Self control Part 2

'For pity's sake, speak not such cutting words as those.'

'Colonel Hargrave, will you give me your promise?'

'I do promise--solemnly promise. Say, but that you forgive me.'

'I thank you, Sir, for so far ensuring the safety of my father, since he might have risked his life to avenge the wrongs of his child. You cannot be surprised, if I now wish to close our acquaintance, as speedily as may be consistent with the concealment so unfortunately necessary.'

Impatient to conclude an interview which tasked her fort.i.tude to the utmost, Laura was about to retire. Hargrave seized her hand. 'Surely, Laura, you will not leave me thus. You cannot refuse forgiveness to a fault caused by intemperate pa.s.sion alone. The only atonement in my power, I now come to offer: my hand--my fortune--my future rank.'

The native spirit, and wounded delicacy of Laura, flashed from her eyes, while she replied: 'I fear, Sir, I shall not be suitably grateful for your generosity, while I recollect the alternative you would have preferred.'

This was the first time that Laura had ever appeared to her lover, other than the tender, the timid girl. From this character she seemed to have started at once into the high-spirited, the dignified woman; and, with a truly masculine pa.s.sion for variety, Hargrave thought he had never seen her half so fascinating. 'My angelic Laura,' cried he, as he knelt before her, 'lovelier in your cruelty, suffer me to prove to you my repentance--my reverence--my adoration;--suffer me to prove them to the world, by uniting our fates for ever.'

'It is fit the guilty should kneel,' said Laura, turning away, 'but not to their fellow mortals. Rise, Sir, this homage to me is but mockery.'

'Say, then, that you forgive me; say, that you will accept the tenderness, the duty of my future life.'

'What! rather than control your pa.s.sions, will you now stoop to receive as your wife, her whom so lately you thought vile enough for the lowest degradation? Impossible! yours I can never be. Our views, our principles, are opposite as light and darkness. How shall I call heaven to witness the prost.i.tution of its own ordinances? How shall I ask the blessing of my Maker, on my union with a being at enmity with him?'

'Good heavens, Laura, will you sacrifice to a punctilio--to a fit of Calvinistic enthusiasm, the peace of my life, the peace of your own? You have owned that you love me--I have seen it--delighted seen it a thousand times--and will you now desert me for ever?'

'I do not act upon punctilio,' returned Laura calmly;--'I believe I am no enthusiast. What _have_ been my sentiments, is now of no importance; to unite myself with vice would be deliberate wickedness--to hope for happiness from such an union would be desperate folly.'

'Dearest Laura, bound by your charms, allured by your example, my reformation would be certain, my virtue secure.'

'Oh, hope it not!--Familiar with my form, my only hold on your regard, you would neglect, forsake, despise me; and who should say that my punishment was not just.'

'And will you then,' cried Hargrave, in an agony; 'Will you then cut me off forever? Will you drive me for ever from your heart?'

'I have now no choice--leave me--forget me--seek some woman less fastidious; or rather endeavour, by your virtues, to deserve one superior far. Then honoured, beloved, as a husband, as a father'--The fort.i.tude of Laura failed before the picture of her fancy, and she was unable to proceed. Determined to conceal her weakness from Hargrave, she broke from him, and hurried towards the door;--but, melting into tenderness at the thought that this interview was perhaps the last, she turned. 'Oh, Hargrave,' she cried, clasping her hands as in supplication, 'have pity on yourself--have pity on me--forsake the fatal path on which you have entered, that, though for ever torn from you here, I may yet meet you in a better world.'

