Which shews that it is easier to be wise for others than ourselves.
Though miss Belmour’s melancholy had hindered her from taking any great share in the conversation during this visit, yet her mind was still free enough to observe, that Henrietta had made an impression upon the heart of Mr. Melvil. She congratulated her, smiling, upon her conquest; nor did her raillery even spare her: for Henrietta, who, for a full hour, had appeared animated with an extraordinary vivacity, became all on a sudden pensive and silent. This change exactly commenced at the time Mr. Melvil went away; but she did not perceive it herself, and started, as from a dream, when miss Belmour reproached her with it.
Concerned that she had given room for a suspicion of this nature, she began, as soon as she was alone, to examine her own heart: miss Belmour had praised the personal graces of Mr. Melvil, and it was but justice to own, that he was eminently handsome; but was she weak enough to be dazzled with the beauty of a man? No, certainly; his countenance pleased her, because it was a picture of his mind; candor, sweetness, benevolence, shined in every feature: the politeness of his address, his gentle manners, that air so noble, yet so peculiarly soft and engaging, his good sense, and, above all, the justness and purity of his sentiments, which she had time enough to discover during their conversation; were not these qualities which a modest young woman might esteem? and is love a necessary consequence of esteeming one of that sex? Must she deny herself the pleasure of approving virtue and merit, for fear of loving it too much? It was thus she argued, and soon dispelled those doubts which miss Belmour’s raillery had raised in her mind.
While Henrietta, under the notion of barely esteeming what was indeed truly worthy of esteem, was insensibly giving way to more tender sentiments, Mr. Melvil, who loved with all the tenderness and ardor of a first passion, as his really was, burned with impatience for the hour when they were to join the fair travellers: Freeman directed his attention to miss Belmour, which gave the young lover an opportunity of employing his whole care and assiduity about his mistress, who ascribed all to his natural politeness, and remained in a perfect tranquility, as well with regard to his sentiments as her own. Miss Belmour’s experience, however, soon let her into the secret of their hearts. Melvil’s passion was indeed apparent enough, notwithstanding the pains he was at to conceal it, thro’ fear of his friend’s troublesome remonstrances; but Henrietta’s, tho’ hid from herself, was open to miss Belmour’s discerning eyes, and she exulted in the discovery.
This rigid censurer of her conduct; this inflexibly virtuous maid, was entangled in the snares of love. She perceived that she herself was ignorant of her own danger, and she was resolved not to draw her out of this false security by any unseasonable railleries: for, however useful the strict principles of Henrietta had been to her, yet she could not bear the superiority they gave her; and she rejoiced in the hope, that a passion, perhaps as unfortunately placed as her own, would reduce her to an equality with her.
Their journey now drew near a period: Melvil trembled at the thoughts of parting; he had indeed laid the foundation of an intimacy with the two ladies, which would give him a right to visit them in Paris; but he had been used to see the object of his passion continually, from the first moment of his acquaintance with her: and altho’ they never separated till the evening, yet he thought the time amazingly long till they met again. How then would he be able to support an answer of two or three days, which decorum would oblige him to make the interval of his visits? besides, she was still ignorant of the sentiments she had inspired him with. Hitherto he had never found an opportunity of speaking to her alone; but if one should offer, how could he declare himself to a woman, for whom he felt as much respect as love? yet one, whose birth he was ignorant of, who seemed to be in a dependent situation, whom he could not think of marrying, and whom he durst not wish to seduce.
The difficulties he could not remove he endeavoured to banish from his thoughts; and, without considering what must be the event of the passion he was thus indulging, he for the present confined all his wishes to the pleasure of seeing her.
