“Do you think, then,” said Amanda, “I would enter your family amidst confusion and altercation? No, my lord, rashly or clandestinely I never will consent to enter it.”
“Is this the happiness I promised myself would crown our reconciliation?” exclaimed Lord Mortimer, rising hastily and traversing the apartment. “Is an obstinate adherence to rigid punctilio the only proof of regard I shall receive from Amanda? Will she make no trifling sacrifice to the man who adores her, and whom she professes to esteem?”
“Any sacrifice, my lord, compatible with virtue and filial duty, most willingly would I make; but beyond these limits I must not, cannot, will not step. Cold, joyless, and unworthy of your acceptance would be the hand you would receive if given against my conviction of what was right. Oh, never may the hour arrive in which I should blush to see my father; in which I should be accused of injuring the honor intrusted to my charge, and feel oppressed with the consciousness of having planted thorns in the breast that depended on me for happiness.”
“Do not be too inflexible, my Amanda,” cried Lord Mortimer, resuming his seat, “nor suffer too great a degree of refinement to involve you in wretchedness; felicity is seldom attained without some pain; a little resolution on your side would overcome any difficulties that lay between us and it; when the act was past, my father would naturally lose his resentment, from perceiving its inefficacy, and family concord would speedily be restored. Araminta adores you; with rapture would she receive her dear and lovely sister to her bosom; your father, happy in your happiness, would be convinced his notions heretofore were too scrupulous, and that in complying with my wishes you had neither violated your own delicacy nor tarnished his honor.”
“Ah, my lord, your arguments have not the effect you desire. I cannot be deluded by them, to view things in the light you wish. To unite myself clandestinely to you would be to fly in the face of parental authority; to be proposed to Lord Cherbury, when almost certain of a refusal, would not only subject me to insult, but dissolve the friendship which has hitherto subsisted between his lordship and my father. Situated as we are, our only expedient is to separate; ’tis absurd to think longer of a connection against which there are such obstacles; the task of trying to forget will be easier to you, my lord, than you now perhaps imagine; the scenes you must be engaged in are well calculated to expunge painful remembrances; in the retirement my destiny has doomed me to my efforts will not be wanting to render me equally successful.”
The tears trickled down Amanda’s pale cheeks as she spoke; she believed that they must part, and the belief was attended with a pang of unutterable anguish: pleased and pained by her sensibility, Lord Mortimer bent forward and looked into her face.
“Are these tears,” said he, “to enforce me to the only expedient you say remains? Ah, my Amanda,” clasping her to his breast, “the task of forgetting you could never be accomplished—could never be attempted; life would be tasteless if not spent with you; never will I relinquish the delightful hope of a union yet taking place. A sudden thought,” resumed he, after pausing a few minutes, “has just occurred. I have an aunt, the only remaining sister of Lord Cherbury, a generous, tender, exalted woman; I have ever been her particular favorite; my Amanda, I know, is the very kind of being she would select, if the choice devolved on her, for my wife: she is now in the country; I will write immediately, inform her of our situation, and entreat her to come up to town to use her influence with my father in our favor. Her fortune is large, from the bequest of a rich relation; and from the generosity of her disposition I have no doubt she would render the loss of Lady Euphrasia’s fortune very immaterial to her brother. This is the only scheme I can possibly devise for the completion of our happiness, according to your notions, and I hope it meets your approbation.”
It appeared indeed, a feasible one to Amanda; and as it could not possibly excite any ideas unfavorable to her father’s integrity, she gave her consent to its being tried.
Her heart felt relieved of an oppressive load, as the hope revived that it might be accomplished. Lord Mortimer wiped away her tears; and the cloud which hung over them both being dispersed, they talked with pleasure of future days. Lord Mortimer described the various schemes he had planned for their mode of life. Amanda smiled at the easiness with which he contrived them, and secretly wished he might find it as easy to realize as to project.
“Though the retired path of life,” said he, “might be more agreeable to us than the frequented and public one, we must make some little sacrifice of inclination to the community to which we belong. On an elevated station and affluent fortune there are claims from subordinate ranks which cannot be avoided without injuring them. Neither should I wish to hide the beautiful gem I shall possess in obscurity; but, after a winter of what I call moderate dissipation, we will hasten to the sequestered shades of Tudor Hall.” He dwelt with pleasure on the calm and rational joys they should experience there; nor could forbear hinting at the period when new tendernesses, new sympathies, would be awakened in their souls; when little prattling beings should frolic before them, and literally strew roses in their paths. He expressed his wish of having Fitzalan a constant resident with them: and was proceeding to mention some alterations he intended at Tudor Hall, when the return of Lady Greystock’s carriage effectually disturbed him. Lord Mortimer, however, had time to assure Amanda, ere she entered the room, that he had no doubt but everything would be soon settled according to their wishes, and that he would take every opportunity her ladyship’s absence gave him of visiting her.