In which miss Belmour acts the part of a true female friend.
They found the two ladies together: Henrietta could not, without affectation, avoid her lover that day, as she was in the room when he came in; and he, who had not been so fortunate for several days before, found so much delight in looking at her and hearing her speak, that he forgot he came to pay a farewel visit, which Mr. Freeman observing, took care to mention their design of leaving Paris the next day.
Melvil’s gaiety was immediately over-cast, Henrietta turned pale, Freeman was attentive to his friends emotions, and only miss Belmour had freedom of mind enough left to speak. She said some civil things upon the occasion, which Freeman answered; for Melvil continued silent, with his eyes fixed upon Henrietta, who had bent her’s towards the ground: conscious of the emotion with which she had heard the news of their intended departure, she durst not look up, lest the person, from whom she was most solicitous to hide her concern, should read it too plainly in her countenance.
Recovering herself at length, upon miss Belmour’s taking occasion to thank them anew for the civilities she had received from them during their journey from Calais, she added a few words to her compliment; but, in doing so, her eyes slightly glanced over Mr. Melvil, and directed their looks full upon his friend.
The conversation was dull enough during two hours that they stayed; and Freeman, perceiving the young gentleman wanted resolution to put an end to the visit, rose up first, Mr. Melvil did so likewise, though with apparent reluctance; and having saluted miss Belmour, approached Henrietta, trembling. She turned pale and red successively; a soft sigh stole from her. Melvil was in too much emotion to observe her’s: he saluted her with an air of solemn respect; but, as she retired a step back, a sudden impulse, which he could not resist, made him take her hand; he pressed it to his lips with passionate tenderness, and, sighing, quitted the room with the utmost precipitation.
Henrietta’s eyes overflowed; she made haste to wipe them before miss Belmour, who attended the gentlemen as far as the door of her anti-chamber, returned.
“Ah! my poor Henrietta,” said that young lady, who perceived she had been weeping, “I pity you—What sordid wretches are these men! Melvil loves you, and yet he is able to leave you; nay, I am persuaded he has discovered your tenderness for him—What monstrous ingratitude! you ought to hate him, my dear.”
“You bid me hate him, madam,” replied Henrietta, smiling, “yet say every thing that can confirm me in a favourable opinion of him. If he loves me, and has seen any weakness in me, he gives the best proof of his love in not seeking to take advantage of that weakness.”
Miss Belmour, who thought this a strange way of reasoning, answered no otherwise than by a significant smile, which seemed to say she was resolved to justify him at any rate; while Henrietta, finding in her lover’s behaviour a delicacy which agreeably flattered her esteem of him, cherished his remembrance with a tender grief, and perhaps, for the first time, repined at her unhappy fortune, which had placed such a distance between them.
As soon as the two gentlemen had left their lodgings, Melvil, who found himself very low-spirited, proposed to his friend to spend the evening at a noted Hotel, with some young Englishmen of fashion, who were newly arrived: Freeman consented; but observed with uneasiness, that his pupil, who till then had been remarkably abstemious, pushed about the bottle with great velocity, and could not be persuaded to go home till the night was far advanced.
Mr. Freeman saw him in bed, and then retired to his own chamber, full of apprehensions lest this sudden intemperance should have any bad effect on his health. As soon as it was light, he went to his bed-side, and found him with all the symptoms of a feverish disorder upon him, to which the agitations of his mind had contributed more perhaps than the liquor of which he had drank so freely.
All thoughts of their journey were now laid aside; physicians were sent for, who pronounced that he was dangerously ill: Freeman, full of anxiety, sat close to his bed, holding one of his burning hands tenderly pressed between his. He heard him sigh frequently, and from thence took occasion to ask him, if any secret uneasiness occasioned his indisposition?
The young gentleman attributed his illness entirely to the excess he had been guilty of the night before; but his fever increasing, he grew delirious, and then the name of miss Benson was continually in his mouth.
Freeman, judging by these ravings of the deep impression this young woman had made on the heart of his pupil, blamed himself for so obstinately opposing his passion, and, judging from Henrietta’s situation that she would not refuse to listen to such proposals as his fortune enabled him to make her, he resolved to attempt something in his friend’s favour.
