All was yet dark and still, when Laura, like some unearthly being, stood
by the bed where Fanny slept. The light which she bore in her wasted
hand, shewed faintly the majestic form, darkened by its mourning
garments; and shed a dreary gleam upon tearless eyes, and a face whence
all the hues of life were fled. She made a sign for Fanny to rise; and,
awe-struck by the calm of unutterable grief, Fanny arose, and in silence
followed her. They entered the chamber of death. With noiseless steps
Laura approached the body, and softly drew back the covering. She
beckoned Fanny towards her. The girl comprehended that her aid was
wanted in performing the last duties to Montreville; and, shrinking with
superstitious fear, said, in a low tremulous whisper, 'I dare not touch
the dead.' Laura answered not; but raising her eyes to Heaven, as if
there to seek assistance in her mournful task, she gently pressed her
hand upon the half-closed eyes that had so often beamed fondness on her.
Unaided, and in silence, she did the last offices of love. She shed no
tears. She uttered no lamentation. The dread stillness was broken only
by the groans that burst at times from her heavy heart, and the more
continued sobs of her attendant, who vented in tears her fear, her pity,
and her admiration.
When the sad task was finished, Laura, still speechless, motioned to the
servant to retire. In horror at the thoughts of leaving Laura alone with
the dead, yet fearing to raise her voice, the girl respectfully grasped
her mistress's gown, and, in a low but earnest whisper, besought her to
leave this dismal place, and to go to her own chamber. Scarcely sensible
of her meaning, Laura suffered her to draw her away; but when the door
closed upon all that remained of her father, she shuddered convulsively,
and struggled to return. Fanny, however, gathered courage to lead her
to her own apartment. There she threw herself prostrate on the ground; a
flood of tears came to relieve her oppressed heart, and her recovered
utterance broke forth in an act of resignation. She continued for some
hours to give vent to her sorrow--a sorrow unallayed by any less painful
feeling, save those of devotion. She had lost the affectionate guide of
her youth, the fond parent, whose love for her had brought him untimely
to the grave; and, in the anguish of the thought that she should watch
his smile and hear his voice no more, she scarcely remembered that he
had left her to want and loneliness.
The morning was far advanced, when her sorrows were broken in upon by
her landlady, who came to ask her directions in regard to the funeral.
Laura had been unable to bend her thoughts to the consideration of this
subject; and she answered only by her tears. In vain did Mrs Stubbs
repeat that 'it was folly to take on so,'--'that we must all die;' 'and
that as every thing has two handles, Laura might comfort herself that
she should now have but one mouth to feed.' Laura seemed obstinate in
her grief, and at last Mrs Stubbs declared that whether she would hear
reason or not, something must without delay be settled about the
funeral; as for her part she could not order things without knowing how
they were to be paid for. Laura, putting her hand to her forehead,
complained that her head felt confused, and, mildly begging her
persecutor to have a little patience with her, promised, if she might be
left alone for the present, to return to the conversation in half an
hour.
Accordingly, soon after the time appointed, the landlady was surprised
to see Laura enter the parlour, her cheek indeed colourless and her eyes
swelled with weeping, but her manner perfectly calm and collected. 'Here
are my father's watch and seals,' said she, presenting them. 'They may
be disposed of. That cannot wound him now,'--and she turned away her
head, and drew her hand across her eyes. 'Have the goodness to order
what is necessary, for I am a stranger, without any friend.' Mrs Stubbs,
examining the watch, declared her opinion that the sale of it would
produce very little. 'Let every thing be plain, but decent,' said Laura,
'and when I am able I will work day and night till all is paid.' 'I
doubt, Miss,' answered Mrs Stubbs, 'it will be long before your work
will pay for much; besides you will be in my debt for a week's
lodgings--we always charge a week extra when there is a death in the
house.' 'Tell me what you would have me to do, and I will do it,' said
the unfortunate Laura, wholly unable to contend with her hard-hearted
companion. 'Why, Miss,' said Mrs Stubbs, 'there is your beautiful
rose-wood work-table and the foot-stools, and your fine ivory work-box
that Mr De Courcy sent here before you came; if you choose to dispose of
them, I will take them off your hands.' 'Take them,' said Laura, 'I knew
not that they were mine.' Mrs Stubbs then conscientiously offered to
give a fourth part of the sum which these toys had cost De Courcy three
months before, an offer which Laura instantly accepted; and the landlady
having settled this business much to her own satisfaction, cheerfully
undertook to arrange the obsequies of poor Montreville.
