“Thy presence only ’tis can make me blest, Heal my unquiet mind, and tune my soul.”—Otway.
The fatigue, distress, and agitation of Amanda could no longer be struggled with; she sunk beneath their violence, and for a week was confined to her bed by the fever which had seized her in England, and ever since lurked in her veins. The whole sisterhood, who took it in turn to attend her, vied with each other in kindness and care to the poor invalid. Their efforts for her recovery were aided by a skilful physician from the next town, who called, without being sent for, at the convent. He said he had known Captain Fitzalan, and that, hearing that Miss Fitzalan was indisposed, he had come in hopes he might be of service to the daughter of a man he so much esteemed. He would accept of no fee, and the prioress, who was a woman of sagacity, suspected, as well as Amanda, that he came by the direction of Lord Mortimer. Nor were they mistaken, for, distracted by apprehensions about her, he had taken this method of lightening his fears, flattering himself, by the excellent advice he had procured, her recovery would be much expedited, and, of course, his suspense at least terminated. The doctor did not withdraw his visits when Amanda was able to rise; he attended her punctually, and often paid her long visits, which were of infinite service to her spirits, as he was a man of much information and cheerfulness. In a few days she was removed from her chamber into a pleasant room below stairs, which opened into the garden, where, leaning on the friendly doctor’s arm, or one of the nuns’, she walked at different times a few minutes each day. Lord Mortimer, on hearing this, thought he might now solicit an interview, and accordingly wrote for that purpose:—
TO MISS FITZALAN.
Lord Mortimer presents his compliments to Miss Fitzalan, flatters himself she will allow him personally to express the sincere happiness her restoration to health has afforded him. He cannot think she will refuse so reasonable a request. He is almost convinced she would not hesitate a moment in granting it, could she form an idea of the misery he has experienced on her account, and the anxiety he feels, and must continue to feel, till some expressions in the last interview are explained.
Castle Carberry, 10th May.
[Pg 335] This letter greatly distressed Amanda. She had hoped the pain of again rejecting his visits and requests would have been spared her. She guessed at the expressions he alluded to in his letter; they were those she had dropped relative to her promise to her father, and from the impetuous and tender feelings of Lord Mortimer she easily conceived the agony he would experience when he found this promise inviolable. She felt more for his distress than her own. Her heart, seasoned in the school of adversity, could bear its sorrows with calmness; but this was not his case, and she paid the tribute of tears to a love so fervent, so faithful, and so hopeless.
She then requested Sister Mary to acquaint his messenger that she received no visits; that, as she was tolerably recovered, she entreated his lordship would not take the trouble of continuing his inquiries about her health, or to send her any more written messages, as she was unable to answer them. The prioress, who was present when she received the letter, commended her exceedingly for the fortitude and discretion she had manifested. Amanda had deemed it necessary to inform her, after the conversation she heard between her and Lord Mortimer, of the terms on which they stood with each other; and the prioress, who doubted whether his lordship was in reality as honorable as he professed himself, thought Amanda on the sure side in declining his visits.
The next morning the doctor called as usual. He told Amanda he had brought her an entertaining book, for no such thing could be procured at St. Catherine’s, and, as she had expressed her regret at this, from the time she had been able to read he had supplied her from his library, which was extensive and well chosen.
He did not present it to her till he was retiring, and then said, with a significant smile, she would find it contained something worthy of her particular attention. Amanda was alone, and immediately opened it. Great was her astonishment when a letter dropped from it into her lap. She snatched it up, and, perceiving the direction in Lord Mortimer’s hand, she hesitated whether she should open a letter conveyed in this manner; but to return it unopened was surely a slight Lord Mortimer merited not, and she broke the seal with a trembling hand and a palpitating heart:—
Unkind Amanda, to compel me to use stratagems in writing to you, and destroy the delightful hopes which had sprung in my soul, at the prospect of being about to receive a reward for my sufferings. Am I ever to be involved in doubts and perplexity on your account? Am I ever to see difficulty succeeded by difficulty, and hope by disappointment?
[Pg 336] You must be sensible of the anxiety I shall feel, until your ambiguous expressions are fully explained, and yet you refuse this explanation! But you have no pity for my feelings. Would it not be more generous in you to permit an interview than to keep me in suspense? To know the worst is some degree of ease; besides, I should then have an opportunity of perhaps convincing you that virtue, unlike vice, has its bounds, and that we may sometimes carry our notions of honor and generosity too far, and sacrifice our real happiness to chimerical ideas of them. Surely I shall not be too presumptuous in saying that, if the regard Amanda once flattered me with is undiminished, she will, by rejecting a union with me, leave me not the only sufferer.