His curiosity having led him to make some enquiries concerning miss Belmour of several persons that had lately arrived from England, he found she had but a doubtful character; her connexions with Mr. Morley having exposed her to great censure: of her companion he could learn nothing; but, concluding from the friendship there appeared to be between them, that she was her confidant in this amour, he flattered himself that she would not be a very difficult conquest.
He shut his eyes upon all that was wrong in this proceeding; and, considering nothing but the interest of his friend, for whom he had the most passionate concern, he thought it less dangerous to give him a mistress, than to trust him to the fantastic power of his passion, which might hurry him on to a clandestine marriage.
The young gentleman was in a few days entirely out of danger from the fever; but his sighs, and the pensive air of his countenance, shewed that his mind was not at ease.
“If you were able to go abroad” said Freeman to him, “we would visit our English ladies once more before we leave Paris. They imagine we are in London by this time, and will be strangely surprised to see us again.”
“Then they do not know I have been ill,” replied Mr. Melvil.
“Not yet,” said Freeman; “but if you wish they should know, I will wait on them this afternoon, and tell them what has kept us in Paris so much longer than we intended.”
Melvil affected to receive this proposal with indifference; but his friend observed, that he was more chearful than before, and doubted not but he expected the news of his illness would have some effect on Henrietta.
He went at the usual hour, and was immediately admitted: “you are in Paris still, then?” exclaimed miss Belmour, in a joyful accent, as soon as Freeman entered her apartment, “I am excessively glad of it, I hope your agreeable friend is with you.”
Freeman, a little disappointed at not seeing Henrietta with her, answered coldly, that Mr. Melvil had been indisposed, which obliged them to delay their journey.
“I fancy,” said miss Belmour, with an arch leer, “that the air of Paris is mighty necessary for your friend at this time; you are in the wrong to hurry him away.”
“You have a great deal of penetration, madam,” replied Mr. Freeman, smiling, “you have guessed the cause of his illness, I believe.”
“I believe I have,” resumed miss Belmour, “and perhaps I could tell him something that might contribute to forward his recovery.”
Freeman began now to think his scheme was in a hopeful way. “To be sincere with you, madam,” said he, with a graver look and accent, “Mr. Melvil is desperately in love with miss Benson.”
“Poor man!” cried miss Belmour, laughing, “he is to be pitied truly, for miss Benson is most desperately in love with him likewise.”
“How happy would this news make him!” exclaimed Freeman. “Am I, madam, at liberty to tell him?”
“Certainly,” replied miss Belmour, “I told you for that purpose; and now what do you think of my frankness?”
“I adore you for it, madam,” said Freeman, taking her hand, which (encouraged by her behaviour) he kissed with great liberty. “Ah!” pursued he, looking at her tenderly, “what additional charms does kindness give to beauty!”
“I hear miss Benson on the stairs,” said miss Belmour, withdrawing her hand; “I will give you an opportunity to plead your friend’s cause: remember what I have told you, and don’t be discouraged by a little affectation.”
She stopped upon Henrietta’s entrance, who started at the sight of Mr. Freeman, and immediately after her fair face was covered with blushes.
“You see we have not lost our good friends yet,” said miss Belmour. Henrietta only smiled. “I must desire you, my dear,” pursued that young lady, “to entertain Mr. Freeman; I ordered some trades-people to attend me about this time.”
She hurried out of the room when she had said this, not without some confusion for the part she had acted; to account for which, it is necessary the reader should know that the mind of this young lady had undergone another revolution, within the few days of Mr. Melvil’s illness.
A letter from her lover, filled with tender complaints, and new assurances of everlasting fidelity, had banished all thoughts of devotion and a convent. She had answered it immediately without communicating it to Henrietta; her transport at finding herself still beloved, and the fear of disgusting him by any new coldness, hurried her on to the most fatal resolutions. She invited him to come to Paris to her; and, not doubting but he would instantly obey her summons, she was now only solicitous how to reconcile Henrietta to her conduct, and oblige her to keep her secret.
The unexpected news of Mr. Melvil’s being still in Paris, and Mr. Freeman’s acknowledgment of his friend’s passion for Henrietta, answered all her views. She imputed the reserve Henrietta had been enabled to maintain, less to her own virtue than to the unenterprising temper of her lover; and was persuaded that the discovery she had made of her tenderness for him, would put the affair upon such a footing, as to make her less rigid in her remonstrances with respect to Mr. Morley.