Which concludes the fourth book of this history.
Henrietta having acquainted Mrs. Willis with what had passed in her interview with lord B——, the good woman who had flattered herself that the affair would have ended more happily (though more honourably it could not) for her fair friend, conjured her, with tears of anxious tenderness, not to think of going to service again, but to allow the countess, whom her conduct with regard to her son must necessarily oblige very highly, to employ her good offices with lady Meadows in her favour, that a reconciliation might be effected, without those shocking conditions which had at first been proposed to her.
“If I thought such an application would be successful,” replied Henrietta, “I would readily consent to it. For you may easily imagine, my dear Mrs. Willis, that this low condition is not my choice: but I know my aunt’s temper; whatever she desires, she desires with ardor; and makes a merit of persisting obstinately in a resolution she has once formed. Her pride will be a more powerful advocate for me, than any thing the countess can urge; to that I formerly owed my deliverance from dependence, more mortifying than servitude. This pride will no doubt be sensibly wounded, when she finds that I am determined in my choice; if any thing can make her recede from her purpose, it will be the shame of seeing her niece reduced so low. But surely it is not the way to convince her I am really determined, if I allow my friends to teaze her with solicitations, when she has already declared her resolution in such strong terms: she will believe that I have engaged them to make this trial; she will be offended with their interposition, and perhaps be the less inclined to raise me from this obscure condition, as she will not have the merit of doing it from her own generosity and tenderness, but at the instances of others: time only, my dear Mrs. Willis, can produce any favourable change in my circumstances; it will either soften the hearts of my relations, or it will blunt my sense of the meanness of my condition, by familiarizing me to it. This I am sure of at least, that, in the consciousness of doing right, I shall always find an unfailing source of happiness, however Providence may think fit to dispose of me.”
“Ah, never doubt but you are the care of Providence, my dear miss,” cried Mrs. Willis, “such virtue and piety must sooner or later be happy: Heaven and your own prudence direct you.”
“I have not always been prudent,” said Henrietta, sighing; “but misfortunes, as you once told me, teach us wisdom.”
Mrs. Willis, observing an unusual pensiveness stealing over the sweet features of Henrietta on this reflection, changed the discourse to a less interesting subject, and employed her utmost assiduity and tenderness to make the time she stayed with her pass agreeably.
A week being elapsed, and no message coming from lady D——, Henrietta began to apprehend that she should be disappointed of a place, in which she expected more satisfaction than she had found in those she had hitherto been in, when she was surprised with a visit from the countess of ——.
She flew to receive her with respectful joy. The lady tenderly pressed her hand—
“I had business in the city (said she) and I took this opportunity to call on you—and how do you do, my dear good girl? (pursued she) have you any agreeable news to tell me? has your family relented yet?”
“I have no reason to think they have, madam,” replied Henrietta.
“Shocking insensibility!” exclaimed the countess, lifting up her eyes; “you have been very ill used too by Mrs. Autumn, my sister tells me.”
Henrietta smiled, but was silent.
“Well, miss Courteney,” resumed the countess, “will you come and live with me as my friend and companion. I know your generous scorn of dependence; but it is the unworthiness of the donor only, that can make benefits sit heavy on a mind like yours: there is often as much greatness of soul in receiving as in conferring benefits; and when true friendship is the motive for giving, it is pride, not generosity, to refuse.”
“Do me the justice to believe, madam,” replied Henrietta, “that I receive this instance of your goodness with the deepest gratitude, but there is—”
“I understand you,” interrupted the countess—“my son; but I hope, when he is married, you will have no objection to living with me as my friend.”
The countess, in speaking these words, looked earnestly on Henrietta.
“No, certainly, madam (cried she, eagerly) I shall think myself happy in living with you in any situation.”
“I know not what to think of my son’s conduct in this affair,” resumed the countess; “every thing is settled between my lord and the young lady’s father; but he still finds pretences to delay the match.” Her eyes, as she pronounced these words, seemed to demand an explanation of Henrietta.
“I am afraid, madam (replied she) that I have been partly the cause of these delays.”
“That is candidly said,” interrupted the countess; “have you seen my son lately?”
“I have, madam,” answered Henrietta; “but your ladyship may be entirely easy.”
“Easy!” repeated the countess; “why do you imagine that I am so insensible of your merit—but you know, my good girl, lord B—— is in honour engaged to miss Cordwain.”
