The History of Emily Montague Part 11

I have been looking at the estate Madame Des Roches has to sell; it is as wild as the lands to which I have a right; I hoped this would have amused my chagrin, but am mistaken: nothing interests me, nothing takes up my attention one moment: my mind admits but one idea. This charming woman follows me wherever I go; I wander about like the first man when driven out of paradise: I vainly fancy every change of place will relieve the anxiety of my mind.

Madame Des Roches smiles, and tells me I am in love; 'tis however a smile of tenderness and compa.s.sion: your s.e.x have great penetration in whatever regards the heart.

Oct. 13.

I have this moment a letter from Miss Fermor, to press my return to Quebec; she tells me, Emily's marriage is postponed till spring. My Lucy! how weak is the human heart! In spite of myself, a ray of hope--I set off this instant: I cannot conceal my joy.

LETTER 35.

To Colonel Rivers, at Quebec.

London, July 23.

You have no idea, Ned, how much your absence is lamented by the dowagers, to whom, it must be owned, your charity has been pretty extensive.

It would delight you to see them condoling with each other on the loss of the dear charming man, the man of sentiment, of true taste, who admires the maturer beauties, and thinks no woman worth pursuing till turned of twenty-five: 'tis a loss not to be made up; for your taste, it must be owned, is pretty singular.

I have seen your last favorite, Lady H----, who a.s.sures me, on the word of a woman of honour, that, had you staid seven years in London, she does not think she should have had the least inclination to change: but an absent lover, she well observed, is, properly speaking, no lover at all. "Bid Colonel Rivers remember," said she, "what I have read somewhere, the parting words of a French lady to a bishop of her acquaintance, Let your absence be short, my lord; and remember that a mistress is a benefice which obliges to residence."

I am told, you had not been gone a week before Jack Willmott had the honor of drying up the fair widow's tears.

I am going this evening to Vauxhall, and to-morrow propose setting out for my house in Rutland, from whence you shall hear from me again.

Adieu! I never write long letters in London. I should tell you, I have been to see Mrs. Rivers and your sister; the former is well, but very anxious to have you in England again; the latter grows so very handsome, I don't intend to repeat my visits often.

Yours, J. Temple.

LETTER 36.

To John Temple, Esq; Pall Mall.

Quebec, Oct. 14.

I am this moment arrived from a ramble down the river; but, a s.h.i.+p being just going, must acknowledge your last.

You make me happy in telling me my dear Lady H---- has given my place in her heart to so honest a fellow as Jack Willmott; and I sincerely wish the ladies always chose their favorites as well.

I should be very unreasonable indeed to expect constancy at almost four thousand miles distance, especially when the prospect of my return is so very uncertain.

My voyage ought undoubtedly to be considered as an abdication: I am to all intents and purposes dead in law as a lover; and the lady has a right to consider her heart as vacant, and to proceed to a new election.

I claim no more than a share in her esteem and remembrance, which I dare say I shall never want.

That I have amused myself a little in the dowager way, I am very far from denying; but you will observe, it was less from taste than the principle of doing as little mischief as possible in my few excursions to the world of gallantry. A little deviation from the exact rule of right we men all allow ourselves in love affairs; but I was willing to keep as near it as I could. Married women are, on my principles, forbidden fruit; I abhor the seduction of innocence; I am too delicate, and (with all my modesty) too vain, to be pleased with venal beauty: what was I then to do, with a heart too active to be absolutely at rest, and which had not met with its counterpart? Widows were, I thought, fair prey, as being sufficiently experienced to take care of themselves.

I have said married women are, on my principles, forbidden fruit: I should have explained myself; I mean in England, for my ideas on this head change as soon as I land at Calais.

Such is the amazing force of local prejudice, that I do not recollect having ever made love to an English married woman, or a French unmarried one. Marriages in France being made by the parents, and therefore generally without inclination on either side, gallantry seems to be a tacit condition, though not absolutely expressed in the contract.

