To this Amelia could make no objection after the express declaration which he had just made, that he renounced all pretensions to her favour. However keenly she felt the implied reproach of having encouraged Sir John as her admirer, while her affections were previously engaged, and of having shown candour late in this affair, she could not vindicate herself without accusing her mother; therefore she attempted neither excuse nor apology, submitted to let the unfeeling baronet enjoy her confusion, whilst she said, in general terms, she felt obliged by his assurance that she should not be the cause of any quarrel between two families who had hitherto lived in friendship.
CHAPTER XIV.
“Him no soft thoughts, no gratitude could move; To gold he fled, from beauty and from love!” DRYDEN.
All that passed in the two hours’ conversation between the discarded baronet and the mother of his late mistress did not transpire; but Mrs. Beaumont said that she had taken infinite pains to reconcile Sir John to his fate, and his subsequent behaviour showed that she had succeeded. His attention towards her also plainly proved that he was not dissatisfied by the part she had acted, or rather by the part that he thought she had acted. Thus all things went on smoothly. Mrs. Beaumont, in confidence, told her friend, Miss Hunter, that Sir John had behaved with the greatest propriety and candour (candour! that hackneyed word); that he had acknowledged that his principal inducement to propose for her daughter had been a desire to be connected with a family for which he had such peculiar regard.
“This, my love,” continued Mrs. Beaumont, “was all, you know, that your brother could, with propriety, say on such an occasion; all indeed that I would permit him to say. As to the rest, on Amelia’s account, you know, I could not refuse his request to continue his visits in this family on the same footing of friendship as usual.”
Whether this was the truth and the whole truth, the mystery that involves all cabinet-councils, and more especially those of female politicians, prevents the cautious historian from presuming to decide. But arguing from general causes, and from the established characters and ruling passions of the parties concerned, we may safely conjecture that the baronet did not at this time make any decisive proposal to the lady, but that he kept himself at liberty to advance or recede, as circumstances should render it expedient. His ruling passion was avarice; and though he had been allured by the hints which his sister had thrown out concerning Mrs. Beaumont’s increased jointure, and vast expectancies from Mr. Palmer, yet he was not so rash as to act decisively upon such vague information: he had wisely determined to obtain accurate and positive evidence from Captain Lightbody, who seemed, in this case, to be the common vouchee; but Lightbody happened to be gone out to shoot flappers.4
Consequently Sir John wisely entrenched himself in general professions of regard to Mrs. Beaumont, and reflections on the happiness of being connected with such a respectable family. Mrs. Beaumont, who understood the whole of the game, now saw that her play must be to take Captain Lightbody again into her confidence.
Ever careful not to commit herself, she employed Miss Hunter to communicate her own scheme to the captain, and to prepare him on the requisite points with proper answers to those inquiries which she foresaw the baronet would make.
“You know, my love,” said Mrs. Beaumont, “you can find a proper moment to say all you wish to Lightbody.”
“Oh, yes,” said Miss Hunter, “I will if I possibly can this day; but it is so difficult to find a good time—”
“At dinner, suppose?” said Mrs. Beaumont.
“At dinner! surely, ma’am, that’s an awkward time, is not it, for talking of secrets?”
“The best time in the world, my dear; you know we are to have the Duttons, and the Lord knows whom besides, to-day. And when there’s a large company, and every body talking at once, and eating, and drinking, and carving, it is the best time in the world! You may say what you please; your neighbours are all happily engaged, too busy to mind you. Get near fat Mr. Dutton, and behind the screen of his prodigious elbow you will be comfortably recessed from curious impertinents. My dear, the most perfect solitude is not so convenient as one of these great dinners.”
Whilst Mrs. Beaumont was demonstrating to Miss Hunter that the most convenient and secure time for a tête-à-tête is at a large dinner, she happened to look out of the window, near which they were standing, and she saw her son and daughter with Mr. Palmer walking in the park; they sat down under a tree within view of the house.
