Every body must ultimately judge of what makes them happy, from the comparison of their own feelings in different situations. Belinda was convinced by this comparison, that domestic life was that which could alone make her really and permanently happy. She missed none of the pleasures, none of the gay company, to which she had been accustomed at Lady Delacour’s. She was conscious, at the end of each day, that it had been agreeably spent; yet there were no extraordinary exertions made to entertain her; every thing seemed in its natural course, and so did her mind. Where there was so much happiness, no want of what is called pleasure was ever experienced. She had not been at Oakly-park a week before she forgot that it was within a few miles of Harrowgate, and she never once recollected her vicinity to this fashionable water-drinking place for a month afterwards.
“Impossible!” some young ladies will exclaim. We hope others will feel that it was perfectly natural. But to deal fairly with our readers, we must not omit to mention a certain Mr. Vincent, who came to Oakly-park during the first week of Belinda’s visit, and who stayed there during the whole succeeding month of felicity. Mr. Vincent was a creole; he was about two-and-twenty: his person and manners were striking and engaging; he was tall, and remarkably handsome; he had large dark eyes, an aquiline nose, fine hair, and a manly sunburnt complexion; his countenance was open and friendly, and when he spoke upon any interesting subject, it lighted up, and became full of fire and animation. He used much gesture in conversation; he had not the common manners of young men who are, or who aim at being thought, fashionable, but he was perfectly at ease in company, and all that was uncommon about him appeared foreign. He had a frank, ardent temper, incapable of art or dissimulation, and so unsuspicious of all mankind, that he could scarcely believe falsehood existed in the world, even after he had himself been its dupe. He was in extreme astonishment at the detection of any species of baseness in a gentleman; for he considered honour and generosity as belonging indefeasibly, if not exclusively, to the privileged orders. His notions of virtue were certainly aristocratic in the extreme, but his ambition was to entertain such only as would best support and dignify an aristocracy. His pride was magnanimous, not insolent; and his social prejudices were such as, in some degree, to supply the place of the power and habit of reasoning, in which he was totally deficient. One principle of philosophy he practically possessed in perfection; he enjoyed the present, undisturbed by any unavailing regret for the past, or troublesome solicitude about the future. All the goods of life he tasted with epicurean zest; all the evils he bore with stoical indifference. The mere pleasure of existence seemed to keep him in perpetual good humour with himself and others; and his never-failing flow of animal spirits exhilarated even the most phlegmatic. To persons of a cold and reserved temper he sometimes appeared rather too much of an egotist: for he talked with fluent enthusiasm of the excellent qualities and beauties of whatever he loved, whether it were his dog, his horse, or his country: but this was not the egotism of vanity; it was the overflowing of an affectionate heart, confident of obtaining sympathy from his fellow-creatures, because conscious of feeling it for all that existed.
He was as grateful as he was generous; and though high-spirited and impatient of restraint, he would submit with affectionate gentleness to the voice of a friend, or listen with deference to the counsel of those in whose superior judgment he had confidence. Gratitude, respect, and affection, all conspired to give Mr. Percival the strongest power over his soul. Mr. Percival had been a guardian and a father to him. His own father, an opulent merchant, on his death-bed requested that his son, who was then about eighteen, might be immediately sent to England for the advantages of a European education. Mr. Percival, who had a regard for the father, arising from circumstances which it is not here necessary to explain, accepted the charge of young Vincent, and managed so well, that his ward when he arrived at the age of twenty-one did not feel relieved from any restraint. On the contrary, his attachment to his guardian increased from that period, when the laws gave him full command over his fortune and his actions. Mr. Vincent had been at Harrowgate for some time before Mr. Percival came into the country; but as soon as he heard of Mr. Percival’s arrival, he left half finished a game of billiards, of which, by-the-bye, he was extremely fond, to pay his respects at Oakly-park. At the first sight of Belinda, he did not seem much struck with her appearance; perhaps, from his thinking that there was too little languor in her eyes, and too much colour in her cheeks; he confessed that she was graceful, but her motions were not quite slow enough to please him.
It is somewhat singular that Lady Delacour’s faithful friend, Harriot Freke, should be the cause of Mr. Vincent’s first fixing his favourable attention on Miss Portman.
