Mrs. Beaumont wiped her eyes. Her son found it difficult to go on, and yet, upon his own principles, it was right to proceed.

"Amelia, ma'am! I find she is ill this morning."

"Yes--poor child!"

"I hope, mother--"

"Since," interrupted Mrs. Beaumont, "my dear son wishes always to hear from me the plain and direct truth, I must tell him, that, as the guardian of his sister, I think myself accountable to no one for my conduct with respect to her; and that I should look upon any interference as an unkind and unjustifiable doubt of my affection for my daughter. Rest satisfied with this a.s.surance, that her happiness is, in all I do, my first object; and as I have told her a thousand times, no force shall be put on her inclinations."

"I have no more to say, no more to ask," said Mr. Beaumont. "This is a distinct, positive declaration, in which I will confide, and, in future, not suffer appearances to alarm me. A mother would not keep the word of promise to the ear, and break it to the hope."

Mrs. Beaumont, feeling herself change countenance, made an attempt to blow her nose, and succeeded in hiding her face with her handkerchief.

"With respect to myself," continued Mr. Beaumont, "I should also say, lest you should be in any doubt concerning my sentiments, that though I have complied with your request to delay for a few weeks--"

"_That_ you need not repeat, my dear," interrupted Mrs. Beaumont. "I understand all that perfectly."

"Then at the end of this month I shall--and, I hope, with your entire approbation, propose for Miss Walsingham."

"Time enough," said Mrs. Beaumont, smiling, and tapping her son playfully on the shoulder, "time enough to talk of that when the end of the month comes. How often have I seen young men like you change their minds, and fall in and out of love in the course of one short month!

At any rate," continued Mrs. Beaumont, "let us pa.s.s to the order of the day; for we have time enough to settle other matters; but the order of the day--a tiresome one, I confess--is to settle accounts."

"I am ready--"

"So am I."

"Then let us go with the accounts to Mr. Palmer, who is also ready, I am sure."

"But, before we go," said Mrs. Beaumont, whispering, "let us settle what is to be said about the debts--_your_ debts you know. I fancy you'll agree with me, that the less is said about this the better; and that, in short, the best will be to say nothing."

"Why so, madam? Surely you don't think I mean to conceal my debts from our friend Mr. Palmer, at the very moment when I profess to tell him all my affairs, and to settle accounts with him and you, as my guardians!"

"With him? But he has never acted, you know, as one of the guardians; therefore you are not called upon to settle accounts with him."

"Then why, ma'am, did you urge him to come down from London, to be present at the settlement of these accounts?"

"As a compliment, and because I wish him to be present, as your father's friend; but it is by no means essential that he should know every detail."

"I will do whichever you please, ma'am; I will either settle accounts with or without him."

"Oh! _with_ him, that is, in his presence, to be sure."

"Then he must know the whole."

"Why so? Your having contracted such debts will alter his opinion of your prudence and of mine, and may, perhaps, essentially alter--alter--"

"His will? Be it so; that is the worst that can happen. As far as I am concerned, I would rather a thousand times it were so, than deceive him into a better opinion of me than I deserve."

"n.o.bly said! so like yourself, and like every thing I could wish: but, forgive me, if I did for you, what indeed I would not wish you to do for yourself. I have already told Mr. Palmer that you had no embarra.s.sments; therefore, you cannot, and I am sure would not, unsay what I have said."

Mr. Beaumont stood fixed in astonishment.

"But why, mother, did not you tell him the whole?"

"My dear love, delicacy prevented me. He offered to relieve you from any embarra.s.sments, if you had any; but I, having too much delicacy and pride to let my son put himself under pecuniary obligations, hastily answered, that you had no debts; for there was no other reply to be made, without offending poor Palmer, and hurting his generous feelings, which I would not do for the universe: and I considered too, that as all Palmer's fortune will come to us in the end--"

"Well, ma'am," interrupted Mr. Beaumont, impatient of all these glosses and excuses, "the plain state of the case is, that I cannot contradict what my mother has said; therefore I will not settle accounts at all with Mr. Palmer."

"And what excuse _can_ I make to him, after sending for him express from London?"

"That I must leave to you, mother."

"And what reason _can_ I give for thus withdrawing our family-confidence from such an old friend, and at the very moment when he is doing so much for us all?"

"That I must leave to you, mother. I withdraw no confidence. I have pretended none--I will break none."

"Good Heavens! was not all I did and said for _your_ interest?"

"Nothing can be for my interest that is not for my honour, and for yours, mother. But let us never go over the business again. Now to the order of the day."

"My dear, dear son," said Mrs. Beaumont, "don't speak so roughly, so cruelly to me."

Suddenly softened, by seeing the tears standing in his mother's eyes, he besought her pardon for the bluntness of his manner, and expressed his entire belief in her affection and zeal for his interests; but, on the main point, that he would not deceive Mr. Palmer, or directly or indirectly a.s.sert a falsehood, Mr. Beaumont was immoveable. In the midst of her entreaties a message came from Mr. Palmer, to say that he was waiting for the accounts, which Mrs. Beaumont wished to settle. "Well,"

said she, much perplexed, "well, come down to him--come, for it is impossible for me to find any excuse after sending for him from London; he would think there was something worse than there really is.