“Come away from the window, my dear,” said Mrs. Beaumont; “they will observe us, and perhaps think we are plotting something. I wonder what they are talking of! Look how earnestly Amelia is stretching out her neck, and Mr. Palmer striking his cane upon the ground. Come back a little, my dear, come back; you can see as well here.”
“But I see a gentleman on horseback, galloping. Oh, ma’am, look! he has stopped! he has jumped off his horse! Captain Walsingham it must be!”
“Captain Walsingham it really is!” said Mrs. Beaumont, pressing forward to look out of the window, yet standing so, that she could not be seen from without.
“Dear,” said Miss Hunter, “but how delighted Mr. Beaumont seems; and how Mr. Palmer shakes Captain Walsingham’s hand, as if he had known him these hundred years! What can make them so glad to see him? Do look at them, ma’am.”
“I see it all!” said Mrs. Beaumont, with an involuntary sigh.
“But, dear Mrs. Beaumont,” pursued Miss Hunter, “if he has actually come at last to propose for Amelia, don’t you think he is doing it in a shabby sort of way? When he has been in London too — and if he has taken such a treasure too, could not he have come down here a little more in style, with some sort of an equipage of his own at least? But now only look at him; would you, if you met him on the road, know him from any common man?”
Another sigh, deep and sincere, was all the answer Mrs. Beaumont made.
“I am sure,” continued Miss Hunter, as Mrs. Beaumont drew her away from the window, “I am sure, I think Amelia has not gained much by the change of admirers; for what’s a captain of a ship?”
“He ranks with a colonel in the army, to be sure,” said Mrs. Beaumont; “but Amelia might have looked much higher. If she does not know her own interest and dignity, that is not my fault.”
“If she had such a fortune as I shall have,” said Miss Hunter, “she might afford to marry for love, because you know she could make her husband afterwards keep her proper equipages, and take her to town, and go into parliament, and get a title for her too!”
“Very true, my darling,” said Mrs. Beaumont, who was at this instant so absent, that she assented without having heard one syllable that her darling said.
“But for Amelia, who has no such great fortune of her own, it is quite another thing, you know, dearest Mrs. Beaumont. Oh, you’ll see how she’ll repent when she sees you Lady Puckeridge, and herself plain Mrs. Walsingham. And when she sees the figure you’ll make in town next winter, and the style my brother will live in — Oh, then she’ll see what a difference there is between Sir John Hunter and Captain Walsingham!”
“Very true, indeed, my dear,” said Mrs. Beaumont; and this time she did not answer without having heard the assertion. The door opened.
“Captain Walsingham! dare I believe my eyes? And do I see our friend, Captain Walsingham, again at last?”
“At last! Oh, Mrs. Beaumont, you don’t know how hard I have worked to get here.”
“How kind! But won’t you sit down and tell me?”
“No; I can neither sit, nor rest, nor speak, nor think upon any subject but one,” said Captain Walsingham.
“That’s right,” cried Mr. Palmer.
“Mrs. Beaumont — pardon my abruptness,” continued Captain Walsingham, “but you see before you a man whose whole happiness is at stake. May I beg a few minutes’ conversation with you?”
“This instant,” said Mrs. Beaumont, hesitating; but she saw that Mr. Palmer’s eye was upon her, so with a smile she c
omplied immediately; and giving her hand graciously to Captain Walsingham, she accompanied him into a little reading-room within the drawing-room.
“May I hope that we are friends?” said Captain Walsingham; “may I hope so, Mrs. Beaumont — may I?”
“Good Heavens! Friends! assuredly; I hope so. I have always had and expressed the highest opinion of you, Captain Walsingham.”
“I have had one, and, hitherto, but one opportunity of showing myself, in any degree, deserving of your esteem, madam,” said Captain Walsingham. “When I was in this country some years ago, you must have seen how passionately I was in love with your daughter; but I knew that my circumstances were then such that I could not hope to obtain Miss Beaumont’s hand; and you will do me the justice to allow that I behaved with prudence. Of the difficulty of the task I alone can judge.”
