The History of Emily Montague Part 74

LETTER 225.

To Captain Fitzgerald.

Temple-house, Friday.

Your friend is the happiest of mankind.

Every anxiety is removed from my Emily's dear bosom: a father's sanction leaves her nothing to desire.

You may remember, she wished to delay our marriage: her motive was, to wait Colonel Willmott's return.

Though promised by him to another, she hoped to bring him to leave her heart free; little did she think the man destined for her by her father, was the happy Rivers her heart had chosen.

Bound by a solemn vow, she concealed the circ.u.mstances of her birth even from me.

She resolved never to marry another, yet thought duty obliged her to wait her father's arrival.

She kindly supposed he would see me with her eyes, and, when he knew me, change his design in my favor: she fancied he would crown her love as the reward of her obedience in delaying her marriage.

My importunity, and the fear of giving me room to doubt her tenderness, as her vow prevented such an explanation as would have satisfied me, bore down her duty to a father whom she had never seen, and whom she had supposed dead, till the arrival of Mrs. Melmoth's letters; having been two years without hearing any thing of him.

She married me, determined to give up her right to half his fortune in favor of the person for whom he designed her; and hoped, by that means, to discharge her father's obligations, which she could not pay at the expence of sacrificing her heart.

But she writes to Mrs. Fitzgerald, and will tell you all.

Come and share the happiness of your friends.

Adieu!

Your faithful Ed. Rivers.

LETTER 226.

To Mrs. Fitzgerald.

Temple-house, Friday.

My Rivers has told you--my sweet friend, in what words shall I convey to you an adequate idea of your Emily's transport, at a discovery which has reconciled all her duties!

Those anxieties, that sense of having failed in filial obedience, which cast a damp on the joy of being wife to the most beloved of mankind, are at an end.

This husband whom I so dreaded, whom I determined never to accept, was my Rivers.

My father forgives me; he pardons the crime of love: he blesses that kind providence which conducted us to happiness.

How many has this event made happy!

The most amiable of mothers shares my joy; she bends in grateful thanks to that indulgent power who has rewarded her son for all his goodness to her.

Rivers hears her, and turns away to hide his tears: her tenderness melts him to the softness of a woman.

What grat.i.tude do we not owe to heaven! may the sense of it be for ever engraven on our hearts!

My Lucy too; all, all are happy.

But I will tell you. Rivers has already acquainted you with part of my story.

My uncle placed me, with a servant, in whom he could confide, in a convent in France, till I was seven years old; he then sent for me to England, and left me at school eight years longer; after which, he took me with him to his regiment in Kent, where, you know, our friends.h.i.+p began, and continued till he changed into another, then in America, whither I attended him.

My father's affairs were, at that time, in a situation, which determined my uncle to take the first opportunity of marrying me to advantage.

I regarded him as a father; he had always been more than a parent to me; I had the most implicit deference to his will.

He engaged me to Sir George Clayton; and, when dying, told me the story of my birth, to which I had till then been a stranger, exacting from me, however, an oath of secresy till I saw my father.

He died, leaving me, with a trifle left in trust to him for my use from my grandfather, about two thousand pounds, which was all I, at that time, ever expected to possess.

My father was then thought ruined; there was even a report of his death, and I imagined myself absolute mistress of my own actions.

I was near two years without hearing any thing of him; nor did I know I had still a father, till the letters you brought me from Mrs.

Melmoth.

A variety of accidents, and our being both abroad, and in such distant parts of the world, prevented his letters arriving.

In this situation, the kind hand of heaven conducted my Rivers to Montreal.

I saw him; and, from that moment, my whole soul was his.

Formed for each other, our love was sudden and resistless as the bolt of heaven: the first glance of those dear speaking eyes gave me a new being, and awaked in me ideas never known before.

The strongest sympathy attached me to him in spite of myself: I thought it friends.h.i.+p, but felt that friends.h.i.+p more lively than what I called my _love_ for Sir George; all conversation but his became insupportable to me; every moment that he pa.s.sed from me, I counted as lost in my existence.

I loved him; that tenderness hourly increased: I hated Sir George, I fancied him changed; I studied to find errors in a man who had, a few weeks before, appeared to me amiable, and whom I had consented to marry; I broke with him, and felt a weight removed from my soul.

I trembled when Rivers appeared; I died to tell him my whole soul was his; I watched his looks, to find there the same sentiments with which he had inspired me: that transporting moment at length arrived; I had the delight to find our tenderness was mutual, and to devote my life to making happy the lord of my desires.

Mrs. Melmoth's letter brought me my father's commands, if unmarried, to continue so till his return.

He added, that he intended me for a relation, to whose family he had obligations; that, his affairs having suffered such a happy revolution, he had it in his power, and, therefore, thought it his duty, to pay this debt of grat.i.tude; and, at the same time, hoping to make me happy by connecting me with an amiable family, allied to him by blood and friends.h.i.+p; and uniting me to a man whom report spoke worthy of all my tenderness.

You may remember, my dearest Bell, how strongly I was affected on reading those letters: I wrote to Rivers, to beg him to defer our marriage; but the manner in which he took that request, and the fear of appearing indifferent to him, conquered all sense of what I owed to my father, and I married him; making it, however, a condition that he should ask no explanation of my conduct till I chose to give it.

I knew not the character of my father; he might be a tyrant, and divide us from each other: Rivers doubted my tenderness; would not my waiting, if my father had afterwards refused his consent to our union, have added to those cruel suspicions? might he not have supposed I had ceased to love him, and waited for the excuse of paternal authority to justify a change of sentiment?