"I have long been very desirous to make your acquaintance: will you let me? A friend of mine has told me something about you; but I am afraid you were then only laughing at me; et il se peut, qu'un homme passé, ne soit bon que pour cela! I hope, at all events, that you will write me one line, to say you forgive me, and direct it to my house in town.
"P."
I will not attempt to describe all I felt on the receipt of this first epistle from Lord Ponsonby. I am now astonished at that infatuation, which could render a girl like me possessed certainly of a very feeling, affectionate heart, thus thoughtless and careless of the fate of another: and that other a young, innocent and lovely wife! Had anybody reminded me that I was now about to inflict perhaps the deepest wound in the breast of an innocent wife, I hope and believe I should have stopped there; and then what pain and bitter anguish I had been spared; but I declare to my reader that Lady Fanny Ponsonby never once entered my head.
I had seen little or nothing of the world. I never possessed a really wise friend, to set me right, advise or admonish me. My mother had ever seemed happiest in my father's absence, nor did she vex or trouble herself to watch his steps; and I did not know, or at all events I did not think, my seeking Lord Ponsonby's acquaintance would be likely to injure any one of my fellow creatures; or I am sure such a reflection must have embittered that pure state of happiness I now enjoyed.
This was my answer to Lord Ponsonby's letter:
"For the last five months I have scarcely lived but in your sight, and everything I have done or wished, or hoped or thought about, has had a reference to you and your happiness. Now tell me what you wish.
"HARRIETTE."
Reply:
"I fancy, though we never met, that you and I are in fact acquainted, and understand each other perfectly. If I do not affect to disbelieve you, you will not say I am vain; and when I tell you that we cannot meet immediately, owing to a very severe domestic calamity, you will not say I am cold. In the meantime will you write to me? The little watch I have got for you, I am not quite satisfied with. I have seen one in better taste, and flatter. But my poor father is dying and counts the minutes of my absence, or I could have found one to please you. However, you will keep this for my sake. I will leave it myself at your house this evening. I can scarcely describe to you how exhausted I am; for I have passed the whole of the three last nights by the bedside of my sick father, without rest. I know he will have your prayers. At midnight, let us pray for him, together. He has been suffering more than five months. Adieu, dear Harriette."
Lord Ponsonby's solitary rides with his dog, his paleness, and that melancholy expression of countenance, which at once interested me so deeply, were now accounted for. During three weeks more we corresponded daily. His father continued to exist, and that was all. I learned from his lordship's letters that, on the night we saw him for a few moments at the opera, his father was pronounced out of danger, and country-air was recommended to him, which, having produced no favourable change, nothing now could save him. My happiness, while that correspondence went on, was the purest, the most exalted, and the least allied to sensuality, of any I ever experienced in my life. Ponsonby, I conceived, was now mine, by right mine, by that firm courage which made me feel ready to endure any imaginable evil for his sake. I was morally certain that nothing in existence could love Lord Ponsonby, or could feel the might and majesty of his peculiarly intellectual beauty as I did.
"My beloved," so he wrote to me at last, "my spirits and health fail me; they are worn out and exhausted, with this close confinement. My poor father no longer suffers, or is scarcely sensible. My brother George will take my place by his bedside. Let us meet this evening, and you will console me. I shall go to you at nine."
Lord Ponsonby was then coming to me at last! I began to fear the expression of his eyes, so penetrating, so very bright. I began to think myself under the influence of a dream, and that he was not coming; then I feared sudden death would deprive me of him. I heard the knock, and his footsteps on the stairs; and then that most godlike head uncovered, that countenance, so pale, so still, and so expressive, the mouth of such perfect loveliness; the fine clear, transparent, dark skin. I looked earnestly in his face, I watched for that characteristic blush which made me fancy his body thought, to be certain of my own happiness! and then my overflowing heart was relieved by a flood of tears.