“Soften her as much as you can, Charlie. She is all tenderness now for her child; but the moment she has got her again, she may grow severe. After all, the poor girl will need her kindness. I daresay she has fretted a great deal whilst thinking of us all. She will have missed her comforts, her pretty bed-room, our kisses in the morning. Eh? shouldn’t she be kindly received?”
“Yes, and she will be, I am sure,” I replied, moved by the tears that sprang to his eyes.
He squeezed my hand, bade God bless me, and left the bank.
There being nothing to do, I thought I could not better occupy my time than by writing to Theresa. So down I sat at my uncle’s desk, and wrote four pages. There was a great deal to tell: Conny’s flight to be related, and a funeral oration to be delivered over my love. “I may tell you,” I said, “that I am not so broken-hearted as I ought to be. I am pained by her conduct for her father’s and mother’s sake, but has anybody a right to expect me to have any personal feelings in the matter, beyond a proper sense of gratefulness that her pretty face and capricious smiles can no longer keep me awake o’ nights, nor prevent me from enjoying my food? Ah, Theresa! you may indeed value yourself on your perceptions. I am afraid I never really loved Conny. How will this confession affect me with you? I beg and implore that you won’t consider mine a fickle nature. I could be true and faithful as Abelard, could I but find a girl who would be my Eloïsa. I made a mistake. I admired Conny, and mistook the delight with which I used to watch her young face and profound eyes for love. I won’t pretend to think that I could have exhibited my present fortitude, were it not for you. There is not a quality that goes to the making of my mind, that would not have smarted and throbbed under this elopement. Practically, I have been snubbed, sneered at, utilised, dropped, cut, disliked, morally kicked, and hopelessly sat upon; all which unpardonable treatment I might laugh at, had Conny been the only insulter; but to suffer such indignities at the hands of Mr. Curling!—Theresa, let your pride bleed for me. Let me know I have your sympathy. The briefest assurance that your opinion of me is not lowered because I haven’t broken my heart over Conny, will give me all the strength I need to support the very crushing sense of contempt that visits me, whenever I reflect on their duplicity and my humiliation.” And so on, and so on.
I was as nearly as possible telling her that I had left my heart behind me at Thistlewood. Who isn’t bold in a letter? Consider the qualifications a goose-quill and a sheet of paper confer! The stammerer speaks fluently, without a gasp; Ignorance pronounces all his h’s; Timidity is as courageous as a wild beast; Modesty makes love without a blush; Poverty, by hiding his rags, can request a loan without losing his dignity. I added a postscript, in which I inserted certain sentiments which, had I had her with me, I don’t think I could have got my tongue to utter. I then sealed the letter, and walked with it to the post, satisfied that seldom had love been so well hinted at, that seldom had the heart’s defection been so eloquently defended by the submission of more incontrovertible reasons.
The phaeton fetched me at four o’clock, and took me to Grove End. I found my aunt extremely wretched. She thanked me for coming, and asked me what I thought of Conny’s letter.
“Why,” I answered, “she doesn’t represent herself as feeling miserable; and that I consider a good sign.”
“I cannot conceive,” the poor lady cried, “how she could have the courage and the cruelty to act with such wicked daring. I seem in a dream. Every moment I expect to see her come in and laugh at me for imagining that she could be guilty of eloping with such a man. How my husband jeered me for saying that his clerk was a dangerous person! And now he is our son-in-law: now we are all fastened together for life, and degraded for ever!”
“No, no: not degraded. My dear aunt, Mr. Curling is quite as gentlemanly as the majority of young men. Look at the sons-in-law one meets with everywhere! Elopements take place in the highest families. Only last year Lady Florence Miller ran away with her music-master; and mesalliances are so frequent and expected, that I can assure you, if two or three years pass without a groom, or a dancing master, or an usher, running away with a female member of the aristocracy, the Court Journal languishes, high life becomes uneasy, and aristocratic circles grow haggard with a sense of want. I admit that Mr. Curling is not such a man as you would have chosen for Conny to marry, but she might have done worse.”
“No, she couldn’t have done worse. So pretty as she is, with such good prospects, she might have married anybody. The cruellest part of it all is her deceitfulness. She knew I wanted her to marry you, and she pretended to yield to my wishes, only that she might blind my eyes to her affection for that Curling. Didn’t she encourage you?”