Part 44 (1/2)

But here, madam, are sad doings sometimes, between Lord and Lady G----.

I am very angry at her often in my heart; yet I cannot help laughing, now and then, at her out-of-the-way sayings. Is not her character a very new one? Or are there more such young wives? I could not do as she does, were I to be queen of the globe. Every body blames her. She will make my lord not love her, at last. Don't you think so? And then what will she get by her wit?

Just this moment she came into my closet--Writing, Emily? said she: To whom?--I told her.--Don't tell tales out of school, Emily.--I was so afraid that she would have asked to see what I had written: but she did not. To be sure she is very polite, and knows what belongs to herself, and every body else: To be ungenerous, as you once said, to her husband only, that is a very sad thing to think of.

Well, and I would give any thing to know if you think what I have written tolerable, before I go any farther: But I will go on in this way, since I cannot do better. Bad is my best; but you shall have quant.i.ty, I warrant, since you bid me write long letters.

But I have seen my mother: it was but yesterday. She was in a mercer's shop in Covent Garden. I was in Lord L----'s chariot; only Anne was with me. Anne saw her first. I alighted, and asked her blessing in the shop: I am sure I did right. She blessed me, and called me dear love. I stayed till she had bought what she wanted, and then I slid down the money, as if it were her own doing; and glad I was I had so much about me: It came but to four guineas. I begged her, speaking low, to forgive me for so doing: And finding she was to go home as far as Soho, and had thoughts of having a hackney coach called; I gave Anne money for a coach for herself, and waited on my mother to her own lodgings; and it being Lord L----'s chariot, she was so good as to dispense with my alighting.

She blessed my guardian all the way, and blessed me. She said, she would not ask me to come to see her, because it might not be thought proper, as my guardian was abroad: but she hoped, she might be allowed to come and see me sometimes.--Was she not very good, madam? But my guardian's goodness makes every body good.--O that my mamma had been always the same! I should have been but too happy!

G.o.d bless my guardian, for putting me on enlarging her power to live handsomely. Only as a coach brings on other charges, and people must live accordingly, or be discredited, instead of credited, by it; or I should hope the additional two hundred a-year might afford them one. Yet one does not know but Mr. O'Hara may have been in debt before he married her; and I fancy he has people who hang upon him. But if it pleases G.o.d, I will not, when I am at age, and have a coach of my own, suffer my mother to walk on foot. What a blessing is it, to have a guardian that will second every good purpose of one's heart!

Lady Olivia is rambling about; and I suppose she will wait here in England till Sir Charles's return: but I am sure he never will have her.

A wicked wretch, with her poniards! Yet it is pity! She is a fine woman. But I hate her for her expectation, as well as for her poniard.

And a woman to leave her own country, to seek for a husband! I could die before I could do so! though to such a man as my guardian. Yet once I thought I could have liked to have lived with her at Florence. She has some good qualities, and is very generous, and in the main well esteemed in her own country; every body knew she loved my guardian: but I don't know how it is; n.o.body blamed her for it, vast as the difference in fortune then was. But that is the glory of being a virtuous man; to love him is a credit, instead of a shame. O madam! Who would not be virtuous? And that not only for their own, but for their friends sakes, if they loved their friends, and wished them to be well thought of?

Lord W---- is very desirous to hasten his wedding.

Mr. Beauchamp says, that all the Mansfields (He knows them) bless my guardian every day of their lives; and their enemies tremble. He has commissions from my guardian to inquire and act in their cause, that no time may be lost to do them service, against his return.

We have had another visit from Lady Beauchamp, and have returned it. She is very much pleased with us: You see I say us. Indeed my two dear ladies are very good to me; but I have no merit: it is all for their brother's sake.

Mr. Beauchamp tells us, just now, that his mother-in-law has joined with his father, at her own motion, to settle 1000. a year upon him. I am glad of it, with all my heart: Are not you? He is all grat.i.tude upon it.

He says, that he will redouble his endeavours to oblige her; and that his grat.i.tude to her, as well as his duty to his father, will engage his utmost regard for her.

Mr. Beauchamp, Sir Harry himself, and my lady, are continually blessing my guardian: Every body, in short, blesses him.--But, ah! madam, where is he, at this moment? O that I were a bird! that I might hover over his head, and sometimes bring tidings to his friends of his motions and good deeds. I would often flap my wings, dear Miss Byron, at your chamber window, as a signal of his welfare, and then fly back again, and perch as near him as I could.

I am very happy, as I said before, in the favour of Lady and Lord L----, and Lady and Lord G----; but I never shall be so happy, as when I had the addition of your charming company. I miss you and my guardian: O, how I miss you both! But, dearest Miss Byron, love me not the less, though now I have put pen to paper, and you see what a poor creature I am in my writing. Many a one, I believe, may be thought tolerable in conversation; but when they are so silly as to put pen to paper, they expose themselves; as I have done, in this long piece of scribble. But accept it, nevertheless, for the true love I bear you; and a truer love never flamed in any bosom, to any one the most dearly beloved, than does in mine for you.

I am afraid I have written arrant nonsense, because I knew not how to express half the love that is in the heart of

Your ever-obliged and affectionate EMILY JERVOIS.

LETTER x.x.xIX

MISS BYRON, TO LADY G---- TUESDAY, MAY 2.

I have no patience with you, Lady G----. You are ungenerously playful!

Thank Heaven, if this be wit, that I have none of it. But what signifies expostulating with one who knows herself to be faulty, and will not amend? How many stripes, Charlotte, do you deserve?--But you never spared any body, not even your brother, when the humour was upon you. So make haste; and since you will lay in stores for repentance, fill up your measure as fast as you can.

'Reveal to you the state of my heart!'--Ah, my dear! it is an unmanageable one. 'Greatness of mind!'--I don't know what it is!--All his excellencies, his greatness, his goodness, his modesty, his cheerfulness under such afflictions as would weigh down every other heart that had but half the compa.s.sion in it with which his overflows--Must not all other men appear little, and, less than little, nothing, in my eyes?

--It is an instance of patience in me, that I can endure any of them who pretend to regard me out of my own family.

I thought, that when I got down to my dear friends here, I should be better enabled, by their prudent counsels, to attain the desirable frame of mind which I had promised myself: but I find myself mistaken. My grandmamma and aunt are such admirers of him, take such a share in the disappointment, that their advice has not the effect I had hoped it would have. Lucy, Nancy, are perpetually calling upon me to tell them something of Sir Charles Grandison; and when I begin, I know not how to leave off. My uncle rallies me, laughs at me, sometimes reminds me of what he calls my former brags. I did not brag, my dear: I only hoped, that respecting as I did every man according to his merit, I should never be greatly taken with any one, before duty added force to the inclination. Methinks the company of the friends I am with, does not satisfy me; yet they never were dearer to me than they now are. I want to have Lord and Lady L----, Lord and Lady G----, Dr. Bartlett, my Emily, with me. To lose you all at once!--is hard!--There seems to be a strange void in my heart--And so much, at present, for the state of that heart.