He listened, fearful of again hearing the indefatigable clack of Betty; but every thing was profoundly silent. The letter, which he had deposited there, was gone; but there was no answer. He feared Monimia was ill – the terror, the fatigue of the preceding night, had been too much for her. It was dreadful to be within two or three paces of her, and yet not dare to enquire.
Still listening some time in breathless anxiety, he at length determined to tap gently at the door; for he was pretty well convinced she was alone. Monimia, who was really ill, had lain down; but, starting at the well-known signal, she approached close to the door, and said, ‘Orlando! – Gracious Heaven! are you there?’
‘Yes, yes!’ replied he; ‘is it impossible you can admit me for a moment? I am miserable, and shall hardly keep my senses if I cannot see you.’
Monimia, without replying, moved her bed and admitted him. It was already dark, but she had a candle on her table, and Orlando was shocked to see how ill she looked. He spoke of it tenderly to her: she assured him it was only owing to her having been so much fatigued and frightened, and that a night’s rest, if she could obtain it, would entirely restore her. ‘But you must not stay, Orlando!’ said she – ‘indeed you must not.’
‘Why?’ answered he – ‘Is not your door fastened? Who is likely to interrupt us?’
‘My aunt or Betty,’ replied she; ‘for, though my aunt is at her tea, there is no being secure of her. I have said I am ill, in which it can hardly be said I am guilty of a falsehood; and as I am under her displeasure on account of my unluckily staying beyond her orders, yet she may perhaps be seized with some whim, and even the voice of Betty would terrify me to death.’
Orlando, promising to go, yet finding it impossible to tear himself from her, began to speak of what he had heard from Betty in the morning, while he waited at the door of Monimia’s room after depositing his letter. ‘You see, my angel,’ said he, ‘you see you are not suspected; and that the impertinent brute, whoever it was that dared intrude upon us, did not distinguish you. Make yourself easy therefore, I conjure you, and let us think no more of this alarm, for which, though I cannot yet discover how, I am sure I shall in a few days be able to account.’
‘But I shall never again have courage to venture to your room, Orlando.’
‘You will,’ replied he, ‘surely, when I am able to convince you that such an interruption will happen no more, and till then I do not wish you to venture.’
‘Hush, dearest Orlando!’ whispered Monimia; ‘Speak very low! I heard the door at the end of the passage open.’
They both listened; and instantly Betty, by attempting to open the door, convinced them their fears were not groundless. – ‘Lud, Miss,’ cried she, pushing against the door, ‘what have you lock’d yourself in for? Open the door – I want to speak to you.’
‘Don’t speak!’ whispered Orlando: ‘let me out as softly as you can, and then tell her you were sleeping.’
‘She has the ears of a mole,’ said Monimia, ‘and I shall be undone.’
Quickly and softly, however, as her trembling hands would let her, she assisted in Orlando’s evasion – Betty still thumping at the door, ‘I must come in, Miss, this minute.’
‘I am laid down for my headach,’ replied Monimia as soon as Orlando was gone: ‘It is strange that I can never have any repose! I was just asleep, Betty, and should be very glad not to be disturbed.’
‘Glad or not glad,’ replied the other, ‘I must come in. ’Tis an odd thing, I think, for people to push their chairs and tables about in their sleep! If you can do that, I suppose you can open the door?’
Monimia now opened the door, and tremulously asked Betty, who flounced into the room, what was the matter?
‘Matter!’ said she – ‘why there’s a fine to do below – There’s your favourite young ‘Squire; he, as never does no wrong, has got into a fine scrape – just as I thought!’
‘Good God!’ replied she, in a voice hardly articulate, ‘tell me what you mean.’
‘Why this great gentleman, as he affronted so, has determined to kill him outright – He have been writing to him about it this morning, and Orlando he is so stomachful he won’t ask the gentleman’s pardon, and so now they be to fight.’
‘And how,’ said Monimia, speaking with difficulty – ‘how did you hear all this?’
