THE words were scarce out of my mouth when the Count de L—’s post-chaise,
with his sister in it, drove hastily by: she had just time to make me a
bow of recognition,—and of that particular kind of it, which told me she
had not yet done with me. She was as good as her look; for, before I had
quite finished my supper, her brother’s servant came into the room with a
billet, in which she said she had taken the liberty to charge me with a
letter, which I was to present myself to Madame R— the first morning I
had nothing to do at Paris. There was only added, she was sorry, but
from what _penchant_ she had not considered, that she had been prevented
telling me her story,—that she still owed it to me; and if my route
should ever lay through Brussels, and I had not by then forgot the name
of Madame de L—,—that Madame de L— would be glad to discharge her
obligation.
Then I will meet thee, said I, fair spirit! at Brussels;—’tis only
returning from Italy through Germany to Holland, by the route of
Flanders, home;—’twill scarce be ten posts out of my way; but, were it
ten thousand! with what a moral delight will it crown my journey, in
sharing in the sickening incidents of a tale of misery told to me by such
a sufferer? To see her weep! and, though I cannot dry up the fountain of
her tears, what an exquisite sensation is there still left, in wiping
them away from off the cheeks of the first and fairest of women, as I’m
sitting with my handkerchief in my hand in silence the whole night beside
her?
There was nothing wrong in the sentiment; and yet I instantly reproached
my heart with it in the bitterest and most reprobate of expressions.
It had ever, as I told the reader, been one of the singular blessings of
my life, to be almost every hour of it miserably in love with some one;
and my last flame happening to be blown out by a whiff of jealousy on the
sudden turn of a corner, I had lighted it up afresh at the pure taper of
Eliza but about three months before,—swearing, as I did it, that it
should last me through the whole journey.—Why should I dissemble the
matter? I had sworn to her eternal fidelity;—she had a right to my whole
heart:—to divide my affections was to lessen them;—to expose them was to
risk them: where there is risk there may be loss:—and what wilt thou
have, Yorick, to answer to a heart so full of trust and confidence—so
good, so gentle, and unreproaching!
—I will not go to Brussels, replied I, interrupting myself.—But my
imagination went on,—I recalled her looks at that crisis of our
separation, when neither of us had power to say adieu! I look’d at the
picture she had tied in a black riband about my neck,—and blush’d as I
look’d at it.—I would have given the world to have kiss’d it,—but was
ashamed.—And shall this tender flower, said I, pressing it between my
hands,—shall it be smitten to its very root,—and smitten, Yorick! by
thee, who hast promised to shelter it in thy breast?
Eternal Fountain of Happiness! said I, kneeling down upon the ground,—be
thou my witness—and every pure spirit which tastes it, be my witness
also, That I would not travel to Brussels, unless Eliza went along with
me, did the road lead me towards heaven!
In transports of this kind, the heart, in spite of the understanding,
will always say too much.
THE LETTER.
AMIENS.
FORTUNE had not smiled upon La Fleur; for he had been unsuccessful in his
feats of chivalry,—and not one thing had offered to signalise his zeal
for my service from the time that he had entered into it, which was
almost four-and-twenty hours. The poor soul burn’d with impatience; and
the Count de L—’s servant coming with the letter, being the first
practicable occasion which offer’d, La Fleur had laid hold of it; and, in
order to do honour to his master, had taken him into a back parlour in
the auberge, and treated him with a cup or two of the best wine in
Picardy; and the Count de L—’s servant, in return, and not to be
behindhand in politeness with La Fleur, had taken him back with him to
the Count’s hotel. La Fleur’s _prevenancy_ (for there was a passport in
his very looks) soon set every servant in the kitchen at ease with him;
and as a Frenchman, whatever be his talents, has no sort of prudery in
showing them, La Fleur, in less than five minutes, had pulled out his
fife, and leading off the dance himself with the first note, set the
_fille de chambre_, the _maître d’hôtel_, the cook, the scullion, and all
the house-hold, dogs and cats, besides an old monkey, a dancing: I
suppose there never was a merrier kitchen since the flood.
