Читать книгу The Greatest Regency Romance Novels - Maria Edgeworth - Страница 95

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Contains a brief recital of several very remarkable, and equally affecting, occurrences, of which the last-mentioned extraordinary adventure was productive, and which may justly enough be looked upon as yet more extraordinary than even the adventure itself

Mr. Munden, who was no less pleased and vain on the confidence his noble patron seemed to repose in him, than he was ambitious of the favours he hoped to receive from him, had been extremely diligent in the execution of that commission he had been entrusted with; but found much more difficulty in it than he could have imagined.

He was told at the bar of the Cocoa Tree, that the gentleman he inquired for had not been there since morning; that Sir John F—— had taken him home with him to dinner, and that in all probability they were still together.

Mr. Munden, on this, ordered the coachman to drive to Mark Lane, with all the speed he could; but had, on his coming there, the mortification to hear that Mr. W—— had left Sir John about a quarter of an hour before, and was gone to the other end of the town: on which he drove back to the Cocoa Tree, thinking he might now meet him there; but was again disappointed.

They informed him, however, that Mr. W—— had just called in, but staid no longer than to tell them he would be there again in half an hour. Mr. Munden was impatient at this delay, but could not think of returning to Lord —— without having done the business he was sent upon: he therefore sat down, and waited till the other came, which was somewhat sooner than the time he had been made to hope.

These gentlemen, though far from being intimately acquainted, were not altogether strangers, having frequently met at the levee of Lord ——. They now saluted each other with the utmost politeness; after which, Mr. Munden drawing him to the most retired part of the room, 'I have had a chase after you, Sir,' said he, 'for a good part of this afternoon, and which would have been impertinent in me, if not excuseable by my being under an indispensable obligation of seeing you.'

'Then, Sir,' replied the other, 'whatever the business be, I shall think myself happy in being found.'—'This, Sir, will inform you,' said Mr. Munden, giving him the letter. 'From Lord ——!' cried Mr. W——, as soon as he saw the superscription. 'It is so,' answered Mr. Munden; 'and I am heartily sorry for the occasion.'

Mr. W—— made no reply to what Mr. Munden said, till he had examined the contents of the letter; and then, after putting it into his pocket with a careless air, 'I see into the meaning of this,' said he: 'an ugly accident, which I have but lately discovered, has, I believe, misrepresented me to his lordship. Could I be capable of what he at present thinks I am, I should be utterly unworthy of the condescension he vouchsafes me by this invitation: but, Sir, all this is founded on a mistake, which may easily be rectified; I will not give his lordship the trouble of going to the Green Park; I will wait on him at his own house at the hour he mentions; and if what I have to say to him does not fully convince him of my innocence, will follow either to that, or any other place he pleases; though no consideration in the world, except his own commands, should compel me to draw my sword against a breast I so much love and reverence.'

Mr. Munden replied, that he should be extremely glad to find an affair, which at present seemed to threaten such fatal consequences, was amicably made up; and, after having assured him that he would deliver what he had said to his lordship in the most exact manner, was about to take his leave; but could not do it so soon as he desired, the other still detaining him by beginning some subject or other of conversation, which, how frivolous soever, Mr. Munden could not break off too suddenly, without incurring the censure of abruptness and ill-manners.

Lord —— in the mean time was in the utmost agitation; not for the return of Mr. Munden, for he very well knew the message he would bring, but that he had taken a great deal of pains to no purpose: the beauty of Mrs. Munden had inspired him with the most eager desire of enjoying her; the gaiety of her temper, joined to the temptations in his power to offer, had given him an almost assured hope of gaining her—and now, to find himself thus repulsed—repulsed with such disdain—left a surprize upon him which very much increased the shock of his disappointment.

Besides, as he doubted not but she would inform her husband of all that had passed between them, it gave the most mortal stab to that haughtiness too incident to opulence and grandeur, to reflect he had given a man, so much beneath him, an opportunity of triumphing over him in his mind.

He had not recovered his confusion, and was walking backwards and forwards in his drawing-room, with a disordered motion, when Mr. Munden returned; to whom he never spoke, nor looked upon. The satisfaction this gentleman had felt on finding the business of his embassy was like to terminate so happily, was very much damped at seeing himself received in this manner.

