“Poor, unhappy young creature!” said Lady Martha, “I pity you from my soul! Ah! if your mind resembled your person, what a perfect creature had you been! How happy had then been my poor Mortimer!”
Now, now was the test, the shining test of Amanda’s virtue, agonized by knowing she had lost the good opinion of those whom she loved with such ardor, esteemed with such reverence. She knew by a few words she could explain the appearances which had deprived her of his good opinion, and fully regain it—regain, by a few words, the love, the esteem of her valued, her inestimable Mortimer—the affection, the protection, of his amiable aunt and sister. She leaned her head upon her hand, the weight on her bosom became less oppressive; she raised her head. “Of my innocence I can give such proofs,” cried she. Her lips closed, a mortal paleness overspread her face; the sound of suicide seemed piercing through her ear; she trembled; the solemn, the dreadful declaration Lord Cherbury had made of not surviving the disclosure of his secret, her promise of inviolably keeping it, both rushed upon her mind. She beheld herself on the very verge of a tremendous precipice, and about plunging herself and a fellow-creature into it, from whence, at the tribunal of her God, she would have to answer for accelerating the death of that fellow-creature. “And is it by a breach of faith?” she asked herself, “I hope to be reestablished in the opinion of Lord Mortimer and his relations. Ah! mistaken idea, and how great is the delusion passion spreads before our eyes, even if their esteem could be thus regained? Oh! what were that, or what the esteem, the plaudits of the world, if those of my own heart were gone forever! Oh! never!” cried she, still to herself, and raising her eyes to Heaven. “Oh! never may the pang of self-reproach be added to those which now oppress me!” Her heart at the moment formed a solemn vow never, by any wilful act, to merit such a pang. “And, oh, my God!” she cried, “forgive thy weak creature who, assailed by strong temptation, thought for a moment of wandering from the path of truth and integrity, which can alone conduct her to the region where peace and immortal glory will be hers.”
Amanda, amidst her powerful emotions, forgot she was observed, except by that Being to whom she applied for pardon and future strength. Lady Martha had been a silent spectator of her emotions, and, thinking as she did of Amanda, could only hope that they proceeded from contrition for her past conduct, forcibly awakened by reflecting on the deprivations it had caused her.
When she again saw Amanda able to pay attention, she addressed her: “I said I was sorry for witnessing your distress; I shall not repent the expression, thinking as I now do; I hope that it is occasioned by regret for past errors: the tears of repentance wash away the stains of guilt, and that heart must indeed be callous which the sigh of remorse will not melt to pity.” Amanda turned her eyes with earnestness on Lady Martha as she spoke, and her cheeks were again tinged with a faint glow.
“Perhaps I speak too plainly,” cried Lady Martha, witnessing this glow, and imputing it to resentment; “but I have ever liked the undisguised language of sincerity. It gave me pleasure,” she continued, “to hear you had been in employment at Mrs. Duncan’s, but that pleasure was destroyed by hearing you were going to London, though to seek your brother; Mrs. Duncan has informed Mrs. Macqueen. If this were indeed the motive, there are means of inquiring without taking so imprudent a step.” “Imprudent!” repeated Amanda, involuntarily. “Yes,” cried Lady Martha, “a journey so long, without a protector, to a young, I must add, a lovely woman, teems with danger, from which a mind of delicacy would shrink appalled. If, indeed, you go to seek your brother, and he regards you as he should, he would rather have you neglect him (though that you need not have done by staying with Mrs. Duncan), than run into the way of insults. No emergency in life should lead us to do an improper thing; as trying to produce good by evil is impious, so trying to produce pleasure by imprudence is folly; they are trials, however flatteringly they may commence, which are sure to end in sorrow and disappointment.
“You will,” continued Lady Martha, “if indeed anxious to escape from any farther censure than what has already fallen upon you, return to Mrs. Duncan, when I inform you (if indeed you are already ignorant of it) that Colonel Belgrave passed this road about a month ago, on his way from a remote part of Scotland to London, where he now is.” “I cannot help,” said Amanda, “the misconstructions which may be put on my actions; I can only support myself under the pain they inflict by conscious rectitude. I am shocked, indeed, at the surmises entertained about me, and a wretch whom my soul abhorred from the moment I knew his real principles.”