Though the tragical scenes of the night had left Laura no leisure to
dwell upon her fears for Hargrave, it was not without thankfulness that
she heard of his safety and restored composure. Her mind was at first
too much occupied by her recent loss, to attempt accounting for his
extravagant behaviour; and, after the first paroxysms of her sorrow were
past, she retained but an imperfect recollection of his late
conversation with her. She merely remembered his seeming distraction and
threatened suicide; and only bewildered herself by her endeavours to
unravel his mysterious conduct. Sometimes a suspicion not very remote
from truth would dart into her mind; but she quickly banished it, as an
instance of the causeless fears that are apt to infest the hearts of the
unfortunate.
An innate delicacy which, in some degree, supplied to Laura the want of
experience, made her feel an impropriety in the daily visits which she
was informed that Hargrave made at her lodgings. She was aware that they
might be liable to misrepresentation, even though she should persist in
her refusal to see him; and this consideration appeared to add to the
necessity already so urgent, for resolving on some immediate plan for
her future course of life. But the future offered to Laura no attractive
prospect. Wherever she turned, all seemed dark and unpromising. She
feared not to labour for her subsistence; no narrow pride forbade her
use of any honourable means of independence. But her personal charms
were such as no degree of humility could screen from the knowledge of
their possessor, and she was sensible how much this dangerous
distinction increased the disqualifications of her sex and age for the
character of an artist. As an artist, she must be exposed to the
intrusion of strangers, to public observation if successful; to unpitied
neglect if she failed in her attempt. Besides, it was impossible to
think of living alone and unprotected, in the human chaos that
surrounded her. All her father's dismal forebodings rose to her
remembrance; and she almost regarded herself as one who would be noticed
only as a mark for destruction, beguiled by frauds which no vigilance
could detect, overwhelmed by power which she could neither resist nor
escape.
Should she seek in solitude a refuge from the destroyer, and return to
mourn at her deserted Glenalbert, the stroke that had left it like her
lonely and forlorn, want lurked amidst its shades; for with her father
had died not only the duties and the joys of life, but even the means of
its support. Her temporary right to the few acres which Montreville
farmed, was in less than a year to expire; and she knew that, after
discharging the claim of the landlord, together with some debts which
the long illness of Lady Harriet and the ill-fated journey had obliged
Montreville to contract, little would remain from the sale of her
effects at Glenalbert.
Laura was sure, that the benevolent friend of her youth, the excellent
Mrs Douglas, would receive her with open arms--guide her inexperience
with a mother's counsel--comfort her sorrows with a mother's love. But
her spirit revolted from a life of indolent dependence, and her sense of
justice from casting a useless burden upon an income too confined to
answer claims stronger and more natural than hers. Mrs Douglas was
herself the preceptress of her children, and both by nature and
education amply qualified for the momentous task. In domestic
management, her skill and activity were unrivalled. Laura, therefore,
saw no possibility of repaying, by her usefulness in any department of
the family, the protection which she might receive; and she determined
that nothing but the last necessity should induce her to tax the
generosity of her friend, or to forego the honourable independence of
those who, though 'silver or gold they have none,' can barter for the
comforts they enjoy their mental treasures or their bodily toil.
To undertake the tuition of youth occurred to her as the most eligible
means of procuring necessary subsistence, and protection, more necessary
still. It appeared to her that, as a member of any reputable family, she
should be sheltered from the dangers which her father had most taught
her to dread. She reviewed her accomplishments, and impartially examined
her ability to communicate them with temper and perseverance. Though for
the most part attained with great accuracy, they were few in number, and
unobtrusive in kind. She read aloud with uncommon harmony and grace. She
spoke and wrote with fluency and precision. She was grammatically
acquainted with the French and Latin languages, and an adept in the
common rules of arithmetic. Her proficiency in painting has been already
noticed; and she sang with inimitable sweetness and expression.
