Evelina

by Frances Burney

  Shall I call you by the loved, the respected title of husband? – No, you disclaim it! – the father of my infant? – No, you doom it to infamy! – the lover who rescued me from a forced marriage? – No, you have yourself betrayed me! – the friend from whom I hoped succour and protection? – No, you have consigned me to misery and destruction!

  Oh hardened against every plea of justice, remorse, or pity! how, and in what manner, may I hope to move thee? Is there one method I have left untried? remains there one resource unessayed? No! I have exhausted all the bitterness of reproach, and drained every sluice of compassion!

  Hopeless, and almost desperate, twenty times have I flung away my pen; – but the feelings of a mother, a mother agonizing for the fate of her child, again animating my courage, as often I have resumed it.

  Perhaps when I am no more, when the measure of my woes is compleated, and the still, silent, unreproaching dust has received my sad remains, – then, perhaps when accusation is no longer to be feared, nor detection to be dreaded, the voice of equity, and the cry of nature may be heard.

  Listen, oh Belmont, to their dictates! reprobate not your child, though you have reprobated its mother. The evils that are past, perhaps, when too late, you may wish to recall; the young creature you have persecuted, perhaps, when too late, you may regret that you have destroyed; – you may think with horror of the deceptions you have practised, and the pangs of remorse may follow me to the tomb: – oh Belmont, all my resentment softens into pity at the thought! what will become of thee, good Heaven, when with the eye of penitence, thou reviewest thy past conduct!

  Hear, then, the solemn, the last address with which the unhappy Caroline will importune thee.

  If, when the time of thy contrition arrives, – for arrive it must! – when the sense of thy treachery shall rob thee of almost every other, if then thy tortured heart shall sigh to expiate thy guilt, – mark the conditions upon which I leave thee my forgiveness.

  Thou know’st I am thy wife! – clear, then, to the world the reputation thou hast sullied, and receive as thy lawful successor the child who will present thee this my dying request!

  The worthiest, the most benevolent, the best of men, to whose consoling kindness I owe the little tranquillity I have been able to preserve, has plighted me his faith that, upon no other conditions, he will part with his helpless charge.

  Should’st thou, in the features of this deserted innocent, trace the resemblance of the wretched Caroline, – should its face bear the marks of its birth, and revive in thy memory the image of its mother, wilt thou not, Belmont, wilt thou not therefore renounce it? – Oh babe of my fondest affection! for whom already I experience all the tenderness of maternal pity! – look not like thy unfortunate mother, – lest the parent whom the hand of death may spare, shall be snatched from thee by the more cruel means of unnatural antipathy!

  I can write no more. The small share of serenity I have painfully acquired, will not bear the shock of the dreadful ideas that crowd upon me.

  Adieu, – for ever! –

  Yet oh! – shall I not, in this last farewell, which thou wilt not read till every stormy passion is extinct, – and the kind grave has embosomed all my sorrows, – shall I not offer to the man once so dear to me, a ray of consolation to those afflictions he has in reserve? Suffer me, then, to tell thee, that my pity far exceeds my indignation, – that I will pray for thee in my last moments, – and that the recollection of the love I once bore thee, shall swallow up every other!

  Once more, adieu!

  CAROLINE BELMONT

  Letter Fourteen

  Evelina to the Rev. Mr Villars

  Clifton, Oct. 3d

  This morning I saw from my window, that Lord Orville was walking in the garden; but I would not go down stairs till breakfast was ready: and then, he paid me his compliments almost as coldly as Lady Louisa paid hers.

  I took my usual place, and Mrs Beaumont, Lady Louisa, and Mrs Selwyn, entered into their usual conversation. – Not so your Evelina: disregarded, silent, and melancholy, she sat like a cypher, whom to nobody belonging, by nobody was noticed.

  Ill brooking such a situation, and unable to support the neglect of Lord Orville, the moment breakfast was over, I left the room; and was going up stairs, when, very unpleasantly, I was stopped by Sir Clement Willoughby, who, flying into the hall, prevented my proceeding.

