Anna St. Ives Part 3

Heydey, Anna! Where is your aunt?

Sir, I am afraid I have done an unjustifiable thing. [My conscience then first smote me, with a conviction that what I had persuaded myself was a defensible artifice was neither more nor less than a direct falsehood; which of all crimes, you know, I think one of the most mean, hateful, and pernicious. The just confusion I felt had nearly ruined my cause.]

Why!--What!--What do you mean?--Where is your aunt?

She is not here, sir. It was I who wished to speak to you.

You! And send in your aunt's name?

My name is Wenbourne, sir.

Your name is St. Ives, miss.

I feel, sir, how exceedingly culpable I am; and perhaps do not deserve that you should pardon me. [My father began to suspect the reason of my wis.h.i.+ng to speak with him, and did not know whether good nature or ill would serve his cause the best. I perceived him cast an eye toward the door.]

This is extraordinary!--Very extraordinary, upon my soul!

[I saw it was time to recover my spirits.] I have heard something which I scarcely can believe to be true, sir.

What have you heard? What have you heard?

That you are going back to Wenbourne-Hill.

Well, what then?

And that you do not intend we should visit France.

Who told you so?

The servants have orders to that effect.

The servants are a parcel of busy blockheads!

What can have occasioned you, sir, to change your opinion so suddenly?

My affairs. [He looked again toward the door, but he felt it was too late; and that he must now either defend or abandon his cause.] The journey will be too expensive.

If, sir, the journey would in the least embarra.s.s your affairs, and if I did not daily see you entering into expences so infinitely greater than this, I would not answer a word to such an argument. I think it my duty to be as careful of your property as you yourself could be; and for that reason have often wished I could prevail on you, in some measure, to alter your plans.

I have no doubt, miss, of your prodigious wisdom; you remind me of it daily. Your plans to be sure would, as you say, be infinitely better than mine. When you are married, or I am dead, you may do as you please; but, in the mean time, suffer me to act for myself. I do not choose to be under tutelage.

I am sorry, my dear papa, to see that I offend you; but indeed I mean the very reverse. Indeed I do! It is my zeal for your interest, my love of you, [I ventured to take his hand] that oblige me to speak--

And plainly to tell me you do not approve of my proceedings!

Plainly to tell you the truth, because I believe it to be my duty.

Upon my word! A very dutiful daughter! I thought the duty of children was to obey the wills of their parents.

Obedience--[Pardon my sincerity, sir.]--Obedience must have limits.

Children should love and honour their parents for their virtues, and should cheerfully and zealously do whatever they require of them, which is not in itself wrong.

Of which _children_ are to judge?

Yes, sir: of which children are to judge.

A fine system of obedience truly!

They cannot act without judging, more or less, be they obedient or disobedient: and the better they judge the better will they perform their duty. There may be and there have been mistaken parents, who have commanded their children to be guilty even of crimes.

And what is that to me? Upon my word, you are a very polite young lady!

A very extraordinarily polite miss!

G.o.d forbid, my dear papa, that you should imagine I think you one of those parents.

I really don't know nor don't care, madam, what you think me.--My plans, indeed!--Disapproved by you!

If I saw any person under a dangerous mistake, misled, wronged, preyed upon by the self-interested, should I not be indolent or cowardly, nay should I not be criminal, if I did not endeavour to convince such a person of his error? And what should I be if this person were my father?

Upon my honour, miss, you take intolerable liberties! The license of your tongue is terrible!

It were better, sir, that I should subject myself to your displeasure, and make you think unkindly of me, than that others, who pretend to be your servants and your humble but friendly advisers, should injure--should--I know not what! We have often heard of stewards, who have acted the mortgagee to their own masters. [This hint was a thunder stroke. Sir Arthur was wholly disconcerted. His mind apparently made several attempts to recover itself; but they were all ineffectual.]

Well, well--I, I--I know what the meaning of all this is. You--You are vexed at being disappointed of your journey--But make yourself easy, child; you shall go: you shan't be disappointed.

'Tis true, sir, I wish to visit Paris; but not if it will be in the least inconvenient to you, in money affairs. Though I own I should indeed be vexed to see the small sum you had appropriated for this journey wrested from you, to throw up a hill, or build a fantastic temple in some place where its very situation would render it ridiculous.

Upon my word!--Was ever the like of this heard?--Don't I tell you, you shall go?

Indeed, sir, going is but a small part of the subject: there is another point, which, if I could but gain, would give me infinitely more pleasure.

Pshaw! Girl! I can't stay to argue points with you now! I tell you, you shall go. I give you my word you shall go; and so let's have no more of it.--Do you hear, Anna? I am too old to be schooled. I don't like it!

Mind me! I don't like it!

I am very sorry, sir, that I cannot find words to speak the truth which would be less offensive.

I tell you again there is no truth to be spoken! Have not I promised you shall go? There's an end of the business. You shall go.

And away went Sir Arthur; apparently happy to get rid both of me and himself: that is, of the disagreeable ideas which, as he thought, I had so impertinently raised. You blamed me in your last for not exerting myself sufficiently, to shew him his folly. You see the sufficiently is still wanting. Perhaps I have not discovered the true mode of addressing myself to Sir Arthur's pa.s.sions. For, though my remonstrances have often made him uneasy, I cannot perceive that they have ever produced conviction. And yet I should suppose that a certain degree of momentary conviction must be the result of such conversations. But the fort.i.tude to cast off old habits, and a.s.sume new, is beyond the strength of common mortals.

Frank Henley is a favourite with you, and very deservedly. But, in answer to the surprise in your former, my dear, that he has never engaged my affections, as well as to the cautionary kind hints in your two last, for so I understand them, let me say that, had I imagined love to be that unconquerable fatality of which I have been speaking, I do not know what might have happened: but, having been early convinced that a union between him and me must be attended with I know not what scenes of wretchedness, in short, knowing the thing in a certain sense to be impossible, it has always been so considered by me, and therefore I have no reason to think myself in any danger. Doubts occasionally rise in my mind, but in general soon disappear. Should they return I will not conceal them.

I remember it was a remark of yours that 'Admiration is the mother of love.' So it is, of love such as I bear to my Louisa; and of such perhaps as angels might be supposed to bear to angels. I admire Frank Henley, greatly, ardently admire him; yet I certainly do not love: that is, I certainly do not permit myself to feel any of those anxieties, alarms, hopes, fears, perturbations, and endearments, which we are told are inseparable from that pa.s.sion. I extinguish, I suffocate them in their birth.

I am called for: Adieu, my ever dear Louisa.

A. W. ST. IVES