But though expert in every description of plain needle-work, she was an
utter novice in the manufacture of all those elegant nothings, which are
so serviceable to fine ladies in their warfare against time. Though she
moved with unstudied dignity and peerless grace, we are obliged to
confess, that the seclusion of her native village had doomed her to
ignorance of the art of dancing, that she had never entered a ball-room
less capacious than the horizon, nor performed with a partner more
illustrious than the schoolmaster's daughter. Her knowledge of music,
too, was extremely limited. Lady Harriet had indeed tried to teach her
to play on the piano-forte; but the attempt, after costing Laura many a
full heart, and many a watery eye, was relinquished as vain. Though the
child learnt with unusual facility whatever was taught her by her father
or Mrs Douglas, and though she was already remarkable for the sweetness
with which she warbled her woodnotes wild, she no sooner approached the
piano-forte, than an invincible stupidity seemed to seize on all her
faculties. This was the more mortifying, as it was the only one of her
ladyship's accomplishments which she ever personally attempted to
communicate to her daughter. Lady Harriet was astonished at her failure.
It could proceed, she thought, from nothing but obstinacy. But the
appropriate remedy for obstinacy, only aggravated the symptoms, and,
after all, Laura was indebted to Colonel Hargrave's tuition for so much
skill as enabled her to accompany her own singing.
Laura had more than once felt her deficiency in these fashionable arts,
on seeing them exhibited by young ladies, who, to use their own
expression, had returned from _finishing themselves_ at a
boarding-school, and she feared that this blank in her education might
prove a fatal bar to her being employed as a governess. But another and
a greater obstacle lay before her--she was utterly unknown. The only
patrons whose recommendation she could command, were distant and
obscure; and what mother would trust the minds and the manners of her
children to the formation of a stranger? She knew not the ostrich-like
daring of fashionable mothers. This latter objection seemed equally
hostile to her being received in quality of companion by those who might
be inclined to exchange subsistence and protection for relief from
solitude; and Laura, almost despairing, knew not whither to turn her
eye.
One path indeed invited her steps, a path bright with visions of
rapture, warm with the sunshine of love and pleasure; but the flaming
sword of Heaven guarded the entrance; and as often as her thoughts
reverted that way, the struggle was renewed which forces the choice from
the pleasing to the right. No frequency of return rendered this struggle
less painful. Laura's prudence had slept, when a little vigilance might
have saved her many an after pang; and she had long paid, was still long
to pay, the forfeit of neglecting that wisdom which would guard 'with
all diligence' the first beginnings of even the most innocent passions.
Had she curbed the infant-strength of an attachment which, though it
failed to warp her integrity, had so deeply wounded her peace, how had
she lessened the force of that temptation, which lured her from the
rugged ascent, where want and difficulty were to be her companions;
which enticed her to the flowery bowers of pleasure with the voice and
with the smile of Hargrave!
Yet Laura had resisted a bribe more powerful than any consideration
merely selfish could supply; and she blushed to harbour a thought of
yielding to her own inclinations what she had refused to a parent's
wants, to a parent's prayer. Her heart filled as she called to mind how
warmly Montreville had seconded the wishes of her lover, how resolutely
she had withstood his will; and it swelled even to bursting at the
thought that the vow was now fatally made void, which promised, by every
endearment of filial love, to atone for this first act of disobedience.
'Dearest, kindest of friends,' she cried, 'I was inflexible to thy
request--thy last request! and shall I now recede? now, when, perhaps,
thou art permitted to behold and to approve my motive; perhaps permitted
to watch me still--permitted with higher power to guard, with less
erring wisdom to direct me! And, Thou, who, in matchless condescension,
refusest not to be called Father of the fatherless--Thou, who, in every
difficulty canst guide, from every danger canst protect thy children,
let, if Thou see it good, the Heavens, which are thy throne, be all my
covering, the earth, which is thy footstool, be all my bed; but suffer
me not to wander from Thee, the only source of peace and joy, to seek
them in fountains unhallowed and forbidden.'
