Contains an incident which the sagacious reader has probably foreseen.
Henrietta, when she was left alone, found sufficient matter for reflection in the sentiments and behaviour of this wealthy tradesman and his daughter; and as it was now become necessary for her own peace of mind to reconcile herself to the situation that fortune had placed her in, she endeavoured to extract useful lessons from every scene that passed under her observation.
Why have I lamented my poverty? said she to herself; riches neither give understanding to the mind, nor elegance to the person. How mean is miss Cordwain with forty thousand pounds! what narrow notions! what selfish passions! how ignorant, how contemptible!—All the advantages her large fortune procures her, is a title and a coronet: honours how despicable, when such as miss Cordwain wear them!
Let me thank Heaven then, that made my father a younger brother; that he inherited the virtues and elevated sentiments of his noble ancestors, and wanted that allurement to upstart wealth, which might have given me a miss Cordwain for a mother, and have deprived me of those generous precepts, and those bright examples, by which I have been taught to think poverty a less evil than dishonour; and that a peaceful conscience is cheaply purchased with the loss of every worldly advantage.
These were her reflections, as she afterwards declared to her friend. It is not therefore surprising that with such sentiments, our fair heroine found herself tranquil in her humble station, and dignified misfortune by her graceful resignation to it.
If the woman she served had had judgment enough to distinguish merit, and goodness enough to love it, Henrietta must have engaged her attention and her kindness: but little minds like nothing but what resembles themselves.
Miss Cordwain sometimes condescended to enter into a conversation with her woman, but was quickly disgusted with the difference of their notions; and what she could not comprehend, she either despised as folly, or suspected as artifice.
They were upon these terms when Mr. Cordwain acquainted his daughter, that they were invited to spend a week at the earl of ——’s country-seat; for the contested ten thousand pounds being granted by the citizen, the treaty of marriage was renewed; and this visit was proposed in order to bring the young people together again with some kind of decorum.
Miss Cordwain, in high spirits, gave her woman notice to make preparations for this little journey; which done, Henrietta went to take leave of her faithful Mrs. Willis.
“What a triumph would mine be,” said she to her friend, “if any of my relations should happen to be at this nobleman’s seat, and behold me in the character of miss Cordwain’s servant!”
“You have done right, my dear,” replied Mrs. Willis, “to call it a triumph; for so indeed it would be, the triumph of virtue over pride and prejudice.”
The good woman informed her, that her guardian was in a very ill state of health, and was gone to Montpelier, in consequence of his physician’s advice: that the young man had been there to wait upon her; and that when he heard of the resolution she had taken, he affected to think himself extremely injured by her conduct, as it shewed the utmost contempt of his advice and friendship; but it was easy to perceive, added Mrs. Willis, that there was more grief than anger in the reproaches he threw out against you upon this occasion. He seemed much mortified at my refusing to tell him where you was, but owned that his wife made him very uneasy upon your account; and when I urged that as an argument against the propriety of your seeing him, his silence acknowledged me in the right.
Henrietta was sensibly affected with the news of her guardian’s illness; and since his return was now uncertain, she resolved to write to him immediately, and give him an account of all that had happened to her since he went abroad, fearing that unless she explained the reasons of her conduct, he might be prejudiced against her by her aunt’s representations of it. She would not give him any disquiet, by mentioning his son’s behaviour, but left that to be unravelled by time.
Mrs. Willis having promised to get this letter safely transmitted to Mr. Damer, Henrietta took a tender leave of her, and returned home.
The next morning very early, the coach and six was at the door; miss Cordwain impatiently stepped in, for she thought every moment an age till she saw her noble lover again. Her face dressed in smiles of pleasing expectation, and her heart exulting with the consciousness of her own worth, which, by her father’s concession of the disputed thousands, had received such a considerable addition: but being, as I have before observed, not very happy in the frame of her temper, this sun-shine of satisfaction was soon clouded at being obliged to wait a few minutes for her father, whose slowness but ill suited with her eager impatience.
Indeed the wary citizen, having wisely considered that they had a journey to perform of at least twenty miles, was busied in packing up some necessary refreshments, that they might not be famished by the way. For this purpose he had caused a neat’s5 tongue, a cake of ginger-bread, two or three pounds of almonds and raisins, and a bottle of sack,6 to be provided; and he himself brought the basket in which they were deposited to the coach, directing Henrietta to get in first, that he might place it safely in her lap; which done, he took his seat next his daughter, and ordered the coachman to drive.
