The Greatest Regency Romance Novels. Maria Edgeworth

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ nothing beyond plain speaking, and could no ways solve the riddle he proposed.

      What I say, may doubtless appear so, madame; replied she, and I could wish it had not been my part to give the explanation; but I cannot dispense with the promise I have made, and must therefore acquaint you with the history of it.

      After the ball, continued he, monsieur the count de Bellfleur desired me to accompany him to his lodgings, and, as soon as we were alone, told me, he had a little secret to acquaint me with, but that, before he revealed it, he must have the promise of my assistance. As he spoke this with a gay and negligent air, I imagined it a thing of no great consequence, or if it were, he was a man of too much honour, and also knew me too well to desire or expect I would engage in any thing unbecoming that character: indeed I could think of nothing but an amour or a duel, tho' I was far from being able to guess of what service I could be to him in the former. I was, however, unwarily drawn in to give my word, and he then made me the confident of a passion, which, he said, had received its birth from the first moment he beheld the Belle Angloise, for by that term, pursued he, bowing, he distinguished the adorable Louisa: that he had made some discovery of his flame, but that finding; himself rejected, as he thought, in too severe a manner, and without affording him opportunity to attest his sincerity, he had converted his addresses, tho' not his passion, to a lady who, he perceived, had the care of her, acting in this manner, partly thro' picque at your disdain, and partly to gratify his eyes with the sight of you, which he has reason to fear you had totally deprived him of but for this stratagem. He confessed to me that he found the object of his pretended ardours infinitely more kind than she who inspires the real ones: but this gratification of his vanity is of little consequence to his peace;--he engaged me to attend you this day, to conjure you to believe his heart is incapable of being influenced by any other charms, and whatever he makes shew of to Melanthe, his heart is devoted wholly to you,--begs you to permit him to entertain you without the presence of that lady, the means of which he will take care to contrive; and charged me to assure you, that there is no sacrifice so great, but he will readily offer it to convince you of the sincerity of his attachment.

      This, madame, added he, is the unpleasing task my promise bound me to perform, and which I have acquitted myself of with the same pain that man would do who, by some strange caprice of fate, was constrained to throw into the sea the sum of all his hopes.

      The indignation which filled the virtuous foul of Louisa, while he was giving her this detail of the count's presumption, falsehood, and ingratitude, prevented her from giving much attention to the apology with which he concluded. Never, since the behaviour of mr. B----n at mrs. C--g--'s, had she met with any thing that she thought so much merited her resentment:--so great was her disdain she had not words to express it, but by some tears, which the rising passion forced from her eyes:--Heaven! cried she, which of my actions has drawn on me this unworthy treatment?--This was all she was able to utter, while she walked backward and forward in the room endeavouring to compose herself, and form some answer befitting of the message.

      Monsieur du Plessis looked on her all this while with admiration: all that seemed lovely in her, when he knew no more of her than that she was young and beautiful, was now heightened in his eyes almost to divine, by that virtuous pride which shewed him some part of her more charming mind. What he extremely liked before, he now almost adored; and having, by the loose manner in which the count had mentioned these two English ladies, imagined them women of not over-rigid principles, now finding his mistake, at least as concerning one of them, was so much ashamed and angry with himself for having been the cause of that disorder he was witness of, that he for some moments was equally at a loss to appease, as she who felt was to express it.

      But being the first that recovered presence of mind; madame, I beseech you, said he, involve not the innocent with the guilty:--I acknowledge you have reason to resent the boldness of the count; but I am no otherwise a sharer in his crime than in reporting it; and if you knew the pain it gave my heart while I complied with the promise I was unhappily betrayed into, I am sure you would forgive the misdemeanor of my tongue.

      Sir, answered she, I can easily forgive the slight opinion one so much a stranger to me as yourself may have of me; but monsieur the count has been a constant visitor to the lady I am with, ever since our arrival at Venice; and am very certain he never found any thing in my behaviour to him or any other person, which could justly encourage him to send me such a message:--a message, indeed, equally affrontive to himself, since it shews him a composition of arrogance, vanity, perfidy, and every thing that is contemptible in man.--This, sir, is the reply I send him, and desire you to tell him withal, that if he persists in giving me any farther trouble of this nature, I shall let him know my sense of it in the presence of Melanthe.

      Monsieur du Plessis then assured her he would be no less exact in delivering what she said, than he had been in the observance of his promise to the other, and conjured her to believe he should do it with infinite more satisfaction. He then made use of so many arguments to prove, that a man of honour ought not to falsify his word, tho' given to an unworthy person, that she was at last won to forgive his having undertaken to mention any thing to her of the nature he had done.

      Indeed, the agitations she had been in were more owing to the vexation that monsieur du Plessis was the person employed, than that the count had the boldness to apply to her in this manner; but the submission she found herself treated with by the former, convincing her that he had sentiments very different from those the other had entertained of her, rendered her more easy, and she not only forgave his share in the business which had brought him there, but also permitted him to repeat his visits, on condition he never gave her any cause to suspect the mean opinion the count had of her conduct had any influence on him.

      CHAP. XIII.

       Table of Contents

       Louisa finds herself very much embarrassed by Melanthe's imprudent behaviour. Monsieur du Plessis declares an honourable passion for her: her sentiments and way of acting on that occasion.

      After the departure of monsieur du Plessis, Louisa fell into a serious consideration of what had passed between them: not all the regard, which she could not hinder herself from feeling for that young gentleman, nor the pleasure she took in reflecting on the respect he paid her, made her unmindful of what she owed Melanthe: the many obligations she had received from her, and the friendship she had for her in return, made her think she ought to acquaint her with the baseness of the count de Bellfleur, in order to prevent an affection which she found she had already too much indulged from influencing her to grant him any farther favours; but this she knew was a very critical point to manage, and was not without some apprehensions, which afterward she experienced were but too well grounded; that when that lady found herself obliged to hate the man she took pleasure in loving, she would also hate the woman who was the innocent occasion of it. Few in the circumstances Louisa was, but would have been swayed by this consideration, and chose rather to see another become the prey of perfidy and deceit, than fall the victim of jealousy herself; but the generosity of her nature would not suffer it to have any weight with her, and she thought she could be more easy under any misfortunes the discovery might involve her in, than in the consciousness of not having discharged the obligations of duty and gratitude in revealing what seemed so necessary to be known.

      With this resolution, finding Melanthe was not come home, she went into her chamber in order to wait her return, and relate the whole history to her as she should undress for bed. But hour after hour elapsing without any appearance of the person she expected, she thought to beguile the tedious time by reading; and remembering that Melanthe had a very agreeable book in her hand that morning, she opened a drawer, where she knew that lady was accustomed to throw any thing in, which she had no occasion to conceal; but how great was her surprise when, instead of what she sought, she found the letter from count de Bellfleur which Melanthe, in the hurry of spirits, had forgot to lock up. СКАЧАТЬ