She then darted from the room, leaving her lover in dumb amazement, at the conclusion of an interview so different from his expectations. For the resentment of Laura he had been prepared; but upon her determined refusal, he had never calculated, and scarcely could he now admit the reality. Could he give her credit for the professed motive of her rejection? Colonel Hargrave had nothing in himself that made it natural for him to suppose pa.s.sion sacrificed to reason and principle. Had he then deceived himself,--had she never really loved him?--the suggestion was too mortifying to be admitted. Had resentment given rise to her determination? She had spoken from the first with calmness,--at last with tenderness. Was all this but a scene of coquetry, designed to enhance her favours? The simple, the n.o.ble, the candid Laura guilty of coquetry?--impossible! While these thoughts darted with confused rapidity through his mind, one idea alone was distinct and permanent--Laura had rejected him. This thought was torture. Strong resentment mingled with his anguish; and to inflict, on the innocent cause of it, pangs answering to those he felt, would have afforded to Hargrave the highest gratification. Though his pa.s.sion for Laura was the most ardent of which he was capable, its effects, for the present, more resembled those of the bitterest hatred. That she loved him, he would not allow himself to doubt; and, therefore, he concluded that neglect would inflict the surest, as well as the most painful wound. Swearing that he would make her feel it at her heart's core, he left the cottage, strode to the village inn, surlily ordered his horses, and, in a humour compounded of revenge, impatient pa.s.sion, and wounded pride, returned to his quarters at ----. His scheme of revenge had all the success that such schemes usually have or deserve; and while, for one whole week, he deigned not, by visit or letter, to notice his mistress, the real suffering which he inflicted, did not exactly fall on her for whom he intended the pain.

CHAPTER III

To an interview which he presumed would be as delightful as interesting, Captain Montreville chose to give no interruption; and therefore he had walked out to superintend his hay-making: But, after staying abroad for two hours, which he judged a reasonable length for a tete-a-tete, he returned, and was a little surprised to find that the Colonel was gone.

Though he entertained not a doubt of the issue of the conference, he had some curiosity to know the particulars, and summoned Laura to communicate them.

'Well, my love,' said he, as the conscious Laura shut the parlour door, 'is Colonel Hargrave gone?'

'Long ago, Sir.'

'I thought he would have waited my return.'

Laura made no answer.

'When are we to see him again?'

Laura did not know.

'Well, well,' said Captain Montreville, a little impatiently, 'since the Colonel is gone without talking to me, I must just hear from you what it is you have both determined on.'

Laura trembled in every limb. 'I knew,' said she, without venturing to lift her eye, 'that you would never sacrifice your child to rank or fortune; and therefore I had no hesitation in refusing Colonel Hargrave.'

Captain Montreville started back with astonishment,--'Refuse Colonel Hargrave?' cried he,--'Impossible--you cannot be in earnest.'

Laura, with much truth, a.s.sured him that she never in her life had been more serious.

Captain Montreville was thunderstruck. Surprise for a few moments kept him silent. At last recovering himself,--'Why, Laura,' said he, 'what objection could you possibly make to Hargrave?--he is young, handsome, accomplished, and has shewn such generosity in his choice of you'--

'Generosity! Sir,' repeated Laura.

'Yes; it was generous in Colonel Hargrave, who might pretend to the first woman in the kingdom, to think of offering to share his fortune and his rank with you, who have neither.'

Laura's sentiments on this subject did not exactly coincide with her father's, but she remained silent while he continued: 'I think I have a right to hear your objections, for I am entirely at a loss to guess them. I don't indeed know a fault Hargrave has, except perhaps a few gallantries; which most girls of your age think a very pardonable error.'

A sickness, as of death, seized Laura; but she answered steadily, 'Indeed, Sir, the Colonel's views are so different from mine--his dispositions so very unlike--so opposite, that nothing but unhappiness could possibly result from such an union. But,' added she, forcing a languid smile, 'we shall, if you please, discuss all this to-morrow; for, indeed, today, I am unable to defend my own case with you. I have been indisposed all day.'

Captain Montreville looked at Laura, and, in the alarm which her unusual paleness excited, lost all sense of the disappointment she had just caused him. He threw his arm tenderly round her--supported her to her own apartment--begged she would try to rest,--ran to seek a cordial for his darling; and then, fearing that the dread of his displeasure should add to her disorder, hastened back to a.s.sure her that, though her happiness was his dearest concern, he never meant to interfere with her judgment of the means by which it was to be promoted.

Tears of affectionate grat.i.tude burst from the eyes of Laura. 'My dear kind father,' she cried, 'let me love--let me please you--and I ask no other earthly happiness.'

