The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7)

Very well, Sir.

Your grandmamma Shirley, that ornament of advanced years?

I bowed: I dared not to trust my voice.

Your excellent aunt, Selby?

I bowed again.

Your uncle, your Lucy, your Nancy: Happy family! All harmony! all love!

–How do they?

I wiped my eyes.

Is there any service in my power to do them, or any of them? Command me, good Miss Byron, if there be: my Lord W– and I are one. Our influence is not small.—Make me still more happy, in the power of serving any one favoured by you.

You oppress me, sir, by your goodness!—I cannot speak my grateful sensibilities.

Will you, my dear Mr. Reeves, will you, madam, (to my cousin,) employ me in any way that I can be of use to you, either abroad or at home? Your acquaintance has given me great pleasure. To what a family of worthies has this excellent young lady introduced me!

O, sir! said Mrs. Reeves, tears running down her cheeks, that you were not to leave people whom you have made so happy in the knowledge of the best of men!

Indispensable calls must be obeyed, my dear Mrs. Reeves. If we cannot be as happy as we wish, we will rejoice in the happiness we can have. We must not be our own carvers.—But I make you all serious. I was enumerating, as I told you, my present felicities: I was rejoicing in your friendships. I have joy; and, I presume to say, I will have joy. There is a bright side in every event; I will not lose sight of it: and there is a dark one; but I will endeavour to see it only with the eye of prudence, that I may not be involved by it at unawares. Who that is not reproached by his own heart, and is blessed with health, can grieve for inevitable evils; evils that can be only evils as we make them so? Forgive my seriousness: my dear friends, you make me grave. Favour me, I beseech you, my good Miss Byron, with one lesson: we shall be too much engaged, perhaps, by and by.

He led me (I thought it was with a cheerful air; but my cousins both say, his eyes glistened) to the harpsichord: He sung unasked, but with a low voice; and my mind was calmed. O, Lucy! How can I part with such a man? How can I take my leave of him?—But perhaps he has taken his leave of me already, as to the solemnity of it, in the manner I have recited.

LETTER XXVII

MISS BYRON.—IN CONTINUATION SATURDAY MORNING, APRIL 15

O, Lucy, Sir Charles Grandison is gone! Gone indeed! He set out at three this morning; on purpose, no doubt, to spare his sisters, and friends, as well as himself, concern.

We broke not up till after two. Were I in the writing humour which I have never known to fail me till now, I could dwell upon a hundred things, some of which I can now only briefly mention.

Dinner-time yesterday passed with tolerable cheerfulness: every one tried to be cheerful. O what pain attends loving too well, and being too well beloved! He must have pain, as well as we.

Lady Olivia was the most thoughtful, at dinnertime; yet poor Emily! Ah, the poor Emily! she went out four or five times to weep; though only I perceived it.

Nobody was cheerful after dinner but Sir Charles. He seemed to exert himself to be so. He prevailed on me to give them a lesson on the harpsichord. Lady L– played: Lady G– played: we tried to play, I should rather say. He himself took the violin, and afterwards sat down to the harpsichord, for one short lesson. He was not known to be such a master: but he was long in Italy. Lady Olivia indeed knew him to be so. She was induced to play upon the harpsichord: she surpassed every body. Italy is the land of harmony.

About seven at night he singled me out, and surprised me greatly by what he said. He told me, that Lady D– had made him a visit. I was before low: I was then ready to sink. She has asked me questions, madam.

Sir, sir! was all I could say.

He himself trembled as he spoke.—Alas! my dear, he surely loves me! Hear how solemnly he spoke—God Almighty be your director, my dear Miss Byron! I wish not more happiness to my own soul, than I do to you.—In discharge of a promise made, I mention this visit to you: I might otherwise have spared you, and myself—

He stopt there—Then resumed; for I was silent. I could not speak—Your friends will be entreated for a man that loves you; a very worthy young nobleman.—I give you emotion, madam.—Forgive me.—I have performed my promise. He turned from me with a seeming cheerful air. How could he appear to be cheerful!

We made parties at cards. I knew not what I played. Emily sighed, and tears stole down her cheeks, as she played. O how she loves her guardian! Emily, I say—I don't know what I write!

At supper we were all very melancholy. Mr. Beauchamp was urgent to go abroad with him. He changed the subject, and gave him an indirect denial, as I may call it, by recommending the two Italian ladies to his best services.

Sir Charles, kind, good, excellent! wished to Lord L– to have seen Mr. Grandison!—unworthy as that man has made himself of his attention.

He was a few moments in private with Lady Olivia. She returned to company with red eyes.

Poor Emily watched an opportunity to be spoken to by him alone—So diligently!—He led her to the window—About one o'clock it was—He held both her hands. He called her, she says, his Emily. He charged her to write to him.

She could not speak; she could only sob; yet thought she had a thousand things to say to him.