“His lordship’s partiality for me,” said Henrietta, “has induced him to carry this matter further than (as he is circumstanced) I think he should have done. He has caused my uncle to be applied to; but this has produced nothing, madam. I told lord B—— upon what conditions my aunt had offered to settle her estate upon me; and his lordship is convinced that I cannot comply with them. My resolution is fixed, my lord B—— knows it is so, and you have nothing to fear, madam, from any imprudence on his side, or any ungenerosity on mine. I ventured to promise that I would deserve the confidence you was pleased to place in me on this occasion, and I hope I have and shall continue to deserve it.”
Notwithstanding the delicate manner in which Henrietta stated the affair between her and lord B——, yet the countess discovered that her son had shewn more prudence than generosity, or even love in his behaviour; and, by a strange contradiction in the human heart, she at once approved and condemned, was pleased with, yet ashamed of his conduct; but charmed with Henrietta’s noble disinterestedness, her candour and sincerity, she embraced her with the tenderness of a mother, and perhaps with the more tenderness because it was not likely she should be her mother.
“I am impatient (said she) till I can have you with me, that I may have it in my power to shew you how greatly I both love and esteem you.”
Henrietta thanked her with great politeness; and then told her of lady D——s intentions to recommend her to a young lady, a relation of her’s.
Oh! miss Belmour, you mean,” said the countess; “my sister mentioned it to me: she is an agreeable young woman, has a very good fortune, and is entirely mistress of herself. She will be much better pleased to receive you in the character of a companion than a servant, when she knows your birth and merit.”
“I will owe obligations of that kind to none but yourself, madam,” replied Henrietta; “and I beg this young lady may know no more of me than what is just necessary to recommend me to her good opinion as a servant.”
The countess contested this point with her for some time; but finding her not to be dissuaded from her design, “Well!” said she, kindly, “you shall be indulged this once, but remember I claim your promise to come to me when a certain objection is removed; in the mean time we will settle you with miss Belmour in the way you chuse. She will be with my sister to-morrow morning; and if you come likewise, lady D—— will introduce you to her.”
Henrietta said she would not fail to attend lady D—— Upon which the countess rose up, kissed her at parting, and desired she would look upon her as one of her most faithful friends.
Our fair heroine had reason to be satisfied with the kind manner in which lady D—— recommended her to miss Belmour, as well as with the reception that young lady gave her. She carried her home with her in her coach, and behaved to her with an affability that Henrietta could no otherwise account for, than by supposing the countess had discovered her true name and circumstances to her—In this, however, she was mistaken: her young mistress was in love; she had occasion for a confidant. Henrietta’s youth and gentleness promised her she would be an indulgent one: besides, her good sense and the elegance of her person and behaviour so lessened the distance between the mistress and servant, that her pride was not wounded by the familiarity with which she condescended to treat her, as the necessary prelude to the confidence she was resolved to repose in her.
Henrietta listened with complaisance to the overflowings of a heart tender by nature, and wholly possessed, as she thought, by a deserving object; but when miss Belmour, in the course of frequent conversations on this exhaustless theme, gave her to understand that this lover of whom she boasted was the husband of another lady, from whom he had been parted several years, surprise, horror, grief, were so strongly impressed on her countenance, that her lady began to repent of a confession she had made, in full confidence that her sentiments, whatever they were, must needs be approved by her servant.
But it being now useless as well as dangerous to retract what she had said, she was under a necessity of submitting to the mortifying task of defending her conduct to one whose duty as well as interest she had a moment before conceived it to be, to acquiesce in, or rather applaud all she did.
She began with telling Henrietta, that Mr. Morley had, when very young, been forced, by an avaricious father, to marry a woman whom he could not love, and with whom he had been so miserable, that a separation was agreed to by the relations on both sides.
Henrietta sighed sympathetically at this account. Miss Belmour, encouraged by this mark of her sensibility, proceeded with great fluency of language, to expatiate on the resistless power of love: her lover’s sophistry had furnished her with arguments to prove, that the marriage he had been forced into was not binding in the sight of heaven, and that he was at liberty to bestow his affections elsewhere. She treated marriage as a mere human institution, adopted the sentiments of Eloisa,27 talked of an union of hearts, eternal constancy, generous confidence—Henrietta heard her with patience; but being out of breath at last, she stopped, and seemed to expect a reply.