‘Why, from Sir John’s own man, a smart servant as ever I see, who is just come with a letter to fix the time and place where they be to meet; and he have been telling us how it is to be: and so my mistress she have heard of it, and there’ll be fine to do I can tell you. They have been going for to find young ‘Squire Orlando, but he is out somewhere or another. Mistress is in a fine quandary, but she says how Orlando was quite in the right.’
Betty, having thus unburthened herself of news which she was so anxious to tell, returned to see a little more of the smart servant; but not till Orlando, who had heard enough at the beginning of her conversation, had flown down to receive a letter which he had long expected, and now prepared to answer; though he was convinced that by the bustle Sir John Belgrave chose to make, there was very little probability that he desired to be very much in earnest. The anxious night that this would occasion to his Monimia was his chief concern. He determined to attempt seeing her again, in hopes to alleviate her uneasiness; but he was first compelled to attend to Mrs Rayland, who sent for him, and to whom he now related what had passed before, and read the letter which he had just received from Sir John Belgrave, which ran thus:
‘SIR,
‘In consideration of your respectable father, I did hope that you might have spared me the disagreeable task of chastising your improper behaviour. I shall be, on Thursday at twelve o’clock, in the meadow adjoining to West Wolverton, with a brace of pistols, of which you shall take your choice.
I am, Sir,
your humble servant,
JOHN BERKELY BELGRAVE.’
Carloraine Castle,
Oct. 20th, 1776.
To this billet Orlando answered thus –
‘SIR,
‘I WILL assuredly attend you at the time and place appointed; and have only to regret, that the persons to whom this affair has most unnecessarily been communicated, have so long an interval of uneasiness thus imposed upon them.
I am, Sir,
your humble servant,
ORLANDO SOMERIVE.’
Rayland Hall,
Oct. 20th, 1776.
Mrs Rayland, who entered into this business with an earnestness of which she seemed on most occasions incapable, approved of his letter, and admired the spirit he exerted in a cause which she considered as her own. Her fears for his safety seemed to be absorbed in the pleasure she felt in having found a champion who was so ready to take up her quarrel against those whose inroads had long disturbed her, and whom she hoped to mortify and humble.
Orlando, therefore, never was so high in her favour; but his own heart was torn with anguish, in reflecting on the situation of Monimia. As soon as the house was quiet he returned to the turret, made desperate by reflecting on her distress, and thinking it better to hazard a discovery than to leave her a whole night in solicitude so alarming.
Monimia, who little expected his return, admitted him as soon as she heard his signal. He found her in that state of mind which allows not the sufferer to shed tears; pale, and almost petrified, she sat on the side of her bed, with clasped hands and fixed eyes, while he related to her the whole of a transaction which he wished he could have concealed from her till the event could be known. But it was long before he could persuade her that the danger was infinitely less than it appeared. It was evident that Sir John Belgrave, by postponing to Thursday what he might as well have settled on Wednesday, had no objection to the interference of the family he had taken care to alarm; and rather wished to have the honour of appearing a man of nice honour and dauntless courage at little expence, than to run the hazard of maintaining that character by needless rashness. When Orlando therefor
e had represented his conduct in the ridiculous light it deserved, and shewn her how probable it was that his father and General Tracy would contrive to prevent a meeting, the fears of Monimia were in some degree subdued; and at day-break Orlando left her, having insisted on her promising to endeavour to sleep, and to make herself as easy as under such circumstances was possible.
VOLUME II
Ah me! for aught that I could ever read,
Could ever hear from tale or history,
The course of true love never did run smooth;
But either it was different in blood,
Or else misgrafted in respect of years,
Or else it stood upon the choice of friends;
Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,
War, death, or sickness, did lay siege to it.
