The Greatest Regency Romance Novels. Maria EdgeworthЧитать онлайн книгу.
was gone, to come to her assistance. The efforts she made at first to oblige him to desist, were not, however, quite so strenuous as they ought to have been on such an occasion; but finding he was about to proceed to greater liberties than any man before had ever taken with her, she collected all her strength, and broke from him; when looking round the room, and seeing nobody there, 'Bless me,' cried she, 'what is the meaning of all this! Where are our friends!'—'They are gone,' said he, 'to pay the debt which love and youth, and beauty challenge; let us not be remiss, nor waste the precious moments in idle scruples. Come, my angel!' pursued he, endeavouring to get her once more into his arms, 'make me the happiest of mankind, and be as divinely good as you are fair.'
'I do not understand you, Sir,' replied she; 'but neither desire, nor will stay to hear, an explanation.' She spoke this with somewhat of an haughty air, and was making towards the door, but he was far from being intimidated; and, instead of suffering her to pass, he seized her a little roughly with one hand, and with the other made fast the door. 'Come, come, my dear creature,' cried he, 'no more resistance; you see you are in my power, and the very name of being so is sufficient to absolve you to yourself, for any act of kindness you may bestow upon me; be generous, then, and be assured it shall be an inviolable secret.'
She was about to say something, but he stopped her mouth with kisses, and forced her to sit down in a chair; where, holding her fast, her ruin had certainly been compleated, if a loud knocking at the door had not prevented him from prosecuting his design.
This was the brother of Miss Betsy, who having been at her lodgings, on his coming from thence met the footman, who had been sent to acquaint the family the ladies would not dine at home; he asked where his sister was, and, the fellow having told him, came directly to the place. A waiter of the house shewed him to the room: on finding it locked he was strangely amazed; and both knocked and called to have it opened, with a great deal of vehemence.
This gentleman-commoner knowing his voice, was shocked to the last degree, but quitted that instant his intended prey, and let him enter. Mr. Francis, on coming in, knew not what to think; he saw the gentleman in great disorder, and his sister in much more. 'What is the meaning of this?' said he. 'Sister, how came you here?'—'Ask me no questions at present,' replied she, scarce able to speak, so strangely had her late fright seized on her spirits; 'but see me safe from this cursed house, and that worst of men.' Her speaking in this manner made Mr. Francis apprehend the whole, and perhaps more than the truth. 'How, Sir,' said he, darting a furious look at the gentleman-commoner, 'what is it I hear?—Have you dared to—' 'Whatever I have dared to,' interrupted the other, 'I am capable of defending.'—'It is well,' rejoined the brother of Miss Betsy, 'perhaps I may put you to the trial: but this is not a time or place.' He then took hold of his sister's hand, and led her down stairs: as they were going out, Miss Betsy stopping a little to adjust her dress, which was strangely disordered, she bethought herself of Miss Flora; who, though she was very angry with, she did not chuse to leave behind at the mercy of such rakes, as she had reason to think those were whom she had been in company with. Just as she was desiring of her brother to send a waiter in search of that young lady, they saw her coming out of the garden, led by the young student who, as soon as he beheld Mr. Francis, cried, 'Ha! Frank, how came you here? you look out of humour.'—'How I came here, it matters not,' replied he sullenly; 'and as to my being out of humour, perhaps you may know better than I yet do what cause I have for being so.'
He waited for no answer to these words; but conducted his sister out of the house as hastily as he could: Miss Flora followed, after having taken leave of her companion in what manner she thought proper.
On their coming home, Miss Betsy related to her brother, as far as her modesty would permit, all the particulars of the adventure, and ended with saying, that sure it was Heaven alone that gave her strength to prevent the perpetration of the villain's intentions. Mr. Francis, all the time she was speaking, bit his lips, and shewed great tokens of an extraordinary disturbance in his mind; but offered not the least interruption. When he perceived she had done, 'Well, sister,' said he, 'I shall hear what he has to say, and will endeavour to oblige him to ask your pardon.' And soon after took his leave.
Miss Betsy did not very well comprehend his meaning in these words; and was, indeed, still in too much confusion to consider on any thing; but what the consequences were of this transaction, the reader will presently be informed of.
CHAPTER IX
Contains such things as might be reasonably expected, after the preceding adventure
When in any thing irregular, and liable to censure, more persons than one are concerned, how natural is it for each to accuse the other; and it often happens, in this case, that the greatest part of the blame falls on the least culpable.
After Mr. Francis had left the ladies, in order to be more fully convinced in this matter, and to take such measures as he thought would best become him for the reparation of the affront offered to the honour of his family, Miss Flora began to reproach Miss Betsy for having related any thing of what had passed to her brother: 'By your own account,' said she, 'no harm was done to you: but some people love to make a bustle about nothing.'—'And some people,' replied Miss Betsy, tartly, 'love nothing but the gratification of their own passions; and having no sense of virtue and modesty themselves, can have no regard to that of another.'—'What do you mean, Miss?' cried the other, with a pert air. 'My meaning is pretty plain,' rejoined Miss Betsy: 'but since you affect so much ignorance, I must tell you, that the expectations of a second edition of the same work Mr. Gayland had helped you to compose, though from another quarter, tempted you to sneak out of the room, and leave your friend in danger of falling a sacrifice to what her soul most detests and scorns.' These words stung Miss Flora to the quick; her face was in an instant covered with a scarlet blush, and every feature betrayed the confusion of her mind: but recovering herself from it much sooner than most others of her age could have done; 'Good lack,' cried she, 'I fancy you are setting up for a prude: but, pray, how came Mr. Gayland into your head?—What! because I told you he innocently romped with me one day in the chamber, are you so censorious as to infer any thing criminal passed between us?'—'Whatever I infer,' replied Miss Betsy, disdainfully, 'I have better vouchers for the truth of, than your report; and would advise you, when you go home, to get the chink in the pannel of the wainscot of my lady's dressing room stopped up, or your next rendezvous with that gentleman may possibly have witnesses of more ill-nature than myself.'—'That can scarcely be,' said Miss Flora, ready to burst with vexation: 'but don't think I value your little malice; you are only angry because he slighted the advances you made him, and took all opportunities to shew how much his heart and judgment gave the preferences to me.' These words so piqued the vanity of Miss Betsy, that, not able to bear she should continue in the imagination of being better liked than herself, though even by the man she hated, told her the solicitations he had made to her, the letter she had received from him, and the rebuff she had given him upon it; 'So that,' pursued she, 'it was not till after he found there was no hope of gaining me, that he carried his devoirs to you.'
Miss Flora was more nettled at this eclaircissement than she was at the discovery she now perceived the other had made of her intrigue: she pretended, however, not to believe a word of what she had said; but willing to evade all farther discourse on that head, returned to the adventure they had just gone through with the Oxonians. 'Never expect,' said she, 'to pass it upon any one of common sense, that if you had not a mind to have been alone with that terrible man, as you now describe him, you would have staid in the room after I was gone, and called to you to follow.'
It was in vain that Miss Betsy denied she either heard her speak, or knew any thing of her departure, till some time after she was gone, and the gentleman-commoner began to use her with such familiarities as convinced her he was sensible no witnesses were present. This, though no more than truth, was of no consequence to her justification, to one determined to believe the worst, or at least seem to do so: Miss Flora treated with contempt all she said on this score, derided her imprecations; and, to mortify her the more, said to her, in a taunting manner, 'Come, come, Miss Betsy, it is a folly to think to impose upon the world by such shallow artifices.