Miss Belmour had often wondered that this young lover shewed so little solicitude to make opportunities of speaking to his mistress in private. She could not impute this behaviour to want of ardor; every look he gave her was expressive of the tenderness his soul was filled with: it was then respect, it was awe, it was fear of offending, that laid him under this restraint. How glorious this for Henrietta! how humiliating for her, who had scarce escaped falling a sacrifice to the dishonourable attempts of her lover! Was she then less capable of inspiring a respectful passion than her woman? or did her charms act more powerfully on the heart she had subdued, than those of Henrietta? This question her self-love easily decided; and, from the same sentiment, she was persuaded that Henrietta, with all her boasted virtue, would defend herself as weakly against the lover her inclinations declared for, as she had done. Her present triumph, she thought, was less oweing to her own strength than her lover’s weakness, who had not yet made a formal attack upon her heart: curiosity to know what effect the declaration of his passion would have, made her resolve to give him an opportunity of speaking to her in private. They were now within a day’s journey of Paris. On their arrival at the house where they were to dine, Mr. Freeman, as usual, went to give orders for their entertainment, and left Melvil with the two ladies. Miss Belmour, pretending that she had a mind for some particular dish, ran after him, and kept him in conversation, that he might not interrupt the lovers, who being now for the first time alone together, were both equally embarrassed.
Henrietta cast down her eyes, surprised at the confusion in which she found herself, and shocked at the intelligence this new emotion gave her of the true state of her heart. Mr. Melvil approached her trembling; he could not resolve to lose so favourable an opportunity of declaring his sentiments to her: but the natural goodness and rectitude of his mind suggesting to him, that it was a kind of fraud to seek encouragement of a passion, the design of which he was not himself able to answer for, he remained a few moments in suspence.
This silence increased Henrietta’s embarrassment, but suddenly reflecting upon the advantage it gave Mr. Melvil over her, she turned her eyes towards him, with a look, in which she endeavoured to throw as much indifference as possible, but which, nevertheless, had an unusual coldness in it; so that Melvil, partly with-held by his extreme delicacy, and partly by the awe which this severe glance inspired him with, dropped, for that time, all thoughts of declaring his passion, and immediately entered into an indifferent conversation.
Henrietta seemed as if relieved from a painful load; her countenance resumed its former sweetness, and she talked to him with her usual vivacity; yet miss Belmour, at her return, saw some remains of her late uneasiness in her eyes: she observed too, that she spoke less to Mr. Melvil, and more to his friend than she did before; that she studiously avoided the looks of the former; and that her behaviour to him was less free and obliging than it used to be. All this she looked upon as the play of coquetry; and in Mr. Melvil’s apparent melancholy she saw its purpose and effect.
But Henrietta taught by what passed in her own heart, during the few moments she was alone with Mr. Melvil, that she not only considered him as a lover, but a lover formidable by his engaging qualities, resolved not to strengthen her prepossession in his favour, by continuing to see and converse with him. Lord B——’s behaviour had given her no high idea of the disinterestedness of men. She trembled at her own imprudence, in so far forgetting the humble station that Providence had placed her in, as to entertain sentiments of tenderness for a man, who, from the inequality there was between them, might think himself authorised to form expectations injurious to her honour: tho’ her weakness was so lately known to herself, yet she fancied it had been perceived by others before, and that even Mr. Melvil had discovered the preference with which she regarded him. It was this thought which made her so suddenly alter her behaviour; but as indifference is, of all dispositions of the mind, the hardest to feign, Melvil imputed the apparent constraint in her manner to some disgust he had unhappily given her, and miss Belmour to the artifice of a coquet.
Henrietta, who was far from imagining she over-acted her part, continued, during the whole time they were at dinner, to avoid her lover’s looks, so carefully that he had no opportunity to make her comprehend by them, how much he was concerned at her extraordinary coldness. However, she could not, without affectation, refuse him her hand when they left the inn; but they followed Mr. Freeman and miss Belmour so close, that it was not possible for him to speak to her without being overheard; and he in vain sought her eyes: they were always directed another way. He sighed when he helped her into the chaise; and if she had not turned her face from him that moment, the blush with which it was overspread, would have shewn him that she took but too much notice of that sigh.
“You are melancholy, Henrietta,” said miss Belmour, after looking at her in silence for a long time, attentive to the motions of her mind, which might be easily read in her countenance.
“Am I, madam?” replied she, with a sigh half suppressed, and a gentle smile.
“Yes, indeed, are you,” resumed miss Belmour, mimicking the languid accent in which she spoke; “and I don’t remember that I ever saw you so before.”
