“Go bid the needle its dear north forsake, To which with trembling reverence it does bend:
Go bid the stones a journey upward make:
Go bid the ambitious flame no more ascend;
And when these false to their old motions prove,
Then will I cease thee, thee alone to love.”—Cowley.
In an emotion of surprise at so unexpected a visit, the book she was reading dropped from Amanda, and she arose in visible agitation.
“I fear,” said his lordship, “I have intruded somewhat abruptly upon you; but my apology for doing so must be my ardent wish of using an opportunity so propitious for a mutual eclaircissement—an opportunity I might, perhaps, vainly seek again.”
He took her trembling hand, led her to the sofa, and placed[Pg 234] himself by her. As a means of leading to the desired eclaircissement, he related the agonies he had suffered at returning to Tudor Hall, and finding her gone—gone in a manner so inexplicable, that the more he reflected on it the more wretched he grew. He described the hopes and fears which alternately fluctuated in his mind during his continuance in Ireland, and which often drove him into a state nearly bordering on distraction. He mentioned the resolution, though painful in the extreme, which he had adopted on the first appearance of Sir Charles Bingley’s particularity; and finally concluded by assuring her, notwithstanding all his incertitude and anxiety, his tenderness had never known diminution.
Encouraged by this assurance, Amanda, with restored composure, informed him of the reason of her precipitate journey from Wales, and the incidents which prevented her meeting him in Ireland, as he had expected. Though delicacy forbade her dwelling, like Lord Mortimer, on the wretchedness occasioned by their separation, and mutual misapprehensions of each other, she could not avoid touching upon it sufficiently, indeed, to convince him she had been a sympathizing participator in all the uneasiness he had suffered.
Restored to the confidence of Mortimer, Amanda appeared dearer to his soul than ever. Pleasure beamed from his eyes as he pressed her to his bosom, and exclaimed, “I may again call you my own Amanda; again sketch scenes of felicity, and call upon you to realize them.” Yet, in the midst of this transport, a sudden gloom clouded his countenance; and after gazing on her some minutes, with pensive tenderness, he fervently exclaimed, “Would to Heaven, in this hour of perfect reconciliation, I could say that all obstacles to our future happiness were removed.” Amanda involuntarily shuddered, and continued silent.
“That my father will throw difficulties in the way of our union, I cannot deny my apprehension of,” said Lord Mortimer; “though truly noble and generous in his nature, he is sometimes, like the rest of mankind, influenced by interested motives. He has long, from such motives, set his heart on a connection with the Marquis of Roslin’s family. Though fully determined in my intentions, I have hitherto forborne an explicit declaration of them to him, trusting that some propitious chance would yet second my wishes, and save me the painful necessity of disturbing the harmony which has ever subsisted between us.”
“Oh! my lord!” said Amanda, turning pale, and shrinking from him, “let me not be the unfortunate cause of disturb[Pg 235]ing that harmony. Comply with the wishes of Lord Cherbury, marry Lady Euphrasia, and let me be forgotten.”
