Self-control: A Novel

These were the first words of bitterness which Major De Courcy had ever heard from her lips; and overcome by them, and by her tears, he gave her a hasty promise, that he would, that very hour, begin the examination of his affairs. Sensible of her advantage, she permitted not his purpose to slumber, but persuaded him to a full inquiry into the extent of his debts; and in order to remove him from future temptation, she prevailed on him to sell his commission, and reside at his paternal Norwood.

After selling so much of his estate as to clear the remainder from all incumbrance, he found his income diminished to little more than a third of its original extent. His family pride reviving at the sight of the halls of his fathers, and a better affection awakening in his intercourse with the descendants of those whom his ancestors had protected, he determined to guard against the possibility of Norwood and its tenants being transferred to strangers, and entailed the remains of his property on Montague De Courcy, in the strictest form of English law. For Mrs De Courcy he made but a slender provision. For his daughter he made none: but he determined to save from his income a sum sufficient to supply this deficiency. He was still a young man, and never thought of doubting whether he might live long enough to accomplish his design, or whether the man who had found an income of £2000 a-year too small for his necessities, might be able to make savings from one of £800. In spite of the soberness of the establishment, which during the novelty of his reform he allowed Mrs De Courcy to arrange, he continued to find uses for all the money he could command. His fields wanted inclosures; his houses needed repairs; his son's education was an increasing expence; and he died while Montague was yet a boy, without having realized any part of his plans in favour of his daughter.

He left the highest testimony to the understanding and worth of Mrs De Courcy, by making her the sole guardian of his children; and the steady rectitude and propriety of her conduct justified his confidence. Aware of the radical defect of every mode of education that neglects or severs the domestic tie, yet convinced that the house where he was master, and the dependents he could command, were dangerous scenes and companions for a youth of Montague's spirit, she committed him to the care of a clergyman, whose residence was a few miles distant from Norwood, and who also took charge of four other boys of about the same age.

This gentleman was admirably fitted for his trust; for he had a cultivated understanding, an affectionate heart, sound piety, and a calm but inflexible temper. Add to which, he had travelled, and, in his youth, associated much with men of rank, and more with men of talents; though, since he had become a pastor, the range of his moral observation had been narrowed to the hearts of a few simple villagers, which were open to him as to their father and their friend. The boys studied and played together, but they each had a separate apartment; for Mr Wentworth had himself been educated at a public school, and never recollected without shuddering, the hour when his youthful modesty had shrunk from sharing his bed with a stranger, and when the prayer for his parents, which he was mingling with his tears, had been disturbed by the jokes of a little rabble.

Every Saturday did Montague bend his joyful course homewards, regardless of summer's heat or winter storms. Every Sunday did his mother spend in mixing the lessons of piety with the endearments of love; in striving to connect the idea of a superintending God with all that is beautiful – all that is majestic – in nature. As her children grew up, she unfolded to them the peculiar doctrines of Christianity, so sublime, so consolatory, so suitable to the wants of man. Aware how much occasion favours the strength of impressions, she chose the hour of strong remorse on account of a youthful fault, while the culprit yet trembled before the offended Majesty of Heaven, to explain to her son the impossibility that repentance should, of itself, cancel errors past, or that the great Lawgiver should accept a few ineffectual tears, or a tardy and imperfect obedience, as a compensation for the breach of a law that is perfect. When she saw that the intended impression was made, she spoke of the great atonement that once was offered, not to make repentance unnecessary, but to make it effectual; and, from that time, using this as one of the great landmarks of faith, she contributed to make it in the mind of De Courcy a practical and abiding principle. The peculiar precepts of Christianity she taught him to apply to his actions, by applying them herself; and the praise that is so often lavished upon boldness, dexterity, and spirit, she conscientiously reserved for acts of candour, humility, and self-denial.

