“Be silent, D’Aubigny! I cannot brook to be interrupted now. My heart is full; and I must have leave to utter the sentiments that agitate and distend it.”
He advanced towards Pandora. He took hold of her hand.
“Rise, madam. I shall not long trouble you with the boisterous impetuousness of my passions. Do not resist me now!”
She rose, and followed him; her face still covered with her handkerchief, and drowned in tears. He led her to the front of the alcove: he motioned me to approach; with his other hand he took hold of mine. He seemed to lift Pandora’s hand to his lips, as if to kiss it; with a sudden start he put it down again; he held it below the level of his breast.
During this scene, Pandora and myself were speechless. Most women, in the situation of Pandora, would, I suppose, have spoken, and have been eager to vindicate themselves from so groundless an imputation. But what she did was peculiar to the delicacy and defencelessness of her personal character. She was overwhelmed, and incapable of effort. For my own part, my feelings were uncommonly complicated. My apparent situation was a plain one, the situation of a youth mistaken by his friend for the seducer of the mistress of that friend; and had my feelings been merely relative to this situation, I could undoubtedly have spoken without embarrassment. But with this were involved the sentiments originating in my secret character, the sentiments of a man anxious to benefit, and who had devoted himself to the interests of another; of a father tremblingly alive to the happiness of his son, and eager to dive into his soul, that he might the more sensibly admire his virtues, and with a more enlightened skill secure his fortune. I was silent: Charles de Damville proceeded:—
“Thus,” said he, “I join your hands; thus I withdraw all my claims upon Pandora; thus I remove every impediment to your wishes. This, Pandora,—this, D’Aubigny, I was capable of, if you had treated me honourably, and avowed an honest passion. You do not know Charles de Damville. You have treated me, as none but the most groveling soul could deserve to be treated. Had you been ingenuous, I should have a consolation in what I am doing, that now I cannot have. I can no longer persuade myself that I am joining two worthy hearts to each other. I can no longer relieve the bitterness of my own disappointment, by the image of your future felicity. May I be mistaken! May you be truly happy in each other! You cannot be happy beyond the wishes formed in your favour, by him who will remember, to the latest hour of his existence, how much his heart was devoted to you both.”
Saying this, he burst away from us abruptly, and disappeared. At first, as I listened to the heroic language of my son, I asked myself whether it were the expression of a warm heart or a cold one. It costs nothing to a cold heart to ape the language of heroism, and to pretend to make the greatest sacrifices, when its constitution has rendered all effort unnecessary to the feat. But I looked in the face of Charles, and forgot my doubts. His voice he had indeed wound up to the tone of his speech; it was a little tremulous, but in the main firm, serious, deliberate, and elevated. But his countenance was the picture of distress. There sat enthroned, defying all banishment and disguise, the anguish of his soul. His eye was haggard; his complexion was colourless and wan. He had been absent several days from Presburg; his appearance told me that he could scarcely either have eaten or slept during the period of his absence. He might talk of the generosity with which he could resign Pandora; I read in his face what that resignation had cost, and would go on to cost him. Ingenuous, noble-hearted Charles! I doubted whether, but for a reverse of the events he apprehended, he would be able to survive it.
He had no sooner left us, than I applied myself to comfort Pandora. I swore to her that, in spite of every temporary cloud, I would yet witness the union of her and her adored chevalier. I assured her that I would not rest, till I had forced Damville to hear me, and compelled him to credit the sincerity of my tale.
How many things were there, that, in the scene which had just passed, I might have urged in answer to Damville, but respecting which my situation imposed upon me the most rigorous silence! I might have said, “You call yourself my protector, my benefactor, my patron; the real relation between us is the reverse of the picture you have drawn. I want not your protection; I am qualified, if I please, to be a patron to all the world. I am meditating the most generous things in your behalf: this perfidious friend, as you deem him, has devoted all his thoughts, and postponed all his gratifications, that he might prove himself substantially and in the most important particulars your friend.”
More than this I might have said. I might have said, “I am your father. I have no inclinations, no passions contravening your gratification. I love you with more than a father’s love; I transfer to you all the affection I entertained for your peerless, murdered mother! All my study is your happiness. You are to me the whole world, and more than the whole world. Extensive and singular as are my prerogatives, I fold them up; I forget them all; and think of you alone.”