Oh! do not, my dear and too scrupulous girl, think a moment longer of persevering in a resolution so prejudicial to your welfare. Your situation requires particular protection: young, innocent, and beautiful; already the object of licentious pursuits; your nearest relations your greatest enemies; your brother, from his unsettled line of life, unable to be near you. Oh! my Amanda, from such a situation what evils may accrue? Avoid them, by taking refuge in his arms, who will be to you a tender friend and faithful guardian. Before such evils, the obligation for keeping a promise to reject me, fades away, particularly when the motives which led to such a promise are considered. Captain Fitzalan, hurt by the unfortunate letter he received from my father, extended his resentment to his son, and called upon you without reflecting on the consequences of such a measure to give me up. This is the only reason I can conceive for his desiring such a promise, and had I but arrived while he could have listened to my arguments, I am firmly convinced, instead of opposing, he would have sanctioned our union, and given his beloved girl to a man who, in every instance, would study to evince his gratitude for such a gift, and to supply his loss.
Happiness, my dear Amanda, is in long arrears with us. She is now ready to make up for past deficiencies, if it is not our own faults; let us not frighten her from performing her good intentions, but hand in hand receive the lovely and long absent guest to our bosoms.
You will not, cannot, must not, be inflexible; I shall expect, as soon as you read this, a summons to St. Catherine’s to receive the ratification of my hopes. In everything respecting our union I will be guided by you, except delaying it; what we have both suffered already from deceit makes me doubly anxious to secure you mine, lest another vile scheme should be formed to effect our separation.
Oh! Amanda, the faintest prospect of calling you mine gives to my heart a felicity no language can express. Refuse not being mine except you bring me an addition of fortune; already rich in every virtue, I shall, in obtaining you, obtain a treasure which the wealthiest, the proudest, and the vainest of the sons of men may envy me the possession of, and which the good, the sensible, and elegant, must esteem the kindest gift indulgent heaven could bestow on me. Banish all uneasy doubts and scruples, my Amanda, from your mind, nor think a promise, which was demanded without reflecting on the consequences that must attend it, can be binding. The ingenuous soul of your father would have cancelled it in a moment, had those consequences been represented to him; and now, when our own reason convinces us of them, I make no doubt, if departed souls are permitted to view the transactions of this world, his spirit would behold our union with approbation. Yes, my Amanda, I repeat your father’s approving spirit will smile upon an act which gives to his lovely and beloved orphan a faithful friend and steady protector, in her adoring
Mortimer.
Castle Carberry, 11th May.
[Pg 337] This letter deeply affected the sensibility, but could not shake the resolution of Amanda. She would not have answered it, as she considered any correspondence an infringement on the promises she had given her father to decline any further intimacy with him; but from the warmth and agitation displayed in his letter, it was evident to her that, if he did not receive an immediate answer to it, he would come to St. Catherine’s and insist on seeing her; and she felt assured, that she could much better deliver her sentiments upon paper than to him; she accordingly wrote as follows:—
TO LORD MORTIMER.
My Lord,—You cannot change my resolution; surely, when I solemnly declare to you it is unalterable, you will spare me any further importunity on so painful a subject. In vain, my lord, would you, by sophistry, cloaked with tenderness for that purpose, try to influence me. The arguments you have made use of, I am convinced, you never would have adopted, had you not been mistaken in regard to those motives which prompted my father to ask a promise from me of declining any farther connection with you. It was not from resentment, my lord; no, his death was then fast approaching, and he, in charity for all mankind, forgave those who had wounded him by unjust reproach and accusation; it was a proper respect for his own character, and not resentment, which influenced his conduct, as he was convinced if I consented to an alliance with you, Lord Cherbury would be confirmed in all the suspicions he entertained of his having entangled you with me, and consequently load his memory with contempt. Tenderness also for me actuated him; he was acquainted with the proud heart of Lord Cherbury, and knew that if, poor and reduced as I was, I entered his family I should be considered and treated as a mean intruder. So thoroughly am I convinced that he did not err in this idea, that, whenever reason is predominant in my mind, I think, even if a promise did not exist for such a purpose, I should decline your addresses; for, though I could submit with cheerfulness to many inconveniences for your sake, I never could support indignities. We must part, my lord; Providence has appointed different paths for us to pursue in life: yours smooth and flowery, if by useless regrets you do not frustrate the intentions of the benevolent Donor; mine rough and thorny; but both, though so different, will lead to the same goal, where we shall again meet to be no more separated.