“And yet I have many causes for melancholy, madam,” replied Henrietta, whose heart was full, and she eagerly grasped at this opportunity to relieve herself by tears; tears, which she supposed she gave to the remembrance of her misfortunes, without asking herself, why that remembrance was more poignant now than before.
“Ah! Henrietta,” said miss Belmour, shaking her head, “your heart has undergone a great change within these few days—You are in love, my dear.” “Is it possible, madam,” cried Henrietta, hastily, her fair face all crimsoned over, “that you have discovered?—Do you think that—Then, to be sure, Mr. Melvil.”—She stopped abruptly, and cast down her eyes: the mention of that name seemed to lead her to a consciousness, that she had betrayed herself.
Miss Belmour was affected with her beautiful simplicity. “Don’t be ashamed, my dear Henrietta,” said she, taking her hand, “to speak freely to me. From me, (added she, sighing) you may be sure of indulgence.”
“No, madam, no,” interrupted Henrietta, with great earnestness, “I would not seek indulgence for my weaknesses: but I conjure you, madam,” pursued she, with tears that in spite of her endeavours would force their way, “suffer me to return to that humble station, from which your partial kindness raised me—You have made me forget I was a servant—It does not become me to view with sensibility the merit of persons so greatly above me. But you shall find, madam, that I will repair this error, and that my conduct shall be such as may render me not unworthy your esteem.”
Notwithstanding the delicate turn which Henrietta gave to a declaration, which shewed she was determined early to conquer her passion, yet miss Belmour considered it as a triumph over her, who had not been capable of acting with equal prudence.
“It is happy for you (said she, coldly) that you need no assistance to help you to keep your passions in subjection; but I owe you too many obligations for the good counsel you have given me, to permit you to appear in any other character than that of my friend.”
Henrietta’s mind was in so much agitation, that she did not take in the full sense of this answer, but struck with the obliging purport of the last words of it, she expressed her gratitude in terms full of tenderness and respect.
The sight of Paris drew them both out of a long silence, which had succeeded a conversation with which neither had been pleased: Henrietta, because it had discovered so much weakness on her side; miss Belmour, because it had shewn so little.
Their chaise, as miss Belmour had directed, stopped at the house of her banker in Paris. The two gentlemen were already at the side of it: Mr. Melvil, as if he was afraid Henrietta would refuse him her hand, seized it with trembling haste; and, as he led her into the house, ventured to press it with his lips, unperceived by any one else. Henrietta, imputing this boldness to the discovery he had made of her sentiments, pulled her hand away hastily, giving him a look at the same time that expressed her resentment; but all her anger could not prevent her from being affected with the soft languor that appeared in his face, and the submissive manner in which he had yielded to the effort she made to withdraw her hand.
Miss Belmour, at parting, told them, she hoped to see them again in a day or two, when she should be settled. Her Parisian friend soon procured her convenient lodgings, and, at her desire, recommended to her a Femme de Chambre,29 among the other servants he provided her, which Henrietta in vain opposed; but fixed in her design to avoid Mr. Melvil, she took care to be seldom in the way when he came.
Miss Belmour blamed her for this conduct. “You will make the man think you love him, and are afraid of him (said she) by flying him.”
“If I loved him, madam,” replied Henrietta, blushing, “is it not prudence to avoid him?”
“Why, I don’t know,” said miss Belmour, “Mr. Melvil certainly loves you; and, whatever inequality there may be in your conditions, yet love is a great leveller: he may possibly intend to marry you.”
“It is not fit I should suppose he has any such design, madam,” resumed Henrietta, “since it is highly improbable; and I will not expose myself to the danger of being deceived. I have some-where read (added she, smiling) that in love flight is victory; and this way at least I shall be sure to conquer.”
Miss Belmour, who knew how difficult it was to be in love and be wise, laughed at a resolution, which she did not think it would be always in her power to maintain. Poor Henrietta, who had so artlessly laid open her heart, was often exposed to the most poignant raillery from her; but at length she was delivered from this kind of persecution by a surprising alteration in miss Belmour herself.
