous windfalls to the family had induced him to conclude that Miss Parsons would be left in affluent circumstances,) he should not receive a shilling with his bride.
I hope, Madam, you will do me the justice to believe, said she, that in such circumstances I was not girl enough to remain blind to the many obstacles which then appeared against my union with a young soldier, who had little more than his commission to subsist on; and fearing that from motives of delicacy he might be under difficulties how to act, I wrote to him as soon as grief would allow me, and laying briefly before him the disadvantages of fulfilling our wishes at that time, since my mother and I existed merely upon a small precarious pension, which depended on her life, added, with many assurances of unalterable affection, that till things wore a more favourable aspect, our engagements must be suspended.
Would you believe it, Madam! my letter for six weeks remained unanswered, tho' surely my dismal situation demanded at least the
sympathy
of a man who had so lately professed himself my lover: and when at length it arrived, it was some time before I could comprehend the contents. It was dated ten days after the receipt of mine; though undoubtedly it could not have taken above a month to come from Liverpool, where his regiment was quartered. But this artifice, I afterwards found, was intended to deceive me into an opinion, that it had been written previous to a succession to six hundred a year, which had fallen to him by the death of a distant relation.
In this epistle, written with the most phlegmatic indifference, he pretends, to regard my letter as intended to cancel all our engagements; to which he implicitly submits with many feigned expressions of regret.
My conduct, he said, induced him sincerely to wish that he might never behold me more. He called me insensible, unfeeling, and ungrateful; and after bestowing a number of other appellations equally false and deceitful, concluded with praying that time and absence might enable him to conquer a passion, which every line of his letter proved existed no more.
On a first perusal, I really imagined that some meaning misconstrued, or some phraze misunderstood, had given umbrage to my cousin, and in the height of my uneasiness instantly again wrote to him. I assured him solemnly that I should ever regard as sacred the engagement into which I had entered with my whole heart, and to fulfil which was it's first wish; and that all I desired was to postpone an event that seemed at present mutually imprudent.
This however he thought proper never to acknowledge; and I was soon convinced that he had joyfully laid hold of this opportunity to regain his freedom. The conviction of his infidelity cost me many sighs; but the death of my dear and respected mother soon awakened me to new affliction.
Having been in her last moments recommended by her to my aunt, and left solely dependent on her care, I was invited, soon after the last sad duties were performed, to take up my residence in her family, and began immediately to experience that cruel reverse which has embittered every succeeding hour. You cannot but have perceived, my dear Miss Seymour, that my misfortunes have reduced me almost to a level with the domestics in this house. Mrs. Hindon evidently regards me, and uniformly treats me as a menial dependent, instead of cherishing me with that care which my connexion with her claims and which her solemn promise to my mother to take charge of me seemed to imply and led me to expect. In lieu of those caresses, and that admirarion which in my happier days any little advantages I possessed never failed to excite, and which made me think with pleasure on spending my days under her protection, I found my aunt was one of those who are wholly influenced by situation and appearances. Seeing me destitute and forlorn, she now regarded me as an orphan whom an ostentation of charity induced her to retain, and who, though entitled as her relation to subsistence, its unavoidable attendants were contempt and degradation.
You will easily imagine, that in my humiliation I met the eyes of my cousin with additional pain. The day on which you dined here, immediately after your arrival, was that on which I saw him for the first time: and though I am certain he must have felt embarrassed and disconcerted at the rencontre, he behaved with a degree of insolence and effrontery which converted my expiring regret (for it is not easy wholly to eradicate a first and strong impression) into self congratulation and gratitude to heaven that I had been spared a fate so miserable as that of being connected with a human being capable of such meanness and indelicacy.
I was now in company with Captain Wilmot every day; but we mutually avoided being so without witnesses; and some time elapsed, though probably you never remarked it, before we even exchanged words. The custom of seeing me has however so entirely conquered all embarrassment or shame on his part, (if he was ever capable of any) that he has more than once presumed to treat me with the familiarity due only to an inferior, calling me his pretty Jenny with the impertinent ease of a man who imagines that in my situation even his freedoms must be well received and dare not be resented. In such circumstances,
where pride and delicacy are liable every moment to the severest wounds, with no enjoyment in the present and no chearing expectations for the future; happiness is a phantom which flies me, and which I have no prospect of overtaking on this side of the grave.
The unfortunate girl concluded her story with tears, in which compassion made me heartily join. I think, my Sophia, my distresses seem nothing when compared with the burthen she has supported so long, and from which there appears so little prospect of relief. How should I have rejoiced had more prosperous circumstances allowed me to place this amiable young woman beyond the reach of
pride and poverty, and ena
to preserve an honourable independence.
END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.