The arrival of the picture itself might have explained all that related to it, had De Courcy chosen to have it so explained. But he turned his eye from the unpleasing sight, and sheltered his hopes by a hundred treasured instances of love which had scarcely any existence but in his fancy.
His efforts to be cheerful were however less successful, after Laura, in a few melancholy lines, informed Miss De Courcy that Montreville's increased illness made their return to Scotland moreuncertain than ever. He imagined his dear Laura the solitary attendant of a sickbed; no kind voice to comfort, no friendly face to cheer her; perhaps in poverty, that poverty increased too by the artifice which he had used to lessen it. He grew anxious, comfortless, and at length really miserable. Every day the arrival of the letters was looked for with extreme solicitude in hope of more cheering news; but every day brought disappointment, for Laura wrote no more. His mother shared in his anxiety, and increased it by expressing her own. She feared that Miss Montreville was ill, and unable to write; and the image of Laura among strangers, sick and in poverty, obliterated Montague's prudent resolutions of trusting himself no more in the presence of his beloved. He set out for London, and arrived at the door of Laura's lodgings about an hour after she had quitted them.
Mrs Stubbs, of whom he made personal inquiries, was abundantly communicative. She gave him, as far as it was known to her, a full history of Laura's adventures since he had seen her; and, where she was deficient in facts, supplied the blank by conjecture. With emotion indescribable, he listened to a coarse account of Miss Montreville's wants and labours. 'How could you suffer all this?' cried he, indignantly, when he was able to speak. 'Times are hard, Sir,' returned Mrs Stubbs, the jolly purple deepening in her cheeks. 'Besides, Miss Montreville had always such an air with her, that I could not for my very heart have asked her to take pot-luck with us.'
The colour faded from De Courcy's face as Mrs Stubbs proceeded to relate the constant visits of Hargrave. 'I'll warrant,' said she, growing familiar as she perceived that she excited interest, 'I'll warrant he did not come here so often for nothing. People must have ears, and use them too; and I heard him myself swearing to her one day, that he loved her better than his life, or something to that purpose; and that, if she would live with him, he would make her dreams pleasant, or some such stuff as that; and now, as sure as can be, she has taken him at his word, and gone to him.'
'Peace, woman!' cried De Courcy, in a tone which he had never used to any of the sex, 'how dare you—?'
Mrs Stubbs, who had all that want of nerve which characterizes vulgar arrogance, instantly shrunk into her shell. 'No offence, Sir,' said she. 'It's all mere guess-work with me; only she does not know a creature in London, and she had nothing to carry her out of it; for she had just seven shillings in her pocket. I gave her seventeen andsixpence of change this morning, and she gave half-a-guinea of that to the kitchen-maid. Now it stands to reason, she would not have been so ready parting with her money if she had not known where more was to be had.'
De Courcy, shocked and disgusted, turned from her in displeasure; and finding that nothing was to be learnt from her of the place of Laura's retreat, betook himself to the print-shop, where he remembered that he had first procured Miss Montreville's address. Mr Wilkins declared his ignorance on the subject of Montague's inquiries; but, seeing the look of disappointment with which De Courcy was leaving the shop, good-naturedly said, 'I dare say, Sir, if you wish to find out where Miss Montreville lives, I could let you know by asking Colonel Hargrave. He comes here sometimes to look at the caricatures. And,' added Mr Wilkins, winking significantly, 'I am mistaken if they are not very well acquainted.'
De Courcy's heart rose to his mouth. 'Perhaps so,' said he, scarcely conscious of what he said. 'There was a famous scene between them here about three weeks ago,' proceeded the print-seller, anxious to justify his own sagacity. 'I suppose they had not met for a while, and there such a kissing and embracing'—''Tis false!' cried De Courcy, lightning flashing from his eyes, 'Miss Montreville would have brooked such indignities from no man on earth.' 'Nay,' said Wilkins, shrugging up his shoulders, 'the shop-lads saw it as well as I—she fainted away in his arms, and he carried her into the back-room there, and would not suffer one of us to come near her; and Mr Finch there saw him down on his knees to her.' 'Cease your vile slanders,' cried De Courcy, half-distracted with grief and indignation, 'I abhor—I despise them. But at your peril dare to breathe them into any other ear.' So saying, he darted from the shop, and returned to his hotel, infinitely more wretched than ever he had been.
The happy dream was dispelled that painted him the master of Laura's affections. Another possessed her love; and how visible, how indelicately glaring, must be the preference that was apparent to every vulgar eye! But, bitter as was his disappointment, and cruel the pangs of jealousy, they were ease compared to the torture with which he admitted a thought derogatory to Laura's worth. A thousand times he reproached himself for suffering the hints and conjectures of a lowbred woman to affect his mind;—a thousand times assured himself, that no poverty, no difficulties, would overpower the integrity of Laura. 'Yet Hargrave is a libertine,' said he, 'and if she can love alibertine, how have I been deceived in her! No! it cannot be!—She is all truth—all purity. It is she that is deceived. He has imposed upon her by a false show of virtue, and misery awaits her detection of his deceit. She gone to him! I will never believe it. Libertine as he is, he dared not but to think of it. Extremity of want—lingering famine would not degrade her to this,'—and tears filled De Courcy's manly eyes at the thought that Laura was indeed in want.
He had no direct means of supplying her necessities; but he hoped that she might inquire at her former abode for any letters that might chance to be left for her, and that she might thus receive any packet which he addressed to her. 'She shall never be humbled,' said he with a heavy sigh, 'by knowing that she owes this trifle to an indifferent, forgotten stranger;' and inclosing fifty pounds in a blank cover, he put both into an envelope to Mrs Stubbs, in which he informed her, that if she could find no means of conveying the packet to Miss Montreville, the anonymous writer would claim it again at some future time, on describing its contents.
Before dispatching the letter, however, he resolved on making an attempt to discover whether Hargrave was acquainted with Laura's retreat. He shrunk from meeting his rival. His blood ran cold as he pictured to his fancy the exulting voice, the triumphant glance which would announce the master of Laura's fate. But any thing was preferable to his present suspense; and the hope that he might yet be useful to Laura, formed an incitement still more powerful. 'Let me but find her,' said he, 'and I will yet wrest her from destruction. If she is deceived I will warn; if she is oppressed, I will protect her.'
He imagined that he should probably find Hargrave at the house of his uncle Lord Lincourt, and hastened thither to seek him; but found the house occupied only by servants, who were ignorant of the Colonel's address. De Courcy knew none of Hargrave's places of resort. The habits and acquaintance of each lay in a different line. No means therefore of discovering him occurred to Montague, except that of inquiring at the house of Mrs Stubbs, where he thought it probable that the place of Hargrave's residence might be known. Thither, then, he next bent his course.
The door was opened to him by Fanny; who replied to his questions, that none of the family knew where Colonel Hargrave lived, and lamented that De Courcy had not come a little earlier, saying that the Colonel had been gone not above a quarter of an hour. De Courcy was turning disappointed away; when Fanny,stopping him, said with a courtesy and a half-whisper, 'Sir, an't please you, my mistress was all wrong about Miss Montreville, for the Colonel knows no more about her than I do.' 'Indeed!' said De Courcy, all attention. 'Yes indeed Sir—when I told him she was away, he was quite amazed, and in such a passion! So then I thought I would give him the letter.—' 'What letter?' cried De Courcy, the glow of animation fading in his face. 'A letter that Miss Montreville left for him, Sir, but when he got it he was ten times angrier than before, and swore at her for not letting him know where she was going. So I thought, Sir, I would make bold to tell you, Sir, as Mistress had been speaking her mind, Sir; for it's a sad thing to have one's character taken away; and Miss Montreville, I am sure, wouldn't do hurt to nobody.'
