Anna St. Ives Part 18

C. CLIFTON

LETTER x.x.xVII

_Anna Wenbourne St. Ives to Louisa Clifton_

_Chateau de Villebrun_

In compliance with the very warm entreaties of our kind French friends, we have been hurried away from the metropolis sooner than was intended.

We are at present in the country, at the Chateau de Villebrun; where, if we are not merry, it is not for the want of laughing. Our feet and our tongues are never still. We dance, talk, sing, ride, sail, or rather paddle about in a small but romantic lake; in short we are never out of exercise.

Clifton is as active as the best, and is very expert in all feats of agility. With the French he seems to dance for the honour of his nation; and, with me, from a desire to prove that the man who makes pretensions to me, which he now does openly enough, is capable of every excellence.

You know, Louisa, how much I despise the affectation of reserve; but he is so enterprising a youth that I am sometimes obliged, though very unwillingly, to exert a little mild authority.

The French, old or young, ugly or handsome, all are lovers; and are as liberal of their amorous sighs, and addresses, as if each were an Adonis. Clifton is well acquainted with foreign manners, or I can perceive their gallantry to me would make him half mad. As it is, he has been little less than rude, to one or two of the most forward of my pretended admirers.

I speak in the plural, as if we were rather in town than at a country seat; and so we appear to be. The French n.o.bility do not seem to have any taste for solitude. Their love of variety induces them to change the scene; but the same tumult of guests and visitors, coming and going, is every where their delight. Whatever can attract company they seek with avidity. I am dear to them, because I am an English beauty, as they tell me, and all the world is desirous of paying its court to me.

Clifton has equal or perhaps greater merits of the same kind. And I a.s.sure you, Louisa, the women here can pay their court more artfully and almost as openly as the men.

Frank is idolized by them, because he reads Shakespeare. You would wonder to hear the praises they bestow upon him, and which indeed he richly deserves, though not one in ten of them understands a word he says. _C'est beau! C'est magnifique! C'est superbe! C'est sublime!_ Such is their continual round of good-natured superlatives, which they apply on all occasions, with a sincere desire To make others as happy as they endeavour to persuade themselves to be. Frank treats their gallantry with a kind of silent contempt, otherwise he would be a much greater favourite.

Perhaps you will be surprised to find me still guilty of procrastination, and to hear me describing French manners, instead of the mode in which I addressed a youth whom I have accused myself of having, in a certain sense, misled, and kept in suspense. I can only answer that my intentions have been frustrated; chiefly indeed by this country excursion, though in part by other accidents. My mind has not indulged itself in indolence; it could not; it is too deeply interested. But, the more I have thought, the more have I been confirmed in my former opinion. This is the hour of trial: this is the time to prove I have some real claims to that superiority which I have been so ready to flatter myself I possess. Were there nothing to regret, nay were there not something to suffer, where would be the merit of victory?--But, on the other hand, how much is there to gain!--A mind of the first order to be retrieved!--A Clifton!--A brother of Louisa!

This appears to be a serious crisis. Again I must repeat how much I am afraid of being hurried forward too fast. An error at this moment might be fatal. Clifton is so much alarmed by the particular respect which the Count de Beaunoir [A pleasant kind of madman, who is a visitant here.] pays me, that he has this instant been with me, confessed a pa.s.sion for me, in all the strong and perhaps extravagant language which custom has seemed to authorise, and has entreated, with a degree of warmth and earnestness that could scarcely be resisted, my permission to mention the matter immediately to Sir Arthur.

It became me to speak without disguise. I told him I was far from insensible of his merits; that a union with the brother of my Louisa, if propriety, duty, and affection should happen to combine, would be the first wish of my heart; that I should consider any affectation and coyness as criminal; but that I was not entirely free from doubt; and, before I could agree to the proposal being made to Sir Arthur, I thought it necessary we should mutually compare our thoughts, and scrutinize as it were each other to the very soul; that we might not act rashly, in the most serious of all the private events of life.--You know my heart, Louisa; at least as well as I myself know it; and I am fearful of being precipitate.

He seemed rather disappointed, and was impatient to begin the conversation I wished for immediately.

I told him I was unprepared; my thoughts were not sufficiently collected; and that the hurry in which we at present exist would scarcely allow me time to perform so necessary a duty. But, that I might avoid the least suspicion of coquetry, if it were his desire, I would shut myself up for a day from company, and examine whether there were any real impediments; that I would ask myself what my hopes and expectations were; and that I requested, or indeed expected that he should do the same. I added however that, if he pleased, it would be much more agreeable to me to defer this serious task, at least till we should return to Paris.

He repeated my words, if it would be much more agreeable to me, impatient and uneasy though he owned he was, he must submit.

I answered I required no submission, except to reason; to which I hoped both he and I should always be subject.

Love, he replied, was so disdainful of restraint that it would not acknowledge the control of reason itself. However, by representing to him how particular our mutual absence from the company would seem, unless we could condescend to tell some falsehood, which I would not I said suppose possible to either of us, I prevailed on him to subscribe to this short delay.

His pa.s.sions and feelings are strong. One minute he seemed affected by the approbation which, as far as I could with truth, I did not scruple to bestow on his many superior gifts; and the next to conceive some chagrin that I should for a moment hesitate. The n.o.blest natures, Louisa, are the most subject to pride, can the least endure neglect, and are aptest to construe whatever is not directly affirmative in their favour into injustice.

