Читать книгу The Life and Legacy of Harriette Wilson - Harriette Wilson - Страница 5

Table of Contents

The next morning my maid brought me a little note from Argyle to say that he had been waiting about my door an hour, having learned my address from poor Sheridan, and that, seeing the servant in the street, he could not help making an attempt to induce me to go out and walk with him. I looked out of window, saw Argyle, ran for my hat and cloak, and joined him in an instant.

"Am I forgiven?" said Argyle with gentle eagerness.

"Oh yes," returned I, "long ago, but that will do you no good, for I really am treating Frederick Lamb very ill, and therefore must not walk with you again."

"Why not?" Argyle inquired. "Apropos," he added, "you told Frederick that I walked about the turnpike looking for you, and that, no doubt, to make him laugh at me?"

"No, not for that; but I never could deceive any man. I have told him the whole story of our becoming acquainted, and he allows me to walk with you. It is I who think it wrong, not Frederick."

"That is to say, you think me a bore," said Argyle, reddening with pique and disappointment.

"And suppose I loved you?" I asked; "still I am engaged to Frederick Lamb, who trusts me, and——"

"If," interrupted Argyle, "it were possible you did love me, Frederick Lamb would be forgotten: but, though you did not love me, you must promise to try and do so some day or other. You don't know how much I have fixed my heart on it."

These sentimental walks continued more than a month. One evening we walked rather later than usual. It grew dark. In a moment of ungovernable passion, Argyle's ardour frightened me. Not that I was insensible to it: so much the contrary, that I felt certain another meeting must decide my fate. Still I was offended at what I conceived showed such a want of respect. The duke became humble. There is a charm in the humility of a lover who has offended. The charm is so great that we like to prolong it. In spite of all he could say I left him in anger. The next morning I received the following note:

"If you see me waiting about your door to-morrow morning, do not fancy I am looking for you: but for your pretty housemaid."

I did see him from a sly corner of my window; but I resisted all my desires and remained concealed. "I dare not see him again," thought I, "for I cannot be so very profligate, knowing and feeling as I do, how impossible it will be to refuse him anything, if we meet again. I cannot treat Fred Lamb in this manner! besides I should be afraid to tell him of it, he would perhaps kill me!

"But then, poor, dear Lorne! to return his kisses, as I did last night, and afterwards be so very severe on him, for a passion which it seemed so out of his power to control!

"Nevertheless we must part now, or never; so I'll write and take my leave of him kindly." This was my letter:

"At the first I was afraid I should love you, and, but for Fred Lamb having requested me to get you up to Somers-town after I had declined meeting you, I had been happy: now the idea makes me miserable. Still it must be so. I am naturally affectionate. Habit attaches me to Fred Lamb. I cannot deceive him or acquaint him with what will cause him to cut me, in anger and for ever. We may not then meet again Lorne, as hitherto: for now we could not be merely friends: lovers we must be hereafter, or nothing. I have never loved any man in my life before, and yet, dear Lorne, you see we must part. I venture to send you the enclosed thick lock of my hair; because you have been good enough to admire it. I do not care how I have disfigured my head since you are not to see it again.

"God bless you, Lorne. Do not quite forget last night, directly, and believe me, as in truth I am,

"Most devotedly yours,

"HARRIETTE."

This was his answer, written, I suppose, in some pique:

"True you have given me many sweet kisses, and a lock of your beautiful hair. All this does not convince me you are one bit in love with me. I am the last man on earth to desire you to do violence to your feelings by leaving a man as dear to you as Frederick Lamb is, so farewell Harriette. I shall not intrude to offend you again.

"LORNE."

"Poor Lorne is unhappy and, what is worse," thought I, "he will soon hate me!" The idea made me wretched. However, I will do myself the justice to say, that I have seldom, in the whole course of my life, been tempted by my passions or my fancies to what my heart and conscience told me was wrong. I am afraid my conscience has been a very easy one; but certainly I have followed its dictates. There was a want of heart and delicacy, I always thought, in leaving any man, without full and very sufficient reasons for it. At the same time, my dear mother's marriage had proved to me so forcibly the miseries of two people of contrary opinions and character torturing each other to the end of their natural lives, that, before I was ten years old, I decided in my own mind to live free as air from any restraint but that of my conscience.

Frederick Lamb's love was now increasing, as all men's do, from gratified vanity. He sometimes passed an hour in reading to me. Till then, I had no idea of the gratification to be derived from books. In my convent in France I had read only sacred dramas; at home, my father's mathematical books, Buchan's Medicine, Gil Blas, and The Vicar of Wakefield, formed our whole library. The two latter I had long known by heart, and could repeat at this moment.