Her cares were amply rewarded, and Montague became all that she wished him to be. He was a Christian from the heart, without being either forward to claim, or ashamed to own, the distinction. He was industrious in his pursuits, and simple in his pleasures. But the distinctive feature of his character, was the total absence of selfishness. His own pleasure or his own amusement he never hesitated to sacrifice to the wishes of others; or, to speak more correctly, he found his pleasure and amusement in theirs. Upon the whole, we do not say that Montague De Courcy had no faults; but we are sure he had none that he did not strive to conquer. Like other human beings, he sometimes acted wrong; but we believe he would not deliberately have neglected a known duty to escape any worldly misfortune; we are sure he would not deliberately have committed a crime to attain any earthly advantage.

Desirous that her darling should enjoy the benefits of the most liberal education, yet afraid to trust him to the temptations of an English university, Mrs De Courcy went for some years to reside in Edinburgh during the winter – in summer she returned with her family to Norwood. To his private studies, and his paternal home, Montague returned with ever new delight; for his tastes and his habits were all domestic. He had no ambitious wishes to lure him from his retreat, for his wants were even more moderate than his fortune. Except in so far as he could make it useful to others, he had no value for money, nor for anything that money could buy, exclusive of the necessaries of life, books, and implements of chemistry. The profession which he had chosen was that of improving and embellishing his estate; and, in the tranquil pleasures of a country gentleman, a man of taste, a classical scholar, and a chemist, he found means to occupy himself without injury to his health, his morals, or his fortune. His favourite amusements were drawing and physiognomy; and, like other favourites, these were sometimes in danger of making encroachments, and advancing into the rank of higher concerns. But this he prevented by an exact distribution of his time, to which he resolutely adhered.

With his mother and his sister he lived in the most perfect harmony, though the young lady had the reputation of a wit, and was certainly a little addicted to sarcasm. But she was in other respects amiable, and incapable of doing anything to offend her brother, whose indignation indeed never rose but against cruelty, meanness, or deceit.

De Courcy had just entered his twenty-fifth year, when a rheumatic fever deprived his mother of the use of her limbs; and, forsaking all his employments, he had quitted his beloved Norwood to attend her in London, whither she had come for the benefit of medical advice. He had been but a few days in town when he met with Miss Montreville, and the impression which her beauty made, the second interview tended to confirm.

Montague had never, even in imagination, been in love. The regulation of his passions, the improvement of his mind, and the care of his property, had hitherto left him no leisure for the tender folly. He had scarcely ever thought of a young woman's face, except with a reference to Lavater's opinion, nor of her manners, except to wonder how she could be so obtrusive. But in contemplating Laura's face, he forgot the rules of the physiognomist; and, in the interesting reserve of her manners, he found continually something to desire. If, at the close of his visit, he was not in love, he was at least in a fair way for being so. He was assailed at once by beauty, grace, good sense, and sweetness; and to these Laura added the singular charm of being wholly insensible to their effects upon the beholder. No side glance was sent in search of admiration; no care was taken to compose her drapery; no look of triumph accompanied her judicious remarks; no parade of sensibility disgraced her tenderness. Every charm was heightened by a matchless absence of all design; and against this formidable battery had poor De Courcy to make his stand, just at the inauspicious hour when, for the first time in his life, he had nothing else to do.

CHAPTER XII

As soon as De Courcy was gone, Captain Montreville launched out warmly in his praise. Laura joined in the eulogium; and, the next morning, forgot that there was such a person in existence, when she read a letter from Mrs Douglas, of which the following was a part.

'Before this reaches you, Colonel Hargrave will be far on his way to London. It is possible that you may have no interest in this journey; but, lest you should, I wish to prevent your being taken by surprize. Since your departure he has repeatedly visited us; and endeavoured, both directly and indirectly, to discover your address. Perhaps you will think my caution ill-timed; but I acted according to my best judgment, in avoiding to comply with his desire. I think, however, that he has elsewhere procured the information he wanted; for his features wore an air of triumph, as he asked my commands for you. Dear child of my affections, richly endowed as you are with the dangerous gift of beauty, you have hitherto escaped, as if by miracle, from the snares of folly and frivolity. My hearts prayer for you is, that you may be as safe from the dangers that await you, in the passions of others, and in the tenderness of your own heart. But alas! my beloved Laura, distant as I am from you, ignorant as I am of the peculiarities of your situation, I can only pray for you. I fear to express my conjectures, lest I should seem to extort your confidence. I fear to caution, lest I should shock or offend you. Yet let me remind you, that it is easier, by one bold effort, to reject temptation, than to resist its continued allurements. Effectually to bar the access of the tempter may cost a painful effort – to parley with him is destruction. But I must stop. Tears of anxious affection blot what I have written.

