Chapter 10

Lord DARCEY to the Honourable GEORGE MOLESWORTH.

_Barford Abbey_.

Bridgman!--Could Bridgman dare aspire to Miss Warley!--_He_ offer her his hand!--_he_ be connected with a woman whose disposition is diametrically opposite to his own!--_No_,--that would not have done, though I had never seen her.--Let him seek for one who has a heart shut up by a thousand locks.

After his _own_ conjectures,--after what _you_ have told him,--should he _but_ attempt to take her from me, by all that is sacred, he shall repent it dearly.

Molesworth! _you_ are my friend,--I take your admonitions well;--but, surely, you should not press thus hardly on my soul, knowing its uneasy situation.--My state is even more perplexing than when we parted:--I did not then know she was going to France.--_Yes_, she is absolutely going to _France_.--Why leave her friends here?--Why not wait the arrival of Lady Mary Sutton in England?

I have used every dissuasive argument _but one_.--That shall be my last.--If _that_ fails I go--I positively go with her.--It is your opinion that she loves me.--Would it were mine!--_Not_ the least partiality can I discover.--Why then be precipitate?--Every moment she is gaining ground in the affections of Sir James and Lady Powis.--_Time_ may work wonders in the mind of the former.--Without his consent never can I give my hand;--the commands of a dying father forbid me.--_Such_ a father!--O George! you did not know him;--_so_ revered,--_so_ honour'd,--_so_ belov'd! not more in public than in private life.

_My friend_, behold your son!--_Darcey_, behold your father!--_As_ you reverence and obey Sir James, _as_ you consult him on all occasions, _as_ you are guided by his advice, receive my blessing.--These were his parting words, hugg'd into me in his last cold embrace.--No, George, the promise I made can never be forfeited.--I sealed it on his lifeless hand, before I was borne from him.

_Now_, are you convinc'd no mean views with-hold me?--You despise not more than I do the knave and coxcomb; for no other, to satiate their own vanity, would sport away the quiet of a fellow-creature.--Well may you call it cruel.--_Such_ cruelties fall little short of those practised by _Nero_ and _Caligula_.

Did it depend on myself only, I would tell Miss Warley I love, _every time_ I behold her enchanting face; _every time_ I hear the voice of wisdom springing from the seat of innocence.

No shadow of gaining over Sir James!--_Efforts_ has not been wanting:--I mean _efforts_ to declare my inclination.--I have follow'd him like a ghost for days past, thinking at every step how I should bless _this_ or _that_ spot on which he consented to my happiness.--Pleasing phantoms!--How have they fled at sight of his determin'd countenance!--Methought I could trace _in it_ the same obduracy which nature vainly pleaded to remove.--In _other_ matters my heart is resolute;--_here_ an errant coward.--No! I cannot break it to him whilst in Hampshire.--When I get to town, a letter _shall_ speak for me.--Sometimes I am tempted to trust the secret to Lady Powis.--She is compassionate;--she would even risk her own peace to preserve mine.--Again the thoughts of involving her in fresh perplexities determines me against it.

Had my father been acquainted with that part of Sir James's character which concerned his son, I am convinc'd he would have made some restrictions in regard to the explicit obedience he enjoined.--But all was hushed whilst Mr. Powis continued on his travels; nor, until he settled abroad, did any one suspect there had been a family disagreement:--_even_ at _this_ time the whole affair is not generally known.--The name of the lady to whom he was obliged to make proposals, is in particular carefully concealed.--I, who from ten years old have been bred up with them, am an entire stranger to it.--_Perhaps_ no part of the affair would ever have transpired, had not Sir James made some discoveries, in the first agitation of his passion, before a large company, when he received an account of Mr. Powis's being appointed to the government of ----. No secret can be safe in a breast where every passage is not well guarded against an enemy which, like lightning, throws up all before it.

Let me not forget to tell you, amongst a multiplicity of concerns crowding on my mind, that I have positively deny'd Edmund to intercede with his father regarding the commission.--A bare surmise that he is my rival, has silenced me.--Was I ungenerous enough to indulge myself in getting rid of him, an opportunity now offers;--but I am _as_ averse to such proceedings as _he_ ought to be who is the friend of Molesworth, and writes the name of

DARCEY.