Part 14 (1/2)
”Ah, papa, she pleaded for _him_ as I cannot plead, and yet I love him.
It was true eloquence. Oh, how she made me shudder! Only think: he had a fit, and lost his reason, and all for me. What shall I do? What shall I do?”
This brought on a fit of weeping.
Her father pitied her, and gave her a crumb of sympathy: said he was sorry for Sir Charles.
”But,” said he, recovering his resolution, ”it cannot be helped. He must expiate his vices, like other men. Do, pray, pluck up a little spirit and sense. Now try and keep to the point. This woman came from him; and you say you heard her language, and admire it. Quote me some of it.”
”She said he fell down as black as his hat, and his eyes rolled, and his poor teeth gnashed, and--oh, my darling! my darling! oh! oh! oh!”
”There--there--I mean about other things.”
Bella complied, but with a running accompaniment of the sweetest little sobs.
”She said I must be very green, to swallow an anonymous letter like spring water. Oh! oh!”
”Green? There was a word!”
”Oh! oh! But it is the right word. You can't mend it. Try, and you will see you can't. Of course I was green. Oh! And she said every gentleman who can afford to keep a saddle-horse has a female friend, till his banns are called in church. Oh! oh!”
”A pretty statement to come to your ears!”
”But if it is the truth! 'THE TRUTH MAY BE BLAMED, BUT IT CAN'T BE SHAMED.' Ah! I'll not forget that: I'll pray every night I may remember those words of the brave lady. Oh!”
”Yes, take her for your oracle.”
”I mean to. I always try to profit by my superiors. She has courage: I have none. I beat about the bush, and talk skim-milk; she uses the very word. She said we have been the dupe and the tool of a little scheming rascal, an anonymous coward, with motives as base as his heart is black--oh! oh! Ay, that is the way to speak of such a man; I can't do it myself, but I reverence the brave lady who can. And she wasn't afraid even of you, dear papa. 'Come, old gentleman'--ha! ha!
ha!--'take the world as it is; Belgravian mothers would not break _both_ their hearts for what is past and gone.' What hard good sense! a thing I always _did_ admire: because I've got none. But her _heart_ is not hard; after all her words of fire, that went so straight instead of beating the bush, she ended by crying for me. Oh! oh! oh! Bless her!
Bless her! If ever there was a good woman in the world, that is one.
She was not born a lady, I am afraid; but that is nothing: she was born a woman, and I mean to make her acquaintance, and take her for my example in all things. No, dear papa, women are not so pitiful to women without cause. She is almost a stranger, yet she cried for me. Can you be harder to me than she is? No; pity your poor girl, who will lose her health, and perhaps her life. Pity poor Charles, stung by an anonymous viper, and laid on a bed of sickness for me. Oh! oh! oh!”
”I do pity you, Bella. When you cry like this, my heart bleeds.”
”I'll try not to cry, papa. Oh! oh!”
”But most of all, I pity your infatuation, your blindness. Poor, innocent dove, that looks at others by the light of her own goodness, and so sees all manner of virtues in a brazen hussy. Now answer me one plain question. You called her 'the Sister!' Is she not the same woman that played the Sister of Charity?”
Bella blushed to the temples, and said, hesitatingly, she was not quite sure.
”Come, Bella. I thought you were going to imitate the jade, and not beat about the bush. Yes or no?”
”The features are very like.”
”Bella, you know it is the same woman. You recognized her in a moment.