Читать книгу The Greatest Regency Romance Novels - Maria Edgeworth - Страница 12

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Shews Miss Betsy in a new scene of life, and the frequent opportunities she had of putting in practice those lessons she was beginning to receive from her young instructress at the boarding-school

Though it is certainly necessary to inculcate into young girls all imaginable precaution in regard to their behaviour towards those of another sex, yet I know not if it is not an error to dwell too much upon that topick. Miss Betsy might, possibly, have sooner forgot the little artifices she had seen practised by Miss Forward, if her governess, by too strenuously endeavouring to convince her how unbecoming they were, had not reminded her of them: besides, the good old gentlewoman was far stricken in years; time had set his iron fingers on her cheeks, had left his cruel marks on every feature of her face, and she had little remains of having ever been capable of exciting those inclinations she so much condemned; so that what she said seemed to Miss Betsy as spoke out of envy, or to shew her authority, rather than the real dictates of truth.

I have often remarked, that reproofs from the old and ugly have much less efficacy than when given by persons less advanced in years, and who may be supposed not altogether past sensibility themselves of the gaieties they advise others to avoid.

Though all the old gentlewoman said, could not persuade Miss Betsy there was any harm in Miss Forward's behaviour towards young Sparkish, yet she had the complaisance to listen to her with all the attention the other could expect or desire from her.

She was, indeed, as yet too young to consider of the justice of the other's reasoning; and her future conduct shewed, also, she was not of a humour to give herself much pains in examining, or weighing in the balance of judgment, the merit of the arguments she heard urged, whether for or against any point whatsoever. She had a great deal of wit, but was too volative for reflection; and as a ship without sufficient ballast is tossed about at the pleasure of every wind that blows, so was she hurried through the ocean of life, just as each predominant passion directed.

But I will not anticipate that gratification which ought to be the reward of a long curiosity. The reader, if he has patience to go through the following pages, will see into the secret springs which set this fair machine in motion, and produced many actions which were ascribed, by the ill-judging and malicious world, to causes very different from the real ones.

All this, I say, will be revealed in time; but it would be as absurd in a writer to rush all at once into the catastrophe of the adventures he would relate, as it would be impracticable in a traveller to reach the end of a long journey, without sometimes stopping at the inns in his way to it. To proceed, therefore, gradually with my history.

The father of Miss Betsy was a very worthy, honest, and good-natured man, but somewhat too indolent; and, by depending too much on the fidelity of those he entrusted with the management of his affairs, had been for several years involved in a law-suit; and, to his misfortune, the aversion he had to business rendered him also incapable of extricating himself from it; and the decision was spun out to a much greater length than it need to have been, could he have been prevailed upon to have attended in person the several courts of justice the cause had been carried through by his more industrious adversary. The exorbitant bills, however, which his lawyers were continually drawing upon him, joining with the pressing remonstrances of his friends, at last rouzed him from that inactivity of mind which had already cost him so dear, and determined him not only to take a journey to London, but likewise not to return home, till he had seen a final end put to this perplexing affair.

Before his departure, he went to the boarding-school, to take his leave of his beloved Betsy, and renew the charge he had frequently given the governess concerning her education; adding, in a mournful accent, that it would be a long time before he saw her again.

These words, as it proved, had somewhat of prophetick in them. On his arrival in London, he found his cause in so perplexed and entangled a situation, as gave him little hopes of ever bringing it to a favourable issue. The vexation and fatigue he underwent on this account, joined with the closeness of the town air, which had never agreed with his constitution even in his younger years, soon threw him into that sort of consumption which goes by the name of a galloping one, and, they say, is the most difficult of any to be removed. He died in about three months, without being able to do any great matters concerning the affair which had drawn him from his peaceful home, and according to all probability hastened his fate. Being perfectly sensible, and convinced of his approaching dissolution, he made his will, bequeathing the bulk of his estate to him whose right it was, (his eldest son) then upon his travels through the greatest part of Europe; all his personals, which were very considerable in the Bank, and other public funds, he ordered should be equally divided between Francis his second son, (at that time a student at Oxford) and Miss Betsy; constituting, at the same time, as trustees to the said testament, Sir Ralph Trusty, his near neighbour in the country, and Mr. Goodman, a wealthy merchant in the city of London; both of them gentlemen of unquestionable integrity, and with whom he had preserved a long and uninterrupted friendship.