Madame de L—, in passing from her brother’s apartments to her own,
hearing so much jollity below stairs, rung up her _fille de chambre_ to
ask about it; and, hearing it was the English gentleman’s servant, who
had set the whole house merry with his pipe, she ordered him up.
As the poor fellow could not present himself empty, he had loaded himself
in going up stairs with a thousand compliments to Madame de L—, on the
part of his master,—added a long apocrypha of inquiries after Madame de
L—’s health,—told her, that Monsieur his master was _au désespoire_ for
her re-establishment from the fatigues of her journey,—and, to close all,
that Monsieur had received the letter which Madame had done him the
honour—And he has done me the honour, said Madame de L—, interrupting La
Fleur, to send a billet in return.
Madame de L— had said this with such a tone of reliance upon the fact,
that La Fleur had not power to disappoint her expectations;—he trembled
for my honour,—and possibly might not altogether be unconcerned for his
own, as a man capable of being attached to a master who could be wanting
_en égards vis à vis d’une femme_! so that when Madame de L— asked La
Fleur if he had brought a letter,—_O qu’oui_, said La Fleur: so laying
down his hat upon the ground, and taking hold of the flap of his right
side pocket with his left hand, he began to search for the letter with
his right;—then contrariwise.—_Diable_! then sought every pocket—pocket
by pocket, round, not forgetting his fob:—_Peste_!—then La Fleur emptied
them upon the floor,—pulled out a dirty cravat,—a handkerchief,—a comb,—a
whip lash,—a nightcap,—then gave a peep into his hat,—_Quelle
étourderie_! He had left the letter upon the table in the auberge;—he
would run for it, and be back with it in three minutes.
I had just finished my supper when La Fleur came in to give me an account
of his adventure: he told the whole story simply as it was: and only
added that if Monsieur had forgot (_par hazard_) to answer Madame’s
letter, the arrangement gave him an opportunity to recover the _faux
pas_;—and if not, that things were only as they were.
Now I was not altogether sure of my _étiquette_, whether I ought to have
wrote or no;—but if I had,—a devil himself could not have been angry:
’twas but the officious zeal of a well meaning creature for my honour;
and, however he might have mistook the road,—or embarrassed me in so
doing,—his heart was in no fault,—I was under no necessity to write;—and,
what weighed more than all,—he did not look as if he had done amiss.
—’Tis all very well, La Fleur, said I.—’Twas sufficient. La Fleur flew
out of the room like lightning, and returned with pen, ink, and paper, in
his hand; and, coming up to the table, laid them close before me, with
such a delight in his countenance, that I could not help taking up the
pen.
I began and began again; and, though I had nothing to say, and that
nothing might have been expressed in half a dozen lines, I made half a
dozen different beginnings, and could no way please myself.
In short, I was in no mood to write.
La Fleur stepp’d out and brought a little water in a glass to dilute my
ink,—then fetch’d sand and seal-wax.—It was all one; I wrote, and
blotted, and tore off, and burnt, and wrote again.—_Le diable l’emporte_!
said I, half to myself,—I cannot write this self-same letter, throwing
the pen down despairingly as I said it.
As soon as I had cast down my pen, La Fleur advanced with the most
respectful carriage up to the table, and making a thousand apologies for
the liberty he was going to take, told me he had a letter in his pocket
wrote by a drummer in his regiment to a corporal’s wife, which he durst
say would suit the occasion.
I had a mind to let the poor fellow have his humour.—Then prithee, said
I, let me see it.
La Fleur instantly pulled out a little dirty pocket book cramm’d full of
small letters and billet-doux in a sad condition, and laying it upon the
table, and then untying the string which held them all together, run them
over, one by one, till he came to the letter in question,—_La voila_!
said he, clapping his hands: so, unfolding it first, he laid it open
before me, and retired three steps from the table whilst I read it.