Miss Cordwain’s ill humour insensibly wearing off, they pursued their journey with great satisfaction, not having baited7 above three or four times on the road.
At length the young lady’s eyes were delighted with the prospect of the magnificent villa, which she expected one day to be mistress of; but her attention was soon called off that object by the presence of her lover, who, being just returned from a little excursion on horseback, alighted as soon as he saw the coach stop, and advanced to help his mistress out.
The young lord presented his hand to miss Cordwain with an air of forced gallantry; but happening to glance his eyes towards Henrietta, he started back in great surprise.
Miss Cordwain, vexed at the attention with which he gazed upon her woman, jumped out of the coach, before he had sufficiently recovered himself to be able to offer her again the hand, which, in his confusion, he had withdrawn.
The lady having on a capuchin,8 which she had wore during the journey, untied it, and, tossing it into the coach to Henrietta, bid her, in an imperious tone, to take care of it.
This action and these words gave the young nobleman to understand that our beauteous heroine was actually the servant of miss Cordwain: a circumstance which furnished him with new matter for wonder; and indeed this encounter gave him so much perplexity, and so entirely engrossed his thoughts, that the old tradesman (who enquired after my good lord and my good lady’s health, with as many bows and scrapes as would have served any trader to express his acknowledgment to a customer whom he had just cheated) was obliged to repeat his questions several times before he could procure an answer.
As for Henrietta, she had, upon the first sight of this young nobleman, whom she immediately knew to be the same person that had lodged at Mrs. Eccles’s, been under some confusion, lest he should accost her as an acquaintance before the lady on whom she attended; but observing that, from miss Cordwain’s behaviour, he understood her situation, and took no further notice of her than by a side glance, which he gave her, full of passionate concern, she was relieved from her fears, and, far from being discomposed at the character she appeared in, she acquitted herself of the little duties of her station with the most graceful ease; gave her lady her fan, received her commands, and, with a little French trunk in her hand that contained some laces and linen, followed her to the house at a respectful distance.
Lord B——’s emotions at this unexpected meeting with Henrietta, having now in some degree subsided, he entertained his mistress as they walked with his usual vivacity and politeness, but could not help often turning to snatch a look of her fair attendant, whose charms in that humble station, a station so unworthy of her birth and shining merit, acquired a pathetic power that melted him to a tenderness he had never known before.
He conducted the lady and her father to the apartment of the countess his mother; and, taking the first opportunity to leave them, retired to his own, that he might be at liberty to reflect upon his adventure.
To know that the woman, whom all his most diligent enquiries for so many weeks could never discover, was in the same house with him, was a circumstance that afforded him infinite satisfaction; but he saw no probability of turning this circumstance to the advantage of his designs upon her. For, with what face could he plead his passion to one of her delicacy, while he was publickly addressing another.
The servile condition he saw her in was a bar to his hopes. She who, with such uncommon attractions, could resolve to be poor, must needs be incorruptible. What allurement could riches throw out for a woman, who knew no other pride but the pride of virtue?
He could not hope to make an impression upon her heart by the disguise of honourable love. She must needs know the terms he was upon with miss Cordwain; and was afraid that she already despised him for the meanness of such a choice.
It was indeed still in his power to throw such obstacles in the way of this match, as to defer, if not break it entirely, but he could not resolve to make such a sacrifice to love; he would have married Henrietta with half miss Cordwain’s fortune, and was amazed at the violence of his passion, when he considered the prodigious disproportion between twenty and forty thousand pounds—Yet most sincerely did he wish his generosity could have been put to this trial; and, in the violence of his grief at the apparent impossibility that this should ever happen, a thousand times did he curse the malevolence of fate, that united so many virtues and graces in one lovely woman, and denied her wealth; which however, by his preference of miss Cordwain, he tacitly acknowledged was worth them all.
A whole hour’s labour of thought and reflection, left lord B—— in the same state of anxious doubt and solicitude he was in when he first entered upon this examination of his own heart; and all he could be certain of, in this confusion of ideas and opposing sentiments, was, that the unexpected sight of miss Courteney had charmed him more than ever; and following the impulse of his passion, without knowing whither it would conduct him, or what it would terminate in, he anxiously lay in wait for some opportunity of speaking to her in private, which he found when he least expected it.