Religious habits and sentiments were permanent inmates of Laura's
breast. They had been invited and cherished, till, like familiar
friends, they came unsolicited; and, like friends, too, their visits
were most frequent in adversity. But the more ardent emotions of piety,
are, alas! transient guests with us all; and, sinking from the flight
which raised her for a time above the sorrows and the wants of earth,
Laura was again forced to shrink from the gaunt aspect of poverty, again
to turn a wistful eye towards a haven of rest on this side the grave.
Young as she was, however, she had long been a vigilant observer of her
own actions, and of their consequences; and the result was an immutable
conviction, that no heartfelt comfort could, in any circumstances,
harbour with wilful transgression. As wilful transgression, she
considered her marriage with a man whose principles she had fatal reason
to distrust. As a rash defiance of unknown danger; as a desperate daring
of temptations whose force was yet untried, as a desertion of those arms
by which alone she could hope for victory in her Christian combat, Laura
considered the hazardous enterprize which, trusting to the reformation
of a libertine, would expose her to his example and his authority, his
provocations and his associates. Again she solemnly renewed her
resolution never, by wilfully braving temptation, to forego the
protection of Him who can dash the fulness of worldly prosperity with
secret bitterness, or gladden with joys unspeakable the dwelling visited
by no friend but Him, cheered by no comfort save the light of his
countenance.
Hargrave's letter served rather to fortify the resolution which it was
intended to shake; for Laura was not insensible to the indelicacy which
did not scorn to owe to her necessities a consent which he had in vain
tried to extort from her affection. Though pleased with his liberality,
she was hurt by his supposing that she could have so far forgotten the
mortal offence which he had offered her, as to become his debtor for any
pecuniary favour; and, as nothing could be further from her intention
than to owe any obligation to Colonel Hargrave, she did not hesitate a
moment to return the money. When she had sealed the card in which she
inclosed it, she again returned to the contemplation of her dreary
prospects; and half hopelessly examined the possibilities of
subsistence. To offer instruction to the young, or amusement to the old,
in exchange for an asylum from want and danger, still appeared to her
the most eligible plan of life; and again she weighed the difficulty of
procuring the necessary recommendations.
Lady Pelham occurred to her. Some claim she thought she might have had
to the patronage of so near a relation. But who should identify her? who
should satisfy Lady Pelham that the claim of relationship did indeed
belong to Laura? Had she been previously known to her aunt, her
difficulties would have been at an end; now she would probably be
rejected as an impostor; and she gave a sigh to the want of foresight
which had suffered her to rejoice in escaping an interview with Lady
Pelham.
After much consideration, she determined to solicit the recommendations
of Mrs Douglas and the De Courcy family; and, until she could avail
herself of these, to subsist, in some obscure lodging, by the labour of
her hands. In the meantime, it was necessary to remove immediately from
her present abode. The day following was the last when she could claim
any right to remain there; and she proceeded to make preparations for
her departure.
With a bleeding heart she began to arrange whatever had belonged to
Montreville; and paused, with floods of tears, upon every relic now
become so sacred. She entered his closet. His was the last foot that had
pressed the threshold. His chair stood as he had risen from it. On the
ground lay the cushion yet impressed with his knees--his Bible was open
as he had left it. One passage was blistered with his tears; and there
Laura read with emotions unutterable--'Leave to me thy fatherless
children, and I will preserve them alive.' Her recent wounds thus torn
open, with agony which could not be restrained, she threw herself upon
the ground; and, with cries of anguish, besought her father to return
but for one short hour to comfort his desolate child. 'Oh I shall never,
never see him more,' said she,--'all my cries are vain,'--and she wept
the more because they were in vain. Soon, however, she reproached
herself with her immoderate sorrow, soon mingled its accents with those
of humble resignation; and the vigorous mind recovering in devotion all
its virtuous energy, she returned, with restored composure, to her
melancholy labours.
In her father's writing desk she found an unfinished letter. It began
'My dear De Courcy,'--and Laura was going to read it with the awe of one
who listens to the last words of a father, when she remembered having
surprised her father while writing it, and his having hastily concealed
it from her sight. She instantly folded it without further acquaintance
with its contents, except that her own name caught her eye. Continuing
to arrange the papers, she observed a letter addressed to herself in a
hand which she did not remember to have seen. It was Lady Pelham's
answer to that in which Laura had announced her mother's death. She
perceived that it might furnish an introduction to her aunt; and with a
sensation of gratitude she remembered that she had been accidentally
prevented from destroying it.
