“Indeed, madam, I have my reasons. Mr Menotti’s manner of life, his free language even in the company of ladies, and the indifferent esteem in which he is held by persons of honour, are sufficient reason for me.”
“Well,” says Mrs Freyne, as she left the room, “if you’ll do me the favour to look at yourself in the glass, miss, I think you’ll say that if Mr Menotti saw you now, your looks would be a sufficient reason for his not marrying you.”
“Ah,” I thought, “I see now why Mr Freyne has been urged on to force me into marrying the Captain, and why I have been sought to be privately dissuaded from the match. The Unknown was a true prophet.”
Now this slight encounter with Mrs Freyne proved a huge refreshment to me, so that I rose and summoned Marianna to dress my hair and help me change my gown. And, indeed, it was well that I did so, for before dinner, while it was still the heat of the day, I was told that Captain Colquhoun was again awaiting me in the saloon. I sought in vain to read his face when I entered the room, but as he led me to a seat I observed that he had a letter in his hand, which he presently opened, showing me that it had another enclosed in it.
“This pacquet,” madam, he said, “I found lying at my quarters when I returned from attending you this morning. I have brought it here because I fancied Miss Freyne might be able to help me respecting its contents.”
“Indeed, sir, I hope you’ll command me,” I said, out of measure astonished at such a sudden change of address.
“It comes,” he said, “from my cousin, the young gentleman that was staying with me a fortnight or so back. He begs me to deliver the enclosure to a lady of whom he is enamoured, and whom—so far as I can make out—he offended grievously before his departure, but he don’t mention the lady’s name. ’Tis a wild fantastical piece of writing, but he appears to consider I would know his mistress. Yesterday I would have returned him the paper, having no notion who the divinity might be, but this day has taught me more things than one. Have you any knowledge of the lady, madam?”
“Oh, sir,” all impatience, “pray, pray give it me.” The Captain laid the letter in my hand, but I delayed to open it, partly through a real misgiving, partly through a foolish readiness to tease myself by postponing my happiness. “It en’t directed to me, sir.”
“If you think it en’t designed for you, madam, pray hand it back to me with the seal unbroken,” says the Captain, in a severe voice of rebuke; but that I could not do. The horrid doubt that I might find the letter wrote after all to some other lady made my hands shake as I tore it open, but then I cried out with joy. Oh, the dear, blessed words, Amelia! fantastical, if you will (sure poor Fraser must have gathered ’em from a novel, as he did that unlucky expedient of his), but for all that the sweetest, the most charming that ever assured the fearful heart of a poor creature that had sad cause to mistrust her lover. I copy them for my dear friend:—
“To the incomparable Mrs Sylvia Freyne.