SHAKESPEARE, Midsummer Night’s Dream
CHAPTER I
ON the following morning Orlando received an early summons from his father, requesting him to be at home by two o’clock, when his mother, his sister, and General Tracy were expected; for, as the General travelled with his own four horses, which were very fine ones, and of which he was particularly fond, the ladies had agreed to remain one night on the road, and reach home early the second day; though the journey was otherwise easily performed in one, West Wolverton being only about sixty five miles from London.
Orlando having informed Mrs Rayland of the reason of his absence; having seen Monimia for a moment, again whispered to her to be less apprehensive for his safety, and promising to see her at night, he proceeded to obey his father. On his arrival, he found him walking with the General on the grass plot before the door; and, springing from his horse, paid his duty to him, was introduced in form to the General, and then eagerly asked for his mother and his sister.
They were within; and Orlando, flying to them, was surprised by his mother’s throwing her arms around him, and falling into an agony of tears, in which his three sisters, who stood around her, accompanied her. He entreated an explanation; and learned from Isabella, who alone was able to speak, that the servants had been telling them, instantly on their arrival at home, that he was about to fight a duel, in which it was the opinion of the informers that he must certainly be killed.
Orlando, execrating the folly of the servants, or rather the paltry conduct of Sir John Belgrave, who had apparently made all this bustle on purpose, endeavoured to re-assure and console his mother; but her alarm for his safety was too great to allow her to listen patiently to any thing he could say, since the fact of his having received and accepted a challenge from Sir John Belgrave he did not attempt to deny. The anxious mother, now that she saw him before her, thought only of preventing the meeting which might deprive her of that comfort for ever. She seemed afraid of his stirring from her sight, as if Sir John Belgrave had lurked in every corner of the house; and desired he would remain with her in her own room, while she sent Isabella to entreat that Mr Somerive would come to her.
When he saw her, her tears and agitation sufficiently explained to him, that those he had expressly ordered to be silent had found it impossible to obey him. To Selina and Emma, the two youngest girls, who had remained at home, it had been known almost as soon as to himself, but he had enjoined them to conceal it from their mother; and knew that, whatever it cost them to be silent on such a subject, neither of them would disobey him. It was, however, too late, or at least useless, to declaim against the folly of those who had; and he found sufficient employment in appeasing the distress of his wife and daughters, while he sent Orlando to entertain the General.
General Tracy was the second brother of a noble family; and, having entered very young into the army, had passed through the inferior ranks with that rapidity which interest always secures. At five-and-thirty he had a regiment; and as some of the fortunes of uncles and aunts had centred in him, he was now, at near sixty, a man of very large fortune, and seemed to want nothing to complete his happiness, but the power of persuading others, as he had almost persuaded himself, that he was but five-and-thirty still.
To effect this, and maintain that favour which he had always been in among the ladies, was the great object of his life. His person had been celebrated for beauty; and he desired to preserve a preeminence, which was in his opinion superior to any fame he could derive from his bravery in the field, or his ability in the senate, where he had long been a member, certainly voting with the minister of the day. He had a place about the court, at which he was a constant attendant, and where the softness and elegance of his manners, the pliability of his political attachments, and his very considerable interest and property, rendered him a great favourite. – All the time he could spare from his duty there, he seemed to devote to the service of those fashionable women who give the ton, and whose favour he disputed with the rising heroes of the fashionable world. But he felt in reality only disgust and satiety in their company; and had no taste but for youth and beauty, of which he was continually in search – and with his fortune his search could not be unsuccessful. He had no scruples to deter him from decoying any young woman whom he liked, that chance might throw into his power; but he usually avoided with care any scheme which was likely to be interrupted by the unpleasant remonstrances of a father or a brother, and generally pursued only the indigent and the defenceless.