Lady Pelham was elder by several years than her sister Lady Harriet. Her
father, a saving painstaking attorney, died a few months after she was
born. His widow, who, from an idea of their necessity, had concurred in
all his economical plans, discovered with equal surprise and delight,
that his death had left her the entire management of five-and-forty
thousand pounds. This fortune, which she was to enjoy during her life,
was secured, in the event of her demise, to little Miss Bridget; and
this arrangement was one of the earliest pieces of information which
little Miss Bridget received. For seven years the little heiress was, in
her mother's undisguised opinion, and consequently in her own, the most
important personage upon the face of this terrestrial globe. But worldly
glories are fleeting. Lord Winterfield's taste in stewed carp had been
improved by half a century's assiduous cultivation. Now the widow Price
understood the stewing of carp better than any woman in England, so his
Lordship secured to himself the benefit of her talent by making her Lady
Winterfield. In ten months after her marriage, another young lady
appeared, as much more important than Miss Bridget, as an earl is than
an attorney. Fortune, however, dispensed her gifts with tolerable
equality. Beauty and rank, indeed, were all on the side of Lady Harriet,
but the wealth lay in the scale of Miss Price; for Lord Winterfield,
leaving the bulk of his property to the children of his first marriage,
bequeathed to his youngest daughter only five thousand pounds. These
circumstances procured to Miss Price another advantage, for she married
a baronet with a considerable estate, while Lady Harriet's fate stooped
to a lieutenant in a marching regiment. After ten years, which Lady
Pelham declared were spent in uninterrupted harmony, Sir Edward Pelham
died. The exclusive property of his wife's patrimony had been strictly
secured to her; and, either thinking such a provision sufficient for a
female, or moved by a reason which we shall not at present disclose, Sir
Edward bestowed on the nephew who inherited his title, his whole estate,
burthened only with a jointure of five hundred pounds a-year, settled
upon Lady Pelham by her marriage-contract. Of his daughter, and only
child, no mention was made in his testament; but Sir Edward, during the
last years of his life, had acquired the character of an oddity, and
nobody wondered at his eccentricities. At the commencement of her
widowhood, Lady Pelham purchased a villa in ----shire, where she spent
the summer, returning in the winter to Grosvenor Street; and this last
was almost the only part of her history which was known to Laura. Even
before Lady Harriet's marriage, little cordiality had existed between
the sisters. From the date of that event, their intercourse had been
almost entirely broken off; and the only attention which Laura had ever
received from her aunt, was contained in the letter which she was now
thankfully contemplating. Her possession of this letter, together with
her acquaintance with the facts to which it related, she imagined would
form sufficient proof of her identity; and her national ideas of the
claims of relationship, awakened a hope of obtaining her aunt's
assistance in procuring some respectable situation.
Determined to avail herself of her fortunate discovery, she quitted her
father's apartments; and, carrying with her her credential, lost no time
in repairing to Grosvenor Street. Nor did she experience the reluctance
which she had formerly felt towards an interview with Lady Pelham; for
she was fully sensible of the difference between a petitioner for
charity and a candidate for honourable employment. Besides, there is no
teacher of humility like misfortune; and Laura's spirits were too
completely subdued to anticipate or to notice diminutive attacks upon
her self-consequence. She still, however, with constitutional reserve,
shrunk from intruding upon a stranger; and she passed and repassed the
door, examining the exterior of the house, as if she could thence have
inferred the character of its owner, before she took courage to give one
gentle knock.
A footman opened the door, and Laura, faltering, inquired if Lady Pelham
was within. From Laura's single knock, her humble voice, and her yet
more humble habit, which, in ten month's use, had somewhat faded from
the sober magnificence of black, the man had formed no very lofty idea
of the visitor's rank. He answered, that he believed his lady was not at
home; but half-afraid of dismissing some person with whom she might have
business, he spoke in a tone which made Laura a little doubt the truth
of his information. She inquired at what time she might be likely to
gain access to Lady Pelham; and, as she spoke, threw back her cape veil,
unconscious how successfully she was pleading her own cause. Struck with
a countenance whose candour, sweetness, and beauty, won a way to every
heart, the man gazed at her for a moment with vulgar admiration, and
then throwing open the door of a little parlour, begged her to walk in,
while he inquired whether his lady were visible. He soon returned,
telling Laura that Lady Pelham would receive her in a few minutes.