Our fair heroine, with all the humility becoming her station, but at the same time with all the firmness of virtue, opposed the specious arguments she had urged with others, which reason, religion, and the purity of her own sentiments suggested to her: these, however, made very little impression on miss Belmour. She yawned, smiled contemptuously, and was several times ready to interrupt her with an authoritative air, but refrained, from the consideration that her woman was now, by the participation of her secret, become her companion, if not something more.
Henrietta, despairing to rescue her unhappy mistress by motives of piety, from the snares that were laid for her, sought even to interest her passions in the cause of virtue.
“You depend, madam (pursued she) upon your lover’s constancy; but what security can you have that he will be constant?”
“What security!” interrupted miss Belmour, roused to attention by so interesting a question; “his vows.”
“These vows, madam (said Henrietta) will expire with the passion that caused them: he will be constant as long as he loves, but how long he will love, is the doubt.”
“I am really vain enough to imagine,” replied miss Belmour, bridling, “that those few attractions I have received from nature, since they have gained, will fix his heart: I am quite free from any apprehensions of that sort, I can assure you.”
“You have charms, madam,” said Henrietta, “that entitle you to a worthier conquest than of a man, who, not having it in his power to marry you, yet dishonourably seeks to ensnare your affections.”
“It is natural to wish to be beloved by those we love,” replied miss Belmour: “I am convinced Mr. Morley loves me.”
“If he loved you sincerely, madam,” said Henrietta, “he would not make you unhappy; true love never seeks the ruin of its object: disinterestedness is the test of love; try Mr. Morley’s by that.”
“Mr. Morley has no mean, selfish designs upon my fortune,” cried miss Belmour.
“His designs are mean and selfish in the highest degree,” replied Henrietta, “since he expects that to make him happy you should sacrifice your peace, your honour, and your reputation; and should he succeed in these designs, which heaven forbid, the neglect he will soon treat you with will convince you, that love, when not founded on esteem, cannot be lasting: for the contempt which even libertines feel for those whom they have seduced, is a proof of that secret homage which all men pay to virtue.”
“If I thought Mr. Morley would ever fail in the respect and adoration he pays me now,” said miss Belmour, “I should hate him.”
“The only way to preserve that respect, madam,” replied Henrietta, “is not to allow him to encourage any presumptuous hopes: if you wish to keep his heart, engage his esteem; he may one time or other, perhaps, be at liberty to offer you his hand.”
“Ah, Henrietta!” interrupted miss Belmour, sighing, “that time is very distant, I fear: but you have put strange thoughts into my head; I have been to blame to suffer Mr. Morley to talk to me so freely of his passion: indeed I think he has been less respectful, since I suffered him to perceive that I prefered him to all the men I ever saw. I own to you freely that it was my apprehensions of losing him that made me listen to his arguments; for I thought, if I reduced him to despair, he would conquer his passion for me: but what if the very means I have used to keep his heart should prove the cause of his slighting me!—Oh! you do not know what anxious, uneasy doubts you have raised in my mind!— However, I am resolved to behave with more reserve to him for the future. I will try whether his passion is strong enough to subsist of itself; for you have convinced me that the hopes with which I have hitherto fed it, have been less likely to nourish than to cloy.”
Henrietta would have been better pleased if sentiments more pure had suggested this design; but it was a great point gained to prevail with her on any terms to discourage the addresses of a man whose love was a crime. She flattered herself likewise that this unexpected severity in miss Belmour would produce an alteration in her unworthy lover’s behaviour, which might favour her views of exciting her resentment against him; and in this she was not mistaken.
Mr. Morley thought fit to be offended at the new plan of conduct miss Belmour had laid down for herself, and complained of it at first with that mixture of haughtiness and submission which a man, who is sure he is beloved, thinks he has a right to use; but, finding this had not the effect he desired, he had recourse to a personated indifference, in order to alarm her with the fear of losing him.
Henrietta, whom she acquainted with every change in his behaviour, told her that this was the time to humble her imperious lover. “You must either give him laws, madam (said she) or be contented to receive them of him: his aim was to degrade you to a mistress; he will love you, you see, upon no other condition.”
“I see it! I see it plainly!” interrupted miss Belmour, bursting into tears; “where is now that aweful love he professed for me, when a look, a smile, was a sufficient reward for all his sufferings!—Dear Henrietta, tell me what I shall do to shew him how much I hate and despise him.”
“Avoid him, madam, as much as possible,” replied Henrietta. “When you happen to meet him in company, suffer him not to speak to you apart, and receive no letters from him; persist in this conduct, and you will convince him that you are resolved not to purchase the continuance of his affection by the sacrifice of your honour. If he is capable of a sincere and generous passion, he will esteem and reverence that virtue which opposes his desires; and his esteem will strengthen his love.”