My sisters used to subscribe to little circulating libraries in the neighbourhood, for the common novels of the day; but I always hated these. Fred Lamb's choice was happy, Milton, Shakespeare, Byron, The Rambler, Virgil, &c. "I must know all about these Greeks and Romans," said I to myself. "Some day I will go into the country quite alone, and study like mad. I am too young now."

In the meantime, I was absolutely charmed with Shakespeare. Music I always had a natural talent for. I played well on the pianoforte; that is, with taste and execution; though almost without study.

There was a very elegant looking woman residing in my neighbourhood, in a beautiful little cottage, who had long excited my curiosity. She appeared to be the mother of five extremely beautiful children. These were always to be seen, with their nurse, walking out, most fancifully dressed. Every one used to stop to admire them. Their mother seemed to live in the most complete retirement. I never saw her with anybody besides her children.

One day our eyes met: she smiled, and I half bowed. The next day we met again, and the lady wished me a good morning. We soon got into conversation. I asked her if she did not lead a very solitary life.

"You are the first female I have spoken to for four years," said the lady, "with the exception of my own servants; but," added she, "some day we may know each other better. In the meantime will you trust yourself to come and dine with me to-day?"

"With great pleasure," I replied, "if you think me worthy that honour."

We then separated to dress for dinner.

When I entered her drawing-room at the hour she had appointed, I was struck with the elegant taste, more than with the richness of the furniture. A beautiful harp, drawings of a somewhat voluptuous cast, elegant needle-work, Moore's poems, and a fine pianoforte, formed a part of it. "She is not a bad woman—and she is not a good woman," said I to myself. "What can she be?"

The lady now entered the room, and welcomed me with an appearance of real pleasure. "I am not quite sure," said she, "whether I can have the pleasure of introducing you to Mr. Johnstone to-day, or not. We will not wait dinner for him, if he does not arrive in time." This was the first word I had heard about a Mr. Johnstone, although I knew the lady was called by that name.

Just as we were sitting down to dinner Mr. Johnstone arrived and was introduced to me. He was a particularly elegant, handsome man, about forty years of age. His manner of addressing Mrs. Johnstone was more that of an humble romantic lover than of a husband; yet Julia, for so he called her, could be no common woman. I could not endure all this mystery, and, when he left us in the evening, I frankly asked Julia, for so we will call her in future, why she invited a strange madcap girl like me, to dinner with her.

"Consider the melancholy life I lead," said Julia.

"Thank you for the compliment," answered I.

"But do you believe," interrupted Julia, "that I should have asked you to dine with me, if I had not been particularly struck and pleased with you? I had, as I passed your window, heard you touch the pianoforte with a very masterly hand, and, therefore, I conceived that you were not uneducated, and I knew that you led almost as retired a life as myself. Au reste," continued Julia, "some day, perhaps soon, you shall know all about me."

I did not press the matter further at that moment, believing it would be indelicate.

"Shall we go to the nursery?" asked Julia.

I was delighted; and, romping with her lovely children, dressing their dolls, and teaching them to skip, I forgot my love for Argyle, as much as if that excellent man had never been born.

Indeed I am not quite sure that it would have occurred to me, even when I went home, but that Fred Lamb, who was just at this period showing Argyle up all over the town as my amorous shepherd, had a new story to relate of his grace.

Horace Beckford and two other fashionable men, who had heard from Frederick of my cruelty as he termed it, and the duke's daily romantic walks to the Jew's Harp House, had come upon him by accident in a body, as they were galloping through Somers-town. Lorne was sitting in a very pastoral fashion on a gate near my door, whistling. They saluted him with a loud laugh. No man could, generally speaking, parry a joke better than Argyle: for few knew the world better: but this was no joke. He had been severely wounded and annoyed by my cutting his acquaintance altogether, at the very moment when he had reason to believe that the passion he really felt for me was returned. It was almost the first instance of the kind he had ever met with. He was bored and vexed with himself for the time he had lost, and yet he found himself continually in my neighbourhood, almost before he was aware of it. He wanted, as he has told me since, to meet me once more by accident, and then he declared he would give me up.

"What a set of consummate asses you are," said Argyle to Beckford and his party; and then quietly continued on the gate, whistling as before.

"But r-e-a-l-l-y, r-e-a-l-l-y, ca-ca-cannot Tom She-She-She-Sheridan assist you, marquis?" said the handsome Horace Beckford, in his usual stammering way.

"A very good joke for Fred Lamb, as the case stands now," replied the duke, laughing: for a man of the world must laugh in these cases, though he should burst with the effort.

"Why don't she come?" said Sir John Shelley, who was one of the party.