“Amanda,” cried his lordship, “accuse not yourself of being the cause of any disagreement between us. Had I never seen you, with respect to Lady Euphrasia, I should have felt the same inability to comply with his wishes. To me her person is not more unpleasing than her mind. I have long been convinced that wealth alone was insufficient to bestow felicity, and have ever considered the man who could sacrifice his feelings at the shrine of interest or ambition, degraded below the standard of humanity; that to marry, merely from selfish considerations, was one of the most culpable, most contemptible actions which could be committed. To enter into such a union, I want the propensities which can alone ever occasion it, namely, a violent passion for the enjoyments only attainable through the medium of wealth. Left at an early age uncontrolled master of my own actions, I drank freely of the cup of pleasure, but found it soon pall upon my taste. It was, indeed, unmixed with any of those refined ingredients which can only please the intellectual appetite, and might properly be termed the cup of false instead of real pleasure. Thinking, therefore, as I do, that a union without love is abhorrent to probity and sensibility, and that the dissipated pleasures of life are not only prejudicial but tiresome, I naturally wish to secure to myself domestic happiness; but never could it be experienced except united to a woman whom my reason thoroughly approved, who should at once possess my unbounded confidence and tenderest affection. Who should be, not only the promoter of my joys, but the assuager of my cares. In you I have found such a woman, such a being, as I candidly confess, some time ago, I thought it impossible to meet with. To you I am bound by a sentiment even stronger than love—by honor—and with real gratitude acknowledge my obligations in being permitted to atone, in some degree, for my errors relative to you. But I will not allow my Amanda to suppose these errors proceeded from any settled depravity of soul. Allowed to be, as I have before said, my own master at an early period, from the natural thoughtlessness of youth, I was led into scenes which the judgment of riper years has since severely condemned. Here, too, often I met with women whose manners, instead of checking, gave a latitude to freedom; women, too, who, from their situations in life, had every advantage that could be requisite for improving and refining their minds. From conversing with them I gradually imbibed a prejudice against the whole sex, and under that[Pg 236] prejudice first beheld you, and feared either to doubt or to believe the reality of the innocence you appeared to possess.
“Convinced at length, most fully, most happily convinced of its reality, my prejudices no longer remained; they vanished like mists before the sun—or rather like the illusions of falsehood before the influence of truth. Were those, my dear Amanda, of your sex, who, like you, had the resistless power of pleasing, to use the faculties assigned them by a bounteous Providence in the cause of virtue, they would soon check the dissipation of the times.
“’Tis impossible to express the power a beautiful form has over the human mind; that power might be exerted for nobler purposes. Purity speaking from love-inspiring lips would, like the voice of Adam’s heavenly guest, so sweetly breathe upon the ear as insensibly to influence the heart; the libertine it corrected would, if not utterly hardened, reform; no longer would he glory in his vices, but touched and abashed, instead of destroying, worship female virtue.
“But I wander from the purpose of my soul. Convinced as I am of the dissimilarity between my father’s inclinations and mine, I think it better to give no intimation of my present intentions, which, if permitted by you, I am unalterably determined on fulfilling, as I should consider it as highly insulting to him to incur his prohibition, and then act in defiance of it, though my heart would glory in avowing its choice. The peculiar circumstances I have just mentioned will, I trust, induce my Amanda to excuse a temporary concealment of it, till beyond the power of mortals to separate us—a private and immediate union, the exigency of situation, and the security of felicity demands. I shall feel a trembling apprehension till I call you mine; life is too short to permit the waste of time in idle scruples and unmeaning ceremonies. The eye of suspicion has long rested upon us, and would, I am convinced, effect a premature discovery, if we took not some measure to prevent it.
“Deem me not too precipitate, my Amanda,” passing his arm gently round her waist, “if I ask you to-morrow night, for the last sweet proof of confidence you can give me, by putting yourself under my protection. A journey to Scotland is unavoidable—in the arrangements I shall make for it, all that is due to delicacy I shall consider.”
“Mention it no more, my lord,” said Amanda, in a faltering accent; “no longer delude your imagination or mine with the hopes of being united.”
Hitherto she had believed the approbation of Lord Cher[Pg 237]bury to the wishes of his son would be obtained, the moment he was convinced how essential their gratification was to his felicity. She judged of him by her father, who, she was convinced, if situations were reversed, would bestow her on Mortimer without hesitation. These ideas so nourished her attachment, that, like the vital parts of existence, it at length became painfully, almost fatally, susceptible of every shock. Her dream of happiness was over the moment she heard Lord Cherbury’s consent was not to be asked, from a fear of its being refused. ’Twas misery to be separated from Lord Mortimer, but it was guilt and misery to marry him clandestinely, after the solemn injunction her father had given her against such a step. The shock of disappointment could not be borne with composure; it pressed like a cold dead weight upon her heart. She trembled, and, unable to support herself, sunk against the shoulder of Lord Mortimer, while a shower of tears proclaimed her agony. Alarmed by her emotion, Lord Mortimer hastily demanded its source, and the reason of the words which had just escaped her.
