“Speak on, Comala trembles, but she hears.”
The scene of gaiety and flattery had closed for the night. The sisters had retired to rest. Alice and light were dismissed; and Julia commenced her intended enquiries. But Frances had now little information to bestow. Lady Susan’s first confused and unconnected confidence had been made immediately on their return from the cottage the day before. After they had all dressed for dinner Frances had observed Edmund and Lady Susan conversing for a considerable time apart. Julia also had[217] observed them. From that time Lady Susan had been an altered creature; she had not once smiled at dinner. Julia had noticed this also. After dinner Lady Susan had gone alone to her cottage, where she had remained for near an hour. On her return the traces of tears had been visible on her countenance. She had declined entering on the subject, and even requested Frances, who had attempted to introduce it, never again to mention it; and to bury what she had already told her for ever in her own bosom! This would certainly look as if she either had, on reflection, thought it prudent to retract her consent to marry Edmund, or been required to do so by her parents.
How many anxious moments had Julia been spared, could Lady Susan have brought herself to confess that her first confidence had been[218] founded on error; that Edmund had never meant to declare love for her; that she had misunderstood him in the interview at the cottage; and that he had sought a subsequent one to explain, in as delicate terms as he could devise, that his heart was devoted to another. But no such explanation having been made to Frances, it was not in her power to remove her sister’s uncomfortable reflections on this point; while, in addition, Julia had now a new source of uneasiness: Henry’s horrid threats having filled her mind with images of terror, which she had neither courage nor knowledge of the world sufficient to brave. She must never again, she feared, venture to reject his conspicuous, and now more than ever hateful attentions with the spirit and decision which her own feelings dictated. She should be compelled henceforth to admit them[219] with passiveness at least; or, might he not require of her to receive them with seeming pleasure. Had she not that very evening been obliged to submit to his taking her hand from Edmund’s arm, and leading her, with a triumphant smile, to the dance; after she had told Lord K., in Edmund’s hearing, that she was too much fatigued to dance again? What must Edmund think of this? And Henry, she saw, had no delicacy; for he had always taken pains to make his attentions most remarkable when Edmund was present. Should she complain of his conduct to her grandmamma—but if she did, her grandmamma could not keep him from quarrelling with Edmund—and, besides, the subject was one upon which, for many reasons, (unless, indeed, there were no other means of preventing danger to Edmund,) she should rather be silent. She[220] must just only therefore endeavour not to provoke Henry’s horrid vindictive temper: though it was so disagreeable to have him always near her, and to have others—that is—other people think, perhaps, that she wished it.