'You are a good girl, a very good girl,' said De Courcy, giving her, with a guinea, a very hearty squeeze of the hand. He made her repeat the particulars of Hargrave's violent behaviour; and satisfied from them that his rival had no share in Laura's disappearance, he returned to his hotel, his heart lightened of half the heaviest load that ever it had borne.
Still, however, enough remained to exclude for a time all quiet from his breast. He could not doubt that Laura's affections were Hargrave's. She had given proof of it palpable to the most common observer; and resentment mingled with his grief while he thought, that to his fervent respectful love, she preferred the undistinguishing passion of a libertine. 'All women are alike,' said he, 'the slaves of mere outward show:'—An observation for which the world was probably first indebted to circumstances somewhat like De Courcy's.
Restless and uncomfortable, without any hope of finding Laura, he would now have left London without an hour's delay. But, though he forgot his own fatigues, he was not unmindful of those of the grey-haired domestic who attended him. He therefore deferred his journey to the following morning; and then set out on his return to Norwood, more depressed and wretched than he had quitted it.
All was yet dark and still, when Laura, like some unearthly being, stood by the bed where Fanny slept. The light which she bore in her wasted hand, shewed faintly the majestic form, darkened by its mourning garments; and shed a dreary gleam upon tearless eyes, and a face whence all the hues of life were fled. She made a sign for Fanny to rise; and, awe-struck by the calm of unutterable grief, Fanny arose, and in silence followed her. They entered the chamber of death. With noiseless steps Laura approached the body, and softly drew back the covering. She beckoned Fanny towards her. The girl comprehended that her aid was wanted in performing the last duties to Montreville; and, shrinking with superstitious fear, said, in a low tremulous whisper, 'I dare not touch the dead.' Laura answered not; but raising her eyes to Heaven, as if there to seek assistance in her mournful task, she gently pressed her hand upon the half-closed eyes that had so often beamed fondness on her. Unaided, and in silence, she did the last offices of love. She shed no tears. She uttered no lamentation. The dread stillness was broken only by the groans that burst at times from her heavy heart, and the more continued sobs of her attendant, who vented in tears her fear, her pity, and her admiration.
When the sad task was finished, Laura, still speechless, motioned to the servant to retire. In horror at the thoughts of leaving Laura alone with the dead, yet fearing to raise her voice, the girl respectfully grasped her mistress's gown, and, in a low but earnest whisper, besought her to leave this dismal place, and to go to her own chamber. Scarcely sensible of her meaning, Laura suffered her to draw her away; but when the door closed upon all that remained of her father, she shuddered convulsively, and struggled to return.Fanny, however, gathered courage to lead her to her own apartment. There she threw herself prostrate on the ground; a flood of tears came to relieve her oppressed heart, and her recovered utterance broke forth in an act of resignation. She continued for some hours to give vent to her sorrow—a sorrow unallayed by any less painful feeling, save those of devotion. She had lost the affectionate guide of her youth, the fond parent, whose love for her had brought him untimely to the grave; and, in the anguish of the thought that she should watch his smile and hear his voice no more, she scarcely remembered that he had left her to want and loneliness.
The morning was far advanced, when her sorrows were broken in upon by her landlady, who came to ask her directions in regard to the funeral. Laura had been unable to bend her thoughts to the consideration of this subject; and she answered only by her tears. In vain did Mrs Stubbs repeat that 'it was folly to take on so,'—'that we must all die;' 'and that as every thing has two handles, Laura might comfort herself that she should now have but one mouth to feed.' Laura seemed obstinate in her grief, and at last Mrs Stubbs declared that whether she would hear reason or not, something must without delay be settled about the funeral; as for her part she could not order things without knowing how they were to be paid for. Laura, putting her hand to her forehead, complained that her head felt confused, and, mildly begging her persecutor to have a little patience with her, promised, if she might be left alone for the present, to return to the conversation in half an hour.
Accordingly, soon after the time appointed, the landlady was surprised to see Laura enter the parlour, her cheek indeed colourless and her eyes swelled with weeping, but her manner perfectly calm and collected. 'Here are my father's watch and seals,' said she, presenting them. 'They may be disposed of. That cannot wound him now,'—and she turned away her head, and drew her hand across her eyes. 'Have the goodness to order what is necessary, for I am a stranger, without any friend.' Mrs Stubbs, examining the watch, declared her opinion that the sale of it would produce very little. 'Let every thing be plain, but decent,' said Laura, 'and when I am able I will work day and night till all is paid.' 'I doubt, Miss,' answered Mrs Stubbs, 'it will be long before your work will pay for much; besides you will be in my debt for a week's lodgings—we always charge a week extra when there is a death in the house.' 'Tell me what you would have me to do, and I will do it,' said the unfortunate Laura,wholly unable to contend with her hard-hearted companion. 'Why, Miss,' said Mrs Stubbs, 'there is your beautiful rose-wood work-table and the foot-stools, and your fine ivory work-box that Mr De Courcy sent here before you came; if you choose to dispose of them, I will take them off your hands.' 'Take them,' said Laura, 'I knew not that they were mine.' Mrs Stubbs then conscientiously offered to give a fourth part of the sum which these toys had cost De Courcy three months before, an offer which Laura instantly accepted; and the landlady having settled this business much to her own satisfaction, cheerfully undertook to arrange the obsequies of poor Montreville.
Though the tragical scenes of the night had left Laura no leisure to dwell upon her fears for Hargrave, it was not without thankfulness that she heard of his safety and restored composure. Her mind was at first too much occupied by her recent loss, to attempt accounting for his extravagant behaviour; and, after the first paroxysms of her sorrow were past, she retained but an imperfect recollection of his late conversation with her. She merely remembered his seeming distraction and threatened suicide; and only bewildered herself by her endeavours to unravel his mysterious conduct. Sometimes a suspicion not very remote from truth would dart into her mind; but she quickly banished it, as an instance of the causeless fears that are apt to infest the hearts of the unfortunate.
An innate delicacy which, in some degree, supplied to Laura the want of experience, made her feel an impropriety in the daily visits which she was informed that Hargrave made at her lodgings. She was aware that they might be liable to misrepresentation, even though she should persist in her refusal to see him; and this consideration appeared to add to the necessity already so urgent, for resolving on some immediate plan for her future course of life. But the future offered to Laura no attractive prospect. Wherever she turned, all seemed dark and unpromising. She feared not to labour for her subsistence; no narrow pride forbade her use of any honourable means of independence. But her personal charms were such as no degree of humility could screen from the knowledge of their possessor, and she was sensible how much this dangerous distinction increased the disqualifications of her sex and age for the character of an artist. As an artist, she must be exposed to the intrusion of strangers, to public observation if successful; to unpitied neglect if she failed in her attempt. Besides, it was impossible to think of living alone and unprotected, in the human chaos that surrounded her. Allher father's dismal forebodings rose to her remembrance; and she almost regarded herself as one who would be noticed only as a mark for destruction, beguiled by frauds which no vigilance could detect, overwhelmed by power which she could neither resist nor escape.
Should she seek in solitude a refuge from the destroyer, and return to mourn at her deserted Glenalbert, the stroke that had left it like her lonely and forlorn, want lurked amidst its shades; for with her father had died not only the duties and the joys of life, but even the means of its support. Her temporary right to the few acres which Montreville farmed, was in less than a year to expire; and she knew that, after discharging the claim of the landlord, together with some debts which the long illness of Lady Harriet and the ill-fated journey had obliged Montreville to contract, little would remain from the sale of her effects at Glenalbert.