This young lady, who had fled from her lover, rather with a hope of stimulating his passion than of subduing her own, though she endeavoured to impose upon herself in believing the latter to be the true motive of her conduct, fell into a most violent despair, when she found that, far from following her, he did not even seek a reconciliation by writing to her. Sick of herself, the world, and tired of her existence, she mistook the agitations of a heart tortured by jealousy, disappointment, and the pangs of slighted love, for the motions of grace, and the genuine marks of repentance. She neglected her dress, took no pleasure in any amusement, avoided company, and spent whole hours in her closet, where she wept and prayed by turns.
She told Henrietta, that the world and all its pleasures were grown insipid to her; that her whole soul was filled with divine love; and that the thoughts and exercises of religion made up all her happiness. She then passionately regretted that there were no religious communities among the protestants, where a mind that was weaned from this sublunary world, and all its vanities, might freely indulge its pious contemplations, and devote itself entirely to Heaven. “Oh, how happy are the nuns!” she exclaimed; “how I envy them! Sure nothing can be more delightful, when persons are truly pious, than to live in a religious society excluded from all commerce with a world they must certainly despise. I think I should be perfectly contented if I was in a cloister.”
Henrietta congratulated her upon her new sentiments, but endeavoured to prove that there was more merit in passing through life with innocence, and in rightly performing all its duties, than in flying to the gloomy solitude of a cloister, where virtue is secured by bolts and bars, and the exercises of religion performed as a penance. She recommended to her the study of the scriptures, and put some practical treatises of religion written by the best authors, into her hands: but the zeal of this new convert was so flaming, that nothing would serve her but a total retirement from the world; and she made such frequent visits to a convent, where a friend of her’s had lately taken the veil, that Henrietta was apprehensive the nuns would discover the true state of her mind, and take advantage of her passions to pervert her principles, and secure her to themselves.
While these whims possessed her, she was so inaccessible to all visiters, that Mr. Melvil could with difficulty get admittance. Freeman saw the progress of his passion with great uneasiness, and, finding that he could not be prevailed upon to leave Paris, resolved to write to his father, and give him a hint of the dangerous attachment his son had formed, that he might send him a peremptory command to return to England; but before he could execute this design, Melvil, to his great surprise, told him, that he would leave Paris in two days. The poor youth expected his friend would have expressed some joy at this news; and, being disappointed at his receiving with indifference what had cost him so many pangs to resolve upon,
“You make me no compliments,” said he, with a tender smile, “upon the conquest I have gained over my inclinations: do you think I can banish myself from miss Benson without concern?”
“I am sure I cannot hear you speak in this manner without concern,” replied Freeman. “Is it fit for a young man of your rank to entertain a serious liking for a woman, to whose birth and character you are an absolute stranger?”
“There is not a man in the world,” resumed Melvil, eagerly, “who need to blush for loving miss Benson; her person, beautiful as it is, is the least of her charms; that mingled sweetness and dignity in her manners, that graceful modesty which distinguishes every word and action of her’s, exalt her above all the women I have ever seen. You have heard her talk, and you could not help owning that you thought her very sensible.”
“Well, but what is all this to the purpose?” interrupted Freeman, “what signifies attributing such goddess-like perfections to an obscure girl, whom, if you were at liberty to dispose of yourself, you would not, I suppose, be so mad as to marry: your fortune enables you to make other proposals, less unworthy of yourself, though advantageous enough for a young woman in her dependent situation; own freely then that this is your intention.”
“May I perish,” replied Melvil, with some emotion, “if I would degrade such excellence to a mistress; but if I were capable of such a design, her virtue, I am sure, is incorruptible. Have you not observed with what care she shuns me? She knows I love her; but she knows not with what purity I love her; and, conscious of her situation, she is afraid I should take advantage of it to declare myself in a manner that would wound her delicacy.—Charming creature, I love her! I adore her!—Indeed, my dear Freeman, it is time to be gone.”
“I see it plainly,” replied Freeman, “you are grown quite romantic—We will set out to-morrow, if you please; for, with the strange notions you have entertained, I think you ought not to trust yourself here any longer.”
The lover consented with a sigh; but at the same time put his friend in mind, that civility obliged them to go and take leave of the ladies. Freeman could not reasonably oppose his making this visit; and, after he had given proper directions to the servants for their journey the next day, he accompanied him to miss Belmour’s lodgings.