'I did not expect to find your lordship alone,' said Mr. Munden. 'I believe not,' replied he: 'but an unlucky accident at home deprived me of my cousin's company; and your wife, it seems, did not think herself safe with me.'

These last words, and the contemptuous tone in which they were expressed, put him into the extremest consternation: 'I hope, my lord,' cried he, 'that Mrs. Munden cannot have so far forgot herself as to have acted in any manner unbecoming of the respect due to your lordship.'—'Fine women will have their caprices,' resumed the peer: 'but no matter; let no more be said of it.'

Mr. Munden then proceeded to repeat what Mr. W—— had said to him; but his lordship took no notice, and seemed entirely unconcerned all the time he was speaking; till the other adding, that, if his lordship thought proper, he would attend him in the morning, in order to be at hand in case the event should require his presence, the peer replied peevishly, 'No, no; you need not come—I believe there will be no occasion; if there be, I can send for you.'

After this, Mr. Munden, easily perceiving his company was rather troublesome than agreeable, made a low obeisance, and withdrew, almost distracted in his mind at this sudden turn of temper in his patron, and no less impatient to hear what his wife had to say on that account.

It was not in one of the best of humours, as the reader may easily imagine, that he now came home; nor did he find Mrs. Munden in one very proper to alleviate his vexation. She was extremely pensive; and when he asked her, in somewhat of an imperious voice, the reason of having left Lord —— in so abrupt a manner—'When you,' said she, 'forsook the guardianship of my honour, it was time for me to take the defence of it upon myself; which I could do no other way than by flight.'

'What is it you mean?' cried he. 'I am certain my lord has too much friendship for me to offer any rudeness to you.'—'Be not too certain,' answered she, 'of the friendship of that base great man.' She then began to repeat the discourse with which his lordship had entertained her, after being left alone with him; but had gone through a very small part of it before her husband interrupted her, saying, with a kind of malicious sneer, that he was positive there was nothing at all in what she apprehended—that it was impossible for the noble lord to be in earnest when he talked to her in such terms—that she had been deceived by her own vanity, to mistake for a serious design upon her virtue what was only meant for mere gallantry; and then added, with more passion, that he feared her idle resentment had lost him all his interest with the best of friends.

'Good Heavens!' cried she, 'defend me, and all virtuous women, from such gallantries! But know, Sir,' continued she, with a great deal of vehemence, 'that, but for that idle resentment, as you are pleased to call it, my ruin and your dishonour would have been compleated by this best of friends.'

'How!' said Mr. Munden, eagerly; 'he did not, sure, proceed to action?' Perceiving he was now in a disposition to listen with more attention to what she said, than hitherto he had done, she hesitated not to acquaint him with every particular of his lordship's behaviour to her, and the means by which she had defended herself.

During this recital, Mr. Munden bit his lips, and appeared in very great emotions. He spoke not a word, however, till his fair wife, pitying the anxieties she saw him under, desired him to think no more of this accident, since it was so happily got over. 'It may be so in your opinion,' answered he fiercely; 'but not in mine. I foresee the consequences; though you, perhaps, think not of them. It is true, my lord's behaviour is not to be justified; nor can yours in regard to me be so: you ought to have considered the dependence I had on him, and not have carried things with so high an hand. You might have doubtless evaded this attempt by more gentle and less affrontive methods: but that cursed pride of yours must be gratified, though at the expence of all my expectations.' With these words he flung out of the room; and this was all the return she met with from her ungrateful husband, for having resisted, with such courage and resolution, temptations which some women would have thought themselves absolved for yielding to the force of.

Ill-natured and perverse as Mr. Munden was, it must be confessed that his present situation, nevertheless, merited some compassion: he had a great share of ambition—loved both pleasure and grandeur to an excess; and, though far from being of a generous disposition, the pride and vanity of his humour made him do many things, through ostentation, which his estate would not well support. He kept company with persons of rank and fortune much superior to his own; and, as he bore an equal part in their expences whenever he was with them, he stood in need of some addition to his revenue: well, therefore, might he be chagrined at an accident that cast so dark a cloud over that prospect of interest and preferment he had flattered himself with from Lord ——.