Laura was sure, that the benevolent friend of her youth, the excellent Mrs Douglas, would receive her with open arms—guide her inexperience with a mother's counsel—comfort her sorrows with a mother's love. But her spirit revolted from a life of indolent dependence, and her sense of justice from casting a useless burden upon an income too confined to answer claims stronger and more natural than hers. Mrs Douglas was herself the preceptress of her children, and both by nature and education amply qualified for the momentous task. In domestic management, her skill and activity were unrivalled. Laura, therefore, saw no possibility of repaying, by her usefulness in any department of the family, the protection which she might receive; and she determined that nothing but the last necessity should induce her to tax the generosity of her friend, or to forego the honourable independence of those who, though 'silver or gold they have none,' can barter for the comforts they enjoy their mental treasures or their bodily toil.
To undertake the tuition of youth occurred to her as the most eligible means of procuring necessary subsistence, and protection, more necessary still. It appeared to her that, as a member of any reputable family, she should be sheltered from the dangers which her father had most taught her to dread. She reviewed her accomplishments, and impartially examined her ability to communicate them with temper and perseverance. Though for the most part attained with great accuracy, they were few in number, and unobtrusive in kind. She read aloud with uncommon harmony and grace. She spoke and wrote with fluency and precision. She was grammaticallyacquainted with the French and Latin languages, and an adept in the common rules of arithmetic. Her proficiency in painting has been already noticed; and she sang with inimitable sweetness and expression.
But though expert in every description of plain needle-work, she was an utter novice in the manufacture of all those elegant nothings, which are so serviceable to fine ladies in their warfare against time. Though she moved with unstudied dignity and peerless grace, we are obliged to confess, that the seclusion of her native village had doomed her to ignorance of the art of dancing, that she had never entered a ball-room less capacious than the horizon, nor performed with a partner more illustrious than the schoolmaster's daughter. Her knowledge of music, too, was extremely limited. Lady Harriet had indeed tried to teach her to play on the piano-forte; but the attempt, after costing Laura many a full heart, and many a watery eye, was relinquished as vain. Though the child learnt with unusual facility whatever was taught her by her father or Mrs Douglas, and though she was already remarkable for the sweetness with which she warbled her woodnotes wild, she no sooner approached the piano-forte, than an invincible stupidity seemed to seize on all her faculties. This was the more mortifying, as it was the only one of her ladyship's accomplishments which she ever personally attempted to communicate to her daughter. Lady Harriet was astonished at her failure. It could proceed, she thought, from nothing but obstinacy. But the appropriate remedy for obstinacy, only aggravated the symptoms, and, after all, Laura was indebted to Colonel Hargrave's tuition for so much skill as enabled her to accompany her own singing.
Laura had more than once felt her deficiency in these fashionable arts, on seeing them exhibited by young ladies, who, to use their own expression, had returned fromfinishing themselvesat a boarding-school, and she feared that this blank in her education might prove a fatal bar to her being employed as a governess. But another and a greater obstacle lay before her—she was utterly unknown. The only patrons whose recommendation she could command, were distant and obscure; and what mother would trust the minds and the manners of her children to the formation of a stranger? She knew not the ostrich-like daring of fashionable mothers. This latter objection seemed equally hostile to her being received in quality of companion by those who might be inclined to exchange subsistence and protection for relief from solitude; and Laura, almost despairing,knew not whither to turn her eye.
One path indeed invited her steps, a path bright with visions of rapture, warm with the sunshine of love and pleasure; but the flaming sword of Heaven guarded the entrance; and as often as her thoughts reverted that way, the struggle was renewed which forces the choice from the pleasing to the right. No frequency of return rendered this struggle less painful. Laura's prudence had slept, when a little vigilance might have saved her many an after pang; and she had long paid, was still long to pay, the forfeit of neglecting that wisdom which would guard 'with all diligence' the first beginnings of even the most innocent passions. Had she curbed the infant-strength of an attachment which, though it failed to warp her integrity, had so deeply wounded her peace, how had she lessened the force of that temptation, which lured her from the rugged ascent, where want and difficulty were to be her companions; which enticed her to the flowery bowers of pleasure with the voice and with the smile of Hargrave!
Yet Laura had resisted a bribe more powerful than any consideration merely selfish could supply; and she blushed to harbour a thought of yielding to her own inclinations what she had refused to a parent's wants, to a parent's prayer. Her heart filled as she called to mind how warmly Montreville had seconded the wishes of her lover, how resolutely she had withstood his will; and it swelled even to bursting at the thought that the vow was now fatally made void, which promised, by every endearment of filial love, to atone for this first act of disobedience. 'Dearest, kindest of friends,' she cried, 'I was inflexible to thy request—thy last request! and shall I now recede? now, when, perhaps, thou art permitted to behold and to approve my motive; perhaps permitted to watch me still—permitted with higher power to guard, with less erring wisdom to direct me! And, Thou, who, in matchless condescension, refusest not to be called Father of the fatherless—Thou, who, in every difficulty canst guide, from every danger canst protect thy children, let, if Thou see it good, the Heavens, which are thy throne, be all my covering, the earth, which is thy footstool, be all my bed; but suffer me not to wander from Thee, the only source of peace and joy, to seek them in fountains unhallowed and forbidden.'
Religious habits and sentiments were permanent inmates of Laura's breast. They had been invited and cherished, till, like familiar friends, they came unsolicited; and, like friends, too, theirvisits were most frequent in adversity. But the more ardent emotions of piety, are, alas! transient guests with us all; and, sinking from the flight which raised her for a time above the sorrows and the wants of earth, Laura was again forced to shrink from the gaunt aspect of poverty, again to turn a wistful eye towards a haven of rest on this side the grave.
Young as she was, however, she had long been a vigilant observer of her own actions, and of their consequences; and the result was an immutable conviction, that no heartfelt comfort could, in any circumstances, harbour with wilful transgression. As wilful transgression, she considered her marriage with a man whose principles she had fatal reason to distrust. As a rash defiance of unknown danger; as a desperate daring of temptations whose force was yet untried, as a desertion of those arms by which alone she could hope for victory in her Christian combat, Laura considered the hazardous enterprize which, trusting to the reformation of a libertine, would expose her to his example and his authority, his provocations and his associates. Again she solemnly renewed her resolution never, by wilfully braving temptation, to forego the protection of Him who can dash the fulness of worldly prosperity with secret bitterness, or gladden with joys unspeakable the dwelling visited by no friend but Him, cheered by no comfort save the light of his countenance.
Hargrave's letter served rather to fortify the resolution which it was intended to shake; for Laura was not insensible to the indelicacy which did not scorn to owe to her necessities a consent which he had in vain tried to extort from her affection. Though pleased with his liberality, she was hurt by his supposing that she could have so far forgotten the mortal offence which he had offered her, as to become his debtor for any pecuniary favour; and, as nothing could be further from her intention than to owe any obligation to Colonel Hargrave, she did not hesitate a moment to return the money. When she had sealed the card in which she inclosed it, she again returned to the contemplation of her dreary prospects; and half hopelessly examined the possibilities of subsistence. To offer instruction to the young, or amusement to the old, in exchange for an asylum from want and danger, still appeared to her the most eligible plan of life; and again she weighed the difficulty of procuring the necessary recommendations.
Lady Pelham occurred to her. Some claim she thought she might have had to the patronage of so near a relation. But who should identify her? who should satisfy Lady Pelham that the claim ofrelationship did indeed belong to Laura? Had she been previously known to her aunt, her difficulties would have been at an end; now she would probably be rejected as an impostor; and she gave a sigh to the want of foresight which had suffered her to rejoice in escaping an interview with Lady Pelham.
After much consideration, she determined to solicit the recommendations of Mrs Douglas and the De Courcy family; and, until she could avail herself of these, to subsist, in some obscure lodging, by the labour of her hands. In the meantime, it was necessary to remove immediately from her present abode. The day following was the last when she could claim any right to remain there; and she proceeded to make preparations for her departure.