Stay--I'll go down first, and sound him; and if it won't do without the accounts, do you come when I ring the bell; then all I have for it is to run my chance. Perhaps he may never recollect what pa.s.sed about your debts, for the dear good old soul has not the best memory in the world; and if he should obstinately remember, why, after all, it's only a bit of false delicacy, and a white lie for a friend and a son, and we can colour it."

Down went Mrs. Beaumont to sound Mr. Palmer; but though much might be expected from her address, yet she found it unequal to the task of convincing this gentleman's plain good sense that it would fatigue him to see those accounts, which he came so many miles on purpose to settle. Perceiving him begin to waken to the suspicion that she had some interest in suppressing the accounts, and hearing him, in an altered tone, ask, "Madam, is there any mystery in these accounts, that I must not see them?" she instantly rang the bell, and answered, "Oh, none; none in the world; only we thought--that is, I feared it might fatigue you too much, my dear friend, just the day before your journey, and I was unwilling to lose so many hours of your good company; but since you are so very kind--here's my son and the papers."

CHAPTER XII.

"A face untaught to feign; a judging eye, That darts severe upon a rising lie, And strikes a blush through frontless flattery."

To the settlement of accounts they sat down in due form; and it so happened, that though this dear good old soul had not the best memory in the world, yet he had an obstinate recollection of every word Mrs.

Beaumont had said about her son's having no debts or embarra.s.sments.

And great and unmanageable was his astonishment, when the truth came to light. "It is not," said he, turning to Mr. Beaumont, "that I am astonished at your having debts; I am sorry for that, to be sure; but young men are often a little extravagant or so, and I dare say--particularly as you are so candid and make no excuses about it--I dare say you will be more prudent in future, and give up the race-horses as you promise. But--why did not Madam Beaumont tell me the truth? Why make a mystery, when I wanted nothing but to serve my friends? It was not using me well--it was not using yourself well. Madam, madam, I am vexed to the heart, and would not for a thousand pounds--ay, fool as I am, not for ten thousand pounds, this had happened to me from my good friend the colonel's widow--a man that would as soon have cut his hand off. Oh, madam! Madam Beaumont! you have struck me a hard blow at my time of life. Any thing but this I could have borne; but to have one's confidence and old friendships shaken at my time of life!"

Mrs. Beaumont was, in her turn, in unfeigned astonishment; for Mr.

Palmer took the matter more seriously, and seemed more hurt by this discovery of a trifling deviation from truth, than she had foreseen, or than she could have conceived to be possible, in a case where neither his interest nor any one of his pa.s.sions was concerned. It was in vain that she palliated and explained, and talked of delicacy, and generosity, and pride, and maternal feelings, and the feelings of a friend, and all manner of fine and double-refined sentiments; still Mr. Palmer's st.u.r.dy plain sense could not be made to comprehend that a falsehood is not a falsehood, or that deceiving a friend is using him well. Her son suffered for her, as his countenance and his painful and abashed silence plainly showed.

"And does not even my son say any thing for me? Is this friendly?" said she, unable to enter into his feelings, and thinking that the part of a friend was to make apologies, right or wrong.--Mr. Palmer shook hands with Mr. Beaumont, and, without uttering a syllable, they understood one another perfectly. Mr. Beaumont left the room; and Mrs. Beaumont burst into tears. Mr. Palmer, with great good-nature, tried to a.s.suage that shame and compunction which he imagined that she felt. He observed, that, to be sure, she must feel mortified and vexed with herself, but that he was persuaded nothing but some mistaken notion of delicacy could have led her to do what her principles must condemn. Immediately she said all that she saw would please Mr. Palmer; and following the lead of his mind, she at last confirmed him in the opinion, that this was an accidental not an habitual deviation from truth. His confidence in her was broken, but not utterly destroyed.

"As to the debt," resumed Mr. Palmer, "do not let that give you a moment's concern; I will put that out of the question in a few minutes.

My share in the cargo of the Anne, which I see is just safely arrived in the Downs, will more than pay this debt. Your son shall enter upon his estate unenc.u.mbered. No, no--don't thank me; I won't cheat you of your thanks; it is your son must thank me for this. I do it on his account.

I like the young man. There is an ingenuousness, an honourable frankness about him, that I love. Instead of his bond for the money, I shall ask his promise never to have any thing more to do with race-horses or Newmarket; and his promise I shall think as good as if it were his bond.

Now I am not throwing money away; I'm not doing an idle ostentatious thing, but one that may, and I hope will, be essentially useful. For, look you here, my good--look here, Mrs. Beaumont: a youth who finds himself enc.u.mbered with debt on coming to his estate is apt to think of freeing himself by marrying a fortune instead of a woman; now instead of freeing a man, this fetters him for life: and what sort of a friend must that be, who, if he could prevent it, would let this be done for a few thousand pounds? So I'll go before I take another pinch of snuff, and draw him an order upon the cargo of the Anne, lest I should forget it in the hurry of packing and taking leave, and all those uncomfortable things."