'E. Douglas.'

The joyful expectation of seeing Hargrave filled for a time the heart of Laura, and left no room for other thoughts. The first that found entrance was of a less pleasing cast. She perceived that Mrs Douglas suspected Hargrave of the baseness of deliberate seduction; and, with a feeling of indignation, she collected her writing materials, and sat down to exculpate him. But, as she again read her friend's expressions of affection, and considered how little her suspicions were remote from the truth, she accused herself of ingratitude and injustice in giving way to any thing like resentment. She thanked Mrs Douglas for her cautions; but assured her, that the proposals of Hargrave were honourable, unequivocal, and sanctioned by her father; that they had been rejected by herself; and, therefore, that no motive, except that of vindicating him from an unfounded suspicion, should have tempted her to betray, even to her most confidential friend, a secret which she thought a woman bound, both in delicacy and in honour, to keep inviolable. She did not once hint at the cause of her rejecting an offer so splendid, nor show a trace of the inclination which she had so nobly sacrificed to virtue, except what appeared in the warmth of her defence of her lover. For, though she felt that her story would have raised her in her friend's esteem, she scorned to purchase that advantage at the expence of another, and retained all her aversion to exposing the faults of Hargrave.

Having finished her letter, she returned to the more agreeable contemplation, and began to calculate upon the time when she might expect to see the Colonel. Her conclusion was, that he would probably visit her on the following day, and her heart throbbed with delight at the prospect.

But from the dream of joy, Laura soon returned to the more habitual consideration of the line of conduct which it was fit that she should pursue. She saw the folly of committing her happiness to the guardianship of one whose passions were his masters; and, while it was her daily prayer that she might not be led into temptation, her conscience revolted from trusting her conduct to the guidance, her virtue to the example, of a man whose principles were doubtful. For Laura's virtue was not of that saint-errant kind that sallies forth in quest of opportunities to signalize itself, and inflames its pride by meditation on the wonders it would achieve, if placed in perilous situations. Distrustful of herself – watchful to avoid occasions of falling – she had no ambition for the dangerous glory of reforming a rake into a good husband. She therefore adhered to her determination, that she would not consent to a union with her lover, till, by a course of virtuous conduct he had given proof that his offence had been the sudden fault of a moment, not the deliberate purpose of a corrupted heart.

Yet even in this mitigated view, the recollection was poison to the soul of Laura. The painful thought was far from new to her, that the passion of Hargrave was a tribute to her personal charms alone. With such a passion, even were its continuance possible, Laura felt that she could not be satisfied. To be the object of it degraded her in her own eyes. 'No, no,' she exclaimed, covering her face with her hands, 'let me not even legally occupy only the place which the vilest might fill. If I cannot be the friend, the companion, as well as the mistress, better, far better, were it that we should part for ever.'

No labour is sufficient to acquaint us fully with our own hearts. It never occurred to Laura, that she was, as much as Hargrave, the captive of mere externals; and that his character would never have deceived her penetration, had it been exhibited in the person of a little red-haired man, with bandy legs, who spoke broad Scotch, and smoked tobacco. Till the hour when he had himself dispelled the illusion, the character of Hargrave, such as she chose to imagine it, had been to her a theme of the most delightful contemplation; and to its fascinations she had willingly and entirely resigned herself. The disguise, which was rather the excuse, than the cause of her passion, had been dropped in part; yet the passion was as strong as ever. It was, indeed, no longer pleasing, no longer blind, no longer paramount; for her reason, which had before been silent, was now permitted to speak, and though it was unable to conquer, it could control. She imagined the vehemence with which Hargrave would urge her to shorten the term of his probation, and she feared that she should find it difficult, perhaps impossible, to resist his entreaties. She would not, therefore, expose her prudence to too severe a trial. 'Yes,' said she, 'I will bar the access of the tempter. I will see Hargrave only once, and that shall be to bid him farewell, till the stipulated two years are finished. If he really loves me, his affection will survive absence. If it fail in the trial, I may, though lost to happiness, find in my solitude a peace that never can visit a neglected wife.'