With a bleeding heart she began to arrange whatever had belonged to Montreville; and paused, with floods of tears, upon every relic now become so sacred. She entered his closet. His was the last foot that had pressed the threshold. His chair stood as he had risen from it. On the ground lay the cushion yet impressed with his knees—his Bible was open as he had left it. One passage was blistered with his tears; and there Laura read with emotions unutterable—'Leave to me thy fatherless children, and I will preserve them alive.' Her recent wounds thus torn open, with agony which could not be restrained, she threw herself upon the ground; and, with cries of anguish, besought her father to return but for one short hour to comfort his desolate child. 'Oh I shall never, never see him more,' said she,—'all my cries are vain,'—and she wept the more because they were in vain. Soon, however, she reproached herself with her immoderate sorrow, soon mingled its accents with those of humble resignation; and the vigorous mind recovering in devotion all its virtuous energy, she returned, with restored composure, to her melancholy labours.
In her father's writing desk she found an unfinished letter. It began 'My dear De Courcy,'—and Laura was going to read it with the awe of one who listens to the last words of a father, when she remembered having surprised her father while writing it, and his having hastily concealed it from her sight. She instantly folded it without further acquaintance with its contents, except that her own name caught her eye. Continuing to arrange the papers, she observed a letter addressed to herself in a hand which she did not remember to have seen. It was Lady Pelham's answer to that in which Laura had announced her mother's death. She perceived that it might furnish an introduction to her aunt; and with a sensation of gratitude sheremembered that she had been accidentally prevented from destroying it.
Lady Pelham was elder by several years than her sister Lady Harriet. Her father, a saving painstaking attorney, died a few months after she was born. His widow, who, from an idea of their necessity, had concurred in all his economical plans, discovered with equal surprise and delight, that his death had left her the entire management of five-and-forty thousand pounds. This fortune, which she was to enjoy during her life, was secured, in the event of her demise, to little Miss Bridget; and this arrangement was one of the earliest pieces of information which little Miss Bridget received. For seven years the little heiress was, in her mother's undisguised opinion, and consequently in her own, the most important personage upon the face of this terrestrial globe. But worldly glories are fleeting. Lord Winterfield's taste in stewed carp had been improved by half a century's assiduous cultivation. Now the widow Price understood the stewing of carp better than any woman in England, so his Lordship secured to himself the benefit of her talent by making her Lady Winterfield. In ten months after her marriage, another young lady appeared, as much more important than Miss Bridget, as an earl is than an attorney. Fortune, however, dispensed her gifts with tolerable equality. Beauty and rank, indeed, were all on the side of Lady Harriet, but the wealth lay in the scale of Miss Price; for Lord Winterfield, leaving the bulk of his property to the children of his first marriage, bequeathed to his youngest daughter only five thousand pounds. These circumstances procured to Miss Price another advantage, for she married a baronet with a considerable estate, while Lady Harriet's fate stooped to a lieutenant in a marching regiment. After ten years, which Lady Pelham declared were spent in uninterrupted harmony, Sir Edward Pelham died. The exclusive property of his wife's patrimony had been strictly secured to her; and, either thinking such a provision sufficient for a female, or moved by a reason which we shall not at present disclose, Sir Edward bestowed on the nephew who inherited his title, his whole estate, burthened only with a jointure of five hundred pounds a-year, settled upon Lady Pelham by her marriage-contract. Of his daughter, and only child, no mention was made in his testament; but Sir Edward, during the last years of his life, had acquired the character of an oddity, and nobody wondered at his eccentricities. At the commencement of her widowhood, Lady Pelham purchased a villa in ——shire, where shespent the summer, returning in the winter to Grosvenor Street; and this last was almost the only part of her history which was known to Laura. Even before Lady Harriet's marriage, little cordiality had existed between the sisters. From the date of that event, their intercourse had been almost entirely broken off; and the only attention which Laura had ever received from her aunt, was contained in the letter which she was now thankfully contemplating. Her possession of this letter, together with her acquaintance with the facts to which it related, she imagined would form sufficient proof of her identity; and her national ideas of the claims of relationship, awakened a hope of obtaining her aunt's assistance in procuring some respectable situation.
Determined to avail herself of her fortunate discovery, she quitted her father's apartments; and, carrying with her her credential, lost no time in repairing to Grosvenor Street. Nor did she experience the reluctance which she had formerly felt towards an interview with Lady Pelham; for she was fully sensible of the difference between a petitioner for charity and a candidate for honourable employment. Besides, there is no teacher of humility like misfortune; and Laura's spirits were too completely subdued to anticipate or to notice diminutive attacks upon her self-consequence. She still, however, with constitutional reserve, shrunk from intruding upon a stranger; and she passed and repassed the door, examining the exterior of the house, as if she could thence have inferred the character of its owner, before she took courage to give one gentle knock.
A footman opened the door, and Laura, faltering, inquired if Lady Pelham was within. From Laura's single knock, her humble voice, and her yet more humble habit, which, in ten month's use, had somewhat faded from the sober magnificence of black, the man had formed no very lofty idea of the visitor's rank. He answered, that he believed his lady was not at home; but half-afraid of dismissing some person with whom she might have business, he spoke in a tone which made Laura a little doubt the truth of his information. She inquired at what time she might be likely to gain access to Lady Pelham; and, as she spoke, threw back her cape veil, unconscious how successfully she was pleading her own cause. Struck with a countenance whose candour, sweetness, and beauty, won a way to every heart, the man gazed at her for a moment with vulgar admiration, and then throwing open the door of a little parlour, begged her to walk in, while he inquired whether his lady were visible. He soon returned, tellingLaura that Lady Pelham would receive her in a few minutes.
During these few minutes, Laura had formed a hundred conjectures concerning her aunt's person, voice, and manner. She wondered whether she resembled Lady Harriet; whether her own form would recal to Lady Pelham the remembrance of her sister. At every noise her heart fluttered—at every step she expected the entrance of this relation, on whom perhaps so much of her future fate might depend; and she held her breath that she might distinguish her approach. A servant at last came to conduct her to his mistress; and she followed him, not without a feeling of awe, into the presence of her mother's sister.
That sentiment, however, by no means gathered strength when she took courage to raise her eyes to the plain little elderly person to whom she was introduced, and heard herself addressed in the accents of cheerful familiarity. Laura, with modest dignity, made known her name and situation. She spoke of her mother's death, and the tears trickled from her eyes—of her father's, and in venting the natural eloquence of grief, she forgot that she came to interest a stranger. Lady Pelham seemed affected; she held her handkerchief to her eyes, and remained in that attitude for some time after Laura had recovered self-possession. Then, throwing her arms round her lovely niece, she affectionately acknowledged the relationship, adding, 'Your resemblance to my poor sister cannot be overlooked, and yet in saying so, I am far from paying you a compliment.'
After shewing Lady Pelham her own letter, and mentioning such circumstances as tended to confirm her identity, Laura proceeded to detail her plans, to which her Ladyship listened with apparent interest. She inquired into Laura's accomplishments, and seemed pondering the probability of employing them with advantage to the possessor. After a few moments silence, she said, 'That short as their acquaintance had been, she thought she could perceive that Laura had too much sensibility for a dependent situation. But we shall talk of that hereafter,' continued she. 'At present, your spirits are too weak for the society of strangers;—and mine,' added her Ladyship, with a sigh, 'are not much more buoyant than your own.' Laura looked up with the kindly interest which, whether she herself were joyful or in sadness, sorrow could always command with her; and her aunt answered her glance of inquiry, by relating, that her only daughter and heiress, had eloped from her a few days before, with an artful young fellow without family or fortune. 'She deceived me by atrain of the basest artifices,' said Lady Pelham, 'though she might have known that her happiness was my chief concern; and that, to secure it, I might have been brought to consent to any thing. Yet with the closest secrecy she misled—with the most unfeeling coldness left me. Her disobedience I might have forgiven—her deceit I never can; or, if as a Christian I forgive, I never, never can forget it.'
