Part 43 (1/2)
Is not your aunt Selby, you ask, an excellent woman?--She is. I admire her. But I am very angry with you for deferring to another time, acquainting me with what she said of me. When we are taken with any body, we love they should be taken with us. Teasing Harriet! You know what an immoderate quant.i.ty of curiosity I have. Never serve me so again!
I am in love with your cousin Lucy. Were either Fenwick or Greville good enough--But they are not. I think she shall have Mr. Orme. Nancy, you say, is such another good girl. I don't doubt it. Is she not your cousin, and Lucy's sister? But I cannot undertake for every good girl who wants a husband. I wish I had seen Lucy a fortnight ago: then Nancy might have had Mr. Orme, and Lucy should have had Lord G----. He admires her greatly. And do you think that a man who at that time professed for me so much love and service, and all that, would have scrupled to oblige me, had I (as I easily should) proved to him, that he would have been a much happier man than he could hope to be with somebody else?
Your uncle is a pleasant man: but tell him I say, that the man would be out of his wits, that did not make the preference he does in favour of his dame Selby, as he calls her. Tell him also, if you please, in return for his plain dealing, that I say, he studies too much for his pleasantries: he is continually hunting for occasions to be smart. I have heard my father say, that this was the fault of some wits of his acquaintance, whom he ranked among the witlings for it. If you think it will mortify him more, you may tell him, (for I am very revengeful when I think myself affronted,) that were I at liberty, which, G.o.d help me, I am not! I would sooner choose for a husband the man I have, (poor soul, as I now and then think him,) than such a teasing creature as himself, were both in my power, and both of an age. And I should have this good reason for my preference: your uncle and I should have been too much alike, and so been jealous of each other's wit; whereas I can make my honest Lord G---- look about him, and admire me strangely, whenever I please.
But I am, it seems, a person of a particular character. Every one, you say, loves me, yet blames me. Odd characters, my dear, are needful to make even characters s.h.i.+ne. You good girls would not be valued as you are, if there were not bad ones. Have you not heard it said, that all human excellence is but comparative? Pray allow of the contrast. You, I am sure, ought. You are an ungrateful creature, if, whenever you think of my over-livelinesses, as you call 'em, you don't drop a courtesy, and say, you are obliged to me.
But still the attack made upon you in your dressing-room at Colnebrook, by my sister and me, sticks in your stomach--And why so? We were willing to shew you, that we were not the silly people you must have thought us, had we not been able to distinguish light from darkness. You, who ever were, I believe, one of the frankest-hearted girls in Britain, and admired for the ease and dignity given you by that frankness, were growing awkward, nay dishonest. Your grat.i.tude! your grat.i.tude! was the dust you wanted to throw into our eyes, that we might not see that you were governed by a stronger motive. You called us your friends, your sisters, but treated us not as either; and this man, and that, and t'other, you could refuse; and why? No reason given for it; and we were to be popt off with your grat.i.tude, truly!--We were to believe just what you said, and no more; nay, not so much as you said. But we were not so implicit. Nor would you, in our case, have been so.
But 'you, perhaps, would not have violently broken in upon a poor thing, who thought we were blind, because she was not willing we should see.'-- May be not: but then, in that case, we were honester than you would have been; that's all. Here, said I, Lady L----, is this poor girl awkwardly struggling to conceal what every body sees; and, seeing, applauds her for, the man considered: [Yes, Harriet, the man considered; be pleased to take that in:] let us, in pity, relieve her. She is thought to be frank, open-hearted, communicative; nay, she pa.s.ses herself upon us in those characters: she sees we keep nothing from her. She has been acquainted with your love before wedlock; with my folly, in relation to Anderson: she has carried her head above a score or two of men not contemptible.
She sits enthroned among us, while we make but common figures at her footstool: she calls us sisters, friends, and twenty pretty names. Let us acquaint her, that we see into her heart; and why Lord D---- and others are so indifferent with her. If she is ingenuous, let us spare her; if not, leave me to punish her--Yet we will keep up her punctilio as to our brother; we will leave him to make his own discoveries. She may confide in his politeness; and the result will be happier for her; because she will then be under no restraint to us, and her native freedom of heart may again take its course.
Agreed, agreed, said Lady L----. And arm-in-arm, we entered your dressing-room, dismissed the maid, and began the attack--And, O Harriet!
how you hesitated, paraded, fooled on with us, before you came to confession! Indeed you deserved not the mercy we shewed you--So, child, you had better to have let this part of your story sleep in peace.
You bid me not tell Emily, that your cousin is in love with her: but I think I will. Girls begin very early to look out for admirers. It is better, in order to stay her stomach, to find out one for her, than that she should find out one for herself; especially when the man is among ourselves, as I may say, and both are in our own management, and at distance from each other. Emily is a good girl; but she has susceptibilities already: and though I would not encourage her, as yet, to look out of herself for happiness; yet I would give her consequence with herself, and at the same time let her see, that there could be no mention made of any thing that related to her, but what she should be acquainted with. Dear girl! I love her as well as you; and I pity her too: for she, as well as somebody else, will have difficulties to contend with, which she will not know easily how to get over; though she can, in a flame so young, generously prefer the interest of a more excellent woman to her own.--There, Harriet, is a grave paragraph: you'll like me for it.