  He enquired very particularly after my health, and entreated me to return into the parlour. Unwillingly I consented, but thought any thing preferable to continuing alone with him; and he would neither leave me, nor suffer me to pass on. Yet, in returning, I felt not a little ashamed of appearing thus to take the visit of Sir Clement to myself. And, indeed, he endeavoured, by his manner of addressing me, to give it that air.

  He stayed, I believe, an hour; nor would he, perhaps, even then have gone, had not Mrs Beaumont broken up the party, by proposing an airing in her coach. Lady Louisa consented to accompany her: but Mrs Selwyn, when applied to, said, ‘If my Lord, or Sir Clement, will join us, I shall be happy to make one; – but really, a trio of females will be nervous to the last degree.’

  Sir Clement readily agreed to attend them; indeed, he makes it his evident study to court the favour of Mrs Beaumont. Lord Orville excused himself from going out; and I retired to my own room. What he did with himself I know not, for I would not go down stairs till dinner was ready: his coldness, though my own change of behaviour has occasioned it, so cruelly depresses my spirits, that I know not how to support myself in his presence.

  At dinner, I found Sir Clement again of the party. Indeed he manages every thing his own way; for Mrs Beaumont, though by no means easy to please, seems quite at his disposal.

  The dinner, the afternoon, and the evening, were to me the most irksome imaginable: I was tormented by the assiduity of Sir Clement, who not only took, but made opportunities of speaking to me, – and I was hurt, – oh how inexpressibly hurt! – that Lord Orville not only forbore, as hitherto, seeking, he even neglected all occasions of talking with me!

  I begin to think, my dear Sir, that the sudden alteration in my behaviour was ill-judged and improper; for, as I had received no offence, as the cause of the change was upon my account, not his, I should not have assumed, so abruptly, a reserve for which I dared assign no reason, – not have shunned his presence so obviously, without considering the strange appearance of such a conduct.

  Alas, my dearest Sir, that my reflections should always be too late to serve me! dearly, indeed, do I purchase experience! and much I fear I shall suffer yet more severely, from the needless indiscretion of my temper, ere I attain that prudence and consideration, which, by foreseeing distant consequences, may rule and direct in present exigencies.

  Oct. 4th

  Yesterday morning, every body rode out, except Mrs Selwyn and myself: and we two sat for some time together in her room; but, as soon as I could, I quitted her, to saunter in the garden; for she diverts herself so unmercifully with rallying me, either upon my gravity, – or concerning Lord Orville, – that I dread having any conversation with her.

  Here I believe I spent an hour by myself; when, hearing the garden-gate open, I went into an arbour at the end of a long walk, where ruminating, very unpleasantly, upon my future prospects, I remained quietly seated but a few minutes, before I was interrupted by the appearance of Sir Clement Willoughby.

  I started, and would have left the arbour, but he prevented me. Indeed I am almost certain he had heard in the house where I was, as it is not, otherwise, probable he would have strolled down the garden alone.

  ‘Stop, stop,’ cried he, ‘loveliest and most beloved of women, stop and hear me!’

  Then, making me keep my place, he sat down by me, and would have taken my hand; but I drew it back, and said I could not stay.

  ‘Can you, then,’ cried he, ‘refuse me even the smallest gratification, though, but yesterday, I almost suffered martyrdom for the pleasure of seeing you?’

  ‘Martyrdom!
Sir Clement.’

  ‘Yes, beauteous insensible! martyrdom: for did I not compel myself to be immured in a carriage, the tedious length of a whole morning, with the three most fatiguing women in England?’

  ‘Upon my word the Ladies are extremely obliged to you.’

  ‘O,’ returned he, ‘they have, every one of them, so copious a share of their own personal esteem, that they have no right to repine at the failure of it in the world; and, indeed, they will themselves be the last to discover it.’

  ‘How little,’ cried I, ‘are those Ladies aware of such severity from you!’

  ‘They are guarded,’ answered he, ‘so happily and so securely by their own conceit, that they are not aware of it from any body. Oh Miss Anville, to be torn away from you, in order to be shut up with them, – is there a human being, except your cruel self, could forbear to pity me?’

  ‘I believe, Sir Clement, however hardly you may chuse to judge of them, your situation, by the world in general, would rather have been envied, than pitied.’