But though this was the main point, it was not the sole subject of his discontent. The motives for his being sent by Lord —— to Mr. W——, the pretended quarrel between them, and the trifling excuses made by the latter to detain him from making too quick a return, were all too obvious for him not to be assured that gentleman was privy to, and agreed to be an assistant in, the design his lordship had upon his wife.

Mr. W——, though the representative of a borough in C——, was, indeed, no more than a creature of Lord ——; to whose interest alone he was indebted for his seat in parliament: but it was not because Mr. Munden knew him to be obliged to do everything enjoined by his lordship, that restrained the resentment he conceived against him from breaking out, but because he considered that a quarrel between them on this score might occasion the affair to become publick, and expose both himself and wife to the ridicule of as many as should hear it.

Wrath, when enervate, especially if inflamed by any just provocation, is certainly very dreadful to be borne; and what this injured husband sustained in the first emotions of it, must have excited the pity of every reader of this history, if he had not afterwards meanly vented it where he had not the least occasion for disgust, but rather of the highest tenderness and admiration.

In the midst of these perplexities, however, let us leave him for a while, and return to her whose beauty had been the innocent cause of all this trouble to him, and danger to herself.

Wonderful, indeed, were the effects this last adventure produced in her. Many times before she had been on the very verge of ruin, and as often indebted merely to fortune for her preservation from the mischiefs into which her inadvertency had almost plunged her: but none of those dangers, those escapes, had ever been capable of making any lasting impression on her mind, or fixing her resolution to avoid running again into the same mistakes.

The cruel reproaches and reflections cast on her by Mr. Munden, filled her not now with the least resentment; for though she deserved them not upon the score he made them, yet she was conscious that she did so for going to the house of Lord ——, after having the strongest reasons to believe he had dishonourable intentions upon her.

She blushed to remember, that she had given herself leave to be pleased at the thoughts of appearing amiable in the eyes of that great man. 'Good God!' cried she, 'what infatuation possessed me! Am I not married? Is not all I am the property of Mr. Munden? Is it not highly criminal in any one to offer to invade his right? And can I be so wicked to take delight in the guilt to which I am in a manner accessary?

'The vanities of my virgin state,' continued she, 'might plead some excuse; but nothing now can be urged in my defence for persevering in them. The pride of subduing hearts is mine no more: no man can now pretend to love me but with the basest and most shameful views. The man who dares to tell me he adores me, contradicts himself by that very declaration; and while he would persuade me he has the highest opinion of me, discovers he has in reality the meanest.'

In fine, she now saw herself, and the errors of her past conduct, in their true light. 'How strange a creature have I been!' cried she; 'how inconsiderate with myself! I knew the character of a coquette both silly and insignificant; yet did every thing in my power to acquire it. I aimed to inspire awe and reverence in the men; yet, by my imprudence, emboldened them to the most unbecoming freedoms with me. I have sense enough to discern real merit in those who professed themselves my lovers; yet affected to treat most ill those in whom I found the greatest share of it. Nature has made me no fool; yet not one action of my life has given any proof of common reason.

'Even in the greatest and most serious affair of life—that of marriage,' added she with a deep sigh, 'have I not been governed wholly by caprice? I rejected Mr. Trueworth only because I thought I did not love him enough; yet gave my hand to Mr. Munden, whom, at that time, I did not love at all; and who has since, alas! taken little care to cultivate that affection I have laboured to feel for him.'

In summing up this charge against herself, she found that all her faults and her misfortunes had been owing either to an excess of vanity, a mistaken pride, or a false delicacy. The two former appeared now too contemptible in her eyes for her not to determine utterly to extirpate; but the latter she found less reason to correct, since it happened only in regard to Mr. Trueworth, and could never happen again, as both their marriages had put a total end to all tender communication between them.

This change in Mrs. Munden's humour, great and sudden as it was, did not, however, prove a transient one—every day, every hour, confirmed her in it; and if at any time her natural vivacity made her seem a little pleased on hearing her wit, her beauty, or any other perfection or accomplishment, too lavishly extolled, she presently checked herself for it; and assumed a look of reserve, which, though less haughty than she had sometimes put on upon different occasions, had not the less effect, and seldom failed to awe the flatterer into silence—a proof of which the reader will be immediately presented with.