You are a very reflecting girl, in mentioning to me, so particularly, your behaviour to your Grevilles, Fenwicks, and Ormes. What is that but saying, See, Charlotte! I am a much more complacent creature to the men, no one of which I intend to have, than you are to your husband!
What a pious woman, indeed, must be your grandmamma, that she could suspend her joy, her long-absent darling at her feet, till she had first thanked G.o.d for restoring her to her arms! But, in this instance, we see the force of habitual piety. Though not so good as I should be myself, I revere those who are so; and that I hope you will own is no bad sign.
Well, but now for ourselves, and those about us.
Lady Olivia has written a letter from Windsor to Lady L----. It is in French; extremely polite. She promises to write to me from Oxford.
Lady Anne S---- made me a visit this morning. She was more concerned than I wished to see her, on my confirming the report she had heard of my brother's being gone abroad. I rallied her a little too freely, as it was before Lord G---- and Lord L----. I never was better rebuked than by her; for she took out her pencil, and on the cover of a letter wrote these lines from Shakespeare, and slid them into my hand:
”And will you rend our ancient love asunder, To join with men in scorning your poor friend?
It is not friendly; 'tis not maidenly: Our s.e.x, as well as I, may chide you for it, Though I alone do feel the injury.”
I never, my dear, told you how freely this lady and I had talked of love: but, freely as we had talked, I was not aware that the matter lay so deep in her heart. I knew not how to tell her that my brother had said, it could not be. I could have wept over her when I read this paper; and I owned myself by a whisper justly rebuked. She charged me not to let any man see this; particularly not either of those present: and do you, Harriet, keep what I have written of Lady Anne to yourself.
My aunt Eleanor has written a congratulatory letter to me from York. Sir Charles, it seems, had acquainted her with Lord G----'s day, [Not my day, Harriet! that is not the phrase, I hope!] as soon as he knew it himself; and she writes, supposing that I was actually offered on it. Women are victims on these occasions: I hope you'll allow me that. My brother has made it a point of duty to acquaint his father's sister with every matter of consequence to the family; and now, she says, that both her nieces are so well disposed of, she will come to town very quickly to see her new relations and us; and desires we will make room for her. And yet she owns, that my brother has informed her of his being obliged to go abroad; and she supposes him gone. As he is the beloved of her heart, I wonder she thinks of making this visit now he is absent: but we shall all be glad to see my aunt Nell. She is a good creature, though an old maid. I hope the old lady has not utterly lost either her invention, or memory; and then, between both, I shall be entertained with a great number of love-stories of the last age; and perhaps of some dangers and escapes; which may serve for warnings for Emily. Alas! alas! they will come too late for your Charlotte!
I have written already the longest letter that I ever wrote in my life: yet it is prating; and to you, to whom I love to prate. I have not near done.
You bid me be good; and you threaten me, if I am not, with the ill opinion of all your friends: but I have such an unaccountable bias for roguery, or what shall I call it? that I believe it is impossible for me to take your advice. I have been examining myself. What a deuse is the matter with me, that I cannot see my honest man in the same advantageous light in which he appears to everybody else? Yet I do not, in my heart, dislike him. On the contrary, I know not, were I to look about me, far and wide, the man I would have wished to have called mine, rather than him. But he is so important about trifles; so nimble, yet so slow: he is so sensible of his own intention to please, and has so many antic motions in his obligingness; that I cannot forbear laughing at the very time that I ought perhaps to reward him with a gracious approbation.
I must fool on a little while longer, I believe: permit me, Harriet, so to do, as occasions arise.
An instance, an instance in point, Harriet. Let me laugh as I write. I did at the time.--What do you laugh at, Charlotte?--Why this poor man, or, as I should rather say, this lord and master of mine, has just left me. He has been making me both a compliment, and a present. And what do you think the compliment is? Why, if I please, he will give away to a virtuoso friend, his collection of moths and b.u.t.terflies: I once, he remembered, rallied him upon them. And by what study, thought I, wilt thou, honest man, supply their place? If thou hast a talent this way, pursue it; since perhaps thou wilt not s.h.i.+ne in any other. And the best any thing, you know, Harriet, carries with it the appearance of excellence. Nay, he would also part with his collection of sh.e.l.ls, if I had no objection.
To whom, my lord?--He had not resolved.--Why then, only as Emily is too little of a child, or you might give them to her. 'Too little of a child, madam!' and a great deal of bustle and importance took possession of his features--Let me tell you, madam--I won't let you, my lord; and I laughed.
Well, madam, I hope here is something coming up that you will not disdain to accept of yourself.