During these few minutes, Laura had formed a hundred conjectures
concerning her aunt's person, voice, and manner. She wondered whether
she resembled Lady Harriet; whether her own form would recal to Lady
Pelham the remembrance of her sister. At every noise her heart
fluttered--at every step she expected the entrance of this relation, on
whom perhaps so much of her future fate might depend; and she held her
breath that she might distinguish her approach. A servant at last came
to conduct her to his mistress; and she followed him, not without a
feeling of awe, into the presence of her mother's sister.
That sentiment, however, by no means gathered strength when she took
courage to raise her eyes to the plain little elderly person to whom she
was introduced, and heard herself addressed in the accents of cheerful
familiarity. Laura, with modest dignity, made known her name and
situation. She spoke of her mother's death, and the tears trickled from
her eyes--of her father's, and in venting the natural eloquence of
grief, she forgot that she came to interest a stranger. Lady Pelham
seemed affected; she held her handkerchief to her eyes, and remained in
that attitude for some time after Laura had recovered self-possession.
Then, throwing her arms round her lovely niece, she affectionately
acknowledged the relationship, adding, 'Your resemblance to my poor
sister cannot be overlooked, and yet in saying so, I am far from paying
you a compliment.'
After shewing Lady Pelham her own letter, and mentioning such
circumstances as tended to confirm her identity, Laura proceeded to
detail her plans, to which her Ladyship listened with apparent interest.
She inquired into Laura's accomplishments, and seemed pondering the
probability of employing them with advantage to the possessor. After a
few moments silence, she said, 'That short as their acquaintance had
been, she thought she could perceive that Laura had too much sensibility
for a dependent situation. But we shall talk of that hereafter,'
continued she. 'At present, your spirits are too weak for the society of
strangers;--and mine,' added her Ladyship, with a sigh, 'are not much
more buoyant than your own.' Laura looked up with the kindly interest
which, whether she herself were joyful or in sadness, sorrow could
always command with her; and her aunt answered her glance of inquiry, by
relating, that her only daughter and heiress, had eloped from her a few
days before, with an artful young fellow without family or fortune. 'She
deceived me by a train of the basest artifices,' said Lady Pelham,
'though she might have known that her happiness was my chief concern;
and that, to secure it, I might have been brought to consent to any
thing. Yet with the closest secrecy she misled--with the most unfeeling
coldness left me. Her disobedience I might have forgiven--her deceit I
never can; or, if as a Christian I forgive, I never, never can forget
it.'
Lady Pelham had talked herself out of breath; and Laura, not quite
understanding this kind of Christian forgiveness, was silent, because
she did not well know what to say. She felt, however, compassion for a
parent, deserted by her only child, and the feeling was legible in a
countenance peculiarly fitted for every tender expression.
There are some degrees of sorrow which increase in acuteness, at least
which augment in vehemence of expression, by the perception of having
excited sympathy. Weak fires gather strength from radiation. After a
glance at Laura, Lady Pelham melted into tears, and continued, 'I know
not how I had deserved such treatment from her; for never had she reason
to complain of me. I have always treated her with what I must call
unmerited kindness.'
Laura now ventured a few conciliating words. 'She will feel her error,
Madam,--she will strive by her after-life to atone--' Lady Pelham
immediately dried her eyes, 'No, no, my dear,' interrupted she, 'you
don't know her--you have no idea of the hardness of her unfeeling heart.
Rejoice, sweet girl, that you have no idea of it. For my part, though
sensibility is at best but a painful blessing, I would not exchange it
for the most peaceful apathy that can feel for nothing but itself. I
must have something to love and cherish. You shall be that something.
You shall live with me, and we shall console each other.'