On the arrival of this melancholy news, Miss Betsy felt as much grief as it was possible for a heart so young and gay as hers to be capable of; but a little time, for the most part, serves to obliterate the memory of misfortunes of this nature, even in persons of a riper age; and had Miss Betsy been more afflicted than she was, something happened soon after which would have very much contributed to her consolation.

Mr. Goodman having lived without marrying till he had reached an age which one should have imagined would have prevented him from thinking of it at all, at last took it into his head to become a husband. The person he made choice of was called Lady Mellasin, relict of a baronet, who having little or no estate, had accepted of a small employment about the court, in which post he died, leaving her ladyship one daughter, named Flora, in a very destitute condition. Goodman, however, had wealth enough for both, and consulted no other interest than that of his heart.

As for the lady, the motive on which she had consented to be his wife may easily be guessed; and when once made so, gained such an absolute ascendancy over him, that whatever she declared as her will, with him had the force of a law. She had an aversion to the city; he immediately took a house of her chusing at St. James's, inconvenient as it was for his business. Whatever servants she disapproved, though of ever so long standing, and of the most approved fidelity, were discharged, and others, more agreeable to her, put in their places. In fine, nothing she desired was denied; he considered her as an oracle of wit and wisdom, and thought it would be an unpardonable arrogance to attempt to set his reason against hers.

This lady was no sooner informed of the trust imposed in him, than she told him, she thought it would be highly proper for Miss Betsy to be sent for from the school, and boarded with them, not only as her daughter would be a fine companion for that young orphan, they being much of the same age, and she herself was more capable of improving her mind than any governess of a school could be supposed to be; but that, also, having her under her own eye, he would be more able to discharge his duty towards her as a guardian, than if she were at the distance of near an hundred miles.

There was something in this proposal which had, indeed, the face of a great deal of good-nature and consideration for Miss Betsy, at least it seemed highly so to Mr. Goodman; but as Sir Ralph Trusty was joined with him in the guardianship of that young beauty, and was at that time in London, he thought it proper to consult him on the occasion; which having done, and finding no objection on the part of the other, Lady Mellasin, to shew her great complaisance to the daughter of her husband's deceased friend, sent her own woman to bring her from the boarding-school, and attend her up to London.

Miss Betsy had never seen this great metropolis; but had heard so much of the gay manner in which the genteel part of the world passed their time in it, that she was quite transported at being told she was to be removed thither. Mrs. Prinks (for so Lady Mellasin's woman was called) did not fail to heighten her ideas of the pleasures of the place to which she was going, nor to magnify the goodness of her lady, in taking her under her care, with the most extravagant encomiums: it is not, therefore, to be wondered at, that neither the tears of the good governess, who truly loved her, nor those of her dear Miss Forward, nor of any of those she left behind, could give her any more than a momentary regret to a heart so possessed with the expectations of going to receive every thing with which youth is liable to be enchanted. She promised, however, to keep up a correspondence by letters; which she did, till things, that seemed to her of much more importance, put her L——e acquaintance entirely out of her head.

She was met at the inn where the stage put up, by Mr. Goodman, in his own coach, accompanied by Miss Flora: the good old gentleman embraced her with the utmost tenderness, and assured her that nothing in his power, or in that of his family, would be wanting to compensate, as much as possible, the loss she had sustained by the death of her parents. The young lady also said many obliging things to her; and they seemed highly taken with each other at this first interview, which gave the honest heart of Goodman an infinite satisfaction.

The reception given her by Lady Mellasin, when brought home, and presented to her by her husband, was conformable to what Mrs. Prinks had made her expect; that lady omitting nothing to make her certain of being always treated by her with the same affection as her own daughter.