Lady Pelham had talked herself out of breath; and Laura, not quite understanding this kind of Christian forgiveness, was silent, because she did not well know what to say. She felt, however, compassion for a parent, deserted by her only child, and the feeling was legible in a countenance peculiarly fitted for every tender expression.
There are some degrees of sorrow which increase in acuteness, at least which augment in vehemence of expression, by the perception of having excited sympathy. Weak fires gather strength from radiation. After a glance at Laura, Lady Pelham melted into tears, and continued, 'I know not how I had deserved such treatment from her; for never had she reason to complain of me. I have always treated her with what I must call unmerited kindness.'
Laura now ventured a few conciliating words. 'She will feel her error, Madam,—she will strive by her after-life to atone—' Lady Pelham immediately dried her eyes, 'No, no, my dear,' interrupted she, 'you don't know her—you have no idea of the hardness of her unfeeling heart. Rejoice, sweet girl, that you have no idea of it. For my part, though sensibility is at best but a painful blessing, I would not exchange it for the most peaceful apathy that can feel for nothing but itself. I must have something to love and cherish. You shall be that something. You shall live with me, and we shall console each other.'
On another occasion, Laura might have been disposed to canvass the nature of that sensibility which could thus enlarge to a stranger on the defects of an only child. Indeed she was little conversant even with the name of this quality. Her own sensibility she had been taught to consider as a weakness to be subdued, not as an ornament to be gloried in; and the expansion of soul which opens to all the sorrows and to all the joys of others, she had learnt to call by a holier name—to regulate by a nobler principle. But she was little disposed to examine the merits of a feeling to which she owed the offer of an unsolicited asylum. Her heart swelling with gratitude, she clasped Lady Pelham's hand between her own, and while tears streamed down her face, 'Kind considerate friend,' she cried, 'why,why were you not known to us while my father could have been sensible to your kindness!'
After Lady Pelham had repeated her proposal in more detail, and Laura had thankfully acceded to it, they remained in conversation for some time longer. Lady Pelham shewed that she had much wit, much vivacity, and some information; and, after settling that Laura should next day become an inmate in Grosvenor Street, they separated, mutually delighted with each other. Lady Pelham applauded herself for a generous action, and, to the interest which Laura awakened in every breast, was added in Lady Pelham's all the benevolence of self-complacency. Laura, on the other hand, did not dream that any fault could harbour in the unsuspicious liberal heart which had believed the tale, and removed the difficulties of a stranger. She did not once dream that she owed her new asylum to any motives less noble than disinterested goodness.
No wonder that her Ladyship's motive escaped the penetration of Laura, when it even evaded her own. And yet no principle could be more simple in its nature, or more constant in its operation, than that which influenced Lady Pelham; but the Proteus put on so many various forms, that he ever evaded detection from the subject of his sway. In the meantime, the desire of performing a generous action—of securing the gratitude of a feeling heart—of patronizing a poor relation, were the only motives which her Ladyship acknowledged to herself, when she offered protection to Laura. An idea had, indeed, darted across her right honourable mind, that she might now secure a humble companion at a rate lower than the usual price of such conveniences: a momentary notion, too, she formed of exciting the jealousy of her daughter, by replacing her with so formidable a competitor for favour; but these, she thought, were mere collateral advantages, and by no means the circumstances which fixed her determination. The resolution upon which she acted, was taken, as her resolutions generally were, without caution; and she expressed it, as her custom was, the moment it was formed. Laura was scarcely gone, however, when her aunt began to repent of her precipitancy, and to wish, as she had often occasion to do, that she had taken a little more time for consideration. But she comforted herself, that she could at any time get rid of her charge, by recommending Laura to one of the situations which she had mentioned as her choice; and the lady knew it would not be difficult to find one more lucrative than that upon which her niece was entering; for how could she possibly offerwages to so near a relation, or insult with the gift of a trifling sum a person of Laura's dignity of deportment? These reasons, Lady Pelham alleged to herself, as sufficient grounds for a resolution never to affront her niece by a tender of pecuniary favours.
While these thoughts were revolving in Lady Pelham's mind, Laura had reached her home; and, on her knees, was thanking Providence for having raised up for her a protector and a friend, and praying that she might be enabled to repay, in affectionate and respectful duty, a part of the debt of gratitude which she owed to her benefactress. The rest of the evening she spent in preparing for her removal—in ruminating on her interview with her aunt, and in endeavouring to compose, from the scanty materials which she possessed, a character of this new arbitress of her destiny. From Lady Pelham's prompt decision in favour of a stranger, from her unreserved expression of her feelings, from her lively manner and animated countenance, Laura concluded that she was probably of a warm temper, susceptible, and easily wounded by unkindness or neglect, but frank, candid, and forgiving. Laura wished that she had better studied her aunt's physiognomy. What she recollected of it was quite unintelligible to her. She laboured in vain to reconcile the feminine curvatures of the nose and forehead with the inflexible closing of the mouth, and the hard outline of the chin, where lurked no soft relenting line.
But however the countenance might puzzle conjecture, of the mind she harboured not a doubt; Lady Pelham's, she was persuaded, was one of those open generous souls, which the young and unwary are always prepared to expect and to love—souls having no disguise, and needing none. Now this was precisely the character which Lady Pelham often and sincerely drew of herself: and who ought to have been so intimately acquainted with her Ladyship's dispositions?
It was not without hesitation that Laura formed her resolution to conceal from Hargrave her place of abode. She felt for the uneasiness which this concealment would cause him. She feared that her desertion might remove one incitement to a virtuous course. But she considered, that while their future connection was doubtful, it was imprudent to strengthen by habitual intercourse their need of each other's society; and she reflected, that she could best estimate his character from actions performed beyond the sphere of her influence. Her watchful self-distrust made her fear to expose her resolution to his importunities; and she felt the impropriety of introducing into her aunt's family, a person who stood on terms with her which she did not choose to explain. These reasons induced her to withhold from Hargrave the knowledge of her new situation; and, certain that if it were known to Mrs Stubbs or her servants he would soon be master of the secret, she left no clue by which to trace her retreat. Perhaps, though she did not confess it to herself, she was assisted in this act of self-command by a latent hope, that as she was now to be introduced to a society on his own level, Hargrave might not find the mystery quite inscrutable.
She was kindly welcomed by Lady Pelham, and took possession of a small but commodious apartment, where she arranged her drawing-materials, together with the few books she possessed, intending to make that her retreat as often as her aunt found amusement or occupation independent of her. She resolved to devote her chief attention to making herself useful and entertaining to her patroness. In the first, she derived hopes of success, from Lady Pelham's declared incapacity for all employments that are strictly feminine. The second, she thought, would be at once easy and pleasant, forLady Pelham was acute, lively, and communicative. This latter quality she possessed in an unusual degree, and yet Laura found it difficult to unravel her character. In general, she saw that her aunt's understanding was bright; she was persuaded that in general her heart was warm and generous; but the descent to particulars baffled Laura's penetration. Lady Pelham could amuse—could delight; she said many wise, and many brilliant things; but her wisdom was not always well-timed, and her brilliant things were soap-bubbles in the sun, sparkling and highly coloured, but vanishing at the touch of him who would examine their structure. Lady Pelham could dispute with singular acuteness. By the use of ambiguous terms, by ingenious sophistry, by dexterously shifting from the ground of controversy, she could baffle, and perplex, and confound her opponents: but she could not argue; she never convinced. Her opinions seemed fluctuating, and Laura was sometimes ready to imagine that she defended them, not because they were just, nor even because they were her own, but merely because she had called them so; for with a new antagonist she could change sides, and maintain the opposite ground with equal address.
