Anna St. Ives Part 52

LETTER XCIII

_Frank Henley to Anna Wenbourne St. Ives_

_Wenbourne-Hill_

It is now a week since I wrote to you, madam, at which time I took some pleasure in acquainting you with my hopes of success. These hopes continued to increase, and my father had almost promised to agree to the just proposals I made, when two days ago he suddenly and pertinaciously changed his opinion.

I am sorry to add that he now appears to be much more determined than ever, and that I am wholly astonished at and wholly unable to account for this alteration of sentiment. I delayed sending you the intelligence by yesterday's post, hoping it was only a temporary return of former projects, which I could again reason away. But I find him so positive, so pa.s.sionate, and so inaccessible to reason, that I am persuaded some secret cause has arisen of which I am ignorant. Yet do not be dejected, dear madam, nor imagine I will lightly give it up as a lost cause--No--My mind is too much affected and too earnestly bent on its object not to accomplish it, if possible.

I received your letter[1], but have no thanks that can equal the favour. I hope the emotions to which it gave birth were worthy such a correspondent. I can truly and I believe innocently say my heart sympathises in all your joys, hopes, and apprehensions; and that my pleasure, at the progress of Mr. Clifton in the discovery of truth and the practice of virtue, is but little less than your own.

[Footnote 1: It contained the state of her feelings, with which the reader is already acquainted, but no new incidents; for which reason it is omitted.]

I am glad you thought proper to be cautious of giving Sir Arthur any unconfirmed expectations; and I promise you to exert every effort to effect a propitious change in the present temper and resolutions of my father.

I am, dear madam, &c.

F. HENLEY

LETTER XCIV

_c.o.ke Clifton to Guy Fairfax_

_London, Dover Street_

When last I wrote my resolution was taken, and I determined on immediate attack. But I went in a seeming unlucky moment; though I much mistake if it were not the very reverse.

The supposed misfortune I had foreseen fell upon me. The 'squire of preachers had fairly overcome his father's obstinacy, and induced him to give ground! Instead of having received the news of his determined persistency, I found her with a letter in her hand, informing her that he had begun to relent, and that his full acquiescence was expected.

To have commenced the battle at so inauspicious a moment would have been little worthy of a great captain. My resolution was instantly formed.

After acting as much ecstasy as I could call up, I hastened home and wrote my projected letter to honest Aby. I threw my hints together in Italian, that they might not be understood by the agent whom I meant to employ. This was my groom, an English lad whom I met with at Paris, who spells well and writes a good hand. I pretended I had crushed my finger and could not hold a pen; and, without letting him understand the intent of my writing, or even that it was a letter, I dictated to him as follows; a transcript of which I send to you, Fairfax, first that you may sigh and see what the blessing of a ready invention is, and next as an example which you may copy, or at least from which you may take a hint, if ever you should have occasion.

'So you have been persuaded at last to give up your point, my old friend! And can you swallow this tale of a tub? A fine c.o.c.k and a bull story has been dinned in your ears? Don't believe a word on't. I know the whole affair; and, though you don't know me, be a.s.sured I mean you well: and I tell you that if you will but hold out stoutly every thing will soon be settled to your heart's desire. She is dying for love of him, and he can't see it! She will never have the man they mean for her; I can a.s.sure you of that; and what is more he will never have her.

What I tell you I know to be true. No matter who I am. If I knew nothing of the affair how could I write to you? And if the advice I give be good, what need you care whom it comes from? Only don't let your son see this; if you do it will spoil all. You perceive how blind he is to his own good, and how positive too. Keep your counsel, but be resolute. Look around you, persist in your own plans, and the hall, the parks, the gardens, the meadows, the lands you see are all your own! I am sure you cannot misunderstand me. But mark my words; be close; keep your thoughts to yourself. You know the world: You have made your own fortune; don't mar it by your own folly. Tell no tales, I say; nor, if you are a wise man, give the least hint that you have a friend in a corner.'

This I dictated to my amanuensis, pretending to translate it out of the paper I held in my hand, and which I took care to place before him, so that he should see it was really written in a foreign language. I likewise once or twice counterfeited a laugh at what I was reading, and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed to myself--'This is a curious sc.r.a.p!'