“Because, my lord,” replied she, “I cannot consent to a clandestine measure, nor bear you should incur the displeasure of Lord Cherbury on my account. Though Lady Euphrasia Sutherland is not agreeable, there are many women who, with equal rank and fortune, possess the perfections suited to your taste. Seek for one of these—choose from among them a happy daughter of prosperity, and let Amanda, untitled, unportioned, and unpleasing to your father, return to an obscurity which owes its comfort to his fostering bounty.” “Does this advice,” asked Lord Mortimer, “proceed from Amanda’s heart?” “No,” replied she, hesitatingly, and smiling through her tears, “not from her heart, but from a better counsellor, her reason.”
“And shall I not obey the dictates of reason,” replied he, “in uniting my destiny to yours? Reason directs us to seek happiness through virtuous means; and what means are so adapted for that purpose, as a union with a beloved and amiable woman? No, Amanda; no titled daughter of prosperity, to use your own words, shall ever attract my affections from you. ‘Imagination cannot form a shape, besides your own, to like of;’ a shape which even if despoiled of its graces, would enshrine a mind so transcendently lovely, as to secure my admiration. In choosing you as the partner of my future days, I do not infringe the moral obligation which exists between father and son; for as, on one hand, it does not require weak indulgence; so, on the other, it does not demand implicit[Pg 238] obedience, if reason and happiness must be sacrificed by it. Nothing would have tempted me to propose a private union but the hope of escaping many disagreeable circumstances by it. If you persist, however, in rejecting it, I shall openly avow my intentions, for a long continuance of anxiety and suspense I cannot support.”
“Do you think, then,” said Amanda, “I would enter your family amidst confusion and altercation? No, my lord, rashly or clandestinely I never will consent to enter it.”
“Is this the happiness I promised myself would crown our reconciliation?” exclaimed Lord Mortimer, rising hastily and traversing the apartment. “Is an obstinate adherence to rigid punctilio the only proof of regard I shall receive from Amanda? Will she make no trifling sacrifice to the man who adores her, and whom she professes to esteem?”
“Any sacrifice, my lord, compatible with virtue and filial duty, most willingly would I make; but beyond these limits I must not, cannot, will not step. Cold, joyless, and unworthy of your acceptance would be the hand you would receive if given against my conviction of what was right. Oh, never may the hour arrive in which I should blush to see my father; in which I should be accused of injuring the honor intrusted to my charge, and feel oppressed with the consciousness of having planted thorns in the breast that depended on me for happiness.”
“Do not be too inflexible, my Amanda,” cried Lord Mortimer, resuming his seat, “nor suffer too great a degree of refinement to involve you in wretchedness; felicity is seldom attained without some pain; a little resolution on your side would overcome any difficulties that lay between us and it; when the act was past, my father would naturally lose his resentment, from perceiving its inefficacy, and family concord would speedily be restored. Araminta adores you; with rapture would she receive her dear and lovely sister to her bosom; your father, happy in your happiness, would be convinced his notions heretofore were too scrupulous, and that in complying with my wishes you had neither violated your own delicacy nor tarnished his honor.”
“Ah, my lord, your arguments have not the effect you desire. I cannot be deluded by them, to view things in the light you wish. To unite myself clandestinely to you would be to fly in the face of parental authority; to be proposed to Lord Cherbury, when almost certain of a refusal, would not only subject me to insult, but dissolve the friendship which has hitherto subsisted between his lordship and my father. Situ[Pg 239]ated as we are, our only expedient is to separate; ’tis absurd to think longer of a connection against which there are such obstacles; the task of trying to forget will be easier to you, my lord, than you now perhaps imagine; the scenes you must be engaged in are well calculated to expunge painful remembrances; in the retirement my destiny has doomed me to my efforts will not be wanting to render me equally successful.”
The tears trickled down Amanda’s pale cheeks as she spoke; she believed that they must part, and the belief was attended with a pang of unutterable anguish: pleased and pained by her sensibility, Lord Mortimer bent forward and looked into her face.