“If,” said Lady Martha, “your journey is really not prompted by the intention of seeing your brother, you heighten every other by duplicity.” “You are severe, madam,” exclaimed Amanda, in whose soul the pride of injured innocence was again reviving.
“If I probe the wound,” cried Lady Martha. “I would also wish to heal it. It is the wish I feel of saving a young creature from further error, of serving a being once so valued by him who possesses my first regard, that makes me speak as I now do. Return to Mrs. Duncan’s, prove in one instance at least you do not deserve suspicion. She is your friend, and in your situation a friend is too precious a treasure to run the risk of losing it with her; as she lives retired, there will be little danger of your history or real name being discovered, which I am sorry you dropped, let your motive for doing so be what it may, for the detection of one deception makes us suspect every other. Return, I repeat, to Mrs. Duncan’s, and if you want any inquiries made about your brother, dictate them, and I will take care they shall be made, and that you shall know their result.”
Had Amanda’s motive for a journey to London been only to seek her brother, she would gladly have accepted this offer, thus avoiding the imputation of travelling after Belgrave, or of going to join him, the hazard of encountering him in London, and the dangers of so long a journey; but the affair of the will required expedition, and her own immediate presence—an affair the injunction of Lady Dunreath had prohibited her disclosing to any one who could not immediately forward it, and which, if such an injunction never existed, she could not with propriety have divulged to Lady Martha, who was so soon to be connected with a family so materially concerned in it, and in whose favor, on account of her nephew’s connection with them, it was probable she might be biased.
Amanda hoped and believed that in a place so large as London, and with her assumed name (which she now resolved not to drop till in a more secure situation), she should escape Belgrave. As to meeting him on the road she had not the smallest apprehension concerning that, naturally concluding that he never would have taken so long a journey as he had lately done, if he could have stayed but a few weeks away. Time, she trusted, would prove the falsity of the inference, which she already was informed would be drawn from her persevering in her journey. She told Lady Martha “that she thanked her for her kind offer, but must decline it, as the line of conduct she had marked out for herself rendered it unnecessary whose innocence would yet be justified,” she added. Lady Martha shook her head; the consciousness of having excited suspicions which she could not justify, had indeed given to the looks of Amanda a confusion when she spoke which confirmed them in Lady Martha’s breast. “I am sorry for your determination,” said she, “but notwithstanding it is so contrary to my ideas of what is right, I cannot let you depart without telling you that, should you at any time want or require services, which you would, or could not, ask from strangers, or perhaps expect them to perform, acquaint me, and command mine; yet, in doing justice to my own feelings, I must not do injustice to the noble ones of Lord Mortimer. It is by his desire, as well as my own inclination, I now speak to you in this manner, though past events, and the situation he is about entering into, must forever preclude his personal interference in your affairs. He could never hear the daughter of Captain Fitzalan suffered inconveniency of any kind, without wishing, without having her, indeed, if possible, extricated from it.” “Oh! madam,” cried Amanda, unable to repress her gushing tears, “I am already well acquainted with the noble feelings of Lord Mortimer, already oppressed with a weight of obligations.” Lady Martha was affected by her energy; her eyes grew humid, and her voice softened. “Error in you will be more inexcusable than in others,” cried Lady Martha, “because, like too many unhappy creatures, you cannot plead the desertion of all the world. To regret past errors, be they what they may, is to insure my assistance and protection, if both, or either, are at any time required by you. Was I even gone, I should take care to leave a substitute behind me who should fulfil my intentions towards you, and by so doing at once soothe and gratify the feelings of Lord Mortimer.” “I thank you, madam,” cried Amanda, rising from her chair, and, as she wiped away her tears, summoning all her fortitude to her aid, “for the interest you express about me; the time may yet come, perhaps, when I shall prove I never was unworthy of exciting it—when the notice now offered from compassion may be tendered from esteem—then,” continued Amanda, who could not forbear this justice to herself, “the pity of Lady Martha Dormer will not humble but exalt me, because then I shall know that it proceeded from that generous sympathy which one virtuous mind feels for another in distress.” She moved to the door. “How lamentable,” said Lady Martha, “to have such talents misapplied!” “Ah! madam,” cried Amanda, stopping, and turning mournfully to her, “I find you are inflexible.”