Читать книгу The History of Emily Montague - Frances Brooke - Страница 24

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To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.

Montreal, Sept. 19, eleven o’clock.

No, my dear, it is impossible she can love him; his dull soul is ill suited to hers; heavy, unmeaning, formal; a slave to rules, to ceremony, to etiquette, he has not an idea above those of a gentleman usher. He has been three hours in town without seeing her; dressing, and waiting to pay his compliments first to the general, who is riding, and every minute expected back. I am all impatience, though only her friend, but think it would be indecent in me to go without him, and look like a design of reproaching his coldness. How differently are we formed! I should have stole a moment to see the woman I loved from the first prince in the universe.

The general is returned. Adieu! till our visit is over; we go from thence to Major Melmoth’s, whose family I should have told you are in town, and not half a street from us. What a soul of fire has this lover! ’Tis to profane the word to use it in speaking of him.

One o’clock.

I am mistaken, Lucy; astonishing as it is, she loves him; this dull clod of uninformed earth has touched the lively soul of my Emily. Love is indeed the child of caprice; I will not say of sympathy, for what sympathy can there be between two hearts so different? I am hurt, she is lowered in my esteem; I expected to find in the man she loved, a mind sensible and tender as her own.

I repeat it, my dear Lucy, she loves him; I observed her when we entered the room; she blushed, she turned pale, she trembled, her voice faltered; every look spoke the strong emotion of her soul.

She is paler than when I saw her last; she is, I think, less beautiful, but more touching than ever; there is a languor in her air, a softness in her countenance, which are the genuine marks of a heart in love; all the tenderness of her soul is in her eyes.

Shall I own to you all my injustice? I hate this man for having the happiness to please her: I cannot even behave to him with the politeness due to every gentleman.

I begin to fear my weakness is greater than I supposed.

22d in the evening.

I am certainly mad, Lucy; what right have I to expect!—you will scarce believe the excess of my folly. I went after dinner to Major Melmoth’s; I found Emily at piquet with Sir George: can you conceive that I fancied myself ill used, that I scarce spoke to her, and returned immediately home, though strongly pressed to spend the evening there. I walked two or three times about my room, took my hat, and went to visit the handsomest Frenchwoman at Montreal, whose windows are directly opposite to Major Melmoth’s; in the excess of my anger, I asked this lady to dance with me to-morrow at a little ball we are to have out of town. Can you imagine any behaviour more childish? It would have been scarce pardonable at sixteen.

Adieu! my letter is called for. I will write to you again in a few days.

Yours,

Ed. Rivers.

Major Melmoth tells me, they are to be married in a month at Quebec, and to embark immediately for England. I will not be there; I cannot bear to see her devote herself to wretchedness: she will be the most unhappy of her sex with this man; I see clearly into his character; his virtue is the meer absence of vice; his good qualities are all of the negative kind.