“If, madam, you deign to permit your eyes to rest upon the lines which the wretch who now addresses himself to you has dared to trace, it may perhaps serve to mitigate your just resentments when you learn that ever since he parted from you he has been a prey to the pangs of that remorse and contrition which is properly his lot. ’Tis true, he quitted your presence with an air of hardihood and bravado, as tho’ he had the effrontery to believe that he might remain unscathed by those arrows which had been planted in his guilty heart by your reproof of him, and this tho’ the wounds they caused (which have never ceased to throb and smart) were even then beginning to fester. The suffering wretch has no art to alleviate his pains, and in his despair he throws himself at the feet of the righteously offended charmer, to ask whether she who inflicted the hurts will be so divinely obliging as to chase ’em away. That the punishment is merited he dares not deny (yet not with such an affectation of humility as might seem to seek to disarm the just wrath of the lady to whom he applies himself), but will Miss Freyne’s tender heart permit her to use her suppliant as the savages of the Virginias their enemies—viz., to set ’em up and shoot arrows into them, and leave them to expire in their agony? Since quitting Calcutta, the miserable object of her displeasure has failed to enjoy a moment of ease from the torment of these cruel barbs in his vitals, and now, his vessel being forced by the stress of a storm to seek shelter in the port of Vizagapatnam, he gazes across the raging billows in the direction of the city that holds his mistress, and longs for the power of throwing himself in reality at her feet, where he might demand pardon too urgently to be withstood, and receive the assurance of his felicity from the kindest lips in the world. But honour draws him back to Madrass, for his orders were strict against lingering on the road, and the lady he ventures to adore would be the last to desire to lure him away from his duty. Won’t the amiable Sylvia grant her Fraser a word of kindness, whether traced by her own fair hand, or confided to the mediation of his kinsman, that may salve his wounds and send him victorious to fight his nation’s battles?
“P.S.—Dearest madam, I love you with all my heart and better than my life. Forgive my unlucky trickery, and also my cursed rudeness, and rejoice your most humble and devoted servant,
C. Fraser.”
My happy tears fell fast (indeed I could not restrain ’em), on this charming, charming post-scriptum. “Oh, sir,” I cried to the Captain, “how shall I ever thank you for handing me this dear, this affecting letter?” But no sooner were the words out of my mouth (as they say) than I remembered, what my foolish ecstasy had made me forget, the present posture of my affairs. “Dear sir,” I said, “pray forgive me. What must you think of me?”
“Nay, madam,” was the Captain’s reply, “’tis of my cousin Fraser I am thinking. Sure the lad should have been named Jacob, and not Colvin, for he and his have supplanted me these two times.”
“Oh, sir,” I said, “you do me wrong, and your cousin also. See,” and I made as though to tear up Mr Fraser’s letter, but could not bring myself to do it, and only crushed it in my hand, “this late though happy repentance on his part can make no difference to the engagement into which I entered with you this morning. My dear Captain Colquhoun won’t grudge me, I’m sure, the happiness of knowing that I had misjudged one so nearly related to him, but that pleasure is in itself sufficient. I am yours, sir, and it shall be my constant effort, I’ll assure you, that what you have just witnessed shall never be recalled to your mind.”
“Nay, madam,” said he again, with what Charlotte and I have been used to call his wooden smile (oh, my dear, how the memory of our pert jests concerning the noblest of men shames me now!) “when Jacob hath gained both the birthright and the promise, what remains for poor Esau but to flee into the wilderness from the face of his brother?”
“Dear sir, what do you purpose doing?” I cried in great alarm.
“Nothing that need terrify you, madam; merely to withdraw my pretensions in favour of him who has the best right to your hand, since for him your heart goes with it, and to endeavour to find my happiness in that of the lady I most admire and of the man who must needs be worthy since Miss Freyne prefers him to so high a place in her esteem.”
“Sure, dear sir, you must be a philosopher?”