Mrs Rayland parted from him in high good humour, desired he would give her as much time as he could the next day, and set out from the Hall rather than from West Wolverton when he went to Portsmouth; all which Orlando readily promised, and then, with a heavy heart, went to the house of his father.
That capricious fate which seemed to be weary of the favours she had long been accumulating on the head of General Tracy, appeared now determined to discard him, as she is often said to do her ancient favourites. A more malicious trick than that she now meditated, could hardly befall any of them – The General had long kept off, by art, an attack of the gout, a disease to which he did not allow himself to be supposed liable; but whether it was the long walk of the preceding evening, or the tumult of his spirits on his approaching nuptials, or the sudden sight of his nephew, that occasioned an unlucky revulsion, certain it is that, in the middle of the night, he was awakened by this most inexorable disease peremptorily telling him, in more than one of his joints, that the visit would be more oppressive by having been so long delayed. His valet de chambre was hastily summoned, with such applications as, however dangerous, had sometimes repelled its attacks; but it was to no purpose the unfortunate General would have risked his life to preserve his activity; the morning found him a cripple, compelled to yield, with whatever reluctance, to the old remedies of patience and flannel. This circumstance, so very mal-apropos, appeared yet more terrible to the General, when he reflected that Warwick, the formidable handsome Warwick, had now an opportunity of entertaining Isabella; and the pain of his mind irritating and increasing his bodily sufferings, Mr Somerive, instead of a man of the church, who was within three days to have attended on his guest, thought it more expedient to send for a physician.
Tracy, however, considered of nothing so earnestly as getting Warwick away – It was true, indeed, that he was to go the next day, or at farthest the day after that, which depended upon the letters he received from Portsmouth; but, that he should be almost four-and-twenty hours longer under the same roof with Isabella was not to be endured. After many plans, therefore, adopted and rejected, the General at last determined that he would make some pretence to send Warwick to London which he could not evade, and imagined that he should then be able to say,
‘Being gone – I am myself again!’
For this purpose he ordered his nephew to be called to his bedside; and when Orlando arrived at the house, they were in close conference.
The three girls were at work in the parlour when their brother entered it. He observed something very unusual in the manner of Isabella, who spoke little; while all his questions were answered by one of his youngest sisters. He enquired for Warwick; and, in a moment, heard him come down stairs. He went to him in the hall, and Warwick hastily said – ‘Orlando, will you come out with me? I have something to say to you.’
They went together into the avenue: Warwick walked fast, but appeared lost in thought; and Orlando, oppressed with his own sorrows, had no inclination to speak first.
At length Warwick, as if he had found the expedient he wanted, exclaimed suddenly - ‘By Heaven it will do! – it must do! – it shall do!’
‘Indeed!’ said Orlando; ‘may I know what?’
‘Tell me, my friend,’ cried Warwick with vehement warmth – ‘tell me if you love Monimia – if it is not death to part with her?’
‘To what purpose is such a question? You know I exist but for her – you know I should prefer death to this separation, because my mind will be torn to pieces by anxiety for what may befall her in my absence!’
‘Well, then, I may trust you – I may ask what you would do for that friend who should not only prevent your parting with her, but give you your Monimia for ever!’
‘Do not trifle with me, Warwick,’ said Orlando mournfully, ‘I cannot bear it!’
‘By all that is sacred!’ replied Warwick, ‘I never was more in earnest in my life; and, if you do not trifle with yourself, Monimia may be yours immediately, and it will be beyond the power of fortune to divide you!’
‘Explain yourself then – but it is impossible, and your wild imagination only –’
‘Say rather,’ retorted Warwick, ‘that your cold prudence will destroy what my imagination would realize. – I tell you, it is in your own power to be happy; but before I reveal how, swear to me, upon the honour of a soldier and a gentleman, that if you do not approve my plan you will not betray it.’
‘Surely, there is little need,’ said Orlando, more and more amazed, ‘of my giving you an oath that I will not betray my friend, especially when he meditates how to serve me.’
‘Pardon me,’ cried Warwick; ‘I desire, Orlando, to serve you; but I am not quite so disinterested as not to think a little of myself, at the same time –’
‘I may venture to swear, Warwick, that I will never betray you,’ said Orlando gravely; ‘but put an end to these riddles.’
‘You swear then, upon the honour of a soldier and a gentleman, that you will not mar my plan if you will not make yourself a party in it – you have sworn.’
‘I have,’ answered Orlando, ‘sworn; but if it relates – ‘ At that moment an idea of the truth occurred to him.
‘If it relates to your sisters, you were going to say, the oath is not binding – Well, it does relate to Isabella!’
‘To Isabella?’
‘Yes, to Isabella. It matters not, nor have I time to relate, how I have contrived, even in this short interval, to persuade your lovely sister that a young fellow of three-and-twenty, with only one thousand pounds in the world, and his commission, is more to her taste than an old one of three-and-sixty, who is a General, and worth about an hundred and fifty times that sum. – I told you, I always carried my object by a coup de main. – To be brief, I am madly in love with Isabella, and she is as much in love with me as she dares own on so short an acquaintance. – My uncle is in love with her too; but she is not at all in love with him; and as she prefers the nephew with his knap-sack to the uncle with his money-sack, she shall not be sacrificed to him; but I will marry her, and take her with me to America.’
