Formed for each other, our love was sudden and resistless as the
bolt of heaven: the first glance of those dear speaking eyes gave me a
new being, and awaked in me ideas never known before.
The strongest sympathy attached me to him in spite of myself: I
thought it friendship, but felt that friendship more lively than what I
called my _love_ for Sir George; all conversation but his became
insupportable to me; every moment that he passed from me, I counted as
lost in my existence.
I loved him; that tenderness hourly increased: I hated Sir George, I
fancied him changed; I studied to find errors in a man who had, a few
weeks before, appeared to me amiable, and whom I had consented to
marry; I broke with him, and felt a weight removed from my soul.
I trembled when Rivers appeared; I died to tell him my whole soul
was his; I watched his looks, to find there the same sentiments with
which he had inspired me: that transporting moment at length arrived;
I had the delight to find our tenderness was mutual, and to devote my
life to making happy the lord of my desires.
Mrs. Melmoth's letter brought me my father's commands, if unmarried,
to continue so till his return.
He added, that he intended me for a relation, to whose family he had
obligations; that, his affairs having suffered such a happy
revolution, he had it in his power, and, therefore, thought it his
duty, to pay this debt of gratitude; and, at the same time, hoping to
make me happy by connecting me with an amiable family, allied to him by
blood and friendship; and uniting me to a man whom report spoke worthy
of all my tenderness.
You may remember, my dearest Bell, how strongly I was affected on
reading those letters: I wrote to Rivers, to beg him to defer our
marriage; but the manner in which he took that request, and the fear of
appearing indifferent to him, conquered all sense of what I owed to my
father, and I married him; making it, however, a condition that he
should ask no explanation of my conduct till I chose to give it.
I knew not the character of my father; he might be a tyrant, and
divide us from each other: Rivers doubted my tenderness; would not my
waiting, if my father had afterwards refused his consent to our union,
have added to those cruel suspicions? might he not have supposed I had
ceased to love him, and waited for the excuse of paternal authority to
justify a change of sentiment?
In short, love bore down every other consideration; if I persisted
in this delay, I might hazard losing all my soul held dear, the only
object for which life was worth my care.
I determined, if I married, to give up all claim to my father's
fortune, which I should justly forfeit by my disobedience to his
commands: I hoped, however, Rivers's merit, and my father's paternal
affection, when he knew us both, would influence him to make some
provision for me as his daughter.
Half his fortune was all I ever hoped for, or even would have chose
to accept: the rest I determined to give up to the man whom I refused
to marry.
I gave my hand to Rivers, and was happy; yet the idea of my
father's return, and the consciousness of having disobeyed him, cast
sometimes a damp on my felicity, and threw a gloom over my soul, which
all my endeavors could scarce hide from Rivers, though his delicacy
prevented his asking the cause.
I now know, what was then a secret to me, that my father had offered
his daughter to Rivers, with a fortune which could, however, have been
no temptation to a mind like his, had he not been attached to me: he
declined the offer, and, lest I should hear of it, and, from a romantic
disinterestedness, want him to accept it, pressed our marriage with
more importunity than ever; yet had the generosity to conceal this
sacrifice from me, and to wish it should be concealed for ever.
These sentiments, so noble, so peculiar to my Rivers, prevented an
explanation, and hid from us, for some time, the circumstances which
now make our happiness so perfect.
How infinitely worthy is Rivers of all my tenderness!
My father has sent to speak with me in his apartment: I should have
told you, I this morning went to Bellfield, and brought from thence my
mother's picture, which I have just sent him.
Adieu! Your faithful
Emily Rivers.