The History of Emily Montague Part 9

I am going, my Lucy.--I know not well whither I am going, but I will not stay to see this marriage. Could you have believed it possible--But what folly! Did I not know her situation from the first?

Could I suppose she would break off an engagement of years, with a man who gives so clear a proof that he prefers her to all other women, to humor the frenzy of one who has never even told her he loved her?

Captain Fermor a.s.sures me all is settled but the day, and that she has promised to name that to-morrow.

I will leave Quebec to-night; no one shall know the road I take: I do not yet know it myself; I will cross over to Point Levi with my valet de chambre, and go wherever chance directs me. I cannot bear even to hear the day named. I am strongly inclined to write to her; but what can I say? I should betray my tenderness in spite of myself, and her compa.s.sion would perhaps disturb her approaching happiness: were it even possible she should prefer me to Sir George, she is too far gone to recede.

My Lucy, I never till this moment felt to what an excess I loved her.

Adieu! I shall be about a fortnight absent: by that time she will be embarked for England. I cannot bring myself to see her the wife of another. Do not be alarmed for me; reason and the impossibility of success will conquer my pa.s.sion for this angelic woman; I have been to blame in allowing myself to see her so often.

Yours, Ed. Rivers.

LETTER 27.

To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.

Beaumont, Oct. 7.

I think I breathe a freer air now I am out of Quebec. I cannot bear wherever I go to meet this Sir George; his triumphant air is insupportable; he has, or I fancy he has, all the insolence of a happy rival; 'tis unjust, but I cannot avoid hating him; I look on him as a man who has deprived me of a good to which I foolishly fancy I had pretensions.

My whole behaviour has been weak to the last degree: I shall grow more reasonable when I no longer see this charming woman; I ought sooner to have taken this step.

I have found here an excuse for my excursion; I have heard of an estate to be sold down the river; and am told the purchase will be less expence than clearing any lands I might take up. I will go and see it; it is an object, a pursuit, and will amuse me.

I am going to send my servant back to Quebec; my manner of leaving it must appear extraordinary to my friends; I have therefore made this estate my excuse. I have written to Miss Fermor that I am going to make a purchase; have begged my warmest wishes to her lovely friend, for whose happiness no one on earth is more anxious; but have told her Sir George is too much the object of my envy, to expect from me very sincere congratulations.

Adieu! my servant waits for this. You shall hear an account of my adventures when I return to Quebec.

Yours, Ed. Rivers.

LETTER 28.

To Miss Fermor, at Silleri.

Quebec, Oct. 7, twelve o'clock.

I must see you, my dear, this evening; my mind is in an agitation not to be expressed; a few hours will determine my happiness or misery for ever; I am displeased with your father for precipitating a determination which cannot be made with too much caution.

I have a thousand things to say to you, which I can say to no one else.

Be at home, and alone; I will come to you as soon as dinner is over.

Adieu!

Your affectionate Emily Montague.

LETTER 29.

To Miss Montague, at Quebec.

I will be at home, my dear, and denied to every body but you.

I pity you, my dear Emily; but I am unable to give you advice.

The world would wonder at your hesitating a moment.

Your faithful A. Fermor.

LETTER 30.

To Miss Fermor, at Silleri.

Quebec, Oct. 7, three o'clock.

My visit to you is prevented by an event beyond my hopes. Sir George has this moment a letter from his mother, desiring him earnestly to postpone his marriage till spring, for some reasons of consequence to his fortune, with the particulars of which she will acquaint him by the next packet.

He communicated this intelligence to me with a grave air, but with a tranquillity not to be described, and I received it with a joy I found it impossible wholly to conceal.

I have now time to consult both my heart and my reason at leisure, and to break with him, if necessary, by degrees.

What an escape have I had! I was within four and twenty hours of either determining to marry a man with whom I fear I have little chance to be happy, or of breaking with him in a manner that would have subjected one or both of us to the censures of a prying impertinent world, whose censures the most steady temper cannot always contemn.

I will own to you, my dear, I every hour have more dread of this marriage: his present situation has brought his faults into full light.

Captain Clayton, with little more than his commission, was modest, humble, affable to his inferiors, polite to all the world; and I fancied him possessed of those more active virtues, which I supposed the smallness of his fortune prevented from appearing. 'Tis with pain I see that Sir George, with a splendid income, is avaricious, selfish, proud, vain, and profuse; lavish to every caprice of vanity and ostentation which regards himself, coldly inattentive to the real wants of others.

Is this a character to make your Emily happy? We were not formed for each other: no two minds were ever so different; my happiness is in friends.h.i.+p, in the tender affections, in the sweets of dear domestic life; his in the idle parade of affluence, in dress, in equipage, in all that splendor, which, whilst it excites envy, is too often the mark of wretchedness.

Shall I say more? Marriage is seldom happy where there is a great disproportion of fortune. The lover, after he loses that endearing character in the husband, which in common minds I am afraid is not long, begins to reflect how many more thousands he might have expected; and perhaps suspects his mistress of those interested motives in marrying, of which he now feels his own heart capable. Coldness, suspicion, and mutual want of esteem and confidence, follow of course.

I will come back with you to Silleri this evening; I have no happiness but when I am with you. Mrs. Melmoth is so fond of Sir George, she is eternally persecuting me with his praises; she is extremely mortified at this delay, and very angry at the manner in which I behave upon it.

Come to us directly, my dear Bell, and rejoice with your faithful

Emily Montague.