Читать книгу The Greatest Regency Romance Novels - Maria Edgeworth - Страница 69

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Is very well deserving the attention of all those who are about to marry

While Miss Flora was buoyed up with the expectation that her mother would soon be reconciled with Mr. Goodman, she abated not of her former gaiety, and thought of nothing but indulging her amorous inclinations with the man she liked: but when once those expectations ceased, her spirits began to fail; she now found it necessary, for her interest as well as pleasure, to preserve, if possible, the affection of her lover; she knew not what dreadful consequences the prosecution Mr. Goodman was about to exhibit against her mother, might be attended with, and trembled to think she must share with her the double load of infamy and penury; and rightly judged, that a man of Mr. Trueworth's fortune, honour, and good-nature, would not suffer a woman, with whom he continued a tender communication, to be oppressed with any ills his purse could relieve her from. The apprehensions, therefore, that she might one day be reduced to stand in need of his support, assisted the real passion she had for him, and made her feel, on the first appearance of his growing coldness towards her, all those horrors, those distractions, which her letters to him had so lively represented.

On his ceasing to make any fixed appointment with her, and from seeing her every day, to seeing her once in three or four days, gave her, with reason, the most terrible alarms; but when, after an absence of near a week, she had followed him to the coffee-house, the cool and indifferent reception she there met with, gave, indeed, a mortal stab to all her hopes; and she longer hesitated to pronounce her own doom, and cry out, she was undone.

The excuse he made of business was too weak—too trite—too common-place—to gain any credit with her, or alleviate her sorrows; she knew the world too well to imagine a gay young gentleman, like him, would forego whatever he thought a pleasure for any business he could possibly have: she doubted not but there was a woman in the case; and the thoughts that, while she was in vain expecting him, he was soliciting those favours from a rival she had so lavishly bestowed and languished to repeat, fired her jealous brain, even to a degree of frenzy.

Awhile she raved with all the wild despair of ill-requited burning love: but other emotions soon rose in her distracted bosom, not to control, but add fresh fuel to the flame already kindled there. 'My circumstances!' cried she, 'my wretched circumstances!—What will become of me? Involved in my mother's shame, he will, perhaps, make that a pretence for abandoning me to those misfortunes I thought I might have depended on him to relieve.'

However, as the little billet, in answer to her last letter to him, contained a promise that he would write to her the next day, she endeavoured, as much as she was able, to compose herself till that time, though she was far from hoping the explanation she expected to receive in it would afford any consolation to her tormented mind.

Mr. Trueworth also, in the mean time, was not without his own anxieties: a man of honour frequently finds more difficulty in getting rid of a woman he is weary of, and loves him, than obtaining a woman he loves and is in pursuit of; but this gentleman had a more than ordinary perplexity to struggle through. Few women would go the lengths Miss Flora had done for the accomplishment of her desires; and he easily saw, by the whole tenor of her behaviour, she would go as great, and even more, to continue the enjoyment of them.

Glad would he have been to have brought her by degrees to an indifference for him; to have prevailed on her to submit her passion to the government of her reason, and to be convinced that an amour, such as theirs had been, ought to be looked upon only as a transient pleasure; to be continued while mutual inclination and convenience permitted, and, when broke off, remembered but as a dream.

But this he found was not to be done with a woman of Miss Flora's temper; he therefore thought it best not to keep her any longer in suspense, but let her know at once the revolution in her fate, as to that point which regarded him, and the true motive which had occasioned it; which he accordingly did in these terms.

'To Miss Flora Mellasin.

Madam,

It is with very great difficulty I employ my pen to tell you it is wholly inconvenient for us ever to meet again in the manner we have lately done; but I flatter myself you have too much good-sense, and too much honour, not to forgive what all laws, both human and divine, oblige me to. I am entering into a state which utterly forbids the continuance of those gallantries which before pleaded their excuse: in fine, I am going to be married; and it would be the highest injustice in me to expect that fidelity which alone can make me happy in a wife, if my own conduct did not set her an example.

Though I must cease to languish for a repetition of those favours you blessed me with, yet be assured I shall always remember them with gratitude, and the best good wishes for the prosperity of the fair bestower.

I send you back all the testimonies I have received of your tenderness that are in my power to return: it belongs to yourself to make use of your utmost endeavours for the recovery of the heart which dictated them. This I earnestly intreat of you; and in the hope that you will soon accomplish a work so absolutely necessary for your peace and reputation, I remain, as far as honour will permit, Madam, your most obliged, and most humble servant,

C. Trueworth.'

Mr. Trueworth flattered himself that so plain a declaration of his sentiments and intentions would put a total end to all future correspondence between them; and, having looked it over, after he had finished, and found it such as he thought proper for the purpose, put it under a cover, with all the letters he had received from Miss Flora, not excepting the first invitation she had made him, under the tide of the 'Incognita,' and sent away the packet by a porter; for he had never intrusted the servants with the conveyance of any epistle from him to that lady.

Miss Flora, from the moment her eyes were open in the morning, (if it can be supposed she had any sleep that night) had been watching, with the most racking impatience, for the arrival of Mr. Trueworth's messenger. She wished, but dreaded more, the eclaircissement which she expected would be contained in the mandate he had promised to send; yet was distracted for the certainty, how cruel soever it might prove.