As he purchased his wine of Mr Woodford, he had occasionally been at his house. His daughters were rather handsome, and very lively girls; and though they did not come exactly under the description of those whose preference the General could without much trouble secure, he found himself pleased with their company, because they were greatly flattered by the admiration of such a fashionable man, and never so happy as when the General sent his superb coach for them, and gallanted them to some public place, or drove them in his phaeton through Hyde Park to Kensington Gardens. Their father, who thought more of the good customer which the General was himself, and the great families he had recommended him to, than of any necessity for reserve in his daughters, encouraged this acquaintance (which their mother was as well pleased with as the young women) till the neighbourhood talked loudly of their indiscretion, and till the youngest Miss Woodford, who was his peculiar favourite, was declared by many ladies to have considerably injured her reputation. This she herself considered only as a testimony of their envy, and her own superior attractions; and the more she heard of their malignant remarks, the more eagerly she endeavoured to shew her comtempt of their opinion, and her power over the General, who, on the return of the family to town after their visit to West Wolverton, was more than usual at the house. But thither he was no longer attracted by the charms of Miss Eliza Woodford. The moment he beheld Isabella Somerive, he had no eyes for any other person; and though he soon learned that she was in a situation of life which placed her above those temptations which he generally found infallible, and had a father and two brothers to protect her, the impression she had made was such that he could not determine to lose sight of her; and as the discovery of the preference he gave her had made both her cousins very little desirous of her company in London during the winter, where she seemed too likely to rob them of all their conquests, he found she was to return home with her mother – and thither he resolved to follow her.
An opportunity of introducing himself into the family of Somerive was easily obtained, when he recollected that, in the preceding war, Somerive, in whose own county there was at that time no militia, had, being then an active man, procured a commission in that of a neighbouring county, and served in a camp then formed for the defence of the coast, where he himself was a captain. They had at that time been frequently together, and afterwards kept up some degree of intimacy, till Somerive’s marriage fixing him wholly in retirement, the gay and fashionable soldier thought of him no more.
The General, however, no sooner knew who the visitors at Woodford’s were, than he most assiduously and successfully paid his court to Mrs Somerive; talked to her continually of her husband, whose merits he affected to remember
with infinite regard, and for whose interest he appeared to feel the warmest concern. It was a theme of which Mrs Somerive, who adored her husband, was never weary, and while General Tracy so pathetically lamented the interruption of their friendship, nothing was more natural than her entreaties to him that he would renew it.
That was the point he had laboured to gain, and he accepted the invitation she gave him, adding the opportunity of the shooting season to his other inducements, the better to colour so unexpected a visit. He had found it convenient to pretend a great passion for field sports – partly because it was fashionable, and partly because it shewed that his powers of enduring fatigue were equal to the youthful appearance he assumed, and to support this he now and then went through, what was to him most miserable drudgery, that of a day’s hunting or shooting; but he more usually contrived, when he was at the houses of his friends for these purposes, to sprain his ancle in the first excursion he made, or to hurt himself by the recoil of his gun: and by such methods he generally managed to be left without suspicion at home with the ladies; with whom he was so universal a favourite, and to whom he had so many ways of recommending himself, by deciding on their dress, reading to them books of entertainment, and relating anecdotes collected in the higher circles where he moved in the winter, that he found no loss of attention from the progress of years – a progress indeed which he took the utmost pains to conceal. His clothes, which were always made by the most eminent taylor, were cut with as much care as those of the most celebrated beauty on her first appearance at court; and he had several contrivances, of his own invention, to make them fit with advantage to his person. His hands were more delicate than those of any lady; and though he could not so totally baffle the inexorable hands of time as to escape a few wrinkles, he still maintained a considerable share of the bloom of youth, not without suspicion of Olympian dew, cold cream, and Spanish wool. Certain it is that he was very long at his toilet every day, to which no person, not even his valet-de-chambre, was admitted. With all this he was a man of the most undoubted bravery; and had not only served in Germany with great credit, but had been engaged in several affairs of honour, in which he had always acquitted himself with courage and propriety. Such was the man who was now, from no very honourable motives, become an inmate in the house of Mr Somerive.
Charlotte Smith- Collected Poetical Works Page 106