Captain Montreville then left her to rest; and, quite exhausted with illness, fatigue, and sorrow, she slept soundly for many hours.

The Captain spent most of the evening ruminating on the occurrence of the day; nor did his meditations at all diminish his surprize at his daughter's unaccountable rejection of his favourite. He recollected many instances in which he thought he had perceived her partiality to the Colonel;--he perplexed himself in vain to reconcile them with her present behaviour. He was compelled at last to defer his conclusions till Laura herself should solve the difficulty. The subject was, indeed, so vexatious to him, that he longed to have his curiosity satisfied, in order finally to dismiss the affair from his mind.

Laura had long been accustomed, when a.s.sailed by any adverse circ.u.mstance, whether more trivial or more important, to seize the first opportunity of calmly considering how far she had herself contributed to the disaster; and, as nothing is more hostile to good humour than an ill-defined feeling of self-reproach, the habit was no less useful to the regulation of our heroine's temper, than to her improvement in the rarer virtues of prudence and candour. Her first waking hour, except that which was uniformly dedicated to a more sacred purpose, she now employed in strict and impartial self-examination. She endeavoured to call to mind every part of her behaviour to Colonel Hargrave, lest her own conduct might have seemed to countenance his presumption. But in vain. She could not recall a word, a look, even a thought, that could have encouraged his profligacy. 'Yet why should I wonder,' she exclaimed, 'if he expected that temptation might seduce, or weakness betray me, since he knew me fallible, and of the Power by which I am upheld he thought not.'

Satisfied of the purity of her conduct, she next proceeded to examine its prudence: but here she found little reason for self-congratulation.

Her conscience, indeed, completely acquitted her of levity or forwardness, but its charges of imprudence she could not so easily parry. Why had she admitted a preference for a man whose moral character was so little known to her? Where slept her discretion, while she suffered that preference to strengthen into pa.s.sion? Why had she indulged in dreams of ideal perfection? Why had she looked for consistent virtue in a breast where she had not ascertained that piety resided? Had she allowed herself time for consideration, would she have forgotten that religion was the only foundation strong enough to support the self-denying, the purifying virtues? These prudent reflections came, in part, too late; for to love, Laura was persuaded she must henceforth be a stranger. But to her friends.h.i.+ps, she conceived, that they might be applicable; and she determined to make them useful in her future intercourse with her own s.e.x; to whom, perhaps, they may be applied even with more justice than to the other.

The mind of Laura had been early stored with just and rational sentiments. These were the bullion--but it was necessary that experience should give the stamp that was to make them current in the ordinary business of life. Had she called prudence to her aid, in the first stage of her acquaintance with the insinuating Hargrave, what anguish would she not have spared herself. But if the higher wisdom is to foresee and prevent misfortune, the next degree is to make the best of it when unavoidable; and Laura resolved that this praise at least should be her's. Fortified by this resolution, she quitted her apartment, busied herself in her domestic affairs, met her father almost with cheerfulness; and, when he renewed the subject of their last conversation, repeated, with such composure, her conviction of the dissimilarity of Hargrave's dispositions to her own, that Captain Montreville began to believe that he had been mistaken in his opinion of her preference. Still, however, he could not account for her rejection of an offer so un.o.bjectionable; and he hinted a suspicion, that some of Hargrave's gallantries had been repeated to her, and perhaps with exaggeration. With trembling lips, Laura a.s.sured him she had never heard the slightest insinuation against Colonel Hargrave. Though Laura had little of romance in her composition, her father now began to imagine, that she allowed herself to cherish the romantic dream, that sympathy of souls, and exactly concordant tastes and propensities, were necessary to the happiness of wedded life. But Laura calmly declared, that her tastes were not inflexible; and that, had she intended to marry, she should have found it an easy duty to conform them to those of her husband: but that the thought of marriage was shocking to her, and she trusted no man would ever again think of her as a wife. Montreville, who for once suspected his daughter of a little affectation, made no effort to combat this unnatural antipathy, but trusted to time and nature for its cure.

