"Oh, that you need not a.s.sure me," said Mrs. Ormond.

"But I do not wish to marry him--I do not wish to marry."

"You are a modest girl to say so; and this modesty will make you ten times more amiable, especially in Mr. Hervey's eyes. Heaven forbid that I should lessen it!"

The next morning Virginia, who always slept in the same room with Mrs.

Ormond, wakened her, by crying out in her sleep, with a voice of terror, "Oh, save him!--save Mr. Hervey!--Mr. Hervey!--forgive me! forgive me!"

Mrs. Ormond drew back the curtain, and saw Virginia lying fast asleep; her beautiful face convulsed with agony.

"He's dead!--Mr. Hervey!" cried she, in a voice of exquisite distress: then starting up, and stretching out her arms, she uttered a piercing cry, and awoke.

"My love, you have been dreaming frightfully," said Mrs. Ormond.

"Is it all a dream?" cried Virginia, looking round fearfully.

"All a dream, my dear!" said Mrs. Ormond, taking her hand.

"I am very, very glad of it!--Let me breathe. It was, indeed, a frightful dream!"

"Your hand still trembles," said Mrs. Ormond; "let me put back this hair from your poor face, and you will grow cool, and forget this foolish dream."

"No; I must tell it you. I ought to tell it you. But it was all so confused, I can recollect only some parts of it. First, I remember that I thought I was not myself, but the Virginia that we were reading of the other night; and I was somewhere in the Isle of France. I thought the place was something like the forest where my grandmother's cottage used to be, only there were high mountains and rocks, and cocoa-trees and plantains."

"Such as you saw in the prints of that book?"

"Yes; only beautiful, beautiful beyond description! And it was moonlight, brighter and clearer than any moonlight I ever before had seen; and the air was fresh yet perfumed; and I was seated under the shade of a plane-tree, beside Virginia's fountain."

"Just as you are in your picture?"

"Yes: but Paul was seated beside me."

"Paul!" said Mrs. Ormond, smiling: "that is Mr. Hervey."

"No; not Mr. Hervey's face, though it spoke with his voice--this is what I thought that I must tell you. It was another figure: it seemed a real living person: it knelt at my feet, and spoke to me so kindly, so tenderly; and just as it was going to kiss my hand, Mr. Hervey appeared, and I started terribly, for I was afraid he would be displeased, and that he would think me _ungrateful_; and he was displeased, and he called me ungrateful Virginia, and frowned, and then I gave him my hand, and then every thing changed, I do not know how suddenly, and I was in a place like the great print of the cathedral, which Mr. Hervey showed me; and there were crowds of people--I was almost stifled. _You_ pulled me on, as I remember; and Mr. Moreton was there, standing upon some steps by what you called the altar; and then we knelt down before him, and Mr.

Hervey was putting a ring on my finger; but there came suddenly from the crowd that strange man, who was here the other day, and he dragged me along with him, I don't know how or where, swiftly down precipices, whilst I struggled, and at last fell. Then all changed again, and I was in a magnificent field, covered with cloth of gold, and there were beautiful ladies seated under canopies; and I thought it was a tournament, such as I have read of, only more splendid; and two knights, clad in complete armour, and mounted on fiery steeds, were engaged in single combat; and they fought furiously, and I thought they were fighting for me. One of the knights wore black plumes in his helmet, and the other white; and, as he was pa.s.sing by me, the vizor of the knight of the white plumes was raised, and I saw it was--"

"Clarence Hervey?" said Mrs. Ormond.

"No; still the same figure that knelt to me; and I wished him to be victorious. And he was victorious. And he unhorsed his adversary, and stood over him with his drawn sword; and then I saw that the knight in the black plumes was Mr. Hervey, and I ran to save him, but I could not. I saw him weltering in his blood, and I heard him say, 'Perfidious, _ungrateful_ Virginia! you are the cause of my death!'--and I screamed, I believe, and that awakened me."

"Well, it is only a dream, my love," said Mrs. Ormond; "Mr. Hervey is safe: get up and dress yourself, and you will soon see him."

"But was it not wrong and _ungrateful_ to wish that the knight in the white plumes should be victorious?"

"Your poor little head is full of nothing but these romances, and love for Mr. Hervey. It is your love for him that makes you fear that he will be jealous. But he is not so simple as you are. He will forgive you for wishing that the knight in the white plumes should be victorious, especially as you did not know that the other knight was Mr. Hervey.

Come, my love, dress yourself, and think no more of these foolish dreams, and all will go well."

CHAPTER XXVII

A DISCOVERY.

Instead of the open, childish, affectionate familiarity with which Virginia used to meet Clarence Hervey, she now received him with reserved, timid embarra.s.sment. Struck by this change in her manner, and alarmed by the dejection of her spirits, which she vainly strove to conceal, he eagerly inquired, from Mrs. Ormond, into the cause of this alteration.

