To an interview which he presumed would be as delightful as interesting,
Captain Montreville chose to give no interruption; and therefore he had
walked out to superintend his hay-making: But, after staying abroad for
two hours, which he judged a reasonable length for a tête-à-tête, he
returned, and was a little surprised to find that the Colonel was gone.
Though he entertained not a doubt of the issue of the conference, he had
some curiosity to know the particulars, and summoned Laura to
communicate them.
'Well, my love,' said he, as the conscious Laura shut the parlour door,
'is Colonel Hargrave gone?'
'Long ago, Sir.'
'I thought he would have waited my return.'
Laura made no answer.
'When are we to see him again?'
Laura did not know.
'Well, well,' said Captain Montreville, a little impatiently, 'since the
Colonel is gone without talking to me, I must just hear from you what it
is you have both determined on.'
Laura trembled in every limb. 'I knew,' said she, without venturing to
lift her eye, 'that you would never sacrifice your child to rank or
fortune; and therefore I had no hesitation in refusing Colonel
Hargrave.'
Captain Montreville started back with astonishment,--'Refuse Colonel
Hargrave?' cried he,--'Impossible--you cannot be in earnest.'
Laura, with much truth, assured him that she never in her life had been
more serious.
Captain Montreville was thunderstruck. Surprise for a few moments kept
him silent. At last recovering himself,--'Why, Laura,' said he, 'what
objection could you possibly make to Hargrave?--he is young, handsome,
accomplished, and has shewn such generosity in his choice of you'--
'Generosity! Sir,' repeated Laura.
'Yes; it was generous in Colonel Hargrave, who might pretend to the
first woman in the kingdom, to think of offering to share his fortune
and his rank with you, who have neither.'
Laura's sentiments on this subject did not exactly coincide with her
father's, but she remained silent while he continued: 'I think I have a
right to hear your objections, for I am entirely at a loss to guess
them. I don't indeed know a fault Hargrave has, except perhaps a few
gallantries; which most girls of your age think a very pardonable
error.'
A sickness, as of death, seized Laura; but she answered steadily,
'Indeed, Sir, the Colonel's views are so different from mine--his
dispositions so very unlike--so opposite, that nothing but unhappiness
could possibly result from such an union. But,' added she, forcing a
languid smile, 'we shall, if you please, discuss all this to-morrow;
for, indeed, today, I am unable to defend my own case with you. I have
been indisposed all day.'
Captain Montreville looked at Laura, and, in the alarm which her unusual
paleness excited, lost all sense of the disappointment she had just
caused him. He threw his arm tenderly round her--supported her to her
own apartment--begged she would try to rest,--ran to seek a cordial for
his darling; and then, fearing that the dread of his displeasure should
add to her disorder, hastened back to assure her that, though her
happiness was his dearest concern, he never meant to interfere with her
judgment of the means by which it was to be promoted.
Tears of affectionate gratitude burst from the eyes of Laura. 'My dear
kind father,' she cried, 'let me love--let me please you--and I ask no
other earthly happiness.'
Captain Montreville then left her to rest; and, quite exhausted with
illness, fatigue, and sorrow, she slept soundly for many hours.
The Captain spent most of the evening ruminating on the occurrence of
the day; nor did his meditations at all diminish his surprize at his
daughter's unaccountable rejection of his favourite. He recollected many
instances in which he thought he had perceived her partiality to the
Colonel;--he perplexed himself in vain to reconcile them with her
present behaviour. He was compelled at last to defer his conclusions
till Laura herself should solve the difficulty. The subject was, indeed,
so vexatious to him, that he longed to have his curiosity satisfied, in
order finally to dismiss the affair from his mind.
Laura had long been accustomed, when assailed by any adverse
circumstance, whether more trivial or more important, to seize the first
opportunity of calmly considering how far she had herself contributed to
the disaster; and, as nothing is more hostile to good humour than an
ill-defined feeling of self-reproach, the habit was no less useful to
the regulation of our heroine's temper, than to her improvement in the
rarer virtues of prudence and candour. Her first waking hour, except
that which was uniformly dedicated to a more sacred purpose, she now
employed in strict and impartial self-examination. She endeavoured to
call to mind every part of her behaviour to Colonel Hargrave, lest her
own conduct might have seemed to countenance his presumption. But in
vain. She could not recall a word, a look, even a thought, that could
have encouraged his profligacy. 'Yet why should I wonder,' she
exclaimed, 'if he expected that temptation might seduce, or weakness
betray me, since he knew me fallible, and of the Power by which I am
upheld he thought not.'