As soon as her father left her, Laura, determined not to be brave by halves, began the painful task of destroying every relic of Hargrave's presence. She banished from her port-folio the designs he had made for her drawings, destroyed the music from which he had accompanied her, and effaced from her books the marks of his pencil. She had amused her solitary hours by drawing, in chalks, a portrait of features indelibly engraven on her recollection, and her fort.i.tude failed her when about to consign it to the flames.--'No;' she exclaimed, 'I can never part with this. This, at least, I may love unreproved,' and she pressed it in agony to her heart--inwardly vowing that no human being should fill its place. But such thoughts as these could not linger in the reasonable mind of Laura. The next moment she blushed for her weakness; and, casting away its last treasure, averted her eyes till the flames had consumed it to ashes. 'Now all is over,' she cried, as she threw herself into a chair and burst into tears. But, quickly wiping them away, she resolved that she would not wilfully bind herself to the rack of recollection, and hastened to exert herself in some of her ordinary employments.

Laura was aware that the cottage, where every walk, every shrub, every flower spoke of Hargrave, was a scene unlikely to aid her purpose of forgetting him; and, therefore, she that evening proposed to her father that they should pay their long promised visit to Mrs Douglas. He readily consented. Their journey was fixed for the following day, and Laura occupied herself in preparing for their departure, though with feelings far different from the delight with which, a few days before, she would have antic.i.p.ated a meeting with her early friend.

CHAPTER IV

Mrs Douglas observed, with satisfaction, the improved stature and increasing gracefulness of her young favourite; but she remarked, with painful interest, that the hectic of pleasure which tinged the cheek of Laura, at their meeting, faded fast to the hue of almost sickly delicacy. She soon noticed that an expression, as of sudden torture, would sometimes contract, for a moment, the polished forehead of Laura; that it was now succeeded by the smothered sigh, the compressed lip, the hasty motion that spoke of strong mental effort, now subsided into the languor of deep unconquered melancholy. Such depression Mrs Douglas could not attribute to the loss of a mother, whose treatment furnished more occasions of patience than of grat.i.tude; and she anxiously longed to discover its real cause. But it was soon evident that this was a secret which Laura had no intention to disclose. A glance from the inquiring eye of Mrs Douglas, at once recalled her to constrained cheerfulness; and the presence of Captain Montreville seemed always to put her entirely upon her guard. While he was in the room, she talked, read aloud, or played with the children, as if determined to be amused; but as soon as he retired, she relapsed, like one wearied with effort, into languor and melancholy, till recalled to herself by the scrutinizing looks of Mrs Douglas. Even in their most private conversations, the name of Hargrave never pa.s.sed her lips. Months, indeed, had elapsed since Laura could have p.r.o.nounced that name without painful emotion--to utter it now was become almost impossible. She felt that she had no right to publish, while she rejected, his addresses; and she felt an invincible repugnance to expose even his failings, but much more his vices, to the censure of the respectable Mrs Douglas. Soon after she first saw Hargrave, she had written to her friend a warm eulogium of his fine person, captivating manners, and elegant accomplishments. Mrs Douglas, in reply, had desired to hear more of this phoenix; but before Laura again found leisure to write, she was no longer inclined to make Hargrave her subject, and her friend had desisted from fruitless inquiries. Mrs Douglas had lately had an opportunity of judging for herself of the Colonel's attractions; and, so great did they appear to her, that it was with extreme astonishment she heard his late disappointment from Captain Montreville, who did not feel his daughter's delicacy on the subject. This communication only served to increase her perplexity as to the cause of Laura's depression; yet she felt herself relieved from the apprehension, that hopeless love for Hargrave was wasting the health and peace of her dear Laura. Still, however, she continued to watch that expressive countenance, to weigh every word that might tend to unfold the enigma. In vain;--Laura studiously avoided all approach to an explanation. Mrs Douglas's anxiety now increased to a painful extreme. She felt how necessary to female inexperience is the advice of a female,--how indispensable to feminine sorrows are the consolations of feminine sympathy; and she resolved that no false delicacy should withhold her from offering such relief as she might have power to bestow.