Leonora Part 21

L---- Castle.

My dear Mother,

My hopes are all vain. Your prophecies will never be accomplished. We have both been mistaken in Mr L----'s character, and henceforward your daughter must not depend upon him for any portion of her happiness. I once thought it impossible that my love for him could be diminished: he has changed my opinion. Mine is not that species of weak or abject affection which can exist under the sense of ill treatment and injustice, much less can my love survive esteem for its object.

I told you, my dear mother, and I believed, that his affections had returned to me; but I was mistaken. He has not sufficient strength or generosity of soul to love me, or to do justice to my love. I offered to go with him to Russia: he answered, "That is impossible."--Impossible!--Is it then impossible for him to do that which is just or honourable? or seeing what is right, must he follow what is wrong? or can his heart never more be touched by virtuous affections? Is his taste so changed, so depraved, that he can now be pleased and charmed only by what is despicable and profligate in our s.e.x? Then I should rejoice that we are to be separated--separated for ever. May years and years pa.s.s away and wear out, if possible, the memory of all he has been to me! I think I could better, much better bear the total loss, the death of him I have loved, than endure to feel that he had survived both my affection and esteem; to see the person the same, but the soul changed; to feel every day, every hour, that I must despise what I have so admired and loved.

Mr L---- is gone from hence. He leaves England the day after to-morrow.

Lady Olivia is to _follow_ him. I am glad that public decency is not to be outraged by their embarking together. My dearest mother, be a.s.sured that at this moment your daughter's feelings are worthy of you.

Indignation and the pride of virtue support her spirit.

Leonora L----.

Letter xcv.

_General B---- to Lady Leonora L----._

Yarmouth.

Had I not the highest confidence in Lady Leonora L----'s fort.i.tude, I should not venture to write to her at this moment, knowing as I do that she is but just recovered from a dangerous illness.

Mr L---- had requested me to meet him at L----Castle previous to his leaving England, but it was out of my power. I met him however on the road to Yarmouth, and as we travelled together I had full opportunity of seeing the state of his mind. Permit me--the urgency of the case requires it--to speak without reserve, with the freedom of an old friend. I imagine that your ladys.h.i.+p parted from Mr L----with feelings of indignation, at which I cannot be surprised: but if you had seen him as I saw him, indignation would have given way to pity. Loving you, madam, as you deserve to be loved, most ardently, most tenderly; touched to his inmost soul by the proofs of affection he had seen in your letters, in your whole conduct, even to the last moment of parting; my unhappy friend felt himself bound to resist the temptation of staying with you, or of accepting your generous offer to accompany him to Petersburg. He thought himself bound in honour by a promise extorted from him to save from suicide one whom he thinks he has injured, one who has thrown herself upon his protection. Of the conflict in his mind at parting with your ladys.h.i.+p I can judge from what he suffered afterwards.

I met Mr L---- with feelings of extreme indignation, but before I had been an hour in his company, I never pitied any man so much in my life, for I never yet saw any one so truly wretched, and so thoroughly convinced that he deserved to be so. You know that he is not one who often gives way to his emotions, not one who expresses them much in words--but he could not command his feelings.

The struggle was too violent. I have no doubt that it was the real cause of his present illness. As the moment approached when he was to leave England, he became more and more agitated. Towards evening he sunk into a sort of apathy and gloomy silence, from which he suddenly broke into delirious raving. At twelve o'clock last night, the night he was to have sailed, he was seized with a violent and infectious fever. As to the degree of immediate danger, the physicians here cannot yet p.r.o.nounce. I have sent to town for Dr *****. Your ladys.h.i.+p may be certain that I shall not quit my friend, and that he shall have every possible a.s.sistance and attendance.

I am, with the truest esteem, Your ladys.h.i.+p's faithful servant, J. B.

Letter xcvi.

_Leonora to her mother._

L---- Castle.

Dear Mother,

This moment an express from General B----. Mr L---- is dangerously ill at Yarmouth--a fever brought on by the agitation of his mind. How unjust I have been! Forget all I said in my last. I write in the utmost haste--just setting out for Yarmouth. I hope to be there to-morrow.

