Читать книгу The Greatest Regency Romance Novels - Maria Edgeworth - Страница 61

Table of Contents

Has somewhat more business in it than the former

Though Miss Betsy was very conscious of the merits of Mr. Trueworth, and equally convinced of the friendship her brother Francis had for him, and had, therefore, doubted not but, when that young gentleman should arrive, he would reason strongly with her on the little regard she had paid to his recommendations, or the advantages of the alliance he had proposed; yet she did not expect the satisfaction of their first meeting would have been embittered by a resentment such as, it seemed to her, he had testified on the occasion.

She easily perceived the two brothers had consulted together, before they come to her, in what manner they should behave towards her; and this she looked upon as a sort of proof, that they intended to assume an authority over her, to which they had no claim. 'The love I have for them,' said she to herself, 'will always make me take a pleasure in obliging them, and doing every thing they desire of me; but they are entirely mistaken, if they imagine it in their power to awe me into compliance with their injunctions.

'And yet,' cried she again, 'what other aim than my happiness and interest can they propose to themselves, in desiring to have me under their direction? Poor Frank has given me proofs that I am very dear to him; and, I believe, my brother Thoughtless is not wanting in natural affection for me: why, then, should I reject the counsel of two friends, whose sincerity there is not a possibility of suspecting? They know their sex, and the dangers to which ours are exposed, by the artifices of base designing men. I have had some escapes, which I ought always to remember enough to keep me from falling into the like ugly accidents again. How near was I to everlasting ruin, by slighting the warning given me by Mr. Trueworth!'

This reflection bringing into her mind many passages of her behaviour towards that gentleman, she could not forbear justifying his conduct, and condemning her own. 'I have certainly used him ill,' pursued she, with a sigh; 'and if he should return, and forgive what is past, I think I ought, in gratitude, to reward his love!'

She was in this contemplating mood when her servant told her that Mrs. Modely had been to wait upon her; but, on hearing her brothers were with her, went away, saying she would come again; which she now was, and begged to speak with her.

Miss Betsy was at this moment just beginning to feel some sort of pleasure in the idea of Mr. Trueworth's renewing his addresses, and was a little peevish at the interruption: she ordered, however, that the woman should come up. 'Well, Mrs. Modely,' said she, as soon as she saw her enter, 'what stuff have you brought me now?'

'Ah, charming Miss Betsy,' replied she, 'you fine ladies and great fortunes think you may do any thing with the men. Poor Sir Frederick will break his heart, or run mad, that's to be sure, if you don't send him a favourable answer to this letter.' In speaking these words, she delivered a letter to Miss Betsy; which that young lady opened with a careless air, and it contained these high-flown lines.

'This humbly to be presented to the most beautiful of all beauties, the super-excellent Miss Betsy Thoughtless.

Adorable creature,

I am grieved to the very soul to hear you have any subject for affliction; but am very certain that, in being deprived of your divine presence, I endure a more mortal stab than any loss you have sustained can possibly inflict. I am consumed with the fire of my passion; I have taken neither repose nor food since first I saw you. I have lived only on the idea of your charms. Oh, nourish me with the substance! Hide me in your bosom from the foul fiend Despair, that is just ready to lay hold on me!

The passion I am possessed of for you is not like that of other men. I cannot wait the tedious forms of courtship: there is no medium between death and the enjoyment of you—the circle of your arms, or a cold leaden shroud—the one or the other must very shortly be my portion. But I depend upon the heaven of your mercy, and hope you will permit me to pour forth the abundance of my soul before you—to bask in the sunshine of your smiles; and to try, at least, if no spark of that amorous flame, which burns me up, has darted upon you, and kindled you into soft desires.

O, if any part of my impatient fires, by secret sympathy, should happily have reached your breast, never was there a pair so transcendently blest as we should be! The thought is rapture! Extasy too big for words—too mighty for description! And I must, therefore, for a few hours, defer any farther endeavours to convince you; till when I remain, absorbed in the delightful image, dear quintessence of joy, your most devoted, most obsequious, and most adoring vassal,

F. Fineer.'

In spite of the serious humour Miss Betsy was in, she could not read this without bursting into a violent fit of laughter; but soon composing herself, 'If I had not seen the author of this epistle,' said she to Mrs. Modely, 'I should have thought it had been sent me by some school-boy, and was the first essay of describing a passion he had heard talked of, and was ambitious of being supposed capable of feeling. But, sure,' continued she, 'the man must be either mad, or most impudently vain, to write to me as if he imagined I was in love with him, and would have him on his first putting the question to me.'

'Ah, my dear Madam!' said Mrs. Modely, 'do you consider that a young gentleman of ten thousand a year in possession, as much more in reversion, and the expectation of a coronet, is not apt to think he may have any body?'—'If he does, he may find himself mistaken,' replied Miss Betsy haughtily; and then in the same breath softening her voice, 'But are you sure,' cried she, 'that he has so much?'—'Sure, Madam!' said Mrs. Modely, 'Aye, as sure that I am alive! I have heard it from twenty people. They say he has a house in the country as big as a town, and above fifty servants in it; though he is but just come to London, and has not had time to settle his equipage as yet: but he has bespoke the finest coach, and the genteelest chariot, you ever saw; all in a new taste, and perfectly French; they are quite finished, all but the painting, and that only waits till he knows whether he may quarter your arms or not.'

'Bless me!' cried Miss Betsy, 'does he think to gain me in the time of painting a coach?'—'Nay, I don't know,' answered Mrs. Modely; 'but I think such an offer is not to be trifled with. He is violently in love with you, that is certain: he does not desire a penny of your fortune, and will settle upon you, notwithstanding, his whole estate, if you require it.'