Mrs. Beaumont declared, that she admired Captain Walsingham’s conduct inexpressibly, now that she understood what his feelings and motives had been; but really he had kept his own secret so honourably, that she had not, till within these few days, when it was let out by Mr. Walsingham to Mr. Palmer, had the most distant idea of his being attached to her daughter.
Captain Walsingham was too polite even to look a doubt of the truth of a lady’s assertion: he therefore believed, because it was impossible.
Mrs. Beaumont, determining to make her story consistent, repeated nearly what she had said to Mr. Palmer, and went on to confess that she had often, with a mother’s pride, perhaps, in her own secret thoughts wondered at the indifference Captain Walsingham showed towards Amelia.
Captain Walsingham was surprised that Mrs. Beaumont’s penetration should have been so strangely mistaken; especially as the symptoms of admiration and love must be so well known to a lady who had so many and such passionate admirers.
Mrs. Beaumont smiled, and observed, that Captain Walsingham, though a seaman, had all the address of a courtier, and she acknowledged that she loved address.
“If by address Mrs. Beaumont means politeness, I admire it as much as she does; but I disclaim and despise all that paltry system of artifice, which is sometimes called address. No person of a great mind ever condescends to use address in that sense of the word; not because they cannot, but because they will not.”
“Certainly — certainly,” said Mrs. Beaumont; “there is nothing I love so much as frankness.”
“Then, frankly, Mrs. Beaumont, may I hope for your approbation in addressing Miss Beaumont?”
“Frankly, then, you have my full approbation. This is the very thing I have long secretly wished, as Mr. Palmer can tell you. You have ever been the son-in-law of my choice, though not of my hopes.”
Delighted with this frank answer, this full approbation, this assurance that he had always been the son-in-law of her choice, Captain Walsingham poured out his warm heart in joy and gratitude. All suspicions of Mrs. Beaumont were forgotten; for suspicion was unnatural to his mind: though he knew, though he had experience almost from childhood, of her character, yet, at this instant, he thought he had, till now, been always prejudiced, always mistaken. Happy those who can be thus duped by the warmth of their own hearts! It is a happiness which they who smile in scorn at their credulity can never enjoy.
Wakening a little to the use of his understanding, Captain Walsingham disconcerted Mrs. Beaumont, by suddenly saying, “Then there was not any truth in the report, which I have heard with horror, that you were going to marry Miss Beaumont to Sir John Hunter?”
“Then there was not any truth in the report I heard with horror, that you were going to marry yourself to a Spanish nun?” said Mrs. Beaumont, who had learned from a veteran in public warfare, that the best way to parry an attack is not to defend, but to make an assault.
“My dear Captain Walsingham,” added she, with an arch smile, “I really thought you were a man of too much sense, and above all, too much courage, to be terror-struck by every idle report. You should leave such horrors to us weak women — to the visionary mind. Now, I could not blame poor Amelia, if she were to ask, ‘Then was there no truth in the report of the Spanish incognita?’ — No, no,” pursued Mrs. Beaumont, playfully, refusing to hear Captain Walsingham; “not to me, not to me, must your defence be made. Appear before your judge, appear before Amelia; I can only recommend you to mercy.”
What a charming woman this Mrs. Beaumont would be, if one could feel quite sure of her sincerity, thought Captain Walsingham, as he followed the lady, who, with apparently playful, but really polite grace, thus eluded all further inquiry into her secret manoeuvres.
“Here, my dearest Amelia,” cried she, “is a culprit, whom I am bringing to your august tribunal for mercy.”
“For justice,” said Captain Walsingham.
“Justice! Oh, the pride of the man’s heart, and the folly! Who ever talks of justice to a woman? My dear captain, talk of mercy, or cruelty, if you will; we ladies delight in being called cruel, you know, and sometimes are even pleased to be merciful — but to be just, is the last thing we think of: so now for your trial; public or private, Captain Walsingham?”