  ‘The world in general,’ answered he, ‘has the same opinion of them that I have myself: Mrs Beaumont is every where laughed at, Lady Louisa ridiculed, and Mrs Selwyn hated.’

  ‘Good God, Sir Clement, what cruel strength of words do you use!’

  ‘It is you, my angel, are to blame, since your perfections have rendered their faults so glaring. I protest to you, during our whole ride, I thought the carriage drawn by snails. The absurd pride of Mrs Beaumont, and the respect she exacts, are at once insufferable and stupifying; had I never before been in her company, I should have concluded that this had been her first airing from the herald’s-office, – and wished her nothing worse than that it might also be the last. I assure you, that but for gaining the freedom of her house, I would fly her as I would plague, pestilence, and famine. Mrs Selwyn, indeed, afforded some relief from this formality, but the unbounded licence of her tongue – ’

  ‘O Sir Clement, do you object to that?’

  ‘Yes, my sweet reproacher, in a woman, I do; in a woman I think it intolerable. She has wit, I acknowledge, and more understanding than half her sex put together; but she keeps alive a perpetual expectation of satire, that spreads a general uneasiness among all who are in her presence; and she talks so much, that even the best things she says, weary the attention. As to the little Louisa, ’tis such a pretty piece of langour, that ’tis almost cruel to speak rationally about her, – else I should say, she is a mere compound of affectation, impertinence, and airs.’

  ‘I am quite amazed,’ said I, ‘that, with such opinions, you can behave to them all with so much attention and civility.’

  ‘Civility! my angel, – why I could worship, could adore them, only to procure myself a moment of your conversation? Have you not seen me pay my court to the gross Captain Mirvan, and the virago Madame Duval? Were it possible that a creature so horrid could be formed, as to partake of the worst qualities of all these characters, – a creature who should have the haughtiness of Mrs Beaumont, the brutality of Captain Mirvan, the self-conceit of Mrs Selwyn, the affectation of Lady Louisa, and the vulgarity of Madame Duval, – even to such a monster as that, I would pay homage, and pour forth adulation, only to obtain one word, one look from my adored Miss Anville!’

  ‘Sir Clement,’ said I, ‘you are greatly mistaken if you suppose such duplicity of character recommends you to my good opinion. But I must take this opportunity of begging you never more to talk to me in this strain.’

  ‘Oh Miss Anville, your reproofs, your coldness, pierce me to the soul! look upon me with less rigour, and make me what you please; – you shall govern and direct all my actions, – you shall new-form, new-model me: – I will not have even a wish but of your suggestion; – only deign to look upon me with pity, – if not with favour!’

  ‘Suffer me, Sir,’ said I very gravely, ‘to make use of this occasion to put a final conclusion to such expressions. I entreat you never again to address me in a language so flighty, and so unwelcome. You have already given me great uneasiness; and I must frankly assure you, that if you do not desire to banish me from wherever you are, you will adopt a very different style and conduct in future.’

  I then rose, and was going, but he flung himself at my feet to prevent me, exclaiming, in a most passionate manner, ‘Good God! Miss Anville, what do you say? – is it, can it be possible, that so unmoved, that with such petrifying indifference, you can tear from me even the remotest hope!’

  ‘I know not, Sir,’ said I, endeavouring to disengage myself from him, ‘what hope you mean, but I am sure that I never intended to give you any.’

  ‘You distract me!’ cried he, ‘I cannot endure such scorn; – I beseech you to have some moderation in your cruelty, lest you make me desperate: – say, then, that you pity me – O fairest inexorable! loveliest tyrant! – say, tell me, at least, that you pity me!’

  Just then, who should come in sight, as if intending to pass by the arbour, but Lord Orville! Good Heaven, how did I start! and he the moment he saw me, turned pale, and was hastily retiring; – but I called out, ‘Lord Orville! – Sir Clement, release me, – let go my hand!’

  Sir Clement, in some confusion, suddenly rose, but still grasped my hand. Lord Orville, who had turned back, was again walking away; but, still struggling to disengage myself, I called out, ‘Pray, pray, my Lord, don’t go! – Sir Clement, I insist upon your releasing me!’

  Lord Orville then, hastily approaching us, said, with great spirit, ‘Sir Clement, you cannot wish to detain Miss Anville by force!’

