The Heiress Part 4

_Sir C._ [_Reading to himself._] "And the parties to this indenture do farther covenant and agree, that all and every the said lands, tenements, and hereditaments--um--um."----How useful sometimes is ambiguity.

[_Loud enough to be heard._

_Cliff._ A very natural observation of Sir Clement's upon that long parchment.

[_Pauses again upon the Chess-board._

[_LADY EMILY looking pensively at his Face._

_Cliff._ To what a dilemma have you reduced me, Lady Emily! If I advance, I perish by my temerity; and it is out of my power to retreat.

_Sir C._ [_Apart._] Better and better! To talk in cipher is a curious faculty.

_Cliff._ Sir?

_Sir C._ [_Still reading._] "In witness whereof the said parties have hereunto interchangeably set their hands and seals, this----um--um--day of--um----um----."

_Lady E._ [_Resuming an Air of Vivacity._] Come, I trifle with you too long----There's your coup de grace----Uncle, I have conquered.

[_Both rising from the Table._

_Sir C._ Niece, I do not doubt it----and in the style of the great proficients, without looking upon the board. Clifford, was not your mother's name Charlton?

[_Folding up the Parchment, and rising._

_Cliff._ It was, sir.

_Sir C._ In looking over the writings Alscrip has sent me, preparatory to his daughter's settlement, I find mention of a conveyance from a Sir William Charlton, of Devonshire. Was he a relation?

_Cliff._ My grandfather, sir: The plunder of his fortune was one of the first materials for raising that of Mr. Alscrip, who was steward to Sir William's estate, then manager of his difficulties, and lastly his sole creditor.

_Sir C._ And no better monopoly than that of a needy man's distresses.

Alscrip has had twenty such, or I should not have singled out his daughter to be Lord Gayville's wife.

_Cliff._ It is a compensation for my family losses, that in the event they will conduce to the interest of the man I most love.

_Sir C._ Heyday, Clifford!--take care--don't trench upon the Blandish--Your cue, you know, is sincerity.

_Cliff._ You seem to think, sir, there is no such quality. I doubt whether you believe there is an honest man in the world.

_Sir C._ You do me great injustice--several--several--and upon the old principle that--"honesty is the best policy."--Self-interest is the great end of life, says human nature--Honesty is a better agent than craft, says proverb.

_Cliff._ But as for ingenuous, or purely disinterested motives----

_Sir C._ Clifford, do you mean to laugh at me?

_Cliff._ What is your opinion, Lady Emily?

_Lady E._ [_Endeavouring again at Vivacity._] That there may be such: but it's odds they are troublesome or insipid. Pure ingenuousness, I take it, is a rugged sort of thing, which scarcely will bear the polish of common civility; and for disinterestedness--young people sometimes set out with it; but it is like travelling upon a broken spring--one is glad to get it mended at the next stage.

_Sir C._ Emily, I protest you seem to study after me; proceed, child, and we will read together every character that comes in our way.

_Lady E._ Read one's acquaintance----delightful! What romances, novels, satires, and mock heroics present themselves to my imagination! Our young men are flimsy essays; old ones, political pamphlets; coquets, fugitive pieces; and fashionable beauties, a compilation of advertised perfumery, essence of pearl, milk of roses, and Olympian dew.----Lord, I should now and then though turn over an acquaintance with a sort of fear and trembling.

_Cliff._ How so?

_Lady E._ Lest one should pop unaware upon something one should not, like a naughty speech in an old comedy; but it is only skipping what would make one blush.

_Sir C._ Or if you did not skip, when a woman reads by herself, and to herself, there are wicked philosophers, who doubt whether her blushes are very troublesome.

_Lady E._ [_To SIR CLEMENT._] Do you know now that for that speech of yours--and for that saucy smile of yours, [_To CLIFFORD._] I am strongly tempted to read you both aloud!

_Sir C._ Come try----I'll be the first to open the book.

_Lady E._ A treatise of the Houyhnhnms, after the manner of Swift, tending to make us odious to ourselves, and to extract morose mirth from our imperfections.--[_Turning to CLIFFORD._] Contrasted with an exposition of ancient morality addressed to the moderns: a chimerical attempt upon an obsolete subject.

_Sir C._ Clifford! we must double down that page. And now we'll have a specimen of her Ladyship.

_Lady E._ I'll give it you myself, and with justice; Which is more than either of you would.

_Sir C._ And without skipping.

_Lady E._ Thus then; a light, airy, fantastic sketch of genteel manners as they are; with a little endeavour at what they ought to be--rather entertaining than instructive, not without art, but sparing in the use of it----

_Sir C._ But the pa.s.sions, Emily. Do not forget what should stand in the foreground of a female treatise.

_Lady E._ They abound: but mixed and blended cleverly enough to prevent any from predominating; like the colours of a shot lutestring, that change as you look at it sideways or full: they are sometimes brightened by vivacity, and now and then subject to a shade of caprice--but meaning no ill--not afraid of a Critical Review: and thus, gentlemen, I present myself to you fresh from the press, and I hope not inelegantly bound.

_Sir C._ Altogether making a perfectly desirable companion for the closet: I am sure, Clifford, you will agree with me. Gad we are got into such a pleasant freedom with each other, it is a pity to separate while any curiosity remains in the company. Pr'ythee, Clifford, satisfy me a little as to your history. Old Lord Hardacre, if I am rightly informed, disinherited your father, his second son.

_Cliff._ For the very marriage we have been speaking of. The little fortune my father could call his own was sunk before his death, as a provision for my mother; upon an idea that whatever resentment he might personally have incurred, it would not be extended to an innocent offspring.

_Sir C._ A very silly confidence. How readily now, should you and I, Emily, have discovered in a sensible old man, the irreconcileable offence of a marriage of the pa.s.sions----You understand me?

_Lady E._ Perfectly! [_Aside._] Old petrifaction, your hints always speak forcibly.

_Sir C._ But your uncle, the present Lord, made amends?

_Cliff._ Amply. He offered to send me from Cambridge to an academy in Germany, to fit me for foreign service: Well judging that a cannon ball was a fair and quick provision for a poor relation.

_Sir C._ Upon my word I have known uncles less considerate.

_Cliff._ When Lord Gayville's friendship, and your indulgence, made me the companion of his travels, Lord Hardacre's undivided cares devolved upon my sister: whose whole independent possession, at my mother's death, was five hundred pounds----All our education had permitted that unhappy parent to lay by.

_Lady E._ Oh, for an act of justice and benevolence, to reconcile me to the odious man! Tell me this instant what did he do for Miss Clifford?

_Cliff._ He bestowed upon her forty pounds a-year, upon condition that she resided with one of his dependents in a remote county, to save the family from disgrace; and that allowance, when I heard last from her, he had threatened to withdraw upon her refusing a detestable match he had endeavoured to force upon her.

_Lady E._ Poor girl!