He had a black servant of the name of Juba, who was extremely attached to him: he had known Juba from a boy, and had brought him over with him when he first came to England, because the poor fellow begged so earnestly to go with young massa. Juba had lived with him ever since, and accompanied him wherever he went. Whilst he was at Harrowgate, Mr. Vincent lodged in the same house with Mrs. Freke. Some dispute arose between their servants, about the right to a coach-house, which each party claimed as exclusively their own. The master of the house was appealed to by Juba, who sturdily maintained his massa’s right; he established it, and rolled his massa’s curricle into the coach-house in triumph. Mrs. Freke, who heard and saw the whole transaction from her window, said, or swore, that she would make Juba repent of what she called his insolence. The threat was loud enough to reach his ears, and he looked up in astonishment to hear such a voice from a woman; but an instant afterwards he began to sing very gaily, as he jumped into the curricle to turn the cushions, and then danced himself up and down by the springs, as if rejoicing in his victory. A second and a third time Mrs. Freke repeated her threat, confirming it by an oath, and then violently shut down the window and disappeared. Mr. Vincent, to whom Juba, with much simplicity, expressed his aversion of the man-woman who lived in the house with them, laughed at the odd manner in which the black imitated her voice and gesture, but thought no more of the matter. Some time afterward, however, Juba’s spirits forsook him; he was never heard to sing or to whistle, he scarcely ever spoke even to his master, who was much surprised by this sudden change from gaiety and loquacity to melancholy taciturnity. Nothing could draw from the poor fellow any explanation of the cause of this alteration in his humour; and though he seemed excessively grateful for the concern which his master showed about his health, no kindness or amusement could restore him to his wonted cheerfulness. Mr. Vincent knew that he was passionately fond of music; and having heard him once express a wish for a tambourine, he gave him one: but Juba never played upon it, and his spirits seemed every day to grow worse and worse. This melancholy lasted during the whole time that he remained at Harrowgate, but from the first day of his arrival at Oakly-park he began to mend: after he had been there a week, he was heard to sing, and whistle, and talk as he used to do, and his master congratulated him upon his recovery. One evening his master asked him to go back to Harrowgate for his tambourine, as little Charles Percival wished to hear him play upon it. This simple request had a wonderful effect upon poor Juba; he began to tremble from head to foot, his eyes became fixed, and he stood motionless; after some time, he suddenly clasped his hands, fell upon his knees, and exclaimed:
“Oh, massa, Juba die! If Juba go back, Juba die!” and he wiped away the drops that stood upon his forehead. “But me will go, if massa bid—me will die!”
Mr. Vincent began to imagine that the poor fellow was out of his senses. He assured him, with the greatest kindness, that he would almost as soon hazard his own life as that of such a faithful, affectionate servant; but he pressed him to explain what possible danger he dreaded from returning to Harrowgate. Juba was silent, as if afraid to speak—“Don’t fear to speak to me,” said Mr. Vincent; “I will defend you: if anybody have injured you, or if you dread that any body will injure you, trust to me; I will protect you.”
“Ah, massa, you no can! Me die, if me go back! Me no can say word more;” and he put his finger upon his lips, and shook his head. Mr. Vincent knew that Juba was excessively superstitious; and convinced, that, if his mind were not already deranged, it would certainly become so, were any secret terror thus to prey upon his imagination, he assumed a very grave countenance, and assured him, that he should be extremely displeased if he persisted in this foolish and obstinate silence. Overcome by this, Juba burst into tears, and answered:
“Den me will tell all.”
This conversation passed before Miss Portman and Charles Percival, who were walking in the park with Mr. Vincent, at the time he met Juba and asked him to go for the tambourine. When he came to the words, “Me will tell all,” he made a sign that he wished to tell it to his master alone. Belinda and the little boy walked on, to leave him at liberty to speak; and then, though with a sort of reluctant horror, he told that the figure of an old woman, all in flames, had appeared to him in his bedchamber at Harrowgate every night, and that he was sure she was one of the obeah-women of his own country, who had pursued him to Europe to revenge his having once, when he was a child, trampled upon an egg-shell that contained some of her poisons. The extreme absurdity of this story made Mr. Vincent burst out a laughing; but his humanity the next instant made him serious; for the poor victim of superstitious terror, after having revealed what, according to the belief of his country, it is death to mention, fell senseless on the ground. When he came to himself, he calmly said, that he knew he must now die, for that the obeah-women never forgave those that talked of them or their secrets; and, with a deep groan, he added, that he wished he might die before night, that he might not see her again. It was in vain to attempt to reason him out of the idea that he had actually seen this apparition: his account of it was, that it first appeared to him in the coach-house one night, when he went thither in the dark—that he never afterwards went to the coach-house in the dark—but that the same figure of an old woman, all in flames, appeared at the foot of his bed every night whilst he stayed at Harrowgate; and that he was then persuaded she would never let him escape from her power till she had killed him. That since he had left Harrowgate, however, she had not tormented him, for he had never seen her, and he was in hopes that she had forgiven him; but that now he was sure of her vengeance for having spoken of her.