Mrs. Jennings having made her acknowledgments for these kind assurances, respectfully withdrew, and hastened to communicate intelligence so consolatory to her beloved charge, happy to find herself in a great degree relieved from an anxious responsibility, which had put her upon assuming a reserve, much more rigid and punctilious than was natural to her character.
CHAPTER IV.
Occurrences at Glen Morgan.
In the evening of this very day, after all the melancholy duties incidental to it had been discharged, John De Lancaster detached himself from the company, and striking into a gloomy walk of unclipt yew trees, appertaining to what by courtesy was called the pleasure ground, at the extremity of it surprised Amelia, solitary and unconscious of his approach, reposing herself on a seat under the shade of a tree, whose branches through their openings gave a glimpse of her figure, which might well have escaped any eyes but those of a lover.
Upon discovering him as he approached, the timid damsel started from her seat, and was preparing to withdraw, when with that gentle action, which more resembles intercession than compulsion having induced her to resume her seat, he said—It has been a long and tedious banishment, to which your governess condemned me: and since my good fortune has now thrown an opportunity in my way, which I have ardently wished for, and of which I may honourably avail myself, don’t think me too importunate, if I solicit you to give me a hearing whilst I discharge my conscience of a duty, that I owe to the parent, whom we have this day followed to the grave. Perhaps Miss Jones, you are not apprised by what solemn obligations I am bound to consider your honour, interest and happiness unalienably connected and interwoven with my own. How dear you were to my departed mother I well know; what I professed to you in our first and only interview I religiously bear in mind: I have every impression of your merit, every sensibility of your charms both of mind and person, that our very short acquaintance could inspire, and by the sacred solemnity of this day I swear to you, that, if Heaven grants me life, I will live to your service.
Mr. De Lancaster, she replied, though I cannot at this moment find expressions for my gratitude, I hope you will believe, that, if I felt it less, I could express it better. It is indeed a very long time since you honoured me with your visit, and of course this is the very first instant I can profit by for returning my most heart-felt thanks for your invaluable present, which by some misunderstanding on the part of Mrs. Jennings I have till now unhappily been deprived of doing. As I did not know that you had been the bearer of that kind present till after you had left the house, I must not presume to judge of your reasons for resenting the reception, that you met with from the lady, under whose care I am; but I may venture to assure you, it was never her intention to give offence to Mr. De Lancaster, and I must leave it with yourself to reflect, whether it is consistent with your idea of what is just and right to harbour a lasting resentment for an unpremeditated trespass.
If you judge me by appearances, Miss Jones, he replied, I may suffer in your good opinion; but in absenting myself from Mrs. Jennings’s house I conceive I only acted as every man of honour ought to act towards a lady, who gave him clearly to understand that his visits were unwelcome. You may not have been informed that the very first time I waited upon you at Denbigh she intimated this to me most pointedly by letter, and when a second time I was not suffered to deliver into your hands what I had in charge to give you from my mother, judge if I could so misunderstand either her or myself, as ever to intrude again, and provoke her to give me a more explicit dismission.
Alas, sir, replied Amelia, how it came to pass, that Mrs. Jennings so misjudged the case I know not; but that she is incapable of a designed affront I am perfectly persuaded. You well know the situation, in which we jointly stand towards the families of De Lancaster and Morgan, which meet and centre in your single person; and I think you cannot fail to find good reason on our part, why we should not wilfully fail in respect towards those, upon whose bounty we subsist.
Ah lovely Amelia, exclaimed the enamoured youth, when you humble yourself to speak of obligations to my family in these terms, you compel me to declare to you, that I have no higher ambition at my heart, nor is there any prouder honour I can aspire to, than to render myself in time not totally unworthy of a place in your esteem: you must suffer me to tell you, that such was the impression I received upon the sight of you, when I was bearer of the token, which the poor soldier was entrusted with, and so ardent was my desire to avail myself of the introduction, which my departed mother’s commission for the second time afforded me, that the unexpected cold reception I encountered from your governess was such a cutting disappointment, that I could not conquer my ungovernable temper, and was driven to commit a thousand wild extravagancies, that upon reflection I am ashamed of: therefore it was, that upon self-examination discovering my unworthiness, and want of education to correct my errors, I avoided all society but of my teacher and my books, and laboured diligently to retrieve the time, that I had lost. How far I may have succeeded time must show: all I can say for myself is, that I have not been sparing of my efforts, and if henceforward I may be favoured with access to you, I shall have an object in my view, whose approbation, if I can deserve it and obtain it, will be the highest reward this world can give me, and the one great blessing of my life.
He had, whilst he was addressing her in these emphatic words, taken her hand in his, and she now for sometime, without attempting to withdraw it, sate silent, meditative, with her eyes fixt upon the ground, and her face suffused with blushes.
The terms, in which she had heard herself addressed, were such as could not be misunderstood; it is natural also to suppose they could not be unwelcome: they certainly demanded an answer, but how to shape that answer between the extremes of too much and too little sensibility was to the modest, unassuming, diffident Amelia an embarassment that her inexperience was not qualified to surmount. She had however made an effort to attempt some general acknowledgments, better graced and easier to be understood by the look and action that accompanied them than by the language, when the sudden approach of Cecilia in an instant dispelled both the pleasure and the pain of this unfinished explanation, and gave her to understand that Mr. De Lancaster had something to impart to her, and was anxiously expecting the pleasure of her company.