This philosophic conclusion was the fruit of her meditations during a restless night; and having worked herself, as she thought, into a temper decorously relentless, she proceeded, with all the consistency of her sex, to adorn her person with a care she had never before bestowed upon it. She arranged every curl for effect; chose a dress which shewed to advantage the graceful slope of her shoulders; and heightened the whiteness of her neck and arms, by contrasting it with fillets of jet. Though she was but indifferently pleased with her success, it proved sufficient for her occasions. The day passed away, and Hargrave did not appear. Laura was disappointed, but not surprized; for it was barely possible that he could have reached London on that day. On the succeeding one she thought it likely that he might come; but the succeeding one was equally barren of event.

On the third she was certain that he would arrive; and, when breakfast was over, she seated herself in expectation at the window of the front parlour, started if a carriage stopped, and listened to every voice that sounded from below stairs. Half-desirous to escape her father's observation, half-wishing that her interview with Hargrave should be without witnesses, she persuaded Captain Montreville to go and pay his respects to Mrs De Courcy. Anxiously she waited, conjectured, doubted, reconsulted Mrs Douglas's letter. The Captain returned; the hours of visiting passed away; and still no Hargrave came.

Unwilling to own, even to herself, the extent of her anxiety and disappointment, Laura talked to her father of his visit, with which he had been highly pleased. He had been amused with Harriet; charmed with Mrs De Courcy; and doubly charmed with Montague, whom he praised as a scholar and a man of sense, as an affectionate brother and a respectful son; and, to crown all these commendations, he declared, that De Courcy was more than a match for himself at chess.

When they retired for the night, Laura returned to her conjectures on the cause of Hargrave's delay. She considered that he might have been detained on the road, or that he might have found it necessary to make a visit on his way. She had little doubt, that to see her was the object of his journey to London at this unfashionable season. She had none, that he would hurry to her the first moment that it was possible. By degrees, she persuaded herself into an absolute certainty that she should see him on the following day; and on that day, she again took her anxious station in the parlour.

She was ashamed to lean over the window, and could not otherwise see who entered the house; but she left the room door ajar, that she might have warning of his approach, held her breath to distinguish the voices from below, and listened eagerly to every footstep. At last, she imagined that she heard the wished-for inquiry. She was sure some one pronounced her name. A man's step ascended the stair; Laura trembled and her breath came short. She feared to look up, and leant her face on her hand to conceal her emotion.

The voice of her visitor made her start, and turn her head. It was Warren!

Expectation had been wound up to its highest pitch, and Laura could not instantly recover herself. She paid her compliments with a confusion and trepidation, which Warren interpreted in a way most flattering to his vanity. He approached her with a look, in which ill-suppressed triumph contended with laboured condescension; and spoke to her in a voice that seemed to say, 'Pray, endeavour to reassure yourself.' But Laura was in no humour to endure his impertinence, and she seized the first opportunity to leave the room.

Captain Montreville soon entered on the business in which he took such painful interest, by inquiring whether any traces had yet been discovered of the sale of his daughter's annuity. Warren, with abundance of regret and condolence, informed him, that Williams had as yet been able to discover no mention of the transaction in the books.