At length it came, and with it a confirmation of even worse than the most terrible of her apprehensions had suggested. The sight of her own letters, on her opening it, almost threw her into a swoon; but, when her streaming eyes had greedily devoured the contents of the billet that accompanied them, excess of desperation struck her for some moments stupid, and rendered her mind inactive as her frame.

But, when awakened from this lethargy of silent grief, she felt all the horrors of a fate she had so much dreaded. Frustrated at once in every hope that love or interest had presented to her, words cannot paint the wildness of her fancy; she tore her hair and garments, and scarce spared that face she had taken so much pains to ornament, for wanting charms to secure the conquest it had gained.

But with the more violence these tourbillions of the mind rage for a while, the sooner they subside, and all is hushed again; as I remember to have somewhere read—

'After a tempest, when the winds are laid,

The calm sea wonders at the wreck it made.'

So this unhappy and abandoned creature, too much deserving of the fate she met with, having exhausted her whole stock of tears, and wasted all the breath that life could spare in fruitless exclamations, the passions which had raised these commotions in her soul became more weak, and the beguiler Hope once more returned, to lull her wearied spirits into a short-lived ease.

She now saw the folly of venting her rage upon herself—that to give way to grief and despair would avail her nothing, but only serve to render her more miserable—that, instead of sitting tamely down, and meanly lamenting her misfortune in the loss of a lover, on whom she had built so much, she ought rather to exert all the courage, resolution, and artifice, she was mistress of, in contriving some way of preventing it, if possible.

'He is not yet married!' said she—'the irrevocable words are not yet past! I have already broke off his courtship to one woman—why may I not be as successful in doing so with another? He cannot love the present engrosser of his heart more than he did Miss Betsy Thoughtless! It is worth, at least, the pains of an attempt!'

The first step she had to take towards the execution of her design, was to find out the name, condition, and dwelling, of her happy rival; and this, she thought, there would be no great difficulty in doing, as she doubted not but Mr. Trueworth visited her every day, and it would be easy for her to employ a person to watch where he went, and afterwards to make the proper enquiries.

But, in the mean time, it required some consideration how to behave to that gentleman, so as to preserve in him some sort of esteem for her, without which, she rightly judged, it would be impossible for her ever to recover his love, in case she should be so fortunate as to separate him from the present object of his flame.

She knew very well, that all testimonies of despair in a woman no longer loved, only create uneasiness in the man who occasioned it, and but serve to make him more heartily wish to get rid of her; she, therefore, found it best, as it certainly was, to pretend to fall in with Mr. Trueworth's way of thinking—seem to be convinced by his reasons, and ready to submit to whatever suited with his interest or convenience. It was some time before she could bring herself into a fit temper for this sort of dissimulation; but she at last arrived at it, and gave a proof how great a proficient she was in it by the following lines.

'To Charles Trueworth, Esq.

Dear Sir,

I am apt to believe you as little expected as desired an answer to the eclaircissement of yesterday; nor would I have given you the trouble of this, but to assure you it shall be the last of any kind you ever shall receive from me. Yes, I have now done with reproaches and complaints. I have nothing to alledge against you—nothing to accuse you of. Could the fond folly of my tender passion have given me leisure for a moment's reflection, I had forseen that the misfortune which is now fallen upon me was inevitable. I am now convinced that I ought not to have hoped that the unbounded happiness I so lately enjoyed, could be of any long duration—that a man of your fortune and figure in the world must one day marry—names and families must be supported; and yours is too considerable for you to suffer it to be extinct. I must not, I will not, therefore, repine at a thing which, in my cooler moments, I cannot but look upon as essential to your honour and convenience. Had you quitted me on any other score, I cannot answer but I might have been hurried into extravagancies displeasing to you, and unbecoming of myself: but here I must resign; and am determined to do so with the same patience, in shew at least, as if I had never loved. I will not tell you the agonies I have sustained in the cruel conflict between my reason and my passion, in making this resolution: it is sufficient for you to know that the former has the victory. More might too much affect your generous nature; besides, when woes are remediless, they are best borne in silence.

Farewel!-Oh, farewel for ever! May you find every thing in the happy she you make your choice of to give you lasting bliss! and, to compleat all, may she love you with the same ardency, tenderness, and disinterestedness, as her who must now only subscribe herself, at an eternal distance, dear, dear Sir, your most faithful friend, and humble servant,

F. Mellasin.'

This letter, which, it must be confessed, was wrote artfully enough, had all the effect it was intended for on the mind of Mr. Trueworth. It not only afforded him an infinity of contentment, as he hoped she would soon be enabled to banish all those disturbed emotions which naturally attend the breaking off an acquaintance such as theirs had been, but it also established in him a very high idea of her good understanding, disinterested affection, honour, and sincerity: but how long he continued in this favourable opinion as to the three last-mentioned qualifications, will hereafter be shewn.

In the mean time, something happened which, as he was a man just even to the extremest nicety, gave him, according to his way of thinking, a great deal of reason to reproach himself.