The astonished Eugenia, though at first all emotion, was completely
recovered by this action. His kneeling and his 'O madam!' had every
chance to affect her; but his kissing her hand she thought a liberty the
most unpardonable. She resented it as an injury to Clermont, that would
risk his life should he ever know it, and a blot to her own delicacy, as
irreparable as it was irremediable.
Bellamy, who, from her letter, had augured nothing of hardness of heart,
tenderly solicited her forgiveness; but she made him no answer; silent
and offended she walked away, and, losing her timidity in her
displeasure, went up to her uncle, and whispered: 'Sir, the gentleman
you invited into your pew, is Mr. Bellamy!'
The consternation of Sir Hugh was extreme: he had concluded him a
stranger to the whole party because a stranger to himself; and the
discovery of his mistake made him next conclude, that he had risked a
breach of the marriage he so much desired by his own indiscretion. He
took Eugenia immediately under his arm, as if fearful she might else be
conveyed away for Scotland before his eyes, and hurrying to the church
porch, called aloud for his phaeton.
The phaeton was not arrived.
Still more dismayed, he walked on with Eugenia to the railing round the
church-yard, motioning with his left hand that no one should follow.
Edgar, Lionel, and Bellamy marched to the road, listening for the sound
of horses, but they heard none; and the carriages of the neighbouring
gentry, from which they might have hoped any assistance, had been driven
away while they had waited for Dr. Marchmont.
Meanwhile, the eyes of Eugenia again caught the young Oxonian, who was
wandering around the church-yard: neither was he unobserved by Indiana,
who, though she participated not in the turn of reasoning, or taste for
the romantic, which awakened in Eugenia so forcible a sympathy, was yet
highly gratified by his apparent devotion to her charms: and had not
Miss Margland narrowly watched and tutored her, would easily have been
attracted from the cold civilities of Edgar, to the magnetism of
animated admiration.
In these circumstances, a few minutes appeared many hours to Sir Hugh,
and he presently exclaimed: 'There's no possibility of waiting here the
whole day long, not knowing what may be the end!' Then, calling to Dr.
Orkborne, he said to him in a low voice, 'My good friend, here's
happened a sad thing; that young man I asked into my pew, for which I
take proper shame to myself, is the same person that wanted to make
Eugenia give up Clermont Lynmere, her own natural relation, and mine
into the bargain, for the sake of a stranger to us all; which I hold to
be rather uncommendable, considering we know nothing about him; though
there's no denying his being handsome enough to look at; which, however,
is no certainty of his making a good husband; so I'll tell you a mode
I've thought of, which I think to be a pretty good one, for parting them
out of hand.'