When he had finished I gave him half a crown, praised his hand-writing, which I told him I wanted to see, for perhaps I might find him better employment than currying of horses, and sent him about his business too much pleased and elated, and his ideas led into too distant a train to harbour the least suspicion.

Nor did my precautions end here. I immediately ordered my horse, and rode without any attendant full speed to Hounslow. I there desired the landlord of an inn at which I am personally known, though not by name, to send one of his own lads, post, to the market town next to Wenbourne-Hill, and there to hire a countryman, without explaining who or what he himself was, to deliver the letter into the hands of honest Aby. I requested the landlord to choose an intelligent messenger, and backed my request with a present bribe and a future promise.

My plan was too well laid to miscarry, and accordingly yesterday a mournful account arrived, from the young orator, that judgment is reversed, and he in imminent danger of being cast in costs.

And now, Fairfax, once more I go!--Expedition, resolution, a torrent of words, a storm of pa.s.sion, and the pealing thunder that dies away in descending rains! The word is Anna St. Ives, revenge, and victory!

C. CLIFTON

LETTER XCV

_c.o.ke Clifton to Guy Fairfax_

_London, Dover Street_

Once more, Fairfax, here am I.

Well! And how--?

Not so fast, good sir. All things in their turn. The story shall be told just as it happened, and your galloping curiosity must be pleased to wait.

I knew my time, the hour when she would retire to her own apartment, and the minute when I might find admission; for she is very methodical, as all your very wise people more or less are. I had given Laura her lesson; that is, had told her that I had something very serious to say to her mistress that morning, and desired her to take care to be out of the way, that she might be sure not to interrupt us. The sly jade looked with that arch significance which her own experience had taught her, and left me with--'Oh! Mr. Clifton!'

And here I could make a remark, but that would be antic.i.p.ating my story.

You may think, Fairfax, that, marshalled as my hopes and fears were in battle array, something of inward agitation would be apparent. In reality not only some but much was visible. It caught her attention, and luckily caught. I attempted to speak, and stammered. A false step as it would have been most fatal so was it more probable at the moment of onset than afterward, when the heated imagination should have collected, arranged, and begun to pour forth its stores.

The philosophy of the pa.s.sions was the theme I first chose, though at the very moment when my spirits were all fluttering with wild disorder.

But my faultering voice, which had I wished I could not have commanded, aided me; for the tremulous state of my frame threw hers into most admirable confusion!

'What was it that disturbed me? What had I to communicate? She never saw me thus before! It was quite alarming!'

Madam--[Observe, Fairfax, I am now the speaker: but I shall remind you of such trifles no more. If you cannot distinguish the interlocutors, you deserve not to be present at such a dialogue.] Madam, I own my mind is oppressed by thoughts which, however just in their purpose, however worthy in their intent, inspire all that hesitation, that timidity, that something like terror, which I scarcely know how to overcome. Yet what should I fear? Am I not armed by principle and truth? Why shun a declaration of thoughts that are founded in right; or tremble like a coward that doubted of his cause? I am your scholar, and have learned to subdue sensations of which the judgment disapproves. From you likewise have I learned to avow tenets that are demonstrable; and not to shrink from them because I may be in danger of being misconstrued, or even suspected. Pardon me! I do you wrong. Your mind is superior to suspicion. It is a mean an odious vice, and never could I esteem the heart in which it found place. I forget myself, and talk to you as I would to a being of an infinitely lower order.

Mr. Clifton--

Do not let your eye reprove me! I have not said what is not; and who better knows than you how much it is beneath us to refrain from saying what is?

Do not keep me in this suspense! I am sure there is something very uncommon in your thoughts! Speak!

Thoughts will be sometimes our masters: the best and wisest of us cannot always command them. That I have daily repressed them, have struggled against rooted prejudices and confirmed propensities, and have ardently endeavoured to rise to that proud eminence toward which you have continually pointed, you are my witness.

I am.

Protracted desires, imagined pleasures, and racking pains [and oh how often have they all been felt!] no longer sway me. They have been repulsed, disdained, trodden under foot. You have taught me how shameful it is to be the slave of pa.s.sion. Truth is now my object, justice my impulse, and virtue, high virtue my guide.

Oh, Clifton! Speak thus, be thus ever!

The moment it appeared, I knew that delay was ominous.

Nay, Clifton--