But to return to my plan: I think it an excellent one; and would recommend it to all those young men about town, who, like me, find in their hearts the necessity of loving, before they meet with an object capable of fixing them for life.

By the way, I think the widows ought to raise a statue to my honor, for having done my _possible_ to prove that, for the sake of decorum, morals, and order, they ought to have all the men to themselves.

I have this moment your letter from Rutland. Do you know I am almost angry? Your ideas of love are narrow and pedantic; custom has done enough to make the life of one half of our species tasteless; but you would reduce them to a state of still greater insipidity than even that to which our tyranny has doomed them.

You would limit the pleasure of loving and being beloved, and the charming power of pleasing, to three or four years only in the life of that s.e.x which is peculiarly formed to feel tenderness; women are born with more lively affections than men, which are still more softened by education; to deny them the privilege of being amiable, the only privilege we allow them, as long as nature continues them so, is such a mixture of cruelty and false taste as I should never have suspected you of, notwithstanding your partiality for unripened beauty.

As to myself, I persist in my opinion, that women are most charming when they join the attractions of the mind to those of the person, when they feel the pa.s.sion they inspire; or rather, that they are never charming till then.

A woman in the first bloom of youth resembles a tree in blossom; when mature, in fruit: but a woman who retains the charms of her person till her understanding is in its full perfection, is like those trees in happier climes, which produce blossoms and fruit together.

You will scarce believe, Jack, that I have lived a week _tete a tete_, in the midst of a wood, with just the woman I have been describing; a widow extremely my taste, _mature_, five or six years more so than you say I require, lively, sensible, handsome, without saying one civil thing to her; yet nothing can be more certain.

I could give you powerful reasons for my insensibility; but you are a traitor to love, and therefore have no right to be in any of his secrets.

I will excuse your visits to my sister; as well as I love you myself, I have a thousand reasons for chusing she should not be acquainted with you.

What you say in regard to my mother, gives me pain; I will never take back my little gift to her; and I cannot live in England on my present income, though it enables me to live _en prince_ in Canada.

Adieu! I have not time to say more. I have stole this half hour from the loveliest woman breathing, whom I am going to visit: surely you are infinitely obliged to me. To lessen the obligation, however, my calash is not yet come to the door.

Adieu! once more.

Yours, Ed. Rivers.

LETTER 37.

To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.

Silleri, Oct. 15.

Our wanderer is returned, my dear, and in such spirits as you can't conceive: he pa.s.sed yesterday with us; he likes to have us to himself, and he had yesterday; we walked _a trio_ in the wood, and were foolish; I have not pa.s.sed so agreable a day since I came to Canada: I love mightily to be foolish, and the people here have no taste that way at all: your brother is divinely so upon occasion. The weather was, to use the Canadian phrase, _superbe et magnifique_. We shall not, I am told, have much more in the same _magnifique_ style, so we intend to make the most of it: I have ordered your brother to come and walk with us from morning till night; every day and all the day.

The dear man was amazingly overjoyed to see us again; we shared in his joy, though my little Emily took some pains to appear tranquil on the occasion: I never saw more pleasure in the countenances of two people in my life, nor more pains taken to suppress it.

Do you know Fitzgerald is really an agreable fellow? I have an admirable natural instinct; I perceived he had understanding, from his aquiline nose and his eagle eye, which are indexes I never knew fail. I believe we are going to be great; I am not sure I shall not admit him to make up a _partie quarree_ with your brother and Emily: I told him my original plot upon him, and he was immensely pleased with it. I almost fancy he can be foolish; in that case, my business is done: if with his other merits he has that, I am a lost woman.

He has excellent sense, great good nature, and the true princely spirit of an Irishman: he will be ruined here, but that is his affair, not mine. He changed quarters with an officer now at Montreal; and, because the lodgings were to be furnished, thought himself obliged to leave three months wine in the cellars.

His person is pleasing; he has good eyes and teeth (the only beauties I require), is marked with the small pox, which in men gives a sensible look; very manly, and looks extremely like a gentleman.