Satisfied of the purity of her conduct, she next proceeded to examine
its prudence: but here she found little reason for self-congratulation.
Her conscience, indeed, completely acquitted her of levity or
forwardness, but its charges of imprudence she could not so easily
parry. Why had she admitted a preference for a man whose moral character
was so little known to her? Where slept her discretion, while she
suffered that preference to strengthen into passion? Why had she
indulged in dreams of ideal perfection? Why had she looked for
consistent virtue in a breast where she had not ascertained that piety
resided? Had she allowed herself time for consideration, would she have
forgotten that religion was the only foundation strong enough to support
the self-denying, the purifying virtues? These prudent reflections came,
in part, too late; for to love, Laura was persuaded she must henceforth
be a stranger. But to her friendships, she conceived, that they might be
applicable; and she determined to make them useful in her future
intercourse with her own sex; to whom, perhaps, they may be applied even
with more justice than to the other.
The mind of Laura had been early stored with just and rational
sentiments. These were the bullion--but it was necessary that
experience should give the stamp that was to make them current in the
ordinary business of life. Had she called prudence to her aid, in the
first stage of her acquaintance with the insinuating Hargrave, what
anguish would she not have spared herself. But if the higher wisdom is
to foresee and prevent misfortune, the next degree is to make the best
of it when unavoidable; and Laura resolved that this praise at least
should be her's. Fortified by this resolution, she quitted her
apartment, busied herself in her domestic affairs, met her father almost
with cheerfulness; and, when he renewed the subject of their last
conversation, repeated, with such composure, her conviction of the
dissimilarity of Hargrave's dispositions to her own, that Captain
Montreville began to believe that he had been mistaken in his opinion of
her preference. Still, however, he could not account for her rejection
of an offer so unobjectionable; and he hinted a suspicion, that some of
Hargrave's gallantries had been repeated to her, and perhaps with
exaggeration. With trembling lips, Laura assured him she had never heard
the slightest insinuation against Colonel Hargrave. Though Laura had
little of romance in her composition, her father now began to imagine,
that she allowed herself to cherish the romantic dream, that sympathy of
souls, and exactly concordant tastes and propensities, were necessary to
the happiness of wedded life. But Laura calmly declared, that her tastes
were not inflexible; and that, had she intended to marry, she should
have found it an easy duty to conform them to those of her husband: but
that the thought of marriage was shocking to her, and she trusted no man
would ever again think of her as a wife. Montreville, who for once
suspected his daughter of a little affectation, made no effort to combat
this unnatural antipathy, but trusted to time and nature for its cure.
As soon as her father left her, Laura, determined not to be brave by
halves, began the painful task of destroying every relic of Hargrave's
presence. She banished from her port-folio the designs he had made for
her drawings, destroyed the music from which he had accompanied her, and
effaced from her books the marks of his pencil. She had amused her
solitary hours by drawing, in chalks, a portrait of features indelibly
engraven on her recollection, and her fortitude failed her when about to
consign it to the flames.--'No;' she exclaimed, 'I can never part with
this. This, at least, I may love unreproved,' and she pressed it in
agony to her heart--inwardly vowing that no human being should fill its
place. But such thoughts as these could not linger in the reasonable
mind of Laura. The next moment she blushed for her weakness; and,
casting away its last treasure, averted her eyes till the flames had
consumed it to ashes. 'Now all is over,' she cried, as she threw herself
into a chair and burst into tears. But, quickly wiping them away, she
resolved that she would not wilfully bind herself to the rack of
recollection, and hastened to exert herself in some of her ordinary
employments.
Laura was aware that the cottage, where every walk, every shrub, every
flower spoke of Hargrave, was a scene unlikely to aid her purpose of
forgetting him; and, therefore, she that evening proposed to her father
that they should pay their long promised visit to Mrs Douglas. He
readily consented. Their journey was fixed for the following day, and
Laura occupied herself in preparing for their departure, though with
feelings far different from the delight with which, a few days before,
she would have anticipated a meeting with her early friend.