With respect to the Count de Beaunoir, he has been more pa.s.sionate, in expressing how much he admires me, than my reserve to him can have authorised; except so far as he follows the manners of his country, and the impulse of his peculiar character. I suppose he means little; though he has said much. Not that I am certain. He may be more in earnest than I desire; but I hope he is not; because, if I am to be your sister as well as your friend, I should be sorry that any thing should excite a shadow of doubt in the mind of Clifton.

The Count is one of the Provencal n.o.bility; a whimsical creature, with an imagination amazingly rapid, but extravagant. Your brother calls him Count Shatter-brain; and I tell him that he forgets he has some claim to the t.i.tle himself. The Count has read the old Provencal poets, and romance writers, till he has made himself a kind of Don Quixote; except that he has none of the Don's delightful systematic gravity. The Count on the contrary amuses by his want of system, and his quick, changeable incongruity. He is in raptures one moment with what he laughs at the next. Were it not for the mad follies of jealousy, against which we cannot be too guarded, the manner in which he addresses, or in his own language adores me, would be pleasant. If I wished to pa.s.s my life in laughing, I would certainly marry the Count.

I am called to dinner. Adieu.

Ever and ever yours,

A. W. ST. IVES

LETTER x.x.xVIII

_Anna Wenbourne St. Ives to Louisa Clifton_

_Chateau de Villebrun_

My alarms, Louisa, increase; and with them my anxious wishes for an eclairciss.e.m.e.nt with Frank. Clifton has too strongly imbibed high but false notions of honour and revenge. His quick, apt, and versatile talents are indubitable. He wants nothing but the power to curb and regulate his pa.s.sions, to render him all that his generous and excellent sister could desire. But at present his sensibility is too great. He scarcely can brook the slightest tokens of disapprobation. He is rather too firmly persuaded that he deserves applause, and admiration; and that reproof he scarcely can deserve: or, if he did, to submit to it he imagines would be dishonourable.

Frank and he behave more than usually cool to each other: I know not why, unless it has been occasioned by an incident which happened yesterday. Clifton has bought an English hunter, from one of his countrymen at Paris, which he was exhibiting to his French friends, whose horsemans.h.i.+p is very different from ours, and who were surprised to see him ride so fearlessly over gates and other impediments. They continued their airing in the park of Villebrun, and turned round to a kind of haha, which was both deep and wide, and about half full of water, by the side of which they saw a party of ladies standing, and me among the rest. Frank was with us.

One of the gentlemen asked whether the horse could leap over the haha: to which Clifton made no answer, but immediately clapped spurs to his hunter, and over he flew. The whole company, gentlemen and ladies, broke out into exclamations of surprise; and Clifton turned his horse's head round, and regained his former place.

While they were wondering, Frank Henley happened to make if a matter of doubt whether a man or a horse could leap the farthest; and Clifton, continually in the habit of contending with Frank, said it was ridiculous to start such an argument, unless he would first shew that he himself could make the same leap. Frank, piqued in his turn, retired a few yards; and, without pulling off his coat or deigning to leap, he made a short run and a hop and sprung over.

You may imagine that the kind and good folks, who love to be astonished, and still more to tell the greatness of their astonishment, were manifold in their interjections. Frank, in order to rejoin the company, was obliged a second time to cross the haha; which he did with the same safety and truly amazing agility as he had done before.

Clifton, indulging his wrong habits, though I have no doubt admiring Frank as much as the rest, told him in a kind of sarcastic banter that, though he could not prove the equality of mankind, he had at least proved himself equal to a horse. To which Frank replied he was mistaken; for that he had shewn himself equal to the horse and his rider.

This answer I fear dwells upon the mind of Clifton; and I scarcely myself can tell whether it were or were not worthy of Frank. How can Clifton be wilfully blind to such courage, rect.i.tude of heart, understanding and genius?

The stern unrelenting fort.i.tude of Frank, in the cause of justice, and some symptoms of violence in the impetuous Clifton, have inspired me with apprehensions; and have induced me to behave with more reserve and coldness to Frank than I ever before a.s.sumed.

Yet, Louisa, my heart is wrung to see the effect it produces. He has a mind of such discriminating power, such magnanimity, that an injury to it is a deep, a double sin; and every look, every action testify that he thinks himself injured, by the distance with which I behave. Oh that he himself might be impelled to begin the subject with which my mind is labouring!

This is wrong; I am ashamed of my own cowardice. Yet would there not be something terrifying in a formal appointment, to tell him what it seems must be told?--Yes, Louisa, must--And is there not danger he should think me severe; nay unjust?--Would it were over!--I hope he will not think so of me!--It must be done!--Must!--Must!--

Indeed, Louisa, I could be a very woman--But I will not!--No, no!--It is pa.s.sed--I have put my handkerchief to my eyes and it is gone--I have repressed an obstinate heaving of the heart--

Let her blame me, if I deserve it, but my Louisa must see me as I am--Yet I will conquer--Be sure I will--But I must not sing his song any more!

A. W. ST. IVES

LETTER x.x.xIX

_Frank Henley to Oliver Trenchard_.

_Chateau de Villebrun_

Oh, my friend, my heart is torn! I am on the rack! My thoughts are all tumult! My pa.s.sions rebel! I seem to have yielded up the best prerogative of man, reason; and to have admitted revolt, anarchy, and desolation!