Tales and Novels Volume VIII Part 61

Cecilia expression, whilst Mr. L----'s attention was fixed upon her, "Would to Heaven I was blessed with such a _reasonable_ temper!"--"When you are wis.h.i.+ng to Heaven, Lady Olivia," said I, "had not you better ask for _all you want_ at once; not only such a reasonable temper, but such a feeling heart?"

Some of the company smiled. Lady Olivia, practised as she is, looked disconcerted; Mr. L---- grave and impenetrable; Leonora, blus.h.i.+ng, turned away to the piano-forte. Mr. L---- remained talking with Lady Olivia, and he neither saw nor heard her. If Leonora had sung like an angel, it would have made no impression. She turned over the leaves of her music quickly, to a lively air, and played it immediately, to prevent my perceiving how much she felt. Poor Leonora! you are but a bad dissembler, and it is in vain to try to conceal yourself from me.

I was so sorry for her, and so incensed with Olivia this night, that I could not restrain myself, and I made matters worse. At supper I came almost to open war with her ladys.h.i.+p. I cannot remember exactly what I said, but I know that I threw out the most severe inuendoes which politeness could permit: and what _was_ the consequence? Mr. L---- pitied Olivia and hated me; Leonora was in misery the whole time; and her husband probably thought that she was the instigator, though she was perfectly innocent. My dear Margaret, where will all this end? and how much more mischief shall I do with the best intentions possible?

Yours affectionately,

HELEN C----.

LETTER XLIII.

GENERAL B---- TO MR. L----.

Your letter has travelled after me G.o.d knows where, my dear L----, and has caught me at last with my foot in the stirrup. I have just had time to look it over. I find, in short, that you are in love. I give you joy!

But be in love like a madman, not like a fool. Call a demirep an angel, and welcome; but remember, that such angels are to be had any day in the year; and such a wife as yours is not to be had for the mines of Golconda. Coin your heart, and drop your blood for it, and you will never be loved by any other woman so well as you are by Lady Leonora L----.

As to your jealous hypochondriacism, more of that when I have more leisure. In the mean time I wish it well cured.

I am, my dear friend,

Yours truly,

J. B.

LETTER XLIV.

OLIVIA TO MADAME DE P----.

L---- Castle.

I Triumph! dear Gabrielle, give me joy! Never was triumph more complete.

L---- loves me! That I knew long ago; but I have at last forced from his proud heart the avowal of his pa.s.sion. Love and Olivia are victorious over scruples, prejudice, pride, and superst.i.tion!

Leonora feels not--sees not: she requires, she excites no pity. Long may her delusion last! But even were it this moment to dissipate, what cause have I for remorse? "Who is most to blame, he who ceases to love, or she who ceases to please?" Leonora perhaps thinks that she loves her husband; and no doubt she does so in a conjugal sort of a way: he _has_ loved his wife; but be it mine to prove that his heart is suited to far other raptures; and if Olivia be called upon for sacrifices, _Olivia_ can make them.

"Let wealth, let honour wait the wedded dame, August her deed, and sacred be her fame; Before true pa.s.sion, all those views remove, Fame, wealth, and honour, what are you to love?"

These lines, though quoted perpetually by the tender and pa.s.sionate, can never become stale and vulgar; they will always recur in certain situations to persons of delicate sensibility, for they at once express all that can be said, and justify all that can be felt. My amiable Gabrielle, adieu. Pardon me if to-day I have no soul even for friends.h.i.+p. This day is all for love.

OLIVIA.

LETTER XLV.

GENERAL B---- TO MR. L----.

