ABSTRACT
The fate of Strathallan was drawing to a crisis, and events rapidly succeeded each other, to determine the uncertainty of his wavering resolutions. A few days after the last interview Matilda had with him, Mrs. Melbourne received a note from the Countess of Torrendale, in which she invited herself (if that lady were disengaged and quite alone to dine and spend the day with her; as she ‘wished to have some uninterrupted conversation with her, and had some important particulars to communicate.’ What these / ‘important particulars’ might be, Miss Melbourne and her mother were equally at a loss to divine; nor were they very solicitous to fathom the mystery. Matilda felt assured that, after what had passed, Strathallan would not insult the steadiness and sincerity of her determination, by again making use of any indirect means to shake it: and respecting Lady Torrendale’s secrets, as they were unconnected with Strathallan, she felt more than indifferent. Her forbearance was not however put to the trial: long before the hour appointed, a second note arrived from Lady Torrendale, written under evident perturbation of mind; which stated that she must give up the pleasure of spending the day with Mrs. Melbourne, as Lord Torrendale was taken suddenly and alarmingly ill. Mrs. Melbourne, who had desired her daughter to open and read the note, was struck with the sudden and visible emotion that its contents excited in her. Matilda looked down to hide the tears that rose to her eyes, and dropt faster than she could conceal or wipe them away. Never had she found herself so affected by any incident: she still esteemed, she honoured Lord Torrendale; yet she could not, even to herself, account for the dreadful flutter of spirits, into which she was thrown by this intelligence. Desirous of calming a perturbation, for which there appeared no adequate cause, Mrs. Melbourne rather soothed than reasoned with her daughter, and imputing the extreme sensibility she betrayed on this occasion to the frequent shocks her spirits had recently sustained, she gently suggested that the danger was probably not so great as Lady Torrendale’s imagination, which was ever ready to take the alarm, might lead her to suppose; and that the morrow at all events might be the herald of better news. The morrow came, but only with a confirmation of Lord Torrendale’s danger; the illness of which this sudden and violent attack was a precursor was a bilious fever. Quiet of mind was strongly insisted upon / as affording the only chance for his recovery, but how was that to be obtained? The same restless phantom that had urged him to fly from Tunbridge, before he could derive any benefit from his stay there, continued to haunt his anxious days and disturbed slumbers. To see his son united to Miss Mountain, was the point to which all his wishes tended; and which, till it was accomplished, would not allow him an instant of repose. The absolute necessity of this marriage, as the only means of extricating himself with honour from his various and distressing embarrassments, appeared to him every day more obvious; and the sight of the countess, from whose imprudent fondness for her son they had principally arisen, was now, to his proud and embittered spirit, a perpetual source of added irritation.