‘Marry her!’ cried Orlando in extreme surprise.
‘Why, you may well wonder, to be sure, because I believe she is the only girl in the world that could have made me take so extraordinary a resolution.’
‘But how is it possible? How is there time to execute it?’
‘Oh, my friend! it is a matter that takes up very little time when the parties are agreed.’
‘But Isabella is not of age; she cannot be married here.’
‘She may in Jersey, though.’
‘In Jersey?’
‘Yes; and it is very possible to go from Portsmouth to Jersey, and be back again time enough for the sailing of the squadron we must proceed with to America.’
‘And has Isabella consented to all this?’
‘No, because I have not directly proposed it to her; nor did I, till since the conversation I have had with my uncle, know that I should have the means of performing it, which (I thank him) his anticipating jealousy has put into my hands.’ Warwick then took out of his pocketbook a draft of the General’s to him for a thousand pounds, payable at sight in London. – ‘My grave old uncle,’ cried he, ‘for whom I think fortune has interfered, to prevent his being ridiculous in his old age, is just now more miserable because I am in the house, than because the gout is in his toe, and he has found out, that instead of staying till to-morrow or next day to go to Portsmouth with you, it will be better for me to set out as soon as I can, to do some business for him in London, which, though he had never thought of it before, he now says admits of no delay; and that I may have no excuse to stay afterwards on my own business, or to return hither, he has given me a bank note of an hundred for my immediate expences, and this draft for a thousand – the douceur he promised me on his marriage.’
‘Well!’
‘Well! and so we shall not want money, which would have been an almost invincible impediment
. I shall now, as soon as I have settled our proceedings with my angelic Isabel, which I have not the least doubt of doing, make the best of my way to London, execute the imaginary business which my most profoundly politic uncle has given me, and then –’
‘I do not yet understand you,’ said Orlando; ‘how is my sister to be of this party, or how . . .’
‘Nothing so easy,’ answered Warwick; ‘I thought, my friend, you were enough in love yourself to suppose every thing possible, and not to hesitate between quitting your mistress, perhaps for ever, and taking her with you as your wife. – I go from London to Portsmouth – Is there any difficulty in your meeting me there with my Isabella and your Monimia? You know there is not; and whatever scruples your sister may have, or as you perhaps think ought to have, to taking such a journey to me on the acquaintance of the day, will be obviated by your going with her, and by her having a female companion. – My purse is yours, and its present condition will enable us to do well enough till something or other happens in our favour. – I am determined, if Isabella consents, which I am now going to try; and so I leave you, Orlando, to consider of my proposal: you must, however, resolve quickly; for I shall set out almost as soon as dinner is over for London, as I have promised my uncle.’
Warwick then walked away towards the house, leaving Orlando in a state of mind difficult to be conceived or described. To have the power of taking with him his adored Monimia, secure of a present support for her, and certain that with him she would be happy in any country, was a temptation it was almost impossible to resist: when he considered on the other hand, the pain of being separated from her, for a long, perhaps an eternal absence, and of leaving her to the mercy of such a woman as Mrs Lennard, who might, either by withdrawing her protection, or rendering it an intolerable bondage, drive the lovely orphan alone and friendless into a cruel world; other means of saving her he had none, and neither the laws of God or man were against those which were now so unexpectedly offered him.
But his father, already broken-hearted by the desertion of one of his children, would be hurried to the grave by thus being deceived by two others. His mother would be rendered wretched, and he should perhaps accuse himself of being accessary to the death of both his parents: – the thought was not to be borne. He determined for a moment to renounce every happiness which must be purchased by their misery, and not only to fly himself from this almost irresistible temptation, but to prevent Isabella from yielding to it. But this resolution was hardly formed, before the image of Monimia weeping in solitude her desolate fate, complaining to him, who was too far off to hear – ill-treated or abandoned by her aunt – exposed to the insults of the profligate, and the contempt of the fortunate – came with all its pathetic interest to win him from his duty; and then, the happiness of calling her his – of knowing that only death could divide them! the contest was dreadful; and he knew that when he saw Monimia it would be worse. – Once or twice he determined to put an end to it, by telling his father; but to this desperate expedient was opposed the honour he had given to Warwick not to betray, if he would not participate, the intended flight of his sister; nor did he imagine that her going off with Warwick would be a very distressing circumstance to his father. – However enraged the General might at first be, his pride would not suffer him finally to abandon his nephew. In every point, but that of present fortune, Warwick must have the preference; and Orlando thought that he had often seen, by his father’s countenance as he looked at Isabella, that he regretted the sacrifice he was induced by his own circumstances to promote. – But with himself it was quite otherwise; and the rash step he was thus strongly tempted to take, would blast at once all those hopes his father now so fondly cherished in regard to the Rayland estate (for it was certain Mrs Rayland would never forgive him); and, by acceding to Warwick’s proposal, he must deeply aggravate every pang of that separation which his father seemed already unable to endure.