“Yes,” cried miss Belmour, “he shall find that he is not so sure of me as he has the presumption to imagine. I will tell him so myself, and see him again, but it shall be only to declare that I will never see him more—Give me pen and ink, my dear Henrietta: I will appoint him a meeting at lady D——’s this evening; and while the company is engaged at cards, I shall have an opportunity to tell him the resolution I have formed, and doubt not but I will speak to him in the severest terms my resentment can suggest: he shall know, to his confusion, that I am in earnest.”
“Indeed, madam,” said Henrietta, “that is not the way to persuade him that you are in earnest; let your actions speak for you; shun him carefully, and then he must be convinced that you do not feign.”
“I have thought of a way to torment him,” said miss Belmour, after a little pause; “I will go to Paris. Last year some ladies of my acquaintance proposed to me to go there with them, and I had almost consented; but the wretch, who braves me so insolently now, declared then that he could not support my absence, and seemed so overwhelmed with grief that I put off my journey for that time: but now were he to offer to stab himself at my feet, it should not alter my purpose. I will write to him this moment, and let him know my design.”
“Let me intreat you, madam,” said Henrietta, “not to do that; go first, and write to him afterwards—And yet I could recommend a better way of punishing this insolent lover.”
“Tell me what better way,” cried miss Belmour, eagerly.
“It is to marry, madam,” replied Henrietta; “chuse out of that crowd of lovers who address you, him whom you think most deserving. Marriage will secure your peace, your honour, and reputation, and effectually punish the man, who made the sacrifice of all these, the necessary condition of his love for you.”
This expedient was not at all approved of by miss Belmour. She declared she hated the whole sex for Mr. Morley’s sake; and Henrietta had no difficulty to believe her: however, she prevailed with her to promise that she would keep her intended journey secret till she was just ready to depart, that it might not seem as if she meant only to alarm her designing lover. This promise she observed so ill, that she declared that very day at lady D——’s her intention to spend a few months in Paris. Mr. Morley, who was there, and who still kept up his assumed indifference, instead of endeavouring to alter her purpose, as she expected, coldly congratulated her on the pleasures she would enjoy in that enchanting metropolis. Miss Belmour came home ready to burst with rage and disappointment.
“I knew how it would be madam,” said Henrietta, “if you talked of your design. Mr. Morley thinks he sees through the artifice of it: all you can do now is to hasten your departure.”
“I am resolved I’ll set out to-morrow morning,” said miss Belmour. “No matter for preparations; pack up a few necessaries to take with us in the coach, and leave directions for my trunks to be sent after. When we come to Dover, if there is not a packet-boat ready to sail, I’ll hire one at any price: I shall not be at rest till I have convinced this man I am really determined to avoid him.”
Henrietta kept up this spirit; and after she had given proper directions to the housekeeper, and sent orders for the coach to be ready early in the morning, she busied herself in packing up, her lady assisting, in a violent flutter of spirits, and wishing impatiently for the hour of departure.
Our fair heroine had some objections to taking this journey herself, but her concern for miss Belmour over-ruled them all. She was not willing to leave unfinished the good work she had begun; and she was apprehensive that, if the young lady was left to the guidance of her own passions, this sudden sally of resentment would end in a reconciliation fatal to her virtue.
She would have been glad to see the countess before she went, but there was no time for this visit; therefore she contented herself with writing to that lady, and to her friend Mrs. Willis. The countess received the news of this journey with great pleasure, because she hoped that absence would effectually cure her son’s passion for Henrietta, the consequences of which she was still apprehensive of, notwithstanding he had shewn an extraordinary prudence in the conduct of it.
But Mrs. Willis was very uneasy, lest any thing should happen that might make her repent the removing herself thus from all her friends, and putting herself entirely in the power of a stranger. Had there been time for it, she would have endeavoured to dissuade Henrietta from going; but, recollecting that Mr. Damer was in France, and that they might possibly meet, she resolved to write to the old gentleman, and give him a full account of every thing relating to the situation of his fair persecuted ward, not even omitting his son’s doubtful behaviour with regard to her; for she knew, that if they met, Henrietta would be silent upon that article, and yet it was necessary he should know it, that he might be convinced her misfortunes were chiefly owing to his son’s treachery; and this consideration she hoped would produce something to her advantage.