Mrs. Ormond's answers, and her account of all that had pa.s.sed during his absence, increased his anxiety. His indignation was roused by the insult which Virginia had been offered by the strangers who had scaled the garden-wall. All his endeavours to discover who they were proved ineffectual; but, lest they should venture to repeat their visit, he removed her from Windsor, and took her directly to Twickenham. Here he stayed with her and Mrs. Ormond some days, to determine, by his own observation, how far the representations that had been made to him were just. Till this period he had been persuaded that Virginia's regard for him was rather that of grat.i.tude than of love; and with this opinion, he thought that he had no reason seriously to reproach himself for the imprudence with which he had betrayed the partiality that he felt for her in the beginning of their acquaintance. He flattered himself that even should she have discerned his intentions, her heart would not repine at any alteration in his sentiments; and if her happiness were uninjured, his reason told him that he was not in honour bound to constancy. The case was now altered. Unwilling as he was to believe, he could no longer doubt. Virginia could neither meet his eyes nor speak to him without a degree of embarra.s.sment which she had not sufficient art to conceal: she trembled whenever he came near her, and if he looked grave, or forbore to take notice of her, she would burst into tears.

At other times, contrary to the natural indolence of her character, she would exert herself to please him with surprising energy: she learned every thing that he wished; her capacity seemed suddenly to unfold. For an instant, Clarence flattered himself that both her fits of melancholy and of exertion might arise from a secret desire to see something of that world from which she had been secluded. One day he touched upon this subject, to see what effect it would produce; but, contrary to his expectations, she seemed to have no desire to quit her retirement: she did not wish, she said, for amus.e.m.e.nts such as he described; she did not wish to go into the world.

It was during the time of his pa.s.sion for her that Clarence had her picture painted in the character of St. Pierre's Virginia. It happened to be in the room in which they were now conversing, and when she spoke of loving a life of retirement, Clarence accidentally cast his eyes upon the picture, and then upon Virginia. She turned away--sighed deeply; and when, in a tone of kindness, he asked her if she were unhappy, she hid her face in her hands, and made no answer.

Mr. Hervey could not be insensible to her distress or to her delicacy.

He saw her bloom fading daily, her spirits depressed, her existence a burden to her, and he feared that his own imprudence had been the cause of all this misery.

"I have taken her out of a situation in which she might have spent her life usefully and happily; I have excited false hopes in her mind, and now she is a wretched and useless being. I have won her affections; her happiness depends totally upon me; and can I forsake her? Mrs. Ormond says, that she is convinced Virginia would not survive the day of my marriage with another. I am not disposed to believe that girls often die or destroy themselves for love; nor am I a c.o.xcomb enough to suppose that love for me must be extraordinarily desperate. But here's a girl, who is of a melancholy temperament, who has a great deal of natural sensibility, whose affections have all been concentrated, who has lived in solitude, whose imagination has dwelt, for a length of time, upon a certain set of ideas, who has but one object of hope; in such a mind, and in such circ.u.mstances, pa.s.sion may rise to a paroxysm of despair."

Pity, generosity, and honour, made him resolve not to abandon this unfortunate girl; though he felt that every time he saw Virginia, his love for Belinda increased. It was this struggle in his mind betwixt love and honour which produced all the apparent inconsistency and irresolution that puzzled Lady Delacour and perplexed Belinda. The lock of beautiful hair, which so unluckily fell at Belinda's feet, was Virginia's; he was going to take it to the painter, who had made the hair in her picture considerably too dark. How this picture got into the exhibition must now be explained.

Whilst Mr. Hervey's mind was in that painful state of doubt which has just been described, a circ.u.mstance happened that promised him some relief from his embarra.s.sment. Mr. Moreton, the clergyman who used to read prayers every Sunday for Mrs. Ormond and Virginia, did not come one Sunday at the usual time: the next morning he called on Mr. Hervey, with a face that showed he had something of importance to communicate.

"I have hopes, my dear Clarence," said he, "that I have found out your Virginia's father. Yesterday, a musical friend of mine persuaded me to go with him to hear the singing at the Asylum for children in St. George's Fields. There is a girl there who has indeed a charming voice--but that's not to the present purpose. After church was over, I happened to be one of the last that stayed; for I am too old to love bustling through a crowd. Perhaps, as you are impatient, you think that's nothing to the purpose; and yet it is, as you shall hear.

When the congregation had almost left the church, I observed that the children of the Asylum remained in their places, by order of one of the governors; and a middle-aged gentleman went round amongst the elder girls, examined their countenances with care, and inquired with much anxiety their ages, and every particular relative to their parents. The stranger held a miniature picture in his hand, with which he compared each face. I was not near enough to him," continued Mr. Moreton, "to see the miniature distinctly: but from the glimpse I caught of it, I thought that it was like your Virginia, though it seemed to be the portrait of a child but four or five years old. I understand that this gentleman will be at the Asylum again next Sunday; I heard him express a wish to see some of the girls who happened last Sunday to be absent."

"Do you know this gentleman's name, or where he lives?" said Clarence.

"I know nothing of him," replied Mr. Moreton, "except that he seems fond of painting; for he told one of the directors, who was looking at his miniature, that it was remarkably well painted, and that, in his happier days, he had been something of a judge of the art."