In spite of all the warmth of heart for which she gave her heart credit, Laura soon began to imagine that Lady Pelham had no friends. Among all the acquaintances whom she attracted and amused, no one seemed to exchange regard with her. The gaiety of pleasure never softened in her presence into the tenderness of affection. Laura could not discover that there existed one being from whose failings Lady Pelham respectfully averted her own sight, while reverently veiling them from the eyes of others. A few, a very few, seemed to be the objects of Lady Pelham's esteem; those of her love Laura could not discover. Towards her, however, her aunt expressed a strong affection; and Laura continued to persuade herself, that if Lady Pelham had no friends, it was because she was surrounded by those who were not worthy of her friendship.
As she appeared to invite and to desire unreserved confidence, Laura had soon made her acquainted with the narrative of her short life, excepting in so far as it related to Hargrave. At the detail of the unworthy advantage which Warren had taken of Montreville's inability to enforce his claim for the annuity, Lady Pelham broke out into sincere and vehement expressions of indignation and contempt; for no one more cordially abhorred oppression, or despised meanness in others. She immediately gave directions to her man of business toattempt bringing the affair to a conclusion, and even to threaten Warren with a prosecution in case of his refusal. Virtuous resistance of injustice was motive sufficient for this action. Pity that Lady Pelham should have sought another in the economy and ease with which it promised to provide for an indigent relative! Mr Warren was no sooner informed that the poor obscure unfriended Laura was the niece of Lady Pelham, and the inmate of her house, than he contrived to arrive at a marvellous certainty that the price of the annuity had been paid, and that the mistake in the papers relating to it originated in mere accident. In less than a fortnight the informality was rectified, and the arrears of the annuity paid into Laura's hands; the lawyer having first, at Lady Pelham's desire, deducted the price of his services.
With tears in her eyes, Laura surveyed her wealth, now of diminished value in her estimation. 'Only a few weeks ago,' said she, 'how precious had this been to me.—But now!—Yet it is precious still,' said she, as she wiped the tears away, 'for it can minister occasions of obedience and usefulness.' That very day she dispatched little presents for each of Mrs Douglas's children, in which use was more considered than show; and in the letter which announced her gifts, she inclosed half the remaining sum to be distributed among her own poor at Glenalbert. That her appearance might not discredit her hostess, she next proceeded to renew her wardrobe; and though she carefully avoided unnecessary expence, she consulted not only decency but elegance in her attire. In this, and all other matters of mere indifference, Laura was chiefly guided by her aunt; for she had early observed that this lady, upon all occasions, small as well as great, loved to exercise the office of dictatrix. No person could have been better fitted than Laura to conciliate such a temper; for on all the lesser occasions of submissions she was as gentle and complying as she was inflexible upon points of real importance. In their conversations, too, though Laura defended her own opinions with great firmness, she so carefully avoided direct contradiction or sarcastic retort, impatience in defeat, or triumph in victory, that even Lady Pelham could scarcely find subject of irritation in so mild an antagonist. In some respects, their tempers seemed to tally admirably. Lady Pelham had great aptitude in detecting errors, Laura a genius for remedying them. Difficulty always roused her Ladyship's impatience, but she found an infallible resource in the perseverance of Laura. In short, Laura contrived so many opportunities, or seizedwith such happy art those which presented themselves, of ministering to the comfort or convenience of her aunt, that she became both respectable and necessary to her; and this was, generally speaking, the utmost extent of Lady Pelham's attachments.
Lady Pelham sometimes spoke of her daughter, and Laura never missed the opportunity of urging a reconciliation. She insisted that the rights of natural affection were unalienable; that as they did not rest upon the merits, so neither could they be destroyed by the unworthiness either of parents or of children. The mother answered, with great impatience, that Laura's argument was entirely founded on prejudice; that it was true that for the helplessness of infancy, a peculiar feeling was provided; but that in all animals this peculiar feeling ceased as soon as it was no longer essential to the existence of the individual. 'From thenceforth,' added she, 'the regard must be founded on the qualities of the head and heart; and if my child is destitute of these, I can see no reason why I should prefer her to the child of any other woman.' 'Ah!' said Laura, tears of grateful recollection rushing down her cheek, 'some parents have loved their child with a fervour which no worth of hers could merit.' The gush of natural sensibility for this time averted the rising storm; but the next time that Laura renewed her conciliatory efforts, Lady Pelham, growing more vehement as she became herself convinced that she was in the wrong, burst into a paroxysm of rage; and, execrating all rebellious children, and their defenders, commanded Laura in future to confine her attention to what might concern herself.
The humbling spectacle of a female face distorted with passion was not quite new to Laura. Undismayed, she viewed it with calm commiseration; and mildly expressing her sorrow for having given offence, took up her work and left the ferment to subside at leisure. Her Ladyship's passion soon cooled; and, making advances with a sort of surly condescension, she entered on a new topic. Laura answered exactly as if nothing disagreeable had happened; and Lady Pelham could not divine whether her niece commanded her countenance, or her temper. Upon one principle of judging the lady had grounds for her doubt; she herself had sometimes commanded her countenance—her temper never.
Laura not only habitually avoided giving or taking offence, but made it a rule to extinguish its last traces by some act of cordiality and good-will. This evening, therefore, she proposed, with a grace which seemed rather to petition a favour than to offer a service, toattempt a portrait of her aunt. The offer was accepted with pleasure, and the portrait begun on the following day. It proved a likeness, and a favourable one. Lady Pelham was kinder than ever. Laura avoided the prohibited subject, and all was quiet and serene. Lady Pelham at last herself reverted to it; for indeed she could not long forbear to speak upon any topic that roused her passions. No dread of personal inconvenience could deter Laura from an act of justice or mercy, and she again steadily pronounced her opinion. But aware that one who would persuade must be careful not to irritate, she expressed her sentiments with still more cautious gentleness than formerly; and perceiving that her aunt was far more governed by passion than by reason, she quitted argument for entreaty. By these means she avoided provoking hostility, though she failed to win compliance. Lady Pelham seemed to be utterably impenetrable to entreaty, or to take pride in resisting it, and Laura had only to hope that time would favour her suit.
Lady Pelham mentioned an intention of moving early to the country, and Laura rejoiced in the prospect of once more beholding the open face of Heaven—of listening to nature's own music—of breathing the light air of spring. She longed to turn her ear from the discords of the city to the sweet sounds of peace—her eye from countenances wan with care, flushed with intemperance, or ghastly with famine, to cheeks brown with wholesome exercise, or ruddy with health and contentment—to exchange the sight of dusky brick walls, and walks overlooked by thousands, for the sunny slope or the sheltered solitary lane. Lady Pelham took pleasure in describing the beauties of Walbourne, and Laura listened to her with interest, anticipating eagerly the time when she should inhabit so lovely, so peaceful a scene. But that interest and eagerness rose to the highest, when she accidentally discovered that the De Courcy family were Lady Pelham's nearest neighbours in the country.
The want of something to love and cherish, which was with her Ladyship a mere form of speech, was with Laura a real necessity of nature; and though it was one which almost every situation could supply, since every creature that approached her was the object of her benevolence, yet much of the happiness of so domestic a being depended on the exercise of the dearer charities, and no one was more capable of a distinguishing preference than Laura. She had a hearty regard for the De Courcy family. She revered Mrs De Courcy; she liked Harriet; and bestowed on Montague her cordial esteem andgratitude. This gratitude had now acquired a sacred tenderness; for it was associated in her mind with the remembrance of a parent. De Courcy's self-denial had cheered her father's sick-bed, his benevolence gladdened her father's heart, and his self-denial appeared more venerable, his benevolence more endearing.