Let not your lordship deem me either unkind or ungrateful; my heart disavows the justice of such accusations, and is but too sensible of your tenderness and generosity. Yes, my lord, I will confess that no pangs can be more pungent than those which now rend it, at being obliged to act against its feelings; but the greater the sacrifice the greater the merit of submitting to it, and a ray of self-approbation is perhaps the only sunshine of the soul which will brighten my future days.
Never, my lord, should I enjoy this, if my promise to my father was violated. There is but one circumstance which could set it aside, that is, having a fortune, that even Lord Cherbury might deem equivalent to your own to bring you; for then my father has often said he would approve our union; but this is amongst the improbabilities of this life, and we must endeavor to reconcile ourselves to the destiny which separates us.
I hope your lordship will not attempt to see me again; you must be sen[Pg 338]sible that your visits would be highly injurious to me. Even the holy and solitary asylum which I have found would not protect me from the malice which has already been so busy with my peace and fame. Alas! I now need the utmost vigilance—deprived as I am of those on whom I had claim of protection, it behooves me to exert the utmost circumspection in my conduct; he in whom I expected to have found a guardian, Oscar, my dear unfortunate brother, is gone, I know not whither, persecuted and afflicted by the perfidious monster who has been such a source of misery to me! Oh, my lord, when I think what his sufferings may now be, my heart sinks within me. Oh! had I been the only sufferer I should not have felt so great a degree of agony as I now endure; but I will not despair about my dear Oscar. The Providence which has been so kind to his sister, which so unexpectedly raised her friends at the moment she deemed herself deprived of all earthly comfort, may to him have been equally merciful. I have trespassed a long time upon your lordship’s attention, but I wished to be explicit, to avoid the necessity of any further correspondence between us. You now know my resolves; you also know my feelings; in pity to them spare me any further conflicts. May the tranquil happiness you so truly deserve soon be yours! Do not, my lord, because disappointed in one wish, lose your sense of the many valuable blessings with which you are surrounded, in fulfilling the claims which your friends, your country, have upon you; show how truly you merit those blessings, and banish all useless regrets from your heart. Adieu, my lord!—suffer no uneasiness on my account. If Heaven prolongs my life, I have no doubt but I shall find a little comfortable shelter from the world, where, conscious I have acted according to my principles of right, I shall enjoy the serenity which ever attends self-approbation—a serenity which no changes or chances in this life will, I trust, ever wrest from
Amanda Fitzalan.
St. Catherine’s, May 12th.
She dispatched this by an old man who was employed in the garden at St. Catherine’s ; but her spirits were so much affected by writing it, she was obliged to go up and lie on the bed. She considered herself as having taken a final adieu of Lord Mortimer, and the idea was too painful to be supported with fortitude. Tender and fervent as his attachment was now to her, she believed the hurry and bustle of the world, in which he must be engaged, would soon eradicate it. A transfer of his affections, to one equal to himself in rank and fortune, was a probable event, and of course a total expulsion of her from his memory would follow. A deadly coldness stole upon her heart at the idea of being forgotten by him, and produced a flood of tears. She then began to accuse herself of inconsistency. She had often thought, if Lord Mortimer was restored to happiness, she should feel more tranquil. And now, when the means of effecting this restoration occurred, she trembled and lamented as if it would increase her misery. “I am selfish,” said she to herself, “in desiring the prolongation of an affection which must ever be hopeless. I am weak in regretting the probability of its transfer, as I can never return it.”
[Pg 339] To conquer those feelings, she found she must banish Lord Mortimer from her thoughts. Except she succeeded in some degree in this, she felt she never should be able to exert the fortitude her present situation demanded. She now saw a probability of her existence being prolonged, and the bread of idleness or dependence could never be sweet to Amanda Fitzalan.
She had lain about an hour on the bed, and was about rising and returning to the parlor, when Sister Mary entered the chamber, and delivered her a letter. Ere Amanda looked at the superscription, her agitated heart foretold her whom it came from. She was not mistaken in her conjecture; but as she held it in her hand, she hesitated whether she should open it or not. “Yet,” said she to herself, “it can be no great harm. He cannot, after what I have declared, suppose my resolution to be shaken. He writes to assure me of his perfect acquiescence to it.” Sister Mary left her at the instant her deliberations ended, by opening the letter.
TO MISS FITZALAN.
Inexorable Amanda! but I will spare both you and myself the pain of farther importunity. All I now request is, that for three months longer at least, you will continue at St. Catherine’s ; or that, if you find a much longer residence there unpleasant, you will, on quitting it, leave directions where to be found. Ere half the above-mentioned period be elapsed, I trust I shall be able satisfactorily to account for such a request. I am quitting Castle Carberry immediately. I shall leave it with a d............