An odd mad-looking Frenchman, in a white coat and a white hat, well known about Somers-town, passed at this moment and observed his grace, whom he knew well by sight, from the other side of the way. He had, a short time before, attempted to address me when he met me walking alone, and inquired of me when I had last seen the Marquis of Lorne, with whom he had often observed me walking. I made him no answer. In a fit of frolic, as if everybody combined at this moment against the poor, dear, handsome Argyle, the Frenchman called, as loud as he could scream, from the other side of the way, "Ah! ah! oh! oh! vous voilà, monsieur le Comte Dromedaire," alluding thus to the duke's family name, as pronounced Camel. "Mais ou est donc madame la Comtesse?"

"D——d impudent rascal!" said Argyle, delighted to vent his growing rage on somebody, and started across the road after the poor thin old Frenchman, who might have now said his prayers had not his spider-legs served him better than his courage.

Fred Lamb was very angry with me for not laughing at this story; but the only feeling it excited in me was unmixed gratitude towards the duke for remembering me still, and for having borne all this ridicule for my sake.

The next day Julia returned my visit; and, before we parted, she had learned from my usual frankness every particular of my life, without leaving me one atom the wiser as to what related to herself. I disliked mystery so much that, but that I saw Julia's proceeded from the natural, extreme shyness of her disposition, I had by this time declined continuing her acquaintance. I decided however to try her another month, in order to give her time to become acquainted with me. She was certainly one of the best mannered women in England, not excepting even those of the very highest rank. Her handwriting and her style were both beautiful. She had the most delicately fair skin, and the prettiest arms, hands and feet, and the most graceful form, which could well be imagined; but her features were not regular, nor their expression particularly good. She struck me as a woman of very violent passions, combined with an extremely shy and reserved disposition.

Mr. Johnstone seldom made his appearance oftener than twice a week. He came across a retired field to her house, though he might have got there more conveniently by the roadway. I sometimes accompanied her, and we sat on a gate to watch his approach to this field. Their meetings were full of rapturous and romantic delight. In his absence she never received a single visitor, male or female, except myself; yet she always, when quite alone, dressed in the most studied and fashionable style.

There was something dramatic about Julia. I often surprised her, hanging over her harp so very gracefully, the room so perfumed, the rays of her lamp so soft, that I could scarcely believe this tout ensemble to be the effect of chance or habit. It appeared arranged for the purpose like a scene in a play. Yet who was it to affect? Julia never either received or expected company!

Everything went on as usual for another month or two; during which time Julia and I met every day, and she promised shortly to make me acquainted with her whole history. My finances were now sinking very low. Everything Lord Craven had given me, whether in money or valuables, I had freely parted with for my support. "Fred Lamb," I thought, "must know that these resources cannot last for ever; therefore I am determined not to speak to him on the subject."

I was lodging with a comical old widow, who had formerly been my sister Fanny's nurse when she was quite a child. This good lady, I believe, really did like me, and had already given me all the credit for board and lodging she could possibly afford. She now entered my room, and acquainted me that she actually had not another shilling, either to provide my dinner or her own.

"Necessity hath no law," thought I, my eyes brightening, and my determination being fixed in an instant. In ten minutes more the following letter was in the post-office, directed to the Marquis of Lorne.

"If you still desire my society, I will sup with you to-morrow evening, in your own house.

"Yours, ever affectionately,

"HARRIETTE."

I knew perfectly well that, on the evening I mentioned to his grace, Fred Lamb would be at his father's country house, Brockett Hall.

The Duke's answer was brought to me by his groom, as soon as he had received my letter; it ran thus:

"Are you really serious? I dare not believe it. Say, by my servant, that you will see me at the turnpike directly, for five minutes, only to put me out of suspense. I will not believe anything you write on this subject. I want to look at your eyes while I hear you say yes.

"Yours, most devotedly and impatiently,

"LORNE."

I went to our old place of rendezvous to meet the duke. How different, and how much more amiable, was his reception than that of Fred Lamb in Hull! The latter, all wild passion; the former, gentle, voluptuous, fearful of shocking or offending me, or frightening away my growing passion. In short, while the duke's manner was almost as timid as my own, the expression of his eyes and the very soft tone of his voice troubled my imagination, and made me fancy something of bliss beyond all reality.

We agreed that he should bring a carriage to the old turnpike, and thence conduct me to his house.

"If you should change your mind!" said the duke, returning a few steps after we had taken leave:—"Mais tu viendras, mon ange? Tu ne sera pas si cruelle?"

Argyle is the best Frenchman I have met with in England, and poor Tom Sheridan was the second best.

"And you," said I to Argyle, "suppose you were to break your appointment to-night?"

"Would you regret it?" Argyle inquired. "I won't have your answer while you are looking at those pretty little feet;" he continued. "Tell me, dear Harriette, should you be sorry?"

"Yes," said I, softly, and our eyes met, only for an instant. Lorne's gratitude was expressed merely by pressing my hand.

"A ce soir donc," said he, mounting his horse; and, waving his hand to me, he was soon out of sight.