Part 48 (1/2)

A combination of sharpers, it seems, had long set him as a man of fortune: but, on his taking refuge with my brother, gave over for a time their designs upon him, till he threw himself again in their way.

The worthless fellow had been often liberal of his promises of marriage to young creatures of more innocence than this; and thinks it very hard that he should be prosecuted for a crime which he had so frequently committed with impunity. Can you pity him? I cannot, I a.s.sure you. The man who can betray and ruin an innocent woman, who loves him, ought to be abhorred by men. Would he scruple to betray and ruin them, if he were not afraid of the law?--Yet there are women, who can forgive such wretches, and herd with them.

My aunt Eleanor is arrived: a good, plump, bonny-faced old virgin. She has chosen her apartment. At present we are most prodigiously civil to each other: but already I suspect she likes Lord G---- better than I would have her. She will perhaps, if a party should be formed against your poor Charlotte, make one of it.

Will you think it time thrown away, to read a further account of what is come to hand about the wretches who lately, in the double sense of the word, were overtaken between St. Denis and Paris?

Sir Hargrave Pollexfen, it seems, still keeps his chamber: he is thought not to be out of danger from some inward hurt, which often makes him bring up blood in quant.i.ties. He is miserably oppressed by lowness of spirits; and when he is a little better in that respect, his impatience makes his friends apprehensive for his head. But has he intellects strong enough to give apprehensions of that nature? Fool and madman we often join as terms of reproach; but I believe, fools seldom run really mad.

Merceda is in a still more dangerous way. Besides his bruises, and a fractured skull, he has, it seems, a wound in his thigh, which, in the delirium he was thrown into by the fracture, was not duly attended to; and which, but for his valiant struggles against the knife which gave the wound, was designed for a still greater mischief. His recovery is despaired of; and the poor wretch is continually offering up vows of penitence and reformation, if his life may be spared.

Bagenhall was the person who had seduced, by promises of marriage, and fled for it, the manufacturer's daughter of Abbeville. He was overtaken by his pursuers at Douay. The incensed father, and friends of the young woman, would not be otherwise pacified than by his performing his promise; which, with infinite reluctance, he complied with, princ.i.p.ally through the threats of the brother, who is noted for his fierceness and resolution; and who once made the sorry creature feel an argument which greatly terrified him. Bagenhall is at present at Abbeville, living as well as he can with his new wife, cursing his fate, no doubt, in secret.

He is obliged to appear fond of her before her brother and father; the latter being also a sour man, a Gascon, always boasting of his family, and valuing himself upon a De, affixed by himself to his name, and jealous of indignity offered to it. The fierce brother is resolved to accompany his sister to England, when Bagenhall goes thither, in order, as he declares, to secure to her good usage, and see her owned and visited by all Bagenhall's friends and relations. And thus much of these fine gentlemen.

How different a man is Beauchamp! But it is injuring him, to think of those wretches and him at the same time. He certainly has an eye to Emily, but behaves with great prudence towards her: yet every body but she sees his regard for her: n.o.body but her guardian runs in her head; and the more, as she really thinks it is a glory to love him, because of his goodness. Every body, she says, has the same admiration of him, that she has.

Mrs. Reeves desires me to acquaint you, that Miss Clements, having, by the death of her mother and aunt, come into a pretty fortune, is addressed to by a Yorks.h.i.+re gentleman of easy circ.u.mstances, and is preparing to leave the town, having other connexions in that county; but that she intends to write to you before she goes, and to beg you to favour her with now and then a letter.

I think Miss Clements is a good sort of young woman: but I imagined she would have been one of those nuns at large, who need not make vows of living and dying aunt Eleanors, or Lady Gertrudes; all three of them good honest souls! chaste, pious, and plain. It is a charming situation, when a woman is arrived at such a height of perfection, as to be above giving or receiving temptation. Sweet innocents! They have my reverence, if not my love. How would they be affronted, if I were to say pity!--I think only of my two good aunts, at the present writing. Miss Clements, you know, is a youngish woman; and I respect her much. One would not jest upon the unsightliness of person, or plainness of feature: but think you she will not be one of those, who twenty years hence may put in a boast of her quondam beauty?

How I run on! I think I ought to be ashamed of myself.

'Very true, Charlotte.'

And so it is, Harriet. I have done--Adieu!--Lord G---- will be silly again, I doubt; but I am prepared. I wish he had half my patience.

'Be quiet, Lord G----! What a fool you are!'--The man, my dear, under pretence of being friends, run his sharp nose in my eye. No bearing his fondness: It is worse than insolence. How my eye waters!--I can tell him--But I will tell him, and not you.--Adieu, once more.

CHARLOTTE G----

LETTER XLIII

MR. LOWTHER, TO JOHN ARNOLD, ESQ.

(HIS BROTHER-IN-LAW) IN LONDON.

BOLOGNA, MAY 5-16.

I will now, my dear brother, give you a circ.u.mstantial account of our short, but flying journey. The 20th of April, O.S. early in the morning, we left Paris, and reached Lyons the 24th, at night.

Resting but a few hours, we set out for Pont Beauvoisin, where we arrived the following evening: There we bid adieu to France, and found ourselves in Savoy, equally noted for its poverty and rocky mountains. Indeed it was a total change of the scene. We had left behind us a blooming spring, which enlivened with its verdure the trees and hedges on the road we pa.s.sed, and the meadows already smiled with flowers. The cheerful inhabitants were busy in adjusting their limits, lopping their trees, pruning their vines, tilling their fields: but when we entered Savoy, nature wore a very different face; and I must own, that my spirits were great sufferers by the change. Here we began to view on the nearer mountains, covered with ice and snow, notwithstanding the advanced season, the rigid winter, in frozen majesty, still preserving its domains: and arriving at St. Jean Maurienne the night of the 26th, the snow seemed as if it would dispute with us our pa.s.sage; and horrible was the force of the boisterous winds, which sat full in our faces.

Overpowered by the fatigues I had undergone in the expedition we had made, the unseasonable coldness of the weather, and the fight of one of the worst countries under heaven, still clothed in snow, and deformed by continual hurricanes; I was here taken ill. Sir Charles was greatly concerned for my indisposition, which was increased by a great lowness of spirits. He attended upon me in person; and never had man a more kind and indulgent friend. Here we stayed two days; and then, my illness being princ.i.p.ally owing to fatigue, I found myself enabled to proceed.

At two of the clock in the morning of the 28th, we prosecuted our journey, in palpable darkness, and dismal weather, though the winds were somewhat laid, and reaching the foot of Mount Cenis by break of day, arrived at Lanebourg, a poor little village, so environed by high mountains, that for three months in the twelve, it is hardly visited by the cheering rays of the sun. Every object which here presents itself is excessively miserable. The people are generally of an olive complexion, with wens under their chins; some so monstrous, especially women, as quite disfigure them.

Here it is usual to unscrew and take in pieces the chaises, in order to carry them on mules over the mountain: and to put them together on the other side: For the Savoy side of the mountain is much more difficult to pa.s.s than the other. But Sir Charles chose not to lose time; and therefore lest the chaise to the care of the inn-keeper; proceeding, with all expedition, to gain the top of the hill.

The way we were carried, was as follows:--A kind of horse, as it is called with you, with two poles, like those of chairmen, was the vehicle; on which is secured a sort of elbow chair, in which the traveller sits.