He contradicted not the hope his sisters and their lords had of his breakfasting with them. They invited me; they invited the Italian ladies: Lady L–, Lord L–, did go, in expectation: but Lady G–, when she found him gone, sent me and the Italian ladies word, that he was. It would have been cruel, if she had not. How could he steal away so! I find, that he intended that his morning visit to me (as indeed I half-suspected) should be a taking leave of my cousins, and your Harriet. How many things did he say then—How many questions ask—In tender woe— He wanted to do us all service—He seemed not to know what to say—Surely he hates not your poor Harriet—What struggles in his noble bosom!—But a man cannot complain: a man cannot ask for compassion, as a woman can. But surely his is the gentlest of manly minds!

When we broke up, he handed my cousin Reeves into her coach. He handed me. Mr. Reeves said, We see you again, Sir Charles, in the morning? He bowed. At handing me in, he sighed—He pressed my hand—I think he did— That was all—He saluted nobody. He will not meet his Clementina as he parted with us.

But, I doubt not, Dr. Bartlett was in the secret.

He was. He has just been here. He found my eyes swelled. I had had no rest; yet knew not, till seven o'clock, that he was gone.

It was very good of the doctor to come: his visit soothed me: yet he took no notice of my red eyes. Nay, for that matter, Mrs. Reeves's eyes were swelled, as well as mine. Angel of a man! how is he beloved!

The doctor says, that his sisters, their lords, Lord W–, are in as much grief as if he were departed for ever—And who knows—But I will not torment myself with supposing the worst: I will endeavour to bear in mind what he said yesterday morning to us, no doubt for an instruction, that he would have joy.

And did he then think that I should be so much grieved as to want such an instruction?—And, therefore, did he vouchsafe to give it?—But, vanity, be quiet—Lie down, hope—Hopelesness, take place! Clementina shall be his. He shall be hers.

Yet his emotion, Lucy, at mentioning Lady D–'s visit—O! but that was only owing to his humanity. He saw my emotion; and acknowledged the tenderest friendship for me! Ought I not to be satisfied with that? I am. I will be satisfied. Does he not love me with the love of mind? The poor Olivia has not this to comfort herself with. The poor Olivia! if I see her sad and afflicted, how I shall pity her! All her expectations frustrated; the expectations that engaged her to combat difficulties, to travel, to cross many waters, and to come to England—to come just time enough to take leave of him; he hastening on the wings of love and compassion to a dearer, a deservedly dearer object, in the country she had quitted, on purpose to visit him in his—Is not hers a more grievous situation than mine?—It is. Why, then, do I lament?

But here, Lucy, let me in confidence hint, what I have gathered from several intimations from Dr. Bartlett, though as tenderly made by him as possible, that had Sir Charles Grandison been a man capable of taking advantage of the violence of a lady's passion for him, the unhappy Olivia would not have scrupled, great, haughty, and noble, as she is, by birth and fortune, to have been his, without conditions, if she could not have been so with: The Italian world is of this opinion, at least. Had Sir Charles been a Rinaldo, Olivia had been an Armida.

O that I could hope, for the honour of the sex, and of the lady who is so fine a woman, that the Italian world is mistaken!—I will presume that it is.

My good Dr. Bartlett, will you allow me to accuse you of a virtue too rigorous? That is sometimes the fault of very good people. You own that Sir Charles has not, even to you, revealed a secret so disgraceful to her. You own, that he has only blamed her for having too little regard for her reputation, and for the violence of her temper: yet how patiently, for one of such a temper, has she taken his departure, almost on the day of her arrival! He could not have given her an opportunity to indicate to him a concession so criminal: she could not, if he had, have made the overture. Wicked, wicked world! I will not believe you! And the less credit shall you have with me, Italian world, as I have seen the lady. The innocent heart will be a charitable one. Lady Olivia is only too intrepid. Prosperity, as Sir Charles observed, has been a snare to her, and set her above a proper regard to her reputation.—Merciless world! I do not love you. Dear Dr. Bartlett, you are not yet absolutely perfect! These hints of yours against Olivia, gathered from the malevolence of the envious, are proofs (the first indeed that I have met with) of your imperfection!

Excuse me, Lucy: how have I run on! Disappointment has mortified me, and made me good-natured.—I will welcome adversity, if it enlarge my charity.

The doctor tells me, that Emily, with her half-broken heart, will be here presently. If I can be of comfort to her—But I want it myself, from the same cause. We shall only weep over each other.

As I told you, the doctor, and the doctor only, knew of his setting out so early. He took leave of him. Happy Dr. Bartlett!—Yet I see by his eyes, that this parting cost him some paternal tears.

Never father better loved a son than this good man loves Sir Charles Grandison.

Sir Charles, it seems, had settled all his affairs three days before.

His servants were appointed.

The doctor tells me, that he had last week presented the elder Mr. Oldham with a pair of colours, which he had purchased for him. Nobody had heard of this.

Lord W–, he says, is preparing for Windsor; Mr. Beauchamp for Hampshire, for a few days; and then he returns to attend the commands of the noble Italians.