Having written to inform Harriet of the change in her situation, she discovered from her answer a new proof of De Courcy's friendship, in the fruitless journey which he had made to relieve her, and she regretted that her caution had deprived her of an opportunity of seeing and thanking him for all his kindness. 'Yet, if we had met,' said she, 'I should probably have acted as I have done a thousand times before; left him to believe me an insensible, ungrateful creature, for want of courage to tell him that I was not so.' She longed, however, to see De Courcy; for with him she thought she could talk of her father—to him lament her irreparable loss, dwell with him on the circumstances that aggravated her sorrow—on the prospects which mingled that sorrow with hope. This was a subject on which she never entered with Lady Pelham any farther than necessity required—real sorrow has its holy ground, on which no vulgar foot must tread. The self-command of Laura would have forbidden her, in any situation, to darken with a settled gloom the sunshine of domestic cheerfulness; but Lady Pelham had in her somewhat which repels the confidence of grief. Against all the arrows of misfortune, blunted at least as they rebound from the breasts of others, she seemed to 'wear a charmed life.' She often indeed talked of sensibility, and reprobated the want of it as the worst of faults; but the only kind of it in which she indulged rather inclined to the acrimonious than the benevolent, and Laura began to perceive, that however her aunt might distinguish them in others, irascible passions and keen feelings were in herself synonymous.
After the effort of giving and receiving the entertainment which Lady Pelham constantly offered, and as constantly exacted in return, Laura experienced a sensation of recovered freedom when the arrival of a visitor permitted her to escape to her own apartment. She saw nobody but her aunt, and never went abroad except to church. Thus, during a fortnight which she had passed in Grosvenor Street she had heard nothing of Hargrave. She was anxious to know whether he visited Lady Pelham; for, with rustic ignorance, she imagined that all people of condition who resided in the same town must be known to each other; but she had not courage to ask, and searched in vain forhis name among the cards that crowded the table in the lobby. Though she was conscious of some curiosity to know how he employed the hours which her absence left vacant, she did not own to herself that she was at all concerned in a resolution which she took, to inquire in person whether any letters had been left for her with Mrs Stubbs. She did not choose to commit the inquiry to a servant, because she would not condescend to enjoin her messenger to secrecy as to the place of her abode; and she continued resolved to give her lover no clue to discover it.
Accordingly, she early one morning set out in a hackney-coach, which she took the precaution to leave at some distance from her old lodgings, ordering it to wait her return. Fanny was delighted to see her, and charmed with the improvement of her dress, and the returning healthfulness of her appearance; but the landlady eyed her askance, and surlily answered to her inquiry for her letters, that she would bring the only one she had got; muttering, as she went to fetch it, something of which the words 'secret doings' were all that reached Laura's ear. 'There, Miss,' said the ungracious Mrs Stubbs, 'there's your letter, and there's the queer scrawl it came wrapped up in.' 'Mr De Courcy's hand,' cried Laura surprised, but thinking, from its size, that some time would be required to read it, she deferred breaking the seal till she should return to her carriage. 'I suppose you're mistaken, Miss,' said Mrs Stubbs; 'Mr De Courcy was here twice the day it came, and he never said a word of it.'
Laura now tremulously inquired whether she might be permitted to visit her father's room; but being roughly answered that it was occupied, she quietly prepared to go. As Fanny followed her through the garden, to open the gate for her, Laura, a conscious blush rising to her face, inquired whether any body else had inquired for her since her departure. Fanny, who was ready to burst with the news of Hargrave's visit, and who was just meditating how she might venture to introduce it, improved this occasion of entering on a full detail of his behaviour. With the true waiting-maid-like fondness for romance, she enlarged upon all his extravagancies, peeping side-long now and then under Laura's bonnet, to catch encouragement from the complacent simper with which such tales are often heard. But no smile repaid her eloquence. With immoveable seriousness did Laura listen to her, gravely revolving the strange nature of that love which could so readily amalgamate with rage and jealousy, and every discordant passion. She was hurt at the indecorum which exposedthese weaknesses to the observation of a servant; and with a sigh reflected, that, to constitute the happiness of a woman of sense and spirit, a husband must be possessed of qualities respectable as well as amiable.
Fanny next tried, whether what concerned De Courcy might not awaken more apparent interest; and here she had at least a better opportunity to judge of the effect of her narrative, for Laura stopped and turned full towards her. But Fanny had now no transports to relate, except De Courcy's indignation of Mrs Stubbs' calumny; and it was not without hesitating, and qualifying, and apologizing, that the girl ventured to hint at the insinuation which her mistress had thrown out. She had at last succeeded in raising emotion, for indignant crimson dyed Laura's cheeks, and fire flashed from her eyes. But Laura seldom spoke while she was angry; and again she silently pursued her way. 'Pray, Madam,' said the girl as she was opening the gate, 'do be so good as to tell me where you live now, that nobody may speak ill of you before me?' 'I thank you, my good girl,' returned Laura, a placid smile again playing on her countenance; 'but my character is in no danger.—You were kind to us, Fanny, when you knew that we could not reward you; accept of this from me;' and she put five guineas into her hand. 'No, indeed, Ma'am,' cried Fanny, drawing back her hand and colouring; 'I was civil for pure good will, and—.' Laura, whose sympathy with her inferiors was not confined to her bodily wants, fully understood the feeling that revolts from bartering for gold alone the service of the heart. 'I know it my dear,' answered she, in an affectionate tone; 'and believe me, I only mean to acknowledge, not to repay, your kindness.' Fanny, however, persisted in her refusal, and Laura obliged her to leave her at the gate, where, with tears in her eyes, the girl stood gazing after her till she was out of sight. 'I'm sure,' said she, turning towards the house as Laura disappeared, 'I'm sure she was made to be a queen, for the more one likes her, the more she frightens one.'
As soon as Laura was seated in her carriage, she opened her packet, and with momentary disappointment examined its contents. 'Not one line!' she cried in a tone of mortification; and then turned to the envelope addressed to Mrs Stubbs. Upon comparing this with the circumstances which she had lately heard, she at once comprehended De Courcy's intention of serving her by stealth, foregoing the credit due to his generosity. She wondered, indeed, that he had neglected to disguise his hand-writing in the superscription. 'Did he think,' saidshe, 'that I could have forgotten the writing that has so often brought comfort to my father?' She little guessed how distant from his mind was the repose which can attend to minute contrivance.
Delighted to discover a trait of character which tallied so well with her preconceived opinion, she no sooner saw Lady Pelham than she related it to her aunt, and began a warm eulogium on De Courcy's temper and dispositions. Lady Pelham coldly cut her short, by saying, 'I believe Mr De Courcy is a very good young man, but I am not very fond of prodigies. One can't both wonder and like at a time; your men with two heads are always either supposititious or disgusting.' This speech was one of the dampers which the warm heart abhors; real injury could not more successfully chill affection or repress confidence. It had just malice and just truth enough to be provoking; and for the second time that day Laura had to strive with the risings of anger. She was upon the point of saying, 'So, aware of the impossibility of being at once wonderful and pleasing, your Ladyship, I suppose, aims at only one of these objects;' but ere the sarcasm found utterance, she checked herself, and hastened out of the room, with the sensation of having escaped from danger. She retired to write to De Courcy a letter of grateful acknowledgment; in which, after having received Lady Pelham's approbation, she inclosed his gift, explaining the circumstances which now rendered it unnecessary.