What the devil would you have of your wife, my dear L----? You would be loved above all earthly considerations; honour, duty, virtue, and religion inclusive, would you? and you would have a wife with her head in the clouds, would you? I wish you were married to one of the all-for-love heroines, who would treat you with bowl and dagger every day of your life. In your opinion sensibility covers a mult.i.tude of faults--you would have said _sins_: so it had need, for it produces a mult.i.tude. Pray what brings hundreds and thousands of women to the Piazzas of Covent Garden but sensibility? What does the colonel's, and the captain's, and the ensign's mistress talk of but _sensibility_? And are you, my dear friend, to be duped by this hackneyed word? And should you really think it an indisputable proof of a lady's love, that she would jump out of a two pair of stairs window into your arms? Now I should think myself sure of such a woman's love only just whilst I held her, and scarcely then; for I, who in my own way am jealous as well as yourself, should in this case be jealous of wickedness, and should strongly suspect that she would love the first devil that she saw better than me.

You are always raving about sacrifices. Your Cupid must be a very vindictive little G.o.d. Mine is a good-humoured, rosy little fellow, who desires no better than to see me laugh and be happy. But to every man his own Cupid. If you cannot believe in love without sacrifices, you must have them, to be sure. And now, in sober sadness, what do you think your heroine would sacrifice for you? Her reputation? that, pardon me, is out of her power. Her virtue? I have no doubt she would. But before I can estimate the value of this sacrifice, I must know whether she makes it to you or to her pleasure. Would she give up in any instance her pleasure for your happiness? This is not an easy matter to ascertain with respect to a mistress: but your wife has put it beyond a doubt, that she prefers your happiness not only to her pleasure, but to her pride, and to every thing that the s.e.x usually prefer to a husband. You have been wounded by a poisoned arrow; but you have a faithful wife who can extract the poison. Lady Leonora's affection is not a mere fit of goodness and generosity, such as I have seen in many women, but it is a steadiness of attachment in the hour of trial, which I have seen in few.

For several months past you have, by your own account, put her temper and her love to the most severe tests, yet she has never failed for one moment, never reproached you by word or look.--But may be she has no feeling.--No feeling! you can have none, if you say so: no penetration, if you think so. Would not you think me a tyrant if I put a poor fellow on the picket, and told you, when he bore it without a groan, that it was because he could not feel? You do worse, you torture the soul of the woman who loves you; she endures, she is calm, she smiles upon you even in agony; and you tell me she cannot feel! she cannot feel like an Olivia! No; and so much the better for her husband, for she will then have only feeling enough for him, she will not extend her charity to all his s.e.x. But Olivia has such candour and magnanimity, that I must admire her! I humbly thank her for offering to make me her confidant, for offering to tell me what I know already, and what she is certain that I know. These were good moves, but I understand the game as well as her ladys.h.i.+p does. As to her making a friend of me; if she means an enemy to Lady Leonora L----, I would sooner see her--in heaven: but if she would do me the favour to think no more of your heart, which is too good for her, and to accept of my--my--what shall I say?--my devoirs, I am at her command. She shall drive my curricle, &c. &c. She would suit me vastly well for a month or two, and by that time poor R---- would make his appearance, or somebody in his stead: at the worst, I should have a chance of some blessed metaphysical quirk, which would prove that inconstancy was a virtue, or that a new love is better than an old one. When it came to that, I should make my best bow, put on my most disconsolate face, and retire.

You will read all this in a very different spirit from that in which it is written. If you are angry--no matter: I am cool. I tell you beforehand, that I will not fight you for any thing I have said in this letter, or that I ever may say about your Olivia. Therefore, my dear L----, save yourself the trouble of challenging me. I thank G.o.d I have reputation enough to be able to dispense with the glory of blowing out your brains.

Yours truly,

J. B.

LETTER XLVI.

OLIVIA TO MADAME DE P----.

We have been very gay here the last few days: the gallant and accomplished Prince ---- has been here. H----, the witty H----, who is his favourite companion, introduced him; and he seems so much charmed with the old castle, its towers and battlements, and with its _cynosure_, that I know not when he will be able to prevail upon himself to depart. To-morrow, he says; but so he has said these ten days: he cannot resist the entreaties of his kind host and hostess to stay another day. The soft accent of the beautiful Leonora will certainly detain him _one day more_, and her gracious smile will bereave him of rest for months to come. He has evidently fallen desperately in love with her. Now we shall see virtue in danger.

