Lord DARCEY to the Honourable GEORGE MOLESWORTH.
_Barford Abbey_.
Bridgman!--Could Bridgman dare aspire to Miss Warley!--_He_ offer her
his hand!--_he_ be connected with a woman whose disposition is
diametrically opposite to his own!--_No_,--that would not have done,
though I had never seen her.--Let him seek for one who has a heart shut
up by a thousand locks.
After his _own_ conjectures,--after what _you_ have told him,--should he
_but_ attempt to take her from me, by all that is sacred, he shall
repent it dearly.
Molesworth! _you_ are my friend,--I take your admonitions well;--but,
surely, you should not press thus hardly on my soul, knowing its uneasy
situation.--My state is even more perplexing than when we parted:--I did
not then know she was going to France.--_Yes_, she is absolutely going
to _France_.--Why leave her friends here?--Why not wait the arrival of
Lady Mary Sutton in England?
I have used every dissuasive argument _but one_.--That shall be my
last.--If _that_ fails I go--I positively go with her.--It is your
opinion that she loves me.--Would it were mine!--_Not_ the least
partiality can I discover.--Why then be precipitate?--Every moment she
is gaining ground in the affections of Sir James and Lady Powis.--_Time_
may work wonders in the mind of the former.--Without his consent never
can I give my hand;--the commands of a dying father forbid me.--_Such_ a
father!--O George! you did not know him;--_so_ revered,--_so_
honour'd,--_so_ belov'd! not more in public than in private life.
_My friend_, behold your son!--_Darcey_, behold your father!--_As_ you
reverence and obey Sir James, _as_ you consult him on all occasions,
_as_ you are guided by his advice, receive my blessing.--These were his
parting words, hugg'd into me in his last cold embrace.--No, George, the
promise I made can never be forfeited.--I sealed it on his lifeless
hand, before I was borne from him.
_Now_, are you convinc'd no mean views with-hold me?--You despise not
more than I do the knave and coxcomb; for no other, to satiate their own
vanity, would sport away the quiet of a fellow-creature.--Well may you
call it cruel.--_Such_ cruelties fall little short of those practised by
_Nero_ and _Caligula_.
Did it depend on myself only, I would tell Miss Warley I love, _every
time_ I behold her enchanting face; _every time_ I hear the voice of
wisdom springing from the seat of innocence.
No shadow of gaining over Sir James!--_Efforts_ has not been wanting:--I
mean _efforts_ to declare my inclination.--I have follow'd him like a
ghost for days past, thinking at every step how I should bless _this_ or
_that_ spot on which he consented to my happiness.--Pleasing
phantoms!--How have they fled at sight of his determin'd
countenance!--Methought I could trace _in it_ the same obduracy which
nature vainly pleaded to remove.--In _other_ matters my heart is
resolute;--_here_ an errant coward.--No! I cannot break it to him whilst
in Hampshire.--When I get to town, a letter _shall_ speak for
me.--Sometimes I am tempted to trust the secret to Lady Powis.--She is
compassionate;--she would even risk her own peace to preserve
mine.--Again the thoughts of involving her in fresh perplexities
determines me against it.
Had my father been acquainted with that part of Sir James's character
which concerned his son, I am convinc'd he would have made some
restrictions in regard to the explicit obedience he enjoined.--But all
was hushed whilst Mr. Powis continued on his travels; nor, until he
settled abroad, did any one suspect there had been a family
disagreement:--_even_ at _this_ time the whole affair is not generally
known.--The name of the lady to whom he was obliged to make proposals,
is in particular carefully concealed.--I, who from ten years old have
been bred up with them, am an entire stranger to it.--_Perhaps_ no part
of the affair would ever have transpired, had not Sir James made some
discoveries, in the first agitation of his passion, before a large
company, when he received an account of Mr. Powis's being appointed to
the government of ----. No secret can be safe in a breast where every
passage is not well guarded against an enemy which, like lightning,
throws up all before it.
Let me not forget to tell you, amongst a multiplicity of concerns
crowding on my mind, that I have positively deny'd Edmund to intercede
with his father regarding the commission.--A bare surmise that he is my
rival, has silenced me.--Was I ungenerous enough to indulge myself in
getting rid of him, an opportunity now offers;--but I am _as_ averse to
such proceedings as _he_ ought to be who is the friend of Molesworth,
and writes the name of