The gay mornings of the regatta, dinner company every day, and dancing every evening continued for some time, while the very public attentions of his said lordship towards our heroine; and the jest, or, as it is technically phrased, the quiz about our hero and Lady Susan, tended to blind every one to the growth of the deep rooted attachment which was thus hourly possessing itself of every feeling and faculty of heart and of soul in Julia and in Edmund. Yet still were they brother and sister; and, in their own opinion, behaving with the greatest prudence; for love was not once mentioned by Edmund, and, as to Julia, she never even thought of it, she only felt it!
“How good, how amiable it is of Julia,” thought Edmund, “to be so kind to a friendless stranger!”
“Who could be unkind to Edmund!” thought Julia. “The gentleness of his manners win upon one so; the expression of his countenance is so interesting; his very smile is so nearly allied to melancholy that any one, with the least feeling, must dread the idea of causing him a moment’s pain.”
He, for his part, could not long deceive himself as to the nature of his own sentiments; but he thought there was no harm in cherishing them, while he could flatter himself that because he was not declaring he was concealing them. Or, had he thought otherwise, the temptation was, perhaps, too strong to be resisted.
He could not be blind to the pleasure with which Julia received every little mark of silent attention from him, and the blissful sensation which glowed within his breast at such moments was not to be foregone at the faint instigations of a judgment bewildered by the influence of an absorbing passion. Yet he certainly fancied, that it was only his own futurity he was sacrificing for a dream of present felicity. Whatever he sometimes felt Julia’s feelings to be, he undoubtedly always thought them the generous friendship she had promised him should ever be his; and he thus reasoned with himself, that, as she had distinctly permitted him to feel and declare a brother’s affection for her, it was to be expected, that she would receive with complacency those unpretending marks of regard which belong peculiarly to friendship. And, as Frances was often even more openly kind in her manner to him, all was, of course, as it should be. As to himself—it was no matter about himself! he even felt a kind of satisfaction in thinking, that when he could no longer enjoy the delirium of happiness under the dominion of which he now existed—when the hour of separation must come—why, then his misery should be as wild, as unlimited as his felicity was now! still would he watch for the dangerous smile, and when its light began to dawn on the features of Julia, he would have opened his heart to its intoxicating influence, had instantaneous death been the immediate and foreseen consequence. She often observed a shade of melancholy on the brow of Edmund, but she also observed that it gave way to sunny joy when a look, a word, or a smile of hers was directed towards him. To possess the power of giving happiness in a manner so easy and so innocent, to one for whom she did not deny that she had, all her life, had a very tender sisterly affection; to possess such a power and not to use it was not in the affectionate nature of Julia. She did exert it every day, every hour, and when she saw Edmund’s countenance light up with a beam caught from her smile, she felt a degree of pleasure that sometimes startled her; but she never ventured to ask herself whether or not all this was to lead to any ultimate results. Sometimes indeed, she recollected, with a sensation of panic, that Edmund must again leave Lodore House, must again return to the sea, to hardships, to dangers; and then she would strive to banish the scaring thoughts that crowded in upon her, but the next time she addressed Edmund, there would be a tenderness in the accents of her voice, a something indefinable in the expression of her eyes, that would shake his whole soul to its foundation, bewilder his every thought, undo his every resolve, and place him, passive as it were, in the hands of a fate, at once too overwhelming and too delightful to be resisted.
Meanwhile, the whirl of gaiety, the noise of merriment, was still going on around them. Frances was the ringleader of the quizzers of Lady Susan, and her ladyship evidently liked being quizzed, so that Frances did not think mercy necessary. The subject did not amuse Julia near so much as it did her sister, but then, Julia was always of a graver cast. As for Edmund, he considered the whole business so complete a jest, that he took it very good humouredly, and received Lady Susan’s attentions with great politeness. He even found it necessary, not unfrequently, to dance with her ladyship, or hand her in or out of a room, a carriage, or a boat, when he saw that she had actually been left for him. Sometimes too, he coloured and looked, involuntarily, towards Julia, when pert young ladies told him, that they looked upon him as no better than a married man! He coloured too, and more deeply, when men told him that, faith, he might make his fortune if he were not the most egregious blockhead in existence. That Lady Susan had fifty thousand pounds, was one of the best connexions in the kingdom, and a very pretty young woman beside, a thing scarcely to be looked for where so many other advantages were combined. Even Mrs. Montgomery and Mr. Jackson, agreed together, but privately, that Edmund was fortunate in the probability there was of his making so desirable a match.
They determined that it was best to let matters take their course, and not to say anything about it to Edmund. They also agreed that the subject was much too delicate to be mentioned to either Lord or Lady Arandale, who must themselves see what was going on. Lord and Lady Arandale, however, saw only that their daughter flirted a little, (a thing they were very well accustomed to see,) for the quizzing, which was the chief part of the business, was, of course, kept within decorous bounds in their presence. Julia, when the subject was long dwelt upon by others, sometimes felt not quite comfortable, (without, however, asking herself why,) and this uneasiness, slight as it was, vanished the moment she met the eye of Edmund, or that he spoke to her, on the most indifferent topic.
But to return to Mrs. Montgomery and Mr. Jackson, they were so extravagantly partial to Edmund themselves, and had for so many years strengthened each other in the belief that there was no doubt of his being the son of a noble family; no doubt, in short, of the truth of the statements in the nurse’s letter; that they did not see the impropriety of a match between him and Lady Susan in the glaring light in which it would have been viewed by most others. They thought their inward conviction that his birth was equal to her ladyship’s, when joined with his own great merit, his amiability in private, and high standing character in public life, quite sufficient to outweigh the trifling circumstances of their never having been able to discover, exactly, who he was; and of his having no property but his captain’s pay, and his fifteen thousand pounds prize-money. What Mrs. Montgomery might have thought of all this, had the subject been brought nearer home by the knowledge that it was to Julia Edmund was attached, it is hard to say; for the best of us can seldom judge impartially when we ourselves, or those we love, are concerned. There are few mothers who do not expect their sons to marry such women as, were they their daughters, they would not give to such men as their sons. But Mrs. Montgomery was spared all alarm respecting the intimacy between her grand-daughters and adopted son, by Edmund’s supposed sudden admiration of Lady Susan, commencing on the very evening of his arrival; and the fuss, as we before observed, which every one had since made, about their mutual attachment.
There was also another blind to Mrs. Montgomery’s penetration, in the marked and troublesome attentions of Henry to his cousin Julia, beside whom he was generally to be seen, while Edmund, by the contrivance of others, was dancing with or handing about Lady Susan. Mrs. Montgomery, in short, was very uneasy about it, and even lectured her nephew on the subject: for she knew how disagreeable such a thing would be to Lord L⸺. Lord Borrowdale, too, who would have been a perfectly eligible match, was equally marked in his attentions; yet it was impossible to say, which Julia preferred: she generally smiled and looked happy, and this was all that could be ascertained. The lovers the while, strange to say, had taken no alarm, if we except Edmund’s first day or two of endless fears; since which, a tacit, and, to themselves, unacknowledged conviction of each other’s affection, had grown up in the heart of each, keeping peace within in spite of all outward occurrences. The miseries of doubt, the tortures of alternate hopes and fears, were, alas! reserved for a future stage of their attachment.