LETTER XVII
FROM LORD FILMAR
TO
SIR WALTER BOYER
A pleasant journey be thine, Walter; but if this sudden trip be meant to evade the consequences of my wrath it was unnecessary. Truly I forgave you on the spot, in consequence of the very ridiculous situation you were in, turning with beseeching looks to me for pardon and stammering contradiction after contradiction to Montgomery, which served only to confirm the suspicions in his mind your foolish audible whisper had occasioned.
How guarded have I always been when Montgomery spoke of the Valmonts; and little did I suppose, though I knew your talent, when I urged him to show you the picture you could forget your caution. Your shrug, your leer, your whisper struck Montgomery dumb; and to my explanation he appeared no less deaf. Yesterday he did not keep his appointment with me.—We accidentally met in the evening (where it had been better we had neither been) but he was distant and embarrassed.
Scarcely had Griffiths begun the honours of my head this morning, than Montgomery was announced and condescended to amuse himself with Rosetta and Ponto in the drawing-room till the business of my sitting was at an end.
'Oh! by heaven,' he cried, as I entered the room, 'you would at this moment be irresistible!—Health, vigour, proportion, and the face of an Apollo! Luckless be ever the youth who shall presume to rival you'—I'll give you ten guineas for Rosetta, Filmar. Will you sell her?'
'No, I will not, Montgomery; though you seem so well to understand our mutual value.'
He drew from his pocket the very miniature in the shagreen case: your stumbling-block, Walter.
'Do me the honour, Filmar, to accept this from me.'
'Miss Valmont's picture!—and of your painting!—You are delirious, Montgomery!'
'Faith, not I!—never more rational in my life, as this very action evinces. Exquisitely divinely charming as she is, who would stand a competition against your person, rank, and happy influence with Mr. Valmont.'
'Influence with Mr. Valmont!'
'Inimitable!' cried he.—'You overwhelm me with your perfections this morning. How natural that start? nor do you forget the grace of the attitude, I perceive. It is too late, Filmar. Be candid. We will not quarrel; for, as you have so much the start of me in her uncle's approbation, I must resign with a good grace. Can I do more than even yield to my rival that resemblance of her enchanting face? All I ask in return is to oblige me in kind offices with Mr. Valmont.—'Tis a curst strange business to be sure, but, on my soul, Mr. Valmont sent me to town to study!—I have no time to spare, as yet.—Mum! you know, as to my employments.—I shall reform ere long.'
'Send you to London to study!—Ha! ha! ha!'
'Yes by heaven he did!—To this emporium of delight!—A strange being!'
'And so are you; for, Montgomery, if I understand your meaning concerning Mr. and Miss Valmont, may I—.'
'S'death, my Lord, Sir Walter's strange speech and your confusion kept me awake two hours! Upon my soul, you have seen her! I know you have; and I am sure Mr. Valmont wouldn't suffer any man in the kingdom to look at her, except the one whom he designs for her husband. Everything corroborates the fact. You told me the Earl knew Mr. Valmont; but did you ever hint, in the most remote way, that you had been in the castle, till Sir Walter's question obliged you to have recourse to that portrait in the drawing room, to excuse the implication?—Ah, Filmar!—A divinity is destined for your arms, whilst I must sigh in secret over the remembrance of past hopes!'
'You won't sigh alone, Montgomery. You don't profess anchorism. There are other divinities.'
He smiled one of those enchanting smiles which will probably reduce many such divinities into frail mortals. And then he enumerated, in the way of exclamation, a number of his favourite beauties.
'No wonder you want to give up Miss Valmont,' said I, 'you that are the favoured of so many.'
'Want to give up Miss Valmont! Lord God, how can you talk so ridiculously, Filmar? Want to give up an angel, with whom it were life to die, to live from whom is death! Is she not torn from my arms? Am I not interdicted, and another elected? By heavens! my Lord, your secresy was unkind, but this triumph is insulting!'
And thus, Walter, we passed away the morning:—he, affirming; I denying. I fairly overshot my mark in leading him to talk so often of Sibella; for he has tacked together such a number of scraps and ends, that, with the aid of his colouring, make proofs as strong as proofs of holy writ.—Well, and if he does speak of me in this way to Mr. Valmont? The man suspected me before, and all he can now do is to clap another padlock on his caution.
There is something unmanly in Montgomery's conduct. With studied vehemence of lamentation he recanted his many many former insinuations of his constant security in Miss Valmont's favour; and, unless it was a preconcerted plan between them, (which I do not think possible) his voluntary resignation of her picture stamps him a contemptible——. My fingers had a kind of tremulous impulse towards the picture; yet I positively refused to accept it; a double dose of prudence this morning made some amends for its total absence last evening. 'Tis too true, Walter; I left the club again without a penny. The Earl will not be in town till next week; and till I am in cash I cannot invent or contrive a probable means of saving my friend Montgomery the disgrace of being mistaken.
This youth makes a rapid progress in the sciences. He was as completely inducted last night as your humble servant. His tutor, Janetta Laundy, also is most admirably chosen; and if Valmont deems that to be a dupe with a beggared purse, and shattered constitution, is the antidote against society, Montgomery is going the high road to answer all his wishes.
Your hint, dear knight, respecting Mrs. Ashburn, was not lost upon me; but, though I would not marry for aught but money, I should like to have a wife thrown into the bargain whom I could love now and then. I acknowledge the widow is as young as any woman (of her years) I ever saw in my life; and in wealth I should be an emperor. But indeed, Walter, I could ruin myself as effectually, I feel I could, I have all the laudable inclinations necessary thereto, with a large fortune as with a moderate one; and then age will come, and gout, and bile, and ill tempers, and no sweet remembrances of smiles, of dimpling cheeks, of melting eyes, to cheer me!—Were the widow once turned of eighty, the charms of youth and beauty should not tempt me from her.—As it is, I could like her daughter better.—Ah, but Miss Ashburn's is a searching eye! She would enquire for thy passport of virtue and morality, Filmar!
You perceive plainly, don't you, Walter, that I have no alternative but taking Sibella Valmont with her 7,000l. per annum? You have now seen her picture, tell me, is she not unequalled? And may I not sometimes, without any violent effort of self-denial, condescend to toy away an hour or two with (though my own wife) a creature so perfect? Walter! Walter! Could I drench in oblivion that youth with the flowing beard, I should be proud to acknowledge how often I dream of this little seducer!—As it certainly was not Montgomery, who could it be?—and why came he there? This interrogation is constantly served up with my breakfast, it even attends my undressing, and has been, not unfrequently, my bedfellow—The very quintessence of politeness, however, it never intrudes further than the door of the tavern or gaming-house. For the former, I now leave it and thee. Thine,
FILMAR