  ‘Neither, my Lord,’ cried Sir Clement, proudly, ‘do I request the honour of your Lordship’s interference.’

  However, he let go my hand, and I immediately ran into the house.

  I was now frightened to death lest Sir Clement’s mortified pride should provoke him to affront Lord Orville: I therefore ran hastily to Mrs Selwyn, and entreated her, in a manner hardly to be understood, to walk towards the arbour. She asked no questions, for she is quick as lightning in taking a hint, but instantly hastened into the garden.

  Imagine, my dear Sir, how wretched I must be till I saw her return! scarce could I restrain myself from running back: however, I checked my impatience, and waited, though in agonies, till she came.

  And, now, my dear Sir, I have a conversation to write, the most interesting to me, that I ever heard. The comments and questions with which Mrs Selwyn interrupted her account, I shall not mention; for they are such as you may very easily suppose.

  Lord Orville and Sir Clement were both seated very quietly in the arbour: and Mrs Selwyn, standing still, as soon as she was within a few yards of them, heard Sir Clement say, ‘Your question, my Lord, alarms me, and I can by no means answer it, unless you will allow me to propose another?’

  ‘Undoubtedly, Sir.’

  ‘You ask me, my Lord, what are my intentions? – I should be very happy to be satisfied as to your Lordship’s.’

  ‘I have never, Sir, professed any.’

  Here they were both, for a few moments, silent; and then Sir Clement said, ‘To what, my Lord, must I, then, impute your desire of knowing mine?’

  ‘To an unaffected interest in Miss Anville’s welfare.’

  ‘Such an interest,’ said Sir Clement, drily, ‘is, indeed, very generous: but, except in a father, – a brother, – or a lover – ’

  ‘Sir Clement,’ interrupted his Lordship, ‘I know your inference: and I acknowledge I have not the right of enquiry which any of those three titles bestow, and yet I confess the warmest wishes to serve her, and to see her happy. Will you, then, excuse me, if I take the liberty to repeat my question?’

  ‘Yes, if your Lordship will excuse my repeating that I think it a rather extraordinary one.’

  ‘It may be so,’ said Lord Orville; ‘but this young lady seems to be peculiarly situated; she is very young, very inexperienced, yet appears to be left totally to her own direction. She does not, I believe, see the dangers to which she is exposed, and
I will own to you, I feel a strong desire to point them out.’

  ‘I don’t rightly understand your Lordship, – but I think you cannot mean to prejudice her against me?’

  ‘Her sentiments of you, Sir, are as much unknown to me as your intentions towards her. Perhaps, were I acquainted with either, my officiousness might be at an end: but I presume not to ask upon what terms – ’

  Here he stopped; and Sir Clement said, ‘You know, my Lord, I am not given to despair; I am by no means such a puppy as to tell you I am upon sure ground, however, perseverance – ’

  ‘You are, then, determined to persevere?’

  ‘I am, my Lord.’

  ‘Pardon me, then, Sir Clement, if I speak to you with freedom. This young lady, though she seems alone, and, in some measure, unprotected, is not entirely without friends; she has been extremely well educated, and accustomed to good company; she has a natural love of virtue, and a mind that might adorn any station, however exalted: is such a young lady, Sir Clement, a proper object to trifle with? – for your principles, excuse me, Sir, are well known.’

  ‘As to that, my Lord, let Miss Anville look to herself; she has an excellent understanding, and needs no counsellor.’

  ‘Her understanding is, indeed, excellent; but she is too young for suspicion, and has an artlessness of disposition that I never saw equalled.’

  ‘My Lord,’ cried Sir Clement, warmly, ‘your praises make me doubt your disinterestedness, and there exists not the man who I would so unwillingly have for a rival as yourself. But you must give me leave to say, you have greatly deceived me in regard to this affair.’

  ‘How so, Sir,’ cried Lord Orville, with equal warmth.

  ‘You were pleased, my Lord,’ answered Sir Clement, ‘upon our first conversation concerning this young lady, to speak of her in terms by no means suited to your present encomiums; you said she was a poor, weak, ignorant girl, and I had great reason to believe you had a most contemptuous opinion of her.’