Sir Ralph Trusty, on being informed his young charge was come to town, came the next day to Mr. Goodman's to visit her: his lady accompanied him. There had been a great intimacy and friendship between her and the mother of Miss Betsy, and she could not hold in her arms the child of a person so dear to her without letting fall some tears, which were looked upon by the company as the tribute due to the memory of the dead. The conjecture, in part, might be true, but the flow proceeded from the mixture of another motive, not suspected—that of compassion for the living. This lady was a woman of great prudence, piety, and virtue: she had heard many things relating to the conduct of Lady Mellasin, which made her think her a very unfit person to have the care of youth, especially those of her own sex. She had been extremely troubled when Sir Ralph told her that Miss Betsy was sent for from the country to live under such tuition, and would have fain opposed it, could she have done so without danger of creating a misunderstanding between him and Mr. Goodman, well knowing the bigotted respect the latter had for his wife, and how unwilling he would be to do any thing that had the least tendency to thwart her inclinations. She communicated her sentiments, however, on this occasion, to no person in the world, not even to her own husband; but resolved, within herself, to take all the opportunities that fell in her way, of giving Miss Betsy such instructions as she thought necessary for her behaviour in general, and especially towards the family in which it was her lot to be placed.

Miss Betsy was now just entering into her fourteenth year, a nice and delicate time in persons of her sex; since it is then they are most apt to take the bent of impression, which, according as it is well or ill directed, makes or mars the future prospect of their lives. She was tall, well-shaped, and perfectly amiable, without being what is called a compleat beauty; and as she wanted nothing to render her liable to the greatest temptations, so she stood in need of the surest arms for her defence against them.

But while this worthy lady was full of cares for the well doing of a young creature who appeared so deserving of regard, Miss Betsy thought she had the highest reason to be satisfied with her situation; and how, indeed, could it be otherwise? Lady Mellasin kept a great deal of company; she received visits every morning, from ten to one o'clock, from the most gay and polite of both sexes; all the news of the town was talked on at her levee, and it seldom happened that some party of pleasure was not formed for the ensuing evening, in all which Miss Betsy and Miss Flora had their share.

Never did the mistress of a private family indulge herself, and those about her, with such a continual round of publick diversions! The court, the play, the ball, and opera, with giving and receiving visits, engrossed all the time that could be spared from the toilette. It cannot, therefore, seem strange that Miss Betsy, to whom all these things were entirely new, should have her head turned with the promiscuous enjoyment, and the very power of reflection lost amidst the giddy whirl; nor that it should be so long before she could recover it enough to see the little true felicity of such a course of life.

Among the many topicks with which this brilliant society entertained each other, it may easily be supposed that love and gallantry were not excluded. Lady Mellasin, though turned of forty, had her fine things said to her; but both heaven and earth were ransacked for comparisons in favour of the beauty of Miss Flora and Miss Betsy: but as there was nothing particular in these kind of addresses, intended only to shew the wit of those who made them, these young ladies answered them only with raillery, in which art Miss Betsy soon learned to excel. She had the glory, however, of being the first who excited a real passion in the heart of any of those who visited Lady Mellasin; though, being accustomed to hear declarations which had the appearance of love, yet were really no more than words of course, and made indiscriminately to every fine woman, she would not presently persuade herself that this was more serious.

The first victim of her charms was the only son of a very rich alderman; and having a fortune left him by a relation, independent of his father, who was the greatest miser in the world, he was furnished with the means of mingling with the beau monde, and of making one at every diversion that was proposed.

He had fancied Miss Flora a mighty fine creature, before he saw Miss Betsy; but the imaginary flame he had for her was soon converted into a sincere one for the other. He truly loved her, and was almost distracted at the little credit she gave to his professions. His perseverance, his tremblings whenever he approached her, his transports on seeing her, his anxieties at taking leave, so different from what she had observed in any other of those who had pretended to lift themselves under the banner of her charms, at length convincing her of the conquest she had made, awakened in her breast that vanity so natural to a youthful mind. She exulted, she plumed herself, she used him ill and well by turns, taking an equal pleasure in raising or depressing his hopes; and, in spite of her good-nature, felt no satisfaction superior to that of the consciousness of a power of giving pain to the man who loved her: but with how great a mortification this short-lived triumph was succeeded, the reader shall presently be made sensible.