“Public! as I am innocent.”
“Oyes, oyes! all manner of men,” cried Mr. Beaumont.
“The Spanish cause coming on!” cried Mr. Palmer: “let me hear it; and let me have a good seat that I may hear — a seat near the judge.”
“Oh, you shall be judge, Mr. Palmer,” said Amelia; “and here is the best seat for our good judge.”
“And you will remember,” said Mr. Beaumont, “that it is the duty of a good judge to lean towards the prisoner.”
“To lean! No, to sit bolt upright, as I will if I can,” said old Mr. Palmer, entering into the pleasantry of the young people as readily as if he had been the youngest man in the company. As he looked round, his good countenance beamed with benevolent pleasure.
“Now, sir captain, be pleased to inform the court what you have done, or mean to do, with a certain Spanish nun, whom, as it is confidently asserted in a letter from one of your own men, you carried off from her nunnery, and did bring, or cause to be brought, with you to England.”
“My lord judge, will you do me the favour, or the justice, to order that the letter alluded to may be read in court?”
This was ordered, and done accordingly.
“My lord judge,” said Captain Walsingham, “I have nothing to object to the truth of the main points of this story; and considering that it was told by a very young man, and a traveller, it contains but a reasonable share of ‘travellers’ wonders.’ Considering the opportunity and temptation for embellishments afforded by such a romantic tale, less has been added to it by the narrator than the usual progress of strange reports might have prepared me to expect. It is most true, as it has been stated, that I did, by her own desire, carry away from a nunnery, at —— , this lady, who was neither a nun nor a Spanish lady, nor, as I am compelled by my regard to truth to add, young, nor yet handsome. My lord judge, far be it from me to impeach the veracity of the letter-writer. It is admitted by the highest and the lowest authorities, that beauty is a matter of taste, and that for taste there is no standard; it is also notorious, that to a sailor every woman is fair and young, who is not as old as Hecuba, or as ugly as Caifacaratadaddera. I can therefore speak only to my own opinion and judgment. And really, my lord, it grieves me much to spoil the romance, to destroy the effect of a tale, which might in future serve for the foundation of some novel, over which belles and beaux, yet unborn, might weep and wonder: it grieves me much, I say, to be compelled by the severity of this cross-examination to declare the simple truth, that there was no love in the case; that, to the very best of my belief and judgment, the lady was not in love with any body, much less with me.”
“As you have admitted, sir,” said the judge, “as you have voluntarily stated, that to a sailor every woman is fair and young, who is not as old as Hecuba, or as ugly as that other woman with the unspeakable name, you will be pleased to inform the court how it happened, or how i
t was possible, that in the course of a long voyage, you could avoid falling in love with the damsel whom you had thus rescued and carried off. Experience shows us, sir, that at land, and, I presume, at sea, proximity is one of the most common causes of love. Now, I understand, she was the only woman you saw for some months; and she had, I think you allow, possession of your cabin, to and from which you had of course constant egress and regress. Sir, human nature is human nature; here is temptation, and opportunity, and circumstantial evidence enough, in our days, to hang a man. What have you to offer in your defence, young man?”
“The plain fact, my lord, is, that instead of three months, I was but three days in the dangerous state of proximity with the Spanish lady. But had it been three months, or three years, there is my defence, my lord,” said Captain Walsingham, bowing to Amelia. “At the first blush, you allow it, I see, to be powerful; but how powerful, you cannot feel as I do, without having looked, as I have done, into the mind.”
“I have looked into the mind as well as you, sir. You have a great deal of assurance, to tell me I cannot feel and judge as well as you can. But, nevertheless, I shall do you justice. I think your defence is sufficient. I believe we must acquit him. But, pray — the plain matter of fact, which I wanted to hear, I have not yet got at. What have you done with this lady? and where is she?”
Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth Page 500