Lady Pelham was not more favourable to the rest of the De Courcy family than she had been to Montague. She owned, indeed, that Mrs De Courcy was the best woman in the world, but a virtue, she said, so cased in armour, necessarily precluded all grace or attraction. Harriet she characterized as a little sarcastic coquette. Laura, weary of being exposed to the double peril of weakly defending, or angrily supporting her attacked friends, ceased to mention the De Courcys at all; though, with a pardonable spirit of contradiction, she loved them the better for the unprovoked hostility of Lady Pelham. The less she talked of them, the more she longed for the time when she might, unrestrained, exchange with them testimonies of regard. The trees in the Park, as they burst into leaf, stimulated Laura's desire for the country; and while she felt the genial air of spring, or listened to the early song of some luckless bird caged in a neighbouring window, or saw the yellow glories of the crocus peeping from its unnatural sanctuary, she counted the days till her eyes should be gladdened with the joyous face of nature. Only a fortnight had now to pass before her wish was to be gratified, for Lady Pelham intended at theend of that time to remove to Walbourne.
Laura was just giving the finishing touches to her aunt's portrait when a visitor was announced; and, very unwilling to break off at this interesting crisis, Lady Pelham having first scolded the servant for letting in her friend, desired him to shew the lady into the room where Laura was at work. The usual speeches being made, the lady began—'Who does your ladyship think bowed to meen passantjust as I was getting out of the carriage?—Why, Lady Bellamer!—Can you conceive such effrontery?' 'Indeed, I think, in common modesty, she should have waited for your notice!' 'Do you know, I am told on good authority that Hargrave is determined not to marry her.' Laura's breath came short.—'He is very right,' returned Lady Pelham. 'A man must be a great fool to marry where he has had such damning proofs of frailty.' Laura's heart seemed to pause for a moment, and then to redouble its beating.—'What Hargrave can this be?' thought she; but she durst not inquire. 'I hear,' resumed the lady, 'that his uncle is enraged at him, and more for the duel than thecrim. con.' The pencils dropped from Laura's hand.—Fain would she have inquired, what she yet so much dreaded to know; but her tongue refused its office. 'I see no cause for that,' returned Lady Pelham; 'Hargrave could not possibly refuse to fight after such an affair.' 'Oh certainly not!' replied the lady; 'but Lord Lincourt thinks, that in such a case, Hargrave ought to have insisted upon giving Lord Bellamer the first fire, and then have fired his own pistol in the air.—But, bless me, what ails Miss Montreville,' cried the visitor, looking at Laura, who, dreadfully convinced, was stealing out of the room. 'Nothing,' answered Laura; and fainted.
Lady Pelham called loudly for help; and, while the servants were administering it, stood by conjecturing what could be the cause of Laura's illness; wondering whether it could have any possible connection with Colonel Hargrave; or whether it were the effect of mere constitutional habit.
The moment Laura shewed signs of recollection, Lady Pelham began her interrogation. 'What has been the matter my dear? What made you ill? Did any thing affect you? Are you subject to faintings?' Laura remained silent, and, closing her eyes, seemed deaf to all her aunt's questions. After a pause, Lady Pelham renewed the attack.—'Have you any concern with Colonel Hargrave, Laura?' 'None,' answered Laura, with a smile of ineffable bitterness; and again closing her eyes, maintained an obstinate silence. Weary ofineffectual inquiries, Lady Pelham quitted her, giving orders, that she should be assisted into bed, and recommending to her to take some rest.
Vain advice! Laura could not rest! From the stupor which had overpowered her faculties, she awoke to the full conviction, that all her earthly prospects were for ever darkened. Just entering on life, she seemed already forsaken of all its hopes, and all its joys. The affections which had delighted her youth were torn from the bleeding soul; no sacred connection remained to bless her maturity; no endearment awaited her decline. In all her long and dreary journey to the grave, she saw no kindly resting-place. Still Laura's hopes and wishes had never been bounded to this narrow sphere; and when she found here no rest for the sole of her foot, she had, in the promises of religion, an ark whither she could turn for shelter. But how should she forget that these promises extended not to Hargrave. How shut her ear to the dread voice which, in threatening the adulterer and the murderer, denounced vengeance against Hargrave! With horror unspeakable she considered his incorrigible depravity; with agony, revolved its fearful consequences.
Yet, while the guilt was hateful in her eyes, her heart was full of love and compassion for the offender. The feeling with which she remembered his unfaithfulness to her had no resemblance to jealousy. 'He has been misled,' she cried; 'vilely betrayed by a wretch, who has taken advantage of his weakness. Oh how could she look on that form, that countenance, and see in them only the objects of a passion, vile as the heart that cherished it.'—Then she would repent of her want of candour.—'I am unjust, I am cruel,' she said, 'thus to load with all the burden of this foul offence, her who had perhaps the least share in it.—No! He must have been the tempter; it is not in woman to be so lost.'
But in the midst of sorrow, whose violence seemed at times almost to confuse her reason, she never hesitated for a moment on the final dissolution of her connection with Hargrave. She formed no resolution on a subject where no alternative seemed to remain, but assumed, as the foundation of all her plans of joyless duty, her eternal separation from Hargrave; a separation final as death. By degrees she became more able to collect her thoughts; and the close of a sleepless night found her exercising the valuable habit of seeking in herself the cause of her misfortunes. The issue of her self-examination was the conviction, that she had bestowed on a frailfallible creature, a love disproportioned to the merits of any created thing; that she had obstinately clung to her idol after she had seen its baseness; and that now the broken reed whereon she had leaned was taken away, that she might restore her trust and her love where alone they were due. That time infallibly brings comfort even to the sorest sorrows—that if we make not shipwreck of faith and a good conscience, we save from the storms of life the materials of peace at least—that lesser joys become valuable when we are deprived of those of keener relish—are lessons which even experience teaches but slowly: and Laura had them yet in a great measure to learn. She was persuaded that she should go on mourning to the grave. What yet remained of her path of life seemed to lie through a desert waste, never more to be warmed with the sunshine of affection; never more to be brightened with any ray of hope, save that which beamed from beyond the tomb. She imagined, that lonely and desolate she should pass through life, and joyfully hail the messenger that called her away; like some wretch, who, cast alone on a desert rock, watches for the sail that is to waft him to his native land.
The despair of strong minds is not listless or inactive. The more Laura was convinced that life was lost as to all its pleasing purposes, the more was she determined that it should be subservient to useful ends. Earthly felicity, she was convinced, had fled for ever from her grasp; and the only resolution she could form, was never more to pursue it; but, in the persevering discharge of the duties which yet remained to her, to seek a preparation for joys which earth has not to bestow. That she might not devote to fruitless lamentation the time which was claimed by duty, she, as soon as it was day, attempted to rise, intending to spend the morning in acts of resignation for herself, and prayers that pardon and repentance might be granted to him whose guilt had destroyed her peace. But her head was so giddy, that, unable to stand, she was obliged to return to her bed. It was long ere she was again able to quit it. A slow fever seized her, and brought her to the brink of the grave. Her senses, however, remained uninjured, and she had full power and leisure to make those reflections which force themselves upon all who are sensible of approaching dissolution. Happy were it, if all who smart under disappointment, would anticipate the hour which will assuredly arrive, when the burden which they impatiently bear shall appear to be lighter than vanity! The hand which is soon to be cold, resigns without a struggle the baubles of the world. Its cheats delude not the eye that is for everclosing. A deathbed is that holy ground where the charms of the enchanter are dissolved; where the forms which he had clothed with unreal beauty, or aggravated to gigantic horror, are seen in their true form and colouring. In its true form and colouring did Laura behold her disappointment; when, with characteristic firmness, she had wrung from her attendants, a confession of her danger. With amazement she looked back on the infatuation which could waste on any concern less than eternal, the hopes, the fears, and the wishes which she had squandered on a passion which now seemed trivial as the vapour scattered by the wind.