Miss Betsy made no answer, but paused for a considerable time, and seemed, as it were, in a profound reverie. At last, coming out of it, 'He is for doing things in such a hurry,' said she; 'I have seen him no more than once, and scarce know what sort of a person he is: how, then, can I tell you whether I ever shall be able to bring myself to like him or not?'

'You may give him leave to wait on you, however,' cried the other. Here Miss Betsy was again silent for some moments; but Mrs. Modely repeating her request, and enforcing it with some arguments, 'Well, then,' replied she, 'I shall not go to church this afternoon, and will see him if he comes. But, dear Modely,' continued she, 'don't let him assume on the permission I give him: tell him you had all the difficulty in the world to prevail on me to do it; for, in my mind, he already hopes too much, and fears too little, for a man so prodigiously in love.' Mrs. Modely on this assured her, she might trust to her management; and took her leave, very well pleased with the success of her negociation.

We often see the love of grandeur prevail over persons of the ripest years and knowledge. What guilty lengths have not some men run to attain it, even among those who have been esteemed the wisest and most honest of their time; when once a title, a bit of ribband cross their shoulder, or any other gew-gaw trophy of the favour of a court, has been hung out, how has their virtue veered and yielded to the temptation? It is not, therefore, to be wondered at, that a young heart, unexperienced in the fallacy of shew, should be dazzled with the tinsel glitter: the good sense of Miss Betsy made her see, that this last triumph of her charms was a vain, silly, and affected coxcomb; but then this coxcomb had a vast estate, and the enchanting ideas of the figure she should make, if in possession of it, in some measure out-balanced the contempt she had of the owner's person and understanding.

The glare of pomp and equipage, the pleasure of having it in her power of taking the upper-hand of those of her own rank, and of vying with those of a more exalted one, it is certain had very potent charms for her, but then there was a delicacy in her nature, that would not suffer the desire of attaining it to be altogether predominant: the thoughts of being sacrificed to a man for whom it was impossible for her to have either love or esteem; to be obliged to yield that, through duty, which inclinations shuddered at, struck a sudden damp to all the rising fires of pride and ambition in her soul, and convinced her, that greatness would be too dearly purchased at the expence of peace.

In fine, she considered on these things so long, that she grew weary of considering at all; so resolved to let the matter rest, give herself no farther pain, leave to chance the disposal of her fate, and treat all her lovers, as she hitherto had done, only as subjects of mere amusement.

She was now beginning to please herself with thoughts of how Mr. Munden, whom she expected that evening, would behave at the sight of his new rival, and how Sir Frederick Fineer would bear the preference of a man whom she was resolved to shew him had the same pretensions as himself: but though she happened to be disappointed in her expectation in this, she did not want other sufficient matter for her diversion.

Sir Frederick, to shew the impatience of his passion, came very soon after dinner: she received him with as grave an air as she could possibly put on; but it was not in her power, nor indeed would have been in any one else's, to continue it for any long time; his conversation was much of a piece with his letters, and his actions even more extravagant.

Never was such an Orlando Furioso in love: on his first approach, he had indeed the boldness to take one of her hands, and put it to his mouth; but, afterwards, whatever he said to her was on his knees. He threw himself prostrate on the carpet before her, grasped her feet, and tenderly kissed each shoe, with the same vehemence as he could have done her lips, and as much devotion as the pilgrims at Rome do the pantofle of his holiness!—'Darts!—Flames!—Immortal joys!—Death!—Despair!—Heaven!—Hell!—Ever-during woe!'—and all the epithets in the whole vocabulary of Cupid's legend, begun and ended every sentence of his discourse. This way of entertaining her was so extraordinary, and so new to her, that she could not forbear sometimes returning it with a smile; which, in spite of her endeavours to preserve a serious deportment, diffused a gaiety through all her air.

Those who had told Sir Frederick, that the way to please this lady, was to soothe her vanity, either knew not, or had forgot to inform him, she had also an equal share of good sense; so that, mistaking the change he had observed in her looks for an indication of her being charmed with his manner of behaviour, he acted and re-acted over all his fopperies, and felt as much secret pride in repeating them, as a celebrated singer on the stage does in obeying the voice of an encore.

It is probable, however, that he would have continued in them long enough to have tired Miss Betsy so much as to have made her give him some demonstrative remark that the pleasantry he had seen her in, proceeded rather from derision than satisfaction, if, divine service being ended, some ladies, as they came from church, had not called to visit her. The sound of company coming up stairs, obliged him to break off in the middle of a rhapsody, which he, doubtless, thought very fine; and he took his leave somewhat hastily, telling her, the passion with which he was inflamed, was too fierce to be restrained within those bounds which she might expect before witnesses, and that he would wait on her the next day, when he hoped she would be at more liberty to receive his vows.

Eased of the constraint which decency, and the respect which she thought due to his quality, had laid her under while he was there, her natural sprightliness burst with double force. Mr. Munden, who came in soon after, felt the effects of it: he, indeed, enjoyed a benefit he little dreamt of. The absurd conversation of a rival he as yet knew nothing of, served to make all he said sound more agreeable than ever in the ears of his mistress: in this excess of good-humour, she not only made a handsome apology for the treatment he had received at Mrs. Modely's, (a thing she had never before vouchsafed to do to any of her lovers) but also gave him an invitation to squire her to a country dancing, in which she had engaged to make one the ensuing night.