On another occasion, Laura might have been disposed to canvass the
nature of that sensibility which could thus enlarge to a stranger on the
defects of an only child. Indeed she was little conversant even with the
name of this quality. Her own sensibility she had been taught to
consider as a weakness to be subdued, not as an ornament to be gloried
in; and the expansion of soul which opens to all the sorrows and to all
the joys of others, she had learnt to call by a holier name--to regulate
by a nobler principle. But she was little disposed to examine the merits
of a feeling to which she owed the offer of an unsolicited asylum. Her
heart swelling with gratitude, she clasped Lady Pelham's hand between
her own, and while tears streamed down her face, 'Kind considerate
friend,' she cried, 'why, why were you not known to us while my father
could have been sensible to your kindness!'
After Lady Pelham had repeated her proposal in more detail, and Laura
had thankfully acceded to it, they remained in conversation for some
time longer. Lady Pelham shewed that she had much wit, much vivacity,
and some information; and, after settling that Laura should next day
become an inmate in Grosvenor Street, they separated, mutually delighted
with each other. Lady Pelham applauded herself for a generous action,
and, to the interest which Laura awakened in every breast, was added in
Lady Pelham's all the benevolence of self-complacency. Laura, on the
other hand, did not dream that any fault could harbour in the
unsuspicious liberal heart which had believed the tale, and removed the
difficulties of a stranger. She did not once dream that she owed her new
asylum to any motives less noble than disinterested goodness.
No wonder that her Ladyship's motive escaped the penetration of Laura,
when it even evaded her own. And yet no principle could be more simple
in its nature, or more constant in its operation, than that which
influenced Lady Pelham; but the Proteus put on so many various forms,
that he ever evaded detection from the subject of his sway. In the
meantime, the desire of performing a generous action--of securing the
gratitude of a feeling heart--of patronizing a poor relation, were the
only motives which her Ladyship acknowledged to herself, when she
offered protection to Laura. An idea had, indeed, darted across her
right honourable mind, that she might now secure a humble companion at a
rate lower than the usual price of such conveniences: a momentary
notion, too, she formed of exciting the jealousy of her daughter, by
replacing her with so formidable a competitor for favour; but these, she
thought, were mere collateral advantages, and by no means the
circumstances which fixed her determination. The resolution upon which
she acted, was taken, as her resolutions generally were, without
caution; and she expressed it, as her custom was, the moment it was
formed. Laura was scarcely gone, however, when her aunt began to repent
of her precipitancy, and to wish, as she had often occasion to do, that
she had taken a little more time for consideration. But she comforted
herself, that she could at any time get rid of her charge, by
recommending Laura to one of the situations which she had mentioned as
her choice; and the lady knew it would not be difficult to find one more
lucrative than that upon which her niece was entering; for how could she
possibly offer wages to so near a relation, or insult with the gift of
a trifling sum a person of Laura's dignity of deportment? These reasons,
Lady Pelham alleged to herself, as sufficient grounds for a resolution
never to affront her niece by a tender of pecuniary favours.
While these thoughts were revolving in Lady Pelham's mind, Laura had
reached her home; and, on her knees, was thanking Providence for having
raised up for her a protector and a friend, and praying that she might
be enabled to repay, in affectionate and respectful duty, a part of the
debt of gratitude which she owed to her benefactress. The rest of the
evening she spent in preparing for her removal--in ruminating on her
interview with her aunt, and in endeavouring to compose, from the scanty
materials which she possessed, a character of this new arbitress of her
destiny. From Lady Pelham's prompt decision in favour of a stranger,
from her unreserved expression of her feelings, from her lively manner
and animated countenance, Laura concluded that she was probably of a
warm temper, susceptible, and easily wounded by unkindness or neglect,
but frank, candid, and forgiving. Laura wished that she had better
studied her aunt's physiognomy. What she recollected of it was quite
unintelligible to her. She laboured in vain to reconcile the feminine
curvatures of the nose and forehead with the inflexible closing of the
mouth, and the hard outline of the chin, where lurked no soft relenting
line.
But however the countenance might puzzle conjecture, of the mind she
harboured not a doubt; Lady Pelham's, she was persuaded, was one of
those open generous souls, which the young and unwary are always
prepared to expect and to love--souls having no disguise, and needing
none. Now this was precisely the character which Lady Pelham often and
sincerely drew of herself: and who ought to have been so intimately
acquainted with her Ladyship's dispositions?