This assertion was so far true, that Williams had as yet seen no record of the business in question; for which Mr Warren could, if he had chosen, have given a very satisfactory reason. From the moment this gentleman had first seen Laura, he had been determined not wilfully to expedite her departure from London; and therefore he had casually dropped a hint to his man of business, that, as he was already overwhelmed with a multiplicity of affairs, it was unnecessary to hasten a concern of such trivial importance; and that he might defer inquiring into the sale of the annuity till he was at perfect leisure. Had he insinuated to Williams, that this delay was detaining from his home a man who could ill afford the consequent expence, or that it was alarming a father for the future subsistence of his only child, the man of business would have found leisure to investigate the matter, even if he had subtracted the necessary time from his hours of rest. But the upright Mr Warren had given no such intimation; and in this honourable transaction, he was, for the present, secure from detection, for he knew that business had called his agent to a distance from London.

Captain Montreville knew not what to think. He could not doubt the integrity of Mr Baynard, nor could he imagine to what purpose Warren should deny the transaction; since, if it had really taken place, the vouchers of it must be found among his deceased friend's papers. He was persuaded that to examine the books according to the date of the sale, would be the work of only a few hours; and again he inquired whether the necessary examination had taken place. Mr Warren answered, that he could not take it upon him to say that every possible search had yet been made; but his agent, he said, had examined all the most probable records of the concern, and would, on his return to town, make a still more particular scrutiny.

With this unsatisfactory answer, Captain Montreville was obliged to content himself. He had only one alternative – either to wait in London the appointment of the person who was to arrange Mr Baynard's papers, or to return to Scotland, and resign all hopes of the annuity. He feared, too, to offend Warren by urging him too strongly, since, even should a voucher of the payment of his £1500 be found, the informality in the deed would still leave room for litigation. No merely personal interest would have induced the high spirit of Montreville to conciliate a man whom he despised as a fool and a coxcomb. – For nothing that concerned himself alone, would he have submitted to the trouble and anxiety which he had lately undergone. Ill calculated by nature to struggle with difficulties, he had long been accustomed to let the lesser disasters glide by without notice, and to sink, without effort, under the greater. Disappointed in the woman of his choice, and deprived, by her folly or perverseness, of the domestic pleasures which he loved, his mind had taken a cast of melancholy. Early secluded from society, and tormented by the temper of his wife, he had concentrated all the affections which solitude confined, and caprice rejected, upon one object: and Laura became the passion of his soul. The thought of leaving her destitute, of leaving her sensibility to the scorns, her beauty to the temptations of poverty, was more than he could bear, and it sometimes almost overpowered him. He was naturally inclined to indolence, and as, like all indolent people, he was the creature of habit, his spirits had suffered much from the loss of the woman who, though too heartless for a friend, and too bitter for a companion, had, for twenty years, served him as a sort of stimulus. The same force of habit, joined to her improving graces and confirming worth, made Laura daily more dear to him, and he would willingly have given his life to secure her independence and happiness.

Brooding on the obscurity in which she must remain, whom he judged worthy to adorn the highest station – on the poverty which awaited her during his life – on the want to which his death must consign her, – removed from his habitual occupations, and deprived of the wholesome air, and exhilarating exercises to which he had long been accustomed, he allowed his spirits to grow daily more depressed. Along with the idea of the misfortunes which his death would bring upon his darling, the fear of death settled on his mind. The little ailments to which the sedentary are liable, he magnified into the symptoms of mortal disease; and momentary pain seemed to his fancy to foretell sudden dissolution. Montreville was fast sinking into a melancholy hypochondriac.

His daughter's spirits, too, failed under continued expectation, and continued disappointment; for day after day passed on, and still Hargrave came not. Her father's dejection increased her own, and her ill-disguised depression had a similar effect on him. While, however, Captain Montreville gave way without effort to his feelings, the more vigorous mind of Laura struggled to suppress the sorrow which she saw was contagious. She sometimes prevailed upon her father to seek amusement abroad, sometimes endeavoured to amuse him at home. She read to him, sung to him, exerted all her conversation talent to entertain him; and often, when all was in vain, when he would answer her by forced smiles, languid gestures, or heavy sighs, she would turn aside to wipe the tears from her eyes, then smile, and attempt her task again.