Your affectionate Leonora L----.

I open this to enclose the general's letter, which will explain everything.

Letter xcvij.

_General B---- to the d.u.c.h.ess of ----._

Yarmouth.

My dear Madam,

Your grace, I find, is apprised of Lady Leonora L----'s journey hither: I fear that you rely upon my prudence for preventing her exposing herself to the danger of catching this dreadful fever. But that has been beyond my power. Her ladys.h.i.+p arrived late last night. I had foreseen the probability of her coming, but not the possibility of her coming so soon. I had taken no precautions, and she was in the house and upon the stairs in an instant. No entreaties, no arguments could stop her; I a.s.sured her that Mr L----'s fever was p.r.o.nounced by all the physicians to be of the most infectious kind. Dr ***** joined me in representing that she would expose her life to almost certain danger if she persisted in her determination to see her husband; but she pressed forward, regardless of all that could be said. To the physicians she made no answer; to me she replied, "You are Mr L----'s friend, but I am his wife: you have not feared to hazard your life for him, and do you think I can hesitate?" I urged that there was no necessity for more than one person's running this hazard; and that since it had fallen to my lot to be with my friend when he was first taken ill----She interrupted me--"Is not this taking a cruel advantage of me, general? You know that I, too, would have been with Mr L---- if--if it had been possible." Her manner, her pathetic emphasis, and the force of her implied meaning, struck me so much, that I was silent, and suffered her to pa.s.s on; but again the idea of her danger rus.h.i.+ng upon my mind, I sprang before her to the door of Mr L----'s apartment, and opposed her entrance. "Then, general," said she calmly, "perhaps you mistake me--perhaps you have heard repeated some unguarded words of mine in the moment of indignation . . . unjust . . .

you best know how unjust indignation!--and you infer from these that my affection for my husband is extinguished. I deserve this--but do not punish me too severely."

I still kept my hand upon the lock of the door, expostulating with Lady Leonora in your grace's name, and in Mr L----'s a.s.suring her that if he were conscious of what was pa.s.sing, and able to speak, he would order me to prevent her seeing him in his present situation.

"And you, too, general!" said she, bursting into tears: "I thought you were my friend--would you prevent me from seeing him? And is not he conscious of what is pa.s.sing? And is not he able to speak? Sir, I must be admitted! You have done your duty--now let me do mine. Consider, my right is superior to yours. No power on earth should or can prevent a wife from seeing her husband when he is . . . Dear, dear general!" said she, clasping her raised hands, and falling suddenly at my feet, "let me see him but for one minute, and I will be grateful to you for ever!"

I could resist no longer--I tremble for the consequences. I know your grace sufficiently to be aware that you ought to be told the whole truth. I have but little hopes of my poor friend's life.

With much respect, Your grace's faithful servant, J. B.

Letter xcviij.

_Olivia to Mr L----._

Richmond.

A mist hung over my eyes, and "my ears with hollow murmurs rung," when the dreadful tidings of your alarming illness were announced by your cruel messenger. My dearest L----! why does inexorable destiny doom me to be absent from you at such a crisis? Oh! this fatal wound of mine! It would, I fear, certainly open again if I were to travel. So this corporeal being must be imprisoned here, while my anxious soul, my viewless spirit, hovers near you, longing to minister each tender consolation, each nameless comfort that love alone can, with fond prescience and magic speed, summon round the couch of pain.

"O that I had the wings of a dove, that I might fly to you!" Why must I resign the sweetly-painful task of soothing you in the hour of sickness?

And shall others, with officious zeal,

"Guess the faint wish, explain the asking eye"?

Alas! it must be so--even were I to fly to him, my sensibility could not support the scene. To behold him stretched on the bed of disease--perhaps of death--would be agony past endurance. Let firmer nerves than Olivia's, and hearts more callous, a.s.sume the offices from which they shrink not. 'Tis the fate, the hard fate of all endued with exquisite sensibility, to be palsied by the excess of their feelings, and to become imbecile at the moment their exertions are most necessary.

Your too tenderly sympathizing Olivia.

Letter xcix.