“Are these tears,” said he, “to enforce me to the only expedient you say remains? Ah, my Amanda,” clasping her to his breast, “the task of forgetting you could never be accomplished—could never be attempted; life would be tasteless if not spent with you; never will I relinquish the delightful hope of a union yet taking place. A sudden thought,” resumed he, after pausing a few minutes, “has just occurred. I have an aunt, the only remaining sister of Lord Cherbury, a generous, tender, exalted woman; I have ever been her particular favorite; my Amanda, I know, is the very kind of being she would select, if the choice devolved on her, for my wife: she is now in the country; I will write immediately, inform her of our situation, and entreat her to come up to town to use her influence with my father in our favor. Her fortune is large, from the bequest of a rich relation; and from the generosity of her disposition I have no doubt she would render the loss of Lady Euphrasia’s fortune very immaterial to her brother. This is the only scheme I can possibly devise for the completion of our happiness, according to your notions, and I hope it meets your approbation.”
It appeared indeed, a feasible one to Amanda; and as it could not possibly excite any ideas unfavorable to her father’s integrity, she gave her consent to its being tried.
Her heart felt relieved of an oppressive load, as the hope revived that it might be accomplished. Lord Mortimer wiped away her tears; and the cloud which hung over them both being dispersed, they talked with pleasure of future days. Lord Mortimer described the various schemes he had planned for their mode of life. Amanda smiled at the easiness with which he contrived them, and secretly wished he might find it as easy to realize as to project.
“Though the retired path of life,” said he, “might be more agreeable to us than the frequented and public one, we must[Pg 240] make some little sacrifice of inclination to the community to which we belong. On an elevated station and affluent fortune there are claims from subordinate ranks which cannot be avoided without injuring them. Neither should I wish to hide the beautiful gem I shall possess in obscurity; but, after a winter of what I call moderate dissipation, we will hasten to the sequestered shades of Tudor Hall.” He dwelt with pleasure on the calm and rational joys they should experience there; nor could forbear hinting at the period when new tendernesses, new sympathies, would be awakened in their souls; when little prattling beings should frolic before them, and literally strew roses in their paths. He expressed his wish of having Fitzalan a constant resident with them: and was proceeding to mention some alterations he intended at Tudor Hall, when the return of Lady Greystock’s carriage effectually disturbed him. Lord Mortimer, however, had time to assure Amanda, ere she entered the room, that he had no doubt but everything would be soon settled according to their wishes, and that he would take every opportunity her ladyship’s absence gave him of visiting her.
“So, so,” said Lady Greystock, coming into the room, “this has been Miss Fitzalan’s levee-day. Why, I declare, my dear, now that I know of the agreeable tete-??-tetes you can enjoy, I shall feel no uneasiness at leaving you to yourself.”
Amanda blushed deeply; and Lord Mortimer thought in this speech he perceived a degree of irony which seemed to say all was not right in the speaker’s heart towards Amanda, and on this account felt more anxious than ever to have her under his own protection. Animated by the idea that this would soon be the case, he told her ladyship, smiling, “she should be obliged to him or any other person who could relieve her mind from uneasiness,” and departed. This had been a busy and interesting day to Amanda, and the variety of emotions it had given rise to produced a languor in her mind and frame she could not shake off.
Her expectations were not as sanguine as Lord Mortimer’s. Once severely disappointed, she dreaded again to give too great a latitude to hope. Happiness was in view, but she doubted much whether it would ever be within her reach; yet the pain of suspense she endeavored to alleviate by reflecting that every event was under the direction of a superior Being, who knew best what would constitute the felicity of His creatures.
Lady Greystock learned from her maid the length of Lord Mortimer’s visit, and she was convinced from that circumstance[Pg 241] as well as from the look and absent manner of Amanda, that something material had happened in the course of it. In the evening they were engaged to a party, and ere they separated after dinner to dress for it, a plain-looking woman was shown into the room, whom Amanda instantly recollected to be the person at whose house she and her father had lodged on quitting Devonshire to secrete themselves from Colonel Belgrave. This woman had been bribed to............