Just as I had finished my last letter, his lordship entered my room, but saluted me coldly. 'I am informed,' said he, 'that you strayed from your party last night, and refused, afterwards, to give an account of yourself to the landlady. May I hope, that to me, who feel a personal interest in all your actions, you will be more communicative?' 'I regret,' said I, 'that circumstances put it out of my power to gratify your wishes. I foresee that you, like an Orville, or a Mortimer, will suspect and asperse your mistress. But the Sun shall return, the mist disperse, and the landscape laugh again.' 'Confound your metaphors! 'cried he, discarding attitude and elegance in an instant. 'Do you hope to hide your cunning under mists and laughing landscapes? But I am not to be gulled; I am not to be done. No going it upon me, I say. Tell me directly, madam, where you were, and with whom; or by the devil of devils, you shall repent it finely.' I was thunderstruck. 'Sir,' said I, 'you have agitated the gentle air with the concussion of inelegant oaths and idioms, uttered in the most ungraceful manner. Sir, your vulgarity is unpardonable, and we now part for ever.' 'For ever!' exclaimed he, reverting into attitude, and interlacing his knuckles in a clasp of agony. 'Hear me, Cherubina. By the shades of my ancestors, my vulgarity was assumed!' 'Assumed, Sir?' said I, 'and pray, for what possible purpose?' 'Alas!' cried he, 'I must not, dare not tell. It is a sad story, and enveloped in a mysterious veil. Oh! fatal vow! Oh! cruel Marchesa!' Shocking were his contortions as he spoke. 'No!' cried I. 'No vow could ever have produced so dreadful an effect on your language.' 'Well, 'said he, after a painful pause, 'sooner than incur the odium of falsehood, I must disclose to you the horrid secret. 'The young Count Di Narcissini was my friend. Educated together, we became competitors in our studies and accomplishments; and in none of them could either of us be said to excel the other; till, on our introduction at Court, it was remarked by the Queen, that I surpassed the Count in shaking hands. 'Narcissini,' said her Majesty, 'has judgment enough in knowing when to present a single finger, or perhaps two; but, for the positive pressure, or the negligent hand with a drooping wrist; or the cordial, honest, dislocating shake, give me Montmorenci. I cannot deny that the former has great taste in this accomplishment; but then the latter has more genius—more execution—more, as it were, of the magnifique and aimable.' 'His mother the Marchesa overheard this critique, turned as pale as ashes, and left the levee. 'That night, hardly had I fallen into one of those gentle slumbers, which ever attends the virtuous, when a sudden noise roused me; and on opening my eyes, I beheld the detested Marchesa, with an Italian assassin, standing over me.' 'Montmorenci!' cried she, 'thou art the bane of my repose. Thou hast surpassed my son in the graces. Now listen. Either pledge thyself, by an irrevocable vow, henceforth to sprinkle thy conversation with uncouth phrases, and colloquial barbarisms, or prepare to die!' 'Terrible alternative! What could I do? The dagger gleamed before my face. I shuddered, and took the fatal vow of vulgarity. 'The Marchesa then put into my hand the Blackguard's Dictionary, which I studied night and day with much success; and I have now the misfortune to state, that I can be, so far as language goes, the greatest blackguard in England.' 'Unhappy youth!' cried I. 'This, indeed, accounts for what had often made me uneasy. But say, can nothing absolve you from this hateful vow?' 'There is one way,' he replied. 'The Marchesa permitted me to resume my natural elegance, as soon as my marrying should put an end to competition between her son and me. Oh! then, my Cherubina, you, you alone can restore me to hope, to happiness, and to grammar!' 'Ah! my lord,' cried I, 'recollect my own fatal vow. Never, never can I be your's!' 'Drive me not mad!' he cried. 'You are mine, you shall be mine. This, this is the bitterest moment of my life. You do not, cannot love me. No, Cherubina, no, you cannot love me.' I fixed my eyes in a wild gaze, rose hastily from my chair, paced the room with quick steps; and often sighing deeply, clasped my hands and shuddered. He led me to the sofa, kissed the drapery of my cambric handkerchief, and concealed his face in its folds. Then raising his head. 'Do you love me?' said he, with a voice dropping manna. A smile, bashful in its archness, played round my rich and trembling lip; and with an air of bewitching insinuation, I placed my hand on his shoulder, shook my head, and looked up in his face, with an expression half reproachful, half tender. He snatched me in a transport to his heart; and that trembling pressure, which virtue consecrated, and love understood, conveyed to each of us an unspeakable sensation; as if a beam from Heaven had passed through both our frames, and left some of its divine warmth behind it. What followed, angels might have attested. A ringlet had escaped from the bandage of my bodkin. He clipped it off with my scissors, and fixed it next his heart; while I prettily struggled to prevent him, with arch anger, and a pouting playfulness. A thousand saucy triumphs were basking in his eyes, when the door opened, and who should make his appearance, but—Master Bobby! I could have boxed him. 'I avail myself,' said he, 'of the permission you gave me last night, to call on you this morning.' Montmorenci looked from the one to the other with amazement. 'And as I am anxious,' continued Stuart, 'to speak with you in private——' 'Sir,' said I, 'any thing which you have to communicate, this gentleman, my particular friend, may hear.' 'Yes, Sir,' cried his lordship, in a haughty tone, 'for I have the honour to boast myself the protector of this lady.' 'If you mean her protector from injury and insult,' said Stuart, 'I hope, Sir, you are not on this occasion, as on others, an actor?' 'You know me then?' said his lordship. 'I saw you perform last night,' answered Stuart, 'but, to say the truth, I do not recollect your name.' 'My name is Norval on the Grampian Hills,' cried his lordship. 'Sir,' said Stuart, 'though we sometimes laugh at you, even in your grave characters, the part you have now chosen seems much too serious for drollery. Allow me to ask, Sir, by what right you feel entitled to call yourself the protector of this lady?' 'First inform me,' said Montmorenci, 'by what right you feel entitled to put that question?' 'By the right of friendship,' answered Stuart. 'No, but enmity,' cried I, 'unprovoked, unprincipled, inexorable enmity. This is the Stuart whom you have often heard me mention, as my persecutor; and I hope you will now make him repent of his temerity.' 'Sir,' said his lordship, 'I desire you to leave the house.' 'Not till you favour me with your company,' replied Stuart; 'for I find I must have some serious conversation with you.' 'Beshrew my heart!' cried Lord Altamont Mortimer Montmorenci, 'if you want satisfaction, follow me this moment. I am none of your slovenly, slobbering shots. Damme, I scorn to pistol a gentleman about the ankles. I can teach the young idea how to shoot, damme.' He spoke, and strode out of the room. Stuart smiled and followed him. You must know, I speculate upon a duel. In short, my plot is entangling itself admirably; and such characters as Betterton and Stuart will not fail to keep the wheels of it going. Betterton is probably planning to carry me off by force; Stuart and our hero are coming to a misunderstanding about me; the latter will, perhaps, return with his arm in an interesting sling, and another parting-forever interview cannot be far distant. Such is the promising aspect of affairs. Adieu. |