I have always been of opinion with St. Evremond and Ninon de l'Enclos, that no female virtue can stand every species of test; fortunately it is not always exposed to trial. Reputation may be preserved by certain persons in certain situations, upon very easy terms. Leonora, for instance, is armed so strong in character, that no common mortal will venture to attack her. It would be presumption little short of high treason to imagine the fall of the Lady Leonora L----, the daughter of the d.u.c.h.ess of ----, who, with a long line of immaculate baronesses in their own right, each in her armour of stiff stays, stands frowning defiance upon the adventurous knights. More alarming still to the modern seducer, appears a judge in his long wig, and a jury with their long faces, ready to bring in their verdict, and to award damages proportionate to the rank and fortune of the parties. Then the former reputation of the lady is talked of, and the irreparable injury sustained by the disconsolate husband from the loss of the solace and affection of this paragon of wives. And it is proved that she lived in the most perfect harmony with him, till the vile seducer appeared; who, in aggravation of damages, was a confidential friend of the husband's, &c. &c. &c. &c. &c.

Brave, indeed, and desperately in love must be the man, who could dare all these to deserve the fair. But princes are, it is said, naturally brave, and ambitious of conquering difficulties.

I have insinuated these reflections in a general way to L----, who applies them so as to plague himself sufficiently. Heaven is my witness, that I mean no injury to Lady Leonora; yet I fear that there are moments, when my respect for her superiority, joined to the consciousness of my own weakness, overpowers me, and I almost envy her the right she retains to the esteem of the man I love. This is a blamable weakness--I know it--I reproach myself bitterly; but all I can do is to confess it candidly. L---- sees my conflicts, and knows how to value the sensibility of my fond heart. Adieu, my Gabrielle. When shall I be happy? since even love has its torments, and I am thus doomed to be ever a victim to the tenderness of my soul.

OLIVIA.

LETTER XLVII.

MRS. C---- TO MISS B----.

I do not know whether I pity, love, or admire Leonora most. Just when her mind was deeply wounded by her husband's neglect, and when her jealousy was worked to the highest pitch by his pa.s.sion for her dangerous rival, the Prince ---- arrives here, and struck by Leonora's charms of mind and person, falls pa.s.sionately in love with her. Probably his highness's friend H---- had given him a hint of the existing circ.u.mstances, and he thought a more propitious moment could scarcely be found for making an impression upon a female mind. He judged of Leonora by other women. And I, like a simpleton, judged of her by myself. With shame I confess to you, my dear Margaret, that notwithstanding all my past experience, I did expect that she would have done, as I am afraid I should have done in her situation. I think that I could not have resisted the temptation of coquetting a little--a very little--just to revive the pa.s.sion of the man whom I really loved. This expedient succeeds so often with that wise s.e.x, who never rightly know the value of a heart, except when they have just won it, or at the moment when they are on the point of losing it. In Leonora's place and in such an emergency, I should certainly have employed that frightful monster jealousy to waken sleeping love; since he, and only he, can do it expeditiously and effectually. This I have hinted to Leonora, talking always _in generals_; for, since my total overthrow, I have never dared to come to particulars: but by putting cases and _confessing myself_, I contrived to make my thoughts understood. I then boasted of the extreme facility of the means I would adopt to recover a heart. Leonora answered in the words of a celebrated great man:--"C'est facile de se servir de pareils moyens; c'est difficile de s'y resoudre."

"But if no other means would succeed," said I, "would not you sacrifice your pride to your love?"

"My pride, willingly; but not my sense of what is right," said she, with an indescribable mixture of tenderness and firmness in her manner.

"Can a little coquetry in a good cause be such a heinous offence?"

persisted I. I knew that I was wrong all the time; but I delighted in seeing how right she was.

No--she would not allow her mind to be cheated by female sophistry; nor yet by the male casuistry of, "the end sanctifies the means."