Impatient to see the stranger, who, he did not doubt, was Virginia's father, Clarence Hervey went the next Sunday to the Asylum; but no such gentleman appeared, and all that he could learn respecting him was, that he had applied to one of the directors of the inst.i.tution for leave to see and question the girls, in hopes of finding amongst them his lost daughter; that in the course of the week, he had seen all those who were not at the church the last Sunday. None of the directors knew any thing more concerning him; but the porter remarked, that he came in a very handsome coach, and one of the girls of the Asylum said that he gave her half a guinea, because she was a little like _his poor Rachel, who was dead_; but that he had added, with a sigh, "This cannot be my daughter, for she is only thirteen, and my girl, if she be now living, must be nearly eighteen."

The age, the name, every circ.u.mstance confirmed Mr. Hervey in the belief that this stranger was the father of Virginia, and he was disappointed and provoked by having missed the opportunity of seeing or speaking to him. It occurred to Clarence that the gentleman might probably visit the Foundling Hospital, and thither he immediately went, to make inquiries.

He was told that a person, such as he described, had been there about a month before, and had compared the face of the oldest girls with a little picture of a child: that he gave money to several of the girls, but that they did not know his name, or any thing more about him.

Mr. Hervey now inserted proper advertis.e.m.e.nts in all the papers, but without producing any effect. At last, recollecting what Mr. Moreton told him of the stranger's love of pictures, he determined to put his portrait of Virginia into the exhibition, in hopes that the gentleman might go there and ask some questions about it, which might lead to a discovery. The young artist, who had painted this picture, was under particular obligations to Clarence, and he promised that he would faithfully comply with his request, to be at Somerset-house regularly every morning, as soon as the exhibition opened; that he would stay there till it closed, and watch whether any of the spectators were particularly struck with the portrait of Virginia. If any person should ask questions respecting the picture, he was to let Mr. Hervey know immediately, and to give the inquirer his address.

Now it happened that the very day when Lady Delacour and Belinda were at the exhibition, the painter called Clarence aside, and informed him that a gentleman had just inquired from him very eagerly, whether the picture of Virginia was a portrait. This gentleman proved to be not the stranger who had been at the Asylum, but an eminent jeweller, who told Mr. Hervey that his curiosity about the picture arose merely from its striking likeness to a miniature, which had been lately left at his house to be new set. It belonged to a Mr. Hartley, a gentleman who had made a considerable fortune in the West Indies, but who was prevented from enjoying his affluence by the loss of an only daughter, of whom the miniature was a portrait, taken when she was not more than four or five years old. When Clarence heard all this, he was extremely impatient to know where Mr. Hartley was to be found; but the jeweller could only tell him that the miniature had been called for the preceding day by Mr.

Hartley's servant, who said his master was leaving town in a great hurry to go to Portsmouth, to join the West India fleet, which was to sail with the first favourable wind.

Clarence determined immediately to follow him to Portsmouth: he had not a moment to spare, for the wind was actually favourable, and his only chance of seeing Mr. Hartley was by reaching Portsmouth as soon as possible. This was the cause of his taking leave of Belinda in such an abrupt manner: painful indeed were his feelings at that moment, and great the difficulty he felt in parting with her, without giving any explanation of his conduct, which must have appeared to her capricious and mysterious. He was aware that he had explicitly avowed to Lady Delacour his admiration of Miss Portman, and that in a thousand instances he had betrayed his pa.s.sion. Yet of her love he dared not trust himself to think, whilst his affairs were in this doubtful state. He had, it is true, some faint hopes that a change in Virginia's situation might produce an alteration in her sentiments, and he resolved to decide his own conduct by the manner in which she should behave, if her father should be found, and she should become heiress to a considerable fortune. New views might then open to her imagination: the world, the fashionable world, in all its glory, would be before her; her beauty and fortune would attract a variety of admirers, and Clarence thought that perhaps her partiality for him might become less exclusive, when she had more opportunities of choice. If her love arose merely from circ.u.mstances, with circ.u.mstances it would change; if it were only a disease of the imagination, induced by her seclusion from society, it might be cured by mixing with the world; and then he should be at liberty to follow the dictates of his own heart, and declare his attachment to Belinda. But if he should find that change of situation made no alteration in Virginia's sentiments, if her happiness should absolutely depend upon the realization of those hopes which he had imprudently excited, he felt that he should be bound to her by all the laws of justice and honour; laws which no pa.s.sion could tempt him to break. Full of these ideas, he hurried to Portsmouth in pursuit of Virginia's father. The first question he asked, upon his arrival there, may easily be guessed.

"Has the West India fleet sailed?"

"No: it sails to-morrow morning," was the answer.

He hastened instantly to make inquiries for Mr. Hartley. No such person could be found, no such gentleman was to be heard of any where.

_Hartley_, he was sure, was the name which the jeweller mentioned to him, but it was in vain that he repeated it; no Mr. Hartley was to be heard of at Portsmouth, except a p.a.w.nbroker. At last, a steward of one of the West Indiamen recollected that a gentleman of that name came over with him in the Effingham, and that he talked of returning in the same vessel to the West Indies, if he should ever leave England again.

"But we have heard nothing of him since, sir," said the steward. "No pa.s.sage is taken for him with us."