CHAPTER X
TORN by these distracting contests between love and duty, Orlando continued for some moments to traverse the place where Warwick had left him. His two younger sisters appeared to interrupt without relieving this painful debate. He learned from them that Captain Warwick and Isabella were gone together for a walk, and that the former had sent them to him, as he wanted to speak with them. A new doubt now arose in the mind of Orlando – Ought he to communicate to Selina what was going forward, of which she appeared to be ignorant? or conceal within his own bosom what he could not prevent, or entirely disapprove? After a little consideration he thought it would be best not to make Selina a party: and he endeavoured to dissemble as well as he could the conflict of passions which were preying on his heart. His father pale and dejected, with a slow and languid step, soon after joined them: he bade the two girls go to their mother, and then taking Orlando’s arm, they walked together to a greater distance from the house.
‘You go then to-morrow, Orlando?’ said Somerive: ‘there are no hopes of any favourable reverse to this cruel sentence? Mrs Rayland, I find,’ – he hesitated – ‘does not wish to interfere, Sir,’ replied Orlando. ‘On the contrary, she seems to think that a young man of my age and profession cannot be so well employed as in the actual service of his country.’
Somerive answered only with a deep sigh; and after a short pause Orlando went on:
‘I beseech you, my dearest Sir, not to make yourself thus unhappy. Consider that, notwithstanding this temporary parting, my prospects are infinitely better than I had any right to expect, and –’
‘They might, however, have been better,’ said his father in his turn interrupting him – ‘at least they might have been more permanently assured, if you had listened to the proposals we heard yesterday: instead of quitting your family, you might then have been settled near it in affluence.’
‘Let us not, my dear father,’ answered Orlando, ‘discuss that any more; I would not marry Miss Hollybourn, if she could give me a kingdom.’
‘Nor give up your boyish fancy for that girl at the Hall to save your family, to save your father!’
Orlando started as if he had trod on a serpent: this was a string that jarred too much, it threatened to destroy all the virtuous resolutions which he had been labouring to adopt; for it seemed to be cruelty and injustice in his father to reproach him; and, conscious of the sacrifice he hoped to have fortitude enough to make, it appeared too hard that he was at that moment blamed for not making more.
‘No, Sir,’ he said, ‘I will not give up my fancy for the girl at the Hall, as you are pleased to term her; but I see not how my affection for her can injure my family, nor how my resigning her could save them – For God’s sake, do not embitter the few hours we are to pass together, either by reproaches which indeed I do not deserve, or by concern which the occasion does not demand. Believe me, your son suffers enough, without the additional misery of seeing you either displeased with him or grieving for him.’
Orlando, then fearful that any farther conversation with his father, in the humour he seemed to be in, would serve only to give pain to them both, and wishing to be alone for a few minutes before he again saw Warwick, went another way; and on his return to the house he found an official letter directing him to repair immediately for Portsmouth, where the captain of his company was assembling his men in order to embark immediately for America.
Thus certain that he must set out the next day, and that he had only a few moments before he must meet Warwick and give his answer, he hid himself in the least frequented part of the shrubbery that adjoined to the house, and again considered of the tempting offer that was made him. Fascinating as it was, and though his excessive affection for Monimia was often on the point of overbalancing every other consideration whatever; his pride and his duty, his affection for his father, and his respect for himself, united at length to conquer his inclination. How could he bear to plunge a dagger into the heart of his father, who had little other hope on earth but in him? or, if he could determine on that, and fortify himself agains
t the reproaches his conscience might make him, how could he submit to be obliged for his support, for the support of Monimia, to Warwick? There was something repugnant to the generous feelings of Orlando, in Warwick’s using the very money his uncle had given him, as the means of disappointing his benefactor. But, whatever apology Warwick might make to himself for this, Orlando thought there could be none for him if he were to participate in money thus acquired. He knew that, accustomed to expence and to indulgencies as his friend was, a thousand pounds would be no very permanent resource when Isabella was to share it; and he could not bear that he should be supposed to connive at her flight, only to become with Monimia a burthen to her. On the slender pay of an ensign it were madness to think he could support a wife, however humble might be her wishes; and his marriage would cut him off for ever from all hopes of that assistance from Mrs Rayland, which his father, even though he should forgive, had not the power to afford him. Could he then endure to expose his beloved Monimia to the inconveniences of following a camp, without having the means of procuring her such alleviations as it allowed? He might die in the field, and leave her exposed to hazards infinitely greater than those which could befall her in England. This last consideration determined him – It decided his wavering virtue, and he resolved to give Warwick a positive refusal immediately before he should relapse, and to conceal the almost invincible temptation he had been under from his Monimia, lest, her weaker, softer heart yielding to it, he should again find himself unable to resist it.
Complete Poetical Works of Charlotte Smith Page 132
